Meritorious Work Research Articles

Restructuring health care practice.

Restructuring health care practice.

Meritorious work and faculty rewards: An empirical test of the relationship

Previous research that tested the relationships between faculty performance in research, teaching, and service and faculty rewards has been inconclusive for several reasons. This case study of a large department at a midwestern research university examines these relationships. In this department, teaching quality was found to be a significant determinant of salary, though teaching quantity was not. While research, as measured by publications and presentations, had a significant effect on one year's salary increment, it did not affect salaries over several years. Administrative service was found to be significantly related to salary, as was public service. Implications of the study for research and practical applications of the methodology are examined.

Pattern A, achievement striving, and scientific merit: does pattern A help or hinder?

Clinical observations and recent theorizing offer two opposing predictions about the relationship between Pattern A and the merit of one's work: (a) Pattern A helps; (b) Pattern A hinders. To test these two possibilities, male members of the Society of Experimental Social Psychologists completed a measure of Pattern A behavior, and citation scores were derived for each man from the Social Science Index 1973-1975. Assuming that citations are a rough measure of meritorious work, the results revealed that Type A behavior by men is associated with superior scientific work. Thus, it is unlikely that Pattern A hinders meritorious work. Rather, it may help.

Luther' Doctrine of Grace

It was out of this profound religious experience of Luther—the depth of which is far from being plumbed in this verse—that his concept of grace was formulated, a concept which in its broad outline indicated the main lines of discussion for subsequent Protestant theology. Like Paul and Augustine before him, his theology was the outgrowth of an experience so traumatic that the whole course of his life was irrevocably transformed.‘Driven into a monastery by fear of the wrath of God and by the desire to earn divine forgiveness and approval by meritorious works, he discovered that it was impossible to secure peace of mind by such a method, and was finally led to believe that the only road to peace lay in repudiating all righteousness of his own, and depending wholly upon the free grace of God in Christ.’

The Sir Edmund Whittaker Memorial Prize

A special meeting of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society was held in the Mathematical Institute, Edinburgh, on Friday, 17th May 1957, to commemorate Sir Edmund Whittaker's work. Present at this meeting were Sir Edmund's widow, Lady Whittaker, and members of her family.Dr J. M. Whittaker, F.E.S., on behalf of Lady Whittaker and family, asked the Society to accept the sum of £500 to be used to provide a prize which would be awarded for meritorious work in mathematics by young mathematicians in Scotland.

The Chuvash Borrowings in Zyrian

IN 1903 Y. WICHMANN PUBLISHED his meritorious work Die tschuwassischen lehnworter in den permischen sprachen, MSFOu., XXI. iEIe dealt with 161 Votyak 1 words, 34 of which have correspondences in Zyrian.2 Two words were listed only from Zr. In spite of such a striking difference in the spread of the Chuvash 3 borrowings in Vt. and Zr. Wichmann, op. cit., 139, thought that at least a part of the Chv. words in Zr. were borrowed during the Proto-Permic period, when Zr. and Vt. had not yet separated. Wichmann's main criterion in favor of such an assumption was that in his opinion those borrowings had participated in the Proto-Permic changes: *mb to b, as in Vt. gubi, Zr. gob ' mushroom, sponge,' *nd to d, as in Vt. kxdy,4 Zr. kxd 'basket, bo2r,' *ng to 9, as in ? Vt. ugy ' ear-ring.' This criterion and the entire idea of the Proto-Permic borrowings was later strongly contested by N. Poppe5 for whom Wichmann's proofs were unsatisfactory. According to Poppe Vt. gubi, Zr. gob is not a Chv. but a Russian borrowing, and in Vt. kudy, Zr. kud d is only a substitution for Chv. nd. Poppe esp. insisted on the statement that in Proto-Chv. there were only initial kand t-, no 9or d-. Therefore Poppe could not accept Wichmann's conclusion according to which the borrowings from Chv. would offer the main proof for the assumption that the Proto-Permic period lasted until the 8th century. Wichmann, loc. cit., held it possible that a few Chv. borrowings could also have found their way into Zr. after the Proto-Permic period, independently from Vt. This idea was accepted by Gy. Lako, NyK, IL, 170 f., according to whom the South-Zr.-Chv. contacts were approaching their end in the middle of the 13th century. T. E. Uotila in his dissertation v; Zur geschichte des konsonantismus in den permischen sprachen (MS

