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“There is no problem that a library card can't solve” according to author Eleanor Brown [1]. This advice is sound, probably for both life and science, but even the best tool (like the library) is most effective when accompanied by instructions and a basic understanding of how and when to use it. For many budding scientists, the first day in a new lab setting often involves a stack of papers, an email full of links to pertinent articles, or some promise of a richer understanding so long as one reads enough of the scientific literature. However, the purpose and approach to reading a scientific article is unlike that of reading a news story, novel, or even a textbook and can initially seem unapproachable. Having good habits for reading scientific literature is key to setting oneself up for success, identifying new research questions, and filling in the gaps in one’s current understanding; developing these good habits is the first crucial step. Advice typically centers around two main tips: read actively and read often. However, active reading, or reading with an intent to understand, is both a learned skill and a level of effort. Although there is no one best way to do this, we present 10 simple rules, relevant to novices and seasoned scientists alike, to teach our strategy for active reading based on our experience as readers and as mentors of undergraduate and graduate researchers, medical students, fellows, and early career faculty. Rules 1–5 are big picture recommendations. Rules 6–8 relate to philosophy of reading. Rules 9–10 guide the “now what?” questions one should ask after reading and how to integrate what was learned into one’s own science.

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce–e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends–for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors–are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

This paper investigates experimentally the relationship between inequality in endowment and deception. Our basic design is adopted from Gneezy (2005): two players interact in a deception game. It is common knowledge that player 1 has private information about the payoffs for both players of two alternative actions. Player 1 sends a message to player 2, indicating which alternative putatively will end up in a higher payoff for player 2. The message, which can either be true or false, does not affect the payoffs of the players. Player 2 has no information about the payoffs. However, player 2 selects one of the two alternatives A or B, which is payoff-relevant for both players. Our paper adds value to the literature by extending Gneezy (2005) in two ways. First, we systematically vary the initial endowment of players 1 and 2 (common knowledge to both of them). Second, we do not limit ourselves to the standard population of university students but also recruit chess players that are not enrolled in any degree program. Doing so, we want to find out if our results remain robust over a non-standard subject population which is known to be experienced to some extent in strategic interactions. Our main findings are: (i) non-students behave more honestly than students, (ii) students are more likely to trust the opponent’s message, and (iii) students and non-students behave differently to variation in initial endowment.

The objective of the paper is to diagnose organisational culture of selected universities and analyse its impact on the innovation processes within them. The subject matter of the study was organisational culture and innovation at universities. The subjects were four selected universities in Poland, Austria, Germany, and Ukraine. The paper provided a definition of organisational culture and its typology. It further discussed the organisational culture of universities and the relationships between organisational culture and innovativeness. The literature review provided foundations for building a model for the formation of a type of organisational culture at universities that is innovation-friendly, which is the added value of the paper. It offers actions worth taking to shape innovation-friendly culture at universities. It is particularly important during difficult time of changing labour market, when universities greatly impact the attitudes of young people. The knowledge of how to shape innovation-friendly organisational culture at universities is necessary for academia to profile future employees in times of continuous changes. To investigate the relationship between organisational culture and the innovativeness of universities, we designed an original survey questionnaire [S1 File]. Organisational culture was diagnosed with the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument by K.S. Cameron and R.E. Quinn. The analyses were conducted in Dell Statistica v. 13.1 (StatSoft Polska). We normalised data from the Likert rating scale using Kaufman’s and Rousseeuw’s formula. We used Spearman’s correlation coefficient and Kendall’s W to calculate correlations. The research shows that the investigated Polish and Austrian universities are dominated by hierarchy and market cultures. On the other hand, the German and Ukrainian universities host all cultures, but clan and adhocracy dominate there. Moreover, the analyses demonstrated that although the adhocracy culture was the least visible in the investigated organisations, it contributes to university innovativeness the most. The conclusions were used to build a model for promoting innovation-friendly organisational culture at universities. The model contains answers to the research questions. In addition, it offers guidelines for shaping organisational culture to bolster innovation at universities. The research identified relationships between organisational culture and university innovativeness and components that create innovation opportunities at universities as its contribution to management theory. When applied in practice, the guidelines can help form the university’s organisational culture bottom-up.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the global Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process and investigate the steps to support consolidated business planning in worldwide operations and large-scale supply chains. The paper conducts a case study at a multinational manufacturing company applying an abductive approach. It combines the deductive logic from theory and the inductive logic from field observation in an attempt to elaborate further on theory on global S&OP. The analysis is structured and guided by a novel framework for global S&OP, which is developed based on the theoretical background and the case study findings. The research findings characterise the S&OP process for global operations and identify challenges related to the need to synchronise the subsidiaries’ S&OP efforts worldwide to deal with different contingencies of these subsidiaries, and to manage and analyse a large amount of information gathered. The research reveals how the subsidiaries’ performance is analysed by top executives along the global S&OP process, feeding strategic initiatives in the organisation and identifying business opportunities like benchmarking among subsidiaries, synergies with other management practices, and global gains. This paper offers a novel investigation of the global steps on S&OP in a real-life setting, offering a well-documented characterisation of the process that goes beyond the traditional local approach. Moreover, it is the first study to reveal challenges and expected outcomes of such a global perspective for S&OP. The theoretical advancements of S&OP research offered herein aid scholars, opening avenues for middle-range theorising, highlighting the cross-disciplinary nature of the domain, and discussing the use of concepts from related disciplines like Economics, Psychology, and Information Systems. The research findings can also assist executives, especially from multinational manufacturers, in their efforts to consolidate global planning.

