Parental Leave Policies and Parents' Employment and Leave-Taking

Utilizing data from the June Current Population Survey (CPS) Fertility Supplement merged with data from other months of the CPS, we describe trends in parents' employment and leave-taking after birth of a newborn and analyze the extent to which these behaviors are associated with parental leave policies. The period we examine -- 1987 to 2004 -- is one in which such policies were expanded at both the state and federal level. We also provide the first comprehensive evidence as to how these expansions are correlated with employment and leave-taking for both mothers and fathers over this period. Our main finding is that leave expansions have increased the amount of time that new mothers and fathers spend on leave, with effects that are small in absolute terms but large relative to the baseline for men and much greater for college-educated women than for their counterparts with less schooling.

Potential of Marine Bacteria as a Source of New Biofilm Formation Inhibiting Compounds

New antibacterial drugs are needed to keep up with the alarming increase in infections and incidence. Historically, the majority of clinically useful drugs have been obtained from terrestrial natural sources such as plants and microorganisms. Today such terrestrial sources of drugs are diminishing, owing to rediscovery of known compounds. Fortunately marine microorganisms are in an emerging and underdeveloped source of novel compounds with promising pharmaceutical potential

Public Policies and Women's Employment after Childbearing

This paper examines how the public policy environment in the United States affects work by new mothers following childbirth. We examine four types of policies that vary across states and affect the budget constraint in different ways. The policy environment has important effects, particularly for less advantaged mothers. There is a potential conflict between policies aiming to increase maternal employment and those maximizing the choices available to families with young children. However, this tradeoff is not absolute since some choice-increasing policies (generous child care subsidies and state parental leave laws) foster both choice and higher levels of employment.public policies, maternal employment, childbearing

Time for Children: Trends in the Employment Patterns of Parents, 1967-2009

Utilizing data from the 1967-2009 years of the March Current Population Surveys, we examine two important resources for children's well-being: time and money. We document trends in parental employment, from the perspective of children, and show what underlies these trends. We find that increases in family work hours mainly reflect movements into jobs by parents who, in prior decades, would have remained at home. This increase in market work has raised incomes for children in the typical two-parent family but not for those in lone-parent households. Time use data from 1975 and 2003-2008 reveal that working parents spend less time engaged in primary childcare than their counterparts without jobs but more than employed peers in previous cohorts. Analysis of 2004 work schedule data suggests that non-daytime work provides an alternative method of coordinating employment schedules for some dual-earner families.parental employment, child care time, work family balance, coordinated work schedules

Rétroaction sur la rétroaction : une voie à double sens entre les résidents et les superviseurs

