Eliminating the Mandatory Trade-off: Should Employees Have the Right to Choose Arbitration ?

As more employers include mandatory arbitration provisions in their employment contracts, policy-makers are becoming concerned that employees are being forced to trade their civil and statutory rights for their jobs. The California Legislature is considering legislation designed to combat this tendency and to provide legal protection for employees who might otherwise be forced to waive the right for redress of grievances, legal protections against discrimination, and other rights. Although the legislation was designed to protect the constitutional rights of employees, there are legal considerations and policy concerns that challenge the viability of this type of legislation. The primary question is whether the act is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), which states that agreements to arbitrate claims are irrevocable and so is contrary to the proposed legislation. In addition to the legal concerns, there is the potential for conflict between the constitutional right of business and individuals to make contracts and the constitutional preservation of civil rights. This Comment discusses the above issues in addition to the history of legislation on arbitration provisions in employment contracts in California, and the potential impact that this line of legislation could have on individuals and business

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE IDENTIFICATION AND TREATMENT OF FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS: A SOCIAL CAPITAL APPROACH

This paper examines institutional identification of first-generation college students and corresponding campus retention programs utilizing a Social Capital lens. Building on the theoretical foundation of Astin and Tinto this article argues that all student retention programs are based on Social Capital theory and provides recommendations for improving campus retention programs

Recognizing and Serving Low-Income Students in Higher Education (review)

In a time of decreasing appropriations from state and federal agencies, institutions of higher education are making changes to the services they provide. In this book Adrianna Kezar (ed.) examines the policies and practices that negatively affect low-income students and utilizes a post-structuralist lens to provide a framework for institutions to think differently about the services they provide

EFFECTS OF ITEM-LEVEL FEEDBACK ON THE RATINGS PROVIDED BY JUDGES IN A MODIFIED-ANGOFF STANDARD SETTING STUDY

Setting performance standards is a judgmental process involving human opinions and values as well as technical and empirical considerations and although all cut score decisions are by nature arbitrary, they should not be capricious. Establishing a minimum passing standard is the technical expression of a policy decision and the information gained through standard setting studies inform these policy decisions. To this end, it is necessary to conduct robust examinations of methods and techniques commonly applied to standard setting studies in order to better understand issues that may influence policy decisions. The modified-Angoff method remains one of the most popular methods for setting performance standards in testing and assessment. With this method, is common practice to provide content experts with feedback regarding the item difficulties; however, it is unclear how this feedback affects the ratings and recommendations of content experts. Recent research seems to indicate mixed results, noting that the feedback given to raters may or may not alter their judgments depending on the type of data provided, when the data was provided, and how raters collaborated within groups and between groups. This research seeks to examine issues related to the effects of item-level feedback on the judgment of raters. The results suggest that the most important factor related to item-level feedback is whether or not a Subject Matter Expert (SME) was able to correctly answer a question. If so, then the SMEs tended to rely on their own inherent sense of item difficulty rather than the data provided, in spite of empirical evidence to the contrary. The results of this research may hold implications for how standard setting studies are conducted with regard to the difficulty and ordering of items, the ability level of content experts invited to participate in these studies, and the types of feedback provided

Supporting First Generation College Students

Seeking to help support first generation college students (FGCS), the University of Kentucky (UK) has developed new programming and initiatives in recent years aimed at enhancing institutional support for this student group. Among these efforts was the launch in 2009 of the First Scholars program at UK, a project funded by and affiliated with the Suder Foundation, which currently funds five First Scholars programs at universities around the country. This practitioner’s brief first provides an overview of relevant literature related to serving FGCS and then discusses programmatic efforts undertaken at UK designed to improve the retention and graduation rates of FGCS

First-Generation College Students at the University of Kentucky

First-generation college students (FGCS) have been shown to graduate at lower rates than their continuing-generation counterparts even after controlling for other variables. We will attempt to examine the characteristics of FGCS and determine initiatives the University of Kentucky might enact in order to increase the graduation rates for this segment of the student population. In doing so we will discuss “promising practices” in student retention, examine programs designated by UK’s Top-20 plan as benchmark institutions, and submit a series of recommendations to better serve FGCS at the University of Kentucky

Prevalence and Practice for Rare Diseases in Primary Care: A National Cross-Sectional Study in the USA