BackgroundJournals are trying to make their papers more accessible by creating a variety of research summaries including graphical abstracts, video abstracts, and plain language summaries. It is unknown if individuals with science, science-related, or non-science careers prefer different summaries, which approach is most effective, or even what criteria should be used for judging which approach is most effective. A survey was created to address this gap in our knowledge. Two papers from Nature on similar research topics were chosen, and different kinds of research summaries were created for each one. Questions to measure comprehension of the research, as well as self-evaluation of enjoyment of the summary, perceived understanding after viewing the summary, and the desire for more updates of that summary type were asked to determine the relative merits of each of the summaries.ResultsParticipants (n = 538) were randomly assigned to one of the summary types. The response of adults with science, science-related, and non-science careers were slightly different, but they show similar trends. All groups performed well on a post-summary test, but participants reported higher perceived understanding when presented with a video or plain language summary (p

Personal motivation is a key factor in the service of foster care, impending both on the welfare of the child and on the satisfaction of the carer. This paper explores the benefits, challenges and dilemmas involved in the job of professional (i.e. state-supported) foster carer in Romania-a country where the issue of child protection has drawn a great deal of international attention over the last thirty years. The principal hypothesis concerns whether the benefits, challenges and dilemmas identified by foster carers are influenced by the factors that led to their taking up this kind of work. Quantitative research was conducted using a questionnaire as the main tool. The paper takes a descriptive, cross-sectional and multifactorial approach. Sampling was carried out by self-selecting method, and the study involved 51 participants. The research project identified a statistically significant variation in the challenges and dilemmas reported by foster carers. Thus, the results of the study show that the majority of the carers indicate a primarily intrinsic motivation for their work. By way of conclusion, it is argued that social workers, operating in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams, can offer carers support in managing more difficult periods in the child-carer relationship, thus enhancing the sustainability of the foster care service.

Learning using the Internet or training through E-Learning is growing rapidly and is increasingly favored over the traditional methods of learning and teaching. This radical shift is directly linked to the revolution in digital computer technology. The revolution propelled by innovation in computer technology has widened the scope of E-Learning and teaching, whereby the process of exchanging information has been made simple, transparent, and effective. The E-Learning system depends on different success factors from diverse points of view such as system, support from the institution, instructor, and student. Thus, the effect of critical success factors (CSFs) on the E-Learning system must be critically analyzed to make it more effective and successful. This current paper employed the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with group decision-making (GDM) and Fuzzy AHP (FAHP) to study the diversified factors from different dimensions of the web-based E-Learning system. The present paper quantified the CSFs along with its dimensions. Five different dimensions and 25 factors associated with the web-based E-Learning system were revealed through the literature review and were analyzed further. Furthermore, the influence of each factor was derived successfully. Knowing the impact of each E-Learning factor will help stakeholders to construct education policies, manage the E-Learning system, perform asset management, and keep pace with global changes in knowledge acquisition and management.

