Race-Based Differences In Performance Measures: Implications For Diversity Management In Higher Education And The Workforce

Increased diversity representations in higher education create both opportunities and challenges for diversity management. Both in education and the workforce, one challenge has been to achieve equal access and opportunity for diverse groups because of differences in standardized measures (e.g., SAT) and other measures (e.g. GPA) used in admissions decisions and in personnel selection. This study examined race-based differences in academic measures of SAT, high school GPA, and college GPA to better understand the influence of these factors on diversity management in higher education. The implications are discussed with suggestions for future research

Protecting Corporate Directors and Officers: Indemnification

This Special Project Note on indemnification and the succeeding Special Project Note on insurance are intended to offer practical advice to practitioners with corporate clients. All fifty states have passed indemnification statutes that establish the scope and terms under which a corporation may, and in some cases must, indemnify its directors and officers. Legal counsel should test the scope of a particular indemnification statute by determining what standards must be met, what procedures must be followed, and what expenses may be indemnified under the relevant state statute. If a particular indemnification statute is not limited to the alternatives specified therein, counsel should determine what additional indemnity is available. To illustrate the analysis necessary to address these issues,this Special Project Note focuses on four representative indemnification statutes--the Delaware Corporation Act, the California Corporation Act, the New York Corporation Act, and the Revised Model Business Corporation Act (Revised Model Act or Revised MBCA)--with an emphasis on the recent amendments to the Delaware and New York statutes. Part II of this Special Project Note examines statutory provisions that make indemnification mandatory. Part III analyzes provisions that authorize permissive indemnification. Finally, Part IV discusses additional methods of providing indemnification protection for corporate directors and officers, such as through charter amendments, by-law provisions, or individual contracts

Hydration Biomarkers and Water Intake in 3-13 year-old boys

Background/Introduction: Hydration is an important aspect of health in children. Despite being important, limited information is available regarding children’s water intake and hydration. Interestingly, most studies assess hydration status based on a single random urine sample instead of a 24-h one. Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of dehydration and water intake in boys 3 to 13 years-old. Methods: Forty-six healthy boys were recruited for the study. Each subject recorded food and fluid intake in a diary on a Saturday and Sunday. They also collected their 24-h urine on Sunday. The 24-h sample was analyzed for urine volume, osmolality (freezing point depression), color (8 color scale) and urine specific gravity (refractometry). The nutrition data system for research software was used to calculate water intake from food from diaries. Water intake data were presented as the average of Saturday and Sunday. Physical activity was estimated via the international physical activity questionnaire and data are presented as total MET-min per week. Mean values between groups were compared by student’s t-test. Data were analyzed with JMP statistical analysis software. Results: Eighteen of the 46 boys (39%) were dehydrated (urine osmolality \u3e800 mOsm/kg) and 29 of them (63%) did not meet the Institute of Medicine’s dietary guidelines for daily water intake. The 24-h urine osmolality for euhydrated and dehydrated boys was 530±150 and 967±140 mOsm/kg (P\u3c0.05), respectively. Physical activity was not different between dehydrated (5,506±4,941 MET-min/wk) and euhydrated boys (4,575±4,338 MET-min/week; P\u3e0.05). Dehydrated boys had lower total water intake (1,661±759 mL) than euhydrated ones (1,937±1,661 mL). Conclusion: These preliminary data suggests that the majority of 3-13 year-old boys fail to meet the water intake recommendations and 4 out of 10 are hypohydrated. More data are needed to examine the factors that influence these observations

Indigent criminal defense: Qualitative review on economic value

This article reviews indigent criminal defense programs on an international level and generally concludes that societies want to protect legitimate society members\u27, within the respective society\u27s jurisdiction, fundamental property rights concerning criminal prosecution. While this conclusion was as the researchers expected, several unexpected and contrary observations were noted. Society wealth and a greater return on investments of public funds can dramatically shift a society\u27s value of basic shared rights

Food logging: an information literacy perspective

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to explore the meaning of information literacy in food logging, the activity of recording food intake and monitoring weight and other health conditions that may be affected by diet, using applications (apps) accessed through mobile devices and personal computers. Design/methodology/approach: Data was gathered from a small group of food logging app users through a focus group and interviews. Analysis was informed by practice theory and the growing interest in information literacy outside educational settings. Findings: Food logging revolves around the epistemic modality of information, but it is the user who creates information and it is not textual. Food logging is associated with a discourse of focussing on data and downplaying the corporeal information associated with eating and its effect on the body. Social information was an important source for choosing an app, but data was rarely shared with others. Food loggers are very concerned with data quality at the point of data entry. They have a strong sense of learning about healthy eating. They were not well informed about the data privacy and access issues. Practical implications: Food loggers need to be better informed about data risks around food logging. Originality/value: This is the first study of food logging from an information literacy perspective

