Dealing With Deans and Academic Medical Center Leadership: Advice From Leaders.

The 2017 Association of Pathology Chairs Annual Meeting included a session for department chairs and other department leaders on how to deal with deans and academic medical center leadership. The session was focused on discussing ways to foster positive relationships with university, medical school, and health system leaders, and productively address issues and opportunities with them. Presentations and a panel discussion were provided by 4 former pathology chairs who subsequently have served as medical deans and in other leadership positions including university provost, medical center CEO, and health system board chair. There was a strong consensus among the participants on how best to deal with superiors about problems, conflicts, and requests for additional resources and authority. The importance of teamwork and accountability in developing a constructive and collaborative relationship with leaders and peers was discussed in detail. Effectiveness in communication, negotiation, and departmental advocacy were highlighted as important skills. As limited resources and increased regulations have become growing problems for universities and health systems, internal stress and competition have increased. In this rapidly changing environment, advice on how chairs can interact most productively with institutional leaders is becoming increasingly important

Photoelectric sensitization of alkali surfaces by means of electric discharges in water vapor

Cover title.Prepared as part of an investigation conducted by the Engineering Experiment Station, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Unwrapping the Deadweight Loss of Gift Giving

anonymous referees of this journal and seminar participants at Ben-Gurion University, Universite Louis-Pasteur and the 1998 ESA meetings in Mannheim for comments. Unwrapping the Deadweight Loss of Gift Giving Two previous surveys used to measure the welfare implications of Christmas gift giving in the U.S. have reached opposite conclusions. Waldfogel (1993) nds a 10-33 % welfare reduction associated with Christmas giving. Curiously, Solnick and Hemenway's (1996) (henceforth S&H) replication of Waldfogel's survey turns up just the opposite result: a 214 % welfare gain. We design a series of controlled laboratory experiments to determine why thetwopapers arrive at opposite conclusions. We do not produce our own estimate of the deadweight lossofgift giving; rather, our aim is to understand how, and which among, the di erences in methodology between the two studies account for their divergent ndings. Waldfogel (1993) surveyed 58 students enrolled in an intermediate microeconomics class about speci c gifts they had received for Christmas. In addition to eliciting details about the gifts received, the recipient's background, and her relationship to the gift giver, Waldfogel asked recipients to estimate the amount paid by the giver for each gift received. Finally, recipients were asked to place avalue on each gift they received. Respondents were instructed to estimate the value of a gift as the...amountofcashsuch that you are indi erent between the gift and the cash, not counting the sentimental value of the gift. (Waldfogel, 1993, p.1331) Waldfogel measures the welfare yield of a gift as the di erence between the re-1 cipient's valuation and her cost estimate of the gift. Based on 278 gifts reported, Waldfogel nds that gifts have anaverage yield of 87.1%, indicating that gifts lose about 13 % of their value in the exchange from giver to receiver. When cash gifts are excluded, the average yield falls further to 83.9%. 1 S&H were intrigued enough byWaldfogel's results to replicate his study. Contrar

The insurance effect: How the possession of gas masks reduces the likelihood of a missile attack

When a threat looms large in people’s minds, they may seek protective measures that could mitigate the negative outcomes associated with this threat. Paradoxically, the possession of such protective measures may, in turn, inspire a sense of safety and reduce the perceived probability of the very threat that had originally triggered their acquisition. Thus, reminding people that they possess a medical insurance policy attenuated their perceived risk of suffering from health related misfortunes (Tykocinski, 2008). The current study conceptually replicates these findings and extends them to a different form of insurance. Reminding citizens in Israel of the fact that they possess gas masks significantly reduced their subjective estimates of the probability that Israel will be attacked by Iran

The effect of retinoic acid on the activation of the human H19 promoter by a 3′ downstream region

AbstractThe human H19 is paternally imprinted (maternally expressed). It is transcribed by RNA pol II, but has no protein product. Its function is unknown. We showed that the transcription of the human H19 gene is under the simultaneous control of both a 5′ upstream (promoter) region and a 3′ downstream region in cell lines derived from human choriocarcinomas. Moreover, the activation of the H19 promoter by retinoic acid in cells derived from human testicular germ cell tumors is dependent upon the 3′ downstream region. The possibility that the action of retinoic acid on the H19 promoter is an indirect one and involves a member of the AP2 transcription factor family is discussed

Fn14•Trail effectively inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma growth.

BACKGROUND: New strategies for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are needed, given that currently available chemotherapeutics are inefficient. Since tumor growth reflects the net balance between pro-proliferative and death signaling, agents shifting the equilibrium toward the latter are of considerable interest. The TWEAK:Fn14 signaling axis promotes tumor cell proliferation and tumor angiogenesis, while TRAIL:TRAIL-receptor (TRAIL-R) interactions selectively induce apoptosis in malignant cells. Fn14•TRAIL, a fusion protein bridging these two pathways, has the potential to inhibit tumor growth, by interfering with TWEAK:Fn14 signaling, while at the same time enforcing TRAIL:TRAIL-R-mediated apoptosis. Consequently, Fn14•TRAIL\u27s capacity to inhibit HCC growth was tested. RESULTS: Fn14•TRAIL induced robust apoptosis of multiple HCC cell lines, while sparing non-malignant hepatocyte cell lines. Differential susceptibility to this agent did not correlate with expression levels of TRAIL, TRAIL-R, TWEAK and Fn14 by these lines. Fn14•TRAIL was more potent than soluble TRAIL, soluble Fn14, or a combination of the two. The requirement of both of Fn14•TRAIL\u27s molecular domains for function was established using blocking antibodies directed against each of them. Subcutaneous injection of Fn14•TRAIL abrogated HCC growth in a xenograft model, and was well tolerated by the mice. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, Fn14•TRAIL, a multifunctional fusion protein originally designed to treat autoimmunity, was shown to inhibit the growth of HCC, both in vitro and in vivo. The demonstration of this fusion protein\u27s potent anti-tumor activity suggests that simultaneous targeting of two signaling axes by a single fusion can serve as a basis for highly effective anti-cancer therapies

A metasynthesis of risk perception in women with high risk pregnancies

Introduction: Risk perception in women with high risk pregnancies affects their decisions about perinatal care and is of interest to anyone involved in the care of pregnant women. This paper provides a metasynthesis of qualitative studies of risk perception in women with high risk pregnancies. Methods: A systematic search of eight electronic databases was conducted. Additional papers were obtained through searching references of identified articles. Six studies were identified that reported qualitative research into risk perception in relation to high risk pregnancy. A metasynthesis was developed to describe and interpret the studies. Findings: The synthesis resulted in the identification of five themes: determinants of risk perception; not seeing it the way others do; normality versus risk; if the infant is ok, I׳m ok; managing risk. Conclusions: This metasynthesis suggests women at high risk during pregnancy use multiple sources of information to determine their risk status. It shows women are aware of the risks posed by their pregnancies but do not perceive risk in the same way as healthcare professionals. They will take steps to ensure the health of themselves and their infants but these may not include following all medical recommendations