Equity theory based strategies for students on overcoming problems in Ph.D. dissertation committees

There exists a critical relationship between the professor chairing the Ph.D. dissertation committees and his or her Ph.D. students. When problems arise in a Ph.D. program, issues of fairness based on fundamental principles in equity theory can guide both the professor chairing dissertation committees and the student to a just resolution. This paper proposes equity theory as a guiding aid in Ph.D. program problem resolution. To further illustrate equity theory considerations, a series of actual case applications are presented as suggestions for potential strategies in dealing with problems in Ph.D. dissertation committees. We conclude with recommendations both for Ph.D. students and new or veteran dissertation committee members

Updates in the perioperative and emergency management of non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants.

Perioperative management of patients treated with the non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants is an ongoing challenge. Due to the lack of good clinical studies involving adequate monitoring and reversal therapies, management requires knowledge and understanding of pharmacokinetics, renal function, drug interactions, and evaluation of the surgical bleeding risk. Consideration of the benefit of reversal of anticoagulation is important and, for some low risk bleeding procedures, it may be in the patient's interest to continue anticoagulation. In case of major intra-operative bleeding in patients likely to have therapeutic or supra-therapeutic levels of anticoagulation, specific reversal agents/antidotes would be of value but are currently lacking. As a consequence, a multimodal approach should be taken which includes the administration of 25 to 50 U/kg 4-factor prothrombin complex concentrates or 30 to 50 U/kg activated prothrombin complex concentrate (FEIBA®) in some life-threatening situations. Finally, further studies are needed to clarify the ideal therapeutic intervention

A Re-Examination of Hebbian-Covariance Rules and Spike Timing-Dependent Plasticity in Cat Visual Cortex in vivo

Spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) is considered as an ubiquitous rule for associative plasticity in cortical networks in vitro. However, limited supporting evidence for its functional role has been provided in vivo. In particular, there are very few studies demonstrating the co-occurrence of synaptic efficiency changes and alteration of sensory responses in adult cortex during Hebbian or STDP protocols. We addressed this issue by reviewing and comparing the functional effects of two types of cellular conditioning in cat visual cortex. The first one, referred to as the “covariance” protocol, obeys a generalized Hebbian framework, by imposing, for different stimuli, supervised positive and negative changes in covariance between postsynaptic and presynaptic activity rates. The second protocol, based on intracellular recordings, replicated in vivo variants of the theta-burst paradigm (TBS), proven successful in inducing long-term potentiation in vitro. Since it was shown to impose a precise correlation delay between the electrically activated thalamic input and the TBS-induced postsynaptic spike, this protocol can be seen as a probe of causal (“pre-before-post”) STDP. By choosing a thalamic region where the visual field representation was in retinotopic overlap with the intracellularly recorded cortical receptive field as the afferent site for supervised electrical stimulation, this protocol allowed to look for possible correlates between STDP and functional reorganization of the conditioned cortical receptive field. The rate-based “covariance protocol” induced significant and large amplitude changes in receptive field properties, in both kitten and adult V1 cortex. The TBS STDP-like protocol produced in the adult significant changes in the synaptic gain of the electrically activated thalamic pathway, but the statistical significance of the functional correlates was detectable mostly at the population level. Comparison of our observations with the literature leads us to re-examine the experimental status of spike timing-dependent potentiation in adult cortex. We propose the existence of a correlation-based threshold in vivo, limiting the expression of STDP-induced changes outside the critical period, and which accounts for the stability of synaptic weights during sensory cortical processing in the absence of attention or reward-gated supervision

Une innovation dans la gestion de l’eau potable dans les quartiers précaires de Port-au-Prince: expérimentation, tentatives d’institutionnalisation et d’adaptation aux crises

