Previous Winner Research Articles

Green capital East of the Leitha? The chances and disadvantages of major cities in the Pannonian Basin to win the European Green Capital Award

This study focuses on the chances of major cities (over 100,000 inhabitants) in the Pannonian Basin to win the European Green Capital Award. The 28 cities covered by the analysis can be divided into two groups: eleven cities that have already applied (one of them, Ljubljana was a previous winner) and seventeen cities that have not yet applied for the award. During the research, we divided the cities according to these two groups. In the study we applied various statistical and spatial analysis methods to capture similarities and differences in their environmental indicators. The results show that there are no significant differences in environmental indices between these two groups, and the values of the 2016 winner city (Ljubljana) are most similar to Austrian, Slovenian, and Croatian cities. Furthermore, based on the results of the similarity search, it can be stated that the further east we go, the less similar the examined cities are to Ljubljana. We also examined the probability of reaching the finals, indicating that cities that have not yet applied have a low likelihood of winning the award.

Library Communications Through the Years with Barbara Hood

Barbara Hood was the Public Information Officer and Director of Communications for the Libraries since 1999. Prior to joining the Libraries, Barbara owned and managed Creative Graphics for 20 years. To this day, she produces the annual class newsletter for the Sebring High School Class of 1970. Barbara is co-author of Collaborating with Strangers: Facilitating Workshops in Libraries, Classes, and Non-profits, published in 2017. She is a previous winner of the Superior Accomplishment Award from the Libraries. Barbara retired after 23 years of service to the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries. In this interview, we hear from Barbara as she reflects on developments in communication and cultural shifts within the Libraries.

Bounds for the Security of Ascon against Differential and Linear Cryptanalysis

The NIST Lightweight Cryptography project aims to standardize symmetric cryptographic designs, including authenticated encryption and hashing, suitable for constrained devices. One essential criterion for the evaluation of the 10 finalists is the evidence for their security against attacks like linear and differential cryptanalysis. For Ascon, one of the finalists and previous winner of the CAESAR competition in the ‘lightweight’ category, there is a large gap between the proven bounds and the best known characteristics found with heuristic tools: The bounds only cover up to 3 rounds with 15 differentially and 13 linearly active S-boxes, insufficient for proving a level of security for the full constructions.In this paper, we propose a new modeling strategy for SAT solvers and derive strong bounds for the round-reduced Ascon permutation. We prove that 4 rounds already ensure that any single characteristic has a differential probability or squared correlation of at most 2−72, and 6 rounds at most 2−108. This is significantly below the bound that could be exploited within the query limit for keyed Ascon modes. These bounds are probably not tight. To achieve this result, we propose a new search strategy of dividing the search space into a large number of subproblems based on ‘girdle patterns’, and show how to exploit the rotational symmetry of Ascon using necklace theory. Additionally, we evaluate and optimize several aspects of the pure SAT model, including the counter implementation and parallelizability, which we expect to be useful for future applications to other models.

Fall-proof innovation

A previous winner takes the prize again with a highly innovative system that alerts a family member or carer when an elderly person falls

Utilization of the Department of Defense Peer-Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program (PRORP): Combating Musculoskeletal Disease With PRORP.

