Academic Credentials Research Articles

Gaffs: Why No One Can Get a House and What We Can Do About It by Rory Hearne, and: Housing in Ireland: Beyond the Markets ed. by Lorcan Sirr, and: Ways out of the European Housing Crisis ed. by Christoph U. Schmid

Reviewed by: Gaffs: Why No One Can Get a House and What We Can Do About It by Rory Hearne, and: Housing in Ireland: Beyond the Markets ed. by Lorcan Sirr, and: Ways out of the European Housing Crisis ed. by Christoph U. Schmid Martina Madden (bio) Rory Hearne, Gaffs: Why No One Can Get a House and What We Can Do About It (Dublin: HarperCollins Ireland, 2022), 342 pages. Lorcan Sirr (ed.), Housing in Ireland: Beyond the Markets (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2022), 313 pages. Christoph U. Schmid (ed.), Ways out of the European Housing Crisis (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2022), 416 pages. There is nobody in Ireland who can be unaware of the crisis in housing and homelessness at this point, either through first-hand experience or its prevalence in the news cycle. Unfortunately, despite the fact that almost 11,000 people are homeless and an innumerable amount are unable to find or maintain a secure affordable home, no imminent solution to the problem has been found. Three books published this year examine issues around the crisis and attempt to contribute to its resolution. Gaffs, by Maynooth University lecturer Rory Hearne, sets out ‘to inform, engage, educate and inspire real change in housing’.1 Housing in Ireland: Beyond the Markets, edited by Lorcan Sirr, a Senior Lecturer in Housing, Planning and Development at the Technological University Dublin, brings together a range of housing experts and practitioners to ‘deliberately neglect market issues, and instead focus on elements of housing that have never been examined deeply enough’.2 Ways out of the European Housing Crisis, edited by Christoph U. Schmid, Professor of European Private and Economic Law at the University of Bremen, seeks to fill the gap of the ‘scientific evaluation, categorisation and comparison aimed at exploiting the potential of tenure innovation and diversification’3 in housing. These are three very different books. They are for different audiences and reflect this in their content as well as the overall style and tone of the writing. But together they make a valuable contribution to the conversation around this often complex and seemingly intractable issue. Gaffs is an accessible book aimed at the cohort most affected by the current crisis – Generation Y, or Millennials (broadly defined as people born [End Page 120] between the years 1981 to 1996), who are also known as Generation Locked-out, Generation Rent, and Generation Emigration. Aside from Hearne’s academic credentials, he is a well-known media personality who has a strong online presence via his Twitter profile and Reboot Republic podcast, making him well-placed to reach the readers this book targets. Gaffs answers the first part of the book’s subtitle in the first four chapters. No one can get a house – primarily – because of a historical policy shift in the 1980s where the Irish state stopped building public housing and instead moved to an economic framework that promoted the market provision of housing; the repercussions of which we are now only fully experiencing. Hearne takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of the many and varied failures of successive governments to act to prevent this catastrophe, in a journey that begins with state’s initial commitment to providing homes as a form of social welfare, to the pivot to free market capitalism which ultimately enabled the Celtic Tiger, and through the political decisions taken in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash that have led us to the point we are now at. For the next four chapters, Hearne delves deep into the impact of the lack of affordable housing on people’s lives. The statistics about this crisis are shocking enough – almost 11,000 people are homeless and another 250,000 are the ‘hidden homeless’, whose personal stories evoke a feeling of anger on behalf of people whose lives are on hold through no fault of their own. Relationships are affected or not possible, having children is deferred, taking on a challenge like going back to college or changing career becomes too risky when you have nowhere secure to live or are forced to move back in with aging parents. Adults stuck in their parental home comprise an astonishing 10% of...

