Value of Joint Programs Underestimated

[Excerpt] I am happy to comment on a provocative monograph that raises important issues for union policies and strategies. The authors make two main points: 1. Unions should be proactive in developing worker participation programs in industry and should push them beyond the shopfloor into strategic economic and technological issues. 2. As far as possible, worker participation programs should be controlled by the union. Union leaders should firmly reject programs jointly controlled by union and management. I agree with the first point and disagree with the second. I also question what I see as a bias in selecting case examples to support the Banks-Metzgar thesis. If authors are free to choose any cases to support their arguments, they can prove almost anything

Outrage! hypocrisy, episcopacy, and homosexuality in 1990s England

The brief but bitter campaign to expose the hidden homosexuality of Anglican bishops in the mid-1990s was framed as a contest about hypocrisy, with bishops – whether suspected of homosexuality or not – condemned as hypocrites and the Church of England as hypocritical. However, the activists behind this ‘outing’, and the media which covered the story with such enthusiasm, were similarly attacked for hypocrisy. A neglected moment in recent ecclesiastical history, it reveals the ongoing importance of hypocrisy in debates about the nature of faith and the authority of the church. Still more, it sheds light on how contemporary assumptions about authenticity both intensified the perceived importance of hypocrisy and increased the chances of being accused of acting hypocritically

Ventilation effectiveness in cleanrooms and its relation to decay rate, recovery rate, and air change rate

Non-unidirectional airflow cleanrooms are supplied with filtered air to minimise the contamination of a product or process by airborne contamination. The effectiveness of the ventilation system in providing the required type of airflow in the cleanroom that will minimise airborne contamination can be assessed by measuring ventilation effectiveness indexes. This article provides information on what ventilation effectiveness indexes are suitable for cleanrooms, and how they can be obtained by test methods in common use in cleanrooms. Three methods of measuring ventilation effectiveness are discussed, namely, the Contamination Removal Effectiveness (CRE) index, the Air Change Effectiveness (ACE) index and the Performance Index (PI), and it was considered that the ACE index and PI were the most suitable for use in cleanrooms. The decay rate and recovery rate of airborne contamination in relation to the air change rate in non-unidirectional cleanrooms is also considered, and it is demonstrated that when measured at the same location, the three rates are identical. Also considered is the measurement of these rates in cleanrooms and how they can be used to obtain the ACE index

Social Media use within medical education: a systematic review to develop a pilot questionnaire on how social media can be best used at BSMS

Abstract: Background: Since the early 2000s social media has become a major part of our daily lives, and over the past decade it has found its way into the medical profession. Despite its ubiquity, only 5 systematic reviews exist on the subject of social medial use within medical education. The reviews conclude that there are positive correlations linked to social media use however the studies are restricted by the same limitations: a lack of quantitative data and the fact that social media research fast becomes outdated. This review will therefore examine the latest studies in order to identify which questions remain to be answered and what areas need further development in order for social media to become a credible resource within medical education. The information gained from this process will be amalgamated to create a valid questionnaire which will produce quantitative data. Methods: A systematic review of Pubmed, Cochrane, PsychINFO, ERIC & Scopus was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The search was from 1st January 2014 to the 12th January 2017 and included keywords linked with social media and medical education. 27 papers were identified: 12 qualitative and 15 quantitative. From this data a questionnaire was drafted and put to a focus group in order for it to be validated. Results: Six major themes were identified and analysed: community & interactivity, communication & feedback, learning theories, social media vs traditional didactic lectures, role of faculty and professionalism. Quantitative data was limited but highlighted the efficiency of social media use especially when Facebook and Twitter were used. After the analysis a validated questionnaire was produced. Conclusion: Social media can be a useful tool within the medical curriculum if implemented correctly. The final questionnaire can be used to generate quantitative data on the following questions: which platforms are most effective and for what purposes? How beneficial is social media to teaching? and What do students understand the benefits/disadvantages of academic social media platforms to be? Keywords: Social Media, Medical Education, Facebook, Twitter, Systematic Revie

A comprehensive survey of hearing questionnaires: how many are there, what do they measure, and how have they been validated?

