Studying and Supporting Writing in Student Organizations as a High-Impact Practice

Institutions of postsecondary education, and the field of writing across the curriculum and in the disciplines (WAC/WID) in particular, need to do more to trouble learning paradigms that employ writing only in service to particular disciplines, only in traditional learning environments, and only in particular languages, or in service to an overly narrow or generalized idea of who students are, where they\u27re going, and what they need to get there. In relating a cross-section of a larger effort to study and support writing as a high-impact practice in a student chapter of an international nonprofit humanitarian engineering student organization, I will demonstrate that WAC/WID can and should empower students to use writing in student organizations, especially those that align with the four learning outcomes deemed essential by the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America\u27s Promise, as a means of integrating into and interrogating their social and political realities, and reshaping postsecondary education to better meet their needs and goals as individual learners and as citizens in a deliberative democracy

Inviting students to determine for themselves what it means to write across the disciplines

Situated in the literature on threshold concepts and transfer of prior knowledge in WAC/WID and composition studies, with particular emphasis on the scholarship of writing across difference, our article explores the possibility of re-envisioning the role of the composition classroom within the broader literacy ecology of colleges and universities largely comprised of students from socioeconomically and ethno- linguistically underrepresented communities. We recount the pilot of a composi- tion course prompting students to examine their own prior and other literacy values and practices, then transfer that growing meta-awareness to the critical acquisition of academic discourse. Our analysis of students’ self-assessment memos reveals that students apply certain threshold concepts to acquire critical agency as academic writ- ers, and in a manner consistent with Guerra’s concept of transcultural repositioning. We further consider the role collective rubric development plays as a critical incident facilitating transcultural repositioning

STATE-MANDATED FOOD SAFETY CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS FOR RESTAURANTS: A 2002 REVIEW OF STATES

The Food and Drug Administration publishes a Standard Food Code which individual states either ratify, or amend and ratify, as the State Food Code. New Jersey has not adopted any revisions to the FDA Standard Food Code since 1993. Currently, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services is considering the implementation of a mandatory food safety certification program for all of the state's foodservice establishments beginning in April 2003. Foodservice businesses serving "high risk" populations, such as the young, ill, or elderly, will be the first segment of the industry required to comply with the new guidelines. Other segments of the industry would be phased in over three years. The exact nature of the revision is yet to be determined; however, it will likely require at least one individual from each foodservice establishment to be certified in proper food safety/food handling techniques. This revision will affect more than 21,000 foodservice businesses that collectively employ 180,000 workers. To proactively respond to the upcoming changes in the State Food Code, the New Jersey Restaurant Association (NJRA) requires information on the status and nature of other state-mandated food safety certification programs. As a service to the foodservice industry, and at the request of the NJRA, the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University conducted a study to determine the status of state food safety certification requirements across the country. The Institute interviewed all 50 state restaurant associations and found that 16 states presently have some form of state-mandated food safety certification requirement for restaurant workers. Local (municipal or county) food safety certification requirements exist in many states, even in the absence of a state mandate, but these are beyond the scope of this review.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Formation of a Professional Organization for Writing across the Curriculum

In this chapter, we describe the rationale for and development of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum (AWAC), which held its first meeting for members at the 2018 International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference. We first provide a historiography of previous WAC/WID-related efforts, including the specific contributions of each one, leading up to the more formalized process of establishing this new organization. Finally, we explain our aspirations of AWAC’s role in supporting a sustainable and inclusive scholarly WAC/WID community

A lightweight method for improving coordination in distributed, high-variability product companies

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-75).Product companies face new challenges as they continue to expand their international footprints. Whereas globalization initially sought savings by outsourcing production to low-cost regions, emerging markets now present new sales opportunities with unique customer demands. Companies increasingly must be sensitive to local expectations at the same time that products are becoming more technology rich and with shorter life cycles. Improved coordination that enables greater speed, flexibility, and multi-market effectiveness is particularly important as companies shift engineering and commercial responsibilities to formerly production-only centers. This study develops and demonstrates an approach to one domain of coordination-the flow of material and related information between globally distributed sites-based on lessons from engineer-to- order (ETO) operating models. By examining contemporary trends in ETO and identifying several generalizable tensions, this study outlines key parameters that distinguish dynamic coordination needs from those embedded in conventional process improvement frameworks. The five-step approach developed in this paper takes a dynamic systems perspective on organizational interfaces and seeks to build feedback mechanisms at multiple levels. It targets the knowledge-transfer, business planning, and execution levels of material management while also addressing the behavioral and practical components of implementation. In doing so, the approach recognizes that uneven process maturity and uncertain external demands must be accommodated. It argues that traditional approaches to coordination have had limited success, because they are slow to adapt and encourage circumvention. Whereas these past methods have exchanged reduced process "waste" for greatly increased rigidity and process housekeeping, the proposed method seeks reinforcing loops that align stakeholders without exhaustive process definition or significant maintenance. A detailed case study at a global ETO business group illustrates the method and its initial results in an environment of limited patience for formal process development. The resulting portfolio of change initiatives, which includes inter-site service level commitments, local forecast sharing, service parts forecasting, and reverse logistics, demonstrates an integrative approach to business site interfaces that attempts to tie local short-term performance with global long-term success.by Brian S. Hendrickson.S.M.M.B.A