Barriers to Studying Social Work in Australia for Unvaccinated People

ABSTRACT Australian higher education providers (HEPs) gatekeep access to social work education using academic credentials, as well as criminal history checks. Some HEPs take an “as needed” approach to vaccination, while some add vaccination status as a gatekeeping criterion, and eligibility to study can be contingent upon all prospective students being fully vaccinated. We examined the websites of the 32 Australian HEPs that offered accredited social work programs at the time of the study, to determine the extent to which mandatory vaccination was required. Of these, 28% (n = 9) specified that students must be fully vaccinated in order to participate in compulsory field placements, irrespective of the requirements of placement agencies. Of these 9 HEPs, 7 had their social work programs located in a health or allied health school. IMPLICATIONS The choice of where to study social work in Australia is reduced for some prospective students by HEP policies that require mandatory vaccination The rationale for mandating vaccinations for social work students by some HEPs is unclear, and may be related to programs being co-located in health focused schools/departments, or a reflection of a broader emphasis on risk management Mandating vaccination for no compelling reason is at odds with broader public policy principles and may conflict with human rights principles, which are fundamental to social work

Blockchain in Education- A Review

The adoption of blockchain technology began with the creation of several cryptocurrencies. It was initially employed as a peer-to-peer ledger for recording bitcoin cryptocurrency transactions. Researchers and professionals are becoming more and more aware of the huge potential of the technology that underpins bitcoin. This is mainly due to its unique features including decentralization, security, reliability, and data integrity. Blockchain is currently seen as a multipurpose technology with enormous potential. Applications built on the blockchain come with built-in features like authenticity, stability, and agreement. In addition, information kept on a blockchain ledger can be viewed from anywhere at any time. The management and upkeep of educational records have a lot of potential for blockchain technology. Despite this growing interest, little is known about the knowledge and practice surrounding the application of blockchain technology in education at the moment. Blockchain in education is still in its early phases of development. The adoption of blockchain technology in educational institutions is still relatively low. The majority of these institutions use it to verify and disseminate academic credentials and/or learning outcomes that their students have attained. Blockchain technology, according to experts, has a lot more to give and has the potential to change the industry. This paper does a thorough analysis of the literature on blockchain-based educational applications. It focuses on four key topics: (1) Literature review for papers based on blockchain-based education applications 2) Potential uses cases in this field (3) Some popular projects developed in education (4) Future trends in the current discussion associated with implementing blockchain technology in education.

Government innovation subsidy, executives' academic capital and innovation quality: Evidence from pharmaceutical companies in China.

The government employs innovation subsidies as a key incentive strategy to promote companies to innovate more technically. This study analyses how innovation subsidies influences the quality of corporate innovation. We create an innovation quality index for pharmaceutical corporations using categorizing data from patent applications submitted by pharmaceutical companies. Using data from 180 listed Chinese pharmaceutical companies between 2010 and 2020, this study proposes a panel regression model to assess the influence of government innovation subsidies on innovation quality, as well as the moderating effect of CEOs' academic capital. How well innovations are subsidized is also affected by the heterogeneity of property rights. Innovation subsidy has a greater and more positive impact on non-SOEs. This article demonstrates that CEOs with academic credentials and executives with ties to the pharmaceutical industry have a variety of moderate effects. The research offers novel suggestions for enhancing business creativity and the innovation subsidy programme.

Geography-mediated institutionalised cultural capital: regional inequalities in graduate employment

ABSTRACT This article investigates how regional inequalities shape the employment seeking experiences and behaviour of graduates by drawing on the case of Chinese Master’s graduates under COVID19. Based on interviews with graduates who chose to work as the ‘targeted selected graduates’ (TSG) of University A, located in the underdeveloped regions of North-western China, we show how their employment seeking was jointly impacted by three different but inter-related fields, the national economic, higher education, and graduate employment fields. These students were situated in a unique juncture across these fields; while their elite credentials from University A qualified them for these elite TSG programmes, they were disadvantaged by being excluded from TSG recruitments at economically developed regions. Importantly, we highlight that institutionalised cultural capital in the form of academic credentials from elite HEIs does not work in a ‘straightforward’ manner, but it has to be considered in conjunction with the geo-economic locations of their HEIs. We, therefore, propose the notion of ‘geography-mediated institutionalised cultural capital’ to capture this significant but under-theorised aspect of the graduate employment scene. This conceptual innovation enlightens the analysis of regional differences in different countries by considering how official or unofficial regional authorities’ interventions shape graduate employment.

