Iodine content of oyster shells

A report is given of the investigation of the iodine content of oyster shells taken from the reefs found in the Gulf of Mexico. The pulverized shells as sold on the market contain 200 to 300 parts per billion of iodine. Water soluble and alcohol soluble iodides appear to be absent. The granulated undried shells contain 500 parts per billion of iodine. Apparently there is a loss of iodine due to the temperature at which the pulverized shells are dried.     

Examiner scoring of ambiguous WISC-R responses

Fabricated test protocols were used to study how effectively examiners agree in scoring ambiguous WISC-R responses. Clinical and school psychologists (N = 62) and graduate students (N = 48) scored WISC-R Similarities, Comprehension, and Vocabulary responses obtained in a group administration procedure. From over 15,000 responses obtained, only unusual, atypical, or ambiguous responses were selected; 726 responses were scored, with 11 groups of 10 raters each scoring 66 responses. Considerable scoring disagreement occurred. Unanimous agreement (within each group of 10 raters) was found on only 13% of the responses, while 80% of the raters agreed on 44% of the responses. Rates of scoring agreement were not related to level of rater experience, but were related to specific subtests. Higher rates of agreement were found on the Similarities and Comprehension subtests than on the Vocabulary subtest for both experienced and inexperienced raters. The results suggest that even with the improved WISC-R manual, scoring remains a difficult and challenging task.     

The internet

Conclusion Despite the claims of some, listservs do not supplant the need for professional print journals. Most messages are short (5,000 bytes, the equivalent of one single-spaced page, is considered lengthy) and revolve around useful day-to-day professional information exchanges. This type of information is valuable and extremely useful-where else can one post a plea for advice which will be read by hundreds of professional peers within 24 hours? However, there is no reason why this same vehicle cannot be used to substantively examine the professional literature and facilitate reporting on talks and/or sessions from professional meetings. Given the wide scope of cultural and organizational institutions employing list subscribers, listservs provide a fertile forum for communication on user populations. A more robust understanding of our clientele and the sharing of data about them will allow our professions to more propitiously position ourselves both within society and with those with the power of the purse.     

Guideline in Jeopardy: Observations on the Application of the ASHRAE Chapter on Climate Control in Museums

ABSTRACT

This paper provides the climate specifications of several museums in the Netherlands that have been renovated. These climate specifications developed in the last two decades are very similar, and hence demonstrate that not much has changed in 20 years. Since the use of the climate classes presented by ASHRAE often plays a major role in developing climate specifications in Dutch museums, an analysis was made of its pros and cons. Issues concerning the use of the ASHRAE table are presented: the table is used as a list, the meaning of short fluctuations is unclear, and translating the numbers to a control algorithm is troublesome. An alternative table is presented for temperature and relative humidity specifications to overcome these issues.     

Neural information retrieval: at the end of the early years

A recent “third wave” of neural network (NN) approaches now delivers state-of-the-art performance in many machine learning tasks, spanning speech recognition, computer vision, and natural language processing. Because these modern NNs often comprise multiple interconnected layers, work in this area is often referred to as deep learning. Recent years have witnessed an explosive growth of research into NN-based approaches to information retrieval (IR). A significant body of work has now been created. In this paper, we survey the current landscape of Neural IR research, paying special attention to the use of learned distributed representations of textual units. We highlight the successes of neural IR thus far, catalog obstacles to its wider adoption, and suggest potentially promising directions for future research.     

How changes in work structure influence employees’ perceptions of CSR: millionaire managers and locked-out laborers

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is widely understood as the various activities corporations engage in to meet stakeholder demands and demonstrate fit in society. Often employees are positioned as the beneficiaries of corporate largesse and worker recruitment and retention are offered as rationale for CSR activities. The voice of the employee, however, is noticeably missing from the CSR literature. This study uses a case study approach to explore how locked-out union workers define CSR. We conducted 51 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 27 secondary data sources. The results suggest that workers fuse together economic and ethical responsibilities to develop a portrait of their employer's CSR. Workers defined CSR as an economic/ethical responsibility that is intimately tied to a set of explicitly and implicitly communicated values. Our analysis exposed four additional dimensions that informed employees’ understanding of CSR: reciprocity, fair treatment, economic justice, and organizational structure. Propositions for future research and practical implications are offered based on the findings.     

The prediction of academic and clinical performance in medical school

Prior studies have suggested the importance of distinguishing between performance in the earlier and later years of medical education. Factor analysis of grades by year and faculty ratings of clinical and general medical competence for 661 medical students identified two uncorrelated factors clearly reflecting this distinction. The clinical performance factor, accounting for 48% of the communality of the matrix, was more or less unpredictable from aptitude and premedical academic achievement indices; it was marginally predictable from scales on the Adjective Check List. The academic performance factor, accounting for 31% of the variance among criteria, was forecast with acceptable accuracy (cross-validated R=0.43) by equations based on the Medical College Admission Test and premedical grade point average. Future study should stress the clinical performance factor; this criterion appears to be more important than academic attainment, and it is also less accurately predicted by current measures.