open access article This paper examines how to maximize contribution in public good dilemmas by arranging people into homogeneous or heterogeneous subgroups. Past studies on the effect of homo- geneity of efficacy have exclusively manipulated group composition in their experimental designs, which might have imposed a limit on ecological validity because group membership may not be easily changed in reality. In this study, we maintained the same group composi- tion but varied the subgroup composition. We developed a public good dilemmas paradigm in which participants were assigned to one of the four conditions (high- vs. low-efficacy; homogeneous vs. heterogeneous subgroup) to produce their endowments and then to decide how much to contribute. We found that individuals in homogeneous and heteroge- neous subgroups produced a similar amount and proportion of contribution, which was due to the two mediating effects that counteracted each other, namely (a) perceived efficacy rel- ative to subgroup and (b) expectation of contribution of other subgroup members. This paper demonstrates both the pros and cons of arranging people into homogeneous and het- erogeneous subgroups of efficacy.

Background Leprosy is a condition that has long been associated with stigma and discrimination, even when infected persons have been cured. This paper describes stigma and discrimination as viewed by caregivers who are associated with people affected by leprosy in Ghana. Methods A qualitative interview with semi-structured interviews were conducted for twenty caregivers. Results Findings indicated that caregivers were of the view that people affected by leprosy in Ghana are stigmatized and discriminated against by the larger society thus making their movements and interactions restricted to the Leprosarium. Besides, employments opportunities are unavailable to them thus making them exposed to financial challenges. The livelihood Empowerment Against poverty (LEAP) money given them is not sufficient for their daily upkeep. Conclusion People affected by leprosy in Ghana are stigmatized and therefore find it difficult to interact freely with the public. The associated physical deformities with the disease also tend to impede their ability to relate to the general public. The LEAP cash given to people affected by leprosy is helpful however, it could be enhanced to keep pace with prevailing economic conditions in the country., Author summary In Ghana, the social interpretation of leprosy regardless of the language, culture and tradition engenders stigmatization and discrimination that leads to social rejection and exclusion of persons who have been cured of the disease. Often, these persons are cared for by relatives who happen to live with them in a confined place. From the views of these caregivers, this paper identifies areas of stigmatizing and discriminatory tendencies against people affected by leprosy who reside in a Leprosarium in Accra, the capital city. It is expected that persons suffering from such neglected tropical disease would be empowered to enable them go about their daily routines without the fear of being rejected. Besides, the intensification of public education about curing tendencies of stigma becomes paramount.

This paper aims to optimize a desirable fare structure for the public transit service along a bus-subway corridor with the consideration of those factors related to equity in trip, including travel distance and comfort level. The travel distance factor is represented by the distance-based fare strategy, which is an existing differential strategy. The comfort level one is considered in the area-based fare strategy which is a new differential strategy defined in this paper. Both factors are referred to by the combined fare strategy which is composed of distance-based and area-based fare strategies. The flat fare strategy is applied to determine a reference level of social welfare and obtain the general passenger flow along transit lines, which is used to divide areas or zones along the corridor. This problem is formulated as a bi-level program, of which the upper level maximizes the social welfare and the lower level capturing traveler choice behavior is a variable-demand stochastic user equilibrium assignment model. A genetic algorithm is applied to solve the bi-level program while the method of successive averages is adopted to solve the lower-level model. A series of numerical experiments are carried out to illustrate the performance of the models and solution methods. Numerical results indicate that all three differential fare strategies play a better role in enhancing the social welfare than the flat fare strategy and that the fare structure under the combined fare strategy generates the highest social welfare and the largest resulting passenger demand, which implies that the more equity factors a differential fare strategy involves the more desirable fare structure the strategy has.

