On bias in social reviews of university courses

University course ranking forums are a popular means of disseminating information about satisfaction with the quality of course content and instruction, especially with undergraduate students. A variety of policy decisions by university administrators, instructional designers and teaching staff affect how students perceive the efficacy of pedagogies employed in a given course, in class and online. While there is a large body of research on qualitative driving factors behind the use of academic rating sites, there is little investigation of the (potential) implicit student bias on said forums towards desirable course outcomes at the institution level. To that end, we examine the connection between course outcomes (student-reported GPA) and the overall ranking of the primary course instructor, as well as rating disparity by nature of course outcomes, for several hundred courses taught at Virginia Tech based on data collected from a popular academic rating forum. We also replicate our analysis for several public universities across the US. Our experiments indicate that there is a discernible albeit complex bias towards course outcomes in the professor ratings registered by students.Comment: WebSci'19 Companion Proceeding

Using a data-driven organizational improvement model to engage an interdisciplinary team in transforming a public women’s health clinic

Gouverneur Health is the largest diagnostic and treatment center in New York State, and part of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), a public benefit corporation with $6.7 billion in annual revenues. HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States serving 1.4 million patients, including more than 475,000 uninsured city residents.[1] Within Gouverneur, the Women’s Health department is committed to providing high quality services that improve patients\u27 health and wellbeing, yet patient experience, flow, clinic access and education are in need of process improvements. To enhance patient experience and identify strategies replicable for other departments, an interdisciplinary 15-member team used an organizational improvement initiative known as a Breakthrough Value Stream Analysis (VSA) to analyze and improve a series of clinical and operational processes. Breakthrough is an organizational improvement model that HHC created in 2007 in collaboration with Simpler Consulting

Using a process improvement tool to improve staff skills & enhance the urgent needs patient experience in a women’s health center

NYC Health + Hospitals / Gouverneur serves more patients than any other diagnostic and treatment center in New York State. As part of the NYC Health + Hospitals public health care system, which serves 1.4 million patients and is the largest municipal health care delivery system in the United States, Gouverneur strives to serve the needs of both scheduled and unscheduled patients. Within Gouverneur, the Women’s Health department treats approximately 1,600 patients per month through approximately 2,100 visits. In September 2014, Gouverneur’s Women’s Health department launched a weeklong process improvement initiative known as a Rapid Improvement Event (RIE). Structured through Breakthrough, the RIE focused on improving the process of serving urgent needs patients, including those that arrive without an appointment or miss their appointment time, or those who call with an urgent issue. As the team examined problems faced by urgent needs patients – including the amount of time required to complete a visit, and barriers to having an appointment scheduled the same day with a provider – they discovered that the root of many issues was simply variability in how staff members approached the unexpected patient. To solve the issues in a low-cost, sustainable way, the team set to work designing staff trainings to enhance staff skills and improve the experiences of urgent and unscheduled patients. As a result, staff members were better able to support the needs of patients with urgent needs, ultimately improving the patient experience

A New Surrogate Variable for Erectile Dysfunction Status in the Massachusetts Male Aging Study

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the subject of a vast clinical literature, but little information has been gathered from random samples of the general public. The Massachusetts Male Aging Study (MMAS) addressed this important aspect of men\u27s health. The MMAS was conducted in two waves, with baseline data collection in 1987–1989 and follow-up in 1995–1997. Subsequent to the baseline MMAS survey, a consensus developed that subjective measures are optimal for defining ED. Unfortunately, the baseline questionnaire did not ask subjects directly about their erectile functioning. Thus, we previously assigned the MMAS subjects a degree of impotence at baseline using a series of related questions, employing a discriminant formula constructed from a separate sample of urology clinic patients. At follow-up the men classified themselves directly in addition to answering the original series of related questions. In the present article, we report the results of a new discriminant function, based on the MMAS men at follow-up. We also compare the two methods and discuss our reasons for preferring the internally calibrated method

Seeing shapes and hearing textures: Two neural categories of touch

Touching for shape recognition has been shown to activate occipital areas in addition to somatosensory areas. In this study we asked if this combination of somatosensory and other sensory processing areas also exist in other kinds of touch recognition. In particular, does touch for texture roughness matching activate other sensory processing areas apart from somatosensory areas? We addressed this question with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using wooden abstract stimulus objects whose shape or texture were to be identified. The participants judged if pairs of objects had the same shape or the same texture. We found that the activated brain areas for texture and shape matching have similar underlying structures, a combination of the primary motor area and somatosensory areas. Areas associated with object-shape processing were activated between stimuli during shape matching and not texture roughness matching, while auditory areas were activated during encoding of texture and not for shape stimuli. Matching of textures also involves left BA47, an area associated with retrieval of relational information. We suggest that texture roughness is recognized in a framework of ordering. Left-lateralized activations favoring texture might reflect semantic processing associated with grading roughness quantitatively, as opposed to the more qualitative distinctions between shapes.publishedVersio

