Ten simple rules for an inclusive summer coding program for non-computer-science undergraduates.

Since 2015, we have run a free 9-week summer program that provides non-computer science (CS) undergraduates at San Francisco State University (SFSU) with experience in coding and doing research. Undergraduate research experiences remain very limited at SFSU and elsewhere, so the summer program provides opportunities for many more students beyond the mentoring capacity of our university laboratories. In addition, we were concerned that many students from historically underrepresented (HU) groups may be unable to take advantage of traditional summer research programs because these programs require students to relocate or be available full time, which is not feasible for students who have family, work, or housing commitments. Our program, which is local and part-time, serves about 5 times as many students as a typical National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, on a smaller budget. Based on our experiences, we present 10 simple rules for busy faculty who want to create similar programs to engage non-CS HU undergraduates in computational research. Note that while some of the strategies we implement are based on evidence-based publications in the social sciences or education research literature, the original suggestions we make here are based on our trial-and-error experiences, rather than formal hypothesis testing.

Mind the Gap: The Underrepresentation of Female Participants and Authors in Virtual Reality Research.

A common goal of human-subject experiments in virtual reality (VR) research is evaluating VR hardware and software for use by the general public. A core principle of human-subject research is that the sample included in a given study should be representative of the target population; otherwise, the conclusions drawn from the findings may be biased and may not generalize to the population of interest. In order to assess whether characteristics of participants in VR research are representative of the general public, we investigated participant demographic characteristics from human-subject experiments in the Proceedings of the IEEE Virtual Reality Conferences from 2015-2019. We also assessed the representation of female authors. In the 325 eligible manuscripts, which presented results from 365 human-subject experiments, we found evidence of significant underrepresentation of women as both participants and authors. To investigate whether this underrepresentation may bias researchers' findings, we then conducted a meta-analysis and meta-regression to assess whether demographic characteristics of study participants were associated with a common outcome evaluated in VR research: the change in simulator sickness following head-mounted display VR exposure. As expected, participants in VR studies using HMDs experienced small but significant increases in simulator sickness. However, across the included studies, the change in simulator sickness was systematically associated with the proportion of female participants. We discuss the negative implications of conducting experiments on non-representative samples and provide methodological recommendations for mitigating bias in future VR research.

Obert per defecte, tancat quan sigui necessari: el cas de les dades de la recerca / Abierto por defecto, cerrado cuando sea necesario: el caso de los datos de investigación / Open by default, closed when necessary: the case for data in research

Les darreres decisions polítiques dels agents finançadors de la recerca han estat encaminades a fomentar la difusió dels resultats en obert, és a dir a oferir-los a tothom, sense cap mena de restricció, i permetent-ne la reutilització. Aquestes polítiques que van començar aplicant-se a les publicacions, s'han estès a les dades, un bé molt preuat entre els investigadors als quals no els és fàcil desprendre-se'n. El fet d'haver de compartir les dades ha obert un debat sobre quines dades cal compartir i com s'ha de fer-ho. A més, han sorgit moltes reticències algunes de les quals s'han escudat en el fet que hi ha dades que difícilment es podran oferir mai en obert atesa la seva naturalesa: dades personals o sensibles. En aquest text volem aclarir alguns aspectes d’aquestes polítiques encaminades a obrir les dades sempre que sigui possible i a tancar-les quan calgui

Las últimas decisiones políticas de los agentes financiadores de la investigación han sido encaminadas a fomentar la difusión de los resultados en abierto, es decir a ofrecerlos a todo el mundo, sin ningún tipo de restricción, y permitiendo la reutilización. Estas políticas que empezaron aplicándose a las publicaciones, se han extendido a los datos, un bien muy preciado entre los investigadores a los cuales no les es fácil desprenderse. El hecho de tener que compartir los datos ha abierto un debate sobre qué datos hay que compartir y cómo se tiene que hacer. Además, han surgido muchas reticencias algunas de las cuales se han escudado en el hecho que hay datos que difícilmente se podrán ofrecer nunca en abierto dada su naturaleza: datos personales o sensibles. En este texto queremos aclarar algunos aspectos de estas políticas encaminadas a abrir los datos siempre que sea posible y a cerrarlos cuando sea necesario

The latest decisions on policies from research funders have been aimed at promoting open dissemination of research outputs, available to everyone, without any restriction, and allowing their reuse. These policies, which began to be applied to publications, have been spread to research data, a well appreciated good among researchers who do not easily get rid of it. The requirement of sharing data has opened a debate on what to share and how to do it. In addition, there have been reluctances, some of them shielded from the fact that some data would never be open due to its nature: personal or sensitive data. In this text we want to clarify some aspects of these policies addressed to open data whenever it is possible and close them when it is necessary

Women are underrepresented in computational biology: An analysis of the scholarly literature in biology, computer science and computational biology.

