Motherhood in U.S. Academe: How the Presence of Women Disrupts the Ideal Worker Model in Colleges and Universities

In this article, I consider the myth of the ideal worker and the consequences of that myth for mothers. Behind the constant juggling necessary to be successful professionally as an academic mother is the unstated assumption that a woman’s caregiving role should be her primary, essential commitment, and women graduate students and early-career academics have to think strategically about how family fits into the institution of academe. Rendering invisible the whole-person needs of workers, but especially women and mothers, academe assumes an ideal worker unencumbered by family or other life constraints. My interviews with tenured women academic sociologists provide an institutional standpoint for understanding workplace needs of parents. Towards positive change, university policies must be coupled with department and colleague support because workplace climates are experienced by individuals at an intersection of institutional policies and interpersonal interactions. Colleagues must not be expected to “take up the slack” for mothers asking for time off for family leave; nor should departmental intransigence be allowed to interrupt an administration’s efforts to institute flexible policies. There is positive potential in mothers’ increased visibility in academe, but it will only be realized through active public support from colleagues and administrators, alike

Seasonal variability of the warm Atlantic Water layer in the vicinity of the Greenland shelf break

The warmest water reaching the east and west coast of Greenland is found between 200?m and 600?m. Whilst important for melting Greenland's outlet glaciers, limited winter observations of this layer prohibit determination of its seasonality. To address this, temperature data from Argo profiling floats, a range of sources within the World Ocean Database and unprecedented coverage from marine-mammal borne sensors have been analysed for the period 2002-2011. A significant seasonal range in temperature (~1-2?°C) is found in the warm layer, in contrast to most of the surrounding ocean. The phase of the seasonal cycle exhibits considerable spatial variability, with the warmest water found near the eastern and southwestern shelf-break towards the end of the calendar year. High-resolution ocean model trajectory analysis suggest the timing of the arrival of the year's warmest water is a function of advection time from the subduction site in the Irminger Basin

A Phase II Study of Irinotecan and Carboplatin in Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer with Pharmacogenomic Analysis: Final Report

PurposeWe conducted a phase II study of carboplatin and irinotecan in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In addition, we studied the correlation between certain genotypes of enzymes involved in irinotecan metabolism with efficacy and toxicity.Patients and MethodsPatients with stage IIIB, IV, or recurrent NSCLC received a combination of irinotecan and carboplatin every 3 weeks at a dose of 200 mg/m2 and area under the curve of 5. Pharmacogenomic analysis was performed on several genes of interest (ABCB1, CYP3A4*1B, ERCC2, GSTP1, UGT1A1*28, and XRCC1).ResultsForty-two patients enrolled between December 2001 and January 2004. Six patients achieved partial responses (14%), and 19 (45%) had stable disease. The median progression-free survival was 6.9 months. The median overall survival was 11.7 months, with 1-year overall survival of 42%. The most common toxicities were hematologic; grade 3 or 4 neutropenia was experienced by 26 patients (62%) during treatment, and 15 patients (36%) experienced grade 3 or 4 thrombocytopenia. The homozygous UGT1A1*28 (7/7) genotype was associated with grade 4 neutropenia in three of four patients (75%), but only eight out of 30 (27%) with 6/6 or 6/7 genotypes experienced grade 4 neutropenia (p = 0.09). None of the 14 patients with the GSTP1 I105V A/A genotype had a partial response, as opposed to five out of 19 (26%) of those with the G/A or G/G genotypes (p = 0.057).ConclusionThe combination of carboplatin and irinotecan is an active combination in NSCLC, with response rates comparable with other platinum-containing doublets. Further studies with irinotecan should incorporate prospective pharmacogenomic analysis to identify markers for response and toxicity

The role of herbivory in structuring tropical seagrass ecosystem service delivery

Seagrass meadows support key ecosystem services, via provision of food directly for herbivores, and indirectly to their predators. The importance of herbivores in seagrass meadows has been well-documented, but the links between food webs and ecosystem services in seagrass meadows have not previously been made explicit. Herbivores interact with ecosystem services – including carbon sequestration, cultural values, and coastal protection. Interactions can be positive or negative and depend on a range of factors including the herbivore identity and the grazing type and intensity. There can be unintended consequences from management actions based on a poor understanding of trade-offs that occur with complex seagrass-herbivore interactions. Tropical seagrass meadows support a diversity of grazers spanning the meso-, macro- and megaherbivore scales. We present a conceptual model to describe how multiple ecosystem services are influenced by herbivore pressure in tropical seagrass meadows. Our model suggests that a balanced ecosystem, incorporating both seagrass and herbivore diversity, is likely to sustain the broadest range of ecosystem services. Our framework suggests the pathway to achieve desired ecosystem services outcomes requires knowledge on four key areas: (1) how size classes of herbivores interact to structure seagrass; (2) desired community and management values; (3) seagrass responses to top-down and bottom-up controls; (4) the pathway from intermediate to final ecosystem services and human benefits. We suggest research should be directed to these areas. Herbivory is a major structuring influence in tropical seagrass systems and needs to be considered for effective management of these critical habitats and their services

First NuSTAR Limits on Quiet Sun Hard X-Ray Transient Events

We present the first results of a search for transient hard X-ray (HXR) emission in the quiet solar corona with the \textit{Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array} (\textit{NuSTAR}) satellite. While \textit{NuSTAR} was designed as an astrophysics mission, it can observe the Sun above 2~keV with unprecedented sensitivity due to its pioneering use of focusing optics. \textit{NuSTAR} first observed quiet Sun regions on 2014 November 1, although out-of-view active regions contributed a notable amount of background in the form of single-bounce (unfocused) X-rays. We conducted a search for quiet Sun transient brightenings on time scales of 100 s and set upper limits on emission in two energy bands. We set 2.5--4~keV limits on brightenings with time scales of 100 s, expressed as the temperature T and emission measure EM of a thermal plasma. We also set 10--20~keV limits on brightenings with time scales of 30, 60, and 100 s, expressed as model-independent photon fluxes. The limits in both bands are well below previous HXR microflare detections, though not low enough to detect events of equivalent T and EM as quiet Sun brightenings seen in soft X-ray observations. We expect future observations during solar minimum to increase the \textit{NuSTAR} sensitivity by over two orders of magnitude due to higher instrument livetime and reduced solar background.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

The First Focused Hard X-ray Images of the Sun with NuSTAR

We present results from the the first campaign of dedicated solar observations undertaken by the \textit{Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray} ({\em NuSTAR}) hard X-ray telescope. Designed as an astrophysics mission, {\em NuSTAR} nonetheless has the capability of directly imaging the Sun at hard X-ray energies ($>$3~keV) with an increase in sensitivity of at least two magnitude compared to current non-focusing telescopes. In this paper we describe the scientific areas where \textit{NuSTAR} will make major improvements on existing solar measurements. We report on the techniques used to observe the Sun with \textit{NuSTAR}, their limitations and complications, and the procedures developed to optimize solar data quality derived from our experience with the initial solar observations. These first observations are briefly described, including the measurement of the Fe K-shell lines in a decaying X-class flare, hard X-ray emission from high in the solar corona, and full-disk hard X-ray images of the Sun.Comment: 11 pages, accepted to Ap