Digit ratio (2D:4D) and gender inequalities across nations

Gender inequality varies across nations, where such inequality is defined as the disproportionate representation of one sex over the other in desirable social, economic, and biological roles (typically male over female). Thus in Norway, 40% of parliamentarians are women, in the USA 17%, and in Saudi Arabia 0%. Some of this variation is associated with economic prosperity but there is evidence that this cause and effect can go in either direction. Here we show that within a population the average ratio of index (2D) to ring (4D) finger lengths (2D:4D)—a proxy measure of the relative degree to which offspring is exposed in utero to testosterone versus estrogen—is correlated with measures of gender inequality between nations. We compared male and female 2D:4D ratios to female parliamentary representation, labor force participation, female education level, maternal mortality rates, and juvenile pregnancy rates per nation in a sample of 29 countries. We found those nations who showed higher than expected female fetal exposure to testosterone (low 2D:4D) and lower than expected male exposure to fetal testosterone (high 2D:4D) had higher rates of female parliamentary representation, and higher female labor force participation. In short, the more similar the two sexes were in 2D:4D, the more equal were the two sexes in parliamentary and labor force participation. The other variables were not as strongly correlated. We suggest that higher than expected fetal testosterone in females and lower fetal testosterone in males may lead to high female representation in the national labor force and in parliament

The Transfer Playbook: Essential Practices For Two- And Four-year Colleges

Recognizing the critical need to help millions of community college students failed by current transfer practices and policies.  A new report provides a detailed guide for two- and four-year colleges on how to improve bachelor's degree outcomes for students who start at community college.Every year, millions of students aiming to attain a bachelor's degree attend community colleges because of their affordability and accessibility. Most will not realize their goals. While the vast majority of students report they want to earn a bachelor's degree, only 14 percent of degree-seeking students achieve that goal within six years, according to recent research from CCRC, Aspen, and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The odds are worse for low-income students, first-generation college students, and students of color—those most likely to start at a community college

What Do Students Think of Guided Pathways?

Increasingly, colleges and universities across the country are adopting “guided pathways” reforms to create clearly defined, educationally coherent pathways into and through programs of study for their students. Facilitated by built-in supports, the goal of guided pathways is to increase learning and graduation rates, and to help more students complete programs that lead to career advancement and further education as efficiently as possible. Yet, despite the breadth of the guided pathways movement and the ongoing studies underway to gauge its effect on key outcomes such as credential completion, we do not know enough about what students themselves think of guided pathways. The author of this brief examines data from 48 interviews with first-year students at City Colleges of Chicago (CCC)—a large urban community college system with seven campuses that since 2010 has been implementing guided pathways—to understand students’ reactions to CCC’s ambitious, system-wide reform. A large majority of the students were enthusiastic about program maps and educational planning—hallmarks of the guided pathways approach—yet a few students had negative reactions to these very same elements of the reform. And nearly half the students reported that they experienced problems with activities such as registration and course planning while new systems and practices were being deployed by the college, pointing to substantial implementation challenges

The Effect of Living-Learning Program Participation on College Students' Mental Health

This thesis used Astin's (1993) I-E-O framework to explore how participation in a living-learning program as well as other college environments affected college students' mental health. Data from seven unique institutions that administered an additional mental health module as a part of the 2008 and 2009 National Study of Living-Learning Programs were used in this study. Independent samples t tests, chi-squared tests, and multiple regression were the statistical methods used to investigate three research questions with Keyes et al. (2008) Mental Health Continuum - Short Form (MHC-SF) as the dependent variable. The final predictive model explained 33.5% and 37.6% of the variance in students' MHC-SF scores in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Findings did not evidence a predictive relationship between students' participation in a living-learning program and their mental health. Several aspects of the college environment favorably predicted students' mental health, including ease with transition to college, socially supportive residence hall climate, self-confidence, sense of belonging, and sense of civic engagement. Other variables unfavorably predicted students' mental health, including identification as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, as well as emotional consequences of alcohol use. This study's findings offer implications for practitioners and directions for future research

Sedimentology and stratigraphy of the Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene El Molino Formation, Eastern Cordillera and Altiplano, Central Andes, Bolivia: implications for the tectonic development of the Central Andes

The Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene El Molino Formation of the Bolivian Central Andes consists of mixed siliciclastic and carbonate strata alternately interpreted as syn-rift, post-rift thermal sag and foreland basin deposits. These deposits can be divided into two lithostratigraphic sequences. The first sequence consists of a carbonate, carbonate sand and mudrock lower member, a middle member consisting entirely of mudrock and an upper member containing carbonates and mudrocks. The second lithostratigraphic sequence contains a lower member composed of carbonate sands, carbonates and mudrocks, and an upper member consisting of a coarsening upwards sequence of sandstones and mudrocks. Within these lithostratigraphic sequences, five facies associations can be identified: 1) an open water facies; 2) a nearshore facies; 3) a beach, bar and shoal facies; 4) a floodplain facies; and 5) a fluvial facies. A regional study of El Molino Formation stratigraphic stacking patterns and facies association geographic distributions suggests that deposition occurred within a dominantly lacustrine basin. For most of El Molino Formation deposition, the lacustrine system remained hydrologically-closed and perennial, although evidence indicates that depositional systems experienced periodic ephemeral lacustrine conditions as well as hydrologically open lacustrine and/or shallow marine depositional environments. While lacustrine systems exist in syn-rift, post-rift thermal sag and foreland basin systems, sedimentological and stratigraphic data, in addition to an absence of key indicators of tectonic activity (e.g. faulting, growth strata) limit the El Molino Formation tectonic setting to post-rift thermal sag and/or foreland basin back-bulge settings. Paleocurrent and provenance data further support the interpretation for post-rift thermal sag and/or back-bulge basin deposition, indicating flow of continental block provenance sediment into a central depositional basin while clast count data show a simple unroofing sequence indicative of the tectonic quiescence associated with post-rift thermal sag and foreland basin back-bulge tectonic settings

