Tufts University Connection To Purdue Pharma’s Connection To OxyContin

Tufts University is reviewing its connection to OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma in the wake of court documents filed last week detailing explosive allegations about the company, the mega-donors that own it and their alleged influence over the university’s medical school.

The court filing from Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey alleges that members of the Sackler family knew the opioid was causing overdoses and were involved in efforts to mislead doctors and the public about the powerful painkiller’s effects. They did not tell authorities about reports the drug was being abused and peddled on the street, it says.

The filing claims one member of the family, Richard Sackler, wanted to blame abusers, writing in a 2001 email that abusers “are the culprits and the problem” and that they “are reckless criminals,”.

The filing alleges that Purdue funded “an entire degree program at Tufts University to influence Massachusetts doctors to use its drugs.” Purdue sponsored an annual “Sackler Lecture” at Tufts on pain medicine, and Richard Sackler for many years held a seat on the school of medicine’s board, it alleges. (Purdue Pharma is unrelated to the university in Indiana.)

A Tufts spokesman, Patrick Collins, issued a statement Friday saying that the university has been and remains deeply committed to the highest ethical and scientific standards.

“The information raised in the Attorney General’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharmaceuticals and other defendants is deeply troubling,” it said. “We will be undertaking a review of Tufts’ connection with Purdue to ensure that we were provided accurate information, that we followed our conflict of interest guidelines and that we adhered to our principles of academic and research integrity. Based on this review, we will determine if any changes need to be made moving forward.”

It appears that members of the Sackler family have given money to many universities and museums over the years. Donations have resulted in their names being inscribed on campuses, including the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Medical Education at Tufts and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University.

The Boston Globe noted Harvard Art Museums have pointed out that the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation provides no continuing funding for the museum:

“Arthur Sackler generously donated the funds in 1982 that paid for the construction of the original building that housed the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway. In 2014, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum was relocated to 32 Quincy Street, as part of the renovation and expansion of the Harvard Art Museums.”

Tufts provided similar background information in response to a question about the Somerville mayor’s call to remove the Sackler name from campus:

“The Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences was established in 1980 by Jean Mayer, then president of Tufts University, and the Board of Trustees to promote collaborative and interdisciplinary graduate education to advance health. In 1983, Jean Mayer and the Board of Trustees established the Arthur M. Sackler Center. In both cases, the naming gifts were provided to the university more than a decade before OxyContin was introduced to the marketplace.”

A lengthy 2017 feature in The New Yorker says he became wealthy marketing the tranquilizers Librium and Valium. It quoted Allen Frances, former chair of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, saying that, “Most of the questionable practices that propelled the pharmaceutical industry into the scourge it is today can be attributed to Arthur Sackler.”

In 2014, Purdue medical liaison staff “succeeded in getting two Purdue unbranded curricula approved for teaching” to Tufts students, it alleges.

Purdue Pharma, based in Stamford, Conn., did not respond to requests for comment. The company sent a statement to WBUR saying Healey is attempting to vilify “a single manufacturer whose medicines represent less than 2 percent of opioid pain prescriptions rather than doing the hard work of trying to solve a complex public health crisis.”

It also said that “the complaint distorts critical facts and cynically conflates prescription opioid medications with illegal heroin and fentanyl, which are the leading cause of overdose deaths in Massachusetts.”

Almost 218,000 people in the United States died from overdoses related to prescription opioids between 1999 and 2017, according to the CDC. Overdose deaths from prescription opioids were five times higher in 2017 than they were in 1999.

https://drugabuse.com/oxycodone/history-statistics/

Racist Rants Still Rattling @ Columbia University

A Columbia University student shouted that “white people are the best thing that ever happened to the world” on Sunday evening during a racist tirade in front of students of color, who caught the rant on video.

“We invented science and industry, and you want to tell us to stop because ‘oh, my God, we’re so bad,’” the student said, skipping around the small crowd of students. “We saved billions of people from starvation. We built modern civilization. White people are the best thing that ever happened to the world. We are so amazing. I love myself and I love my people. [Fuck] yeah, white people! [Fuck] yeah, white men! We’re white men, we did everything.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/11/columbia-student-goes-racist-tirade-fellow-students?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=bb315c6ce4-DNU_WO20181203_PREV_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-bb315c6ce4-198883777&mc_cid=bb315c6ce4&mc_eid=bdb769ae1f

Millennials & the Work force

Millennials receive a lot of flack for the massive transformations occurring in business today. To baby boomers and older generations, the workforce is almost unrecognizable. The shift has been from a customer-centric to employee-centric experience and has redefined business strategies from the ground up.

Employers once was able to hook the best candidates with an attractive compensation package and upgrade in title. Today, the priorities have changed to focus more on development, transparency and work-life balance. Many companies are struggling to adapt and are facing a loss in top talent.

The barriers from the hierarchical cultures are being demolished and used as the foundation for the flat organizations’ that new generations crave . This isn’t the only change businesses are facing.

Soft skills have been slow to gain momentum in business as hard skills are easier to measure and identify. In recent years, businesses are refocusing their priorities from a “leave your personal life at home” mentality to understanding how to become more self-aware of their own emotions as well as their employees.

When employees feel valued and cared for, their motivation and job performance increases and retention decreases. If employers neglect the soft skills and only focus on the hard skills, it creates barriers in the relationship and risks tarnishing the morale of the company. Companies such as Google have this down pat. Their mindfulness training course helps teach employees skills that improve their emotional intelligence, decrease their stress and increase their communication.

Working from home is no longer a luxury but instead a requirement. While traditional 401K benefits are still popular, they’re not preferred. Instead, millennials want flexibility and the option for remote work. Employers like Yahoo implemented a remote work policy early on giving their employees the flexibility to be closer to their kids, ditch the commute and work from the comfort of their home.

A study last year revealed that an average of 41% of American workers don’t take a single vacation day.

Gen Z & the Workforce

Gen Z is entering the workforce at a rapid pace, with the eldest of them now 23. A far larger group than their millennial counterparts, youth and young adults born between the mid-1990s and late 2000s have aptly been named Gen Z. Employers should be excited as a flood of talent will be joining the workforce soon — comprising 36 percent of the workforce by 2020 — but be aware, they have short attention spans, even shorter than millennials, and expect a lot from their employers.

According to a Deloitte study, Gen Z values employment that allows them to live a balanced lifestyle even more so than Millennials, with a greater emphasis on physical, mental and social well-being. They want flexibility and control within their schedules. For example, they want to be able to go to an afternoon doctor’s appointment without feeling like it reflects poorly on their work ethic. Employers must investigate providing flexible work hours, the ability to work from home when possible, and progressive benefit plans that include a Wellness Spending Account. Shopify, for example, offers a WSA that includes eligible spending categories such as gym memberships, financial planners and house cleaning.

With this massive influx of new talent, the workplace is once again going to experience significant change.

Growing up with the Internet, teens are used to getting real-time feedback—and lots of it. Their education and co-curricular activities have also made them used to receiving constructive criticism and acting upon it to improve their chances of success.

“The big thing for employers to consider is that Gen Z actually wants to be mentored and managed,” says Tom Turpin, president of employment agency Randstad. “Gen Z places a tremendous amount of value on an employer’s ability to mentor and teach them.”

Gen Z, people born in 1995 and later, are protesters, social-justice marchers, and spendthrifts just like their hippie aunts, uncles, parents and even grandparents.

Demographers may debate the exact dates, but Baby Boomers were typically born between 1946 and 1964. Their parents grew up during the Depression and the nightly news brought into their living rooms images of a war fought in Southeast Asia.

