Peer Review Roulette

Instructional activity created by UCLA Library in support of International Open Access Week 2019. This actitivy takes users through a game of chance centered around the scholarly peer review process.

Here Comes the Sunburst: Measuring and Visualizing Scholarly Impact

Our ARL institution partnered with a new service (PlumX) to track, measure, and visualize faculty scholarly impact. In a pilot project, both traditional and emerging measures of scholarly impact were collected for 32 researchers. The presenters will chronicle the data management and enhancements applied, including utilizing content from our institutional repository, importing and enriching metadata, and using an intranet to organize work and collaborate with colleagues. Results will assist faculty and those who work with them to identify strengths and weaknesses of scholarly impact and where to focus efforts to increase research visibility

Robust Bayesian Analysis of Loss Reserves Data Using the Generalized-t Distribution

This paper presents a Bayesian approach using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and the generalized-t (GT) distribution to predict loss reserves for the insurance companies. Existing models and methods cannot cope with irregular and extreme claims and hence do not offer an accurate prediction of loss reserves. To develop a more robust model for irregular claims, this paper extends the conventional normal error distribution to the GT distribution which nests several heavytailed distributions including the Student-t and exponential power distributions. It is shown that the GT distribution can be expressed as a scale mixture of uniforms (SMU) distribution which facilitates model implementation and detection of outliers by using mixing parameters. Different models for the mean function, including the log-ANOVA, log-ANCOVA, state space and threshold models, are adopted to analyze real loss reserves data. Finally, the best model is selected according to the deviance information criterion (DIC).Bayesian approach; state space model; threshold model; scale mixtures of uniform distribution; device information criterion

Allied Health Regional Workforce Analysis: Bay Area Region

Analyzes the racial/ethnic composition of workers in twenty-two health occupations and graduates of healthcare education programs in the Bay Area. Examines disparities by race/ethnicity in the types of occupations held, educational attainment, and wages

Allied Health Regional Workforce Analysis: Central California

Analyzes the racial/ethnic compositions of workers in twenty-two health occupations and graduates of healthcare education programs in the Central Valley. Examines disparities by race/ethnicity in occupations held, educational attainment, and wages

La participation féministe au mouvement altermondialiste : une critique de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce

Le présent article examine les critiques féministes du savoir scientifique auxquelles les discours sur le développement, la modernisation et la mondialisation se rattachent. Il souligne l’importance des récits culturels dans les mouvements de résistance contre le néolibéralisme et déconstruit le discours dominant de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) sur l’équité, le développement, la stabilité et la démocratie. Enfin, à travers deux exemples de récits culturels alternatifs relatifs aux mouvements en faveur de l’annulation de la dette et de l’exclusion de l’agriculture du cadre de l’OMC, j’étudie le rôle des mouvements sociaux transnationaux et, en particulier, la participation féministe au sein de ce mouvement pour la promotion de systèmes de pensée radicalement différents de l’idéologie dominante du libre-échange.This article examines feminist critiques of modern scientific knowledge on which discourses on development, modernization, and globalization are built. It argues for the importance of cultural narratives in the resistance movement against neoliberalism and to deconstruct the dominant narrative of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on equity, development, stability and democracy. Finally, through two examples of alternative cultural narratives from the debt cancellation movement and the movement for the exclusion of agriculture from the WTO, I analyze the role of the alternative globalization movement, and, in particular, feminist participation in this movement in the promotion of radically different ways of thinking as alternatives to the neoliberal doctrine of free trade

Intergenerational Mechanisms Of Paternal Stress Transmission

Evidence that the intergenerational transmission of parental experiences can influence offspring outcomes prompts new consideration for the molecular mechanisms underlying disease risk and resilience. The role of the paternal preconception environment has been of particular interest, stimulating characterization of germ cell epigenetic marks that can respond dynamically to environmental insults and transmit this information at fertilization. Given such exciting potential for sperm epigenetic marks, how these marks are changed by the environment and subsequently impact offspring development are key questions that require investigation. In this dissertation, we address these questions using our established mouse model of paternal stress, where specific sperm microRNA altered by paternal chronic stress exposure causally reprogram offspring hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress axis reactivity and the hypothalamic transcriptome. First, we examined the role of glucocorticoids, a major component of the HPA stress response, as a signal for sperm microRNA changes. To ensure similar levels of glucocorticoids are produced in response to stress and thus are available for paternal cellular signaling, we developed an approach to confirm the stress sensitivity and reactivity of experimental mice. We next demonstrated that glucocorticoids are involved in communicating stress to the caput epididymis, a somatic tissue that secretes extracellular vesicles (EVs) to deliver microRNA from epididymal epithelial cells to maturing sperm. Using an in vitro model where we administered glucocorticoids to caput epididymal epithelial cells, we showed altered EV microRNA content and within epithelial cells, changes to histone post-translational modifications and increased glucocorticoid receptor levels, mimicking aspects of our in vivo paternal stress model. Further, we demonstrated the crucial role of caput epididymal glucocorticoid receptors in paternal stress transmission by transgenic knockdown, preventing offspring HPA axis and hypothalamic programming. In our final study, we provided evidence for the specificity of paternal stress sperm microRNA effects on embryonic brain and placental transcriptomes, indicating a tightly regulated process by which sperm microRNA are coordinated and function to influence offspring development. Together, the research presented in this dissertation provides insight into the mechanisms contributing to paternal transmission and support the paternal preconception environment as an influential factor in offspring disease risk and resilience