Professions, Organizations and Institutions: Tenure Systems in Colleges and Universities

A common strategy used by professions to support claims of workplace jurisdiction involves the institutionalization of professionally-endorsed formal structures, yet both theory and research suggest that ensuring the implementation of institutionalized structures after formal adoption can be problematic. This study investigates the influence of organizational characteristics on the implementation of one professionally-created institution in higher education organizations, tenure systems for faculty employment. Our results suggest that implementation of tenure systems is negatively affected by internal resource pressures, but positively affected by countervailing pressures from professionally-linked constituents. The results also suggest self-limiting aspects of the use of tenure systems

ILR Impact Brief - Faculty Tenure and the Gap between Policy and Practice

Almost all four-year institutions of higher education have adopted the tenure system as a formal policy for faculty employment. The degree to which tenure systems are actually implemented, however, depends on resource flows and institutional pressures. Fewer resource constraints (i.e., greater per-student revenues and larger endowments) increase the proportion of professors employed on tenure-track lines; likewise, a stronger research orientation positively affects the share of faculty in tenure-track slots. Colleges and universities that rely more heavily on tuition for revenues and those with larger numbers of accreditations (from professional and occupational associations) generally employ fewer tenure-track professors. Other variables also matter: Tenure is more prevalent at public, older, and more complex universities and colleges and is less widespread among institutions that enroll larger numbers of students and among those that include a medical school. And finally, the share of tenure-track faculty declines on campuses with a larger pool of graduate students who are available to teach

Topology of COBE Microwave Background Fluctuations

We have measured the topology (genus) of the fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background seen in the recently completed (four-year) data set produced by the COBE satellite. We find that the genus is consistent with that expected from a random-phase Gaussian distribution, as might be produced naturally in inflationary models.Comment: 2 pages, one Post-Script figure, MNRAS LaTeX Style (mn.sty), submitted to MNRA

Exploring Unplanned/Impulsive Travel Decision Making

Travelers are often open to the possibility of spontaneous decisions and changing specific plans en route, because of personal impulsiveness, sensation seeking desire, certain travel contexts, new information obtained during the trip, diverse preferences of travel party member, or the occurrence of unexpected constraints. Many decisions about travel components, hence, may be made without prior planning. However, the study of unplanned or impulsive travel behavior has drawn little attention. This study tries to fill this gap in the literature. The results show that travelers who are male, who travel to visit family/friends, shop, or who are without past experience to the destinations make a majority of their decisions after arrival at the destination. Implications of the study’s results and recommendations for future research are discussed

Towards diagnosis of rotator cuff tears in 3-D MRI using 3-D convolutional neural networks

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A Home Dyer\u27s Garden, Part II: Extracting Pigment From Japanese Indigo

Several indigo dyeing methods use powdered pigment. This fact sheet outlines a simple, inexpensive method of extracting the pigment from plants. For information on growing Japanese indigo or dyeing with plant and pigment, see the other fact sheets in the Utah State University (USU) Extension series A Home Dyer’s Garden, including Part I: Growing Japanese Indigo and Part III: Dyeing With Japanese Indigo

A Home Dyer\u27s Garden, Part I: Growing Japanese Indigo

Japanese indigo is an annual plant with numerous varieties. Most varieties thrive in the temperate environments found in much of Utah but may exhibit stress in intense heat. This is the first of three fact sheets in the A Home Dyer\u27s Garden series on dyeing with Japanese indigo. It covers how to grow Japanese indigo. Soil preparation, planting and spacing, water, fertilizer, insects and diseases, and harvesting are discussed

A Home Dyer\u27s Garden, Part III: Dyeing With Japanese Indigo

Dyeing with Japanese indigo grown in the home garden can be an exciting and satisfying way to incorporate gardening into more aspects of your life and create unique products for yourself and others. This resource provides information to those who would like to experience the process from growing the plant until the final dyed project and those who would like to purchase the pigment and use it for dyeing. After preparing the fabric, there are many ways to dye with indigo. Two well-established methods, accessible and achievable for the beginning dyer, are included

Web Applicable Computer-aided Diagnosis of Glaucoma Using Deep Learning

Glaucoma is a major eye disease, leading to vision loss in the absence of proper medical treatment. Current diagnosis of glaucoma is performed by ophthalmologists who are often analyzing several types of medical images generated by different types of medical equipment. Capturing and analyzing these medical images is labor-intensive and expensive. In this paper, we present a novel computational approach towards glaucoma diagnosis and localization, only making use of eye fundus images that are analyzed by state-of-the-art deep learning techniques. Specifically, our approach leverages Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) for glaucoma diagnosis and localization, respectively. Quantitative and qualitative results, as obtained for a small-sized dataset with no segmentation ground truth, demonstrate that the proposed approach is promising, for instance achieving an accuracy of 0.91$\pm0.02$ and an ROC-AUC score of 0.94 for the diagnosis task. Furthermore, we present a publicly available prototype web application that integrates our predictive model, with the goal of making effective glaucoma diagnosis available to a wide audience.Comment: Machine Learning for Health (ML4H) Workshop at NeurIPS 2018 arXiv:cs/010120