Background: Workplace-based assessment (WBA), foundational to competency-based medical education, relies on preceptors providing feedback to residents. Preceptors however get little timely, formative, specific, actionable feedback on the effectiveness of that feedback. Our study aimed to identify useful qualities of feedback for family medicine residents and to inform improving feedback-giving skills for preceptors in PGME training program. Methods: This study employed a two-phase exploratory design. Phase 1 collected qualitative data from preceptor feedback given to residents through Field Notes (FNs) and quantitative data from residents who provided feedback to preceptor about the quality of the feedback given. Phase 2 employed focus groups to explore ways in which residents are willing to provide preceptors with constructive feedback about the quality of the feedback they receive. Descriptive statistics and a thematic approach were used for data analysis. Findings: We collected 22 FNs identified by residents as being impactful to their learning; analysis of these FNs resulted in five themes. Functionality was then added to the electronic FNs allowing residents to indicate impactful feedback with a “Thumbs Up” icon. Over one year, 895 out of 8,496 FNs (11%) had a “Thumbs up” added, divided into reasons of: confirmation of learning (28.6%), practice improvement (21.2%), new learning (18.8%), motivation (17.7%), and evoking reflection (13.7%). Two focus groups (12 residents, convenience sampling) explored residents’ perception of constructive feedback and willingness to also provide constructive feedback to preceptors. Conclusion: Adding constructive feedback to existing positive feedback choices will provide preceptors with holistic information about the impact of their feedback on learners, which, in turn, should allow them to provide more effective feedback to learners. However, power differential, relationship impact, and institutional support were concerns for residents that would need to be addressed for this to be optimally operationalized.Contexte : L’évaluation en milieu de travail (EMT), qui est à la base de la formation médicale fondée sur les compétences, repose sur la rétroaction donnée par les superviseurs aux résidents. En revanche, il est rare que les superviseurs reçoivent à leur tour, et en temps utile, une rétroaction formative, précise et pratique sur l’efficacité des commentaires qu’ils ont offerts. L’objectif de notre étude était de déceler les caractéristiques qu’un tel retour doit avoir pour être utile aux résidents en médecine familiale afin de guider l’amélioration des compétences en rétroaction des superviseurs de programmes d’éducation médicale postdoctorale. Méthodes : Nous avons utilisé un devis exploratoire en deux phases. Lors de la première phase, nous avons recueilli les données qualitatives à partir des commentaires fournis par les précepteurs aux résidents par le biais de feuilles de route (FR) et les données quantitatives de rétroactiondes résidents sur la qualité de la rétroaction qui leur a été offerte par les superviseurs. Dans la phase 2, des groupes de discussion ont été constitués pour explorer les moyens par lesquels les résidents sont prêts à fournir aux superviseurs une rétroaction constructive sur la qualité de la rétroaction qu’ils reçoivent. L’analyse des données a été faite à l’aide de statistiques descriptives et d’une approche thématique. Résultats : Les auteurs ont recueilli 22 feuilles de route (FR) qui, d’après les résidents, ont eu un effet sur leur apprentissage. L’analyse des FR a permis de relever cinq thèmes. Une fonctionnalité a par la suite été ajoutée aux FR électroniques, permettant aux résidents d’indiquer qu’une rétroaction a été efficace à l’aide d’un pictogramme « Pouce levé ». En un an, 895 des 8496 FR (11 %) ont reçu un « Pouce levé » et les raisons qui l’expliquent sont réparties de la manière suivante : la rétroaction confirmait au résident ses acquis (28,6 %), elle l’aidait à améliorer sa pratique (21,2 %), elle lui apprenait quelque chose de nouveau (18,8 %), elle stimulait sa motivation (17,7 %) ou encore sa réflexion (13,7 %). Deux groupes de discussion (12 résidents, échantillon de convenance) ont exploré ce que les résidents perçoivent comme étant une rétroaction constructive, et s’ils sont prêts à fournir à leur tour un commentaire constructif aux superviseurs. Conclusion : Le fait d’ajouter des commentaires constructifs aux commentaires positifs renseignerait les superviseurs de manière plus complète sur l’effet qu’a eu leur rétroaction pour les apprenants, et les aiderait ainsi à améliorer l’efficacité des rétroactions qu’ils donnent. Cependant, pour mettre en place ce processus de manière optimale, il faut tenir compte des préoccupations qu’ont les résidents quant au déséquilibre de pouvoir, aux répercussions sur leur relation avec le superviseur et à l’appui de l’établissement

Infants’ experience with ‘near and clear’ educator talk : Individual variation and its relationship to indicators of interaction quality

This study investigated the quantity of audible and intelligible (‘near and clear’) educator talk directly experienced by under-two-year-old infants attending early childhood education and care (ECEC) programmes and examined whether the quantity of educator talk was related to characteristics of quality in their ECEC room. Participants were 57 infants attending separate infant rooms in and around the Sydney metropolitan area, Australia. Each infant was observed for 3 h, wearing a small, custom-designed digital language processor (DLP) which digitally recorded and generated measures of ‘near and clear’ adult talk, unclear talk and infant vocalisations. Structural quality indicators include educator qualification, group size and educator-infant ratios, and Interaction Quality was assessed using the ITERS-R Interaction and Listening and Talking subscales. Infants’ experience with ‘near and clear’ talk was predicted by Interaction Quality, the presence of a degree-qualified teacher and group size. ‘Near and clear’ talk was also significantly and positively related to the quantity of infant vocalisation and, negatively, to their level of exposure to unclear talk. Findings are discussed in terms of conceptualisations of quality in infant ECEC rooms, as well as the potentials and limitations of the ‘near and clear’ talk measure for use in future studies of language development in this context

Optimal Time of Arrival Estimation for MIMO Backscatter Channels

In this paper, we propose a novel time of arrival (TOA) estimator for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) backscatter channels in closed form. The proposed estimator refines the estimation precision from the topological structure of the MIMO backscatter channels, and can considerably enhance the estimation accuracy. Particularly, we show that for the general $M \times N$ bistatic topology, the mean square error (MSE) is $\frac{M+N-1}{MN}\sigma^2_0$, and for the general $M \times M$ monostatic topology, it is $\frac{2M-1}{M^2}\sigma^2_0$ for the diagonal subchannels, and $\frac{M-1}{M^2}\sigma^2_0$ for the off-diagonal subchannels, where $\sigma^2_0$ is the MSE of the conventional least square estimator. In addition, we derive the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for MIMO backscatter TOA estimation which indicates that the proposed estimator is optimal. Simulation results verify that the proposed TOA estimator can considerably improve both estimation and positioning accuracy, especially when the MIMO scale is large