Ratings are present in many areas of assessment including peer review of research proposals and journal articles, teacher observations, university admissions and selection of new hires. One feature present in any rating process with multiple raters is that different raters often assign different scores to the same assessee, with the potential for bias and inconsistencies related to rater or assessee covariates. This paper analyzes disparities in ratings of internal and external applicants to teaching positions using applicant data from Spokane Public Schools. We first test for biases in rating while accounting for measures of teacher applicant qualifications and quality. Then, we develop model-based inter-rater reliability (IRR) estimates that allow us to account for various sources of measurement error, the hierarchical structure of the data, and to test whether covariates, such as applicant status, moderate IRR. We find that applicants external to the district receive lower ratings for job applications compared to internal applicants. This gap in ratings remains significant even after including measures of qualifications and quality such as experience, state licensure scores, or estimated teacher value added. With model-based IRR, we further show that consistency between raters is significantly lower when rating external applicants. We conclude the paper by discussing policy implications and possible applications of our model-based IRR estimate for hiring and selection practices in and out of the teacher labor market.

Wealthy schools appoint better qualified teachers, less wealthy schools under qualified teachers. Added to this mix is a powerful teacher’s union whose policies attempt to entrench the job security of teachers in the less wealthy schools irrespective of whether they can teach their subjects or not. Can one isolate these effects from that of other socio-demographic factors that may also be affecting the performance of students when they enrol for a degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)? An outcome variable that subtracts the number of courses that have been failed from the number of courses that have been passed, dividing this by the total number of years that they have spent studying for a particular degree will be used as a response variable for this paper. Objectives The system of secondary education in South Africa is highly polarized. On the one hand, we have a group of mainly Black African students, forming about 80% of the total student population, that come from a vastly under-resourced rural or township based community. On the other hand, we have a group of predominantly White and Indian students who are able to attend a far better resourced set of private schools. Added to this mix, we have 240,000 of South Africa’s total number of 390,000 primary and secondary school teachers who belong to a powerful teacher’s union which enjoys a strong political alliance with the ruling party in South Africa. With most of their union members teaching in the less wealthy schools in South Africa, `school background’ now includes a politically motivated component that focuses on teacher self–interest rather than the education of the child. What sort of effect does school background have on the performance of students when they enter an institution of higher learning? More importantly, can one isolate the effect of school background from that of other possibly confounding factors such as gender, financial aid and the receipt of some form of residence based accommodation that will also impact on their performance while at university? Method A total of 6,183 students enrolling for a degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) over the period 2008 to 2012 were used a dataset for this study. Permission to use this dataset was given by the Teaching and Learning Office at UKZN. The database that was used for this study was obtained from the Division of Management Information (DMI) office at UKZN. The percentage based marks that students have managed to record for Mathematics, English, Biology and Accounting in their school leaving exams together with some other important but observable socio-economic factors were included in a regression model to determine how students will perform at UKZN. Socio-economic variables relating to gender, race and whether they have receivd some form of financial aid or residence based accommodation while studying at university were also included as predictor variables in our regression based model structure. Results and Conclusions An interaction effect associated with being a Black African student who has been privileged enough to attend a quintile five school was found to be significant. A main effect associated with being able to attend a more privileged quintile 5 school however was found to be nonsignificant even after an adjustment has been made for gender, race, the receipt of some form of financial aid and residence based accommodation. Given that UKZN already has a number of bridging programs in place that target students who have come from a less privileged background, for university based policymakers, this result may help to justify the targeted selection of Black African students from the less privileged schools that is taking place. Because some of the disparity in matric performance that we are observing may also be associated with teacher competency and the protective influence of a powerful teacher’s union, this paper may also help to highlight some of the economic costs related with having under-prepared students. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste”–United Negro College Fund.