Established in 2009, the Department of Defense (DoD) Peer-Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program (PRORP) is an annual funding program for orthopaedic research that seeks to develop evidence for new clinical practice guidelines, procedures, technologies, and drugs. The aim was to help reduce the burden of injury for wounded Service members, Veterans, and civilians and to increase return-to-duty and return-to-work rates. Relative to its burden of disease, musculoskeletal injuries (MSKIs) are one of the most disproportionately underfunded conditions. The focus of the PRORP includes a broad spectrum of MSKI in areas related to unique aspect of combat- and some noncombat-related injuries. The PRORP may serve as an important avenue of research for nonmilitary communities by offering areas of shared interests for the advancement of military and civilian patient cohort MSKI care. The purpose of this study was to provide a descriptive analysis of the DoD PRORP, which is an underrecognized but high value source of research funding for a broad spectrum of both combat- and noncombat-related MSKIs. The complete PRORP Funding Portfolio for FY2009-FY2017 was obtained from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), which includes 255 awarded grants. Information pulled from the CDMRP included awardee descriptors (sex, education level, affiliated institution type, research specialty, and previous award winner [yes/no]) and grant award descriptors (grant amount, year, primary and secondary awarded topics, research type awarded, and mechanism of award). Distribution statistics were broken down by principal investigator specialty, sex, degree, organization type, research type, mechanism, and research topics. Distribution and statistical analysis was applied using R software version 3.6.3. From FY2009 to 2017, $285 million was allocated for 255 PRORP-funded research studies. The seven major orthopaedic subspecialties (foot and ankle, hand, musculoskeletal oncology, pediatrics, spine, sports medicine, and trauma) were represented. Trauma and hand subspecialists received the largest amount of funding, approximately $28 (9.6%) and $22 million (7.1%), respectively. However, only 22 (8.6%) and 26 (10.2%) of the primary investigators were trauma and hand subspecialists, respectively. The primary research categories were diverse with the top five funded PRORP topics being rehabilitation ($53 million), consortia ($39 million), surgery ($37 million), device development ($30 million), and pharmacology ($10 million). The CDMRP funding represents an excellent resource for orthopaedic medical research support that includes trauma and nontrauma orthopaedic conditions. This study serves to promote and communicate the missions of the PRORP both within and beyond the DoD to raise awareness and expand access of available funding for orthopaedic focused research. A likelihood exists that this project will provide sustained and powerful influence on future research by promoting awareness of orthopaedic funding sources. Level III.

Anxiety induces long-term memory forgetting in the crayfish

When two male crayfish encounter, agonistic bouts are initiated and a winner-loser relationship is established. Larger animals are more likely to win with their physical advantage, but they are frequently beaten by small dominant animals with previous winning experience. This winner effect remains for several days. In mammals, anxiety impairs learning and induces memory forgetting. In this study, dominant crayfish were exposed to electrical shocks two days after their first win, after which they were paired with large or small naive opponents the following day. Our results showed that electrical shock-applied dominant animals were beaten by large naive opponents, but overcame small naive opponents, suggesting that electrical shocks cause animals to forget their previous winner effect. Electrical shocks appeared to elicit serotonin-mediated anxiety since electrical shocks had no effect on mianserin-injected dominant animals. A 0.5µM serotonin injection induced a caused anxiety-like reaction, while a 1.0µM serotonin injection-induced no changes in posture and walking activity. For pairings between dominant and naive animals 1 day after serotonin injection, 0.5µM serotonin caused similar forgetting of the winner effect, but 1.0µM serotonin had no effect. Serotonin of low concentrations mediated anxiety and stimulated forgetting of the winner's memory.

Pupil size variation as a response to stress in European catfish and its application for social stress detection in albino conspecifics.

Hormonal changes such as increased cortisol level in blood plasma in response to stress and social environmental stimuli are common among vertebrates including humans and typically accompanied by other physiological processes, such as changes in body pigmentation and/or pupil dilatation. The role of pupil size variation (PSV) as a response to stress have yet to be investigated in fish. We exposed albino and pigmented European catfish to short-term stress and measured changes in pupil size and cortisol level. Albinos showed lower pupil dilatation and higher cortisol levels than did pigmented conspecifics. A clear positive relationship between pupil dilatation and cortisol concentrations was observed for both pigmented and albino specimens, suggesting that PSV can be used as a stress indicator in fish, irrespective of albino’s inability to express social communication by coloring. During the follow-up, we investigated whether a penultimate contest between albino individuals would impact contestants’ social stress during subsequent contact. We observed PSV during the contact of unfamiliar albino catfish with different penultimate experiences (winner (W) and/or loser (L)). Then, the following treatment combinations were tested: WW, WL and LL. Twenty-four-hour contact of two unfamiliar catfish resulted in higher pupil dilatation among individuals with previous winner experience. Among treatment combinations, a WL contest displayed the highest pupil dilatation for winners. PSV reflected socially induced stress in individuals that was accompanied by the “winner” experience and dominancy in albinos. To conclude, the present study validates pupil dilatation as a non-invasive method to evaluate stress level in pigmented as well as albino fish in various contexts.

Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and His Cargo of Black Convicts by Jeff Forret

Reviewed by: Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and His Cargo of Black Convicts by Jeff Forret Richard Bell Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and His Cargo of Black Convicts. By Jeff Forret. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xiv, 470. $29.95, ISBN 978-1-108-49303-1.) He had painted the building yellow. It was three stories high, made of brick, and daubed in plaster that he had slathered in an eggy hue. First-time visitors to this residential block just south and west of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., sometimes mistook this yellow structure for a happy private home, unaware that it was actually one of the busiest slave prisons anywhere in North America. William H. Williams owned and operated the Yellow House between 1836 and 1850, using it as a detention center and depot for enslaved people he had purchased from across the Chesapeake region. From this private prison, across the street from the modern-day site of the Hirshhorn Museum, Williams dispatched "untold thousands of slaves" in coastwise shipments to buyers in New Orleans and across the country (p. 7). Indeed, Zachary Taylor, future president and Baton Rouge resident, was among the firm's customers. Williams was a driven and determined operator who was always looking for fresh opportunities to line his pockets, and in 1840 he believed he had discovered a new source of income: convict slaves. That September he purchased from the commonwealth of Virginia twenty-one enslaved men and six enslaved women incarcerated in the Richmond penitentiary. Virginia's governor had authorized their sale and transportation outside the United States—an unusual but not unheard-of practice—and Williams planned to take them to the Red River region of Texas, an independent country friendly to slavery. But then things began going wrong. When the ship stopped in Mobile, Alabama, locals, disturbed by the possibility that Williams might try to sell these convicted felons domestically, hounded him out of town. In New Orleans, where he stopped next, he was arrested on suspicion of the same. State officials there confiscated his enslaved captives, incarcerated them in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Baton Rouge, and, over the next several years, sent many of them to labor on all manner of public works projects. In Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and His Cargo of Black Convicts, Jeff Forret reconstructs this extraordinary odyssey using the voluminous court records created by the ensuing legal proceedings, which dragged on for almost two decades and eventually entangled Louisiana's highest court, its legislature, and even the Supreme Court of the United States. The result is a rich and layered history of the domestic slave trade as seen through the "sordid business dealings" of one of its most ambitious traffickers (p. 8). It is in conversation with recent scholarship on this species of legal human trafficking by Joshua Rothman, Walter Johnson, Steven Deyle, and Robert Gudmestad, and there are several stand-out chapters: one, on Williams's business practices; [End Page 913] another, on the ban on slave trading in Washington, D.C., enacted in 1850 that forced him to shutter and sell the Yellow House to a florist who made "bo[u]quets made 'to order'" (p. 289); and a third on the compensated emancipation of enslaved people in the District of Columbia in 1862. Yet the great strength of Williams' Gang—its breadth and depth—is also its weakness. Forret, a previous winner of the Frederick Douglass Prize, is a tenacious researcher, but he follows too many rabbits down too many holes to maintain forward motion. We learn too little about the enslaved themselves, but far more than we need to know about the many white lawyers and judges who played supporting roles in this unfolding drama. Williams' Gang also lurches unsteadily between thematic analysis and narrative. As a result, chronologies are often scrambled (for example, the Civil War plays out immediately before a chapter on the 1840s), and readers are left uncertain as to these events' larger significance, an impassioned epilogue sketching the contours of racialized mass incarceration in our own era notwithstanding. Richard Bell University of Maryland Copyright © 2020 Southern Historical...

Mating changes a male contestant from a loser to a winner in male–male competition in a wolf spider

Abstract Mating may change a male’s behaviour by increasing its motivation to engage in a contest, and enabling it to win in subsequent male–male contests. To test this hypothesis, we recorded male contests in the wolf spider, Venonia coruscans (Araneae: Lycosidae), testing a male’s motivation to fight under three different resource value conditions. First, we staged contests between two males in two different resource value conditions, on an egg-produced female’s web and then on a virgin female’s web, to test a male’s fighting ability. After determining each male’s fighting ability, we allowed each loser that lost its contests under both resource value conditions to mate with a virgin female and then introduced the previous contest winner to the web where the loser had mated. We found that without mating, the losers always lost their contests, regardless of the resource value conditions. However, once they had mated, the losers fiercely attacked the previous winners, and most won the contests back. Our study therefore provides evidence that a male’s motivation to fight can be changed under certain circumstances (e.g. mating) and can greatly influence contest outcomes in male–male competition in a mating context.

