Where is the Lone Ranger when you need him? Book Review

The article reviews the book "Where Is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him? America's Search for a Postconflict Stability Force," by Robert M. Perito.

Everything You Have Always Wanted to Know About Academic Advising (Well, Almost...)

Answering the question “what occurs in an academic advising interaction” is not as easy as one might think. Many factors contribute to the academic advising process, and no two advising interactions are the same. This article discusses the different factors involved in an academic advising interaction, emphasizing the need for psychological counselors to become familiar with the specific aspects of the advising processes that occur at their respective institutions.

Human Resource Performance Metrics: Methods & Processes That Demonstrate You Care

Purpose – The purpose of the present analysis is to show that HR systems are not always designed in ways that consider the well-being of employees. In particular, performance metric methods seem to be designed with organizational goals in mind while focusing less on what employees need and desire. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review and multiple case-study method was utilized. Findings – The analysis showed that performance metrics should be revaluated by executives and HR professionals if they seek to develop socially responsible organizational cultures which care about the well-being of employees. Originality/value – The paper exposes the fact that performance appraisal techniques can be rooted in methodologies that ignore or deemphasize the value of employee well-being. The analysis provides a context in which all HR practices can be questioned in relation to meeting the standards of a social justice agenda in the area of corporate social responsibility.

Can You Hear the Shape of a Drum?

If you had perfect pitch and listened to a recording of the sounds a drum made when struck, could you determine the shape of the drum? This question is an example of an inverse problem; inverse problems arise in medical imaging, oil prospecting, spectroscopy, and many other fields. We’ll first discuss the analogous question in the simpler setting of plucking a string. Then we’ll tackle the problem for drums and see that there are some surprises. Finally, I will give a brief indication of how this problem relates to some of my recent research. The emphasis will be on the ideas rather than on the technical details, so there will be pretty pictures instead of equations.

Characterization of vascular cavity coatings and microscopic tube-shaped structures from Upper Cretaceous dinosaur bone: evidence of a bacterial origin for dinosaur blood vessels""

Recent claims of blood vessels extracted from dinosaur fossils challenge classical views of soft-tissue preservation. Alternatively, these structures may represent postdepositional,diagenetic biofilms that grew on vascular cavity surfaces within the fossil. Similar red, hollow, tube-shaped structures were recovered from well-preserved and poorly-preserved (abraded, desiccated, exposed) Upper Cretaceous dinosaur fossils in this study. Integration of light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy was used to compare these vessel structures to the fossils from which they are derived. Vessel structures are typically 100-400 μm long, 0.5-1.5 μm thick, 10-40 μm in diameter and take on a wide range of straight, curved, andbranching morphologies. Interior surfaces vary from smooth to globular and typically contain spheres, rods, and fibrous structures (< 2 μm in diameter) incorporated into the surface. Exterior surfaces exhibit 2-μm-tall converging ridges, spaced 1-3 μm apart, that are sub-parallel to the long axis of the vessel structure. Fossil vascular cavities are typically coated with a smooth or grainy orange layer that shows a wide range of textures including smooth, globular, rough, ropy, and combinations thereof. Coatings tend to overlay secondary mineral crystals and framboids, confirming they are not primary structures of the fossil. For some cavity coatings, the surface that had been in contact with the bone exhibits a ridged texture, similar to that of vessel structures, having formed as a mold of the intravascular bone surface. Thus, vessel structures are interpreted as intact cavity coatings isolated after the fossil is demineralized. The presence of framboids and structures consistent in size and shape with bacteria cells, the abundance of iron in cavity coatings, and the growth of biofilms directly from the fossil that resemble respective cavity coatings support the hypothesis that vessel structures result from ironconsuming bacteria that form biofilms on the intravascular bone surfaces of fossil dinosaur bone. This also accounts for microstructures resembling osteocytes as some fossil lacunae are filled with the same iron oxide that comprises vessel structures andcoatings. Results of this study show that systematic, high-resolution SEM analyses of vertebrate fossils can provide improved insight on microtaphonomic processes, including the role of bacteria in diagenesis. These results conflict with earlier claims of dinosaurblood vessels and osteocytes.