Search

Looking Beyond the Storms of major events and reactionary tendencies to prevent future disasters—and continuing to fix things—the author introduces a fresh assessment in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, the vexing challenge of domestic shootings, and a persistent nationwide drought. This paper offers a refreshing perspective on the need for transformational and innovative thinking on preparedness, response, and resilience, as well as disaster management. Against the backdrop of 9-11 terrorist attacks and natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina, Irene, and Sandy, this paper, highlights that we—as homeland security planners and policymakers—must look beyond the immediate demands of grant proposals and a narrow focus on “prevention” and “protection” to a systemic analysis of “mitigation, response, and recovery”—based upon required functions and capabilities. It asserts the need for change from spending scarce dollars to prevent that which is inevitable and nervously trying to protect physical locations—in an environment of growing complexity and uncertainty—to a posture that integrates resilience as an active virtue in all elements of the homeland security enterprise. There is a sense of urgency that challenges leaders to understand the strategic imperatives and unique opportunities in building all-hazards community resilience.

This paper develops a line-search algorithm that uses objective function models with tunable accuracy to solve smooth optimization problems with convex constraints. The evaluation of objective function and its gradient is potentially computationally expensive, but it is assumed that one can construct effective, computationally inexpensive models. This paper specifies how these models can be used to generate new iterates. At each iteration, the model has to satisfy function error and relative gradient error tolerances determined by the algorithm based on its progress. Moreover, a bound for the model error is used to explore regions where the model is sufficiently accurate. The algorithm has the same first-order global convergence properties as standard line-search methods, but only uses the models and the model error bounds. The algorithm is applied to problems where the evaluation of the objective requires the solution of a large-scale system of nonlinear equations. The models are constructed from reduced order models of this system. Numerical results for partial differential equation constrained optimization problems show the benefits of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the lifetime prevalence of physical dating violence, including victimization, perpetration, and the overlap between the two (mutual violence), among a population sample of 551 reservation/reserve residing Indigenous (i.e., American Indian and Canadian First Nations) adolescents in the upper-Midwest of the United States and Canada. Potential correlates of four dating violence profiles (i.e., no dating violence, perpetration only, victimization only, and mutual violence) relevant to this population also were considered. The clearest pattern to emerge from multinomial logistic regression analyses suggested that adolescents who engage in problem behaviors, exhibit high levels of anger, and perceive high levels of discrimination have increased odds of lifetime mutual dating violence relative to those reporting no dating violence. Furthermore, gender comparisons indicated that females were more likely to report being perpetrators only, whereas males were more likely to report being victims only. Considerations of dating violence profiles and culturally relevant prevention strategies are discussed.

In the present study, we considered the utility of the prototype/willingness model in predicting alcohol use among North-American Indigenous adolescents. Specifically, using longitudinal data, we examined the associations among subjective drinking norms, positive drinker prototypes, drinking expectations (as a proxy of drinking willingness), and drinking behavior among a sample of Indigenous adolescents from ages 12 to 14 years. Using an autoregressive cross-lagged analysis, our results showed that subjective drinking norms and positive drinker prototypes at 12 years of age were associated with increased drinking expectations at 13 years of age, and that greater drinking expectations at 13 years of age were associated with increased drinking behavior at 14 years of age. Our results provide initial evidence that the prototype/willingness model may generalize to Indigenous adolescents, a population that has received little attention within the psychological sciences. Our results also highlight some potential ways in which existing prevention efforts aimed at reducing substance use among Indigenous adolescents may be enhanced.

"Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America's Community Newspapers" by Dave Hoekstra is a book that explores the world of community newspapers in the United States. The author, a former columnist and critic, interviews editors and publishers from various small-town newspapers to shed light on their dedication and perseverance. While the book is not a manual on saving community journalism, it offers inspiring stories of individuals who have devoted their lives to covering local news. However, the book lacks organization and fails to provide critical analysis or practical solutions. [Extracted from the article]

On June 4 this year, Howard Finberg of the Poynter Institute gave a speech called "The Future of Journalism Education" at the European Journalism Centre's twentieth anniversary celebration in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in which he presented the results of a survey of journalists and journalism professors about the value of a journalism degree, among other things. Finberg spent the rest of his speech bragging about Poynter's News University, encouraging journalism schools to offer a lot of News University-type online courses, saying that "maybe a journalism degree isn't the endgame" (after earlier having said "I do NOT suggest that this survey says that a degree is unimportant"), suggesting that journalism and mass communication (J&MC) programs do "practical research, not just academic exploration," and pushing a combination of student work portfolios that go way beyond "just traditional clips or tapes" and "digital badges that represent skills or other competences" of students in addition to the uber-portfolio and the course transcript. Finberg packed quite a bit into this Maastricht speech, and it requires more than a little bit of unpacking, which the author does in this article without defending the status quo. In sum, the author points out that a sincere goal of true excellence, which would involve, among other things, all journalism students producing News21-like work, would lead to meeting Carnegie Corp.'s three journalism "needs."

