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#Scientific Research Articles on Biomedical
biomedres · 1 year
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Contracting In Healthcare
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Contracting In Healthcare in Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research https://biomedres.us/fulltexts/BJSTR.MS.ID.005846.php
Contract management is a general concept that may encompass a wide range of operational, strategic and administrative components. This variation may include differences in management goals, array of services provided, specialty emphasis, depth of management experience and centralization of decision making in the management organization. Contracting in health care is diverse in terms of the types of actors that use it, the types of contractual relationships that are established and the purpose thereof. However, one must never lose sight of the fact that contracting is a tool that should be evaluated on the basis of its impact on the performance of a health system and on peoples’ health. Contracting should not be reduced to a mere management tool used to cut health costs. It is an approach that should lead the various actors to offer to the public health services that are increasingly efficient, effective, superior and fair [1,2].
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biomedgrid · 2 years
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Biomed Grid | Breastfeeding and Human Milk Donation. A brief report
Opinion
Breastfeeding has long been recognized as an essential aspect of newborn care and breast milk is unanimously identified as a health opportunity for all newborns. Yet it remains a global challenge since decades of breastfeeding promotion, exclusive breastfeeding rates for the first 6 months of life remain low, around 40% globally [1] . If we refer to premature babies, the point of view has changed in the sense that these newborns are considered to be at high risk of incurring in (short and long term) negative consequences which are well known and described in relation to the absence of breast milk [2, 3, 4].
WHO and other global health leaders have recommended to increase the availability of milk banks to improve the procurement of donated human milk as a strategy for improving neonatal health and survival [5, 6]? In a policy brief entitled “Ensuring equitable access to human milk for all”, the donated milk is said to be part of the essential newborn care and that more is needed to ensure that all newborns, including the sick and vulnerable ones, have access to human milk [7] .
Many countries in the world have activated national policies and strategies to support the access and availability of donated human milk, but in those regions where infant and newborn mortality is high (as in South Asia or sub-Saharan Africa) there are few banks. In the last 10 years the total number of milk donated banks in the world has tripled. Approximately 500 human milk banks operational in 37 countries [8] . In many countries (Germany, Norway, Scandinavia) [9, 10] donated human milk banking has been integrated and incorporated into child welfare policies and is promoted, protected and supported as an extension of national breastfeeding policies. The boundaries between these two realities are ever more subtle. It is recognized that their activity is synergistic in the sense, for example, that the squeezing aimed at obtaining the milk to be donated represents a further stimulation of the breast and helps prevent mammary complications - these important effects contribute to the prolongation of breastfeeding period. It should be added that the donation of milk has a very positive effect on the mood of the mothers [11] : a further condition favoring breastfeeding for a longer time.
The presence of a milk bank in NICU represents a favorable element for breastfeeding and significantly improves both the availability of mother’s milk for feeding the premature baby and breastfeeding with higher percentages of nutrition with mother’s milk on discharge from NICU [12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17].
This is easily understood if one considers that the presence of a milk bank in NICU results in the activation of standardized methods aimed at increasing the production of breast milk. This is also our experience [17] . In Italy 38 HMB are currently operational. They are regulated by law by the Ministry of Health and coordinated by the Italian Association of Milk Banks (AIBLUD).
Inspired by the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN 1989) and by concepts of globality and efficiency in perinatal care, the main objective of AIBLUD is to encourage the use of human milk donated in the Neonatology Centers and, in particular, in NICUs, supporting and promoting breastfeeding and donation of breast milk. 18 centers have been activated in 20 years, but they cover only 29% of the needs of premature babies [18] . This not yet satisfactory percentage requires greater knowledge and dissemination of the practice of donating human milk and its positive effects on breastfeeding.
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Read More About this Article: https://biomedgrid.com/fulltext/volume6/breastfeeding-and-human-milk-donation-a-brief-report.001088.php
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sporesgalaxy · 1 year
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Tumblr keeps crashing each time I send this so I gotta be quick: do have any tips on how to study biology (college is not an option atm)
Oh boy! I will do my best!
I've listed the basic irl resources for biological information first, followed by some online resources.
I've got a strong Animalia bias, so apologies that I don't have any botany-specific sites for you. 😔
I'm sure there's some stuff I'm forgetting. I'll add on to this if I think of anything!
If there's anything specific you need help finding a reliable biological resource for, let me know and I will try my best to help find you something!
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Finding primary sources (stuff written by the scientists who did the research [i.e. a journal article]) is always very good, but reliable secondary resources (someone else summarizing other people's research [i.e. Wikipedia page, book]) can be very valuable as well.
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Meatspace Resources
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I would highly recommend checking to see if there is a Nature Park in your area! Nature parks often have volunteer programs and/or free educational opportunities. In my experience, naturalists are always very excited to meet new people interested in learning about local ecology!
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There's also Zoos and Aquariums of course, although I know they cost money and are typically geared more towards kids. I'm lucky to live near some nice ones. Maybe check if there are any special programs happening at Zoos/Aquariums in your area (by checking their website[s]), where you might learn more than you would on a normal day trip.
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Plus natural history museums, which usually have rotating exhibits so that you can keep learning new things when you come back! They also have more of an all-ages vibe than Zoos in my experience. Once again dependant on if there's one near you, and not free.
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Last but not least: the local library, although obviously not every published book is a flawless resource. Still, might be interesting to poke around! There's usually some sort of digital search catalogue to make finding things easier. Libraries are fun :)
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Online Resources
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Jstor is GREAT. Not all jstor articles are open access/free, but some are! And you can set a search filter to show you only things you can access.
One good way to find out what experts have written for other experts about biology: search a species name or biological concept or type of experimental study, etc. etc., in jstor's journal articles. I've linked a search for journal articles "I can access" containing the word "biology" as an example.
The website layout can feel a little obtuse at first but I think if you fiddle around with it a bit, it's not too bad to figure out? Feel free to kick my ass if I'm wrong djgjkeg
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Wikipedia is actually a very good place to introduce yourself to a lot of biological concepts. I would recommend checking out some of the sources yourself if you can-- usually at least some of them are free, and that can introduce you to new free resources for learning more (today I discovered bugguide.net!). Often they will link you to jstor.
But biology-focused wiki pages have a pretty good track record for Correct Information in my experience. The only issue I've run into is there being too little information sometimes.
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Pubmed is a really good resource to read biomedical scientific papers for free if that interests you at all! Reading scientific papers is a really important skill and I think you can pick up a lot just by diving in and googling words you don't know.
A well-designed experiment is replicable (that is, you can understand from the paper how they set things up to the point that you could do it yourself, given the resources). It's also important to pay attention to sample size. The more times you replicate any process in an experiment, the more likely you will be able to identify what the most common result really is, and why.
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Fishbase is a website I was introduced to in my icthyology class to find info about different fish species :) It kind of just dumps all the info on you in a big text wall, but many pages include great details about life cycle and diet that might go unmentioned on wiki pages.
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I've never used bugguide.net before today, but so far it seems solid and like it has a lot of good info. I assume it is similar to fishbase but for bugs
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EDIT: FREE ONLINE TEXTBOOKS I FORGOT ABOUT!!!
I used both of these for university classes at some point. I didn't use them much, so there may be issues I don't know about.
In my experience though they were solid resources, if a little confusingly worded at times. Bouncing between the textbooks and wikipedia tended to help me.
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gothhabiba · 1 year
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The discovery that general paresis was caused by a bacterial microorganism and could be cured with penicillin reinforced the view that biological causes and cures might be discovered for other mental disorders. The rapid and enthusiastic adoption of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), lobotomy, and insulin coma therapy in the 1930s and 1940s encouraged hopes that mental disorders could be cured with somatic therapies. Psychiatry's psychopharmacological revolution began in the 1950s, a decade that witnessed the serendipitous discovery of compounds that reduced the symptoms of psychosis, depression, mania, anxiety, and hyperactivity. Chemical imbalance theories of mental disorder soon followed (e.g., Schilkraudt, 1965; van Rossum, 1967), providing the scientific basis for psychiatric medications as possessing magic bullet qualities by targeting the presumed pathophysiology of mental disorder. Despite these promising developments, psychiatry found itself under attack from both internal and external forces. The field remained divided between biological psychiatrists and Freudians who rejected the biomedical model. Critics such as R. D. Laing (1960) and Thomas Szasz (1961) incited an “anti-psychiatry” movement that publicly threatened the profession's credibility. Oscar-winning film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Douglas & Zaentz, 1975) reinforced perceptions of psychiatric treatments as barbaric and ineffective.
In response to these threats to its status as a legitimate branch of scientific medicine, organized psychiatry embraced the biomedical model. [...] The publication of the DSM-III in 1980 was heralded by the APA as a monumental scientific achievement, although in truth the DSM-III's primary advancement was not enhanced validity but improved interrater reliability. Psychiatrist Gerald Klerman [...] remarked that the DSM-III “represents a reaffirmation on the part of American psychiatry to its medical identity and its commitment to scientific medicine” (p. 539, 1984). Shortly after publication of the DSM-III, the APA launched a marketing campaign to promote the biomedical model in the popular press (Whitaker, 2010a). Psychiatry benefitted from the perception that, like other medical disciplines, it too had its own valid diseases and effective disease-specific remedies. The APA established a division of publications and marketing, as well as its own press, and trained a nationwide roster of experts who could promote the biomedical model in the popular media (Sabshin, 1981, 1988). The APA held media conferences, placed public service spots on television and spokespersons on prominent television shows, and bestowed awards to journalists who penned favorable stories. Popular press articles began to describe a scientific revolution in psychiatry that held the promise of curing mental disorder. [...]
United by their mutual interests in promotion of the biomedical model and pharmacological treatment, psychiatry joined forces with the pharmaceutical industry. A policy change by the APA in 1980 allowed drug companies to sponsor “scientific” talks, for a fee, at its annual conference (Whitaker, 2010a). Within the span of several years, the organization's revenues had doubled, and the APA began working together with drug companies on medical education, media outreach, congressional lobbying, and other endeavors. Under the direction of biological psychiatrists from the APA, the NIMH took up the biomedical model mantle and began systematically directing grant funding toward biomedical research while withdrawing support for alternative approaches like Loren Mosher's promising community-based, primarily psychosocial treatment program for schizophrenia (Bola & Mosher, 2003). The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a powerful patient advocacy group dedicated to reducing mental health stigma by blaming mental disorder on brain disease instead of poor parenting, forged close ties with the APA, NIMH, and the drug industry. Connected by their complementary motives for promoting the biomedical model, the APA, NIMH, NAMI, and the pharmaceutical industry helped solidify the “biologically-based brain disease” concept of mental disorder in American culture. Whitaker (2010a) described the situation thus:
In short, a powerful quartet of voices came together during the 1980s eager to inform the public that mental disorders were brain diseases. Pharmaceutical companies provided the financial muscle. The APA and psychiatrists at top medical schools conferred intellectual legitimacy upon the enterprise. The NIMH put the government's stamp of approval on the story. NAMI provided moral authority. This was a coalition that could convince American society of almost anything… (p. 280).