Compare that with Generation Z. Some of the first Gen Zers were teens and adolescents during the Great Recession of 2008. They saw their parents or the parents of their friends struggle with foreclosures and joblessness. Meanwhile, the country was waging a War on Terror against a nationless enemy.

 

Traditional marketing doesn’t work for Gen Z. Marketers need to embrace technology and new ways of storytelling. According to an infographic from Upfront Analytics, Gen Z customers respond to edgy and visual marketing tactics. Videos—especially short ones like those created via the social network Vine—work particularly well with young customers.

The study revealed that 80 percent of Gen Z say finding themselves creatively is important. Over 25 percent post original video on a weekly basis, while 65 percent enjoy creating and sharing content on social media.

 

Marist College

Artist’s rendering of Marist Health Quest School of Medicine

Marist College in New York’s Hudson Valley will partner with a regional health-care provider to build a new medical school.

Marist Health Quest School of Medicine is expected to open its doors in 2022, reaching capacity in 2032 with about 500 students.

How Well Is Your State Serving Black Students?

Now every public university in the country can see how well it is serving black students — at least by a few metrics — with a new report card from the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center.

Schools Educating A Weed Workforce

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The University of Ottawa is offering a Cannabis Law course.  Dubois, a partner at the Ottawa law office of Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall, and colleague Megan Wallace will be the lead instructors of the new cannabis law course at the University of Ottawa. The course, the first of its kind in Canada, will run for about three weeks. Students will learn about the licensing and regulatory frameworks of the cannabis industry as well as how legalizing the drug will affect everything from employment to property law. Diane Labelle, general counsel at Health Canada Legal Services, will teach a similar course at uOttawa in French this fall.

Commercial landlords now face heavy penalties for allowing pot to be sold at their properties, a situation that will have to change in time for private retailers to hit the market next April.

Dubois course will also feature a field trip to the Tweed production facility in Smiths Falls, where students will get a first-hand look at the product they’re learning about.

Southern Ontario’s Niagara College announced it was launching a one-year post-graduate commercial cannabis production program developed in conjunction with more than a dozen licensed producers, including Tweed parent Canopy Growth.

Ryerson University in Toronto, meanwhile, said this summer its Ted Rogers School of Management would be introducing a course ​– appropriately numbered 420 ​– called “the Business of Cannabis,” focusing on topics such as retailing, marketing, quality control and financing. And Montreal’s McGill University plans to enter the field by offering a diploma program in cannabis and cannabis production, starting next fall.

The cannabis industry has an urgent need for workers with highly specialized skills in areas such as genetics, horticulture, cultivation techniques, pest control and biotechnology.

 Skills are some what borrowed from pharmaceutical or food industries, but it is still quite different because the cannabis industry is complex. There are a lot of components to the cannabis industry.

Jobs of The Future

Researchers predict in about 15 years many jobs/or profession will be obsolete. there will be about 200 profession we never heard of as well.

Jobs with 99% chance of being automated‚ included data capturers‚ new accounts clerks‚ cargo agents‚ watch repairers‚ insurance underwriters‚ hand-sewers‚ telemarketers and tax preparers. Umpires‚ legal secretaries and couriers also stood little chance of surviving. Undergoing training and obtaining two or three certificates is not enough to be ready for tomorrow. Learning and developing competencies has to be continuous . Education is expanding beyond academic and vocational establishments, which is manifested in the emergence of public online courses, some of them offered by leading world universities.

There are some jobs that have only a 0.35% chance or less of being automated because “many of them require a level of human interaction that may take many more years for computer programs to replicate”.

Choreographers‚ psychologists‚ human resources managers‚ anthropologists‚ archaeologists‚ sales managers and CEOs are safe. Other sustainable jobs to be in or study towards include recreational therapists‚ audiologists‚ occupational therapists‚ healthcare social workers‚ orthotists and prosthetists‚ mental health and substance abuse social workers‚ emergency management directors, and first-line supervisors of mechanics‚ installers and repairers.

JOBS OF THE FUTURE

BIOTECHNOLOGY

System biotechnologist

Living system architect

Urban ecologist

Park ecologist

Biopharmacologist

HEALTHCARE

Medical data manager

Medical equipment designer

Bioethicist

Genetic consultant

Bioinformatician

Medical Marketing Expert

R&D manager in healthcare

Molecular nutrition expert

Medical robot operator

Gene therapy expert

Robotic prosthesis and implant

designer

Tissue engineer

Medical institution life cycle

designer

Personalized healthcare expert

Healthy old age consultant

Online doctor

Inter-sector

communication

Project

management

Lean production

Programming / Robotics /

Artificial Intelligence

Client focus

Multilingual and

multicultural abilities

Interpersonal skills

Environmentally

conscious thinking

Ability to work under

uncertainty

Artistic skills

Systems thinking

AGRICULTURE

Agricultural informatics and

engineering expert

GMO farmer

City farmer

Automated farming equipment

operator

Agricultural ecologist

Agricultural economist

ENERGY GENERATION

AND STORAGE

Power generation system upgrade

manager

Micro generation system designer

Weather expert in power industry

Recuperation system designer

Local power supply system

specialist

Wearable power device designer

Energy storage device designer

POWER GRIDS

AND POWER MANAGEMENT

Power marketing expert

Electricity consumer rights expert

Energy auditor

Power consumption system

designer

System engineer for smart power

grids

Electric vehicle charging station

operator

Power grid adjuster/controller

in distributed generation

Inter-sector

communication

Project

management

Lean production

Programming / Robotics /

Artificial Intelligence

Client focus

Multilingual and

multicultural abilities

Interpersonal skills

Environmentally

conscious thinking

Ability to work under

uncertainty

Artistic skills

Systems thinking

ROAD TRANSPORT

Automated transportation system

operator

Transportation network safety

engineer

Cross-logistics operator

Intermodal hub designer

Intermodal transport technician

Smart road builder

Designer of composite structures

for vehicles

High-speed railway designer

Smart management system

architect

WATER TRANSPORT

Port ecologist

Marine infrastructure system

engineer

Arctic navigation specialist

AVIATION

Unmanned flight interface

designer

Small aircraft production engineer

Operating data analyst

Aircraft recycling technologist

Airship designer

Airship infrastructure designer

Dynamic control smart

management system designer

Inter-sector

communication

Project

management

Lean production

Programming / Robotics /

Artificial Intelligence

Client focus

Multilingual and

multicultural abilities

Interpersonal skills

Environmentally

conscious thinking

Ability to work under

uncertainty

Artistic skills

Systems thinking

SPACE

Space structure designer

Space travel manager

Life support system engineer

Space road engineer

Space biologist

Space geologist

ADVANCED MATERIALS

AND NANOECHNOLOGY

Glass engineer

Recycling technologist

System engineer of composite

materials

Nanomaterial designer

Smart environment designer

Safety engineer in nano industry

IT SECTOR

Information systems architect

Interface designer

Online lawyer

Neural interface designer

IT preacher

Digital linguist

Big Data model designer

IT auditor

Information security supervisor

Personal profile security advisor

Smart environment cyber

technician

Cyber detective

MINING AND PROCESSING OF

MINERAL RESOURCES

Mining system engineer

Environmental analyst in mining

industries

Robotic system engineer

Unmanned exploration aircraft

operator

Distributed mining team

coordinator

Telemetric data interpretation

engineer

CONSTRUCTION

Specialist in old structure

renovation/reinforcement

Zero energy house architect

Construction technology upgrade

specialist

Smart house infrastructure

Foreman watcher

3D printing designer in

construction

BIM manager designer

Accessible environment designer

Environmental analyst in

construction

ROBOTICS AND MECHANICAL

ENGINEERING

Multi-purpose robotic systems

designer

Ergonomic designer

Composite engineer

Household robot designer

Children’s robot designer

Designer of neural interfaces for

robot control

Medical robot designer

 

