International Research Ethics Education

This paper assesses the state of research ethics in low- and middle-income countries and the achievements of the Fogarty International Center's bioethics training program since 2000. The vision of FIC for the next decade of research ethics education is encapsulated in four proposed goals: (1) Ensure sufficient expertise in ethics review by having someone with long-term training on every high-workload REC; (2) Develop LMIC capacity to conduct original research on critical ethical issues by supporting doctoral and postdoctoral training and career paths for research ethicists; (3) Make research training and review at LMIC institutions sustainable by identifying additional funding mechanisms and models; (4) Make institutional research systems more ethical and efficient through context-specific training integrated into all levels of scientific training

The Relation between Approximation in Distribution and Shadowing in Molecular Dynamics

Molecular dynamics refers to the computer simulation of a material at the atomic level. An open problem in numerical analysis is to explain the apparent reliability of molecular dynamics simulations. The difficulty is that individual trajectories computed in molecular dynamics are accurate for only short time intervals, whereas apparently reliable information can be extracted from very long-time simulations. It has been conjectured that long molecular dynamics trajectories have low-dimensional statistical features that accurately approximate those of the original system. Another conjecture is that numerical trajectories satisfy the shadowing property: that they are close over long time intervals to exact trajectories but with different initial conditions. We prove that these two views are actually equivalent to each other, after we suitably modify the concept of shadowing. A key ingredient of our result is a general theorem that allows us to take random elements of a metric space that are close in distribution and embed them in the same probability space so that they are close in a strong sense. This result is similar to the Strassen-Dudley Theorem except that a mapping is provided between the two random elements. Our results on shadowing are motivated by molecular dynamics but apply to the approximation of any dynamical system when initial conditions are selected according to a probability measure.Comment: 21 pages, final version accepted in SIAM Dyn Sy

Constitutive exclusion and the work of political unintelligibility

This project, “Constitutive Exclusion and the Work of Political Unintelligibility,” is a study of the ontology and epistemology of post-Hegelian conceptions of difference and their political meanings. It is motivated by the desire to understand what determines how political bodies constitute themselves through defining who is and who is not intelligible as a political agent, and how persons formerly unintelligible as political agents can become intelligible. I emphasize that constitutive exclusion is ambiguously both a structure and a process for operation: it is neither a structure which determines a particular operation, nor is it an operation which founds a certain structure. Constitutive exclusion then is both a structure and an operation by which a system, symbolic, or political body is constituted through the exclusion of some difference which is intolerable to it, or against which it defines itself. This exclusion is, however, never truly “successful,” in that the excluded element necessarily remains within the body that has excluded it, and that element continues to do the work of constituting the body through its internal exclusion. The movement that I describe is therefore twofold: on the one hand, a system, body, or ontology constitutes itself through the production of an excluded element that it nevertheless harbors within itself. On the other hand, this internal harboring of the excluded element is ignored, unrecognized, or disavowed. Constitutive exclusion is productive, therefore, of a remainder, a constitutively excluded figure that occupies what Derrida calls a “quasi-transcendental” position with regard to the delimited space whose boundary it serves to draw. The constitutively excluded figure is both the condition of possibility and the condition of impossibility of that constituted space. The exclusion of that figure makes the constitution possible, and yet its remaining nevertheless within that constituted space renders it impossible. It is an insurrection from within. The constitutively excluded figure simultaneously grounds and troubles the bodies that rely upon it. At the level of philosophical systems, I argue throughout the dissertation that constitutive exclusion operates on ontological, epistemological, and political levels, and in fact tends to draw the distinctions between these levels. On the level of political systems, I argue as well that political bodies and the terms of political agency are drawn through constitutive exclusion. Such constitution renders constitutively excluded figures politically unintelligible. Though they continue to do the work of drawing and maintaining the boundary of the political body, they remain unintelligible to that body as political agents, and if and when claims are heard from those quarters, they appear to those on the “inside” as wild, strange, threatening, destructive, or mad. Translating the claims of such agents is therefore difficult: rather than simple inclusion on the terms as already established, translation necessitates the reconstitution of the political body itself

Early changes in alpha band power and DMN BOLD activity in Alzheimer's disease: a simultaneous resting state EEG-fMRI study