–Brett J. Deacon, "The biomedical model of mental disorder: A critical analysis of its validity, utility, and effects on psychotherapy research." Clinical Psychology Review 33 (2013), 846–861. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.007
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hedwig-dordt · 7 months
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The Ig Nobel Prize, for scientific research that makes people laugh and then makes them think. This year's winners!
CHEMISTRY and GEOLOGY PRIZE [POLAND, UK] Jan Zalasiewicz, for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks. REFERENCE: “Eating Fossils,” Jan Zalasiewicz, The Paleontological Association Newsletter, no. 96, November 2017. Eating fossils | The Palaeontological Association (palass.org) WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Jan Zalasiewicz
LITERATURE PRIZE [FRANCE, UK, MALAYSIA, FINLAND] Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira O’Connor for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times. REFERENCE: “The The The The Induction of Jamais Vu in the Laboratory: Word Alienation and Semantic Satiation,” Chris J. A. Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira R. O’Connor, Memory, vol. 29, no. 7, 2021, pp. 933-942. doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2020.1727519 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Chris Moulin, Akira O’Connor
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PRIZE [INDIA, CHINA, MALAYSIA, USA] Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools. REFERENCE: “Necrobotics: Biotic Materials as Ready-to-Use Actuators,” Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor J. Shimokusu, and Daniel J. Preston, Advanced Science, vol. 9, no. 29, 2022, article 2201174. doi.org/10.1002/advs.202201174 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Te Faye Yap and Daniel Preston
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE [SOUTH KOREA, USA] Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet, a device that uses a variety of technologies — including a urinalysis dipstick test strip, a computer vision system for defecation analysis, an anal-print sensor paired with an identification camera, and a telecommunications link — to monitor and quickly analyze the substances that humans excrete. REFERENCE: “A Mountable Toilet System for Personalized Health Monitoring via the Analysis of Excreta,” Seung-min Park, Daeyoun D. Won, Brian J. Lee, Diego Escobedo, Andre Esteva, Amin Aalipour, T. Jessie Ge, et al., Nature Biomedical Engineering, vol. 4, no. 6, 2020, pp. 624-635. doi.org/10.1038/s41551-020-0534-9 REFERENCE: “Digital Biomarkers in Human Excreta,” Seung-min Park, T. Jessie Ge, Daeyoun D. Won, Jong Kyun Lee, and Joseph C. Liao, Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology, vol. 18, no. 8, 2021, pp. 521-522. doi.org/10.1038/s41575-021-00462-0 REFERENCE: “Smart Toilets for Monitoring COVID-19 Surges: Passive Diagnostics and Public Health,” T. Jessie Ge, Carmel T. Chan, Brian J. Lee, Joseph C. Liao, and Seung-min Park, NPJ Digital Medicine, vol. 5, no. 1, 2022, article 39. doi.org/10.1038/s41746-022-00582-0 REFERENCE: “Passive Monitoring by Smart Toilets for Precision Health,” T. Jessie Ge, Vasiliki Nataly Rahimzadeh, Kevin Mintz, Walter G. Park, Nicole Martinez-Martin, Joseph C. Liao, and Seung-min Park, Science Translational Medicine, vol. 15, no. 681, 2023, article eabk3489. doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.abk3489 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Seung-min Park
COMMUNICATION PRIZE [ARGENTINA, SPAIN, COLOMBIA, CHILE, CHINA, USA] María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, for studying the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backward. REFERENCE: “Neurocognitive Signatures of Phonemic Sequencing in Expert Backward Speakers,” María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo L. Berthier, and Adolfo M. García, Scientific Reports, vol. 10, no. 10621, 2020. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67551-z WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: María José Torres-Prioris, Adolfo García
MEDICINE PRIZE [USA, CANADA, MACEDONIA, IRAN, VIETNAM] Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person’s two nostrils. REFERENCE: “The Quantification and Measurement of Nasal Hairs in a Cadaveric Population,” Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Margit Juhasz, and Natasha Atanaskova Mesinkovska, Journal of The American Academy of Dermatology, vol. 83, no. 6, 2020, pp. AB202-AB202. doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2020.06.902 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Christine Pham, Natasha Mesinkovska, Margit Juhasz, Kiana Hashemi, Tiana Mamaghani
NUTRITION PRIZE [JAPAN] Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food. REFERENCE: “Augmented Gustation Using Electricity,” Hiromi Nakamura and Homei Miyashita, Proceedings of the 2nd Augmented Human International Conference, March 2011, article 34. doi.org/10.1145/1959826.1959860 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Homei Miyashita, Hiromi Nakamura
EDUCATION PRIZE [CHINA, CANADA, UK, THE NETHERLANDS, IRELAND, USA, JAPAN] Katy Tam, Cyanea Poon, Victoria Hui, Wijnand van Tilburg, Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, Gigi Yuen, and Christian Chan, for methodically studying the boredom of teachers and students. REFERENCE: “Boredom Begets Boredom: An Experience Sampling Study on the Impact of Teacher Boredom on Student Boredom and Motivation,” Katy Y.Y. Tam, Cyanea Y. S. Poon, Victoria K.Y. Hui, Christy Y. F. Wong, Vivian W.Y. Kwong, Gigi W.C. Yuen, Christian S. Chan, British Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 90, no. S1, June 2020, pp. 124-137. doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12549 REFERENCE: “Whatever Will Bore, Will Bore: The Mere Anticipation of Boredom Exacerbates its Occurrence in Lectures,” Katy Y.Y. Tam, Wijnand A.P. Van Tilburg, Christian S. Chan, British Journal of Educational Psychology, epub 2022. doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12549 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Christian Chan, Katy Y.Y. Tam, Wijnand A.P. Van Tilburg
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [USA] Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz for experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward REFERENCE: “Note on the Drawing Power of Crowds of Different Size,” Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 13, no. 2, 1969, pp. 79-82. psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0028070 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Len Bickman
PHYSICS PRIZE [SPAIN, GALICIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, UK] Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies. REFERENCE: “Intense Upper Ocean Mixing Due to Large Aggregations of Spawning Fish,” Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, Nature Geoscience, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 287–292. doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00916-3 WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Bieito Fernandez Castro, Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, Alberto Naveira Garabato, Esperanza Broullon, Miguel Gil Coto
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Examining advances in additive manufacturing of promising heterostructures and their biomedical applications
To the authors' knowledge, there have been no review papers that summarize the biomedical applications of heterostructures prepared by additive manufacturing. This paper aims to highlight the research progress in additive manufacturing of promising heterostructure for bioimplants. The unique interfaces, robust architectures, and synergistic effects inherent in heterostructures position them as a highly promising option for advanced biomaterials in meeting the stringent requirements for highly variable anatomy and complex functionalities from individual patients. However, the advancement of heterostructures has encountered obstacles in the precise control of crystal/phase evolution and distribution/fraction of components and structures. Luckily, additive manufacturing, known for its high efficiency, design flexibility, and high dimensional accuracy, provides a strategic solution to regulate structure and composition across multiple scales, holding the potential for developing heterostructure with unprecedented properties. But an evident void exists in the scientific literature, as comprehensive review articles that summarize the biomedical applications of heterostructures via additive manufacturing are notably absent.
Read more.
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By: Anna Krylov and Jay Tanzman
Published: Oct 2, 2023
Note: A version of this article will appear as an invited chapter in the forthcoming volume The Free Inquiry Papers edited by Robert Maranto, Lee Jussim, and Sally Satel.
1. An age of unreason
The liberal enlightenment, humanism, and democracy are under siege. A once-obscure postmodernist worldview, Critical Social Justice (CSJ) [1-3], has escaped the academy and is quickly reshaping our institutions and society at large. Long-standing merit-based practices in science are rapidly being subordinated to practices based on the tenets of CSJ theory [4]. Increasingly, scientists must compete for funding, no longer only on the basis of scientific merit, but also on the basis of how their proposed research will promote the goals of CSJ. As an example, an NIH neurology program requires grant applications to include a “plan for enhancing diverse perspectives” with the goal to “bring about the culture change necessary to address the inequities and systemic biases in biomedical research….” [5] Similarly, funding for fundamental research in chemistry and physics now depends on researchers demonstrating their commitment to “promote equity and inclusion as an intrinsic element to advancing scientific excellence” [6].
In the academy, faculty hiring and administrative appointments are increasingly made on the basis of the candidate’s identity [7-9]. Merit-based admission to schools and universities is being weakened, with standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT being abandoned on “social justice” grounds [10,11]. K–12 is affected as well. Some school districts have stopped giving D and F grades in order to improve “equity” [12]. In math classes, activist teachers claim that getting the right answer and showing your work are white supremacist concepts and are advocating, instead, a supposedly anti-racist CSJ pedagogy [13,14]. Accelerated mathematics programs for gifted students, necessary to prepare them for advanced training and careers in STEM [15], are being dismantled in the name of “social justice” [16-18]. Many school districts have eliminated honors classes altogether in the name of “equity” [19]. The resultant weakening of the workforce has already contributed to the fall of the US from its position as the world leader in science [20].
In the university, faculty and staff are instructed to use Newspeak—neopronouns and other neologisms—in their written and verbal communications for the purpose of “inclusivity” [21,22]. To be avoided are such apparently un-inclusive terms as “strawman,” “brown-bag lunch,” and “picnic” [22–25]. Professional societies and corporations are following suit, proscribing terms such as “field,” “dark times,” “black market,” “double-blind study,” “nursing mother,” “hip-hip hooray,” “smart phone,” “homeless,” and “the French” [26–30].
In biology, an education paper recommends that teachers emphasize the sexual diversity across species in nature, which includes “organisms such as ciliates, algae, and fungi [that] have equal-size gametes (isogamy) and do not therefore have gametic sexes [that is, binary sexes, as mammals do].” This is supposed to promote inclusivity of LGBTQIA2+ students in the classroom [25]. Chemistry education also needs to be reformed, according to the journal Chemical Education, which published a virtual Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) collection of 67 papers exploring such topics as decolonization of the chemistry curriculum, chemistry and racism, and gender and sexual orientation identities in the chemistry classroom [31]. A recent paper in the same journal describes “a special topic class in chemistry on feminism and science as a tool to disrupt the dysconcious racism in STEM,” which explores “the development and interrelationship between quantum mechanics, Marxist materialism, Afro-futurism/pessimism, and postcolonial nationalism.” “To problematize time as a linear social construct,” the paper says, “the Copenhagen interpretation of the collapse of wave-particle duality was utilized” [32]. No, Deepak Chopra was not a co-author of the paper.
