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A classroom exercise for improving mentor/ mentee relationships
No full textBackground: Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) courses seek to heighten awareness of the importance of mentor/mentee interactions and other topics, but questions remain – e.g., how best to train mentors/mentees to establish such relationships.
Description of Exercise: This paper proposes an approach as a model to strengthen RCR education by more fully, and actively, rather than passively, engaging trainees. A classroom activity was developed that can enhance instructors’ abilities to improve mentor/mentee interactions. The instructor divided classes into groups of roughly four trainees, and had them think of a good mentor they have observed, and to list traits/behaviors they liked. Groups then summarized discussions for the class. The instructors recorded and integrated responses. Each group then considered bad mentors, answering the same questions, and repeating the process regarding bad mentees and good mentees. The class then compared the four discussions. Trainees have commonly had both formal and informal mentors, seen both good and bad mentors and mentees, and often themselves served as mentors. Mentees thus connect abstract principles concerning mentorship to personal experiences; and reflect on their own interactions/roles, preferences, and rights/responsibilities.
Conclusion: This exercise suggests some benefits of recognizing personal/emotional, not just intellectual components in RCR, and has important implications for education, practice, and research.
Keywords: ethics; integrity; responsible conduct of research training (RCR); education; trainee
Technoscientific Expertise and Local Constructive Knowledge: International Organizations’ Earthquake-Related Initiatives and Their Consequences for Earthen Built Heritage in the Circum-Pacific Ring of Fire
No full textTechnoscientific knowledge plays a prominent role in decision-making around built heritage, shaping conceptions and definitions of heritage and influences perceptions of what interventions on heritage are acceptable. On the international scale, the authority of technoscientific expertise both is reinforced by and facilitates the movement of acceptable knowledge across national borders. To date, there has been little scholarly work to address the following questions: Who has the authority to define what constitutes relevant technoscientific knowledge for built heritage? What ways of knowing have been transferred transnationally, and how do they relate to local constructive cultures and heritage?
In response, this dissertation takes a constructivist grounded theory approach to examine how international organizations have coordinated multilateral movements of technoscientific knowledge since the 1960s, particularly focusing on initiatives to address earthquake hazards, disaster risk, and vulnerability. To examine how the organizations faced local contexts and heritage in their projects, I analyze discourses and outcomes that implicate earthen architecture, as a form of local knowledge and built heritage. While recognizing the contributions of technoscientific knowledge and experts to mitigating disaster risks, the dissertation parses the unintended outcomes of such movements of knowledge on local earthen heritage.
With a geographic emphasis on the Pacific Ring of Fire—especially Latin America, Japan, and the United States—the dissertation offers case studies for three groups of organizations: engineering communities of practice (i.e., International Association of Earthquake Engineering and Earthquake Engineering Research Institute); development agencies (i.e., the World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency); and international heritage organizations (i.e., UNESCO and International Council on Monuments and Sites).
These actors define what constitutes valid technoscientific knowledge and enforce those categorical boundaries by facilitating the international dissemination of that knowledge. This occurs through vehicles ranging from dispatching experts with the appropriate technoscientific knowledge; international training programs; convenings for knowledge-sharing; influential policies that distill expertise into normative documents; and provision of technoscientific equipment. By reinforcing a selective view of what counts as relevant and valid technoscientific knowledge, these organizations indirectly exclude or minimize of other ways of knowing.
Across the case studies, organizational actors have characterized earthen construction as unscientific and irrational, contrasting it with and privileging what they deem technoscientific. This results in actions and projects that exclude earthen heritage and its knowledge-holders or unintentionally create impediments to the future continuation of local constructive practices, echoing colonial practices of epistemological suppression and cooptation. Thus, despite more recent shifts in the international sphere to valorize local knowledge, a conceptual binary of the modern and scientific vs. the “traditional” and unscientific persists. This raises fundamental questions about the epistemological basis of ongoing efforts and calls to hybridize earthen construction with technoscientific knowledge, and whether these initiatives break down or uphold such categorical boundaries
Participation Versus Observation: Impact of Role in Simulation on Empathy, Cultural Humility, and Clinical Judgment in Nursing Students
No full textProblem Statement
Nursing education is vital in addressing maternal health disparities in the U.S., which has the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries, disproportionately affecting nonwhite women. Empathy, cultural humility, and clinical judgment are recognized as essential skills for addressing health care disparities. Research shows that simulation improves both empathy and clinical judgment; however, studies using simulation to teach cultural humility are limited. Although previous research indicates that both active participants and observers in simulation have significant improvements in knowledge-based outcomes, there are limited studies evaluating other types of outcomes. Overall, gaps remain in nursing education research on integrating empathy, cultural humility, and clinical judgment to address maternal health care disparities.
