QI in Resident Leadership Workshop

Background: Many residency programs provide some type of leadership training for chief residents. As these emerging leaders transition into their role, it is imperative to provide them with skills and knowledge to help them develop their leadership style. UTRGV’s department of Graduate Medical Education (GME) organized their first “Resident Leader Workshop” for all rising Chiefs and GME Resident Leadership Council (RLC) members. Using a pre and post survey, participants provided feedback on the effectiveness of knowledge and skills presented during the workshop. Methods: All residency and fellowship rising Chiefs and GME RLC members were invited. The workshop took place on May 25, 2022. It was a live event from 12:00-5:00pm at the School of Medicine Learning Center. The following topics were covered during the workshop: Middle Management Principles and Role Analysis, Well-being and Resilience, Personality Styles, Feedback, Conflict Management, and Leadership Tips. Participants completed pre and post surveys that were created on Qualtrics and delivered with QR codes. Time was allotted during the workshop to complete the surveys. Results analyzed from de-identified data from participants on their perception of effectiveness, strengths, and suggestions for improvement are presented below. Results: A total of 14 participants (5 females, 8 males, 1 gender variant/non-conforming), representing 11 residencies and 2 fellowship programs were present and completed the surveys. 4 participants had some type of previous training in leadership. In both the pre and post surveys, administrative was ranked as the top responsibility and clinical was ranked as the least responsibility of a leader. Participant responses indicate an increase in preparedness and confidence in starting their roles as leaders and managing conflict. They ranked personality styles, feedback, and conflict management as the “most beneficial” topics. Additional analysis will be completed from the data to better document their responses and to inform next steps in leadership development at UTRGV GME. Conclusions: The workshop helped the emergent leaders increase their confidence and preparedness in starting their new role as leaders and managing conflict. The workshop was effective, and the participants reported high satisfaction with the programming. Our goal is to continue providing leadership development

Absorber Foam Characterization for Predicting Overall Anechoic Chamber Performance

A new rectangular anechoic chamber (20’L x 10’W x 9’7”H) has been established at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) through donations and financial support from industry and Cal Poly departments and programs. The chamber was designed and constructed by three graduate students as part of their thesis studies to explore and further their understanding of chamber design and antenna measurements. The chamber project has included RF absorber characterization, overall chamber performance assessment, and software development for the coordination of a positioner with a vector network analyzer. This paper presents absorber characterization as a function of incidence angle and orientation to enable an overall chamber performance analysis. Test data at low incidence angles (\u3c 30o) are compared to manufacturer performance curves at normal incidence. The mean response of the measured data indicates a correlation with manufacturer curves. Through ray tracing analysis, the ripple encountered in the test data is used to identify two effective reflection planes indicative of the foam geometry. The measured data are subsequently used to predict overall anechoic chamber performance to within 1dB for a majority of the actual scan data. Details of this analysis and comparisons to actual chamber performance are presented in a companion paper

How to Find More Supernovae with Less Work: Object Classification Techniques for Difference Imaging

We present the results of applying new object classification techniques to difference images in the context of the Nearby Supernova Factory supernova search. Most current supernova searches subtract reference images from new images, identify objects in these difference images, and apply simple threshold cuts on parameters such as statistical significance, shape, and motion to reject objects such as cosmic rays, asteroids, and subtraction artifacts. Although most static objects subtract cleanly, even a very low false positive detection rate can lead to hundreds of non-supernova candidates which must be vetted by human inspection before triggering additional followup. In comparison to simple threshold cuts, more sophisticated methods such as Boosted Decision Trees, Random Forests, and Support Vector Machines provide dramatically better object discrimination. At the Nearby Supernova Factory, we reduced the number of non-supernova candidates by a factor of 10 while increasing our supernova identification efficiency. Methods such as these will be crucial for maintaining a reasonable false positive rate in the automated transient alert pipelines of upcoming projects such as PanSTARRS and LSST.Comment: 25 pages; 6 figures; submitted to Ap