When disaster events capture global attention users of Twitter form transient interest communities that disseminate information and other messages online. This paper examines content related to Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) as it hit the Philippines and triggered international humanitarian response and media attention. It reveals how Twitter conversations about disasters evolve over time, showing an issue attention cycle on a social media platform. The paper examines different functions of Twitter and the information hubs that drive and sustain conversation about the event. Content analysis shows that the majority of tweets contain information about the typhoon or its damage, and disaster relief activities. There are differences in types of content between the most retweeted messages and posts that are original tweets. Original tweets are more likely to come from ordinary users, who are more likely to tweet emotions, messages of support, and political content compared with official sources and key information hubs that include news organizations, aid organization, and celebrities. Original tweets reveal use of the site beyond information to relief coordination and response.

As science becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, we are expected to acquire both breadth of knowledge and depth of expertise. In bioinformatics, this is especially true. Keeping up to date with major techniques across multiple specialisations can be daunting, but you need not face it alone. A journal club is an excellent way to take in the scientific literature, keep up with developments in your field, and hone your communication and analytical skills. In general, a journal club is a group of people who meet regularly to discuss one or more scientific papers. The structure of such a club can vary. In the more traditional format, an individual studies a paper and then presents it to the group, usually in the form of PowerPoint slides, with time for questions. In some institutions, the journal club is for students only, designed to fulfill the requirements of a course or postgraduate program; attendance is obligatory, the scope of the literature is narrow, and the format is prescribed. The preparation of slides and a lecture may be required. Other kinds of journal clubs are just lab meetings in disguise, with the usual lab head and group members in attendance and one member nominated to present the paper. A formal style often fits well within an established academic structure—but what if your discipline is emerging? Consider the field of bioinformatics. Expertise may be spread across departments and institutions, and there may not be an obvious place or critical mass in any one lab for a traditional journal club. Research students, “pet bioinformaticians,” [1] and those interested in bioinformatics from adjoining fields all need a place to gather. We are pleased to offer an alternative structure to address this situation—an informal journal club, designed to bring together a diversity of backgrounds and career stages to discuss bioinformatics while building a network of like-minded peers. Additional benefits of such a journal club may include friendship and breakfast (see Rule 2)! We thoroughly recommend it to anyone who asks (as well as those who don’t). While this advice is drawn from our experiences in the Parkville Bioinformatics Journal Club, it is applicable to developing informal journal clubs of all disciplines. The advice contained in these rules will also help those who want to spice up their existing formal format. So don’t be a “lonely bioinformatician”[1], create a journal club! Follow these Ten Simple Rules to find out how.

This paper proposes a multiple criteria group decision making with individual preferences (MCGDM-IP) to address the robot selection problem (RSP). Four objective criteria elicitation approaches, namely, Shannon entropy approach, CRITIC approach, distance-based approach, and ideal-point approach, are proposed to indicate individual decision makers. A preliminary group decision matrix is therefore formulated. Both preferential differences representing the preference degrees among different robots, and preferential priorities representing the favorite ranking of robots for each individual decision maker, are analyzed to propose a revised group decision matrix. A satisfaction index is developed to manifest the merits of the proposed MCGDM-IP. An illustrative example using the data drawn from previous literature is conducted to indicate the effectiveness and validity of MCGDM-IP. The results demonstrate that the MCGDM-IP could generate a more satisfactory scheme to evaluate and select industrial robots, with an improvement of group satisfactory level as 2.12%.

