Not Subject to Appeal: A Poetic Exploration of Defunded Research

For a polyhedral terrain C, the contour at z-coordinate h, denoted Ch, is defined to be the intersection of the plane z = h with C. In this paper, we study the contour-line extraction problem, where we want to preprocess C into a data structure so that given a query z-coordinate h, we can report Ch quickly. This is a central problem that arises in geographic information systems (GIS), where terrains are often stored as Triangular Irregular Networks (TINS). We present an I/O-optimal algorithm for this problem which stores a terrain C with N vertices using O(N/B) blocks, where B is the size of a disk block, so that for any query h, the contour ch can be computed using o(log, N + I&l/B) I/O operations, where l&l denotes the size of Ch. We also present en improved algorithm for a more general problem of blocking bounded-degree planar graphs such as TINS (i.e., storing them on disk so that any graph traversal algorithm can traverse the graph in an I/O-efficient manner), and apply it to two problms that arise in GIS. *Supported in part by National Science Foundation research grant CCR-93-01259, by Army Research Office MURI grant DAAH04-96-1-0013, by a Sloan fellowship, by a National Science Foundation NY1 award and matching funds from Xerox Corporation, and by a grant from the U.S.-Israeli Binational Science Foundation. Email: pankajQcs .duke . edu. tsupported in part by U.S. Army Research Office grant DAAH04-96-1-0013. Email: large@cs . duke. edu. ZAffiliated with Brown University. Supported in part by National Science Foundation research grant CCR-9522047 and by Army Research Office MURI grant DAAH04-96-1-0013. Email: tmaxQcs.duke.edu. §Supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant CCR-93-01259, by an Army Research Office MURI grant DAAH04-96-1-0013, by a Sloan fellowship, and by a National Science Foundation NY1 award and matching funds from Xerox Corporation. Email: krv@cs . duke. edu. qsupported in part by the U.S. Army Research Office under grants DAAH04-93-G-0076 and DAAH04-96-1-0013 and by the National Science Foundation under grant CCR-9522047. Part of this work was done while visiting Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. Email: j svQcs . duke. edu. Figure 1: A terrain represented as a TIN.