Notes on ‘The Scythian Period’

These notes, supplementary to the necessarily brief review of Mevrouw van Lohuizen-De-Leeuw's meritorious work, do not at all seek to revive the exhaustive discussions of 1913 or to scrutinize any subsequent contributions of fact or opinion. The aim is simply to signalize the authoress's main propositions and to record a few such provisional comments as seem relevant. In view of some tendency towards a “general opinion” a new objectively elaborated interpretation has a claim to careful consideration: and it seemed permissible to include, on a reviewer's part, one or two partly novel observations. While awaiting some new evidence of a “knock-out” kind, scholars may give attention to any serious reasonings.

Award of Certificate for Meritorious Work in International Law

Award of Certificate for Meritorious Work in International Law

ASSOCIATION NOTICE, ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANNUAL MEETING

The Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of The Association for the Study of Internal Secretions will be held in New York City on Monday and Tuesday, June 18 and 19, 1945. Headquarters will be at the Commodore Hotel. The Chairman of the Local Committee is Dr. Earl T. Engle, 630 West 168th Street, New York City assisted by Dr. Robert Gaunt, New York University, who will be in charge of projection arrangements. Those wishing to present papers should send the title of the paper and four copies of a comprehensive abstract to the President, Dr. Carl R. Moore, Department of Zoology, The University of Chicago, Chicago 37, Illinois, not later than March 15, 1945. Two awards for meritorious work in endocrinology will be given at the next annual meeting of the Association. The work may be either clinical or in the basic sciences. A special Committee of five members of the Association chooses the recipients of these Awards, subject to ratification by the Council.

A Two and Six-Hour Pregnancy Test1

AFTER their meritorious work on the detection of gonad-stimulating substances in the urine of pregnant women, Aschheim and Zondek proposed the first accurate test for pregnancy. The test is based upon the fact that, following the injection of urinary gonadotropins (which increase sharply 2 to 3 weeks after conception) into immature female mice, hemorrhagic follicles or “blutpunkten” occur in the ovaries. The A-Z test was soon modified by Friedman so that the isolated female rabbit was used for the test animal (2). The accuracy of the A-Z test or the Friedman modification is beyond doubt the highest of the many pregnancy diagnostic tests. Other pregnancy tests or modifications of the A-Z test have been offered simply because of the relative inconvenience of the original procedure and the Friedman modification. Although the Friedman test is the most widely accepted and used and is more applicable than the immature mouse test, nevertheless, it has some undesirable features, namely, the expense involved and difficulty of securing animals, especially during the present emergency, time necessary for completion of the test, inconvenience of isolation of the animals prior to use and the difficulty experienced by some technicians in the administration of the urine.

Francis Amory Septennial Prize

IN compliance with the provisions of the will of the late Francis Amory, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as trustee of a fund given by the testator, announces a prize to be known as "The Francis Amory Septennial Prize", to be awarded for conspicuously meritorious work performed during the immediately preceding septennial period, "through experiment, study or otherwise, in the treatment and cure of diseases and derangement of the human sexual generative organs in general, and more especially for the cure, prevention or relief of the retention of urine, cystitis, prostatitis, etc. "If any work of quality warrant it, the first award will be made in 1940. The total amount will exceed 10,000 dollars, which may be divided at the discretion of the Academy among several nominees. While formal nominations are not expected and no essays or treatises in direct competition for the prize are desired, suggestions are invited. Communications should reach the Francis Amory Septennial Prize Award Committee not later than May 15, 1940, and should be addressed in care of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 28 Newbury Street, Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