Relaxing Mask Mandates in New Jersey

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash INTRODUCTION In March of 2022, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced that the state would no longer mandate face masks for students, staff, and visitors at schools and childcare centers. Two-thirds of New Jersey residents already supported this decision.[1] Soon after, Princeton University led the way in learning to live with the virus by making the use of masks optional in most situations. At a time when vaccination rates were already high and Omicron hospitalization rates were falling, the decision to relax mask mandates was the right call.  Yet, Rutgers University has extended its mask mandate for the rest of the academic year, with no stated endpoint. In a university-wide email, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Antonio Calcado announced: The university has been clear that the science and data would guide our path forward with respect to the health and safety of our community… Use of appropriate face coverings will still be required in all teaching spaces (classrooms, lecture halls, seminar rooms, etc.), teaching labs, computer labs, buses, libraries, and clinical facilities.[2] Despite the university’s purported commitment to follow “the science and data,” there has been a noticeable lack of transparency regarding the scientific rationale and official endpoint for this extension of the mask mandate. Given the same set of scientific data available, these neighboring universities came to opposite conclusions on the need for continued mask mandates. Notably, the Rutgers mask mandate continues to require students to mask in libraries but not in crowded cafeterias. These discrepancies have led to understandable frustration among members of the Rutgers community. In response, the Rutgers student newspaper objects to “the sense of optics” and “the lack of clear communication,” resulting in “confusion,” arguing that the university administration “needs to be more transparent” and “must communicate and explain the policy changes more effectively.”[3] At a time when trust in public health institutions is at an all-time low, Ava Kamb warns that a lack of transparent messaging can reduce public trust even further.[4] Instead, Kamb argues that public health mandates should use the least restrictive means necessary in order to promote health and civil liberties at the same time. The ethical question is whether university mask mandates should be relaxed. I argue that the use of face masks by healthy individuals has uncertain benefits, which potential harms may outweigh, and should therefore be voluntary. ANALYSIS Rutgers intends “the science and data” to guide its path forward. As such, it is worth revisiting the controversial science behind mask mandates. From 2019 to 2020, systematic reviews by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections concluded that the use of face masks by healthy individuals in the community lacks effectiveness in reducing viral transmission based on moderate-quality evidence.[5] Neither study concerned COVID-19 specifically. Since then, the only two randomized controlled trials of face masks published during the pandemic found little to no benefit.[6] Yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cite many observational and modeling studies (based on empirical assumptions) which suggest that community masking is beneficial.[7] These studies support a larger benefit associated with masking, but they use less reliable research methods. Based on these non-randomized data and mechanistic plausibility, WHO’s current position is also supportive of community masking recommendations. But without high-quality evidence, it is difficult to justify a requirement rather than a recommendation. It may be useful to draw an ethical distinction between a recommendation and a mandate in public health. A public health recommendation does not generally undermine individual autonomy because individuals have the choice to follow the recommendation. I argue that recommendations may be justified by a lower standard of proof or a lesser expected benefit precisely because they do not violate individual autonomy. On the other hand, a public health mandate demands compliance using the threat of penalty. To ethically justify an infringement of autonomy, strong evidence that demonstrates a significant health benefit should support a public health mandate. While the recommendation to use masks in accordance with personal preference may be a reasonable precaution—particularly for vulnerable individuals—the higher standards of evidence and benefit that would ethically justify mask mandates have not been met. Notwithstanding, one might argue the precautionary principle justifies mask mandates. For example, Chinese CDC Director-General George Gao, medical researcher Trisha Greenhalgh, and others espouse such a view.[8] The precautionary principle holds that it is better to be safe than sorry. In the context of COVID-19, the principle has been used to advocate for public health measures which lack high-quality evidence. Accordingly, it might be thought that it is safer to implement potentially ineffective mask mandates than to risk forgoing a lifesaving benefit. Yet, the precautionary principle is an ill-defined concept that is philosophically problematic. Health economist Jay Bhattacharya and epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta argue that the precautionary principle cuts both ways because a public health mandate without high-quality evidence has both potential benefits and potential harms.[9] If the precautionary principle can justify implementing mask mandates due to the risk of forgoing possible benefit, then it might also be able to justify not implementing mask mandates due to the risk of potential harm caused by the intervention. It is commonly thought that there is little to lose from the use of face masks, but this is not necessarily true. According to WHO, CDC, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the harms of face masks may include headaches, difficulty breathing, skin lesions, difficulty communicating, a false sense of security, environmental pollution, impaired learning, delayed psychosocial development, and disadvantages for individuals with cognitive or mental disorders.