Tracking Transfer: New Measures of Institutional and State Effectiveness in Helping Community College Students Attain Bachelor's Degrees

Increasing the effectiveness of two- to four-year college transfer is critical for meeting national goals for college attainment and promoting upward social mobility. Efforts to improve institutional effectiveness in serving transfer students and state transfer policy have been hampered by a lack of comparable metrics for measuring transfer student outcomes. In this report, we propose a common set of metrics for measuring the effectiveness of two- and four-year institutions in enabling degree-seeking students who start college at a community college to transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor's degrees. These include three community college measures -- transfer-out rate, transfer-with-award rate, and transfer-out bachelor's completion rate -- and one measure for four-year institutions -- transfer-in bachelor's completion rate. We also examine a fifth measure: the overall rate at which the cohort of students who start at a community college in a given state go on to earn a bachelor's degree from a four-year institution. In the conclusion of the report, we discuss implications for institutional leaders and policymakers and identify areas for further research

Distance distributions for graphs modeling computer networks

AbstractThe Wiener polynomial of a graph G is a generating function for the distance distribution dd(G)=(D1,D2,…,Dt), where Di is the number of unordered pairs of distinct vertices at distance i from one another and t is the diameter of G. We use the Wiener polynomial and several related generating functions to obtain generating functions for distance distributions of unweighted and weighted graphs that model certain large classes of computer networks. These provide a straightforward means of computing distance and timing statistics when designing new networks or enlarging existing networks

Tracking Transfer: New Measures of Institutional and State Effectiveness in Helping Community College Students Attain Bachelor’s Degrees

This report is designed to help improve transfer student outcomes by helping institutional leaders and policymakers better understand current outcomes and providing them with metrics for benchmarking their performance. The authors propose a common set of metrics for measuring the effectiveness of two- and four-year institutions in enabling degree-seeking students who start college at a community college to transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor’s degrees. These include three community college measures—transfer-out rate, transfer-with-award rate, and transfer-out bachelor’s completion rate—and one measure for four-year institutions—transfer-in bachelor’s completion rate. They also examine a fifth measure: the overall rate at which the cohort of students who start at a community college in a given state go on to earn a bachelor’s degree from a four-year institution. Using a rich set of data from the National Student Clearinghouse on more than 700,000 degree-seeking students who first enrolled in community college in 2007, the authors calculated the average outcomes on these measures six years after these students entered college. Performance on all measures varied widely across individual institutions and states. Institutional characteristics were not strongly correlated with student outcomes at community colleges, suggesting that institutions that serve transfer students well can have better-than-expected outcomes even if they have relatively few resources or more disadvantaged students. Among four-year institutions, transfer students had better outcomes at public institutions, very selective institutions, and institutions with higher socioeconomic status students. Lower income transfer students had worse outcomes than higher income students on almost all measures, though in a few states, the success gap between lower and higher income students was small or nonexistent

Ceeable Visual Field Analyzer (CVFA^(TM) for the Portable, Comprehensive, and Tele-medical Assessment of Visual Performance over Time in Warfighters, Pilots, Veterans, and Civilians

We introduce a portable, easy-to-use, worldwide accessible (i.e., web-based), and comprehensive tele-medical visual performance assessment system – the Ceeable Visual Field Analyzer (CVFATM) – for warfighters, pilots, veterans, and civilians to: (1) Accurately and rapidly assess visual performance; (2) characterize visual performance and ocular conditions; and (3) detect the onset of ocular conditions to allow for timely countermeasures as well as patient follow-up over time. CVFA has been shown to be effective in multiple clinical studies. The technology is rapid (< 5 minutes per eye), easy (use of touchscreen), accurate (spatial resolution < 1 degree), non-invasive, and comprehensive. The system automatically characterizes visual field defects in real time to generate new diagnostic insight. The visual performance assessment system is readily adaptable to traditional clinical and non-clinical settings (e.g., in forward operating bases in the theatre). It is capable of rapidly assessing conditions affecting the visual performance of warfighters in the field, allowing for triage and timely application of therapeutic countermeasures. The enabling technologies are a low-cost tablet computer and Internet connection. Ceeable is deploying the technology on a global basis to patients who will benefit from monitoring changes in visual function