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Objectives: Media advocacy plays a critical role in tobacco control, shaping the content of news in ways that generate public support for tobacco control. We examined US media coverage of nonsmoker-only hiring policies, which have little US public support, exploring the extent to which tobacco control advocates and experts have engaged the media on this controversial issue. Methods: We searched online media databases (Lexis Nexis, Access World News, and Proquest) for articles published from 1995–2013, coding retrieved items through a collaborative, iterative process. We analyzed the volume, type, provenance, prominence, content and slant of coverage. Results: We found 1,159 media items on nonsmoker-only hiring policies, most published in local newspapers in regions where such policies were enacted. The most common reason given for implementing such policies was to reduce healthcare costs. Most news items offered reasons both to support and oppose such policies; thus, the slant of the majority of news items was neutral or mixed. Tobacco control advocates or experts were infrequently cited or quoted in news items, and rarely authored opinion pieces. Those who expressed opinions were more likely to support than oppose nonsmoker-only hiring policies, for economic and health reasons. Ethical concerns about the policies were seldom raised. Conclusions: As presented in the media, nonsmoker-only hiring policies were primarily framed in terms of business cost savings and had little connection to health initiatives. Tobacco control advocates were rarely quoted and their positions were not consistent. Given their intrusiveness and the lack of strong evidence that such business policies actually do improve worker health, tobacco control advocates may feel that the status quo is preferable to engaging on a policy that the majority of Americans dislike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic physician-investigator faces many challenges. Obtaining funding to support research is the greatest impediment. The National Institutes of Health, the single largest source of grants for the academic physician-investigator, approved only 14.2% of new investigator grant applications in 1990, compared with 40% in 1965 and 1975. Physicians submitted 25% of all applications, and they have priority scores similar to those applications submitted by investigators with PhD degrees. The 14.2% funding rate for new investigator-initiated grants is considerably less than the 56% success rate of amended renewal investigator-initiated grants. These trends in funding can be discouraging to the new physician-investigator. In addition, more emphasis is placed on clinical practice to generate money to support the new academic physician. These two facts, reduced probability of obtaining a grant and the perceived need to see more patients for salary support, may jeopardize retention of young faculty members. Moreover, training to prepare physicians for academic careers has been poor, with no attention given to the projected needs of the academic centers or the nation. This article describes the dilemma facing young physician-investigators and provides recommendations for improvement to the leaders of American medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a descriptive study which examined the frequency data involving potential respondents who refused to participate in research despite their eligibility for studies in intramural program of the National Institute of Mental Health. It cites the categories of reasons for the decline in research participation including inconvenience, result of specific protocol issues, and financial reasons. The findings identified common factors which suggest the steps investigators must do to better accommodate the public's need.

The use of experts to judge performance assessments is desirable because ratings of performances, carried out by experts in the content domain of the examination, are often considered to be the "gold standard." However, one drawback of using experts to rate performances is the high cost involved. A more economic alternative for scoring performance assessments entails using analytic scoring, which typically involves assigning points to individual traits present in the performance, and summing to arrive at a single score. This strategy is less costly, but may lack the richness of holistic scoring. This study investigates the use of regression-based techniques to predict expert judgments on a written performance task from a combination of analytic scores. Potentially, this will result in scores that approximate the richness of holistic ratings while maintaining the cost-effectiveness of analytic scoring. Results show that a substantial proportion of variance in expert judgments can be explained by the analytic scores, but that decisions based on actual expert judgments and the predicted expert judgments were not sufficiently consistent to warrant the substitution of one score for the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the testimonial to teachers in the U.S. Teachers are the fountain origin of democracy since they are extremely worthful part of the state and government. The future of the country will be ascertained to teachers to any other profession. Therefore, it is the sanctified obligation of every teacher to stand by the state to do his responsibilities to the children in the state. Before a teacher answer to the call of teaching, she needs to have a character to be a teacher.