Method
A quasi-experimental pre-post study using simulation with standardized patients was conducted to determine whether empathy, cultural humility, and clinical judgment differed by participation versus observation role in undergraduate nursing students.
Results
Fifty-two undergraduate nursing students (52/86 or 60% of maternal health students) participated. Role did not have a significant impact on the combined outcome measures of empathy, cultural humility, and clinical judgment. The effect of role on the singular outcomes of empathy, cultural humility, and cultural humility did not show significant differences. Both groups had significant improvements over time in perceived empathy scores. The observer group had significant improvement in perceived cultural humility over time.
Conclusion
Despite the small sample size and a one-time intervention, significant improvements in affective outcomes, namely empathy and cultural humility, were noted in active and observer groups over time. These findings add to prior research demonstrating significant improvements in knowledge-based outcomes using simulation, regardless of role
The Lived Experience of the Emerging Contemporary Singer-Songwriter: A Phenomenological Inquiry
No full textThe singer-songwriter genre is a unique compositional model that requires the musician not only to create the lyrical and musical content of a piece, but also to perform and interpret the original material in an intimately personal manner. Utilizing a coalescence of affecting performance, technical prowess, and confessional narrative song structures, the singer-songwriter holds the ability to conjure a captivating artistic experience—one that has enraptured audiences since its meteoric rise to pop culture prominence during the period of civil unrest that defined America’s identity crisis throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
In subsequent decades, music critics, scholars, and educators have scrutinized the developmental origins and artistic integrity of this genre, contesting the interplay of what specific elements constitute the identity of an “authentic singer-songwriter.” Due to this lack of consensus, further research was warranted to establish an in-depth understanding of the lived experience of singer-songwriters within today’s commercial music landscape.
The purpose of this study was to explore with five currently practicing singer-songwriters the elemental facets of their lived experience that led them to embrace this vocation and what continues to perpetuate their artistic ambition. Using a triangulation of qualitative data, this interpretative phenomenological inquiry uncovered phenomena that not only illuminate the holistic essence of the contemporary singer-songwriter’s lived experience but also highlight the potential cathartic psychological and emotional enlightenment derived from engaging in this particular manner of musical artistry for future generations of songwriters
Statistical Inference in Competitive Equilibrium
No full textThis thesis studies statistical inference and A/B testing in settings with interference arising from competitive market effects.
We study these effects in two fundamental market equilibrium models: the linear Fisher market (LFM) equilibrium and first-price pacing equilibrium (FPPE). LFM arises from fair resource allocation systems (such as physical allocation of food to food banks) and more generally distribution systems (such as user attention to different types of social media notifications on Instagram, or jobseekers’ attention to job posts in LinkedIn). For LFM, we assume that the observed data is captured by the classical finite-dimensional Fisher market equilibrium, and its steady-state behavior is modeled by a continuous limit Fisher market.
The second type of equilibrium we study, FPPE, arises from internet advertising applications, where adver- tisers are constrained by budgets and advertising opportunities are sold via first-price auctions. Pacing is a prevalent approach for managing advertiser budgets, where the platform assigns each advertiser an autobidder that controls expenditure by adaptively shading bids. For platforms that use pacing-based methods to smooth out the spending of advertisers, FPPE provides a steady-state description of the outcome of pacing-based markets.
In Chapter 1 we develop a theory of statistical inference for LFMs and FPPE. In Chapter 2 we investigate theoretically sound bootstrap approaches for LFM and FPPE. In Chapter 3 we apply the theory to reduce interference bias in parallel A/B tests on ad auction platforms
Dual number systems within and between languages: Cognitive processing in simple and complex numerical tasks using behavioral and electrophysiological methods
No full textThis research explores how language influences arithmetic processing, focusing specifically on how people's experiences with different number systems affect numerical cognition. Two studies compared Korean adults, who speak one language but use two distinct number systems—Sino-Korean (SK) and Native Korean (NK)—with Mandarin–English bilingual adults, who use two separate languages for math. Each group had extensive arithmetic experience primarily with one number system. Korean adults used SK numbers for formal math and rarely used NK numbers in arithmetic contexts.
Similarly, bilingual adults mostly learned and practiced arithmetic in Mandarin, starting from preschool through high school, giving them more experience with Mandarin numbers compared to English. Study 1 explored how numerical experience influences basic numerical processing using a parity-judgment task combined with brain responses (ERPs). Participants included 15 Mandarin–English bilingual adults and 15 Korean adults. Their task was to quickly decide whether numbers were odd or even while also occasionally switching between number systems—English and Mandarin for bilinguals, and Sino-Korean (SK) and Native Korean (NK) for Koreans.
