This Viewpoint addresses the lack of racial representation in the surgical profession and suggests a way to build an inclusive, excellent physician workforce.
Abstract
The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science (hereafter GLASS-JWST-ERS) Program will obtain and make publicly available the deepest extragalactic data of the ERS campaign. It is primarily designed ...to address two key science questions, namely, “what sources ionized the universe and when?” and “how do baryons cycle through galaxies?”, while also enabling a broad variety of first look scientific investigations. In primary mode, it will obtain NIRISS and NIRSpec spectroscopy of galaxies lensed by the foreground Hubble Frontier Field cluster, Abell 2744. In parallel, it will use NIRCam to observe two fields that are offset from the cluster center, where lensing magnification is negligible, and which can thus be effectively considered blank fields. In order to prepare the community for access to this unprecedented data, we describe the scientific rationale, the survey design (including target selection and observational setups), and present pre-commissioning estimates of the expected sensitivity. In addition, we describe the planned public releases of high-level data products, for use by the wider astronomical community.
When excellence is still not enough Butler, Paris D.
The American journal of surgery,
September 2020, 2020-09-00, 20200901, Volume:
220, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Remarks such as “at least there is more diversity than there was before” or “things like diversity take time” or my personal favorite “it’s a systemic problem and you should focus your attention at ...the elementary school level to increase the pool of minority candidates”, suggests otherwise. There are fewer black males in medical school now than there were in 1978.1 Faculty representation of black assistant, associate, and full professors within US departments of surgery have either remained unchanged or decreased since 2005.2 There are fewer black surgery department chairs in 2020 (7) than there were in 2008 (13), and if you remove the three historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) there are only 4 black surgery department chairs in the entire US.3 That is just 2.6% of the 154 departments of surgery recognized by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).3,4 The top 20 surgery journals ranked by impact factor do not include a single black editor-in-chief. To the more personal, when is the last time you invited one of your black or brown faculty to your golf course, social club, or made sure that they (and their significant other) sat with you at your table at a holiday event?
For many, music being played in the OR makes some of the more mundane components of an operation less tedious, camouflages the irritating sound of the Yankauer suction, and can seemingly lift the ...spirits of the surgical team.3 One study found that an upbeat cadence of music being played in the OR actually led to improved quality and more efficient surgical closures.4 Even if the aforementioned “benefits” of music being played in the OR are more conjecture than fact, the reality is that it is a broadly accepted cultural practice.5 The word “cultural” was used specifically there because I believe that the music played often reflects the demographics of the attending surgeon. With this enriching experience of being exposed to and educated by competent and accomplished faculty that come from historically minoritized groups, it could serve as another mechanism to improve institutional inclusivity shortcomings and make majority “allyship” more natural and routine for the next generation of physicians. Continuing to identify and be mindful of some of the less conspicuous benefits of DEI efforts is the point of this offering, and hopefully provides a thoughtful example of how intentionality in this domain can have cultural impact on our learners both inside and beyond the operating theater.Declaration of competing interest This manuscript has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
In this study, they report four key take home findings: 1) The proportion of women surgical residents and faculty increased from 2001 to 2017; 2) The proportion of surgical faculty from racial/ethnic ...minority groups also increased from 2001 to 2017; 3) The proportion of surgical residents from racial/ethnic minority groups remained unchanged from 2001 to 2017, and 4) Program diversity correlates with resident diversity. In particular, they articulate that the specific lack of African American, Latinx, and Indigenous academic surgeons may be derived from a multitude of considerations, inclusive of systemic bias, racism, and outdated mechanisms for professional advancement.4,5 These challenges necessitate further understanding of the racial and ethnic specific barriers in the academic surgical training process; however, we also acknowledge the difficulties in assessing race and ethnicity over time due to changing methods of data collection. ...sponsoring undergraduate, medical student, and resident research and scholastic opportunities may further enhance a welcoming and supportive environment for racial/ethnic minority and female learners as they progress along the academic surgery continuum.Declaration of competing interest The authors report no Financial Conflicts of Interest or Funding pertaining to this study.