While women are generally underrepresented in STEM fields, there are noticeable differences between fields. For instance, the gender ratio in biology is more balanced than in computer science. We were interested in how this difference is reflected in the interdisciplinary field of computational/quantitative biology. To this end, we examined the proportion of female authors in publications from the PubMed and arXiv databases. There are fewer female authors on research papers in computational biology, as compared to biology in general. This is true across authorship position, year, and journal impact factor. A comparison with arXiv shows that quantitative biology papers have a higher ratio of female authors than computer science papers, placing computational biology in between its two parent fields in terms of gender representation. Both in biology and in computational biology, a female last author increases the probability of other authors on the paper being female, pointing to a potential role of female PIs in influencing the gender balance.

¿Cómo responder a nuestras preguntas de investigación de forma específica y no morir en el intento? Parte I / How to respond to our questions of research specifically and not die in the attempt? Part I

No disponible

Governance strategies for living technologies: bridging the gap between stimulating and regulating technoscience.

The life sciences present a politically and ethically sensitive area of technology development. NBIC convergence-the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information and cognitive technology-presents an increased interaction between the biological and physical sciences. As a result the bio-debate is no longer dominated by biotechnology, but driven by NBIC convergence. NBIC convergence enables two bioengineering megatrends: "biology becoming technology" and "technology becoming biology." The notion of living technologies captures the latter megatrend. Accordingly, living technology presents a politically and ethically sensitive area. This implies that governments sooner or later are faced with the challenge of both promoting and regulating the development of living technology. This article describes four current political models to deal with innovation promotion and risk regulation. Based on two specific developments in the field of living technologies-(psycho)physiological computing and synthetic biology-we reflect on appropriate governance strategies for living technologies. We conclude that recent pleas for anticipatory and deliberative governance tend to neglect the need for anticipatory regulation as a key factor in guiding the development of the life sciences from a societal perspective. In particular, when it is expected that a certain living technology will radically challenge current regulatory systems, one should opt for just such a more active biopolitical approach.

The influence of transformational leadership on employee well-being: results from a survey of companies in the information and communication technology sector in Germany.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of a transformational leadership style on employee well-being. METHODS: Data for the study were taken from an on-line survey of all employees from six German companies in the information and communication technology sector. The data obtained were analyzed using multiple logistic regressions. RESULTS: Analysis of data from a total of 318 employees (response rate 58.4%) revealed a significant relationship between transformational leadership and employee well-being (P = 0.00; OR = 1.13; 95% CI = 1.05 to 1.22). A higher degree of perceived transformational leadership is associated with greater well-being. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that a transformational leadership style, which both conveys a sense of trust and meaningfulness and individually challenges and develops employees, also has a positive effect on employee well-being.

Published and perished? The influence of the searched protein database on the long-term storage of proteomics data.

In proteomics, protein identifications are reported and stored using an unstable reference system: protein identifiers. These proprietary identifiers are created individually by every protein database and can change or may even be deleted over time. To estimate the effect of the searched protein sequence database on the long-term storage of proteomics data we analyzed the changes of reported protein identifiers from all public experiments in the Proteomics Identifications (PRIDE) database by November 2010. To map the submitted protein identifier to a currently active entry, two distinct approaches were used. The first approach used the Protein Identifier Cross Referencing (PICR) service at the EBI, which maps protein identifiers based on 100% sequence identity. The second one (called logical mapping algorithm) accessed the source databases and retrieved the current status of the reported identifier. Our analysis showed the differences between the main protein databases (International Protein Index (IPI), UniProt Knowledgebase (UniProtKB), National Center for Biotechnological Information nr database (NCBI nr), and Ensembl) in respect to identifier stability. For example, whereas 20% of submitted IPI entries were deleted after two years, virtually all UniProtKB entries remained either active or replaced. Furthermore, the two mapping algorithms produced markedly different results. For example, the PICR service reported 10% more IPI entries deleted compared with the logical mapping algorithm. We found several cases where experiments contained more than 10% deleted identifiers already at the time of publication. We also assessed the proportion of peptide identifications in these data sets that still fitted the originally identified protein sequences. Finally, we performed the same overall analysis on all records from IPI, Ensembl, and UniProtKB: two releases per year were used, from 2005. This analysis showed for the first time the true effect of changing protein identifiers on proteomics data. Based on these findings, UniProtKB seems the best database for applications that rely on the long-term storage of proteomics data.