Objectives There are more than 7000 rare diseases in the USA, and they are prevalent in 8% of the population. Due to life-threatening risk and limited therapies, early detection and treatment are critical. The purpose of this study was to explore characteristics of visits for patients with rare diseases seen by primary care physicians (PCPs). Design The study used a cross sectional study using a national representative dataset, the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey for the years 2012–2014. Setting Primary care setting. Participants Visits to PCPs (n=22 306 representing 354 507 772 office visits to PCPs). Primary outcome measures Prevalence of rare diseases in visits of PCPs was the primary outcome. Bivariate analyses and logistic regression analyses were used to compare patients with rare diseases and those without rare diseases and examined characteristics of PCP visits for rare diseases and practice pattern. Results Among outpatient visits to PCPs, rare diseases account for 1.6% of the visits. The majority of patients with rare diseases were established patients (93.0%) and almost half (49.0%) were enrolled in public insurance programmes. The time spent in visits for rare diseases (22.4 min) and visits for more common diseases (21.3 min) was not significantly different (p=0.09). In an adjusted model controlling for patient characteristics (age, sex, types of insurance, reason for this visit, total number of chronic disease, having a rare disease and established or new patient), patients with rare diseases were 52% more likely to be referred to another provider (OR 1.52, 95% CI, 1.01 to 2.28). Conclusions Visits for rare diseases are uncommon in primary care practice. Future research may help to explain whether this low level of management of rare diseases in primary care practice is consistent with a goal of a broad scope of care

NIMBUS: The Near-Infrared Multi-Band Ultraprecise Spectroimager for SOFIA

We present a new and innovative near-infrared multi-band ultraprecise spectroimager (NIMBUS) for SOFIA. This design is capable of characterizing a large sample of extrasolar planet atmospheres by measuring elemental and molecular abundances during primary transit and occultation. This wide-field spectroimager would also provide new insights into Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO), Solar System occultations, brown dwarf atmospheres, carbon chemistry in globular clusters, chemical gradients in nearby galaxies, and galaxy photometric redshifts. NIMBUS would be the premier ultraprecise spectroimager by taking advantage of the SOFIA observatory and state of the art infrared technologies. This optical design splits the beam into eight separate spectral bandpasses, centered around key molecular bands from 1 to 4 microns. Each spectral channel has a wide field of view for simultaneous observations of a reference star that can decorrelate time-variable atmospheric and optical assembly effects, allowing the instrument to achieve ultraprecise calibration for imaging and photometry for a wide variety of astrophysical sources. NIMBUS produces the same data products as a low-resolution integral field spectrograph over a large spectral bandpass, but this design obviates many of the problems that preclude high-precision measurements with traditional slit and integral field spectrographs. This instrument concept is currently not funded for development.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 201

30-Day Mortality and Cardiopulmonary Complication Rates in Patients Undergoing Emergency Surgery with Perioperative SARS-CoV-2 Infection

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Continued vigilance of operative outcomes in COVID-19 patients is important given the relative novelty of the SARS-CoV-2 infection. We sought to evaluate the 30-day mortality and cardiopulmonary complication rates in patients undergoing emergency surgery with perioperative COVID-19, in comparison to a control group of medically managed COVID-19 patients that did not require a surgical intervention. METHODS: A retrospective chart review at a single tertiary-care hospital in Michigan was undertaken. Patients who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection either 7 days before or within 30 days after surgery during March-May 2020 were included in the study (n=52). Propensity score matched (1:6) patients who had been positive for SARS CoV-2 infection during this time-period but did not undergo surgery served as controls (n=314). The primary endpoint was 30-day mortality. Secondary endpoints included cardiac and pulmonary complications. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were utilized to account for baseline differences. RESULTS: The 30-day mortality (17.3% vs 13.1%, p=0.408) and cardiac (28.9% vs 19.1%, p=0.107) and pulmonary complication (55.8% vs 49.4%, p=0.392) rates were similar in the surgical and the non-surgical groups. Multivariable analyses confirmed that emergency surgical intervention was not associated with increased odds for any of the studied adverse events (p\u3e0.10 for all 3 endpoints). CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis of 366 novel coronavirus patients demonstrates that patients undergoing emergency surgery with SARS-CoV-2 infection do not have an increased risk for 30-day mortality and cardiopulmonary complications compared to their counterparts that do not require surgery. The importance of this study is that an emergency intervention does not portend a poorer prognosis among patients with a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Infection