In STEM, prospective faculty are asked to pledge their commitment to the ideology of CSJ and to document their activism in advancing DEI [8,9,33,34]. Medical schools are abolishing long-accepted assessments of competency in order to improve racial parity in residency programs [35]. A pamphlet published by the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health claims that public health anti-obesity campaigns are an example of “fatphobia,” that public health’s “focus on body size is rooted in racism,” that “higher weight is not causal to worse health outcomes," and that “focusing on weight ignores systematic injustices” [36,37]. Under the doctrine of gender-affirming care, adolescents are offered life-changing transgender treatments, often after only perfunctory psychological assessment, despite the poor understanding that medicine currently has on the risks and benefits of these treatments [38–40].
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[ Unreason and intolerance. Upper left: Yale students protest “offensive” Halloween costumes (2015). Lower left: Activists burn books by J.K. Rowling (2023). Right: Students at UC Davis disrupt a film viewing by throwing a bag of manure into the room. ]
Free speech itself, the cornerstone of liberal democracy, is under attack. As viewed by CSJ activists, free speech is dangerous, harmful, and equivalent to violence [41]. Adherents of DEI ideology believe that DEI should trump academic freedom [42]. Institutions essential for providing a platform for the marketplace of ideas, information exchange, and debate have largely abandoned their mission in the name of social justice activism. Articles in the press are infused with CSJ ideology [4]. Scientific publishers from Scientific American to the flagship journals Science and Nature have become mouthpieces for CSJ [43–56]. Universities, whose primary mission is education and truth seeking, have become complicit in censorship, scholarship suppression, indoctrination, and intimidation [57–59]. Universities and professional organizations have compromised their mission as seekers and communicators of objective truths by abandoning traditional institutional neutrality in favor of political activism, taking official positions on elections, police reform, abortion, wars, and other social issues [60,61], leaving dissenters out in the cold. Where debate, constructive disagreement, and discussion were once cultivated, conformity and dogmatism, enforced both top-down (by CSJ-infused DEI trainings [62,63]) and bottom-up (by ideologically driven activists [58]), now reign.
On campus, another essential provision of democracy, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, no longer guides procedures for resolving conflict. Suspensions and terminations of professors without a hearing in response to offense taken by students, faculty members, or administrators has become commonplace (see, for example, Ref. 64–67). A predictable consequence is that there is now an unprecedented level of self-censorship by students and faculty [57,68,69]. Proposed changes to Title IX regulations will further erode the free speech of students and the protection of due process [70]. 
CSJ adherents accuse dissenters of being indifferent to existing inequalities and historic injustices, of being bigots, of having nefarious motives, and of perpetuating existing power structures. We reject these accusations. We oppose the practices of CSJ because they harm everyone, including those groups they purport to elevate [71-73]. It is precisely because we care about the existing problems in the world and about real social justice that we oppose CSJ.
What we are witnessing today—curriculum “decolonization,” the elimination of honors classes in schools, the ubiquitous war on merit [4], the imposition of political litmus tests for academic positions, Newspeak, the renaming of everything in sight, and on and on—are not isolated excesses perpetrated by a handful of overly zealous but otherwise well-meaning individuals; they are symptoms of a wholesale takeover of our institutions by an illiberal movement that currently has the upper hand. The current situation is not a pendulum that has swung too far and will self-correct [74]; it is a train hurtling full speed toward a cliff. Those of us unwillingly to go over the edge can either jump off—leave academia (or maybe start up alternative institutions)—or fight to get the brakes applied before it is too late. The remainder of this chapter is about the latter course of action.
2. Why we should fight
To put it simply, we should fight because it is the right thing to do. It is not only our duty to the next generation, but an opportunity to pay our debt to the previous generations of dissenters who fought against forces of illiberalism to create the free and prosperous world that we enjoy today [75,76]. By fighting, we, too, can fend off the forces of unreason and restore the values of humanism, liberalism, and The Enlightenment. Inaction and submission will only enable the further spread of illiberalism. The history of past illiberal regimes, such as the USSR and Nazi Germany, provide ample lessons and motivation to stand and fight today. The train is gaining momentum; the longer we wait, the harder it will be to stop it. We must act now, while we still can.
Although there are uncanny parallels with totalitarian regimes of the past [23,77–80], we are still living in a free, democratic society. Despite the advances of illiberal ideology, manifested by the rise of censorship, the spread of cancel culture [23,57,58,81–83], and the proliferation of institutionalized structures (such as DEI bureaucracies) to enforce CSJ ideology, the dissenters of today do not face incarceration in prisons, labor camps, and mental hospitals. Nonetheless, we can learn from history.
In his book To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter [84], Vladimir Bukovsky [85] describes his experiences as a dissident who refused to comply with the Soviets and challenged the regime. Bukovsky describes the apathy and complacency of the majority of the population at that time. People understood the corrupt and inhumane nature of the regime, but they chose to keep their heads down because—as the Russian proverb goes—“No man can splay the stone” (in Russian: плетью обуха не перешибёшь).
Because of this complacency, the economically bankrupt, oppressive, and inhumane Soviet regime lasted as long as it did (70+ years). But it was the actions of dissidents that ultimately catalyzed its downfall. Consider, for example, the impact of the books of Solzhenitsyn, who told the world the truth about the atrocities of the Soviet regime [86]. In addition to meticulously documenting the scale of the atrocities, Solzhenitsyn explained that they came to be, not due to deviations from the party line or shortcomings of its individual leaders, but as the direct result of Marxist-Leninist ideology.
In Bukovsky’s time (the late 1950s to mid-1970s), open dissent was rare. Growing up in the Soviet Union, I [Anna]—as most of my peers—did not even know dissidents existed. It wasn’t until Perestroyka in the late 80s, when I read Solzhenitsyn’s books and learned about Sakharov [87] that I found out. Yet, it is through the actions of the dissidents that the West came to understand the Soviet regime as an “evil empire,” and this understanding propelled the political forces in the West that ultimately decided the outcome of the Cold War. The impact of the dissident movement on the Soviet regime has been illuminated through a series of memoranda of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, stolen and published by Bukovsky in his book Judgment in Moscow [88]. The acts of individuals splayed the stone after all.
I [Anna] was born (in the then-Soviet state of Ukraine) into the luckiest generation in the history of the USSR—the generation that witnessed the fall of the Wall when they were still young. We could escape to the free world, live as free people, and build successful and fulfilling careers in the West. Had the regime lasted another 20 years, my generation would have been yet another of the long list of those whose lives were ruined by the Soviet regime. I feel a personal debt to the dissidents of the day. 
Now, it is our turn to be the dissidents and to fight the good fight.
Fighting for what is right is not just the right thing to do; it is empowering. Standing up and speaking your mind is liberating, even exhilarating; while hunkering down in fear, hoping the storm will pass, is a bleak experience. Being honest feels good, while being complicit in lies is dispiriting. Fighting the good fight puts you in control, whereas passive submission leaves you helpless. Whether we ultimately win or lose this fight, those who choose to remain silent will look back and ask themselves why they did not act when they could. As Martin Niemöller wrote after World War II,
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Eventually, this illiberal movement, like those of the past, will come not only for the dissidents, but for the silent bystanders as well (and, eventually, for its own vocal supporters).
There are myriad excuses, as old as the history of totalitarianism and oppression itself, invoked to justify inaction, complacency, and collaboration. Bukovsky [84] enumerates a few of the more familiar: “What can I do alone?”; “I’ll be more effective after I get the promotion”; “It’s not my job; I’m a scientist.” “If I don’t collaborate, someone else will anyway (and I’ll probably do less harm).” These reasons may seem logical, even compelling; however, they are self-deceptions. Not pushing back against bad ideas allows them to spread. Not fighting back against illiberalism allows it to grow. Not standing up for truth permits the lies to flourish. Not confronting the CSJ ideologists permits them to advance. And when they advance, we lose. It is a zero-sum game.
The choice to fight in the face of potential consequences is personal [89] and not an easy one to make. But as you contemplate whether to act or to lay low, consider the importance of truth and integrity in your life. To paraphrase Bari Weiss: Worship truth more than Yale. As she says:
[D]o not lose sight of what is essential. Professional prestige is not essential. Being popular is not essential. Getting your child into an elite preschool is not essential. Doing the right thing is essential. Telling the truth is essential. Protecting your kids is essential. [90]
Sure, no one wants to become a martyr for free speech or experience bullying, ostracism, and professional damage [81,91–93]. Cancel culture is real, but the risks are not what dissenters to totalitarian regimes faced historically or face today—cancel culture does not put you in jail. One still can write a dissenting op-ed without the fear of being stripped of their citizenship and expelled from the country, as Solzhenitsyn was for his writings [83]. We still can criticize DEI policies without fear of being put under house arrest, as Sakharov was for his vocal opposition to nuclear weapons and his unwavering defense of human rights [87]. But if we delay, some of the totalitarian nightmares of the past may become a reality. There are already worrying signs of this totalitarian-style repression in America: parents opposing CSJ in schools have been accused of terrorism and investigated by the FBI [94]; a journalist who wrote about collusion between the government and social media was paid a surprise home visit by the Internal Revenue Service [95]; a student who questioned the concept of microaggressions [96] at a mandatory training was expelled and forced to “seek to psychological services” [97]. These incidents in America today are chillingly similar to practices in Russia in the Soviet era, when the KGB routinely investigated dissidents, and dissent from Soviet ideology was considered a psychiatric disorder [84,88]. In the absence of resistance, this illiberal movement, like illiberal movements of the past, will gain ever more power, and we will face ever worse repression and erosion of individual freedom.
Inaction does not guarantee survival, but fighting a successful fight does. The only way to defend yourself against repression by an illiberal ideology is to stop the spread of the ideology.
The dangers of inaction are real, but how much risk one should take must be a personal decision [89]. Above all, it rarely does any good to get fired. Getting fired is playing into their hands. It’s one less enemy in the organization to fight against its ideological capture. Should all the dissidents get fired, the ideology wins. Full stop.
But it’s not hopeless. As we elaborate below, there are ways to maximize the impact of your actions and minimize the chances of negative consequences of resistance.