The self-report questionnaire is a popular tool for measuring outcomes in trials of interventions for hearing impairment. Many have been designed over the last fifty years, and there is no single standard questionnaire that is widely accepted and used. We felt it would be a valuable resource to have a comprehensive collection of all adult hearing-loss questionnaires (excluding those wholly devoted to tinnitus, children, or cochlear implants) and to survey their degree of validation. We collated copies of every published hearing difficulty questionnaire that we could find. The search was primarily done by iterative reference searching. Questionnaire topics were obtained by mapping the text of each questionnaire onto a set of categories; reports of validation methods were taken from the primary paper(s) on each questionnaire. In total we found 139 hearing-specific questionnaires (though many others were found that were primarily about something else). Though not formally systematic, we believe that we have included every questionnaire that is important, most of those of some notice, and a fair fraction of those obscure. We classified 111 as “primary” and the remaining 28 as “contractions”, being shortened versions of a primary without any new questions. In total, there were 3618 items across all the primary questionnaires. The median number of items per questionnaire was 20; the maximum was 158. Across all items, about one third were concerned with the person’s own hearing, another third with the repercussions of it, and about a quarter with hearing aids. There was a wide range in validation methods, from only using items chosen statistically from wider pools and with formal validation against independent measures of clinical outcomes, to just reporting a correlation with an audiogram measure of hearing loss. The “state of play” of the field of hearing questionnaires will be discussed

Union-Management Cooperation

[Excerpt] As unions and management work together on cooperative programs, this cooperation not only reduces the emotional heat in their collective bargaining; it encourages them to experiment with new ways of resolving problems

Validation of a novel scoring system for changes in skeletal manifestations of hypophosphatasia in newborns, infants, and children: The Radiographic Global Impression of Change scale

Hypophosphatasia (HPP) is the heritable metabolic disease characterized by impaired skeletal mineralization due to low activity of the tissue-nonspecific isoenzyme of alkaline phosphatase. Although HPP during growth often manifests with distinctive radiographic skeletal features, no validated method was available to quantify them, including changes over time. We created the Radiographic Global Impression of Change (RGI-C) scale to assess changes in the skeletal burden of pediatric HPP. Site-specific pairs of radiographs of newborns, infants, and children with HPP from three clinical studies of asfotase alfa, an enzyme replacement therapy for HPP, were obtained at baseline and during treatment. Each pair was scored by three pediatric radiologists ( raters ), with nine raters across the three studies. Intrarater and interrater agreement was determined by weighted Kappa coefficients. Interrater reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and by two-way random effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a mixed-model repeated measures ANOVA. Pearson correlation coefficients evaluated relationships of the RGI-C to the Rickets Severity Scale (RSS), Pediatric Outcomes Data Collection Instrument Global Function Parent Normative Score, Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index, 6-Minute Walk Test percent predicted, and Z-score for height in patients aged 6 to 12 years at baseline. Eighty-nine percent (8/9) of raters showed substantial or almost perfect intrarater agreement of sequential RGI-C scores (weighted Kappa coefficients, 0.72 to 0.93) and moderate or substantial interrater agreement (weighted Kappa coefficients, 0.53 to 0.71) in patients aged 0 to 12 years at baseline. Moderate-to-good interrater reliability was observed (ICC, 0.57 to 0.65). RGI-C scores were significantly (p ≤ 0.0065) correlated with the RSS and with measures of global function, disability, endurance, and growth in the patients aged 6 to 12 years at baseline. Thus, the RGI-C is valid and reliable for detecting clinically important changes in skeletal manifestations of severe HPP in newborns, infants, and children, including during asfotase alfa treatment. © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research Published by Wiley Periodicals Inc

The Phantasm of an University: Imagining New Landscapes in Post-Revolutionary Britain and Ireland

The Phantasm of an University: Imagining New Landscapes in Post-Revolutionary Britain and Irelan