A hybrid drinking water service has been in place since 1995 to supply the poor districts of Port-au-Prince. It involves connecting a district mini-network—managed by a committee of local people—to the public network. The committee, to which the service is delegated, is bound by contract: it pays bills to CAMEP, the public water utility, and retails the water to the inhabitants of the district. From 1995 to 2009, this institutional innovation enabled over 50 districts of Haiti’s capital—representing some 800,000 inhabitants—to be equipped and supplied. More than 50 water committees were set up, often acting as the sole point of contact with the state in the so-called “illegal” or “lawless” districts. What were the implications of the progressive institutionalization of this service? What are its limitations? How have people responded and adapted, following the destruction wrought by the 2010 earthquake? In this highly uncertain context, what does the future hold for the water committees?Depuis 1995, un service hybride d’eau potable a été mis en place pour approvisionner les quartiers précaires de Port au Prince. Il consiste à raccorder un mini-réseau de quartier géré par un comité issu du quartier, au réseau public. Le comité, délégataire du service, est lié contractuellement et paye des factures à la société publique d’eau, la CAMEP, tout en reven-dant l’eau au détail aux habitants du quartier. Entre 1995 et 2009, cette innovation institutionnelle a permis à plus de 50 quartiers de la capitale haïtienne d’être équipés et approvi-sionnés, représentant environ 800 000 habitants. Plus de 50 comités d’eau ont été mis en place, représentants souvent les seuls interlocuteurs de l’Etat dans des quartiers dits illégaux ou de non-droit. Quels ont été les enjeux de l’institutionnalisation progressive de ce service ? Quelles en sont ses limites ? Quelles réactions et adaptation suite aux destructions provoquées par le séisme de 2010 ? Quel avenir pour les comités d’eau dans un contexte très incertain ?Desde 1995, se ha puesto en marcha un servicio híbrido de agua potable para abastecer a los barrios de chabolas de Puerto Príncipe. Consiste en conectar una mini red de barrio, gestionada por un comité del propio barrio, con la red pública. El comité, delegatario del servicio, está vinculado por relación contractual y paga facturas a la empresa pública del agua, CAMEP, y vende, a su vez, el agua al por menor a los habitantes del barrio. Entre 1995 y 2009, esta innovación institucional ha supuesto equipamiento y abastecimiento para más de 50 barrios de la capital haitiana, lo que representa unos 800.000 habitantes. Se han creado más de 50 comités de agua, que suelen ser los únicos interlocutores del Estado en los denominados barrios ilegales o zonas de no derecho. ¿Cuáles han sido los retos de la institucionalización progresiva de este servicio? ¿Cuáles son los límites? ¿Qué reacciones y adaptaciones han sido necesarias para paliar los destrozos provocados por el terremoto de 2010? ¿Qué futuro tienen los comités de agua en un contexto muy incierto

Toward the Next Generation of Air Quality Monitoring Indicators

This paper introduces an initiative to bridge the state of scientific knowledge on air pollution with the needs of policymakers and stakeholders to design the "next generation" of air quality indicators. As a first step this initiative assesses current monitoring and modeling associated with a number of important pollutants with an eye toward identifying knowledge gaps and scientific needs that are a barrier to reducing air pollution impacts on human and ecosystem health across the globe. Four outdoor air pollutants were considered e particulate matter, ozone, mercury, and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) e because of their clear adverse impacts on human and ecosystem health and because of the availability of baseline data for assessment for each. While other papers appearing in this issue will address each pollutant separately, this paper serves as a summary of the initiative and presents recommendations for needed investments to provide improved measurement, monitoring, and modeling data for policyrelevant indicators. The ultimate goal of this effort is to enable enhanced public policy responses to air pollution by linking improved data and measurement methods to decision-making through the development of indicators that can allow policymakers to better understand the impacts of air pollution and, along with source attribution based on modeling and measurements, facilitate improved policies to solve it. The development of indicators represents a crucial next step in this process

Joint Modeling and Registration of Cell Populations in Cohorts of High-Dimensional Flow Cytometric Data

In systems biomedicine, an experimenter encounters different potential sources of variation in data such as individual samples, multiple experimental conditions, and multi-variable network-level responses. In multiparametric cytometry, which is often used for analyzing patient samples, such issues are critical. While computational methods can identify cell populations in individual samples, without the ability to automatically match them across samples, it is difficult to compare and characterize the populations in typical experiments, such as those responding to various stimulations or distinctive of particular patients or time-points, especially when there are many samples. Joint Clustering and Matching (JCM) is a multi-level framework for simultaneous modeling and registration of populations across a cohort. JCM models every population with a robust multivariate probability distribution. Simultaneously, JCM fits a random-effects model to construct an overall batch template -- used for registering populations across samples, and classifying new samples. By tackling systems-level variation, JCM supports practical biomedical applications involving large cohorts