Secretary’s Report, 2014

The Anesthesiology Discussion Group

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are playing a critical role today in helping America overcome a looming shortage of scientists and engineers who are vital to the nation's future economic growth and competitiveness. Despite meager funding and a lack of public recognition, these educational institutions are producing a large share of the nation's African American graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Congress abhors a vacuum. So this spring, after President Bush proposed a $200-million-a-year science and math education program to be run by the National Science Foundation (NSF) but offered scant details ( Science , 13 April, p. [182][1]), legislators jumped at the chance to influence one of the hottest political debates of the year. The result is a slew of bills that would flesh out Bush's sketchy plan to forge partnerships between university researchers and local school districts. Chances appear good that one or more of them will be adopted this year, although funding levels remain up in the air. Making the biggest splash is a plan introduced last week by the chair of the House Science Committee, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY). The National Mathematics and Science Partnerships Act (HR 1858) would authorize $267 million a year in programs to strengthen teacher training and professional development. The bill would establish a new NSF grants program that would link universities and nonprofit organizations with local schools and businesses to improve math and science instruction in elementary and secondary schools. It would also provide scholarships for science and math majors or scientists wishing to become teachers, give teachers grants to do university-level research, and create four NSF-funded centers to study how children learn. “One of the failings of our current [public education] system is that we don't take advantage of all the expertise residing in our universities and businesses,” said Boehlert in a prepared statement. “My bill is an effort to do just that.” Slightly different versions of the Bush plan are embodied in HR 1 and S 1, the main Republican vehicles for the president's overall effort to rework federal support for elementary and secondary schools. However, those bills would funnel most of the partnership money to local and state school districts through the Department of Education. ![Figure][2] Partners aplenty. Representative Sherwood Boehlert's science and math education bill is one of many that address a new NSF program. CREDIT: RICK KOZAK Boehlert's bill avoids a controversial provision in a related education bill sponsored by Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) that would require NSF to fund the salaries of master teachers at private as well as public schools. Ehlers says he hopes to move ahead with his bill, HR 100, which suffered a surprise defeat last fall ( Science , 10 November 2000, p. [1068][3]). But other observers predict that some of Ehlers's provisions will be folded into the chair's bill. Boehlert also hopes to join forces with House Democrats, who earlier this month introduced a partnerships bill, HR 1693, that places a greater emphasis on increasing the participaton of underrepresented groups and boosting educational technologies. Boehlert's plan appears to be closely aligned with NSF's thinking on Bush's partnership program, which officials first learned about in late January. Judith Sunley, head of NSF's education directorate, expects to issue an announcement this fall on how the program will be run. “We hope that our legislation will influence what [NSF] decides to do,” says Boehlert aide David Goldston, who expects the bill to be marked up by the full committee next month. Whatever their differences, these bills simply give NSF permission to carry out specific programs. The money to run them comes from appropriators, who will shortly start carving up some $661 billion in discretionary spending for the 2002 fiscal year, which begins in October. Political trade-offs are likely to shape NSF's overall budget, currently $4.4 billion and scheduled for a 1.3% boost. Despite widespread support for improving precollege math and science education, for instance, the 11% increase Bush has proposed for NSF's education programs might be vulnerable. On 16 May a House spending panel discussed shifting some education money into the foundation's core research programs in order to offset cuts and putting a freeze on major research facilities, as called for by the president's April budget. Comparing those cuts to a requested 13.5% increase for the National Institutes of Health, appropriations subcommittee chair James Walsh (R-NY) said after the hearing that “we may need to put more money into the physical sciences” to improve the balance of federally funded research. [1]: /lookup/volpage/292/182 [2]: pending:yes [3]: /lookup/volpage/290/1068b

The executive summary provides an overview of some of V&C's key recommendations regarding next steps in the effort to mobilize the biology community. It is, in essence, a call for national service. A publication discussing these recommendations and action items in more depth will be available later this year. Meanwhile, we highly recommend reading the Executive Summary of V&C, the NAS report (NAS, 2010), and a seminal article by Labov et al. (2010) summarizing the synergy created by these several reports on the changing nature of studies in biology and concomitant need to change biology education. Then, take action! Our hope is to see the formation of a community of biologists, similar to that forming in geology (Manduca et al., 2010): one that will advance biology undergraduate education so it truly reflects the discipline it serves.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Authorization Act of 1994, HR 3254, soared through the House in early May by a vote of 396‐22, but awaits further action by the House appropriators and the Senate.For fiscal year 1995, the bill authorizes $3.15 billion or an overall funding hike of 5% for NSF, which is about $50 million less than President Clinton's request.

As part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE grant, North Dakota State University (NDSU) created a program of men faculty Advocates to engage in gender-equity/climate improvement efforts. Sixteen men Advocates spent 4 years reading materials, attending NDSU ADVANCE FORWARD programming, and creating training sessions for male faculty gender-equity Allies. The current investigation reviews core aspects of effective Ally preparation programs, and then compares this Advocates program with elements of successful men’s profeminist gender-equity advocacy work. We discovered that the NDSU Advocates used 12 of Berkowitz’s 19 elements, with 4 additional elements present. Implications for this men’s gender-equity advocates program, similar programs at other colleges and universities, and other Ally/advocates programs are discussed.