FINANCIAL SECTOR

Intellectual property appraiser

Personal pension plan designer

Multicurrency translator

Crowd funding and crowd

investing platform manager

Direct talent investment fund

manager

MANAGEMENT

Time broker

Time manager

Production coordinator in

distributed communities

Environment auditor

Trend watcher / foresighter

Virtual lawyer

Corporate venture fund portfolio

manager

Corporate anthropologist

Community development plan coordinator

Personal brand manager

Cross-cultural communication

manager

User community moderator

Online sales manager

Individual financial trajectory designer

SOCIAL SECTOR

Crowd sourcing expert for social

issues

Government authority

communication platform

moderator

Social conflict mediator

Environmental counselor

Personal charity platform

moderator

State-private partnership

specialist for the social sector

Social worker for disabled

persons adaptation using internet

technology

Migrant adaptation specialist

EDUCATION

Moderator

Academic path designer

Tutor

Project training organizer

Educational online platform

coordinator

Startup mentor

Ecopreacher

Game master

Game educator

Mind fitness coach

Designer of consciousness train

CHILDREN’S PRODUCTS

AND SERVICES

Transmedia product designer

Children’s R&D manager

Children’s future image expert

Children’s psychological security

specialist

MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT

Content aggregator editor

Info stylist

Semantic field producer

Media software designer

Media policeman

Virtual reality architect

Virtual world designer

Game practitioner

TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY

Individual tour director

Space brand manager

Augmented reality area designer

Robot attendant

Territory architect

Smart travel system designer

SECURITY

Integrated industrial security

auditor

Remote security coordinator

Ergonomic designer of wearable

security devices

Expert for mitigating systemic

environmental disasters

Personal security designer

BIOPHARMACOLOGIST

URBAN ECOLOGIST

BIOTECHNOLOGY

LIVING SYSTEMS

DESIGNER

MEDICAL DATA MANAGER

GENETIC

CONSULTANT

Students Outrage Over 999$ Text Book

A student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, signed up for an introductory accounting course, and noticed that the online textbook for the course was listed at $999.

She took to Facebook and posted a screenshot on the “UL Ragin Cajuns Book Swap” group.

“Can anyone explain why the WileyPlus online code for ACCT 202 is $1000?” she asked.

Fellow students took to Twitter to voice their outrage, and soon after students and observers were accusing UL-Lafayette of scamming students.The textbook, Financial and Managerial Accounting, 3rd Edition, was customized by publisher Wiley for the Accounting 201 and 202 courses at UL-Lafayette and is a new addition to the courses this academic year. The $999 pricing was not a glitch.

Though the university and publisher argue that the $999 price was just a “placeholder” that no one would actually pay, the incident has caused uncertainty and anger among students who are just trying to purchase the correct items at the best price. The textbook marketplace can already be incredibly confusing due to its plethora of vendors, subtly different textbook editions, disliked single-use access codes and disparate rental programs.

While the online-only version of the textbook was priced at $999 in the Wiley marketplace, a bundled print and online textbook was available for $253.25 from the college bookstore. Both options include an access code for the WileyPlus online teaching and learning platform.

The university knew that the online book is usually cheaper than the hard copy. UL knew that most students would buy the online copy and just print it out so that we wouldn’t have to spend crazy money on a book from their bookstore. So they made the online version a ridiculous amount so that us students had no other option.”

LeBron James Opens Public School

Basketball star LeBron James’ foundation partnered with the public school system in his hometown of Akron, Ohio to open the I Promise School, a public elementary school.The new school will serve under-privileged children who are falling behind in educational attainment. The first intake consists of 240 third and fourth graders, who will also receive a free bike and helmet, as well as free transport to school, meals, uniforms, and free tuition at the University of Akron. I Promise plans to serve first through eighth grade students by 2022.

It Seems That Wikipedia Has A Gender & Race Problem

The world’s fifth-most-visited website has a long-running problem with gender bias: Only 18 percent of its biographies are of women. Surveys estimate that between 84 and 90 percent of Wikipedia editors are male. Quicksilver, is a software tool by San Francisco startup Primer designed to help Wikipedia editors fill in blind spots in the crowdsourced encyclopedia. Its under representation of women in science is a particular target. Quicksilver uses machine-learning algorithms to scour news articles and scientific citations to find notable scientists missing from Wikipedia, and then write fully sourced draft entries for them. 

The summaries it generates are intended to provide a starting point for Wikipedia editors, who can clean up errors and check the sources to prevent any algorithmic slip-ups contaminating the site.

Brooklyn New York High School Class Can’t Take Serial Killer Book Off The Premises

High school students from Brooklyn’s Midwood high school are taking a true crime class where teens read up on real  murderers and mass shooters. Assistant Principal of English Suzane Thomas issued an edict to the school’s librarians last month that bars them from allowing students to take copies of the books home.

“I am requesting that the following list of books be placed on ‘restricted access’ to students,” Thomas said in the May 30 memo. “They have been borrowed by students in the True Crime class.

“In no way am I suggesting that these books be censored, as they are NYSTL [Text Law] approved by the DOE,’’ she wrote. “However, please do not allow students to take them home — they should be read in the library where they are supervised by a teacher or a librarian.’’

City education officials said the edict was given simply so every student could have access to the books.

“The books were available for all students to read and were kept in the library so that they could be accessible to everyone,” said Department of Education spokesman Doug Cohen.‎‎ “Any other interpretation of the guidance that was shared is simply inaccurate.’’

However, It seems that some Midwood HS staffer begged to differ

The in-school-only restriction “doesn’t make sense,” said retired Midwood librarian Arlene Weber Morales, who was at the school when the crime course was created and admitted she had “mixed feelings” about offering such violent content to teens.

“The librarians order extra copies of books so students can take them home,’’ said Morales, who retired in 2015. “Don’t parents want to know what the kids are reading? I would order more copies of the books.’’

A current Midwood staffer said Thomas “clearly states that this is not book banning. But it is.

“We are waiting to see if the administration cancels this course, because most of the books used in the class are on the[banned] list,’’ the source added, noting it would be a shame if True Crime were killed because it is “a very popular class.’’

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Brooklyn/Staten Island) questioned why the class was even in existence.

“Sadly, this is a city in which criminals are sometimes placed on pedestals, and entrepreneurs are vilified,” she said. “How about teaching about civic and business leaders who beat the odds so they too can strive for success?

“I see why the school doesn’t want students to take the books home,’’ she added. “Parents will flip out.”

Thomas declined to comment.

Qatar Adds New Courses To It’s Master’s Degree In Library & Information Studies

University College London Qatar (UCL Qatar) has announced the introduction of new courses within its postgraduate master’s degree of Library and Information Studies.
For the first time in Qatar, specialized courses in archives, records and data management will be taught. These will support the transition of Qatar to a knowledge-based economy and the development of the country’s growing need for library and information specialists.
The updates will help meet the growing need from across government and the private sectors to handle an ever-increasing amount of records, and to support the emerging research sector and e-government initiatives.
Trained data professionals in the sector will be able to manage and handle records from government agencies and private corporations, as well as the emerging research sector in the country.
The announcement comes just weeks after the official opening of the Qatar National Library that will now support Qatar’s innovative and research-based libraries sector to become a
regional leader.