Non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) such as ethane and propane are significant atmospheric pollutants and precursors of tropospheric ozone, while the Middle East is a global emission hotspot due to ...extensive oil and gas production. Here we compare in situ hydrocarbon measurements, performed around the Arabian Peninsula, with global model simulations that include current emission inventories (EDGAR) and state-of-the-art atmospheric circulation and chemistry mechanisms (EMAC model). While measurements of high mixing ratios over the Arabian Gulf are adequately simulated, strong underprediction by the model was found over the northern Red Sea. By examining the individual sources in the model and by utilizing air mass back-trajectory investigations and Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis, we deduce that Red Sea Deep Water (RSDW) is an unexpected, potent source of atmospheric NMHCs. This overlooked underwater source is comparable with total anthropogenic emissions from entire Middle Eastern countries, and significantly impacts the regional atmospheric chemistry.
While much of the research suggests that quality relationships and supportive campus environments shape well-being in college, racialized experiences can moderate the effort students put into their ...academic and well-being endeavors. However, our understanding of how relationships and networks support student well-being is understudied. This descriptive study employs a critical-relational well-being framework to analyze (n = 1200) survey responses from the Healthy Minds survey to determine perceived institutional and personal well-being support connections for Black and Indigenous college students in the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive two-mode social network analysis suggests a slight decrease in support network diversity and network differences in perceived well-being support by the level of well-being and gender. Faculty and advisors were structurally central in Black and Indigenous men’s well-being support and for those with higher well-being, but less central for Black and Indigenous women, and those with lower well-being. While family and friends provided vital social support, campus actors such as professors from class and academic advisors also served central structural roles for students with more diverse networks. Teaching assistants, student affairs staff, and religious affiliations served unique roles for students with fewer support role categories.
The question of whether tumorigenic cancer stem cells exist in human melanomas has arisen in the last few years. Here we show that in melanomas, tumour stem cells (MTSCs, for melanoma tumour stem ...cells) can be isolated prospectively as a highly enriched CD271+ MTSC population using a process that maximizes viable cell transplantation. The tumours sampled in this study were taken from a broad spectrum of sites and stages. High-viability cells isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting and re-suspended in a matrigel vehicle were implanted into T-, B- and natural-killer-deficient Rag2−/− c−/− mice. The CD271+ subset of cells was the tumour-initiating population in 90% (nine out of ten) of melanomas tested. Transplantation of isolated CD271+ melanoma cells into engrafted human skin or bone in Rag2−/− c−/− mice resulted in melanoma; however, melanoma did not develop after transplantation of isolated CD271− cells. We also show that in mice, tumours derived from transplanted human CD271+ melanoma cells were capable of metastatsis in vivo. CD271+ melanoma cells lacked expression of TYR, MART1 and MAGE in 86%, 69% and 68% of melanoma patients, respectively, which helps to explain why T-cell therapies directed at these antigens usually result in only temporary tumour shrinkage.
Abstract We exploit James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) NIRCam observations from the GLASS-JWST-Early Release Science program to investigate galaxy stellar masses at z > 7. We first show that JWST ...observations reduce the uncertainties on the stellar mass by a factor of at least 5–10, when compared with the highest-quality data sets available to date. We then study the UV mass-to-light ratio, finding that galaxies exhibit a a two orders of magnitude range of M / L UV values for a given luminosity, indicative of a broad variety of physical conditions and star formation histories. As a consequence, previous estimates of the cosmic stellar-mass density—based on an average correlation between UV luminosity and stellar mass—can be biased by as much as a factor of ∼6. Our first exploration demonstrates that JWST represents a new era in our understanding of stellar masses at z > 7 and, therefore, of the growth of galaxies prior to cosmic reionization.
PDF