This article aims to provide both personal and scholarly perspectives on how seeking mentoring and cultivating the skills of asking and networking are important habits that all faculty members can use on a day-to-day basis to build a successful academic career. While there are many different pathways that one can follow to achieve success, the examples included here come from the first author’s experiences as a faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Arkansas. The social science perspective for this article focuses on how these practices affect women, because 41% of Association for Women in Science (AWIS) fellows (men and women) state that mentoring of non-tenured (“junior”) faculty is still the major institutional policy that must be addressed in order for junior faculty to succeed [1]. There is a significant literature that provides practical advice as well as individual accounts of how women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have dealt with important career issues specific to academic settings [2–4]. Additionally, there are books available for navigating academia that are worthwhile for individual faculty members of all levels to read [5, 6]. While more systematic studies of the scientific careers of female faculty provide an important insight into the nature of the academic workplace and its operation, they do not provide the unique insights into the issues of intellectual growth, intellectual influences, and problem-solving strategies that individual stories provide. It is for this reason that principal investigators of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Advance grant at CUNY Hunter College decided to use interviews to gain the specific information that surveys could not provide [7]. In fact, in social sciences research there are rich scholarly traditions, the standpoint perspective, and a case-study approach emphasizing the importance of listening to and learning from the biographical narrative of a knowledgeable individual [8–12]. A case study-standpoint approach is especially valuable when the numbers of successful women faculty in a specific discipline are relatively small, creating obstacles for conducting large scale and more generalized studies. Importantly, even if such a study were an option, there is still great value in learning from specific experiences, especially when their meaning is likely to disappear in the aggregate data describing factors underlying the overall career patterns among women scientists. The importance of the experiences described here has been emphasized by social science literature covering the operation of social networks and the importance ofmentoring for faculty careers [13–15]. In addition to recognizing the importance of individual initiative, this scholarship also emphasizes the need to institutionalize the practices and strategies discussed here to ensure that diverse talents and skills of all scientists are fully utilized [16, 17]. We both hope that all readers who are either interested in or are currently starting an academic career will find this material useful.

This instrumental qualitative case study examines a formal mentoring program in fulfillment of a National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE grant at SouthEast University. A total of 38 executive mentors and 58 protégées participated in a program that promoted gender equity leadership, professional development, and advancement. The purpose of this study was to explore mentor and mentee perceptions of learning and development experiences, and to determine the efficacy of program elements and leadership pipeline access for women faculty. Based on the results, we offer suggestions for improvement and lessons learned that can help inform similar combined mentoring and leadership development initiatives.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the primary federal agency funding nonmedical research in the United States. However, relatively few organizational researchers consider approaching the agency, despite the funds it has available. It is easy to understand why: The agency has a reputation for preferring “hard science” and quantitative approaches, and there is no obvious home for organizational studies in the agency. NSF programs appear to recognize psychological and small-group research on the one hand, and sociological research on the other, with little emphasis on organizations. There are, however, several programs that have funded research on organizations, or relevant to organizations. Additionally, the NSF regularly solicits advice and direction from researchers on new directions for focus and attention. We argue that organization researchers should indeed approach NSF with robust research proposals. We provide suggestions for finding an appropriate application “home” within NSF. We also discuss the process of proposal preparation, offering suggestions on how to prepare a persuasive proposal, with comments on how the review process works. Finally, we close with a clarion call for organization researchers to help NSF understand the importance of organizations, and thus of organization research, to the whole array of the agency’s other research interests—to the effective practice of science; to organizing human activity, including economic and educational activity; and to management and governance of human activities in general. As such, we argue, NSF has a stake in organizational research—and organizational researchers have a stake in NSF.

Anthropology TodayVolume 17, Issue 1 p. 8-11 Engineering an Islamic future Speculations on Islamic financial alternatives Bill Maurer, Bill Maurer Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of CaliforniaSearch for more papers by this author Bill Maurer, Bill Maurer Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of CaliforniaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 20 December 2002 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.t01-1-00040Citations: 25AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume17, Issue1February 2001Pages 8-11 RelatedInformation

Secretary’s Report, 2013

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsAlan R. PriceAlan R. Price is assistant director and chief. Investigations Branch A, Division of Research Investigations, Office of Research Integrity, United States Public Health Service.

Commentary on US R & D programs for seismic base isolation