Self-regulating surfaces for efficient liquid collection

To achieve efficient liquid collection, a surface must regulate incoming liquid accumulation with outgoing liquid transport. Often, this can be proposed to be achieved by functionalizing surfaces with non-wetting characteristics. Yet, there remain fundamental, practical limits to which non-wetting surfaces can effectively be employed. We instead utilize filmwise wetting to achieve liquid regulation via a Laplace pressure gradient induced by solid surface curvature. The key parameters affecting this capillary flow are then introduced, namely solid properties like scale and curvature and liquid properties like surface tension and density. The liquid regulation mechanism can then be employed in condensation and aerosol processes to generate enhanced flow, while the solid geometry needed to create this capillary flow itself is capable of affecting and enhancing liquid generation. Ultimately, the surface design framework can be customized to each unique application to optimize processes in HVAC, industrial steam generation, chemical depositions, and atmospheric water harvesting.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Three-Dimensional Multifunctional Ablative Thermal Protection System

A system for fabricating an ablative, 3D fiber-woven thermal protection material, with porosity 0.5-15 percent, reduced thermal conductivity, very low thermal recession, high glass transition temperature, high frontface-backface temperature difference, relatively high mass density, and significant compression strength and tensile strength

A summary of the 2012 JHU CLSP Workshop on Zero Resource Speech Technologies and Models of Early Language Acquisition

We summarize the accomplishments of a multi-disciplinary workshop exploring the computational and scientific issues surrounding zero resource (unsupervised) speech technologies and related models of early language acquisition. Centered around the tasks of phonetic and lexical discovery, we consider unified evaluation metrics, present two new approaches for improving speaker independence in the absence of supervision, and evaluate the application of Bayesian word segmentation algorithms to automatic subword unit tokenizations. Finally, we present two strategies for integrating zero resource techniques into supervised settings, demonstrating the potential of unsupervised methods to improve mainstream technologies.5 page(s

Guideline: Appropriate use of tigecycline

INTRODUCTION: Tigecycline, the first of a new class of antibiotics, the glycylcyclines, was licensed in South Africa for the parenteral treatment of adult patients with complicated intraabdominal infections (cIAIs) and complicated skin and softtissue infections (cSSTIs). METHODS: A multidisciplinary meeting representative of the Association of Surgeons of South Africa, the Critical Care Society of Southern Africa, the Federation of Infectious Diseases Societies of Southern Africa, the South African Thoracic Society and the Trauma Society of South Africa was held to draw up a national guideline for the appropriate use of tigecycline. Background information reviewed included randomised controlled trials, other relevant publications and local antibiotic susceptibility patterns. The initial document was drafted at the meeting. Subsequent drafts were circulated to members of the working group for modification. OUTPUT: The guideline addresses several important aspects of the new agent, summarising key clinical data and highlighting important considerations with the use of the drug. The recommendations in this guideline are based on currently available scientific evidence together with the consensus opinion of the authors. CONCLUSION: This statement was written out of concern regarding the widespread misuse of antibiotics. Its primary intention is to facilitate heterogeneous use of antibiotics as a component of antibiotic stewardship and to highlight the appropriate use of tigecycline in particular.Sponsored through an unrestricted educational grant from Wyeth

Direct Renin Inhibition With Aliskiren Normalizes Blood Pressure in Cyp1a1-Ren2 Transgenic Rats With Inducible Angiotensin II-Dependent Malignant Hypertension

BACKGROUND: Cyp1a1-Ren2 transgenic rats [strain name: TGR(Cyp1a1Ren2)], administered indole-3-carbinol (I3C) develop angiotensin (ANG) II-dependent hypertension due to hepatic expression of the Ren2 renin gene. Although AT(1) receptor blockade prevents the development of hypertension and normalizes the elevated arterial blood pressure of Cyp1-Ren2 rats, little information is available regarding the blood pressure and renal functional responses to direct inhibition of renin in this high circulating renin model of ANG II-dependent hypertension. The present study was performed to determine the effects of acute direct renin inhibition with aliskiren on blood pressure and renal hemodynamics in Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats with ANG II-dependent malignant hypertension. METHODS: Mean arterial pressure (MAP) and renal hemodynamics were measured in pentobarbital-anesthetized male Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats during control conditions and following administration of the renin inhibitor, aliskiren (10 mg/kg, iv). RESULTS: Rats induced with I3C had higher MAP (194±7 vs. 141±2 mmHg, P<0.001), lower renal plasma flow (RPF; 2.47±0.23 vs. 4.17±0.35 ml/min.g, P<0.001), and lower glomerular filtration rate (GFR; 1.01±0.07 vs. 1.34±0.06 ml/min.g, P=0.01) than noninduced Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats (n=5). Aliskiren administration decreased MAP (194±7 to 136±2 mmHg, P<0.001) and increased RPF (2.47±0.23 vs. 4.31±0.20 ml/min.g, P<0.001) in hypertensive but not in normotensive rats, without altering GFR. CONCLUSIONS: Acute renin inhibition with aliskiren normalizes MAP and RPF in Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats with malignant hypertension. The normalization of MAP and RPF following acute renin inhibition indicates that renin generated by expression of the Ren2 gene is responsible for the maintenance of malignant hypertension and the associated reduction in renal hemodynamic function in Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats