Priority and privilege in scientific discovery

The priority rule in science has been interpreted as a behavior regulator for the scientific community, which benefits society by adequately structuring the distribution of intellectual labor across pre-existing research programs. Further, it has been lauded as part of society's "grand reward scheme" because it fairly rewards people for the benefits they produce. But considerations about how news of scientific developments spreads throughout a scientific community at large suggest that the priority rule is something else entirely, which can disadvantage historically underrepresented or otherwise marginalized social groups

Priority and privilege in scientific discovery

The priority rule in science has been interpreted as a behavior regulator for the scientific community, which benefits society by adequately structuring the distribution of intellectual labor across pre-existing research programs. Further, it has been lauded as part of society's "grand reward scheme" because it fairly rewards people for the benefits they produce. But considerations about how news of scientific developments spreads throughout a scientific community at large suggest that the priority rule is something else entirely, which can disadvantage historically underrepresented or otherwise marginalized social groups

Priority and privilege in scientific discovery

The priority rule in science has been interpreted as a behavior regulator for the scientific community, which benefits society by adequately structuring the distribution of intellectual labor across pre-existing research programs. Further, it has been lauded as part of society's "grand reward scheme" because it fairly rewards people for the benefits they produce. But considerations about how news of scientific developments spreads throughout a scientific community at large suggest that the priority rule is something else entirely, which can disadvantage historically underrepresented or otherwise marginalized social groups

Priority and privilege in scientific discovery

The priority rule in science has been interpreted as a behavior regulator for the scientific community, which benefits society by adequately structuring the distribution of intellectual labor across pre-existing research programs. Further, it has been lauded as part of society's "grand reward scheme" because it fairly rewards people for the benefits they produce. But considerations about how news of scientific developments spreads throughout a scientific community at large suggest that the priority rule is something else entirely, which can disadvantage historically underrepresented or otherwise marginalized social groups

Light-scattering properties of a woven shade-screen material used for daylighting and solar heat-gain control

Shade-screens are widely used in commercial buildings as a way to limit the amount of direct sunlight that can disturb people in the building. The shade screens also reduce the solar heat-gain through glazing the system. Modern energy and daylighting analysis software such as EnergyPlus and Radiance require complete scattering properties of the scattering materials in the system. In this paper a shade screen used in the LBNL daylighting testbed is characterized using a photogoniometer and a normal angle of incidence integrating sphere. The data is used to create a complete bi-directional scattering distribution function (BSDF) that can be used in simulation programs. The resulting BSDF is compared to a model BADFs, both directly and by calculating the solar heat-gain coefficient for a dual pane system using Window 6

Changes in Kelp and Other Seaweeds Following Elwha Dam Removal

Kelps are ecologically important seaweeds that dominated the nearshore vegetation community prior to dam removal on the Elwha River. Dam removal is expected to trigger a shift from kelps to vegetation types that are characteristic of soft-sediment communities through restoring natural sediment supply. This study is investigating how nearshore vegetation responds to restoration of the natural sediment regime, both initially when large amounts of sediment entrained in the reservoirs are released and over longer time periods. We assessed vegetation at multiple spatial scales using three approaches. First, we measured floating kelp canopy area using aerial photography. Second, we assessed the abundance of understory kelp and seagrasses with towed videography along 50 km of shoreline. Third, scuba divers recorded density of kelp species and other seaweeds along 10 km of shoreline bracketing the river mouth. Results show profound changes in vegetation and a strong gradient in magnitude of impact related to distance from the river mouth. Floating kelp canopy area decreased 74% in the Elwha Drift Cell in the first year following project initiation (year 1), with lower magnitude losses throughout the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Area of prostrate kelps decreased by 45% (400 ha) and of stipitate kelps by 30% (130 ha) in the Elwha Drift Cell in year 1. Mean kelp density near the river mouth decreased 77% in year 1 and 95% in year 2. While all 10 kelp species declined, annuals were more impacted than perennials. In contrast to the general decline, juveniles of several kelp species appeared in late August of year 2, a substantial delay compared to typical spring timing of juvenile growth. What caused the large kelp losses and apparent delay of juvenile growth? Likely candidates include light reduction from the river plume and scour, burial or settlement inhibition from deposition. These candidates will be explored using physical data from the multidisciplinary research effort