[10] These include both potential and observed harms drawn from the scientific literature. Yet, the negative side effects of masks remain significantly under-investigated. For example, there is emerging mechanistic evidence that prolonged mask use or reuse increases both inhaled and environmental microplastics, the long-term effects of which are unknown.[11] The harms related to communication, learning, and psychosocial development are particularly problematic for educational institutions, whose mission is to promote these very things. It is, therefore, possible that masks have done more harm than good. While many observational studies and models support the potential benefits of masks, some interpret these studies to mean that masks clearly work. However, the limited body of randomized data paints a less optimistic picture and cannot be used to rule out an increase in infection from masks.[12] Other types of studies, less reliable research methods, do rule this out and support masking. Bhattacharya and Gupta would argue that it is safer to encourage voluntary, evidence-based interventions than to foist these potential harms upon individuals for the sake of uncertain benefits. It remains unclear whether and to what extent the use of face masks by healthy individuals in the community influenced COVID-19 mortality. However, it is clear to me that community masking does not meet the higher standard of evidence necessary to justify a mandate and that mask use is associated with potential harm. The already tenuous case for masks continues to weaken with a mixed body of evidence, the availability of effective pharmaceuticals, and widespread natural immunity to COVID-19. If public health should aim for the least restrictive means necessary to promote health while respecting civil liberties, then the extension of burdensome mask mandates which lack high-quality evidence is ethically problematic. CONCLUSION Given the current state of COVID-19, a university mask mandate for a low-risk population with high levels of immunity is not justified. In times of fear and uncertainty, higher education institutions ought to make reasoned policy decisions guided by “the science and data.” It would seem that, of the universities that mandated masks, Princeton has emerged as a national leader in mask policy while Rutgers lags behind. Schools across the nation should take note. - [1] Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics. Two-thirds of New Jerseyans agree with lifting school mask mandate, most comfortable returning to normal; half think NJ has done “just right” on pandemic. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://eagletonpoll.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Rutgers-Eagleton-Poll-COVID-March-7-2022.pdf [2] Calcado AM. Return to Campus Update – January 31, 2022. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://coronavirus.rutgers.edu/changes-related-to-covid-19-protocols [3] The Daily Targum. Rutgers’ new mask policies are more than confusing. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://dailytargum.com/article/2022/04/editorial-rutgers-new-mask-policies-are-more-than-confusing [4] Kamb A. The false choice between public health and civil liberties. Voices in Bioethics 2020;6. doi:10.7916/vib.v6i.6297. [5] World Health Organization Global Influenza Programme. Non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019; Jefferson T, Del Mar CB, Dooley L, et al. Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2020;11(CD006207). doi:10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub5. [6] Abaluck J, Kwong LH, Styczynski A, et al. Impact of community masking on COVID-19: A cluster-randomized trial in Bangladesh. Science 2022;375(6577):eabi9069. doi:10.1126/science.abi9069. (intervention reduced symptomatic seroprevalence by 9.5%; 95% confidence interval = [0.82, 1.00].); Bundgaard H, Bundgaard JS, Raaschou-Pedersen DET, et al. Effectiveness of adding a mask recommendation to other public health measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in Danish mask wearers: A randomized controlled trial. Ann Intern Med 2021;174(3):335-343. doi:10.7326/M20-6817. (trial was conducted in a setting where mask wearing was uncommon and the findings were inconclusive; 95% confidence interval = [0.54, 1.23].) [7] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Science Brief: Community Use of Masks to Control the Spread of SARS-CoV-2. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html [8] Zimmerman A. The precautionary principle in mask-wearing: When waiting for explicit scientific evidence is unwise. Voices in Bioethics 2020;6. doi:10.7916/vib.v6i.5896. (supporting the use of masks early in the pandemic arguing that the harms of masking in the short term were unlikely to be severe or to outweigh the benefits.); Greenhalgh T, Schmid MB, Czypionka T, et al. Face masks for the public during the COVID-19 crisis. BMJ 2020;369:m1435. doi:10.1136/bmj.m1435. [9] Bhattacharya J. On the Catastrophic Misapplication of the Precautionary Principle. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://collateralglobal.org/article/misapplication-of-the-precautionary-principle; Gupta S. A Betrayal of the Precautionary Principle. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://collateralglobal.org/article/a-betrayal-of-the-precautionary-principle [10] World Health Organization. Mask use in the context of COVID-19: Interim guidance, 1 December 2020. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/337199; U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Using face masks in the community: First update - Effectiveness in reducing transmission of COVID-19. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-face-masks-community-first-update.pdf [11] Li L, Zhao X, Li Z, et al. COVID-19: Performance study of microplastic inhalation risk posed by wearing masks. J Hazard Mater 2021;411:124955. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124955; Ma J, Chen F, Xu H, et al. Face masks as a source of nanoplastics and microplastics in the environment: Quantification, characterization, and potential for bioaccumulation. Environ Pollut 2021;288:117748. doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2021.117748; Chen X, Chen X, Liu Q, et al. Used disposable face masks are significant sources of microplastics to environment. Environ Pollut 2021;285:117485. doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2021.117485. [12] Bundgaard et al. (inconclusive with a 95% confidence interval = [0.54, 1.23])