Faculty bridging individual and organizational resilience: results of a qualitative analysis

Background: Medical student burnout and anxiety has received growing attention in the past decade. The culture of competition and assessment has resulted in increasing stress levels amongst medical students, causing a decline in their academic performance and overall mental health. The objective of this qualitative analysis was to characterize recommendations from educational experts to aid students’ academic progress. Methods: At an international meeting in 2019, worksheets were completed by medical educators during a panel discussion. Participants responded to four scenarios representing common challenges medical students face in school (eg. Postponing Step 1, failing clerkships, etc.). For each case, participants addressed what students, faculty and medical schools could do to mitigate the challenge. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted by two authors followed by deductive categorization using an individual-organizational resilience model. Results: Across the four cases, common suggestions made for students, faculty and medical schools were aligned to a resilience model representing the complex interplay between individuals and organizations and the impact on student wellbeing. Discussion: Using suggestions from medical educators from across the US, we were able to identify recommendations for students, faculty, and medical schools to help students succeed in medical school. By applying a model of resilience, faculty serve as a critical bridge to connect students to the medical school administration. Our findings also support a pass/fail curriculum to ease the competition and burden students place on themselves

Decomposition of Differences

This paper examines methods of decomposing a difference in levels between groups for a dependent variable such as income. Applied to regression equations, this technique estimates the contribution to the difference from divergent characteristics and divergent rates of converting characteristics into the dependent variable. The consequences of an "interaction" component being present in the decomposition is examined. The paper, using data from the 1960 Census, shows how ignoring the interaction term can influence results.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68707/2/10.1177_004912417500300306.pd

Soot surface growth and oxidation in laminar unsaturated-hydrocarbon/air diffusion flames

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77246/1/AIAA-2002-1116-550.pd

Heat kernel regularization of the effective action for stochastic reaction-diffusion equations

The presence of fluctuations and non-linear interactions can lead to scale dependence in the parameters appearing in stochastic differential equations. Stochastic dynamics can be formulated in terms of functional integrals. In this paper we apply the heat kernel method to study the short distance renormalizability of a stochastic (polynomial) reaction-diffusion equation with real additive noise. We calculate the one-loop {\emph{effective action}} and its ultraviolet scale dependent divergences. We show that for white noise a polynomial reaction-diffusion equation is one-loop {\emph{finite}} in $d=0$ and $d=1$, and is one-loop renormalizable in $d=2$ and $d=3$ space dimensions. We obtain the one-loop renormalization group equations and find they run with scale only in $d=2$.Comment: 21 pages, uses ReV-TeX 3.

Method to compute the stress-energy tensor for the massless spin 1/2 field in a general static spherically symmetric spacetime

A method for computing the stress-energy tensor for the quantized, massless, spin 1/2 field in a general static spherically symmetric spacetime is presented. The field can be in a zero temperature state or a non-zero temperature thermal state. An expression for the full renormalized stress-energy tensor is derived. It consists of a sum of two tensors both of which are conserved. One tensor is written in terms of the modes of the quantized field and has zero trace. In most cases it must be computed numerically. The other tensor does not explicitly depend on the modes and has a trace equal to the trace anomaly. It can be used as an analytic approximation for the stress-energy tensor and is equivalent to other approximations that have been made for the stress-energy tensor of the massless spin 1/2 field in static spherically symmetric spacetimes.Comment: 34 pages, no figure

A radium assay technique using hydrous titanium oxide adsorbent for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

As photodisintegration of deuterons mimics the disintegration of deuterons by neutrinos, the accurate measurement of the radioactivity from thorium and uranium decay chains in the heavy water in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) is essential for the determination of the total solar neutrino flux. A radium assay technique of the required sensitivity is described that uses hydrous titanium oxide adsorbent on a filtration membrane together with a beta-alpha delayed coincidence counting system. For a 200 tonne assay the detection limit for 232Th is a concentration of 3 x 10^(-16) g Th/g water and for 238U of 3 x 10^(-16) g U/g water. Results of assays of both the heavy and light water carried out during the first two years of data collection of SNO are presented.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Perception of Relative Depth Interval: Systematic Biases in Perceived Depth