© 2021 Moore et al., Bioinformatics training is required at every stage of a scientist’s research career. Continual bioinformatics training allows exposure to an ever-changing and growing repertoire of techniques and databases, and so biologists, computational scientists, and healthcare practitioners are all seeking learning opportunities in the use of computational resources and tools designed for data storage, retrieval, and analysis. There are abundant opportunities for accessing bioinformatics training for scientists in high-income countries (HICs), with well-equipped facilities and participants and trainers requiring minimal travel and financial costs alongside a range of general advice for developing short bioinformatics training courses [1–3]. However, regionally targeted bioinformatics training in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often requires more extensive local and external support, organization, and travel. Due to the limited expertise in bioinformatics in LMICs in general, most bioinformatics training requires a fair amount of collaboration with experts beyond the local community, country, or region. A common model of training, used as the basis of this article, includes a local host collaborating with local, regional, and international experts gathering to train local or regional participants. Recently, there has been a growth of capacity strengthening initiatives in LMICs, such as the Pan African Bioinformatics Network for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3ABioNet) Initiative [4–6], the Capacity Building for Bioinformatics in Latin America (CABANA) Project [7], the Asia Pacific BioInformatics Network (APBioNet) [8], and the Wellcome Connecting Science Courses and Conferences program [9]. One of the important strands of these initiatives is a drive to organize and deliver valuable bioinformatics training, but organizing and delivering short bioinformatics training workshops in an LMIC present a unique set of challenges. This paper attempts to build upon the sage advice for organizing bioinformatics workshops with specific guidance for organizing and delivering them in LMICs. It describes the processes to follow in organizing courses taking into consideration the low-resource setting. We should also note that LMICs are not a monolithic group and that setting, context, temporality, and specific location matters. LMICs are a complex regional grouping [10] and should be treated as such; however, we will present some common lessons that we hope will help organizers and trainers of bioinformatics training events in LMICs to navigate the often different, challenging, and rewarding experience., The authors who contributed to this manuscript are funded as follows: BM receives salary support from Wellcome Trust grants [WT108749/Z/15/Z, WT108749/Z/15/A], PC, VR, NM, AG’s salaries are funded in whole, or in part, by the NIH Common Fund H3ABioNet grant [U24HG006941], MC, SLFV, AR, PG, PCL’s salaries were partly funded by the UKRI-BBSRC ‘Capacity building for bioinformatics in Latin America’ (CABANA) grant, on behalf of the Global Challenges Research Fund [BB/P027849/1], JDLR is funded by ISCiii AES [ref. PI18/00591] at the CSIC/USAL (Spain) and by CYTED, RIABIO (Red Iberoamericana 521RT0118), AM’s salary is funded by [WT206194/Z/17/Z], GO is funded by the CABANA grant and SM is funded by the EMBL-EBI.

This paper examines how values and professional socialization in business schools impact the formulation of students’ contextualized view of social responsibility. We propose the empirical concept of a mental gap between the existing and the wished-for level of a business school’s corporate social responsibility and estimate it empirically by using a sample of business school students from Central and South East Europe. Results show that students wish their business schools to reduce their current orientation toward economic outcomes and focus on environmental and social responsibilities. We interpret those empirical results in terms of the students’ wish to balance achieving economic prosperity and enjoyment of life with the prosocial outcomes of their education. New student generations’ perception of corporate social responsibility is not shaped by the professional socialization patterns but rather by the own perceptions, which can be influenced by experiential approaches to academic teaching and learning. Based on these empirical results, implications for academic practice and future research are explored.

Can egalitarian norms or conventions survive the presence of dominant individuals who are ensured of victory in conflicts? We investigate the interaction of power asymmetry and partner choice in games of conflict over a contested resource. Previous models of cooperation do not include both power inequality and partner choice. Furthermore, models that do include power inequalities assume a static game where a bully’s advantage does not change. They have therefore not attempted to model complex and realistic properties of social interaction. Here, we introduce three models to study the emergence and resilience of cooperation among unequals when interaction is random, when individuals can choose their partners, and where power asymmetries dynamically depend on accumulated payoffs. We find that the ability to avoid bullies with higher competitive ability afforded by partner choice mostly restores cooperative conventions and that the competitive hierarchy never forms. Partner choice counteracts the hyper dominance of bullies who are isolated in the network and eliminates the need for others to coordinate in a coalition. When competitive ability dynamically depends on cumulative payoffs, complex cycles of coupled network-strategy-rank changes emerge. Effective collaborators gain popularity (and thus power), adopt aggressive behavior, get isolated, and ultimately lose power. Neither the network nor behavior converge to a stable equilibrium. Despite the instability of power dynamics, the cooperative convention in the population remains stable overall and long-term inequality is completely eliminated. The interaction between partner choice and dynamic power asymmetry is crucial for these results: without partner choice, bullies cannot be isolated, and without dynamic power asymmetry, bullies do not lose their power even when isolated. We analytically identify a single critical point that marks a phase transition in all three iterations of our models. This critical point is where the first individual breaks from the convention and cycles start to emerge., Author summary Individuals often differ in their ability to resolve conflicts in their favor, and this can lead to the emergence of hierarchies and dominant alphas. Such social structures present a serious risk of destabilizing cooperative social interactions or norms. Why work together to find food when a more aggressive or stronger individual can take all of it? In this paper we use game theory and agent-based modeling to investigate how cooperative behavior evolves in the presence of powerful bullies who have no incentive to cooperate. We show that when individuals can choose their interaction partners, bullies do not always destabilize cooperation. Instead, cooperative norms survive as individuals learn to avoid dominant individuals who become isolated in the population. When competitive ability itself depends dynamically on past success, complex cycles of coupled network-strategy-rank changes emerge: effective collaborators gain popularity and thus power, adopt aggressive behavior, get isolated, then lose power. Our results have important implications: in our modeled scenario the rich do not always get richer, the dominance of bullies can be broken, and inequality in accrued resources can be eliminated. Thus, our work provides new insight into potential sources of, and strategies for avoiding, resource inequality.