The phenotype of academic pathology chairs

Academic pathology departments across the United States vary greatly in terms of size, clinical workloads and research activity. It is therefore not surprising that their chairs may be an equally diverse group. However, to our knowledge, little is formally known about the “phenotype” (academic credentials, leadership background, and subspecialty focus) or career pathways of these individuals. Using a survey tool, this study sought to determine whether or not dominant phenotypes or trends. Several predominant findings emerged including: race (80% Whites), gender (68% males), dual degrees (41% MD/PhDs), years in practice (56% being in practice >15 years at time of first chair appointment), rank upon appointment (88% holding the rank of professor), and funded research (67% holding research funding). While Anatomic and Clinical Pathology (AP/CP) certified chairs represented 46% of the cohort, 30% were AP-only and another 10% were Anatomic Pathology and Neuropathology (AP/NP) certified. For subspecialty focus, neuropathology (13%) and molecular pathology (15%) were disproportionately represented compared to the general population of pathologists. Previous leadership roles on the path to chairmanship included vice chair (41%), division chief (39%), residency program director (29%), or fellowship director (27%). Many (41%) had not participated in any formal business or leadership training. This information may influence training or experience pursued by individuals aspiring to academic pathology leadership. It also highlights the challenges of suboptimal diversity in race and gender, as well as the professional backgrounds of academic pathology chairs and may suggest consideration of alternate pathways to leadership.

Towards the Development of a Blockchain-based Decentralized Digital Credential System using Hyperledger Fabric for Participatory Governance

The Philippines’ ICT agenda to promote participatory e-Governance, industry and countryside development, and ICT user protection and information security can be addressed by Blockchain. This study used Hyperledger Fabric to develop a Blockchain network for a secured and validated system for issuing, distributing, and sharing digital credentials. For the initial prototype, the network was tested on two use cases: national identification system and academic credentials. Chaincodes were developed for each type of digital credential and deployed into designated Channels in the network. Initial results show that a Blockchain-based system using the Hyperledger Fabric framework is feasible for developing a secure digital credential platform. The current architecture can support the implementation of the initial use cases and can also accommodate the addition of new use cases in the future. The current iteration of our work provides the groundwork for developing a production-level ready platform. Future work for this study includes the development of the end-user web application where users can interact with the network and initiate transactions. The deployment of the Blockchain network may pave the way toward decentralized e-Participatory governance.

The role of school principals in addressing the educational loss in English Language resulting from COVID-19 pandemic from teachers’ perspective

Introduction. Disruptions to the educational system and ESL programmes have been particularly severe as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Significant losses in learning outcomes, have resulted from the forced shift from traditional to remote learning modes, exposing weaknesses and large holes in the educational framework. These disruptions in the classroom have highlighted the critical need for thorough research into and comprehension of the new educational landscapes, which are characterised by decreased language exposure, fewer practise opportunities, and lessened interactive learning. To create innovative and adaptable educational frameworks that can lessen the effects of global disruptions on language acquisition and academic success, this knowledge is essential. Aim. The study aimed to identify the role of public-school principals in addressing the effects of educational loss resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic from the teachers’ perspective, and to reveal the significance of differences in estimates according to the classification variables of the research. Study participants and methods. The researchers used the descriptive method in its analytical and constructive style, and they used the focus group method (focused), and the questionnaire was used and applied to a random sample of (153) English teachers chosen from 30 public schools in the capital Amman. The results. The study showed that the total score of the overall relative weight of the four domains (administrative role, technical, supervisory, and societal role) was determined to be 70.24%, with the relative weights of the administrative role being 68.86%, the technical role being 68.20%, the supervisory role being 73.46%, and the societal role being 69.58%. From the teachers’ perspective, the principals' high levels of involvement in all of these areas are indicative of the significance principals place on their supervisory role in the regular course of school life. High levels of implementation can be seen in the relative weights given to certain sections within these domains, such as the preparation of school schedules and the listing of abilities lost among children as a result of dropping out of school (71.36% and 71.50%, respectively). The "T" and "Sig" values in all sections of the survey show that there are no statistically significant differences in school principals' perspectives on preventing and reversing student learning loss on the basis of gender or educational background; similar patterns were identified across roles, highlighting consistency of approach regardless of gender or academic credentials; for example, the Significance value for the teachers perspectives about the administrative role of male (Mean=3.537, N=83) principals was 0.142 compared to female principals (Mean=3.332, N=70), which means male principals act their administrative role more effective than female principals. Conclusions. The spread of COVID-19 has clearly altered the status quo of education, especially for ESL classes. As a result, the transition to online education has highlighted critical flaws in the traditional model. This study sought to better understand the critical function of public school principals in preventing educational losses from the perspective of English instructors in Amman. On average, the data showed that principals played a significant influence in preventing these dropouts throughout the administrative, technical, supervisory, and sociological spheres, with the latter function appearing as the most important. Principals' approaches were constant across gender and educational boundaries. There was a small but noticeable disparity between the administrative efficacy of male and female principals. Given these findings, it's evident that schools need to change their teaching methods to better prepare students for the future. This is especially true when it comes to English Language Acquisition (ELA), where students need to be prepared for both current and future issues.