H. Gregg Lewis Prize

Previous articleNext article FreeH. Gregg Lewis PrizePDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe H. Gregg Lewis Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of Labor Economics during 2016–2017 has been awarded to Lena Hensvik and Oskar Nordström Skans for “Social Networks, Employee Selection, and Labor Market Outcomes,” which appeared in the October 2016 issue of the Journal.The Prize Committee consisted of Melvin Stephens Jr. (chair), Marianne Page, and Jessica Pan (previous Lewis Prize winner). Social networks have long been of interest to labor economists, and access to administrative data in recent years has allowed researchers to test the theoretical implications of network models. Hensvik and Skans examine the importance of employee referrals in the hiring of new workers. If high-quality workers tend to interact with other high-quality workers through their social networks, then employers can leverage these relationships through referrals in situations where the quality of potential hires is not easily observed. Employee referrals in the presence of networks yield predictions for the quality and wages of new hires as well as for the probability of using referrals in the hiring process. A long-standing hurdle to empirically testing these ideas, however, is information on worker quality that is unobserved by employers but is observed, perhaps imperfectly, by employees.Hensvik and Skans leverage population register data from Sweden to create a sample of newly hired and incumbent male workers. Worker networks are created through linking spells of overlapping employment at prior employers. Key to their analysis is that nearly every 18- or 19-year-old Swedish male underwent the military draft process in which they were subjected to both cognitive and noncognitive testing, with individuals kept unaware of their own test results. Using these test scores, which are available in the register data, along with information on networks through prior employment, the authors confirm the numerous predictions on the impact of referrals through employee networks. The finding that firms hire workers through the social ties of more productive employees has important implications for understanding wage inequality. The use of such employee referral networks implies that greater ability sorting in the labor market will increasingly work to the disadvantage of equally productive workers without access to high-ability ties. The committee was impressed with the authors’ creative use of population register data to study this important topic.Past H. Gregg Lewis Prize winners:1990–1991Robert Gibbons and Lawrence F. Katz1992–1993James N. Brown and Audrey Light1994–1995John Bound, Charles Brown, Greg J. Duncan, and Willard L. Rodgers1996–1997Christina H. Paxson and Nachum Sicherman1998–1999Derek A. Neal2000–2001H. Lorne Carmichael and W. Bentley MacLeod2002–2003Eric D. Gould2004–2005Pascal Courty and Gerald Marschke2006–2007Fabian Lange2008–2009Maxim Poletaev and Chris Robinson2010–2011William R. Kerr and William F. Lincoln2012–2013Laura Giuliano2014–2015Jessica Pan Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Labor Economics Volume 36, Number 3July 2018 Published for the Society of Labor Economists, Economics Research Center/ NORC Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/698528 Views: 273Total views on this site © 2018 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Fund Flows, Manager Changes, and Performance Persistence*

Most empirical studies suggest that mutual funds do not persistently outperform an appropriate benchmark in the long run. We analyze this lack of persistence in terms of two equilibrating mechanisms: fund flows and manager changes. Using data on actively managed US equity mutual funds, we find that if neither mechanism is operating, winner funds (top-decile ranked in previous year) continue to significantly outperform loser funds (bottom-decile ranked in previous year) by 4.08 percentage points per annum. However, the difference between previous winner and loser funds declines to zero within one year if the two mechanisms are acting together. Thus, equity mutual fund out- and underperformance are unlikely to persist in well-functioning financial markets.

Fund Flows, Manager Change and Performance Persistence

Most empirical studies suggest that mutual funds do not persistently outperform an appropriate benchmark in the long run. We analyze this lack of persistence in terms of two equilibrating mechanisms: fund flows and manager changes. Using data on actively managed U.S. equity mutual funds, we find that if neither mechanism is operating, winner funds (top-decile ranked in previous year) continue to significantly outperform loser funds (bottom-decile ranked in previous year) by 4.08 percentage points per annum. However, the difference between previous winner and loser funds declines to zero within one year if the two mechanisms are acting together. Thus, mutual fund out- and underperformance is unlikely to persist in well-functioning markets.