German Activities in Central Europe

DURING the past fortnight, the State of Czechoslovakia has been forcibly broken up and a large part absorbed into tho “Great German Reich” as the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia”. In the account of Czechoslovakia's contributions to science which appeared in NATURE of November 26, 1938,pp. 942-44, the hope was expressed that the scientific and cultural development of the Czechs woiild still be possible after their territory had been drastically curtailed by the Munich Agreement, and that they would continue to make contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge and take a share in its application to the welfare of mankind. This hope was qualified by the anxiety then felt for those men of science and learning whom tho imoverished State might not be able to support, and it is gratifying to know that, until recently, indeed until the very end, the educational authorities succeeded in maintaining practically all the important research institutions and cultural associations remaining within the country. Scientific publications also continued to appear, and there was every reason to believe that the nation would, by hard labour, maintain its vigour and prosperity, and its men of science would be able to continue to achieve distinction and add to the sum of human knowledge by meritorious work in their respective fields. It is, perhaps, too early to foresee the consequences of the latest events in Central Europe. The new Protectorate is avowedly to have a measure of autonomy, though this is scarcely likely to go so far as to permit the free and open interchange of thought which has been banned in Germany for the past few years.

AMERICAN LARYNGOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION: Fifty-Sixth Annual Congress, Cleveland, June 7, 8 and 9, 1934

PRESIDENT'SADDRESS.DR.GEORGEM.COATES, Philadelphia. The American Laryngological Association is the oldest society in continuous existence, local or national, devoted to the study of diseases of the nose and throat. Its history has been always closely identified with all the progress made in the development of this specialty, and its transactions over a period of fifty-six years faithfully reflect the continuous advances made through the years. Because of this history and because membership is necessarily limited to those who have definite accomplishments to their credit, fellowship in this association is an honor to be striven for and, when obtained, to be cherished. Loyalty, friendship and good comradeship have ever been the attributes of the fellows, and many traditions have developed during the years. The Casselberry prize has been given five times for meritorious work in research and the de Roaldes medal, three times to those who have contributed

The Biology of Bacteria. An Introduction to General Microbiology

to Germany, and many German physicians and scientists were brought to Japan to teach medicine and the premedical sciences. The reviewer, who frequently visited Japan from 1910 to 1927, would hardly agree with the author of the last chapter, that the Government has placed medical education on an equal footing with that of other countries. It is true that Japan has emerged from antiquated medicine and has adopted scientific medicine of the West in a remarkably short space of time, but her best medical schools and hospitals are not yet comparable to our best. The encouraging phase is that steady progress is being made and that her scientific men are more and more making important contributions. The author states than Japan has 27 medical schools, of which 15 are classified as imperial in rank, more than 1,000 hospitals and over 50,000 physicians. Some 50 medical journals are published, the majority in the Japanese language, but several in German. This use of the German language rather than English has obviously tended to make the English-speaking world overlook many meritorious works done in Japan. HARVEY J. HOWARD

The Meaning of Student Marks

It is the purpose of a marking system to evaluate the academic work done by students in the courses of the various curricula. The marks themselves may consist of a series of letters or, preferably, of numbers arranged in descending scale; the most meritorious work is designated by a character at one end of the scale and the poorest, failure, by the character at the other. On the basis of marks given are awarded academic honors, additional credit toward graduation, prizes, etc.; and continued membership in a class or in a school may be conditioned upon maintaining some predetermined standard. The marks given may be expected to incite students to better work. Fairness in the award of honors, justice in determining upon failures and dismissals, and incitement of the student to better work can be attained only to the extent to which a common standard for the awarding of marks is understood, accepted, and acted upon. In many problems of evaluation two kinds of standards, positive and relative, are possible. A positive standard implies the possibility of defining exactly some unit of measure, a foot, a pound, a calorie, etc., that never varies and that can be recognized and identified. To evaluate a magnitude by a positive standard is to discover how many times the unit is contained in it, e.g., the number of feet in a coil of rope, the number of calories in a liter of alcohol, etc. Relative standards imply no rigid unit. Magnitudes or qualities to be evaluated need only be ranked from greatest to least, or from worst to best. A series of red cards may be ranked in order of brightness to the eye; or a group of men may be ranked according to stature from tallest to shortest without resort to any standard unit of measure; and if only rank in stature is wanted no positive unit of measure is needed. Appreciable differences of degree may 196