Applications for UCL Qatar’s master’s degree programmes in Library and Information Studies and Museum and Gallery Practice are currently open at UCL Qatar. The degree programmes are available as full-time one year courses or part-time two years courses.

U.S. Public Schools Lost Approximately 20% Of Their Librarians Since 2000

According to a new analysis of federal data, The United States can’t afford librarians. Between 1999-2000 and 2015-16, U.S. public schools lost 19% of full-time equivalent school librarians, according to a School Library Journal article by researcher Keith Curry Lance that examined National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data.

The shortage in public school librarian employment  has not recovered since 2008. Districts serving minorities have been hit the hardest. Among all the districts that have retained all their librarians since 2005, 75% are white, Education Week reports. On the other end of the scale, student populations in the 20 districts that lost the most librarians in the same time comprised 78% students of color.

In essence, while U.S. employment rates are back up in the wake of the Great Recession, the public school librarian sector has not rebounded, and the nation’s collective failure to rebuild its public information infrastructure and minorities have been hit the hardest.

 

Some states suffered a more dramatic loss than the average. The number of librarians employed across Florida’s 67 school districts has dropped by 27% since just 2005, according to a 2017 Herald Tribune article, leaving several districts without any librarians at all. In replacement, the Herald Tribune argues, paraprofessionals run libraries as media aides — a position that requires just a high school diploma and a certification, and which starts at $14.60 an hour. Librarians with masters’ degrees, however, are often the first to go when budgets need to be cut.

Education Week’s articles also argues that librarian’s roles are being replaced by other, less qualified job titles: As public school librarians dwindled by 20%, schools saw an 11% rise in counselors, 19% boost in instructional aides, and a full 28% more school administrators.

 

Several recent studies have indicated that students suffer academically as a result: One nationwide study published in 2011 found signs that states’ 4th grade reading scores dropped in correlation with their loss of librarians. A 2012 Colorado-specific study from the same researchers then followed up, finding a similar correlation in the opposite direction: “Schools that either maintained or gained an endorsed librarian between 2005 and 2011 tended to have more students scoring advanced in reading in 2011 and to have increased their performance more than schools that either lost their librarians or never had one,” that study holds.

 

Algorithm Tool Created to /wean Out Predators In Chat Rooms

An algorithm tool developed by Purdue Polytechnic Institute faculty will help law enforcement filter out and focus on predators most likely to set up face-to-face meetings with under age victims.

The Chat Analysis Triage Tool (CATT) was presented last week by principal investigator Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar, assistant professor of computer and information technology, at the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts Conference in Anaheim, California.

CATT allows the officers to work through the volume of solicitations and use algorithms to examine the word usage and conversation patterns by a suspect. Seigfried-Spellar said data was taken from online conversations provided voluntarily by law enforcement around the country.

The project started as a result of a partnership with Ventura County Sheriff’s Department in California.

Seigfried-Spellar said the research discovered tactics like self-disclosure is used early in a predator’s talks with a potential victim.

Seigfried-Spellar worked in developing CATT with two co-principal investigators, associate professor Julia Taylor Rayz, who specializes in machine learning and natural language processing, and computer and information technology department head Marcus Rogers, who has an extensive background in digital forensics tool development.

CATT algorithms examine only the conversation factors and do not take the gender of either suspect or victim into consideration, at this time.

The project began with initial research done by Seigfried-Spellar and former Purdue professor Ming Ming Chiu. The exploratory study examined more than 4,300 messages in 107 online chat sessions involving arrested sex offenders, identifying different trends in word usage and self-disclosure by fantasy and contact sex offenders using statistical discourse analysis.

The trends determined through this research formed the basis for CATT. The research, “Detecting Contact vs. Fantasy Online Sexual Offenders in Chats with Minors: Statistical Discourse Analysis of Self-Disclosure and Emotion Words,” has been accepted and will be published in the journal “Child Abuse and Neglect.”

Initial plans are to turn the tool over to several law enforcement departments for a test run. Seigfried-Spellar said CATT could be handling data from active cases as early as the end of the year.

GMAIL Has A New Look

Click On Gear icon top right to enable the new Gmail.

Google has not made this new Gmail default for everyone yet, so if you’re not seeing it, keep checking back. The rollout is supposed to be global for all 1.4 billion Gmail users.

The Future Of Jobs & Skills

Education and training systems, having remained mostly static and underinvested in for decades, are largely inadequate for these new labor markets. Additionally, a prevailing gender bias is introducing further inefficiency and inequality. The Economic forum says we must rethink the way talent is developed and deployed in the world. This will require breaking down old silos between education systems and labor markets, more agile approaches to regulation, new forms of public-private collaboration, and new norms and values.

The World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work seeks to ensure that talent is developed and deployed for maximum benefit to the economy and society. How, by mobilizing leaders from business, government, civil society and others through new insights, common agendas, and collaborative action. The objective: build an ecosystem of leaders by bringing together a community of business, policy-makers, civil society and other leaders; 

 

Nursery Groups In London Reveal Gender Gap in Pay

Nursery groups with more than 250 employees have reported on their gender pay gaps, with women ahead in some companies, but men still paid more in others despite the female-dominated nature of the early years sector.

New gender pay reporting legislation has required large companies to reveal the extent of pay differences between men and women for the first time. Nationwide, three-quarters of companies have been shown to pay men more than women, with the average pay gap 18.4 per cent in favour of men, but the early years picture is different.

Florida Attorney-General Pam Bondi with Mr Donald Trump at a meeting with local and state officials on school safety on Thursday. Mr Trump has suggested arming a significant portion of the educator workforce – between 10 and 40 per cent of teachers – using federal resources.

 United States educators have expressed frustration at a proposal by US President Donald Trump for teachers to take up arms to defend their classrooms against school shooters.

Many teachers expressed concerns about scenarios in which they could face shooters on a hectic campus – or even, potentially, draw a gun to confront an armed and dangerous student. 

Mr Trump suggested arming a significant portion of the educator workforce – between 10 and 40 per cent of teachers – using federal resources. He said military veterans who teach would be prime candidates for these roles. 

Many schools already hire police officers or armed guards to patrol campuses with the help of federal money. About 57 per cent of public schools in the 2015/2016 school year had security staff on campus at least once a week and nearly 43 per cent were patrolled by armed law enforcement officers, according to federal data.

 Dr Dewey Cornell, a University of Virginia professor who studies school safety said, “The proposal to arm teachers might be emotionally appealing after a school shooting, but it is not practical or realistic,” said 

“We should place more emphasis on preventing shootings than preparing for shootings. Prevention must start long before a gunman shows up at school. Instead of more guards, we need more counselors.”

 

According To Statistics From U.S. Department of Education, 32 Million Adults In The U.S. Can’t Read.

Reports reveal that the rate of low literacy in the United States is higher than some of the third world countries and costs the healthcare industry over $70 million every year.

In 2013, Washington, D.C. was ranked the most literate American city for the third year in a row, with Seattle and Minneapolis close behind.

Long Beach, CA was ranked the country’s most illiterate city, followed by Mesa, AZ, and Aurora, CO.

What is the literacy rate in the world?

The global literacy rate for all males is 90.0% and the rate for all females is 82.7%. The rate varies throughout the world with developed nations having a rate of 99.2%(2013); Oceania having 71.3%; South and West Asia having 70.2% (2015) and sub-Saharan Africa at 64.0% (2015).