Given an estimate of the binocular disparity between a pair of points and an estimate of the viewing distance, or knowledge of eye position, it should be possible to obtain an estimate of their depth separation. Here we show that, when points are arranged in different vertical geometric configurations across two intervals, many observers find this task difficult. Those who can do the task tend to perceive the depth interval in one configuration as very different from depth in the other configuration. We explore two plausible explanations for this effect. The first is the tilt of the empirical vertical horopter: Points perceived along an apparently vertical line correspond to a physical line of points tilted backwards in space. Second, the eyes can rotate in response to a particular stimulus. Without compensation for this rotation, biases in depth perception would result. We measured cyclovergence indirectly, using a standard psychophysical task, while observers viewed our depth configuration. Biases predicted from error due either to cyclovergence or to the tilted vertical horopter were not consistent with the depth configuration results. Our data suggest that, even for the simplest scenes, we do not have ready access to metric depth from binocular disparity.</jats:p

Observations of Coronal Mass Ejections with the Coronal Multichannel Polarimeter

The Coronal Multichannel Polarimeter (CoMP) measures not only the polarization of coronal emission, but also the full radiance profiles of coronal emission lines. For the first time, CoMP observations provide high-cadence image sequences of the coronal line intensity, Doppler shift and line width simultaneously in a large field of view. By studying the Doppler shift and line width we may explore more of the physical processes of CME initiation and propagation. Here we identify a list of CMEs observed by CoMP and present the first results of these observations. Our preliminary analysis shows that CMEs are usually associated with greatly increased Doppler shift and enhanced line width. These new observations provide not only valuable information to constrain CME models and probe various processes during the initial propagation of CMEs in the low corona, but also offer a possible cost-effective and low-risk means of space weather monitoring.Comment: 6 figures. Will appear in the special issue of Coronal Magnetism, Sol. Phy

Implicit weight bias in children age 9 to 11 years

OBJECTIVES: Assess implicit weight bias in children 9 to 11 years old. METHODS: Implicit weight bias was measured in children ages 9 to 11 (N = 114) by using the Affect Misattribution Procedure. Participants were shown a test image of a child for 350 milliseconds followed by a meaningless fractal (200 milliseconds), and then they were asked to rate the fractal image as "good" or "bad." We used 9 image pairs matched on age, race, sex, and activity but differing by weight of the child. Implicit bias was the difference between positive ratings for fractals preceded by an image of a healthy-weight child and positive ratings for fractals preceded by an image of an overweight child. RESULTS: On average, 64% of fractals shown after pictures of healthy-weight children were rated as "good, " compared with 59% of those shown after pictures of overweight children, reflecting an overall implicit bias rate of 5.4% against overweight children (P < .001). Healthy-weight participants showed greater implicit bias than over-and underweight participants (7.9%, 1.4%, and 0.3% respectively; P = .049). CONCLUSIONS: Implicit bias toward overweight individuals is evident in children aged 9 to 11 years with a magnitude of implicit bias (5.4%) similar to that in studies of implicit racial bias among adults

A multilevel neo-institutional analysis of infection prevention and control in English hospitals: coerced safety culture change?

Despite committed policy, regulative and professional efforts on healthcare safety, little is known about how such macro-interventions permeate organisations and shape culture over time. Informed by neo-institutional theory, we examined how inter-organisational influences shaped safety practices and inter-subjective meanings following efforts for coerced culture change. We traced macro-influences from 2000 to 2015 in infection prevention and control (IPC). Safety perceptions and meanings were inductively analysed from 130 in-depth qualitative interviews with senior- and middle-level managers from 30 English hospitals. A total of 869 institutional interventions were identified; 69% had a regulative component. In this context of forced implementation of safety practices, staff experienced inherent tensions concerning the scope of safety, their ability to be open and prioritisation of external mandates over local need. These tensions stemmed from conflicts among three co-existing institutional logics prevalent in the NHS. In response to requests for change, staff flexibly drew from a repertoire of cognitive, material and symbolic resources within and outside their organisations. They crafted 'strategies of action', guided by a situated assessment of first-hand practice experiences complementing collective evaluations of interventions such as 'pragmatic', 'sensible' and also 'legitimate'. Macro-institutional forces exerted influence either directly on individuals or indirectly by enriching the organisational cultural repertoire