Reducing Creativity With Psychostimulants May Debilitate Mental Health and Well-Being

Recently, healthy individuals have been using psychostimulants for cognitive enhancement purposes. Psychostimulant medications may increase wakefulness, but as a tradeoff, they may constrict cognitive flexibility and reduce creativity in healthy individuals with no psychiatric disorders. In this perspective, the author addresses the ethical and prudential issues that arise from impairing creativity with psychostimulants. As there is a strong relationship between creativity and positive mental health, the author argues that creativity is an important character strength. Hence, reducing it with psychostimulants will impair an intrinsically and instrumentally valuable trait, which will in the long term reduce well-being and negatively impact the positive mental health of the healthy individual and the flourishing of society. The author concludes that using psychostimulants as a form of cognitive enhancement in healthy adults is imprudent and morally suspect for society.PERSPECTIVES is a special feature included in this issue of Journal of Creativity in Mental Health that provides mental health professionals with an opportunity to discuss their positions on a variety of creativity-related topics.In this article, Dr. Mohamed shares his view of the ethical and prudential issues that arise from impairing creativity with psychostimulants.Dr. Ahmed Dahir Mohamed is a chartered psychologist member of the British Psychological Society. His Ph.D., which was awarded in 2013 by the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, was in the area of cognitive enhancement. Using modafinil as a pharmacological probe, his work explored how drugs like modafinil, Adderall, and methylphenidate (Ritalin) affect cognitive and affective functions in healthy individuals with no psychiatric disorders. His work has been published in highly regarded academic journals including the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, The American Journal of Bioethics: Neuroscience, The Journal of Ethics in Mental Health, and The British Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy. Dr. Mohamed was the previous winner of the Nuffield Science Bursary Award for outstanding research in psychology and the Wellcome Trust Doctoral Neuroscience studentship award. In 2013, Dr. Mohamed became an Elected Life Academic Member of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Mohamed is currently editing an Oxford University Press handbook entitled Rethinking Cognitive Enhancement: The Neuroscience and Ethics of Cognitive and Physical Enhancement.This article is based on an invited lecture given at the St. Cross Ethics Seminars at Oxford. Dr Mohamed was a visiting academic scholar at St. Cross College and a recognized DPhil student at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics at the University of Oxford.

Piggery and Predictability: An Exploration of the Hog in Football’s Limelight

Piggery and Predictability: An Exploration of the Hog in Football’s Limelight

Reports of Wins and Risk Taking: An Investigation of the Mediating Effect of the Illusion of Control

Two experiments examined the relationships between the knowledge that another person has won in a gamble, the illusion of control and risk taking. Participants played a computer-simulated French roulette game individually. Before playing, some participants learnt that another person won a large amount of money. Results from a first experiment (n=24) validated a causal model where the knowledge of another person's win increased the illusion of control, measured with betting times, expectancy and self-reports on scales, which in turn encourages risk taking. In the second experiment (n=36), some participants were told the previous player acknowledged the win to be fortuitous. The suppression of the belief that the previous winner had himself exerted control over the outcome resulted in lower rates of risk-taking behaviors. This suggests that it was not the knowledge of another person's win in itself that increased risk taking, but rather, the belief that the other person had some control over the gamble's outcome. Theoretical implications for the study of social mechanisms involved in gambling behavior are discussed.