 

Russia: The country with the highest literacy rate is Russia with almost 53% of the population has tertiary education. It is estimated that 95% of adults in Russia have higher secondary education and the country spends some 4.9% of GDP on education.

 

List of U.S. states by educational attainment

State	% High school graduate	Rank
Montana	91.8%	1
Minnesota	92.4%	2
New Hampshire	92.	3
Wyoming	92.3%	3

What is the least educated city in America?

• 8: Louisiana—Lafayette. …
• 7: North Carolina—Hickory/Lenoir/Morganton. …
• 6: California—Fresno. …
• 5: California—Modesto. …
• 4: California—Bakersfield. …
• 3: California—Visalia/Porterville. …
• 2: Texas—Brownsville/Harlingen. …
• 1: Texas—McAllen/Edinburg/Missio
• The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level

Trends In eLearning

Virtual Reality (VR)

VR can transmit students to the farthest corners of the universe in just a blink of an eye and surround them with an engaging and deeply educational environment. Students will no longer be stuck with pages upon pages of boring text, bullet points, and illustrations, but they will have a chance to actually go through the experience and get the most out of it instead.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented Reality is a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. This, also, includes real-world sensory input like video, graphics, or sound [2].

When it comes to eLearning, Augmented Reality can make the learning process more interesting and easier to grasp. For instance, if you were an online instructor and your target subject was astronomy, you could offer your students a virtual tour of Mars without asking anyone to leave their home.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence is referred to the intelligence displayed by machines, as opposed to natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals [3]. It is revolutionizing the whole eLearning experience due to the many advantages it has to offer. AI can help highlight areas that require improvement and assist students in focusing on areas where they are lagging.

Big Data

If an employee is interacting with a training module based around company policies, their progress, social sharing, assessment results, and another relevant date that is being generated throughout the eLearning course is referred to as “big data”.

Big Data allows eLearning experts to understand how the users are digesting the information and which learning aspects appeal the most to them. In addition to that, it allows them to pinpoint learning interactions that should be fine-tuned within the eLearning module or course.

Wearable Devices

Wearable devices also referred to as wearables, are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body as accessories or implants

Machine Learning

Machine Learning is a field of computer science that gives computers the capacity to learn without being directly programmed.

New York City Council Passed Legislation To Address Algorithm Discrimination

The New York City Council yesterday passed legislation seeking to address problems with Algorithms which can determine which school a child can attend, whether a person will be offered credit from a bank, what products are advertised to consumer, and whether someone will receive an interview for a job. Government officials also use them to predict where crimes will take place, who is likely to commit a crime and whether someone should be allowed out of jail on bail. The algorithms used in facial recognition technology, for example, have been shown to be less accurate on Black people, women, and juveniles.

The new bill seeking the signature of Mayor Bill de Blasio. States:

This bill would require the creation of a task force that provides recommendations on how information on agency automated decision systems may be shared with the public and how agencies may address instances where people are harmed by agency automated decision systems.

The task force would need to be formed within three months of the bill’s signing, and importantly it must include “persons with expertise in the areas of fairness, accountability and transparency relating to automated decision systems and persons affiliated with charitable corporations that represent persons in the city affected by agency automated decision systems.”

The New York division of the ACLU has argued in favor of it.

See The bill Here,

Curbing Fake Academic Credentials

It  appears that it is very easy to get a fake academic certificate from any major urban centers. The buyer of the fake certificate dont have to worry about the authenticity of the signatures or paper quality – all that is sorted out by the fraudsters.

The discussion is often about whether you want a PhD, master’s or bachelor’s degree. Additionally, the more prestigious the university you want to claim to have graduated from , the more  money you will be required to pay for the fake certificate.

Once you have the fake paper in your hands, you can apply for prominent jobs, particularly in the public sector, where job security is so high that getting fired at a later stage is more complicated and costly.

Employers find it time-consuming to authenticate or verify that glimmering certificate from the purported universities for various reasons.

In developed economies, the data protection laws do not allow universities to disclose the private credentials of students to third parties – unless the students expressly and explicitly ask them to make the disclosure.

MIT and the University of Melbourne are pioneering this approach and solution to this problem. Blockchain technology-providing a decentralised ledger that is globally accessible, immutable, secure and with the support of anonymity. Universities can record student academic certificates into the global blockchain, allowing graduates to access their credentials from anywhere across the globe and share them with potential employers.

Click Here For More

 

Racisim & Harassment Among College Roomates

Click Here For More

 

Andrew Carnegie & His Libraries

Andrew Carngie libraries brought a world of books to many towns and opened a broader world to those who read.

When Andrew began thinking of what to do with the vast wealth he had accumulated, his thoughts turned to the libraries that had given him his self-education and helped make him the man he became. He decided that to give that same opportunities to others was the best use of his money.

He began by funding libraries in the two locations he had grown up in: Dunfermline, Scotland, and the Allegheny/Pittsburgh area in Pennsylvania. The first of the Carnegie libraries was the one in Dunfermline and it opened in 1883.

The first library he commissioned in the U.S. was at Allegheny, Pennsylvania. The grand opening was in 1890, but although it was the first one he commissioned, a second one in Braddock, Pennsylvania, was the first to open in the states in 1889.

In 1892, he granted the funds for a library in Fairfield, Iowa, the first outside Pennsylvania.

By 1899, his Carnegie Libraries were springing up across the nation.

Because of segregation, black people were not allowed to use libraries, so Andrew also funded libraries strictly for them. He founded Colored Carnegie Libraries in Houston, Texas, and Savannah, Georgia, among other cities.

 

Andrew set up his library grants so that small towns could receive $10,000 to build a library, which was a substantial amount in those days. In order to receive that grant, the town’s elected officials had to demonstrate the need for a public library, provide the building site, pay to staff and maintain the library by committing public funds for that purpose in the amount of 10 percent of the construction cost per year and to provide free access to its patrons.

When Andrew began funding library construction, the policy of existing U.S. libraries was to operate with “closed stacks,” which meant that patrons requested a book from a staff member and that person would bring the book from the off-limit shelves of books. No browsing allowed.

 

The first five libraries he funded operated in this fashion, but Andrew soon realized this required more staff, so he came up with an “open stacks” form of operation where patrons could browse the collection of the library and decide which books they wanted to check out. He was then able to have the libraries he funded designed so that just one librarian could staff the library.

This new policy caught on quickly and soon most other public libraries were adopting this form of operating system.

In Missouri, the earliest Carnegie Library was built in 1899 and the last one in 1921. His donations for the 35 Carnegie Libraries in Missouri totaled over $1.5 million during that 22-year period.

The Carnegie Library at Bolivar was constructed in 1915 with a grant from Andrew for $8,000. It was the first public library in Bolivar and remained a public library until 2000. The building now serves as the home of the Polk County Genealogical Society.

The Carnegie Library at Marshfield is claimed to be the one granted by Andrew to the smallest community west of the Mississippi to receive such a grant. It was constructed in 1911 with that $5,000 grant and operated as a public library until 1995. It now houses the Webster County Historical Museum.

 

At the turn of the last century, Springfield residents began negotiating with Andrew Carnegie to acquire funds for a library and he granted them $50,000.

They then raised $3,250 to purchase the site for the library and it was constructed and then opened in March of 1905. At the time it opened, Springfield’s Carnegie Library housed 700 books. That building still serves as a library today and is part of the Springfield/Greene County Library System.

By the time Andrew Carnegie died on Aug. 11, 1919, he had given away over $350 million, which would equate to over $80 billion in today’s dollars.