A Privacy-Centered Protocol for Enhancing Security and Authentication of Academic Certificates

Academic certificate authentication is crucial in safeguarding the rights and opportunities of individuals who have earned academic credentials. This authentication helps prevent fraud and forgery, ensuring that only those who have genuinely earned certificates can use them for education and career opportunities. With the increased use of online education and digital credentials in the digital age, the importance of academic certificate authentication has significantly grown. However, traditional techniques for authentication, such as QR code, barcode, and watermarking, have limitations regarding security and privacy. Therefore, proposing a privacy-centred protocol to enhance the security and authentication of academic certificates is vital to improve the trust and credibility of digital academic certificates, ensuring that individuals' rights and opportunities are protected. In this context, we adopted the Challenge Handshake Authentication (CHA) protocol to propose the Certificate Verification Privacy Control Protocol (CVPC). We implemented it using Python and Flask with a Postgres database and an MVT structure for the application. The results of the implementation demonstrate that the proposed protocol effectively preserves privacy during the academic certificate issuance and verification process. Additionally, we developed a proof of concept to evaluate the proposed protocol, demonstrating its functionality and performance. The PoC provided insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed protocol and highlighted its potential to prevent forgery and unauthorised access to academic certificates. Overall, the proposed protocol has the potential to significantly enhance the security and authenticity of academic certificates, improving the overall trust and credibility of the academic credentialing system.

AN AMAZING CASE OF IRREGULARITY, CORRUPTION AND ILLEGALITY; APPOINTMENT OF PROFESSOR of PHARMACY IN PUBLIC SECTOR UNIVERSITY WITH HIS UNACCEPTABLE, ILLEGITIMATE D AND NON-SUPPORTIVE EXTERNAL EVALUATION REPORTS OF FOREIGN EXPERTS

The quality control in public and private sector universities improve the over quality of education and professional skills in local and international economy. That also gives confidence and certainty to educational system and help to maintained high quality standards. Additionally, these become important component to deliver and contribute in human resources. the faculty position description that covers the scholarly areas should include the experience, academic credentials, and particular disciplinary background. That should compatible with international standards that appeal to a broad applicant pool. For this purpose, we have to avoid the conditions that deter the highly qualified applicants around the world. Avoid the “replacement” of faculty member who has left or retired from the department

Academic and Skills Credentialing Using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and W3C Standards: Technology Assessment

The ongoing push for the 4th industrial revolution is setting the stage to digitise, persist and verify identity along with credentials. Academic and skills credentials are currently verified manually and have much scope for automation using cryptographic techniques but requires standardisation to facilitate future systems interoperability. The Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials (VC) standards presents the possibility to achieve this credential verification automation. To accomplish this, an understanding of various DLTs and requirements for a viable skills tracking system is important. Therefore, this research aims to access the selected DLTs against the assessment criterion presented and an analysis has been completed to determine which DLT is suitable for the proposed system. The DLTs are assessed in terms of their ability to support the rapid prototyping of such a system and provide recommendations to guide a future development path from the perspective of standards compliance. We conclude that few DLTs possess the maturity to provide proper requirements coverage due to the emergent nature of the DLT space. Additionally, this paper presents the high-level requirements to achieve a minimally viable solution that can demonstrate such digital credential verification in the academic and skills tracking context.