3. How to fight
Although there is no sure-fire roadmap to solve the current crisis, there are some do’s and don’ts. A recently published handbook, Counter Wokecraft (which we highly recommend), written by an anonymous STEM professor, provides concrete recommendations for staging the resistance [98]. It convincingly explains how small but deliberate actions add up to big change and elaborates on the perils of delaying action. In what follows, we offer our view on how to fight, and we share examples of successful acts of resistance that give us reason for hope. Small contributions add up, so do something rather than nothing.  As Gad Saad writes in The Parasitic Mind:
The battle of ideas knows no boundaries, so there is plenty to do. If you are a student and hear your professors spouting postmodern nonsense or spewing anti-science drivel, challenge them politely and constructively. If you are a graduate and your alma mater is violating its commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of thought, withdraw your donations—and let the school know why. If your Facebook friends are posting comments with which you disagree, engage them and offer an alternative viewpoint.... If you are sitting at your local pub having a conversation about a sensitive topic, do not refrain from speaking your mind. If your politicians are succumbing to suicidal political correctness, vote them out of office. [99]
1. Educate yourself; knowledge is power.
To effectively counter the ideology of CSJ, it is crucial to understand its nature and the tactics it employs. As two-time Nobel Laureate Marie Sklodowska-Curie said:
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so we may fear less.
Although Curie was referring to phenomena of the natural world, the observation applies equally to the world of ideas. By understanding the origins and tenets of CSJ, we can fear less—and fight more effectively.
For me [Anna] and my former compatriots, who were forcibly schooled in Marxist-Leninism and experienced its implementation as Socialism firsthand, it is easy to recognize the current illiberal movement’s philosophical roots [78,79]. We recognize the familiar rhetoric and the Orwellian co-option of the language: the media outlet of the Communist Party, which disseminated its lies, was called Pravda (Правда), which is Russian for “truth”; victims of Red terror were called “enemies of the people” (враги народа); Soviet troops invading other countries were called “liberators” (освободители); and  nuclear weapons were developed with the slogan “nucleus for the cause of peace” (атом—делу мира). We are used to looking behind the facade of nice-sounding words and seeing their real meaning to those in power [100]. It is not hard to see that today’s “Diversity,” “Equity,” and “Inclusion” have about as much in common with the noble concepts of diversity, equality, and inclusion as Orwell's Ministry of Love had to do with love or his Ministry of Plenty had to do with plenty. (A more-fitting operational definition of DEI would be Discrimination, Entitlement, and Intimidation.) This linguistic tactic is used because it works. It has fooled many STEM academics and ordinary citizens and has enabled the illiberal ideology to get its foot in the door [3].
As Counter Wokecraft explains, the tactics CSJ employs to gain power in our institutions include the use of liberal-sounding “crossover words” to shroud the illiberal aims of the movement [98]. The concise essay “DEI: a Trojan Horse for Critical Social Justice in Science” by the same author offers insights into the philosophy that undergirds the CSJ movement and clearly elucidates its aims [3]. For a deeper dive into CSJ, we recommend the book by Pluckrose and Lindsay [1].
2. Use all existing means of resistance, but first and foremost, the official ones.
Mechanisms of resistance are available through existing institutions, even if the institutions themselves are failing to protect their mission [101]. These mechanisms can be exploited to change the institution from within.
Bukovsky describes how their dissident group worked within the legal boundaries of the Soviet regime [84]. He contrasts this approach with anarchism and revolutionary destructivism, which, he argues, lead to outcomes that are worse than the original evils. Bukovsky and his dissident comrades structured their activism and resistance within the framework of the Soviet constitution—which many legitimately considered to be a joke. When allowed to speak in court, Bukovsky framed his defense to emphasize the constitutional rights of Soviet citizens, for example, to peacefully demonstrate. Bukovsky attributes their success to this strategy. As an example of an important victory, he describes how he and his fellow political prisoners managed to resist and ultimately eliminate mandatory “corrective labor” for political prisoners. Following legal protocols, they rolled out a concerted effort of filing official complaints. Although isolated complaints never had any effect (they would be registered, duly processed, and dismissed), by flooding the bureaucratic system with a massive number of such complaints (which each had to be properly registered and responded to), they pushed the system beyond its limits. The sheer number of complaints compelled administrative scrutiny of the prison and its officers. And the prisoners won the fight.
Today, we can work within the system of our universities and professional organizations, even if they have already been ideologically corrupted. We can participate in surveys; communicate our concerns to leadership; nominate candidates committed to liberal principles to committees and leadership; vote against CSJ ideologues; speak up against practices that violate the stated mission of the institution [43,102,103]; publish well-reasoned opinion pieces [4,14,15,23,82,83,102]; and insist that our institutions adhere to their stated institutional (and legal) commitments to free speech and non-discrimination, such as being equal opportunity employers. Counter Wokecraft [98] provides concrete suggestions on how to effectively oppose the advances of the CSJ agenda by simply insisting that standard protocols of decision-making be followed—that is, through formal meetings with organized discussions that adhere to a set agenda, vote by secret ballot, and so on. In short, the existing governance structures and institutional policies can still be utilized to defend and even restore the institutional mission, even when the institution’s workings have been undermined by CSJ activists.
The following success stories illustrate the effectiveness of working within the system.
At the University of Massachusetts, a faculty group fought—and won—against a proposed rewriting of the university mission statement, which would have redefined the purpose of the university as engaging in political and ideological activism, rather than pursuing the truth [104].
Faculty at the University of Chicago succeeded in having departmental statements that violated institutional neutrality (by voicing collective support for specific social and political issues in violation of the University’s Kalven Report [105]) rescinded [106].
Also at the University of Chicago, in response to faculty complaints to the institution’s Title IX coordinator and general counsel, at least seven programs that gave preferences to specific races or sexes in violation of Federal regulations were discontinued [106].
The faculty of the University of Washington voted down a proposal to require DEI statements for all tenure and promotion candidates [107]. As reported to us, an email campaign initiated by a single faculty member was decisive in defeating the proposal.
At the University of North Carolina (UNC), the Board of Trustees adopted [108] the Chicago Free Speech Principles [109] and Kalven Report [105]. The former articulates the university’s commitment to free speech and is considered to be a model policy on this issue; the latter ensures institutional neutrality, prohibiting units of the university from taking stands on moral, political, or ideological issues, unless they directly affect the mission of the institution.
Also at UNC, responding to a faculty petition, the Board of Governors moved to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements from its hiring and promotion process. The mandate states that the university “shall neither solicit nor require an employee or applicant for academic admission or employment to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action as a condition to admission, employment, or professional advancement” [110].
In California, mathematicians organized a petition that has, so far, blocked the implementation of radical, CSJ-based revisions to the K–12 math curriculum [18]. At the time of publication, the fight is not over; but they’ve won so far.
A new nonprofit, Do No Harm, has been formed to fight against the encroachment of identity politics in medicine [111]. Among their successes, filings with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against two medical schools has resulted in the elimination of race as a requirement for certain scholarships. Scholarships “meant for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, [a] worthy goal, can and should be met without racial discrimination,” writes the organization’s founder [112].
Adverse publicity and mockery, too, can cause Universities, which are sensitive to their public image, to roll back woke policies, as the following examples illustrate.
The administration of MIT reversed its own decision and reinstated the use of standardized tests for admission [113], the elimination of which had been mocked by dissidents [114].
The Stanford University “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” website, which listed 161 verboten expressions, including “beating a dead horse,” “white paper,” “insane,” and even “American,” was taken down after sustained mockery in the press and on social media. The university’s president ultimately disowned the initiative and reaffirmed the university’s commitment to free speech [29].
At the University of Southern California, the interim provost made a clear statement that “the university does not maintain a list of banned or discouraged words” in response to the mockery [115] of an earlier memorandum the university's School of Social Work announcing the cancellation of the word “field” as racist [26,29].
At Texas Tech, the administration announced that it was dropping mandatory DEI statements from the hiring process [116], after details of how these statements influenced hiring decisions had been publicized [9].
These examples illustrate the maxim that sunlight is the best disinfectant [117]. We can use social media and the press to shine a light on the excesses of CSJ to bring about change.
Pressure from state governments can also force universities to change course away from DEI ideology. Facing threats from the state assembly to cut funding, the University of Wisconsin system has announced it will eliminate mandatory DEI statements for job applicants. As we are writing this chapter, the state assembly is also threatening to eliminate funding for administrative positions at UW dedicated to DEI [118].
Arizona has also dealt a blow to DEI ideology. The state’s Board of Regents has mandated that public universities drop the use of DEI statements in hiring. The move was in response to a finding by the Goldwater Institute that DEI statements, which were required in over three-fourths of job postings, were being used “to circumvent the state’s constitutional prohibition against political litmus tests in public educational institutions” [119].
Organizations such as the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) have successfully used institutions’ own governing policies and bylaws as well as the law to defend scores of scholars who have been attacked for their extramural speech and threatened with administrative discipline or firing [120,121].
A move is afoot to strengthen universities’ commitment to academic freedom by encouraging them to officially adopt the Chicago Trifecta (the Kalven report, the Chicago Principles, and the Shils report). The “Restoring Academic Freedom” letter [122], which calls on universities to do so, has garnered 1700 signatures so far.
3. Don't play their game: You can’t win.
We are trained to seek compromises and solutions that bring different groups on board; we seek consensus. That is a fine approach under normal circumstances, when all agents are acting in good faith. But we must recognize that we are up against agents who are driven—knowingly or unknowingly—by an ideology whose goal is to take over the institution. Every compromise with them brings them closer to their goal [1,3,74,98,123]. Therefore, we must stand our ground.
A major advance in the spread of illiberalism has been the establishment of DEI bureaucracies in our intuitions to enforce CSJ ideology through policy [3,8,98,124-127]. It is important to understand the power of this system and to distinguish the system from the people. A DEI apparatchik can be a nice, well-meaning individual, who has been fooled by the movement’s deliberately deceptive language [1,98]; a cynical opportunist who seeks power and career advancement; or a True Believer. A DEI administrator may be completely unaware of the philosophical origins of CSJ, whose goals the DEI machine has been installed to implement. But just as a Soviet apparatchik need not have read Das Kapital to have been an agent enforcing conformity to Marxist doctrine, a DEI apparatchik need not have read the works of the critical theorists Gramsci, Derrida, Foucault, Bell, Crenshaw, and Delgado to be implementing CSJ-inspired ideology. But even participants who are naive of the movement’s history, philosophy, or ultimate goals are furthering its aims; they are still cogs in the machine. Do not be fooled by DEI administrators who may naively or deceptively deny that they are advancing CSJ ideology. They are, whether or not they know it or acknowledge it.