Social comparison processes and catastrophising in fibromyalgia:A path analysis

Introduction: In addition to coping strategies, social comparison may play a role in illness adjustment. However, little is known about the role of contrast and identification in social comparison in adaptation to fibromyalgia.Aim: To evaluate through a path analysis in a sample of fibromyalgia patients, the association between identification and contrast in social comparison, catastrophising and specific health outcomes (fibromyalgia illness impact and psychological distress).Material and Method: 131 Spanish fibromyalgia outpatients (mean age: 50.15, SD=11.1) filled out a questionnaire.Results: We present a model that explained 33% of the variance in catastrophising by direct effects of more use of upward contrast and downward identification. In addition, 35% of fibromyalgia illness impact variance was explained by less upward identification, more upward contrast and more catastrophising and 42% of the variance in psychological distress by a direct effect of more use of upward contrast together with higher fibromyalgia illness impact.Discussion: We suggest that intervention programmes with chronic pain and fibromyalgia patients should focus on enhancing the use of upward identification in social comparison, and on minimising the use of upward contrast and downward identification in social comparison

Initial Hubble Diagram Results from the Nearby Supernova Factory

The use of Type Ia supernovae as distance indicators led to the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe a decade ago. Now that large second generation surveys have significantly increased the size and quality of the high-redshift sample, the cosmological constraints are limited by the currently available sample of ~50 cosmologically useful nearby supernovae. The Nearby Supernova Factory addresses this problem by discovering nearby supernovae and observing their spectrophotometric time development. Our data sample includes over 2400 spectra from spectral timeseries of 185 supernovae. This talk presents results from a portion of this sample including a Hubble diagram (relative distance vs. redshift) and a description of some analyses using this rich dataset.Comment: Short version of proceedings for ICHEP08, Philadelphia PA, July 2008; see v1 for full-length versio

Host Galaxy Evolution in Radio-Loud AGN

We investigate the luminosity evolution of the host galaxies of radio-loud AGN through Hubble Space Telescope imaging of 72 BL Lac objects, including new STIS imaging of nine z > 0.6 BL Lacs. With their intrinsically low accretion rates and their strongly beamed jets, BL Lacs provide a unique opportunity to probe host galaxy evolution independent of the biases and ambiguities implicit in quasar studies. We find that the host galaxies of BL Lacs evolve strongly, consistent with passive evolution from a period of active star formation in the range 0.5 <~ z <~ 2.5, and inconsistent with either passive evolution from a high formation redshift or a non-evolving population. This evolution is broadly consistent with that observed in the hosts of other radio-loud AGN, and inconsistent with the flatter luminosity evolution of quiescent early types and radio-quiet hosts. This indicates that active star formation, and hence galaxy interactions, are associated with the formation for radio-loud AGN, and that these host galaxies preferentially accrete less material after their formation epoch than galaxies without powerful radio jets. We discuss possible explanations for the link between merger history and the incidence of a radio jet.Comment: 37 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, for full PDF incl. figures see http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~modowd/papers/odowdurry2005.pd

Atmospheric extinction properties above Mauna Kea from the Nearby Supernova Factory spectro-photometric data set

We present a new atmospheric extinction curve for Mauna Kea spanning 3200--9700 \AA. It is the most comprehensive to date, being based on some 4285 standard star spectra obtained on 478 nights spread over a period of 7 years obtained by the Nearby SuperNova Factory using the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph. This mean curve and its dispersion can be used as an aid in calibrating spectroscopic or imaging data from Mauna Kea, and in estimating the calibration uncertainty associated with the use of a mean extinction curve. Our method for decomposing the extinction curve into physical components, and the ability to determine the chromatic portion of the extinction even on cloudy nights, is described and verified over the wide range of conditions sampled by our large dataset. We demonstrate good agreement with atmospheric science data obtain at nearby Mauna Loa Observatory, and with previously published measurements of the extinction above Mauna Kea.Comment: 22 pages, 24 figures, 6 table