CHILES. VII. Deep Imaging for the CHILES Project, an SKA Prototype

Radio astronomy is undergoing a renaissance, as the next generation of instruments provides a massive leap forward in collecting area and therefore raw sensitivity. However, to achieve this theoretical level of sensitivity in the science data products, we need to address the much more pernicious systematic effects, which are the true limitation. These become all the more significant when we consider that much of the time used by survey instruments, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), will be dedicated to deep surveys. CHILES is a deep H i survey of the COSMOS field, with 1000 hr of Very Large Array time. We present our approach for creating the image cubes from the first epoch, with discussions of the methods and quantification of the data quality from 946 to 1420 MHz—a redshift range of 0.5−0. We lay out the problems we had to solve and describe how we tackled them. These are important because CHILES is the first deep wide-band multiepoch H i survey and has relevance for ongoing and future surveys. We focus on the accumulated systematic errors in the imaging, as the goal is to deliver a high-fidelity image that is only limited by the random thermal errors. To understand and correct these systematic effects, we ideally manage them in the domain in which they arise, and that is predominately the visibility domain. CHILES is a perfect test bed for many of the issues we can expect for deep imaging with the SKA or ngVLA, and we discuss the lessons we have learned.

An Introduction to Survey Research

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an easy-to-understand overview of several important concepts for selecting and creating survey instruments for dissertations and other types of doctoral research. This chapter includes information on instrument selection, survey validation, and survey instrument creation. A review of survey scale types and important definitions and concepts related to survey research is included. A sample conceptual framework that can be used to link research questions, relevant literature, and survey questions is also provided.

New Instruments for Popular Understandings of Democracy

This chapter reviews pertinent research on varying understandings of democracy to assess the empirical challenges in studying this elusive concept and to propose some new survey instruments (i.e., the PUD instruments) with theoretical justification. In particular, it emphasizes the embedded tensions and critical trade-offs as people view and assess democracy and brings such tensions and trade-offs to the center of instrument selection. The chapter further examines the validity and reliability of the PUD instruments using both survey experiments and different psychometric models to establish a solid methodological foundation for subsequent empirical analysis.

Understandings of Democracy

While democracy is popular and still enjoys supremacy in contemporary political discourse with limited challenges from alternatives, it has also been acknowledged that democracy is in crisis. However, if most people love democracy and politicians have to live with democracy, how can democracy be in trouble? Understandings of Democracy examines this puzzling phenomenon, arguing that (1) people hold distinct understandings of democracy; (2) popular conceptions of democracy are significantly shaped by socioeconomic and political contexts; (3) such varying conceptions generate different baselines for people to assess democratic practices and to establish their views of democracy; and (4) such distinct conceptions also drive political participation in different ways. Overall, popular understandings of democracy have critically shaped how citizens respond to authoritarian or populist practices in contemporary politics. Using new survey instruments embedded in the Global Barometer Surveys (GBS), this book highlights the significance and essentialness of how people assess the tradeoffs between key democratic principles and instrumental gains when they conceptualize democracy for comparative research on popular understandings of democracy. Furthermore, weaving together GBS II survey data from seventy-two societies and survey experiments, this book scrutinizes some key micro-dynamics that drive people’s critical political attitudes and behaviors, which are centered on how people understand democracy in different ways. Overall, this book theorizes and demonstrates that, as a critical but underappreciated component of the demand-side dynamics, varying conceptions of democracy offer significant explanatory power for understanding why democracy is in trouble, even when most people profess to love democracy.

Biotech value chain and technologies for COVID-19 research areas for collaboration on cost quality tradeoff with tool companies

BACKGROUND: Technologies for COVID-19 are in high demand, and supply chains from biotech and pharma industries face critical supply issues. OBJECTIVE: This paper discusses the case on mRNA technologies and quality assurance issues. METHODS: Interviews with managers of biotech companies were performed. These helped to prepare biotech panels at a roundtable on quality of medicine, organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences in Paris (PAN) in 2021. RESULTS: This paper analyzes the new mRNA technology and shows the importance of emerging new biotech firms, especially tool companies providing services in quality assurance. It highlights research areas and types of survey instruments with academic collaborators, to better understand the economics of mRNA technology platforms. CONCLUSIONS: A future research agenda for collaboration with academic communities is proposed on cost-quality trade-offs and clinical quality attributes for such genomic technologies.