Decoupling of morphological disparity and taxic diversity during the adaptive radiation of anomodont therapsids

Adaptive radiations are central to macroevolutionary theory. Whether triggered by acquisition of new traits or ecological opportunities arising from mass extinctions, it is debated whether adaptive radiations are marked by initial expansion of taxic diversity or of morphological disparity (the range of anatomical form). If a group rediversifies following a mass extinction, it is said to have passed through a macroevolutionary bottleneck, and the loss of taxic or phylogenetic diversity may limit the amount of morphological novelty that it can subsequently generate. Anomodont therapsids, a diverse clade of Permian and Triassic herbivorous tetrapods, passed through a bottleneck during the end-Permian mass extinction. Their taxic diversity increased during the Permian, declined significantly at the Permo–Triassic boundary and rebounded during the Middle Triassic before the clade's final extinction at the end of the Triassic. By sharp contrast, disparity declined steadily during most of anomodont history. Our results highlight three main aspects of adaptive radiations: (i) diversity and disparity are generally decoupled; (ii) models of radiations following mass extinctions may differ from those triggered by other causes (e.g. trait acquisition); and (iii) the bottleneck caused by a mass extinction means that a clade can emerge lacking its original potential for generating morphological variety

An Overview of Current Clinical Trials of Agents for the Treatment and Prevention of COVID-19 in the United States

Introduction: Given the rapid worldwide spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the attendant risks for severe complications and mortality, numerous clinical trials for its treatment and prevention have been generated in a short period. This report focuses on the categories of the wide spectrum of agents being studied in the United States and the intensity of effort involved with each so that clinicians may consider whether suggesting enrollment may be appropriate for their patients. Methods: A search was completed of the ClinicalTrials.gov database on May 28, 2020 for all such trials underway as of that date in the US. A total 190 trials were identified; of these, 151 trials that included 83 distinct agents met the specified delimiting criteria. The salient features of each, including medication class, the total number of trials involving either treatment or ongoing prevention strategies, and the total patient enrollment, were captured in a summary table. Comprehensive descriptors of all 190 trials are made available in an appendix. Results: The antimalarial agent hydroxychloroquine was the most frequently studied single agent by both number of trials and number of subjects involved. Antivirals were the next largest group, followed by immunomodulators, antibacterials, vaccines, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) antagonists, and convalescent plasma. Of note, repurposed antineoplastic agents, stem cell therapies, steroids, and a diverse range of miscellaneous agents were also included in the list. Conclusions: The agents currently under study for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 include several highly publicized pharmaceuticals as well as a wide array of other experimental medications and novel applications of established drugs. In the absence of an approved vaccine at this time, it is essential that clinicians be aware of the range of trials from which important new therapeutic and prophylactic advances may rapidly emerge

Magnetic Reconnection with Radiative Cooling. I. Optically-Thin Regime

Magnetic reconnection, a fundamental plasma process associated with a rapid dissipation of magnetic energy, is believed to power many disruptive phenomena in laboratory plasma devices, the Earth magnetosphere, and the solar corona. Traditional reconnection research, geared towards these rather tenuous environments, has justifiably ignored the effects of radiation on the reconnection process. However, in many reconnecting systems in high-energy astrophysics (e.g., accretion-disk coronae, relativistic jets, magnetar flares) and, potentially, in powerful laser plasma and z-pinch experiments, the energy density is so high that radiation, in particular radiative cooling, may start to play an important role. This observation motivates the development of a theory of high-energy-density radiative magnetic reconnection. As a first step towards this goal, we present in this paper a simple Sweet--Parker-like theory of non-relativistic resistive-MHD reconnection with strong radiative cooling. First, we show how, in the absence of a guide magnetic field, intense cooling leads to a strong compression of the plasma in the reconnection layer, resulting in a higher reconnection rate. The compression ratio and the layer temperature are determined by the balance between ohmic heating and radiative cooling. The lower temperature in the radiatively-cooled layer leads to a higher Spitzer resistivity and hence to an extra enhancement of the reconnection rate. We then apply our general theory to several specific astrophysically important radiative processes (bremsstrahlung, cyclotron, and inverse-Compton) in the optically thin regime, for both the zero- and strong-guide-field cases. We derive specific expressions for key reconnection parameters, including the reconnection rate. We also discuss the limitations and conditions for applicability of our theory.Comment: 31 pages, 1 figur