Both groups performed similarly overall, but interestingly, participants made more errors when switching from their less-preferred number system (English or NK) to their preferred one (Mandarin or SK). The ERP analysis focused on two processes: attention (measured by the P2 response) and inhibitory control (measured by the N2 response). Both groups showed similar increases in the P2 response when switching number systems or detecting changes in numerical parity, suggesting they had comparable attentional processing. However, bilingual participants had shorter P2 latencies than Korean speakers, indicating they processed attention-related aspects of the task more quickly or efficiently. Additionally, bilingual adults showed stronger N2 responses during switching, indicating higher demands on inhibitory control. Korean adults, by contrast, showed smaller N2 responses, suggesting less inhibitory effort, likely because they were switching number systems within one language rather than across two languages.
Study 2 moved beyond simple parity judgments to examine more complex arithmetic tasks—addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Korean adults performed these tasks using two number systems (SK and NK), while bilingual adults used two different languages (Mandarin and English). For Korean adults, addition and subtraction showed no differences in reaction times between SK and NK. Interestingly, multiplication was different: Korean adults solved multiplication problems more slowly (by about 14%) when using their more familiar SK system. In contrast, bilingual adults showed clear reaction-time advantages when solving addition and subtraction problems in Mandarin, their preferred math language. This suggests that arithmetic retrieval depends strongly on the language in which arithmetic was initially learned, rather than just on general numerical experience or familiarity. However, multiplication tasks showed no reaction-time differences between Mandarin and English, suggesting that more complex arithmetic might rely on procedural strategies that reduce language-specific advantages.
Overall, these findings suggest that using two languages requires greater inhibitory control effort, even when behavioral performance appears similar between bilinguals (two languages) and Korean speakers (two number systems within one language). For addition and subtraction tasks—which mainly involve procedural—familiarity alone did not create differences in performance. Korean adults performed equally well using both their familiar (SK) and less familiar (NK) number systems, while bilingual adults solved problems significantly faster in their preferred, first-learned language (L1). For multiplication, however, tasks depend more heavily on memorized facts and verbal memory. Here, the advantages of language familiarity or initial language learning faded, and both groups performed similarly
Fixing the asymmetry: giving governments access to arbitration through state contracts
No full textMost investment projects are governed by contracts that allow investors but not governments to pursue arbitration. This Perspective proposes a model clause to restore symmetry, enabling states to initiate binding ICSID or PCA proceedings under state contracts. It highlights Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia’s experiences and provides a practical template
Personal Healthcare Networks of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Adults After Gender-Affirming Surgery
No full textThe purpose of this mixed methods dissertation was to describe access to healthcare among transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) adults in the years following gender-affirming surgery. In particular, these studies aimed to explore what constitutes “appropriate” care as a domain of access (i.e., the degree to which the care meets the needs of patients, and the quality of that care) for TGD adults after gender-affirming surgery and to investigate how it may be associated with their health outcomes. Further, this dissertation proposed and implemented a unique application of social network analysis methods for the characterization of access to healthcare services.
Chapter 1 is an introduction to health and health disparities among TGD people, gender-affirming care (including surgery), theories of access to care, and social network analysis methodologies.
Chapter 2 is an integrative review of 19 studies that utilized social network analysis methods to better understand how they could be applied to our population of interest, ultimately strengthening the concept of a ‘personal healthcare network’ made up of patients’ team of healthcare professionals.
Chapter 3 is a quantitative study analyzing a personal healthcare network dataset of 58 individuals at least one after a gender-affirming surgery and their report of 271 healthcare professionals that they have received care from in the past 12 months. Analysis of inclusive and affirming language use by clinicians in their networks and clinicians’ knowledge of gender-affirming care (as perceived by the patient) revealed a significant association between high network proportion of clinicians with high knowledge of gender-affirming care and participant self-rated physical health. Further, high knowledge of gender-affirming care was associated with significantly higher odds that a patient would intend to return to that provider and that they would consider that provider to be among the most important to their overall care.
Chapter 4 is a qualitative descriptive study with 16 interviews wherein participants described how (de-)humanizing interactions with healthcare professionals appear in their care since surgery, how reciprocal and collaborative relationships help them to feel more seen and empowered in their care, and how their surgery and overall transition affected their outlook on and approach to healthcare services. Lastly, Chapter 5 synthesizes the three studies in this dissertation, ultimately discussing implications for research, practice, and policy
Context-dependent computations in navigation and decision-making
No full textAnimals constantly adapt to dynamic external environments, and one effective policy is to select from a toolkit of strategies or skills depending on the current context. For instance, in the classical model of insect odor navigation, instantaneous odor serves as a contextual signal for animals to adjust their navigation strategy: surging upwind when encountering the odor and searching randomly when losing the odor. More generally, the contextual signal could integrate external information with internal state to determine the appropriate strategy.