When Students Faced Online Learning in Coronavirus Times: A Case Study

In this paper, we present survey research which we conducted at Maria Grzegorzewska University, Poland, on April 2nd-10th, 2020. This work aimed at gathering information about online learning responses among full-time students of pedagogy. Due to the pandemic situation caused by coronavirus all activities at Polish universities have been suspended. Nevertheless, the learning process has been continued. For the first three weeks, academics and students have tried to adjust to a completely new way of education design and work. Our research provides insight into students’ thoughts and emotions which accompanied them during those weeks of online learning courses. During the survey, respondents reported also their difficulties and observations regarding the quality of educational material, contact with lecturers, and reviewed assessments. In general, the majority of respondents have been doing well in this particular situation and positively evaluate the efforts of the lecturers. They find although online learning challenging. In the Introduction, we present circumstances of the research process and methodological background for the survey design. In the Methods section, we describe the survey structure and the respondent group, then we define the survey instruments. Next, the results are presented in two parts. First, we introduce the students’ experiences and emotions associated with online learning. Second, we show what respondents said about their actual online courses taken in the studied period. In the following discussion, we present the most important findings and their possible explanation. In Conclusion, we summarize our analysis of the collected material and make recommendations for future research.

Translating best practice into real practice: Methods, results and lessons from a project to translate an English sexual health survey into four Asian languages

Background Migrants are underrepresented in population health surveys. Offering translated survey instruments has been shown to increase migrant representation. While ‘team translation’ represents current best practice, there are relatively few published examples describing how it has been implemented. The purpose of this paper is to document the process, results and lessons from a project to translate an English-language sexual health and blood-borne virus survey into Khmer, Karen, Vietnamese and Traditional Chinese. Methods The approach to translation was based on the TRAPD (Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting, and Documentation) model. The English-language survey was sent to two accredited, independent translators. At least one bilingual person was chosen to review and compare the translations and preferred translations were selected through consensus. Agreed translations were pretested with small samples of individuals fluent in the survey language and further revisions made. Results Of the 51 survey questions, only nine resulted in identical independent translations in at least one language. Material differences between the translations related to: (1) the translation of technical terms and medical terminology (e.g. HIV); (2) variations in dialect; and (3) differences in cultural understandings of survey concepts (e.g. committed relationships). Conclusion Survey translation is time-consuming and costly and, as a result, deviations from TRAPD ‘best practice’ occurred. It is not possible to determine whether closer adherence to TRAPD ‘best practice’ would have improved the quality of the resulting translations. However, our study does demonstrate that even adaptations of the TRAPD method can identify issues that may not have been apparent had non-team-based or single-round translation approaches been adopted. Given the dearth of clear empirical evidence about the most accurate and feasible method of undertaking translations, we encourage future researchers to follow our example of making translation data publicly available to enhance transparency and enable critical appraisal.

Reversing Statistical Erasure of Indigenous Peoples

American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Peoples are diverse, but their diversity is statistically flattened in national-level survey data and, subsequently, in contemporary understandings of race and inequality in the United States. This chapter demonstrates the utility of disaggregated data for gaining, for instance, nuanced information on social outcomes such as educational attainment and income levels, and shaping resource allocation accordingly. Throughout, it explores both reasons and remedies for AIAN invisibility in large data sets. Using their personal identities as a case in point, the authors argue for more refined survey instruments, informed by Indigenous modes of identity and affiliation, not only to raise the statistical salience of AIANs but also to paint a fuller picture of a vibrant, heterogeneous First Peoples all too often dismissed as a vanishing people.

Social Model of Disability: A Small-Scale Survey of the Bangladeshi Community in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets

This study employs a small-scale survey to investigate the lives of Bangladeshi disabled residents in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Survey instruments include individual interviews and focus group discussions with people with disabilities in the Bangladeshi community. The paper also investigates the health and social care activities of Tower Hamlets Council through the lens of the social model of disability. The findings show that there are numerous facilities available for people with disabilities, but there is still a lack of satisfaction with the services provided to the community.

How to Access and Use Data From the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

With over 27,000 analysis variables covering more than 60 years of participants’ lives, the WLS data can be overwhelming to new users who are looking for the measures they need to answer their research questions. Core WLS survey data is free and easy to download from our website. As we add new types of measures and new waves of data, we refine our data sharing methods to balance our need to make the data easily available with the need to protect the confidentiality of participants. This presentation will teach users how to access to the data files they need for their research and how to use our online documentation of survey instruments and data files. Symposium attendees will also receive a USB drive with the publicly available data and complete documentation.