The power of the system—the DEI bureaucracy—and its ideological foundation make the motivations of the individual participants irrelevant. The story of Tabia Lee illustrates this point [128]. Lee—a black woman who directed a DEI program at a community college in California—questioned anti-racist and gender orthodoxy, declined to join a “socialist network,” objected to land acknowledgments and Newspeak terms such as “Latinx,” “Filipinx,” and neopronouns, and supported a campus event focused on Jewish inclusion and antisemitism. Lee describes her non-orthodox worldview as follows:
I don’t have ideological or viewpoint fidelity to anyone. I’m looking for what’s going to help people and what will help our students and how we can be better teachers and our best teaching selves. [128]
This attitude was found to be incompatible with the ideology of DEI. When Lee refused to change her worldview to comply with the orthodoxy, she was terminated from her position [128].
The establishment of the DEI bureaucracy in our institutions represented a tectonic shift from CSJ as a grass-roots movement to CSJ as an official power structure within the university equipped with a massive budget to promote its ideology [124,126,129-132].
A 2021 report by the Heritage Foundation [130], which documented the size of this new bureaucracy, identified 3,000 administrators with DEI responsibilities among the 65 universities they surveyed [124,131]. This number is in addition to the already extensive staff of Federally mandated Title VI, Title IX, and disability offices, who also perform DEI-related tasks. The new diversicrats already outnumber the mandated staffers. For example, the average university examined had 4.2 DEI personnel for every one ADA compliance administrator [124]. Given the sheer number of DEI officials and their generous salaries (one-third of chief diversity officers are paid more than $200,000 annually [132]), it is not surprising that DEI budgets are enormous; for example, in 2021, UC–Berkeley dedicated 41 million dollars to DEI [129].
The DEI bureaucracy is given official status within the university and is empowered to interfere in faculty hiring, to disseminate CSJ ideology by means of mandatory trainings, to infuse the ideology into teaching [10,13,16,25,31], and to curtail academic freedom [42,127]. Khalid and Snyder provide insight into the logic and financial incentives behind the DEI machine:
This attitude was found to be incompatible with the ideology of DEI. When Lee refused to change her worldview to comply with the orthodoxy, she was terminated from her position [128].
The establishment of the DEI bureaucracy in our institutions represented a tectonic shift from CSJ as a grass-roots movement to CSJ as an official power structure within the university equipped with a massive budget to promote its ideology [124,126,129-132].
A 2021 report by the Heritage Foundation [130], which documented the size of this new bureaucracy, identified 3,000 administrators with DEI responsibilities among the 65 universities they surveyed [124,131]. This number is in addition to the already extensive staff of Federally mandated Title VI, Title IX, and disability offices, who also perform DEI-related tasks. The new diversicrats already outnumber the mandated staffers. For example, the average university examined had 4.2 DEI personnel for every one ADA compliance administrator [124]. Given the sheer number of DEI officials and their generous salaries (one-third of chief diversity officers are paid more than $200,000 annually [132]), it is not surprising that DEI budgets are enormous; for example, in 2021, UC–Berkeley dedicated 41 million dollars to DEI [129].
The DEI bureaucracy is given official status within the university and is empowered to interfere in faculty hiring, to disseminate CSJ ideology by means of mandatory trainings, to infuse the ideology into teaching [10,13,16,25,31], and to curtail academic freedom [42,127]. Khalid and Snyder provide insight into the logic and financial incentives behind the DEI machine:
DEI Inc. is a logic, a lingo, and a set of administrative policies and practices. The logic is as follows: Education is a product, students are consumers, and campus diversity is a customer-service issue that needs to be administered from the top down. (“Chief Diversity Officers,” according to an article in Diversity Officer Magazine, “are best defined as ‘change-management specialists.’”) DEI Inc. purveys a safety-and-security model of learning that is highly attuned to harm and that conflates respect for minority students with unwavering affirmation and validation.
Lived experience, the intent–impact gap, microaggressions, trigger warnings, inclusive excellence. You know the language of DEI Inc. when you hear it. It’s a combination of management-consultant buzzwords, social justice slogans, and “therapy speak.” The standard package of DEI Inc. administrative “initiatives” should be familiar too, from antiracism trainings to bias-response teams and mandatory diversity statements for hiring and promotion. [127]
The DEI bureaucracy is a categorical enemy. Don't deceive yourself that you can work with it to accomplish good for your institution [128]. This bureaucracy is founded on ideas that are in direct opposition to the liberal enlightenment and humanism [1,3,4,42,79,99,125–128,133,134]. Their goals are not your goals; consequently, you cannot ally or compromise with them. We must, instead, focus our efforts on stripping the DEI bureaucracy of its power, ideally, ridding the institution of it completely. This will not be an easy fight, but neither is it an impossible dream. State legislatures are already taking action against DEI. At the time of this writing, 35 states have introduced bills that would restrict or ban DEI offices and staff, mandatory DEI training, diversity statements, and/or identity-based preferences for hiring and admissions [135]. Recognizing that such bills could go too far and compromise academic freedom, the Manhattan Institute has drafted model legislation that would abolish DEI bureaucracies on campuses while preserving academic freedom [136]. To date, at least one state, Texas, has enacted legislation based on the Manhattan Institute’s model [137].
Another reason not to attempt to work with the DEI bureaucracy is that CSJ ideology leaves no space for rational dialog. As explained by McWhorter [71], Pincourt [3,98], Pluckrose [1], Saad [99], and others, CSJ is not a rational or empirical worldview, but an ideology whose adherents have accepted a set of unfalsifiable tenets that may not be questioned. Thus, CSJ ideologues are not open to reasoned arguments that contradict their worldview; it is, thus, futile to argue with them. We need, instead, to reason with those of our colleagues who have not yet drunk of the Kool Aid.
Finally, since the goal of CSJ is to take over the institution, small compromises with them ultimately lead to large losses for us. Give CSJ an inch, and it will take a mile. Consider, for starters, the following example, in which the dean of the Duke Divinity School made the mistake of conceding to student activists, which led to ever-increasing demands and personal attacks on the dean herself [138]. “The chickens have come home to roost at Duke’s divinity school,” writes John Staddon. Dean Heath, the dean of the school, fully allied herself with the CSJ agenda, rolled out a variety of DEI initiatives, issued a self-flagellating editorial admitting the “structural sins” of the school, and forced non-conforming faculty to resign. Yet, despite these concessions, the demands of “marginalized groups” only grew stronger, culminating in uncivil acts, such as the disruption of the dean’s state-of-the-school address by “four dissident female students bearing bull-horns and chanting, ‘I am somebody and I won’t be stopped by nobody,’ followed by a rap, a little theatrical performance [of a rude nature].”
Staddon writes:
There is poetic justice in this incident. Despite the dean’s earnest attempts “to provide a welcoming and safe place for students,” even after she designed “a space for the work of Sacred Worth, the LGBTQIA+ student group in the Divinity School”—even after disciplining, and losing—Professor Griffiths [a non-conforming faculty], in spite all this, she has apparently not done enough! The LGBT folk want more, much more, in the form of 15 demands. “We make up an integral part of this community, and yet our needs remain deliberately unheard.”
The demands include:
“To appoint a black trans woman or gender non-conforming theologian” as well as “a tenure-track trans woman theologian” and a “tenure-track queer theologian of color, preferably a black or indigenous person.”
A dissident MIT website, the Babbling Beaver [139], illustrates the same point by a mock resignation statement by MIT’s former President Reif:
You would think giving them a Women’s and Gender Studies Program, hiring six dozen DEI deans and staffers, most of whom couldn’t pass 18.01 [MIT’s introductory math course] if their lives depended on it, and cancelling invited lecturers to appease shouting Twitter mobs would be enough,” lamented the weary lame duck. “But noooo ... The only thing I accomplished by giving in to the incessant demands was encouraging additional demands, each more strident than the last.” [140]
The statement is satire, but the concessions made by the president and the ever-increasing demands were real.
Stories of how CSJ, once it is let in the door, rapidly infiltrates the organization and eventually takes it over are too many to enumerate. We present but one example, where the process has been meticulously documented. The report, spon.sored by the organization Alumni and Donors Unite, explains how CSJ took over University of San Diego “first gradually then suddenly.”
Gradually, over the course of a decade, CSJ-DEI became sown into the university’s fabric through changes in hiring committees and curriculum. Then suddenly in 2020–2021 the administration, outside all normal channels of decision-making, initiated a hostile takeover of USD and adopted a radical woke agenda into nearly all facets of the university’s life. [141]
The devaluation of merit and intellectual honesty in the guise of social justice that we now witness will inevitably lead to the decline of our institutions, if not to their destruction [4]. A case in point is The Evergreen State University, which, in 2017, experienced a notorious CSJ uprising on campus [142]. Since then, the university has suffered a 25% drop in enrollment and has lost 45 faculty through lay-offs and attrition [143].
Learn how to recognize and take on categorical enemies [98]. Remember—it is a zero sum game.
4. Focus on truth, not partisanship. Do not fear verbal attacks.
When you take on CSJ, there is something you will need to come to terms with: you are going to be called names, and your views and beliefs are going to be distorted and misrepresented. These are standard tactics of the CSJ movement. Since the adherents of CSJ have adopted an ideological, rather than a rational, worldview, they cannot rationally defend it; so they use the only tools they have: personal attacks and strawman arguments. They will call you transphobe, racist, misogynist, alt-right, Nazi, etc., no matter what you say or do. They will use deliberate misrepresentation of your expressions to subvert and discredit them [98]. They will use the “Motte and Bailey” trick [144] to derail conversations. Learn about these tactics so that you can anticipate, recognize, and counter them [98]. As Gad Saad explains:
The name calling and accusations are locked and loaded threats, ready to be deployed against you should you dare to question the relevant progressive tenets. Most people are too afraid to be accused of being racist or misogynist, and so they cover in silence.… Don't fall prey to this silencing strategy. Be assured in your principles and stand ready to defend them with the ferocity of a honey badger. [99]
Because you will be attacked no matter what you believe, what you say, or how carefully you say it, there is no point in affirming in your interactions with CSJ ideologues that you are committed to traditional humanistic, liberal values. They don’t care. In her essay “I'm a Progressive, Please Don't Hurt Me,” Sarah Haider calls this practice of hedging “throat-clearing” and explains why it is not effective [145]. She also points out the hidden bigotry of it, that is, the implicit assumption that those on the other side of the aisle are inherently evil. Haider writes:
Before touching on any perspective that I knew to not be kosher among other Leftists, I tended to precede with some version of throat-clearing: “I’m on the left” or “I’ve voted Democrat my whole life.” I told myself that this was a distinction worth insisting on because 1) it was the truth and 2) because it helped frame the discussion properly—making clear that the argument is coming from someone who values what they value. But there was another reason too. My political identity reminders were a plea to be considered fully and charitably, to not be villainized and presumed to be motivated by “hate.” The precursor belief to this, of course, is that actual conservatives should not be taken charitably, are rightfully villainized, and really are motivated by “hate.” But I’m done sputtering indignantly about being mischaracterized as “conservative,” or going out of my way to remind the audience that I really am a good little liberal.