Prevalence of internet addiction among Syrian undergraduate medical students.

The purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence and risk factors for internet addiction disorder among Syrian medical students. Syrian medical students from 8 different universities participated in an online cross-sectional questionnaire study between May 13 and June 16, 2022. DASS-21 Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale, and Internet Addiction Test were the 3 main determinants of the questionnaire. One thousand nine hundred fifty-three medical students from 8 different Syrian universities have participated in our cross-sectional. Half of the participants were from the Syrian private and Damascus universities. 62.1% were females, and most participants had good academic degrees (70-90/100). Sixty-nine percent of the study participants thought that COVID19 increased internet use rates. The Internet Addiction Scale's average score was 33.48 ± 16.29 (1-100). The total young internet addiction test score was high among medical students from the faculty of medicine university, students from Damascus University, males, smokers, and medical students with lower academic credentials than other subgroups. Both the relationship between internet addiction and DASS-21 subgroups and the correlation between DASS-21 subgroups were statistically significant. Our research showed that internet addiction was widespread among Syrian medical students, particularly when used more for entertainment than educational purposes. Additionally, it was linked to poor academic degrees in the exams at the university and mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, and stress.

Robert (Bob) John Novak June 5, 1947 to August 4, 2022

Dr. Robert Novak (“Dr. Bob”), our dear friend and colleague, passed away on August 4, 2022, at the age of 75, in Tampa, Florida. Much can be said about his academic credentials and accomplishments from his long career. He was a respected professor with multiple appointments in several academic departments of medicine, microbiology, and public health. He served as a consultant and advisor for numerous national and international organizations, including the EPA, WHO, Chinese Academy of Sciences, US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Illinois Governor's Office and Pollution Control Board, Vector Control Division of the Puerto Rico Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health of the US Virgin Islands, US Agency for International Development in Honduras, US Army Medical Virology Institute in Fort Detrick, Maryland, Pan American Health Organization Aedes aegypti biology and control, and Pueblo (Colorado) Board of Water Works. Bob was a world-renowned medical entomologist with his research focused on mosquito biology and control. He was also a member of many professional organizations among which the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) and the Society for Vector Ecology (SOVE) stood so dear to him that he seldom missed their annual meetings. For his service and dedication, Bob received several AMCA awards: Presidential Citation (1993), Memorial Lecture Award (1998), and Medal of Honor (2003), while he served as the AMCA President in 1996–1997. He also served as SOVE President in 2007 and received the society's Distinguished Service Award in 2013. While his many notable accomplishments and contributions can be addressed by others, to me and many others, he was known as Dr. Bob, or simply Bob. We all know how much he loved Colorado, second only to how much he loved his wife, Lorraine. His stories about his upbringing on a cattle ranch and how that influenced his decision to enter the field of public health are legendary. The funny thing is that he loved animals but found the connection between them and the bugs that fed on them to be fascinating. This happens to the vast majority of those of us working in medical and livestock entomology, so we all accepted his comments as par for the course, never odd.Bob was a great man. It's been said that you can gauge a person's greatness according to their degree of commitment, and this was certainly true of Bob. A person like Bob is great because he speaks directly to you and lives according to what he says, and when he treats you with affection and respect. A person is great when he does not think about only himself, when he behaves in a kind way, when he provides support, or when he supports others when they most need him. Bob always demonstrated what is most important between two people: friendship, companionship, affection, and respect. Bob was a giant. He was always interested in your life and looked for opportunities for your personal and professional growth, encouraging his students and colleagues to dream and explore areas outside the conventional box. This was especially true when it meant doing things everyone else thought were so farfetched and impossible, such as his project with the satellite imagery for mosquito surveillance and control.Bob never allowed himself to be governed by clichéd behaviors and cared little for how he looked in front of others. He abhorred being manipulated or handling people like a puppeteer. He dealt with most disappointments with grace and deference and shared his opinions clearly and with certainty. Bob was blunt and direct, but he always tried to understand the perspectives of others even when he didn't see things the same way they did. We all have at least one instance when his bluntness was clearly manifested, to be washed off later with a beer. He always placed himself in your position and judged you on what he expected from himself under that circumstance. In his personal life, Bob enjoyed fine and exotic dining. Very seldom can one witness a person enjoy the pleasure of a new dish the way he enjoyed fried crickets and sautéed scorpions at a roadside diner in Cambodia or a bowl of mystery porridge served in a crusty bowl as he did at a gourmet dinner in Eritrea close to the border with Sudan.Bob was a consummate field entomologist who could not be judged through centimeters, meters, or wealth. He was defined by his actions, honesty, and decency, and will be remembered as kind and respectful of the feelings and interests of others.Dr. Bob was a great man whose memory and joy for living will remain vibrant in the hearts of many. For his sensitivity and how he treated others, Dr. Bob was a giant.