Standard media coverage of higher education hasn't changed that much since the 1940s, and it doesn't serve the core functions of higher education well. US news media could not maintain their anti-intellectualism without widespread public acceptance, but schools of journalism must accept their share of the blame. US journalists historically came from bluecollar backgrounds; nineteenth-century newspapers were staffed by one or two college-graduate editors and high school-dropout reporters. The percentage of US journalists with college degrees did not reach 50 percent until about 1970 but has kept increasing since then. Today, close to 100 percent of journalists have bachelors' degrees and well over 50 percent have journalism degrees. Journalism schools thus had a historic opportunity to become a pro-intellectual force in US mass media. They largely failed. Recently, journalism-school curricula have become more anti-intellectual, as courses in media history, media management, and public-affairs reporting have been marginalized or eliminated. In their place have come an explosion of courses, majors, and endowed chairs in sports journalism, sports information and public relations, sports marketing, and even sports management; in e-commerce; and in web design, animation, computer games, and other fields that involve both communication and technology. If US higher education's future is dependent on mass public opinion, that mass public opinion is largely dependent on the news media, and journalism is a counterintuitively anti-intellectual profession staffed primarily by graduates of anti-intellectual journalism schools, it is no surprise that public funding of higher education was declining "before" the Great Recession, that graduation rates barely creep up, and that what members of the general public know about universities is usually limited to their semiprofessional sports programs (which are incorrectly assumed to be profitable). The author contends that US colleges and universities, including their journalism schools, need to improve their products: their curricula and their graduates.

Background: Heterotopic ossification in the elbow, often caused by trauma or neurogenic factors, can lead to limited range of motion and physical impairment, while severe cases may result in debilitating loss of function. Complete bony ankylosis of the elbow, though rare, presents challenges in treatment due to complex anatomy and high recurrence rates, with limited literature on management and outcomes. This study retrospectively investigates cases of elbow ankylosis secondary to heterotopic ossification, assessing long-term functional outcomes following operative intervention and standardized rehabilitation. Methods: A retrospective case series was performed on patients who underwent surgical excision of heterotopic ossification of the elbow at our institution. Outcomes of interest were intraoperative flexion-extension arc, flexion-extension arc at the final long-term postoperative follow-up, visual analog scale pain scores at long-term follow-up, and Mayo Elbow Performance scores at long-term follow-up. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed to identify a statistically significant difference between arc of motion achieved intraoperatively and the arc of motion maintained at the final long-term postoperative follow-up. Results: Between September 1999 and July 2021, 107 patients underwent operative resection for heterotopic ossification around the elbow, with 13 patients (16 elbows) exhibiting complete ankylosis at time of surgery. Patients were followed up for a minimum of 2 years. Long-term outcomes demonstrated an average visual analog scale pain score of 1.4 +/− 1.7, and an average Mayo Elbow Performance score of 85.9 +/−12.8, with 75% of cases maintaining at least 100 degrees of flexion-extension arc at the final long-term postoperative follow-up. On average, the flexion-extension arc of motion at the final follow-up was preserved at 95% of intraoperative levels. Patients did have an average residual flexion contracture of 18 +/− 9 degrees at the final follow-up. Conclusion: Surgical excision for complete elbow ankylosis secondary to heterotopic ossification presents challenges due to potential complications. Our study shows favorable long-term outcomes in pain scores, range of motion, and Mayo Elbow Performance scores. Despite reported complications in the literature, our series exhibited no adverse events, supporting operative excision as a standard treatment with overall fair to excellent outcomes. Further research, particularly involving multicenter, randomized, prospective studies, is warranted to refine protocols and understand predictors for improved outcomes in this patient population.

Introduction:. Assessing scholarly contributions in academic orthopaedic surgery remains challenging, despite the importance of publication productivity in evaluating academic leaders. The Hirsch (h)-index and its derivative, the m-index, offer objective measures to compare and evaluate publication productivity. The primary aims of this study were to compare h- and m-indices of department chairs and residency program directors of orthopaedic training programs in the United States and assess the association between h-index and program rank. Methods:. A publicly available Doximity report was used to identify and rank orthopaedic surgery residency programs in the United States. Internet-based searches of institution-specific websites were performed to confirm current department chairs and residency program directors as of January 2024. H-index data were collected from a publicly available database known as Scopus. The m-index was calculated as the quotient of h-index and years in practice. Gender and years in practice were obtained through available biographies on institution-specific websites. Results:. Department chairs had significantly higher h- and m-indices at both the career and 5-year time intervals compared with program directors. Upon subgroup analysis, department chairs and program directors at top-10 ranked programs had significantly higher h- and m-indices compared with the entire population of department chairs and program directors. Linear regression analyses demonstrated a direct linear association between department chair/program director h- and m-indices and program rank. Conclusions:. Publication productivity was higher for department chairs than residency program directors. Orthopaedic leaders at top-10 institutions had higher publication productivity compared with those at institutions outside of the top 10, per Doximity rankings. Finally, there is substantial variation in publication productivity of orthopaedic surgeons in leadership roles at academic institutions in the United States. Clinical Relevance:. This study highlights the publication productivity of orthopaedic surgery department chairs and residency program directors and describes the linear association between publication productivity of academic orthopaedic leaders and program rank. This information can be utilized by those interested in learning more about the publication productivity among academic orthopaedic surgeons across different institutions and can assist those who are involved in the hiring and promotion process at these academic institutions.