She goes on to explain that throat-clearing is counterproductive because: (1) it doesn’t work, you won't be spared; (2) it is a tax on energy and attention; (3) it is bad for you; and (4) it is bad for the causes you care about.
So we should stop worrying about our group loyalties and focus on our cause. Truth wears no clothes, so do not try to dress it up in partisan attire. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and move on.
It may be tempting to stay out of the fight in order to preserve friendships. It is true that some people you thought of as friends may turn against you—privately or even publicly. It has happened to us, and it hurts. But it also lets you know who your real friends are—those who stick up for you whether they agree with your views or not. And you will find new friends and allies who share your values. These relationships, forged fighting the good fight, will be enduring and empowering.
5. Do not apologize.
We cannot stress this enough. Your apology will be taken as a sign of weakness and will not absolve you—in fact, it will make matters worse. Apologies to the illiberal mob are like drops of blood in the water to a pack of sharks. Additionally, your apology can be interpreted as an admission of guilt, which can come back to haunt you in the event you need to defend yourself legally or in an administrative proceeding. The Academic Freedom Alliance advises: “If you confess to an offense you didn’t commit, or if you concede to a claim or accusation that is factually inaccurate or not truly an offense, the admission can and will be used against you.” [146] Recognize that the CSJ activists on Twitter do not care about your apology; they care about publicly flaying you in order to sow fear among other potential dissenters [147]. Someone claims to have been offended by your speech? Someone claims it caused them pain? Fine, that's their problem [148]. You know what your views are. And your friends do too. Stay on message. 
6. Build a community and a network.
Communities and networks provide moral support and there is safety in numbers. Some groups already exist. The Heterodox Academy (HxA), for example, provides a platform to organize communities (e.g., HxSTEM is a community of STEM faculty) and to connect with colleagues who are open to reasoned debate, as per the HxA statement, which each member is asked to endorse: “I support open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in research and education.” The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) also provides resources and support to those who push back on anti-humanistic policies, especially in schools, universities, and in the medical profession.
Organizations like FIRE and the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) provide educational resources, opportunities to network, and—most importantly—protection, including legal representation. Join and support them. Build groups and act as a group—e.g., write an op-ed piece with a group of co-authors. Ten people are harder to cancel than one. Counter Wokecraft describes how to identify the allies among your colleagues and how to build effective resistance at your workplace [98].
Stand up for others. Next time they will do it for you. When you see a colleague being ostracized for what she said, think first, “Which parts of her message do I agree with?” not “Which parts do I disagree with?” If you agree with the main message, say so, and be charitable about imperfect expression. Way too often do we hear colleagues justifying their silence with excuses like “I agree with her in general, but she should have been more careful about how she said this or that.”
Some communities, including mathematicians and psychologists, in response to CSJ takeovers of their professional societies, have simply started new ones [149,150]. Perhaps we need more of these to send a strong message to the old societies that they need to change course. We see evidence of the effectiveness of this strategy; for example, the American Mathematical Society [151] cancelled its CSJ-dominated blog shortly after the establishment of the new Association for Mathematical Research [149], whose apolitical mission is simply to “support  mathematical research and scholarship.”
In 2022, in response to increasing ideological influence and censorship in their profession, behavioral scientists founded the Society for Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences, dedicated to “open inquiry, civil debate, and rigorous standards” in the field [152]. It publishes the Journal of Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences, which commits to “free inquiry,” “rigorous standards,” and “intellectual exchange” [152]. Notably, its terms and conditions state that the journal will base retraction decisions strictly on the basis of the widely accepted COPE guidelines [153]; otherwise, the terms and conditions state, “We will never retract a paper in response to social media mobs, open or private letters calling for retraction, denunciation petitions, or the like....” [154]
There is even a new university—The University of Austin (UATX)—established in response to the current crisis in higher education [155]. The message on the UATX webpage—“We are building a university dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth”—makes clear what void in the American academy UATX aspires to fill [156]. That the university received over $100 million in donations and over 3500 inquiries by professors from other institutions within six months of the project’s announcement, makes clear the demand [157].
The success of such new initiatives will inspire more educators and scientists to stand up and defend the key principles of science and education. And it will send a strong message to our leadership. Even if we cannot appeal to their sense of duty, the financial considerations (Go Woke, Go Broke [158]) and the effect of negative publicity of the excesses of CSJ (such as DEI loyalty oaths, “decolonizing” the curriculum, renaming everything, and Newspeak [9,23,24,139]) may provide incentives to straighten out their act.
4. Conclusion
Will we succeed? Will we stop the train before it goes over the cliff? We do not know what will happen if we fight. But we know what will happen if we don’t. The task ahead might look impossible. But remember the USSR. It looked like an unbreakable power, yet in the end it collapsed like a house of cards. The Berlin Wall looked indestructible, yet it came down overnight. Recalling his 20 years’ experience in the gay marriage debate, Jonathan Rauch told us: “I can tell you that the wall of received opinion is sturdy and impenetrable...until it isn't. And that it's the quiet people in the room who are the swing vote.... and please illegitimi non carborundum [159].”
We are not helpless. We have agency and we should not be afraid to exercise it. We should fight not just because it is the right thing to do, but because fighting brings results. If we behave as if we were living in a totalitarian society, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Afterword
A Russian proverb says, “Fear has big eyes” (у страха глаза велики), meaning that people tend to exaggerate danger. Accordingly, it may feel like resisting the mob will inevitably lead to career damage. But this is not the case; the flip side of risk is reward. In recognition of her activism, including her publication of “The Peril of Politicizing Science” [23], which “launched a national conversation among scientists and the general public,” Anna Krylov, co-author of this chapter, was awarded the inaugural Communicator of the Year Award, Sciences and Mathematics, by the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences [160]. In “Victory Lap” [161], Lee Jussim, co-editor of the book in which this article will appear, documents how as a result of his public resistance to a mob attack on a colleague falsely accused of racism, his career enjoyed a variety of benefits including additional conferences invitations, massive positive public support for his activism, national attention to his scholarship, and an appointment to a departmental chair (with commensurate increase in salary), which he was offered because he had demonstrated that he could take the heat.
==
Stop saying "nO oNe iS sAyInG aNy oF tHiS!!" They are. You know they are. Dotted throughout the article are references to sources for quotes and claims. For the list of references, see: References.
Liberalism really is under attack. It's always been under attack from the religous right, but its influence has diminished over time, with society becoming increasingly secular and irreligious, or at least indifferent to religious influence. And principles like the US's First Amendment keep it, at least in theory, from breaching the threshold.
But where the religious attack is on the downswing, the attack from the illiberal left is on the upswing, and both more rapid and more successful, having infiltrated everything from government to science and even knitting clubs. And it hides behind nice-sounding words like "equity" and "diversity," people don't recognize it for what it is, and welcome it inside in a way they don't welcome religious intrusion.
This isn't about left vs right. It's about do we want a liberal society, or do we want a rampantly illiberal, or indeed anti-liberal society?
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crossdreamers · 1 year
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Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport: New Scientific Review Dismisses Trans Women’s Performance Advantage
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A new report commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) says there's no reliable evidence pointing to a performance advantage in elite trans women who have suppressed their testosterone.
Via Running
Here’s the Executive Summary of the report:
Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport: A Scientific Review is an in-depth review of scientific literature on transgender athlete participation in competitive sport. 
The inclusion criteria for this report were research articles published in the English language between 2011 and 2021 inclusive. Only peer-reviewed articles or syntheses of academic literature (e.g., meta-analyses) in reputable academic journals were included. 
Grey literature, or non-academic literature, was included if it provided a summary of empirical data or if it described rules currently in place worldwide to include/exclude trans athletes. 
(...)
On the biology of trans women
 The biomedical perspective views the physiology of trans women’s bodies as the source of perceived unfairness, with medicalized interventions (such as estrogen supplementation and testosterone suppression) as the resolution. 
More specifically, this perspective holds that sexual dimorphism between those assigned male at birth (AMAB) and those assigned female at birth (AFAB) is the reason for athletic differences. Testosterone measures and boundaries are typically chosen as defining characteristics of manhood and womanhood in the context of sport and are used as the predominant marker to predict and level sex-related athletic advantage and the means for inclusion criteria. 
The research findings in the biomedical area are inconclusive. Studies which make conclusions on pre- and post-hormone replacement therapy (HRT) advantage held by trans women athletes have used either cis men or sedentary trans women as proxies for elite trans women athletes. These group references are not only inappropriate for the context but produce conclusions that cannot be applied to elite trans women athletes. 
Further, there is little scientific understanding about the attributes or properties of HRT, namely testosterone suppression and estrogen supplementation, on the physiology and athletic ability of trans women athletes. This ignores the potential for estrogen supplementation to reduce Lean Body Mass (LBM), and for testosterone suppression to produce holistic health disadvantages.
The sociocultural perspective
The second perspective is a sociocultural one. Researchers in the sociocultural field of study argue that social factors contribute to performance advantages to a far greater extent than does testosterone and that assessing testosterone levels is another way to perpetuate the long history of policing women’s bodies in sport. 
Researchers highlight the many social factors that contribute to differences in athletic performance, including, for example: discriminations, disparate resource allocations, inequities, and violence against women in sport in the forms of sexism and sexual violence in sport contexts, arbitrary differences in rules and equipment between men’s and women’s sport, as well as histories of barring women from certain sports. 
This body of work also highlights the foundational histories of anti-Blackness, anti-Global Southness, and misogyny which maintain inequities in sport. 
Arguments are made that the use of testosterone to exclude trans women athletes represents another phase in the long history of policing women’s bodies in sport. Once women were allowed into competitive sport in the early 20th century, those whose athletic ability was on par with their male counterparts, or whose physique was too manly, were disqualified from competition as deviants of the gender order. 
Through the history of women’s sport, female athletes have been exposed to intrusive gender verification processes including medical inspection of external genitalia and chromosome testing that produced many false positives and had catastrophic impacts on athletes’ careers. 