In Chapter 2, I discuss the context-dependent use of directional memories in fruit fly odor navigation. Using a virtual reality olfactory paradigm developed by the Ruta lab that allows precise closed-loop control over odor encounters, we found that flies track an appetitive odor corridor by following its boundary, alternating between rapid counterturns to exit the plume and directed returns to its edge. This "edge-tracking" behavior allows flies to advance along a plume even when it is not aligned to the wind.
Our behavior analyses show that edge tracking cannot be attributed to reflexive strategies based on instantaneous odor cues. Instead, flies alternate between leaving and returning states, with transition rates depending on the presence or absence of odor. State-dependent directional biases then guide flies away from or back toward the edge. Flies rely on distinct returning biases when tracking edges in different directions, suggesting that they use memory of past entry directions to bias subsequent return. I developed a switching state-space model implementing this hypothesis. The model, fitted to data, captures the ability of flies to track various edge directions, and predicts that a fly's returning bias can be altered by a few operant training sessions in which appetitive odor is turned on whenever flies spontaneously walk in a certain direction. We verified this prediction in flies through behavioral experiments. Components of our model can be mapped directly onto the neural circuits of the Drosophila fan-shaped body, building the foundation for investigating the underlying neural mechanisms. As a first step in this direction, we found that FC2 neurons within the fan-shaped body signal state-dependent directional goals that guide a fly's return to the odor edge.
In Chapter 3, I discuss how inferring computational contexts can facilitate continual learning in recurrent neural networks. The ability to continually learn different tasks is an important feature of cognitive flexibility, yet it remains a challenging problem in neural network models. Most existing models encode task identities as one-hot embeddings, failing to capture the similarity or compositional structures of different tasks. We show that a large family of cognitive tasks studied in neuroscience can be systematically described by a probabilistic generative model, in which compositionality stems from a shared vocabulary of discrete computational contexts. These contexts can then dictate what computations to perform across different trial epochs. We developed an online learning algorithm that allows this task model to build its vocabulary incrementally as it encounters new tasks and to infer time-varying contexts given task identity and trial input.
I then designed a recurrent neural network with low-rank components selectively gated by the computational context inferred by the task model. Contextual inference facilitates the creation, learning, and reuse of low-rank RNN components as new tasks are introduced sequentially, enabling continual learning without catastrophic forgetting. Using an example task set, I demonstrate the competitive performance of this learning framework, its potential for forward and backward transfer, as well as rapid compositional generalization to unseen tasks.
Other than discrete contexts, animals can adapt their strategies to continuous contextual signals. In Chapter 4, I show that adapting to a continuous context, i.e., implicit task demand, leads to improved performance in a visual tracking task. Humans are adept at tracking moving objects in complex scenes, even when targets are visually identical to distractors and can only be tracked through spatial continuity, a task known as multiple object tracking (MOT). Behavior studies on this task show that tracking precision flexibly adapts to task demand, with precision increasing when distractors are in close proximity. I ask whether task-optimized neural networks can reproduce this flexibility, and if so, what type of objective function is required.
I compared a classification objective, which mirrors the decision format of MOT by labeling objects as targets or distractors, with a regression objective, which enforces slot-based outputs for target locations. Only classification-based models reproduced the demand-driven tracking precision observed in humans, and they generalized more effectively to larger target sets and to clustered targets. These results suggest that the classification objective aligns more closely with the behavioral goals of visual tracking. By contrast, the regression objective, designed for veridical estimation, is advantageous for extrapolating predictable trajectories, making it better suited for modeling visual–motor tasks such as object interception
Preliminary Notes on the Plutonium Challenge
No full textThis document is the work of the Plutonium Challenge Working Group, a young researchers and students team dedicated to articulate a preliminary framework for thinking about the plutonium challenge through interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and multidimensional perspectives. We acknowledge from the outset that the plutonium challenge is extraordinarily complex scientifically, politically, and ethically. Other researchers from diverse disciplines are invited to engage in describing the challenge and exploring a range of strategies to address and ultimately resolve it.
The plutonium challenge can only be addressed through cooperative patterns that constructively engage political, scientific, economic, and environmental dimensions. Many stakeholders in these areas may not have easy access to the many complexities of the plutonium challenge. This memo therefore intentionally simplifies the discussion, providing a foundational overview to help newcomers or those relatively unfamiliar with the topic gain a basic understanding. The goal is to offer a minimum reference point that encourages further research, dialogue, and cooperative action