The evolving maintenance of certification process: update on the financial status of the medical boards

Medical board organizations have accumulated large asset balances, in part due to the monetization of physician board recertification, as well as capital gains in positive investment conditions. Physicians across the country have raised concerns regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of existing recertification processes, to which the American Board of Medical Specialties and independent accreditation boards have responded with newly instituted changes. The present article analyzes the publicly available F990 tax forms of the medical boards in an effort to provide data to the ongoing debate. Although some boards have begun to mobilize assets in recent years, many continue to accumulate wealth. It remains to be seen whether the new recertification programs will bring about change or perpetuate organizational wealth

Speculations About the Selective Basis for Modern Human Craniofacial Form

The last few decades have seen an explosion of knowledge about the time and place of origin of our species, Homo sapiens. New fossils, more sites, better dates, modern and fossil DNA, and scores of analyses have mostly disproved the multiregional model of human evolution. By and large, the evidence generally supports some version of the out-of-Africa model, according to which humans first evolved in Africa at least 200,000 years ago and then migrated to other parts of the world. Remaining debates about human origins primarily address if and how much hybridization occurred between modern humans and taxa of archaic Homo such as H. neanderthalensis.Anthropolog

Further Fossil finds from Flores

New fossil discoveries on Flores, Indonesia, bolster the evidence that Homo floresiensiswas a dwarfed human species that lived at the end of the last ice age. But the species’ evolutionary origins remain obscure.Anthropolog

Physical and geometric constraints explain the labyrinth-like shape of the nasal cavity

The nasal cavity is a vital component of the respiratory system that heats and humidifies inhaled air in all vertebrates. Despite this common function, the shapes of nasal cavities vary widely across animals. To understand this variability, we here connect nasal geometry to its function by theoretically studying the airflow and the associated scalar exchange that describes heating and humidification. We find that optimal geometries, which have minimal resistance for a given exchange efficiency, have a constant gap width between their side walls, but their overall shape is restricted only by the geometry of the head. Our theory explains the geometric variations of natural nasal cavities quantitatively and we hypothesize that the trade-off between high exchange efficiency and low resistance to airflow is the main driving force shaping the nasal cavity. Our model further explains why humans, whose nasal cavities evolved to be smaller than expected for their size, become obligate oral breathers in aerobically challenging situations.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Implementation of a Computer-Based Communication System for Psychiatry Residents

In order to encourage different kinds of communication among residents who were located at a number of geographically separate sites, a computerized communication system was implemented. Priority was placed on both richness of features and ease of use. Residents were able to send private email, join public conferences, and access databases of information. The system was initially used by a large number of residents, and usage patterns are described. The introduction to information technology that residents gained from the system led to other computer projects, and an interest in the resources of the Internet

Mouse Models and the Evolutionary Developmental Biology of the Skull

Understanding development is relevant to understanding evolution because developmental processes structure the expression of phenotypic variation upon which natural selection acts. Advances in developmental biology are fueling a new synthesis of developmental and evolutionary biology, but it remains unclear how to use developmental information that largely derives from a few model organisms to test hypotheses about the evolutionary developmental biology of taxa such as humans and other primates that have not been or are not amenable to direct study through experimental developmental biology. In this article, we discuss how and when model organisms like mice are useful for studying the evolutionary developmental biology of even rather distantly related and morphologically different groups like primates. A productive approach is to focus on processes that are likely to play key roles in producing evolutionarily significant phenotypic variation across a large phylogenetic range. We illustrate this approach by applying the analysis of craniofacial variation in mouse mutant models to primate and human evolution.Anthropolog

Breaking the Cycle of Defeat for \u27Deadbroke\u27 Noncustodial Parents Through Advocacy on Child Support Issues