Masters and Doctor of Philosophy admission prediction of Bangladeshi students into different classes of universities

Many Bangladeshi students intend to pursue higher studies abroad after completing their undergraduate degrees every year. Choosing a university for higher education is a challenging task for students. Especially, the students with average and lower academic credentials (undergraduate grades, English proficiency test scores, job, and research experiences) can hardly choose the universities that could match their profile. In this paper, we have analyzed some real unique data of Bangladeshi students who had been accepted admissions at different universities worldwide for higher studies. Finally, we have produced prediction models based on random forest (RF) and decision tree (DT) techniques, which can predict appropriate universities of specific classes for students according to their past academic performances. Two separate models have been studied in this paper, one for Masters (MS)students and another for Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)students. According to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, the universities where the students got admitted have been divided into 9 classes for MS students and 8 classes for PhD students. Accuracy, precision, recall and F1-Score have been studied for the two machine learning algorithms. Numerical results show that both the algorithm DT and RF have the same accuracy of 89% for PhD student data and 86% for MS student data.

Posters Presented at North American Skull Base Society 2016-2018: What Factors Influence Their Publication?

Objective Research productivity impacts an individual's academic credentials and serves to advance the field of neurosurgery at large. Poster presentations allow researchers to share preliminary results with respected colleagues; however, more critical is the ability to publish peer-reviewed articles. Key factors that lead posters to journal publication are not well understood and difficult to quantify. This study investigates the association between bibliometrics of authors who presented posters at the North American Skull Base Society (NASBS) meeting and odds of journal publication. Methods Posters from the 2016 to 2018 NASBS archive were reviewed. Hirsch-index (h-index) of first (FH) and senior (SH) authors, research type, research topic, and number of poster authors (nAuthPost) were collected. For posters published as journal articles, number of days from poster presentation to publication (nDays), number of authors in published articles (nAuthArt), and journal impact factor (JIF) were recorded. Results One-hundred sixty-nine of 481 posters (35.1%) were published as articles. Median FH and SH for published versus unpublished posters were 7 versus 5 ( p = 0.01) and 29 versus 19 ( p < 0.001), respectively. When adjusted with multivariate regression, only SH ( p < 0.001) and nAuthPost ( p = 0.001) were significantly associated with odds of publication. Median (interquartile range [IQR]) nDays was 361 (394). Increased authors from poster to article ( p = 0.017) and lower FH ( p = 0.08) were correlated with increased time to publication. Median (IQR) JIF for all publications was 1.723 (1.068). Conclusions Bibliometrics such as h-index and number of authors from posters can help objectively characterize and predict future success in research productivity.

Investigation on Gender Differences in Leadership of Stroke-Related Clinical Trials.