Psychiatrist Awarded for Research on Psychoanalytic Therapy

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Clinical & Research NewsFull AccessPsychiatrist Awarded for Research on Psychoanalytic TherapyJoan Arehart-TreichelJoan Arehart-TreichelSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:6 Mar 2009https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.44.5.0012If Barbara Milrod, M.D., had appeared on the television program“ What's My Line?” back in the 1950s and 1960s, one might have guessed that she was a comedian since she makes wry facial expressions and has a dry sense of humor.In fact, Milrod is a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, a psychoanalyst on the faculty of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center for Treatment and Research. She is an expert on the psychotherapeutic treatment of anxiety disorder, and one of the pioneers trying to demonstrate scientifically that psychoanalysis or psychodynamic psychotherapy works.Or as she quipped at the January meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in New York City: “Panic disorder and psychodynamic psychotherapy are what I study. Analysis is what you guys do.”And to date, the findings that she and her colleagues have made are most encouraging. For this reason, the American Psychoanalytic Association bestowed its Fifth Annual Scientific Paper Prize for Psychoanalytic Research on her at its January meeting.It all started some 15 years ago, Milrod reported. There was a sense that the clinical syndrome of panic disorder might involve certain psychodynamic conflicts. For example, in her experience and that of some other analysts, panic patients' symptoms often seemed to represent unconscious rage. Panic patients frequently appeared to be furious at someone they loved, and the panic seemed to be a way of expressing their rage while also punishing themselves for feeling it. Panic patients often appeared to have problems with autonomy. Their panic often emerged at times when they felt conflicted about a big event such as college, marriage, or pregnancy. So Milrod and some colleagues decided that they wanted to determine scientifically whether psychodynamic psychotherapy can help panic patients.They designed a short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy called Panic-Focused Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (PFPP) to help patients with their panic symptoms. It is a 12-week, 24-session therapy where the therapist discusses the meanings of a patient's panic symptoms as well as why he or she starts to feel better after therapy has commenced.“The time constraint puts pressure on both patient and therapist to get a lot done quickly,” Milrod explained. “Also, termination is a very important aspect of the treatment because of panic patients' problems with autonomy. As a result, the therapist starts talking about termination with the patient long before that time comes.”Once Milrod and her colleagues had developed PFPP, they taught some analytically trained psychiatrists to use it. After that, they conducted an open pilot clinical trial to see whether PFPP might help 21 subjects with DSM-IV-diagnosed panic disorder. Sixteen of the 21 responded. Results were published in the October 2001 Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research.In the wake of this encouraging outcome, they undertook a randomized, controlled trial to explore PFPP's efficacy in treating DSM-IV-diagnosed panic disorder. Since there was some evidence that Applied Relaxation Training (ART), which involves progressive muscle relaxation, exposure, and homework, is efficacious for patients with panic disorder, they decided that it would constitute a good comparison psychotherapy condition for PFPP in their randomized, controlled trial. The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.Out of the 49 subjects who participated in the trial, 26 were randomized to PFPP and 23 to ART. By the study's completion in 2005, both the PFPP group and the ART group had experienced a decrease in panic symptoms as measured by the Panic Disorder Severity Scale, but the former had experienced a significantly greater decrease in such symptoms. The findings were published in the February 2007 American Journal of Psychiatry.Researchers in Germany and Sweden are now attempting to replicate those results, Milrod noted. She and her colleagues, she added, are now planning to compare the efficacy of PFPP with that of cognitive-behavioral therapy on patients with DSM-IV panic disorder. Their recruitment goal for this trial is 233 subjects.All of these research efforts by Milrod and her group demonstrate that psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis can be subjected to rigorous scientific-outcome research, said Robert Michels, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, at the meeting. Moreover, a number of analysts have been inspired by their success to conduct similar studies, he said. Michels chaired the session where Milrod discussed the research that she and her team have conducted.Kenneth Levy, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Penn State University, a previous winner of the association's Annual Scientific Paper Prize for Psychoanalytic Research, and a session discussant, agreed:“ This is big science with a capital 'S.' This is what analysis needs more of if it is going to survive.” ▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Our bright future: International collaboration in pharmacy

When I received the letter from ASHP informing me that I was selected to receive the Donald E. Francke Medal, it did not have much meaning to me at the time. I did not know anything about the award or that I was even a candidate. The preparations were made behind my back to treat me to a big surprise. When I read the special feature published in AJHP on the lecture presented by previous medal winner Toby Clark titled “Keep the flame burning,” I realized what a glorious award I had won. I also learned that Donald E. Francke was a key player in assisting Japan to rebuild the pharmaceutical industry and the pharmaceutical education system that began in 1949. I am very appreciative of this because I was educated in that system. I want to share this wonderful honor with the members of the International Committee of the Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacy (JSHP); the faculty, the staff, and the secretary of the Department of Hospital Pharmacy and Neuropsychopharmacology at Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine; the Nagoya University Hospital; and all of the hospital pharmacists in Japan and the United States who took part in my projects as the host for visiting pharmacists from foreign countries.

