Teaching Engineering Ethics in the Classroom through a Town Hall Meeting Activity

Engineers often contribute to projects that impact many people and have ethical implications. Some may even move to a career of political advocacy and policy-making. However, most engineering curricula have a strongly technical focus and do not require students to think critically about ethical issues related to engineering. To bridge this gap, we developed a classroom-based town hall meeting activity that demonstrates the ethical issues that may arise when engineers are advocating for or helping craft public policies. Our town hall meeting scenario, which was set in a fictional tourist town called Rainbow Town, divided a class of twenty engineering students into groups of engineers, politicians, and voters. There were two opposing political groups and two engineering groups with competing interests. The voters had individual characters with varying careers and objectives. The town hall meeting was a debate on whether Rainbow Town should undertake a construction project that would bring jobs to the city, but could potentially adversely impact fish population at the town’s natural heritage site, the main source of income for the town. The objective of the activity varied based on what role each student was playing. The politicians’ job was to further the objectives of their own party while simultaneously keeping their voter base happy. The engineers’ job was to help voters make an informed decision about which policy (or party) to vote for, while helping politicians craft the right policy. The voters’ job was to protect their own livelihoods. Despite the simplicity of the town hall meeting scenario, the students wholeheartedly donned the mantle of their assigned role, taking the objectives of their role seriously. At the post-activity debrief, students commented that the activity was harder on the engineers since they had to prove everything with facts, but the politician groups did not.Cockrell School of Engineerin

The Effectiveness of Laser Acupuncture in Pain Management: a Systematic Review

Background: Pain is a common symptom across many medical conditions that patients experience. Pain management is complex and may need a combination of several management techniques. Laser acupuncture(LA) has been previously used as an adjunct to conventional pain treatments. Objective: This systematic review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of laser acupuncture in various fields of medical situations such as chronic pain, low back pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, postoperative pain and dental procedures. Methods: A computer based literature search of databases through GoogleScholar and PubMed was used to identify randomized controlled trials(RCTs) published after 2018 that studied the effect of LA in pain management. Result: It was observed that LA was effective at decreasing the pain levels and found most effective with musculoskeletal disorders. The reviewed papers had the most success when the laser parameters that were set at minimum of 3J of energy per acupoints with 5 acupuncture sites received over at least 3 sessions. The final result of pain relief and recurrence rate was lower than the standard care. Conclusions: LA has several appealing attributes that make it a favorable treatment modality. The minimal sensation experienced by patients allows ease of integration in their treatment plan in all ages, the short treatment duration, low risk of infection and complications marks itself as a viable adjunct process of pain management. To enhance the understanding and fully take advantage of LA’s potential, future studies are required with standardized high-quality methodologies with consistent laser parameters to establish future clinical applications

Exogenously applied RbCl revealed the role of potassium in the regulation of directional cell growth in the primary root of maize (Zea mays)

Rubidium was applied to the maize root system as a potassium antagonist. Exogenously applied RbCl dramatically decreased primary root length and caused radial expansion. However, the decrease in fresh weight was not prominent. The endogenous level of potassium decreased accompanying accumulation of rubidium following RbCl treatment. The altered root growth caused by RbCl was restored by KCl, suggesting that potassium is required for directional regulation of root cell growth. Microscopic observations of cells in the elongation zone of control and RbCl-treated roots supported this idea. Gravitropic curvature, which is dependent on ἀne regulation of differential cell elongation, was also impaired in RbCl-treated roots, indicating that potassium is not simply in volved in cell elongation itself, but is necessary for directional regulation of cell growth

An Unfinished Canvas: Arts Education in the San Francisco Bay Area - A Supplemental Status Report

This report complements An unfinished canvas. Arts education in California: Taking stock of policy and practices (Woodworth et al., 2007). The research supporting An Unfinished Canvas was undertaken to document the status of arts education in California schools and assess the extent to which schools were meeting state goals for arts education -- namely a sequential, standards-based course of study in music, visual arts, theatre, and dance. As part of that research effort, we included a sufficient number of schools in the nine Bay Area counties to enable us to report comparable data for each of the Bay Area counties as well as to draw comparisons between the Bay Area and the rest of the state

Optical Impression in Restorative Dentistry

Intraoral scanners are responsible for data acquisition in digital workflow, which represents the first step in restorative dentistry. The present chapter aimed to investigate the various methods for acquiring oral information, diverse clinical applications based on optical impression technique, use of intraoral scan data according to the need for model, and the various considerations regarding the selection of intraoral scanners suitable for clinical goals. The acquired optical impression data can be sent anywhere in the world, which offers the advantage of overcoming any temporal or spatial constraints. The purpose of this chapter is to understand digital workflow using optical impression and to learn how to use it effectively in clinical practice

THE POLITICAL ORIGIN OF EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE UNITED STATES, GERMANY, AND SOUTH KOREA

Why do countries have different levels of employment protection that make dismissals difficult? The recent comparative political economy literature is divided over whether labor protection is an outcome of class struggles or employers' rational choices. This dissertation provides an alternative explanation focusing on the role of counter-majoritarian political institutions. While theories and empirical evidence do not support the argument that some employers may support employment protection as government regulation, the power-of-labor-resources model is also limited because it does not explain the deviant cases where politically weak labor co-exists with strong employment protection. This study offers an analytical model in which vote-maximizing politicians respond to the popular pressure to establish employment protection that mainly comes from organized labor and/or the rising risk of middle-class job loss. It is argued that even if the popular pressure is strong, political institutions designed to limit the rule by the many - federalism and judicial review - constrain the popular demand for employment protection to become legislation. The empirical chapters examine the United States as a weak-employment protection case, Germany as a strong-employment protection case, and South Korea as a moderately strong-employment protection case. They demonstrate that the American political system where political power is dispersed to different branches and levels of government forestalled the rise of employment protection, while South Korea's highly concentrated political system responded to the public perception of declining job security by maintaining restrictions of layoff. Germany represents a distinct model of federalism where labor legislation is centralized and subnational governments rely on extensive measures of fiscal equalization. In this type of federalism voters can readily attribute the responsibility of providing job security to the central government. Therefore, the German federalism has not provided effective checks on the popular pressure for employment protection

Governing a Pandemic with Data on the Contactless Path to AI: Personal Data, Public Health, and the Digital Divide in South Korea, Europe and the United States in Tracking of COVID-19

Is conditional and temporary collection of data necessary in a public health crisis for democracies? This article attempts at examining the institutional variance in digital tool deployment to contact trace COVID-19 across six different democratic systems: South Korea, Europe (Germany, France, Italy and the UK post-Brexit) and the U.S. It aims at projecting varied country strategies in embracing the digital economy of the future driven by artificial intelligence (AI) as the contactless economy becomes the norm. Europe and the U.S. have refrained from a centralized contact tracing method that involve GPS data collection and used a minimalist approach utilizing apps based on Google and Apple's Application Programming Interface (API) enabled by Bluetooth technology downloadable only voluntary by citizens, with western European countries striving to abide by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in turn failing to flatten the curve earlier on during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, South Korea's maximalist approach of digital tracing utilizing big data analysis on the centralized COVID-19 Smart Management System (SMS) platform and apps on self-diagnosis and self-quarantine under the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act (IDCPA) – revised in the aftermath of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015 – led the country to flatten the curve at an early stage. In addressing the gaps among varied approaches, this article analyzes the legal foundations and policy rationale for conditional and temporary data collection and processing across jurisdictions