Gender disparities among principal investigators of clinical trials (CT) can have implications regarding the areas of investigation, methods, conduct, trial enrollment, and interpretation of results. An estimation of the gender gap in the leadership of stroke-related CTs from North America has to date not been undertaken. We extracted information about stroke-related CTs between 2011 and 2020 from www. gov and PubMed. We examined the gender distribution according to the academic credentials and the trial type. The gender of PIs and authors was determined using gender package in R, which identifies gender using historical data from the United States. Additionally, we obtained information from Association of American Medical Colleges and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education data resource books on the gender composition of full-time neurology faculty, neurology residents and vascular neurology fellows. In these analyses of 821 CTs registered on Clinicaltrials.gov and 110 trials published on PubMed, we found that gender disparity among the PIs, first and last authors have persisted over the last decade without any significant trend toward parity (P>0.05). On examining the gender distribution according to academic credentials and trial type, we found that men were over-represented in the sub-group of PIs with an MD degree (78.11% versus 21.87%; P<0.01) and those leading acute stroke trials (86.04% versus 13.89%; P<0.01). We also found that a lower proportion of women neurology residents pursued a vascular neurology fellowship during this period (33.5% versus 42.5%; P<0.05). Our results show that the favorable trend toward gender parity seen in Neurology faculty over the last decade has not translated to the same in the leadership of CTs. Our findings merit further investigation and a re-examination of efforts toward inclusion of women as leaders of stroke-related CTs.

Faculty Scoring of General Surgery Residency Interviewees: A Comparison of In-Person and Virtual Interview Formats

With new rules regarding social distancing and non-essential travel bans, we sought to determine if faculty scoring of general surgery applicants would differ between the in-person interview (IPI) and virtual interview (VI) platforms. A single institution, retrospective review comparing faculty evaluation scores of applicant interviewees in the 2019 and 2020 MATCH® application cycles (IPIs) and the 2021 and 2022 application cycle (VIs) was conducted. Faculty scored applicants using a 5-point Likert scale in 7 areas of assessment and assigned each student to 1 of 4 tiers (tier 1 highest). A composite score for the 7 assessments (maximum score 35) was calculated. Mean and composite scores and tiers were compared between VI and IPI cycles and adjusted for within-interviewer correlations. The variance of the 2 groups were also compared. Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, an academic, tertiary care hospital. General Surgery applicants for the 2019 to 2022 MATCH® application cycles. Four hundred forty-one faculty IPI ratings of General Surgery applicants were compared to 531VI ratings. No difference in mean composite scores, individual assessments, or tier ranking. Less variance was identified in the VI group for academic credentials (0.6 vs 0.6, p = 0.01), strength of letters (0.7 vs 0.4, p = 0.005), communication skills (0.4 vs 0.6, p = 0.01), personal qualities (0.2 vs 0.5, p = 0.02), overall sense of fit for program (0.6 vs 0.9, p = 0.01), and tier ranking (0.3 vs 0.4, p = 0.004). Faculty ratings of General Surgery applicants in the VI format appear to be similar to IPI. However, faculty ratings of VI applicants demonstrated less variability in scores in most assessments. This finding is potentially concerning, as it may suggest an inability of VI to detect subtle differences between applicants as comparted to IPI.