The great divide: From viscometer to vasculature

It is traditional at the Fahraeus Award Ceremony for the previous winner to give the laudatio to the new one. This meant that my dear friend, Michel Boisseau, should have given it this year but, for personal reasons, he was unable to attend the meeting. This was sad but we all wished him well. However, it is an ill wind. . . and the result was that I was twice blessed in having a double laudatio, from my very old friends Dirk Seiffge and Herb Meiselman and I thank them both for their kindness. When I heard from Professor Jung that I had won the Medal I was, of course, extremely moved. I spent the bulk of my active research life involved in the field of haemorheology. It has given me immense pleasure over those years and allowed me to meet and make friends with some of the finest people that I know. It is an enormous honour, in the early stages of my retirement, to be recognised by my peer group and awarded the Medal so that I can join the previous winners (Table 1) all of whose work I greatly respect and many of whom I class as good friends. I am deeply grateful to all who have participated in honouring me this way. My only worry is that I am number thirteen; I just hope that that is not portentous! Now to the lecture; as I am recently retired from active research this is likely to be the last time that I shall write up a serious lecture given to my haemorheological friends. So I intend too indulge myself, to reminisce a little and to ride one or two of my haemorheological hobby-horses.

Reflections

What a surprise and a delight to receive the James Cretsos Leadership Award and to share it with my wonderful colleague, Caryn Anderson! This award is really a tribute to the wonderful teamwork spirit of the Special Interest Group/International Issues in Information (SIG/III), which I had the pleasure to chair this year (and with which Caryn has also been actively involved). Such a strong and dedicated team makes leadership easy and natural. I became a member of ASIS&T when I was a doctoral student. At that time, I was looking for a forum that could be my scholarly home, and my mentors and role models such as Christine Borgman and Marcia Bates all happened to be ASIS&T members. I joined ASIS&T because I wanted to be a part of the broader information science community, and it seemed to be the obvious (and only) venue to do so. No other association really brings together information scholars (in all their diversity) the way ASIS&T does. Many years later, as a supervisor for six doctoral students in Toronto, Canada, I encourage my own students to also think about ASIS&T as their primary home and to join this great network. In 2004, the students created a University of Toronto Chapter of ASIS&T, for which I have been serving as the faculty advisor. Although I hold a membership in various SIGs, the one that has a special status for me is SIG/III. Since the beginning I have been struck by the warmth and inclusiveness of the SIG/III officers. Michel Menou, who introduced me to SIG/III, remains a wonderful mentor and friend. Other long-time contributors to the SIG who have also shared their passion and dedication include Sue Johnson, Yin Zhang, Toni Carbo, Bahaa El Hadidy and many others. I held various positions within the SIG (communications officer, marketing chair, jury member for the International Paper Contest, and chair-elect) before becoming the chair in 2005–2006. Through SIG/III have come to realize how privileged we (in the West) are in terms of access to information, resources and technologies, and how much we take these aspects for granted. At SIG/III, we strive to promote (through discussions and practical initiatives) equity issues as well as diversity of viewpoints by providing a forum for information sharing and exchange with our colleagues from all over the world, particularly developing nations. It has been tremendously rewarding to watch various colleagues from India, China, Brazil and Nigeria get involved in various SIG/III (and ASIS&T) activities and become mentors and resource people for new members. Through initiatives such as the International Paper Contest (now in its seventh year), the InfoShare program (which awards one-year ASIS&T memberships to information professionals in developing countries), the International Calendar of Information Science Conferences, as well as the Global Information Village Plaza (which Michel Menou and I co-organized for three years, and is now in the able hands of Aaron Bowen and Amanda Wilson), and the new Mentorship Program, we are able to broaden the scope and reach of ASIS&T to address global issues that concern us all. This year, we further signaled our commitment to diversity and inclusiveness by adding two new positions to an already international roster of SIG/III officers. We established SIG/III co-chair and co-chair elect positions, both of which are to be filled by individuals residing outside North America. For 2005–2006, I was fortunate to have Miriam Vieira da Cunha, from Brazil, as a co-chair, and our co-chair elect was a previous winner of the International Paper Contest, Ifeanyichukwu (Ify) Njoku, from Nigeria. The future looks bright for SIG/III and ASIS&T with such leaders as next year's SIG/III chair, Duncan Omole, from Kenya (who is also a previous winner of the International Paper Contest and is now at the World Bank). He will be leading an internationally competent and dedicated team that will continue to collaborate with other SIGs and benefit ASIS&T as a whole. Mine has been a humbling experience, where I learnt as much as I contributed. As long as ASIS&T will keep recruiting and retaining able and dedicated individuals from all parts of the intellectual and geographical spectrum, it is headed in the right direction. I encourage everyone to check out the great work of SIG/III (at www.asis.org/SIG/SIGIII/) and more importantly to join a SIG (or two or three) and become involved. The payoff is tremendous.

3.6

3.6