Talk, tools, and tensions: observing biological talk over time

The goal of this study is to explore new tools for analyzing scientific sense making in out-of-school settings. Although such measures are now common in science classroom research, dialogically-based methodological approaches are relatively new to informal learning research. Such out-of-classroom settings have more recently become a breeding ground for new design approaches for tracking scientific talk and ideas within complex data sets. The research reported here seeks to understand the language people do use to make sense of the life sciences over time. Another goal of this study is to track biological themes over time, using a new analytical scheme, Tool for Observing Biological Talk Over Time (TOBTOT). Our analyses are linked to and informed by tensions between particularistic and holistic data collection and analysis, qualitative and quantitative representations, and everyday and formal science discourse. These tensions and our analyses are linked to larger theoretical frameworks and to the recursive interplay between theory and practice

Exploration of Work and Health Disparities among Black Women Employed in Poultry Processing in the Rural South

We describe an ongoing collaboration that developed as academic investigators responded to a specific request from community members to document health effects on black women of employment in poultry-processing plants in rural North Carolina. Primary outcomes of interest are upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders and function as well as quality of life. Because of concerns of community women and the history of poor labor relations, we decided to conduct this longitudinal study in a manner that did not require involvement of the employer. To provide more detailed insights into the effects of this type of employment, the epidemiologic analyses are supplemented by ethnographic interviews. The resulting approach requires community collaboration. Community-based staff, as paid members of the research team, manage the local project office, recruit and retain participants, conduct interviews, coordinate physical assessments, and participate in outreach. Other community members assisted in the design of the data collection tools and the recruitment of longitudinal study participants and took part in the ethnographic component of the study. This presentation provides an example of one model through which academic researchers and community members can work together productively under challenging circumstances. Notable accomplishments include the recruitment and retention of a cohort of low-income rural black women, often considered hard to reach in research studies. This community-based project includes a number of elements associated with community-based participatory research

Lessons from the Subprime Meltdown

This paper uses Hyman P. Minsky's approach to analyze the current international financial crisis, which was initiated by problems in the American real estate market. In a 1987 manuscript, Minsky had already recognized the importance of the trend toward securitization of home mortgages. This paper identifies the causes and consequences of the financial innovations that created the real estate boom and bust. It examines the role played by each of the key playersincluding brokers, appraisers, borrowers, securitizers, insurers, and regulatorsin creating the crisis. Finally, it proposes short-run solutions to the current crisis, as well as longer-run policy to prevent it (a debt deflation) from happening again

Tap dancing to work : warren buffett on practically everything, 1966-2012 a fortune magazine book/ Loomis

xvii, 345 hal.: ill.; 23 cm