Public Education Through Community-Based Film Programs: A Report on the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital

Abstract

A leading community-based film program, the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital, is described and lessons relevant to practitioners who wish to develop similar programs in other cities are presented.     

美洲豹在哪里

美国人认为这种被称为美洲豹或美洲狮的动物随处可见：这在西部不是稀罕事。20世纪中期前,美洲豹数量因狩猎骤减,后因政府出台严格的管理政策,得到显著的恢复。东边的美洲豹也在中西部出现。南达科他州也有200多只。去年芝加哥的警察就在北区射死一只。     

自行车的福音

一天清晨．亚特兰大的杰西·黑斯克骑自行车上班,身后尾随着辆汽车。这位53岁的护士笨拙地骑着车,造成了严重交通堵塞。一位过路人说：“你还能骑得动车．真是幸运。”那之后,她就放弃了自行车。     

Do universities benefit local youth? Evidence from the creation of new universities

In this study, I examine university and college participation rates, as well as graduate outcomes, following the establishment of a university in cities where there were previously none. The creation of a local university is associated with a large increase in university attendance among local youth in each affected city. However, the increase in university participation came at the expense of college participation in most cities. Furthermore, not everyone benefited equally from new universities in terms of university enrolment. In the short run, the creation of a local university is associated with a substantial increase in the probability of moving out of one city for men and women. For men, employment rates rise, while for women, there is an increase in business services and public sector employment.     

The Value of Vocalizing: Five-Month-Old Infants Associate Their Own Noncry Vocalizations With Responses From Caregivers

The early noncry vocalizations of infants are salient social signals. Caregivers spontaneously respond to 30%–50% of these sounds, and their responsiveness to infants’ prelinguistic noncry vocalizations facilitates the development of phonology and speech. Have infants learned that their vocalizations influence the behavior of social partners? If they have, infants should show an extinction burst in vocalizing when adults temporarily stop responding to infant vocalizations. Thirty‐eight 5‐month‐olds were tested in the still‐face paradigm with an unfamiliar adult. When the adult assumed a still face, infants showed an extinction burst. Thus, 5‐month‐olds have learned the social efficacy of their vocalizations on caregivers’ behavior. Furthermore, the magnitude of 5‐month infants’ extinction bursts predicted their language comprehension at 13 months.     

Engineering Privacy by Design: Are engineers ready to live up to the challenge?

Organizations struggle to comply with legal requirements as well as customers’ calls for better data protection. On the implementation level, incorporation of privacy protections in products and services depends on the commitment of the engineers who design them. We interviewed six senior engineers, who work for globally leading IT corporations and research institutions, to investigate their motivation and ability to comply with privacy regulations. Our findings point to a lack of perceived responsibility, control, autonomy, and frustrations with interactions with the legal world. While we increasingly call on engineers to go beyond functional requirements and be responsive to human values in our increasingly technological society, we may be facing the dilemma of asking engineers to live up to a challenge they are currently not ready to embrace.     

The gender gap in early career transitions in the life sciences

We examined the extent to which and why early career transitions have led to women being underrepresented among faculty in the life sciences. We followed the careers of 6,336 scientists from the post-doctoral fellowship stage to becoming a principal investigator (PI) – a critical transition in the academic life sciences. Using a unique dataset that connects individuals’ National Institutes of Health funding histories to their publication records, we found that a large portion of the overall gender gap in the life sciences emerges at this transition. Women become PIs at a 20% lower rate than men. Differences in “productivity” (publication records) can explain about 60% of this differential. The remaining portion appears to stem from gender differences in the returns to similar publication records, with women receiving less credit for their citations.