Sister chromatid telomere fusions, but not NHEJ-mediated inter-chromosomal telomere fusions, occur independently of DNA ligases 3 and 4

Telomeres shorten with each cell division and can ultimately become substrates for non-homologous end-joining repair, leading to large-scale genomic rearrangements of the kind frequently observed in human cancers. We have characterised over 1400 telomere fusion events at the single-molecule level, using a combination of high-throughput sequence analysis together with experimentally-induced telomeric double-stranded DNA breaks. We show that a single chromosomal dysfunctional telomere can fuse with diverse non-telomeric genomic loci, even in the presence of an otherwise stable genome, and that fusion predominates in coding regions. Fusion frequency was markedly increased in the absence of TP53 checkpoint control and significantly modulated by the cellular capacity for classical, versus alternative, non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). We observed a striking reduction in inter-chromosomal fusion events in cells lacking DNA ligase 4, in contrast to a remarkably consistent profile of intra-chromosomal fusion in the context of multiple genetic knockouts, including DNA ligase 3 and 4 double-knockouts. We reveal distinct mutational signatures associated with classical NHEJ-mediated inter-chromosomal, as opposed to alternative NHEJ-mediated intra-chromosomal telomere fusions and evidence an unanticipated sufficiency of DNA ligase 1 for these intra-chromosomal events. Our findings have implications for mechanisms driving cancer genome evolution

Navigating the medical physics education and training landscape

PurposeThe education and training landscape has been profoundly reshaped by the ABR 2012/2014 initiative and the MedPhys Match. This work quantifies these changes and summarizes available reports, surveys, and statistics on education and training.MethodsWe evaluate data from CAMPEP‐accredited program websites, annual CAMPEP graduate and residency program reports, and surveys on the MedPhys Match and Professional Doctorate degree (DMP).ResultsFrom 2009–2015, the number of graduates from CAMPEP‐accredited graduate programs rose from 210 to 332, while CAMPEP‐accredited residency positions rose from 60 to 134. We estimate that approximately 60% of graduates of CAMPEP‐accredited graduate programs intend to enter clinical practice, however, only 36% of graduates were successful in acquiring a residency position in 2015. The maximum residency placement percentage for a graduate program is 70%, while the median for all programs is only 22%. Overall residency placement percentage for CAMPEP‐accredited program graduates from 2011–2015 was approximately 38% and 25% for those with a PhD and MS, respectively. The disparity between the number of clinically oriented graduates and available residency positions is perceived as a significant problem by over 70% of MedPhys Match participants responding to a post‐match survey. Approximately 32% of these respondents indicated that prior knowledge of this situation would have changed their decision to pursue graduate education in medical physics.ConclusionThese data reveal a substantial disparity between the number of residency training positions and graduate students interested in these positions, and a substantial variability in residency placement percentage across graduate programs. Comprehensive data regarding current and projected supply and demand within the medical physics workforce are needed for perspective on these numbers. While the long‐term effects of changes in the education and training infrastructure are still unclear, available survey data suggest that these changes could negatively affect potential entrants to the profession.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139957/1/acm212202.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139957/2/acm212202_am.pd

DNA Ligase 1 is an essential mediator of sister chromatid telomere fusions in G2 cell cycle phase

Fusion of critically short or damaged telomeres is associated with the genomic rearrangements that support malignant transformation. We have demonstrated the fundamental contribution of DNA ligase 4-dependent classical non-homologous end-joining to long-range inter-chromosomal telomere fusions. In contrast, localized genomic recombinations initiated by sister chromatid fusion are predominantly mediated by alternative non-homologous end-joining activity that may employ either DNA ligase 3 or DNA ligase 1. In this study, we sought to discriminate the relative involvement of these ligases in sister chromatid telomere fusion through a precise genetic dissociation of functional activity. We have resolved an essential and non-redundant role for DNA ligase 1 in the fusion of sister chromatids bearing targeted double strand DNA breaks that is entirely uncoupled from its requisite engagement in DNA replication. Importantly, this fusogenic repair occurs in cells fully proficient for non-homologous end-joining and is not compensated by DNA ligases 3 or 4. The dual functions of DNA ligase 1 in replication and non-homologous end-joining uniquely position and capacitate this ligase for DNA repair at stalled replication forks, facilitating mitotic progression