The child support system is not serving low-income families well. Custodial parents are not receiving the child support they need. Enforcement of child support for lowincome parents receiving welfare primarily benefits the state because the payments are owed to the government. Low-income noncustodial parents face unrealistically high child support orders and large arrearages take so much of their wages that they cannot support themselves. They go to jail-often recurrently-because they cannot meet their obligations and thereby lose the opportunity to keep a job. Their driver\u27s licenses are suspended because they have not paid their support. To evade this punitive cycle, they seek below-ground employment, avoiding garnishment, but increasing their own financial uncertainty and the potential for exploitation by unscrupulous employers and providing even less support to their families. Fathers, mothers, and children are caught in a vicious cycle where the goal of providing for families and children is thwarted by child support policies and practices that boomerang when applied to low-income people. In 2000, the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau launched a project to tackle barriers to employment and economic stability caused by unmanageable child support problems of noncustodial parents. The initial reaction to the idea of representing dads who were not paying child support was greeted with alarm. Tenacious advocates for custodial parents and children in our program feared that scarce resources would be misdirected into advocacy against Legal Aid\u27s traditional client base-custodial single mothers struggling against daunting odds to raise their children. However, those fears quickly subsided as project advocates developed successful strategies to address barriers to sustained employment and economic stability caused by child support problems and policies. This article highlights recurrent legal issues that clients encountered and the project\u27s advocacy responses. The article seeks to demonstrate why representing deadbroke noncustodial parents is important antipoverty advocacy that benefits fathers, mothers, children, and their communities

The Epigenetic Funnel and the Cranial Base: How Cranial Bone Growth Helps Integrate Interactions between the Face and the Brain to Constrain Overall Skull Shape

Understanding the developmental and genetic bases for evolutionarily important variations in complex phenotypes such as the skull is a challenge because of the complexity of the factors involved. We hypothesize that even in this complex system, the expression of phenotypic variation is structured by interactions among a limited set developmental processes. One such process may be cranial base flexion. It has long been hypothesized that the growth of the brain and the face have opposite influences on the midline angle of the intervening cranial base so that constraints on cranial base flexion and elongation can modulate many aspects of the overall skull shape. This hypothesis has been difficult to test using comparative or longitudinal studies in which other covarying factors also influence cranial shape. Here we experimentally tested several hypotheses about interactions of the cranial base using mouse mutants from the same genetic background but with specific, independent developmental perturbations that affect brain size. Geometric morphometric comparisons of these mutants, their wildtypes, and their F2 crosses show that increased brain size and decreased face size both act to flex the cranial base, but with comparable overall effects on skull shape. The results indicate that vastly different mutations can have similar effects on overall cranial shape because key processes such as cranial base flexion funnel their effects in similar ways.AnthropologyHuman Evolutionary Biolog

Variation in Estradiol Level Affects Cortical Bone Growth in Response to Mechanical Loading in Sheep

Although mechanical loading can stimulate cortical bone growth, little is known about how individual physiology affects this response. This study demonstrates that in vivo variation in estradiol (E2) level alters osteoblast sensitivity to exercise-induced strains, affecting cortical bone responses to mechanical loading. Subadult sheep were divided into treatment groups that varied in terms of circulating E2 levels and loading (exercised and sedentary). After 45 days, periosteal cortical bone growth rates and cross-sectional properties were measured at the midshafts of hindlimb bones and compared with strain data. The results indicate significant interactions between E2 and strain. Cortical bone growth in exercised animals with elevated E2 levels was 27% greater in the femur, 6% greater in the tibia, and 14% greater in the metatarsal than in exercised animals with lower E2 levels, or sedentary animals regardless of E2 dose (P<0.05). There was also a trend toward greater resistance to deformation in the tibia, but not the metatarsal, in the exercised, high-E2 group compared to the other treatment groups. These results demonstrate that E2 plays a role in mediating skeletal responses to strain, such that physiological variation in E2 levels among individuals may lead to differential growth responses to similar mechanical loading regimes. Efforts to model the relationship between environmental strain and bone morphology should include the effects of physiological variation in hormone levels.Anthropolog