A significant body of multi-disciplinary research supports the proposition that women may experience empowerment from microfinance programs. This is based on the assumption that an increase in women’s financial contribution to the household helps to transform gender norms and relations which increases their decision-making power. However, the relationship between the strength and persistence of patriarchal gender norms within the household and women’s financial empowerment needs further exploration. This paper presents the findings of a mixed-method study comprising 331 surveys and 33 in-depth interviews with women receiving microfinance and their husbands in a southern sub-district of Bangladesh; it draws upon gender socialisation and gender performance theory to understand how patriarchal gender norms influence women’s financial empowerment in households receiving microfinance. Findings demonstrate that participation in microfinance programs has not shifted gender norms, nor financially empowered women. Women’s loans were largely controlled by men as prescribed by underlying, unchanged patriarchal gender norms. The inter-generational reproduction of patriarchal gender relations continued to reproduce a strict gendered division of labour that reinforced restrictions on women’s behaviour, mobility, and decision-making domains, and men’s dominance in household and economic decision-making.

The importance of managing projects virtually and effectively has increased over time. Today, many research groups in the computational and natural sciences have become more international. In addition, many students are participating in virtual internships and research projects. This trend also extends to how students are supervised on various projects—often remotely and by faculty members or organizational supervisors outside their own institutions. In the following paper, the authors outline ten rules for any faculty interested in successfully running virtual projects with students from other institutions than their own. These recommendations build on existing guidance related to preparing for and hosting traditional on-site internships [1–3]. Virtual internships are computer-mediated internships where the intern works for an organization, usually employers, remotely. This means that these virtual interns and the organization are often located in different cities, countries, and even time zones. Many interns complete such internships to gain work experience or complete projects for academic credit [4]. Due to the ease of locating suitable talent for research projects, such internships are also of interest to many academics who seek suitable and motivated talent for research projects. Faculty members can play a similar supervisory role as the managers in organizations. In the following section, we outline ten rules that can guide research supervisors in higher education and research institutions who are interested in running such virtual internships. These rules are relevant to both virtual and traditional internships that involve a dispersed team collaborating on a shared project. Nonetheless, the nature of virtual internships implies that project success is contingent on some aspects that are usually easier to track in traditional internships. Open communication, progress monitoring, proactive tool adoption, learning, and documentation are particularly critical in virtual settings to create transparency and facilitate project success. While some of these rules were created based on previous work we reference, none of the previous virtual internships focused on internships in research facilities. We believe that these rules can be readily applied to research projects focusing on computational biological analysis in multiple research disciplines as today’s technical infrastructure now allows labs and researchers to collaborate virtually on joint projects, using shared online resources and analytical tools. In order to highlight the relevance of our rules, we included feedback and observations from three female and two male students who completed virtual projects in bioinformatics. Virtual internships are known in various fields; however, to our knowledge, this is the first time that virtual internships have been applied to the field of bioinformatics. In contrast to traditional wet lab internships, virtual internships in this research area can be offered if the supervisors provide the computational resources. All five interns completed their projects over the course of a three to six months’ period (with a time commitment of around 300 hours to 800 hours). Most virtual interns lived in Germany like their internship supervisor; however, they came from different educational institutions and lived in various locations. Rule 1: Preparation is everything Project-based virtual internships require a significant amount of preparation to be successful. As a first step, supervisors need to identify suitable projects that can be completed in the time frame of an internship (several weeks to months). Moreover, supervisors have to create a road map that candidates can follow. In addition, supervisors need to consider the amount of time they can dedicate to training, meetings, and mentoring during the anticipated project time frame. Supervisors need to be clear on the required candidate and technical skills as well as on the project time frame. In addition, it is important to clarify the technical specifications (hardware and software) as most interns will be using their own equipment rather than university resources to complete the projects. If the appropriate software is not available to the student via their own university network, temporary licenses will need to be made available by the supervisor to ensure that the successful candidates can complete the project in question (unless open-source solutions can be used instead). A key aspect in the recruitment stage pertains to the identification of suitable target groups from which to engage in the selection process. If the project and thus training time is shorter, more skilled candidates may be preferred. Many students will be new to these internships, which means the supervisor will also have to introduce both project and virtual internships in general [5,6]. As soon as candidates have been selected, appropriate documentation is necessary to record the agreement between supervisor and student (e.g., project and task description, requirements around academic credit, potential remuneration, data management, project confidentiality, training or software agreements, and expected hours and time frame for the internship). This documentation may also be complemented by a learning agreement or a learning contract (since it is an internship after all), where mutual expectations around communication and supervisory support are outlined (e.g., mentoring).