The current climate is one that focuses on testosterone levels of those athletes whose gender is deemed to be ‘suspicious.’ In the context of sport policy development, biomedical and physiological data have todate been privileged over other aspects such as social factors. Many policies cite biomedical studies to explain their conditions of inclusion, or their exclusion.
(...)
Conclusion
There is no firm basis available in evidence to indicate that trans women have a consistent and measurable overall performance benefit after 12 months of testosterone suppression. 
(...)
For pre-suppression trans women it is currently unknown when during the first 12 months of suppression that any advantage may persist. The duration of any such advantage is likely highly dependent on the individual's pre-suppression LBM which, in turn varies, greatly and is highly impacted by societal factors and individual circumstance. 
Full report here.
The review  was carried out by E-Alliance, a research hub for gender equity in sport led by Dr. Gretchen Kerr of the University of Toronto and Dr. Ann Pegoraro of the University of Guelph (pictured below).
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Photo of transgender athlete: Phtographia Inc.
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yaenvs3000w24 · 3 months
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A Biomed Student's Take on Environmental Interpretation
Hey folks,
So, I've found myself in this environmental interpretation course. It's a far cry from the lab and lecture theatres where I spend most of my time as a biomedical science major, but hey, it's a requirement, and I'm all for diversifying my transcript.
The Unexpected Role
When I think about what my role as an environmental interpreter would be, I'm not picturing myself as the next Bear Grylls. But I do love the ocean – the calm, the vastness, and the mystery of it all. So, if I had to choose, I'd say let me be that chill interpreter who takes small groups on beach walks. We'd talk about marine life, the ecosystem, and maybe how human health can be linked to the health of our oceans.
The Skills I'd Need
Sure, I've been camping a couple of times, and it was great, but I'm no outdoorsy survivalist. So the skills I'd need for this laid-back interpreter gig would be more about communication. I'd take those complex scientific concepts I've learned in biomed and translate them into something anyone can grasp. It's like breaking down a research article into a few bullet points for a friend.
Where It Might Be
I'm envisioning a local setting, nothing too remote. Maybe a coastal nature reserve or a seaside educational center. Somewhere I can hear the waves, feel the breeze, and not be too far from a good cup of coffee.
Wrapping It Up
For now, this course is a cool departure from my usual routine. It's making me think about the environment in new ways, even if I'm not planning to make a career out of it. Who knows? Maybe this whole experience will come in handy someday, even if it's just impressing someone with fun facts about sea creatures on a beach date.
Catch you on the next wave!
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flechetta · 3 months
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me, a first year in biomedical research masters: *looks at scientific article**googles "how to read"*
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biomedres · 1 year
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Biochemical and Molecular Resistance Mechanisms to Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, (DDT) and Some Pyrethroid Insecticides in Vector of West Nile Virus, Culex Pipiens
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Biochemical and Molecular Resistance Mechanisms to Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, (DDT) and Some Pyrethroid Insecticides in Vector of West Nile Virus, Culex Pipiens Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research
https://biomedres.us/fulltexts/BJSTR.MS.ID.005817.php
Culex pipiens complex act as an important vector of several vector-borne diseases such as filariasis, West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis and bird malaria. This study was designed in order to clarify the molecular and biochemical resistance mechanisms in Cx.pipiens to Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, (DDT) and some pyrethroid insecticides from Tehran, capital of Iran. Profile activities of α- and ß-esterases, Mixed Function Oxidase (MFO), Glutathione-S Transferase (GST), were tested for Cx.pipiens strain with resistance ratio of 85.75 to Lambdacyhalothrin and also about DDT resistant strain in comparison with Lab strain. In the present research a molecular study also performed on both lambdacyhalothrin and DDT. Resistant strains for detection of the mutation in the sodium channel gene which is associated with (knockdown) kdr insecticide resistance to pyrethroid and DDT. For comparison of average between two groups T test were used.
Our finding showed that there are significant different (p<0.05) between the mean activity of α-, ß-esterases and (MFO), in both lambacyhalothrin and DDT resistant strain in comparison with Laboratory Strain (Lab-strain), but there is no significant difference (p>0.05) about (GST) in the both strain in comparison with Lab-Strain. Molecular study for detection of L1014F or L1014S mutation in sodium channel gene showed lack of the mutation responsible for insecticide resistance to pyrethroid and DDT. This study showed that the resistance to pyrethroids and DDT in the Cx.pipiens is enzymatic, but not targets site insensitivity of sodium channel gene. Findings of this research could provide a clue for logical operations of future chemical control program.
For more articles in Journals on Biomedical Sciences click here
bjstr
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infinity0nhigh · 5 months
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The Nature of Borderline Personality Disorder’s Concerningly High Comorbidity Rate with Substance Use Disorder
Background
The research that will be conducted is in regards to borderline personality disorder and its comorbid relationship with substance use disorder. An alarming number of individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder also experience substance use frequent enough to present significant issue in their day-to-day functioning, which often results in a comorbid diagnosis of substance use disorder. Approximately 78% of adults with borderline personality disorder (henceforth noted as “BPD” in this proposal) develop a substance use disorder or addiction at some time in their lives, according to research conducted by the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). We will take a closer look at what causes the relationship between BPD and using substances, the insurmountable grief of BPD that so commonly pervades these individuals’ lives, other contributing symptoms, and what role childhood and upbringing have in determining whether or not someone with BPD will develop substance use disorder.
Research Question
Why are individuals with BPD so prone to self-medicating with substance, and how can this be avoided or treated? What can others do to support a loved one with BPD and comorbid substance use disorder?
Subtopics To Be Investigated
The subtopics that will be discussed in this paper are as follows: emotional dysregulation, distress intolerance, impulsivity, suicidality, upbringing (particularly childhood trauma), physical health complications such as chronic pain, and the stress-induced quasi-psychotic symptoms that sometimes occur in BPD.
Summary of Preliminary Findings
The sources for this paper are as follows: National Library of Medicine: National Center for Biotechnology Information, The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, The Clinical Journal of Pain, Wikipedia, Science Direct: Journal of Affective Disorders, and ResearchGate. The National Library of Medicine is the world’s largest biomedical library and institution of research on medical and health-related topics. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal originally published by the Canadian Psychiatric Association. In January of 2015, it changed publishers to SAGE Journals. Covering all aspects of psychiatry, this journal aims to educate and inform. The Clinical Journal of Pain is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, covering research on all aspects of pain management. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that relies heavily on userbase submissions, cataloguing thousands upon thousands of topics. It remains heavily accurate (despite much criticism) due to the moderation system put in place to prevent article vandalism. Science Direct is a website that provides access to a large bibliographic database of scientific and medical publications of the Dutch publisher Elsevier. And finally, ResearchGate is a European social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. I am certain that the information found in these sources will provide the basis for a detailed discussion of borderline personality disorder and the high propensity for development of comorbid substance use disorder. All sources are in the form of webpages.
Rationale for Research
The reader can hopefully gain some valuable insight into borderline personality disorder, what causes the high comorbidity rate with substance use disorder, what can be done to prevent it or treat it, and how to support a loved one who struggles with both disorders (or each disorder separately). It is my intention that the reader walk away with a new sense of understanding on this topic.
Works Cited
Kienast, Thorsten, et al. “Borderline Personality Disorder and Comorbid Addiction: Epidemiology and Treatment.” Deutsches Arzteblatt International, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Apr. 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4010862/.
Links, Paul, et al. “Borderline Personality Disorder and Substance Abuse: Consequences of Comorbidity.” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, SAGE Journals, Feb. 1995, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/070674379504000105.
McWilliams, Lachlan & Higgins, Kristen. “Associations Between Pain Conditions and Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms: Findings from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication.” The Clinical Journal of Pain, Lippincott Journals, June 2013, https://journals.lww.com/clinicalpain/abstract/2013/06000/associations_between_pain_conditions_and.9.aspx.
“Management of Borderline Personality Disorder.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Oct. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_of_borderline_personality_disorder.
Mattingley, Sophie, et al. “Distress Tolerance across Substance Use, Eating, and Borderline Personality Disorder: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Affective Disorders, Elsevier, 2 Jan. 2022, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032721014439.
Lubman, Dan, et al. “Managing Borderline Personality Disorder and Substance Use: An Integrated Approach” ResearchGate, PubMed, Australian Family Physician, June 2011, www.researchgate.net/publication/51203543_Managing_borderline_personality_disorder_and_substance_use_An_integrated_approach.
...Just sharing this with y'all for no reason, as it's already been graded lol. It's a topic I'm passionate about obviously. And don't roll your eyes at the inclusion of Wikipedia, because my professor said he's okay with it and even encouraged us to use it for this research paper. He even made us participate in a group discussion post on why Wikipedia is reliable. My academic writing needs improvement, but hey, at least this is a start.
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Transphobes: "We're good people. We don't have an agenda."
Also transphobed: *creates more work for volunteers who are doing a public service to serve an agenda*
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Wikipedia does block IPs of those who are intentionally editing articles with offensive, libelous, incorrect, opinionated, and malicious content.
But, besides providing a resource for how to report malicious changes to articles, I want to take a moment to remind people that Wikipedia is not a source. ANYONE can edit a wiki article, and some of the people doing so have an agenda and are editing with the specific goal of lying to people.
If you're looking for reliable data and research, I recommend the following resources:
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ghelgheli · 1 year
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The Stuff I Read In March 2023
stuff I Extra Liked is bolded
Books
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Friedrich Engels
Essays Against Publishing. Jamie Berrout
Black Skin, White Masks. Franz Fanon
2001: A Space Odyssey. Arthur C Clarke
The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader
Blame! Vols 1-7. Nihei Tsutomu
قصه های من و بابا. جلد ۱ تا ۳
Short Fiction
Speech Sounds. Octavia Butler
The Thief of Memory. Sunyi Dean
Let's Play Dead. Senaa Ahmad
Description of a Struggle. Franz Kafka
Wedding Preparations in the Country. Franz Kafka
The Judgment. Franz Kafka
In the Penal Colony. Franz Kafka
Articles
The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy. Matthew Stewart in the Atlantic
You Are Not a Parrot and a Chatbot is Not a Human. Elizabeth Weil in New York Magazine
The Defeat of One's Own Government in the Imperialist War. Vladimir Lenin
Climbing towards NLU: On Meaning, Form, and Understanding in the Age of Data. Emily M. Bender & Alexander Koller. DOI: 10.18653/v1/2020.acl-main.463
On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots. Emily M. Bender et al. DOI: 10.1145/3442188.3445922
The biomedical model of mental disorder: A critical analysis of its validity, utility, and effects on psychotherapy research. Brett J. Deacon. DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.007
Do Not Teach Kafka's "In the Penal Colony". Peter Neumeyer.
