Alumni Perspectives on Career Preparation during a Postdoctoral Training Program: A Qualitative Study

Published evaluations of career preparation of alumni from long-standing postdoctoral fellowship programs in the biomedical sciences are limited and often focus on quantitative analysis of data from extant publicly available sources. Qualitative methods provide the opportunity to gather robust information about specific program elements from structured postdoctoral training programs and the influence of this training on subsequent career paths of alumni. In-depth interviews with a subset of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP) alumni (n = 27), representing more than 25 years of the program’s history and multiple career sectors, were conducted to assess alumni reflections on the training environment and career preparation during their time in the CPFP. NVivo software was used to analyze data and identify major themes. Four main themes emerged from these interviews, including: the value of structured training curriculum, mentorship, transdisciplinary environment, and professional identity. Even when reflecting on training that occurred one to two decades earlier, alumni were able to highlight specific components of a structured postdoctoral training program as influencing their research and career trajectories. These results may have relevance for those interested in assessing how postdoctoral training can influence fellows throughout their careers and understanding salient features of structured programs.     

Gestalt principles of creating learning business ontologies for knowledge codification

This paper presents an approach aimed at creating business ontologies for knowledge codification in company. It is based on the principles of ontological engineering and cognitive psychology. Ontologies that describe the main concepts of knowledge are used both for knowledge creation and codification. The proposed framework is targeted at the development of methodologies that can scaffold the process of knowledge structuring and orchestrating for better understanding and knowledge sharing. The orchestrating procedure is the kernel of ontology development. The main stress is put on using visual techniques of mind mapping. Cognitive bias and some results of Gestalt psychology are highlighted as a general guideline. The ideas of balance, clarity, and beauty are applied to the ontology orchestrating procedures. The examples are taken mainly from the project management practice. The paper contributes to managerial practice by describing the practical recommendations for effective knowledge management based on ontology engineering and knowledge structuring techniques.     

Breaking the filter bubble: democracy and design

It has been argued that the Internet and social media increase the number of available viewpoints, perspectives, ideas and opinions available, leading to a very diverse pool of information. However, critics have argued that algorithms used by search engines, social networking platforms and other large online intermediaries actually decrease information diversity by forming so-called “filter bubbles”. This may form a serious threat to our democracies. In response to this threat others have developed algorithms and digital tools to combat filter bubbles. This paper first provides examples of different software designs that try to break filter bubbles. Secondly, we show how norms required by two democracy models dominate the tools that are developed to fight the filter bubbles, while norms of other models are completely missing in the tools. The paper in conclusion argues that democracy itself is a contested concept and points to a variety of norms. Designers of diversity enhancing tools must thus be exposed to diverse conceptions of democracy.     

A new solution to the gamer’s dilemma

Luck (2009) argues that gamers face a dilemma when it comes to performing certain virtual acts. Most gamers regularly commit acts of virtual murder, and take these acts to be morally permissible. They are permissible because unlike real murder, no one is harmed in performing them; their only victims are computer-controlled characters, and such characters are not moral patients. What Luck points out is that this justification equally applies to virtual pedophelia, but gamers intuitively think that such acts are not morally permissible. The result is a dilemma: either gamers must reject the intuition that virtual pedophelic acts are impermissible and so accept partaking in such acts, or they must reject the intuition that virtual murder acts are permissible, and so abstain from many (if not most) extant games. While the prevailing solution to this dilemma has been to try and find a morally relevant feature to distinguish the two cases, I argue that a different route should be pursued. It is neither the case that all acts of virtual murder are morally permissible, nor are all acts of virtual pedophelia impermissible. Our intuitions falter and produce this dilemma because they are not sensitive to the different contexts in which games present virtual acts.     

Virtuous reality: moral theory and research into cyber-bullying

This article draws on a study investigating how 11–14 year olds growing up in England understand cyber-bullying as a moral concern. Three prominent moral theories: deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics, informed the development of a semi-structured interview schedule which enabled young people, in their own words, to describe their experiences of online and offline bullying. Sixty 11–14 year olds from six schools across England were involved with the research. Themes emerging from the interviews included anonymity; the absence of rules, monitoring and guidance and, the challenges associated with determining the consequences of online actions. The findings demonstrate the advantages of adopting a character-based moral theory to compliment rules and/or consequence based moral theories as the basis for future research into cyber-bullying. The findings evoke some wider implications for future research into cyber-bullying that might equally be applied to investigations into other Internet related moral concerns.     