Medical education reform in the South, 1910-1941

Medical education in colonial America and early nationhood was a derivative of the British system based on the University and affiliated teaching hospital. The American system’s graduates required the approval of state licensing agencies in order to practice. Beginning with the proliferation of proprietary medical schools in the 1820s, state regulations involving the quality of medical schools and their students were ignored, both of which rapidly became substandard. State agencies responsible for licensing restrictions were withdrawn in the Jacksonian era of deregulation for businesses and professions, and these for-profit medical schools prospered to the detriment of the quality of its institutions and graduate physicians. Attempts to reverse this trend by professional organizations, including state medical societies, the American Medical Association (AMA) formed in 1847, and the American Medical College Association (AMCA) formed in 1876, were unsuccessful. It was not until the 1880s that state boards of health were given the authority of its legislatures to deny graduates of the marginal medical schools access to the necessary licensing exams. Together with the AMA and the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC, previously the AMCA), they created the first “Reform Coalition.” In the first decade of the twentieth century the AMA developed its Council on Medical Education (CME) that conducted inspection surveys of the nation’s 166 medical schools, and allied with the Carnegie Foundation administered a similar survey in 1909, known as “The Flexner Report,” named after its chief investigator, the educator Abraham Flexner. Evaluating the quality of these institutions, Flexner concluded that only 31 met the necessary criteria to continue operation, which included only 6 southern institutions. Several of the failing institutions, not selected by the CME or Flexner to remain viable, developed unique strategies to improve and become acceptable and eventually accredited medical schools over the next two to three decades. These strategies included the institutions becoming organic departments of state universities shedding their proprietary model, merging with other endangered medical schools and pooling their resources, and developing relationships with local hospitals to control an adequate number of teaching beds for their students’ clinical exposure. These borderline institutions also appealed to their community’s pride and pragmatism and elicited financial support, gifts, and favorable publicity from local agencies, newspapers and politicians to build infrastructure and goodwill. Most importantly, these institutions made overtures to local wealthy benefactors and national medically-oriented philanthropies to build endowments and to develop relationships with regional “pathfinder” institutions to emulate their model, especially with assistance in academic and organizational issues). Employing these strategies during the education reform years sustained the South with fourteen complete medical schools (including three new institutions) and three preclinical institutions. Fortunately for the Allied cause, the last of the medical schools was in place on the cusp of World War II, when the South was able to provide quality healthcare for the region and the increased demand from those in the armed forces

Examining self-described policy-relevant evidence base for policymaking: an evidence map of COVID-19 literature

Background: Evidence-based policymaking is a paradigm aimed at increasing the use of evidence by actors involved in policymaking processes. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a heavy reliance on emerging evidence for policymaking during emergencies. Objective:This study describes the focus and types of evidence in journal articles self-described as relevant to policymaking using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, identifying gaps in evidence and highlighting author stated perceived biases specifically in evidence-based policy making. Design Evidence mapping. Data sources: We systematically searched SCOPUS, PubMed and LexisNexis for literature identifying policy-relevant evidence available on the COVID-19 pandemic. Eligibility criteria: The study included only peer-reviewed literature identified as ‘article’, ‘book chapter’, ‘review’ covering the period from January 2020 to December 2022. Inclusion criteria required that articles have an abstract, authorship attribution and are written in English. Data extraction and synthesis: A minimum of two authors independently extracted and coded for every level and final outputs were compared for consistency. Results: A total of 213 articles met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed in this study. Lead authorship affiliations were from 50 countries with 70% of the outputs from developed economies including USA (20.2%), UK (18.3%) and Australia (7.5%). The most common purpose of the articles was the presentation of research findings the authors considered of relevance to policy (60.1%), followed by work that examined the impact of policy (28.6%) or highlighted or supported a policy need (22.5%), while some papers had multiple stated purposes. The most common challenges in policymaking identified by the authors of the reviewed papers were process failures and poor evidence utilisation during policymaking. Conclusions: The evidence map identified the need for an interdisciplinary policy approach involving relevant stakeholders and driven by quality research as a progressive step towards prevention of future public health crises/pandemics

A model of faulty and faultless disagreement for post-hoc assessments of knowledge utilization in evidence-based policymaking

When evidence-based policymaking is so often mired in disagreement and controversy, how can we know if the process is meeting its stated goals? We develop a novel mathematical model to study disagreements about adequate knowledge utilization, like those regarding wild horse culling, shark drumlines and facemask policies during pandemics. We find that, when stakeholders disagree, it is frequently impossible to tell whether any party is at fault. We demonstrate the need for a distinctive kind of transparency in evidence-based policymaking, which we call transparency of reasoning. Such transparency is critical to the success of the evidence-based policy movement, as without it, we will be unable to tell whether in any instance a policy was in fact based on evidence.</p

Large bowel obstruction due to sesame seed bezoar: a case report

peer-reviewedWe report a case of a 79 year old man with a known benign anastomotic stricture presenting with large bowel obstruction. At laparotomy the obstruction was found to be caused by a large sesame seed bezoar. Seed bezoars are well known to cause impaction in the rectum but have never been previously reported to cause large bowel obstruction. We recommend that patients with known large bowel strictures should be advised not to eat seeds as this could ultimately lead to obstruction, ischaemia or perforationPUBLISHEDpeer-reviewe