Teaching Paradox, Europa Universalis IV series. (link to part one)
Niel DeGrasse Tyson and Al-Ghazali. Tim O'Neill. (link)
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Ethical issues in chronic pain management
Chronic ache is an sizable public health problem with up to 30% of adults in Western nations having continual pain. Unfortunately, 79% of patients with chronic pain are disappointed with their pain care. Healthcare communities may warfare with supplying ethical treatment inside the context of the opioid disaster first discovered within the USA and now visible across Europe, Canada, and Australia. In comparison, inequalities within the international underneath-treatment of pain had been documented across the developing international, main to decreased high-quality of life and bad financial effects.
Furthermore, international, sustainable healthcare models, regardless of payer type or coverage fame, have no longer been diagnosed for the ethical treatment of humans with continual ache. Also, Buy medicine online in USA COD available.
A cultural transformation in the way that we treat human beings with continual ache should consist of them having same get admission to to pain control without attention of public vs private provision of healthcare. Patients need to have get entry to to the maximum modern-day proof-based totally care through experienced ache clinicians, if required, in preference to having remedy directed by way of managed care corporations, public rules, and policy makers, and without judgement from the media, co-employees, family, and friends.
Many sufferers suffer from untreated ache on the give up of lifestyles. Failure to deal with pain correctly can end result from a lack of clinician education in palliative care and the concern of violating moral, moral, and criminal tenets in the management of pain medicine to the dying affected person. Clinicians often have an exaggerated belief of the risk of hastening dying by means of treating pain with opioids. Furthermore, they are often doubtful about the distinctions among pain management, sedation for intractable signs, doctor-assisted loss of life (PAD), and euthanasia.
Clinicians are faced with balancing these issues with their legal duty and ethical obligation to treat pain inside the struggling affected person. Many clinicians are doubtful about how aggressive symptom control in palliative care differs from physician-assisted death (PAD) and voluntary active euthanasia (VAE). Palliative care is a comprehensive technique to treating physical, spiritual, and mental struggling in a affected person at any degree of a extreme infection, including on the cease of life.
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While this may include prescribing ache medication that carries with it a very small chance of hastening death, any hastening of dying is not the purpose of the treating clinician. The use of medication supposed to deal with ache or relieve discomfort is felony in all states.
Pain management is highly younger as a distinctiveness. Although increasing interest is being paid to troubles which includes ache on the quit of life and pain in underserved populations, only recently has an open dialogue of moral issues in continual ache remedy come to the fore. Psychologists specializing in ache management are faced with a myriad of moral troubles. Although a lot of those problems are just like the ones faced by using general clinical psychologists or other fitness psychologists, they're regularly made greater complex via the multidisciplinary nature of ache control and by way of the psychologists' relationships to 0.33-birthday party payers (fitness renovation agencies, workers' repayment), attorneys, or other organizations.
An open discussion board exploring ethical troubles is wanted. This article outlines foremost ethical issues confronted with the aid of ache control psychologists, consisting of affected person autonomy and informed consent, confidentiality, compensation and twin relationships, affected person abandonment, assessment for clinical processes, scientific research, and the interface of psychology and medication. American Psychological Association moral standards and ideas of biomedical ethics want to be taken into consideration in moral choice making. Further exploration and dialogue of ethics for pain control psychologists are recommended.
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hobbyspacer · 3 days
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Space habitat reports – Apr.21.2024
Here is this week's selection of videos and news items about space habitats, living in space, and space settlement. === International Space Station & NASA https://youtu.be/p2pvCW4qTog ** Space Station Crew Talks with AccuWeather - Thursday, April 18, 2024 - NASA Video Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 70 Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Tracy Dyson of NASA discussed life and work aboard the orbital outpost during an in-flight interview April 18 with Accuweather. Barratt and Dyson are in the midst of a long-duration mission aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration flights as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program. https://youtu.be/BoiTPh1Rh5U ** Astronaut Matt Dominick Talks with University of San Diego - Friday, April 19, 2024 - NASA Video Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 70 Flight Engineer Matthew Dominick of NASA discussed life and work aboard the orbital outpost during an in-flight interview April 19 with San Diego University. Dominick is in the midst of a long-duration mission aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration flights as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program. https://youtu.be/oM4B-x4W4LA  ** Other ISS news, articles, and resources: - Biomedical Research, Spacewalk Preps Wrap Week on Station | Space Station/NASA - Apr.19.2024 - Advanced Research and Ongoing Spacewalk Preps Pack Schedule | Space Station/NASA - Apr.18.2024 - MDA Space Awarded $250M Contract Extension to Support Robotics Operations on the International Space Station | MDA - Apr.18.2024 - Crew Works Cargo, Biomedical Ops, and Spacewalk Preps | Space Station/NASA - Apr.17.2024 - Amateur Radio on ISS (ARISS) - Status ISS Stations - Livestream ** ESA astronaut class of 2022 graduation ceremony (Trailer) - European Space Agency, ESA As they reach the end of one year of rigorous basic astronaut training, ESA astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg will receive astronaut certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre on 22 April 2024. The group was selected in November 2022 and began their training in April 2023. Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with an overall familiarisation and training in various areas, such as spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems, as well as survival and medical training. Following certification, the new astronauts will move on to the next phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training, paving the way for future missions to the International Space Station and beyond. Join us for the graduation ceremony live on ESA Web TV on Monday 22 April from 10:00 – 11:30 CEST. https://youtu.be/BZ2iRADmFHE === Commercial space habitats ** 2024 February - North Houston Space Society - Megan Yang - Building Axiom Station - Axiom Space Youtube - Axiom Space Megan Yang, an engineer at Axiom, gate a talk in February about the design and construction of the Axiom commercial space station. https://youtu.be/lnG8JpxbPGk ** Solenoid valves assembly - VAST Youtube -  VAST Our solenoid valves are designed, manufactured, assembled, and tested in our Long Beach facility. These valves control gaseous oxygen and nitrox flow into Haven-1's habitable space. https://youtu.be/jU_RKfOepU4 ** Starlab - Voyager Space This article about using space activities to market goods and services discusses a collaboration between Starlab  and Hilton: Brands in Space: What’s behind the rush to advertise in the final frontier?  | Marketplace - Apr.10.2024 NASA is assisting private companies in building commercial space stations like Voyager Space’s Starlab — a low-Earth orbital designed for astronauts to conduct scientific research in place of the ISS after its shutdown — which will be launched in 2028 at the earliest. Hilton partnered with Voyager Space to design the interior of the space station in hopes to make a more comfortable zero gravity environment. “We’re looking at this through the lens of space tourism,” Hilton Senior Vice President of Global Design Larry Traxler said. “How do we elevate the stay?” This isn’t the first time Hilton and Voyager Space partnered for a space stunt. In late 2019, the global hospitality company Nanoracks — most of which was acquired by Voyager Space the following year — and Zero G Kitchen, a food development company creating products for space, teamed up to bake a batch of the famous Doubletree cookies in the ISS.  === Other space habitat and settlement news, articles, events, etc: ** EarthSpace 2024 - EarthLight Foundation - A streamed event for Earth Day:  April 22, 2024 3:00 PM – 5:30 PM Eastern Join some of the planet's top experts as we discuss topics vital to both saving the Earth and expanding life into the cosmos. EarthSpace 2024 is a unique event, built on the idea that opening the High Frontier must be done differently than any frontier in the past. Contrary to some who cast the space revolution as a wasteful escapist extravaganza, EarthSpace helps begin a new conversation. A conversation about how we not only can open the High Frontier responsibly and sustainably, but that we must, to help save the MotherWorld of Earth. Starting with a new philosophy - that this time, for the first time, as humans move into a new frontier, we do so based on an ethos that comes from our love of life and respect for our environment, rather than leaving a path of destruction and waste in our wake. https://www.youtube.com/live/qusSPsisHVQ - Calendar: - Webinar: What It Will Take To Build Communities In Space | Beyond Earth Institute, April 25, 2024, 1:00-2:30 pm - ISDC | International Space Development Conference, Los Angeles, CA, Thursday, May 23rd to Sunday, May 26th, 2024 - 13th annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC 2024) -  July 30-August 1, 2024,  Boston. - Resources: - Space Settlement National Space Society – NSS - Space Studies Institute | Technology for Human Space Settlement - Space Settlement Progress – Cutting-edge technology enabling settlement of the solar system and beyond - Factories in Space - Making products for Earth and space ** NSS Gerard K. O’Neill Space Settlement Contest  The National Space Society's annual space settlement contest invites students to design an orbital space habitat. The contest, open for 6-12th grade students, was sponsored by the NASA Ames Research Center from 1994-2018 in conjunction with the National Space Society and since then is being sponsored by NSS. The single highest scoring team or individual attending ISDC will receive the Herman Rubin Award for $5,000. The contest this year received 5,200 entries from over 29,000 students, whoc came from 28 countries. The 2024 contest winners and finalists are listed here. Here is a video from 2022 about the contest: https://youtu.be/op9yqEKqAAk === Earth views from ISS ** Highlight: USA KY NC ARISS - Apr 18 2024 13:53 EDT - ISS Above During this pass, NASA Astonaut Jeanette Epps was speaking with Mountain View Elementary Murietta GA students via a direct ARISS ham radio downlink event. NASA EHDC6 Live views of the Earth from the International Space Station https://youtu.be/xRcJE3Z01KI **  Highlight: NM -ABQ - Apr 4, 2024 - 11:46 MDT - ISS Above https://youtu.be/YjSd21eKL0s ** Live Video from the International Space Station (Official NASA Stream) - NASA Watch live video from the International Space Station, including inside views when the crew aboard the space station is on duty. Views of Earth are also streamed from an external camera located outside of the space station. During periods of signal loss due to handover between communications satellites, a blue screen is displayed. The space station orbits Earth about 250 miles (425 kilometers) above the surface. An international partnership of five space agencies from 15 countries operates the station, and it has been continuously occupied since November 2000. It's a microgravity laboratory where science, research, and human innovation make way for new technologies and research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. More: https://go.nasa.gov/3CkVtC8 Did you know you can spot the station without a telescope? It looks like a fast-moving star, but you have to know when to look up. Sign up for text messages or email alerts to let you know when (and where) to spot the station and wave to the crew: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov https://www.youtube.com/live/xAieE-QtOeM?feature=share ====
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ISS after undocking of STS-132 === Amazon Ads === Lego Ideas International Space Station 21321 Toy Blocks, Present, Space, Boys, Girls, Ages 16 and Up  ==== Outpost in Orbit: A Pictorial & Verbal History of the Space Station  Read the full article
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