Peer review: still king in the digital age

The article presents one of the main findings of an international study of 4,000 academic researchers that examined how trustworthiness is determined in the digital environment when it comes to scholarly reading, citing, and publishing. The study shows that peer review is still the most trustworthy characteristic of all. There is, though, a common perception that open access journals are not peer reviewed or do not have proper peer‐review systems. Researchers appear to have moved inexorably from a print‐based system to a digital system, but it has not significantly changed the way they decide what to trust. They do not trust social media. Only a minority – although significantly mostly young and early career researchers – thought that social media are anything other than more appropriate to personal interactions and peripheral to their professional/academic lives. There are other significant differences, according to the age of the researcher. Thus, in regard to choosing an outlet for publication of their work, young researchers are much less concerned with the fact that it is peer reviewed.     

Microfluidic assessment of swimming media for motility-based sperm selection

Selection medium is important in sperm isolation for assisted reproductive technologies. Contrary to the naturally occurring human cervical mucus which has a high viscosity, most current practices for motility based sperm selection use a low viscosity medium. In this study, we used a microfluidic device to assess the effects of high viscosity media made with hyaluronic acid (HA) and methyl cellulose (MC) on bovine and human sperm motility and viability (sperm transferred directly from cryoprotectant). The microfluidic penetration test, viability, and motility were compared for sperm swimming in both HA and MC media with about 20cp viscosity (measured at 20 °C). Our resulted indicate that MC medium resulted in a significantly higher number of viable bovine sperm penetrating the medium as compared to HA. Furthermore, MC resulted in the selection of a sperm subpopulation with a 274% increase in sperm viability in comparison to the raw semen, while HA increased viability by only 133%. In addition to viability, bovine sperm motility parameters were significantly higher in the MC medium as compared with HA. Experiments with human sperm swimming in MC indicate that sperm swim slower and straighter at higher viscosities. In conclusion, the results indicate that in a micro-confined environment representative of the in vivo environment, MC is a preferred high viscosity medium to ensure the highest concentration of motile and viable sperm.     

Introducing novel approaches for examining the variability of individuals’ physical activity

Tudor-Locke and colleagues previously assessed steps/day for 1 year. The aim of this study was to use this data set to introduce a novel approach for the investigation of whether individual’s physical activity exhibits periodicity fluctuating round a mean and, if so, the degree of fluctuation and whether the mean changes over time. Twenty-three participants wore a pedometer for 365 days, recorded steps/day and whether the day was a workday. Fourier transform of each participant’s daily steps data showed the physical activity had a periodicity of 7 days in half of the participants, matching the periodicity of the workday pattern. Activity level remained stable in half of the participants, decreased in ten participants and increased in two. In conclusion, the 7-day periodicity of activity in half of the participants and correspondence with the workday pattern suggest a social or environmental influence. The novel analytical approach introduced herein allows the determination of the periodicity of activity, the degree of variability in activity that is tolerated during day-to-day life and whether the activity level is stable. Results from the use of these methodologies in larger data sets may enable a more focused approach to the design of interventions that aim to increase activity.     

Reclaiming Canada Through Its ‘Ancient’ Sport: Lacrosse and the Native Sons of Canada in Late 1920s Alberta

Lacrosse has long been considered Canada's national sport and, beginning in the latter half of the nineteenth century, became tied to the nationalist ambitions that sought to promote a national identity through the ‘creation’ of a uniquely Canadian game. Popular in the decades prior to the turn of the twentieth century, lacrosse in Alberta began to decline after the First World War, becoming a marginal sport played only in the province's larger cities. A brief and unexpected revival of lacrosse occurred in two communities, Edmonton and Lethbridge, in the 1920s championed by a nativist organization, the Native Sons of Canada (NSC). For this group lacrosse represented a natural means to promote their ‘Canada First’ ideology to young male Albertans. In Edmonton, the Native Sons sponsored a senior men's lacrosse team that garnered some local and regional attention, while attempts by the Lethbridge assembly to promote youth lacrosse in 1927 were largely unsuccessful. Despite the continuing affinity between Canadian nationalism and lacrosse, the NSC were ineffective in their efforts to revive interest in the sport. The ‘national’ game did not provide nativists in Alberta the platform they sought to promote their nationalist agenda.