 

Moreover, he endowed the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, founded the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust.

He contributed a substantial amount of money to construct the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson in 1911 to study the planets and stars. He built and owned the famous Carnegie Hall in New York City. He was one of the contributors to Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, and help Washington found the National Negro Business League.

Andrew also started the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada to recognize deeds of heroism. In 1903, he contributed $1.5 million to build the Peace Palace at The Hague and in 1914 he founded the Church Peace Union comprised of world leaders in politics, academia and religion in the hopes of heading off World War I.

There are two towns in the U.S., one in Pennsylvania and one in Oklahoma that bear his last name.

Libraries Lacking In Diversity

 

A report was research and generated by Ithaka S+R saying there are too many white Librarians.

As a group, librarians “are over three quarters white and nearly 90 percent white in leadership roles,” the Ithaka S+R report reveals.

The lack of “library employees of color” is a “shortcoming” in the academic library industry, the report also says. Skin color is a critically important characteristic for library employees.

“The library community considers diversity to be a core value. But the academic library sector has struggled with addressing equity, diversity and inclusion.”

Academic libraries have struggled with an excess of white employees for decades, notes Inside Higher Ed.

The Report

 

 

Live Streaming The Solar Eclipse: Well There’s A Free App For That

NASA

 

On Aug. 21, the moon will slip between Earth and sun, casting a roughly 70-mile-wide shadow that will race across the United States from Oregon to South Carolina, Whereby  millions of Americans  will have a chance to enjoy — and study -spectacular event. This is the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in 99 years. It has been dubbed,  aka the “Great American Eclipse.”

Watch a live NASA stream of the eclipse as it travels across the continental United States, calculate your view with our interactive eclipse map and get a virtual view in our eclipse simulator. While you wait, check out some of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s solar research and get even closer to the sun with near-live views from space.

The Apps

Eclipse Safari is from the makers of Sky Safari, one of the leading astronomy programs for computers, tablets and smartphones. Sky Safari code also powers the same interactive map and planetarium view used by the Smithsonian app.

New York

Time	Phase	Direction	Altitude
1:23 pm Mon, Aug 21	Partial Eclipse begins The Moon touches the Sun’s edge.	192°	60.7°
2:44 pm Mon, Aug 21	Maximum Eclipse Moon is closest to the center of the Sun.	226°	53.0°
4:00 pm Mon, Aug 21	Partial Eclipse ends The Moon leaves the Sun’s edge.	247°	40.9°

WARNING

Never look directly at the Sun. You can seriously hurt your eyes, and even go blind. Proper eye protection, like eclipse glasses or a Sun filter, is the only safe option. Sunglasses don’t work.

According to NASA, the following materials should never be used to view a solar eclipse:

• sunglasses of any kind
• color film
• medical X-ray film
• smoked glass
• floppy disks

 

Appropriations Committee Voted To Approve Funding for Libraries

The full House Appropriations Committee voted to approve FY2018 funding for libraries. By a 28-22 margin, the committee approved the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS) funding bill, which proposes roughly $231 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)—including $183.6 million for Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) programs, and $27 million for the Department of Education’s Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) program—essentially at 2017 funding levels.

In addition to saving the IMLS, the LHHS bill includes level funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. However, it funds the Department of Education (DOE) at $66 billion—a cut of $2.4 billion from 2017, which includes the elimination of some important library-related programs, including the DOE’s Striving Readers program. ALA officials said they would work to restore it.

Meanwhile, on July 18, the House Appropriations Committee approved by a 30-21 margin the FY2018 Interior and Environment Appropriations, which includes $145 million each for the NEH and the NEA, roughly equal to FY 2017 funding levels.

The key votes come after President Trump’s call  in May to eliminate IMLS and virtually all federal funding for libraries, as well as a host of other vital programs and agencies, including the NEH and the NEA. And, it comes after Congress, earlier in May, passed a belated 2017 budget that actually upped the IMLS, NEH, and NEA budgets.

More Reading

Microsoft Research Developing Classroom Technology To Assess Children’s Reading Ability

Microsoft Research is developing technology which may end up in the next version Microsoft’s classroom software. In a recent publication, Microsoft Research describes an AI-driven system which could help teachers automatically assess reading performance for students, saving them time and allowing more individual attention to students who need it the most. Their research paper, “Automatic Evaluation of Children Reading Aloud on Sentences and Pseudo words,” automatically predicts the overall reading aloud ability of primary school children (6-10 years old), based on the reading of sentences and pseudo words.

 

Researchers Study Inequality & Twitter

Johnnatan Messias at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil and a few pals began the study began by filtering the Twitter stream during the three months to September 2016. In total, they collected 341,457,982 tweets posted by 50,270,310 users.

They filtered this by time zone, geolocation, and those with a profile picture to leave them with 1.6 million users based in the U.S. They then fed the pictures through a state-of-the-art face recognition application called Face++, which reports the sex and race (black, white, or Asian) of each user. The overall makeup  of the group revealed that  53 percent were women and 47 percent men. It also revealed the race breakdown, which was 18 percent Asian, 14 percent black, and 68 percent white. Messias and co began by looking at the ratios of men and women who had the most followers on Twitter. Of the top 1 percent of Twitter users with the most followers, 57 percent were male and 43 percent female. Researchers say inequalities surfaced when the group studied the distribution of races among the most popular Twitter users. “At the highest levels of [Twitter] visibility, users perceived to be White come out on top position.”

The most privileged group turns out to be white males, who are overrepresented by 20 percent among popular Twitter users. White females are also more privileged albeit to much lesser extent, just 3 percent. The most underprivileged groups are Asian females and black females, who are underrepresented by 31 percent.

Moreover, The study reveals that there are significant biases in the way genders and races link to each other. This is an effect known as “homophily”—the tendency of people to seek out others like themselves.  White people tend to follow more white people than expected by a margin of 16 percent. Black people tend to follow more black people than expected by a very significant margin of over 200 percent. However, Asian people tend to follow fewer Asian people than expected by a margin of 10 percent.

The Wikipedia Text Adventure

 

Created by Developer Kevan Davis

Wikipedia as a classic text adventure: A “game” Wikipedia: The Text Adventure generates a list of major landmarks, and clicking any of them takes you to a landing page with a basic location description as pulled from its Wikipedia article summary, along with a list of nearby locations marked off by cardinal directions. You’re restricted to a text box, and, appropriately, typing “help” into it brings up a list of commands you can type. (Mobile users can also tap on keywords in the summaries, which isn’t as cool, but it’s a welcome alternative.)

Wikipedia: The Text Adventure 

Australian Researchers Have Developed “Solar Paint”

 

Imagine a house paint that not only makes a home look pleasing to the eye, but also supplies all of your home’s energy needs. Researchers in Australia have come up with a “solar paint” capable of absorbing moisture from the air and turning it into hydrogen fuel for clean energy.

Based at RMIT University in Melbourne, southern Australia, the research team has developed “solar paint”, containing a newly developed compound that acts like silica gel — that’s the stuff used in those little sachets that absorb moisture to keep things like food, medicines, and electronics in good shape.  Besides damp climates, the solar paint will also be effective in, for example, hot and dry climates near oceans, with the absorbed vapor coming from the nearby sea water as it evaporates in the heat.

The report

More Here

Chan Zuckerberg’s Initiative For Home Down Payments For Teachers

The $45 billion Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is putting $5 million into a fund called  Landed,  that offers to pay up to half of the 20% home down payment for educators with zero interest or monthly payments. Instead, Landed recoups its investment when the home is sold or refinanced, assuming up to 25% of the appreciation or depreciation of the home’s value.