Información y asesoramiento para cirujanos ortopédicos: árbol de decisiones ante un paciente portador de prótesis con par de fricción metal-metal / No disponible

No disponible

Elaboración de textos científicos desde primer curso del grado: experiencia en la asignatura “Información y Metodología Científica” / Preparation of scientific texts from first year of degree: experience in the subject " Información y Metodología Científica”

La asignatura “Información y Metodología Científica” tiene asignadas en el Grado en Farmacia, entre otras, las competencias genéricas de saber obtener información científica, conocer las partes de un trabajo científico, el lenguaje métrico y la forma de citar la bibliografía, y saber utilizar las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación. Se pretende que el estudiante adquiera una forma de trabajar que vaya poniendo en práctica en otras asignaturas de la titulación y se facilite la elaboración del Trabajo de Fin de Grado. Para trabajar y adquirir estas competencias, en esta asignatura se han diseñado unas actividades cuyo objetivo principal es la elaboración de un trabajo tutelado. Siguiendo unas instrucciones precisas, en la primera fase del trabajo cada pareja de estudiantes realiza dos documentos: un texto científico y una presentación de diapositivas. En una segunda fase, tres parejas de estudiantes con el mismo tema ponen en común su experiencia y realizan un único trabajo final. Cada uno de estos trabajos finales es subido a la plataforma de apoyo a la docencia y valorado por sus compañeros del grupo de seminarios (8 grupos de 6 estudiantes que presentan 8 trabajos finales). A esta valoración, se le suma la calificación otorgada por el profesorado en base al trabajo entregado en ambas fases. El profesorado está muy satisfecho con los objetivos de aprendizaje conseguidos con esta actividad que supone entre el 40 y el 60 % de la evaluación de la asignatura(AU)

The main aims of the subject “Información y Metodología Científica” in the Degree in Pharmacy are, among others, to teach students how to obtain scientific information, to familiarize them with the parts of a scientific paper, the language metric and the literature citation format, and show them how to use information and communication technologies. It is expected to help students acquire a way of working to be implemented in other subjects of the Degree and it facilitates the preparation of the Final Degree Project. To work on these skills, this subject is designed around some activities whose primary objective is the development of a guided piece of work. Following precise instructions in the firstphase of the assignment, each pair of students prepares two documents: a scientific text and a slide presentation. In a second phase, three pairs of students with the same subject pool their experience and they prepare one final document. Each of these final documents is uploaded to a teaching support platform and evaluated by their classmates (eight teams of six students who submit eight projects). The mark given by teachers in previous phases is added to that of this assessment. Teachers are very pleased with the learning objectives achieved with this activity, which constitutes between 40 and 60 % of the assessment of the subject. In the academic year 2009/10, 290 students were enrolled in this subject(AU)

Applying the evaluability principle to nutrition table information. How reference information changes people's perception of food products.

Consumers often neglect or misinterpret nutrition table information. We argue in this paper that this can be explained by the evaluability principle, which posits that people's evaluation of a product corresponds to a greater degree with the product's actual value when people receive reference information about the product than when they do not get this information. We tested this assumption concerning nutrition table information in two studies. In Study 1, respondents received one of six nutrition tables that differed on reference and summary information about either yogurt or chocolate. In the second study, we compared three nutrition tables from the previous study, as applied to either a low nutritional value yogurt or a high nutritional value yogurt. Participants were asked to rate the attractiveness and perceived healthiness of the product in both studies. Results indicated that reference information can change people's product perception. This seems to depend, however, on the product's nutritional value and on people's primary connotation for the product. In sum, the evaluability principle can explain people's perception of a food product. A nutrition table that is adapted to this principle appears to influence people's product perception so that it becomes more in line with its nutritional value. Implications for practice and further research are given.