Simultaneous resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI)-resting state electroencephalography (rsEEG) studies in healthy adults showed robust positive associations of signal power in the alpha band with BOLD signal in the thalamus, and more heterogeneous associations in cortical default mode network (DMN) regions. Negative associations were found in occipital regions. In Alzheimer's disease (AD), rsfMRI studies revealed a disruption of the DMN, while rsEEG studies consistently reported a reduced power within the alpha band. The present study is the first to employ simultaneous rsfMRI-rsEEG in an AD sample, investigating the association of alpha band power and BOLD signal, compared to healthy controls (HC). We hypothesized to find reduced positive associations in DMN regions and reduced negative associations in occipital regions in the AD group. Simultaneous resting state fMRI-EEG was recorded in 14 patients with mild AD and 14 HC, matched for age and gender. Power within the EEG alpha band (8-12 Hz, 8-10 Hz, and 10-12 Hz) was computed from occipital electrodes and served as regressor in voxel-wise linear regression analyses, to assess the association with the BOLD signal. Compared to HC, the AD group showed significantly decreased positive associations between BOLD signal and occipital alpha band power in clusters in the superior, middle and inferior frontal cortex, inferior temporal lobe and thalamus (p < 0.01, uncorr., cluster size ≥ 50 voxels). This group effect was more pronounced in the upper alpha sub-band, compared to the lower alpha sub-band. Notably, we observed a high inter-individual heterogeneity. Negative associations were only reduced in the lower alpha range in the hippocampus, putamen and cerebellum. The present study gives first insights into the relationship of resting-state EEG and fMRI characteristics in an AD sample. The results suggest that positive associations between alpha band power and BOLD signal in numerous regions, including DMN regions, are diminished in AD

Incentives and the Effects of Publication Lags on Life Cycle Research Productivity in Economics

We investigate how increases in publication delays have affected the life-cycle of publications of recent Ph.D. graduates in economics. We construct a panel dataset of 14,271 individuals who were awarded Ph.D.s between 1986 and 2000 in US and Canadian economics departments. For this population of scholars, we amass complete records of publications in peer reviewed journals listed in the JEL (a total of 368,672 observations). We find evidence of significantly diminished productivity in recent relative to earlier cohorts when productivity of an individual is measured by the number of AER equivalent publications. Diminished productivity is less evident when number of AER equivalent pages is used instead. Our findings are consistent with earlier empirical findings of increasing editorial delays, decreasing acceptance rates at journals, and a trend toward longer manuscripts. This decline in productivity is evident in both graduates of top thirty and non-top thirty ranked economics departments and may have important implications for what should constitute a tenurable record. We also find that the research rankings of the faculty do not line up with the research quality of their students in many cases.

The main transition in the Pink membrane model: finite-size scaling and the influence of surface roughness

We consider the main transition in single-component membranes using computer simulations of the Pink model [D. Pink {\it et al.}, Biochemistry {\bf 19}, 349 (1980)]. We first show that the accepted parameters of the Pink model yield a main transition temperature that is systematically below experimental values. This resolves an issue that was first pointed out by Corvera and co-workers [Phys. Rev. E {\bf 47}, 696 (1993)]. In order to yield the correct transition temperature, the strength of the van der Waals coupling in the Pink model must be increased; by using finite-size scaling, a set of optimal values is proposed. We also provide finite-size scaling evidence that the Pink model belongs to the universality class of the two-dimensional Ising model. This finding holds irrespective of the number of conformational states. Finally, we address the main transition in the presence of quenched disorder, which may arise in situations where the membrane is deposited on a rough support. In this case, we observe a stable multi-domain structure of gel and fluid domains, and the absence of a sharp transition in the thermodynamic limit.Comment: submitted to PR

Poly(silylene)vinylenes from ethynylhydridosilanes

Catalytic polymerization of dialkyl-, alkylaryl- or diaryldiethynylhydridosilanes cleanly affords soluble poly(silylene)vinylenes which can be shaped as fibers, films and bulk objects and thermally converted to silicon carbide

Studying inhomogeneity of organic coatings using wire beam multielectrode and physicomechanical testing

The effect of thickness, curing temperature and solvent on the structural inhomogeneity of several types of organic coatings has been investigated. The local distribution of electrochemical resistance was studied using a wire beam multielectrode array, while the inhomogeneity at a larger scale was examined using ∼3 cm2 area detached coatings. Physicomechanical tests were also employed to address the structural changes occurring because of variation in curing temperature and the type (or absence) of solvent. Results acquired by wire beam electrode and from the detached coatings showed that increasing the thickness and curing temperature improves the homogeneity of the coating as does elimination of solvent. Waterborne coatings exhibited a relatively homogeneous low resistance with a resistance lower than the threshold required for effective corrosion protection. Results of physicomechanical examination suggest that unreacted functional groups and water absorption are of the main causes of formation of structural defects in organic coatings