The goal is to allow more teachers, administrators, janitors, and more to live near their jobs at Palto Alto California, Redwood City, Ravenswood City, and Sequoia Union high schools, where Silicon Valley’s tech boom has made home prices too expensive to purchase.

For Librarians In Philly, Drug Overdose Drills Is Part Of The Job

Chera Kowalski, 33, who works with teens and adults at McPherson Square library, holds naloxone. While other libraries practice fire drills, McPherson Branch has overdose drills.

The librarians at the Needle Park location in Kensington have had to learn how to administer Narcan to some people. This location is known for being surrounded by a neighborhood rampant with drugs and addicts. Many patrons to come to the library for refuge and to have a safe haven. This library has been such a thing for many patrons in the neighborhood. In the past, the library has not had to take care of such things, but then the heroin epidemic hit.

The library started doing overdose drills for the last thirty years, and until recently, having to rely on those skills did not happen very often. There have been four overdoses in the library since the epidemic spread, and thankfully, none of them have been fatal. Some people come to this location to do their drugs for the sake of having a safe, quiet place to do what they will. In one case, a man shot up while he was in the adult reading room, and when he slid to the floor, help was there to take care of him. Much of the same can be said about the man who passed out in the bathroom while gasping for air.

There is now a monitor system in the bathroom. Adults are required to leave a library card or some other form of ID at the front desk. People are limited to bathroom time for between three and five minutes. After that time frame, a guard will knock before coming in to check on anyone that might have disappeared into the room.

 

SHAMEFUL!

House GOP Takes Power From First African American Librarian Of Congress

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

A bill that would empower Donald Trump to appoint the next Register of Copyrights was easily passed this year by the House of Representatives on , and is headed to the Senate. The final vote was 378-48.

The vote came just a month after the bill, the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act, (H.R. 1695) was first introduced on March 23. The bill would block Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden from appointing the next Register of Copyrights and instead transfer the authority to appoint the Register to the President, with Senate confirmation.

The bill happened after Hayden ousted Maria Pallante from her post as Register of Copyrights last October, a move that outraged many in the entertainment industry, and in Congress, who had counted Pallante as a close ally.

More Here

In January, Pallante was named President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers. Currently, Karyn Temple Claggett is leading the Copyright Office on an interim basis.

Hayden, has over 40 years of experience in library science and administration, was appointed by President Obama as the 14th librarian of Congress, and is both the first woman and the first Black American to serve in this role.

Hayden has also been an open advocate of balancing the rights of content creators and corporate copyright owners to adequately and fairly reap the benefits of their creative labors with the general public’s interest in broadening public access to this content in a fair and equitable manner.

More Here

Google Making It Easier to Find Jobs

Forty-six percent of people say they have difficulty locating people available for jobs while millions are looking for work. Google for jobs will recognize when a job search query is entered into Google Search and will return a set of open jobs that will match that query. Entry level jobs will also be included. Google will locate the jobs through agencies like Monster, LinkedIn, Facebook, Career Builder & Glassdoor.

Google For Jobs has been piloting with Fad-Ex and Johnson & Johnson. Google For Jobs Will Roll out in the next few weeks.

The SAT Cheating Problem Overseas

David Coleman, the owner of the SAT college-entrance exam, which has been plagued by a raft of cheating incidents overseas, outlined new security measures but stopped short of remedying the test’s biggest vulnerability.

The New York-based College Board said the steps include reducing the number of times the test is given outside the United States and increasing the auditing of test centers. But the not-for-profit organization did not say it would end its practice of reusing test forms overseas that were initially given in the United States – the source of many of its security lapses in recent years.

As Reuters reported last year, the College Board has failed to stop a widespread and known security problem. Asian test-preparation companies are gathering questions and reading passages from past SAT exams, and then giving their clients that material to practice upon. The questions later show up on SAT exams administered overseas, giving an unfair advantage to students who have seen them.

Reuters also found that the College Board knowingly had administered some exams overseas that it knew had leaked. More here

They’re Calling For All Innovative Students In New York City

Read More Here

Gender Pay Gap Via State

On average, a woman earns 21% less than her male counterpart. That gap can be larger or smaller depending on the state someone lives in. The biggest wage gap in the nation is in Louisiana. 21 states in the country currently have gender pay gaps that are larger than the national average. Washington, D.C. has the smallest pay gap at 10.4%, which means that women earn an average of 10.4% less than men in the area.

Women of color face the biggest pay gap when compared to white men

Image: Skye Gould/Business Insider

Black and Hispanic women are most affected by the wage gap, especially when compared to white men, who make up the largest demographic segment of the workforce, according to the Senate report.

Asian women face the smallest wage gap – they earn 84% of what white men earn, resulting in a pay gap of 16%. White women earn 75% of what white men do, while black women earn 65% and Hispanic women earn 55%.

The only income source through which women age 65 and up make nearly the same as what men over 65 make is Social Security.

Women with children are penalized, while men with children are rewarded

Image: Skye Gould/Business Insider

Image: Skye Gould/Business Inside

National Librarian Workers Day

 

 

Here’s what Newsday had to say

Blue Origin & Virgin Galactic

Jeffrey P. Bezos unveils Blue Origin’s crew capsule at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. (Photo by Christian Davenport)

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos said on Wednesday he is selling about $1 billion worth of the internet retailer’s stock annually to fund his Blue Origin rocket company, which aims to launch paying passengers on 11-minute space rides beginning 2018.

The interior includes comfortable seats with, laid back headrests like a La-Z-Boy. The walls are padded and white, and there are handles all over the place so that the floating astronauts can hang on like people riding the Metro.

Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, also plans to fly tourists to space, and is in the middle of testing its new space plane, Space Ship Two, which would be tethered to the bellow of a mother ship and then launched in flight. Virgin charges $250,000 a flight; Blue Origin hasn’t decided what its tickets would cost.

More Here

This is so backwards So whats going to transpire is that the uneducated with the cash can fly up in space and the educated scientist who is well versed in astronomy or aerospace only get to hear about it or will they have to apply for a grant or something will have to hear about? Who just want to hear “O the ride was wonderful or exciting! Where the details?

 

 

The Death Rate For Middle-Aged White Americans, On The Rise-Opioid Addiction

 

The death rate for middle-aged white Americans, particularly those who are undereducated, is on the rise due to the opioid epidemic .

Princeton Economists say the death rate for non-Hispanic, white Americans has been climbing since the late 90s. For decades, death rates (the number of deaths in a given population) have dropped for Americans overall, and middle-aged whites were no exception. Each year, on average, the death rate dropped by 2 percent.

However, in 1998, something flipped, and while the death rates for everyone else—including black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans—continued to steadily drop, the death rates for middle-aged white Americans start to creep up: 0.5 percent a year, every year:

As a result of  the high number of overdose and suicide deaths, economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, have now published a follow-up report where they’ve attempted to untangle the cause of this epidemic. While many experts supposed it’s linked to a worsening economy and lower incomes, Case and Deaton say their analysis shows it’s not so simple.

The story is rooted in the labor market, but involves many aspects of life, including health in childhood, marriage, child rearing, and religion,” the researchers reveal. “Although we do not see the supply of opioids as the fundamental factor, the prescription of opioids for chronic pain added fuel to the flames, making the epidemic much worse than it otherwise would have been.”

Opioid over prescription and addiction has been an increasing scourge in the US, killing 91 Americans every day, especially low-income white Americans, according to the Centers of Disease Control.