The Law of War between Belligerents: A History and Commentary

374. This is a useful and meritorious work. First, it traces succinctly the usages of war from the days of Greece and Rome down to the present. It sets forth the changes in those usages which important international congresses and conferences have established, and dwells at some length and with discrimination on important questions raised in the conduct of recent wars, especially the Franco-German, the South African and the Russo-Japanese

Societies and Academies

LONDON.Physical Society, February 14. - Prof. J. Perry, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—^Annual general meeting. Address by the newly elected president, Dr. C. Chree. Dr. Chree referred to the magnetic results obtained by the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-4. The expedition was furnished with magnetographs, and the reduction and discussion of the curves has been done by the National Physical Laboratory. Before describing the results, the president spoke of the nature of the preparations that might be made in any future national scientific expedition. The observers should have a preliminary training lasting over some months, and should be practised in the use of instruments. These instruments ought to be ready for use and fully tested months before the date of the expedition. A programme should be got out in good time, so as to admit of rehearsals by the observers. An inquiry, after the return of the expedition, into the value of the results obtained might be useful in.. securing that meritorious work in science would not be overlooked. Lantern-slides relating to the diurnal inequalities of the magnetic elements in the Antarctic were exhibited and described. Slides of corresponding Kew results were shown for intercomparison. The president dwelt on the relatively highly disturbed nature of the Antarctic records. In the Antarctic, the declination and horizontal force magnets were practically never at rest. So large and incessant were the disturbances that no idea of the nature of the regular diurnal inequality was obtainable from in spection of individual curves. Diurnal inequalities, how ever, derived from the curves of single months, and still more of a whole season of the year, proved to be. of a comparatively smooth character.

REVIEW OF THE PRESENT STATUS OF JONNESCO'S OPERATION.

The olden writers considered it proper to commence an allocution with a captatio benevolentiœ and so do I; with what success, remains to be seen. At all events I feel obliged to make an attempt to dissuade you from harsh criticisms because my paper will necessarily fall short of my own demands; what then can I expect from you? If there be any blame, your secretary must share it with me, as his request for a paper came on a very late day, and I promised against my better conviction. Furthermore, I have to say in explanation of my choice of title, that while it is certainly wise to call an operation by a name fully expressive of the procedure, it is not less our duty to acknowledge the meritorious work of our confreres who have promoted science. The highest reward we can bestow is due to those whose genius

The Native Tribes of Central Australia1

THE sincere efforts of some of the Australian governments to protect the native tribes have met with oeminently satisfactory ethnographical results. It is only a few months ago that a highly meritorious work on the Queensland natives by Walter E. Roth was published by the Queensland Government, and we have now before us a very thorough work dealing with the native tribes oof Central Australia—the joint production of a professor of biology and a protector of aborigines. These gentlemen have spent many years in the study of their black friends, and have become initiated into those mysteries into which Grey, Gason, Fison and Howitt were the first to make headway. The book thus contains a considerable amount of information quite new to us, as well as other matter largely confirmatory of the investigations of their predecessors, rendered all the more valuable by the conscientious pains that have been taken to thoroughly investigate everything in connection with native customs with which they have had to deal. In referring to the common statement that the Australian native is incapable of gratitude, the authors explain the position taken up by the aboriginal as regards this virtue, and point out that, although he is exceedingly liberal himself, he does not think it necessary to express his gratitude when he receives a gift from one of his own tribe, and that we should, in order to understand the sentiments of the native, put ourselves into his mental attitude, and then the question is capable of being more or less explained or understood. It is no doubt by their adoption of this attitude that they have been peculiarly successful in their studies. With the advent of the white man the secret ceremonies fall into disuse, for the young men get attracted away to the stations, and naturally feel less disposed to obey their elders; and these, in turn, consider the growing youth unworthy of initiation; hence the ceremonies get neglected and die out. It is of consequence therefore that every scrap of information regarding them be properly recorded, and in doing this Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have collected a mass of detail which, while it may at first sight appear somewhat superfluous, will be invaluable for future reference as further investigations are carried on.

Book Reviews

WITH this part Mr. Lydekker completes his laborious and very meritorious work of cataloguing the large collections of Mammalian fossil remains in the British Museum.