Parenting Policies and Culture in Academia and Beyond: Making It While Mothering (and Fathering) in the Academy, and What COVID-19 Has to Do with It

For those of us involved in MIRCI, it is no surprise that being a mother in academia is often seen as a liability. In fact, Anna Young found that “no other industry has a higher ‘leak’ rate for mothers” than academia, and she surmises this is partly because “the upper echelons of the academy are still overwhelmingly dominated by men”—a cultural institution that historically has been “a place by and for men” (x). Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these inequities in our workplaces. As a matter of maternal health and reproductive freedom, academic mothers must be considered in policies in academia. This article will examine necessary policy and culture shifts that can help mothers in the academy while also discussing personal and local decisions that can be made by those with institutional power that can immediately improve the conditions of mothers in the academy. Of course, we should continue to push for larger systemic changes—such as fair parental leave policies and quality as well as affordable universal child care that need to happen at a societal level—but until those developments are a given, we should work on the following steps, which will be expanded below: 1) Individual choices to not bifurcate our lives into parenting and scholarship; 2) reappointment, tenure, and promotion (RTP) decisions recognizing the importance of interdisciplinary and autoethnographical scholarship, along with enforcing policies and transparency around tolling or stopping the tenure clock and fair research productivity expectations; 3) tolling policies to account for the time needed for the parenting of young children, with options for being part-time on the tenure track or remote teaching possibilities; 4) local decisions to provide intentional community and friendship to parents as well as dedicated space for breastfeeding mothers and children on campus; and 5) sensible scheduling. Our ultimate goal must be larger systemic changes towards parental leave and childcare that will grant the types of policies that will help all parents. In the meantime, we need to use everything we have to help our colleagues who are raising the next generation

Effects of plant population and nitrogen fertilizer on yield and efficiency of maize-bean intercropping.

Nitrogen supply and plant population are basic parameters for cereal-legume intercropping. In order to study plant population and nitrogen fertilizer effects on yield and yield efficiency of maizebean intercropping, a field experiment was established. Three bean plant populations and three nitrogen levels were used. Maize dry matter accumulation decreased with increases in bean plant population. Competitive effect of intercrop beans on maize yields was high at higher plant populations, being decreased by nitrogen fertilizer; application of 50 kg ha-1 N was very efficient in increasing maize cob yield. Intercropping significantly decreased harvest index of beans in all plant population and nitrogen fertilizer situations. The efficiency of intercropping, compared to sole cropping, was evidenced by the values obtained for Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) for biomass, cob and pod yields that increased with increases in bean plant populations and nitrogen fertilizer levels

Optimum plant population for maize-bean intercropping system in the Brazilian semi-arid region.

The main objective of the study was to investigatethe effect of different plant populations of maize and beans, at two nitrogen levels, on the performanceof the component crops

Tuberculosis in Farm Poultry

Tuberculosis is to some extent prevalent here and there among the poultry flocks of Iowa. That has been brought out In the examination of birds, or their tissues, brought or sent for diagnosis to the veterinary laboratories of the Iowa State College and from field work by the veterlnary and poultry staff of the agricultural extension department. From November 1, 1909, to June 30, 1912, the pathology laboratory examined the tissues of seventy-three birds, two of which, or 2.7% were found to be affected with tuberculosis. From July 1, 1912, to September 11, 1915, two hundred fifty-five fowls were examined and It was found that In forty-three, or 16.86%, tuberculosis was the cause of sickness or death. From September 11, 1915, to June 1, 1918, there were examined In the laboratory of the Department of Veterinary Investigation two hundred and twenty-seven fowls. Eighty-three or 36.57% were found to be affected with tuberculosis. These birds or tissues came from many different flocks In various parts of the state

Quality Control Methods for Optimal BCR-ABL1 Clinical Testing in Human Whole Blood Samples

Reliable breakpoint cluster region (BCR)–Abelson (ABL) 1 measurement is essential for optimal management of chronic myelogenous leukemia. There is a need to optimize quality control, sensitivity, and reliability of methods used to measure a major molecular response and/or treatment failure. The effects of room temperature storage time, different primers, and RNA input in the reverse transcription (RT) reaction on BCR-ABL1 and β-glucuronidase (GUSB) cDNA yield were assessed in whole blood samples mixed with K562 cells. BCR-ABL1 was measured relative to GUSB to control for sample loading, and each gene was measured relative to known numbers of respective internal standard molecules to control for variation in quality and quantity of reagents, thermal cycler conditions, and presence of PCR inhibitors. Clinical sample and reference material measurements with this test were concordant with results reported by other laboratories. BCR-ABL1 per 103 GUSB values were significantly reduced (P = 0.004) after 48-hour storage. Gene-specific primers yielded more BCR-ABL1 cDNA than random hexamers at each RNA input. In addition, increasing RNA inhibited the RT reaction with random hexamers but not with gene-specific primers. Consequently, the yield of BCR-ABL1 was higher with gene-specific RT primers at all RNA inputs tested, increasing to as much as 158-fold. We conclude that optimal measurement of BCR-ABL1 per 103 GUSB in whole blood is obtained when gene-specific primers are used in RT and samples are analyzed within 24 hours after blood collection

Rochester Fair Rag

Oval photograph of a man in a suit and tie.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/5067/thumbnail.jp

IT-ENABLED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN HEALTHCARE DELIVERY: THE CASE OF EMERGENCY CARE

IT is viewed as integral to achieving substantial quality and efficiency improvements in U.S. healthcare delivery and management. A key idea behind these suggestions is the use of IT to support knowledge management to enhance and facilitate evidence-based clinical decisionmaking. Yet, it is not clear to what extent IT-enabled knowledge management systems will be effective for physicians who make complex clinical decisions under time pressure and high degree of uncertainty. To address this gap, we are conducting a field study to examine the impact of ITenabled knowledge management systems in an emergency department at a major university hospital in the Southeast region of the US. The preliminary results of our analyses show that the use of IT-enabled knowledge application tools indeed influence the healthcare professional’s clinical decision-making behaviors, which in turn influence the outcome of patient care