 

Metropolitan Museaum Of Art Now Has Open Access

All images of public-domain works in The Met collection are available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). So whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction.

Anyone can just go over to the Metropolitan Museum’s website to search for images to download — just be sure to tick the check box for “Public Domain Artworks.” If that is too broad and you can’t be bothered to look for the “CC0” tag, you can always just choose from 20 thematic sets that the Met has arranged

Textbook publishers Find Ways For Students To Save Money

• Several well known textbook publishers are finding nee and alternative ways to save students money and stabilize revenues with inclusive access digital material models funded by fees included in student material fees.
• Under the new model of bookselling, students receive digital access to required course materials and have the option to pay additional money for a printed copy, delivered on the first day of class. 
• Officials at Indiana University told Inside Higher Ed that in the eight years since piloting its eText initiative, revenues exceeded $10 million last year and there was a more than 40% jump in annual growth. 

Japanese Scientists Are Creating Hybrid Embryos From Pigs & Humans

Scientists for the first time have created an embryo that is part human and part pig as part of a groundbreaking experiment that published this week in the biochemistry journal Cell. This incredible chimera was developed by a team of researchers from the Graduate School of Agriculture and Department of Advanced Bioscience at Kindai University in Japan. Considered as one of the most successful chimeras to date, the experiment is a leap forward for the field of regenerative medicine, which is searching for ways to produce human organs using animal models. In the procedure developed by the Kindai team, a laser beam was used to make an opening in the outer membrane of a pig blastocyst cell. The channel was wide enough for a needle to deliver the human iPS cells into the matrix of the developing embryo. The resulting hybrid cell was then implanted into a female pig (sow) and allowed to develop for four weeks.

After a month of in situ development, the embryo was harvested and analyzed. It was found that a small fraction of the pig embryo was composed of human cells. The human stem cells that were present had grown into precursor cells capable of eventually developing into heart cells, liver cells, and neurons.

The scientists believe that the results also may lead to the future use of farm animals as a host for growing transplantable human tissues. The future application of the technology may provide organs suitable for transplant and could help lessen the worldwide organ shortage that currently exists.

Tostitos Creates A Chip Bag That detects Alcohol On Your Breath

In an effort to raise awareness for responsible driving, the chip maker has partnered with Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Uber to create “alcohol sensor bags,” special Tostitos bags that can tell if you’ve been drinking.

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Museums Are Making Visitor Experiences More Exciting

New technologies are making the museum visit more exciting. From 3-D scanning and 3-D printing, to virtual reality and special apps, these technologies are being applied in a multitude of ways. Still other technologies are being tested and developed as museums seek to ever broaden public access.

The American Museum of Natural History. Has a new app called Explorer. It uses hundreds of Bluetooth hotspots to navigate visitors around its halls to artifacts that may interest them the most.Whenever you raise your phone, the thing you’re immediately in front of is at the top of the app. The app can also customize your tour.

Some museums are already using the latest 3-D printing technology to make replicas of historical artifacts to give visitors a new way to interact with the object without damaging the original.

3-D scanning tools also allow for detailed analysis of fragile specimens.

An example of that is an exhibition traveling around the country called “Mummies: New Secrets From the Tombs” organized by Chicago’s Field Museum. It used a medical CT scanner to “unwrap” the mummies. Museum-goers can peek under the wrappings by manipulating large table-top computer scans placed alongside the delicate specimens to see their clothes, hairstyles and the jewelry they took to their graves.

Americans Suffering Garnishment On Their Social Security benefits

According to a report from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO)released on 19 December 2016, stated that 114,000 people in that age group had their benefits garnished during fiscal year 2015, a process the GAO calls an offset. That figure represents an increase of 540 percent compared to fiscal year 2004.

The agency’s acting director of education and workforce security, Allison Bawden, told us that the garnishment was applied to users who have defaulted on their loans and are drawing at least $750 per month in Social Security benefits. The offset can take up to 15 percent of these users’ monthly payments, and the median amount deducted in an offset, she said, was $140 a month.

The GAO report also stated that between fiscal years 2002 and 2015, the number of people between ages 50 and 65 subject to offsets increased by 540 percent.

Around 32 percent of seniors 50 and over “paid off” their loans or were allowed by the Education Department to discharge them due to disability, the report said. But another 13 percent died with their loans still outstanding.

The report was conducted at the request of two Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Warren called the practice of Social Security garnishments “predatory and counterproductive” in a statement released on 20 December 2016

 

Since Social Security is the primary source of income for many older Americans, GAO was asked to review these withholdings, known as offsets.

GAO’s Recommendations

Congress should consider modifying Social Security administrative offset provisions, such as by authorizing the Department of the Treasury to annually index the amount of Social Security benefits exempted from administrative offset to reflect changes in the cost of living over time.

The Secretary of Education should inform affected borrowers of the suspension of offset and potential consequences if the borrower does not take action to apply for a TPD discharge. Such information could include notification that interest continues to accrue and that offsets may resume once their disability benefits are converted to retirement benefits.

The Secretary of Education should revise forms sent to borrowers already approved for a TPD discharge to clearly and prominently state that failure to provide annual income verification documentation during the 3-year monitoring period will result in loan reinstatement

The Secretary of Education should evaluate the feasibility and benefits of implementing an automated income verification process, including determining whether the agency has the necessary legal authority to implement such a process.

The Secretary of Education should inform borrowers about the financial hardship exemption option and application process on the agency’s website, as well as the notice of offset sent to borrowers

The Secretary of Education should implement an annual review process to ensure that only eligible borrowers are exempted from offset for financial hardship on an ongoing basis

Ten Thousand new York City kids To Receive $100 For College Savings Account

Ten Thousand New York City children will start kindergarten with $100 in a college savings account thanks to a public-private partnership intended to boost the number of students attending college.Under the three-year pilot program announced Tuesday, about 3,500 kindergartners will get so-called 529 college savings accounts next fall.Another 3,500 kindergartners will get the accounts in the fall of 2018 and a third group in the fall of 2019.

Families that meet savings benchmarks will get up to another $200 in matching funds.The program is being funded with $10 million from Jon Gray, the global head of real estate at the investment firm Blackstone Group.It will be overseen by a newly created nonprofit called NYC Kids Rise.Similar programs exist in cities including San Francisco and Boston.

 

The War On Fake News: And The Librarians Role

Fake or sensationally biased news sources now has escalated. The central focus of the concern is Facebook, which has grown beyond a social platform and is now a key information distributor from which 44 percent of Americans get their news. 

Detecting fake news-The Verge talked to Professor Nicole A. Cooke of the University of Illinois. Professor Cooke works in the University’s top-ranked School of Information Sciences, focusing on human information behavior, information literacy, and diversity in librarianship. She says ” Information literacy is just trying to get people to be savvy consumers of information, and getting them to be able to really interrogate the information that is available to them, to see what is quality, to evaluate sources, et cetera.” Her rule of thumb for identifying fake news “If you see something on Facebook or Twitter, a lot of people get caught up with just forwarding information without actually reading the article or examining the site. When you see a very salacious headline or something that’s challenging, sometimes the inclination is to forward it without checking. You have to ask: does this appear in multiple places or did you only see it on Facebook? This misinformation is perpetuated because people aren’t taking the time to evaluate sources before they accept it as truth and / or pass it on to others.”

My Tips On Spotting Fake News

CHECK THE DATE

Check Domain Name

Verify with Snopes is a great one. Factcheck.org and PolitiFact  TinEye              http://www.hoax-slayer.com/

Verify or Google the story