The Sinatra Doctrine: bespoke approaches to academic research in surgery

Introduction Academic scholarly credentials are now obtained in two broad ways: out of programme research (OOPR) experience via bespoke funding (BF) or a higher degree (HD) funded by run-through fellowships (academic clinical fellow/lecturer in England or Wales Clinical Academic Track [WCAT]). The aim of this study was to determine the relative academic credentials achieved related to HD route, surgical specialty and topic. Methods Fifty-four postgraduate trainees engaged in HD study were followed and the primary outcome measures were HD completion, publication number and Hirsch index (HI). Results There were 38 BF trainees and 16 WCAT trainees. General surgical trainees were more likely to choose postgraduate research (n = 37, 68.5%) than other specialties (n = 17, 31.5%). Similarly, trainees in general surgery were more likely to choose the BF route than the WCAT pathway (94.6% vs 12.5%, (p &lt; 0.001), with ethnic minorities also more likely to choose WCAT (56.3% vs 18.4%, p = 0.005). HD completion rates were 82.1% in the BF cohort and 88.9% in the WCAT group (p = 0.409). The median number of publications was 17 versus 18 respectively (p = 0.894) and the median HI was 7 in both groups (p = 0.690). OOPR experience during phase 1 of surgical training was associated with a higher HI (11 vs 0, p = 0.011). Degree type (MD vs PhD) was not associated with HD completion (80.0% vs 91.7%, p = 0.374), publication number (15 vs 19, p = 0.958) or HI (7 vs 5, p = 0.107). Conclusions HD routes appear equivalent although specialty related HI outcomes varied over fourfold. Trainees and training programme directors alike should be aware of these outcomes when planning OOPR training. Surgical training is multifaceted and should result in a competent clinician, able scholar, first class communicator, health advocate and well rounded professional. 1 Surgical research has served as the foundation for evidence-based clinical practice as long ago as Galen. 2 Nevertheless, in the UK and since the inception of Modernising Medical Careers, out of programme research (OOPR) experience has lost its allure. 3 , 4 Indeed, other distinguishing credentials are available, such as subspecialty clinical attachments, and qualifications in management, education and leadership.

The US Residency Match at 70: What Was, What Is, and What Could Be.

The US Residency Match at 70: What Was, What Is, and What Could Be.

Extending Recognition for Taxonomic Curation Beyond the Traditional Authorities

Taxonomy is at the center of modern biodiversity science, since it defines the dual name and meaning of species that jointly allows biologists to study and classify organisms while linking observations from multiple sources. With the accelerating digitization of biodiversity data has come the increased need for readily available taxonomic products, as is reflected in the number of initiatives dedicated to curating and publishing digital lists of accepted names, checklists of taxa occurring in different regions, and systematic classifications of species in different groups. Taxonomic curation can be described as a collage effort, whereby contributors work to assemble a diverse range of evidence and scientific resources into a harmonious understanding of biodiversity. However, traditionally, who receives recognition and credit for taxonomic curation has been based primarily on those holding official academic positions and credentials. Similarly, the results have generally been provided to end-users as only a list of valid accepted or synonymous species names without explicit evidence regarding how those decisions were made. In contrast, we propose a functional view of who should be recognized as a Taxonomic Curator (TC), casting a broad net to capture contributions made by individuals and organizations that might not self-identify as scientific authorities about which taxa exist in a group or region. While academic credentials are useful indicators of quality training and knowledge, expertise can be acquired through other pathways such as field experience or self-schooling. Similarly, authoring new information is essential to being a TC, but is not limited to publishing full-length articles or edited volumes. In light of the rapid pace of science, the qualities of trustworthiness, accountability, and responsiveness are ultimately more important. A person’s authoritativeness as a TC should therefore be tied to their participation in a social process of self-correction and engagement rather than academic expertise at one point in time. Similarly, this extended view of taxonomic curation makes it inherent to any project where information is validated according to an internally coherent set of taxonomic units (e.g., ‘cleaning’ data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility prior to analysis, or vetting iNaturalist records). We argue that this view better represents the importance of the services TCs provide for innovative collections-based biological research; e.g., the Extended Specimen approach (Lendemer et al. 2019). The digitization of biodiversity data has been possible in large part due to the development of content management software and tools for natural history collections (e.g., Arctos, Symbiota). In general, these tools enable effective taxonomic curation through the linking between species names, observational data, and scientific literature. In this way, digitizing specimen information directly involves the work of TCs (usually many) to clean, validate, interpret, and annotate the taxonomic labels for the species identified. Although not generally published as formal academic scholarship, these efforts functionally author new species lists in which the related occurrences (specimens or observations) form the body of evidence for each taxonomic concept established in the research group or institution responsible for publishing the data. While contributors to biodiversity data portals or citizen science projects such as iNaturalist may not identify as traditional taxonomic authorities, they often exhibit exactly the qualities of iterative social accountability and improvement needed for progress in biodiversity data science today. Therefore, innovative credit models such as nanopublications that mint Digital Object Identifiers should be tested to encourage the continued valuable work of TCs in formal and informal networks.