Interest has been growing in regard to increasing the public health workforce and standardizing training to ensure there are competent professionals to support rebuilding and reinforcing the public health infrastructure of the United States. The need for public health leaders was recognized as early as the hookworm control campaign during 1909–1914 when it became apparent that prevention of disease should be distinct from clinical medicine and should be conducted by professionally trained, dedicated full-time public health practitioners. In recent years, research on the public health workforce and on standardizing health workforce education has significantly expanded. A key element of such a workforce is public health leadership, and DrPH programs are the means to provide effective public health education for these future health professionals. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the general trend of DrPH programs from past to present and analyze the common themes and variations of 28 Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH)-accredited DrPH programs in the United States. This research utilized a mixed-methods approach, investigating DrPH education at each school or program to improve our understanding of the current status of DrPH programs.

Science fairs offer potential opportunities for students to learn first-hand about the practices of science. Over the past six years we have been carrying out voluntary and anonymous surveys with regional and national groups of high school and post high school students to learn about their high school science fair experiences regarding help received, obstacles encountered, and opinions about the value and impact of science fair. Understanding what students think about science fairs will help educators make science fairs more effective learning opportunities. In this paper, we focus on the findings with two national groups of post high school students–undergraduate research fellows (SURF students) who did research at UT Southwestern Medical Center during 2014–2019 and undergraduates biology students attending the 2019 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance (SEA) summer symposium. About 25% of the students who completed surveys indicated that they had participated in high school science fair, but more than half attended high schools where science fairs were unavailable. Effectively, 6 out of every 10 students participated in science fair if available. Students who could have participated in high school science fair but chose not to do so identified not enough time and coming up with their project idea as major reasons why not. About half the SURF students favored requiring non-competitive science fair regardless whether they themselves had participated in science fair. On the other hand, less than 1 in 5 thought that competitive science fair should be required. Introduction to the scientific process and general learning were mentioned most frequently as the reasons to require non-competitive science fair; these reasons were mentioned rarely in connection with competitive science fair. Unlike the national cohort of high school students we surveyed previously, who mostly did science fair in 9th and 10th grades, SURF students participated in science fair throughout high school and were twice as likely as high school students to have carried out science fair more than once. In conclusion, our findings suggest that participation of the undergraduate bioscience majors in high school science fairs occurs far more frequently than recognized previously and provide insights into how these successful college students (gauged by the fact that they are doing summer science research) view science fairs. The findings emphasize further the importance of incentivizing rather than requiring science fair participation, especially in 9th and 10th grades, and the potential value of developing non-competitive science fairs.