A gender-based comparison of academic rank and scholarly productivity in academic neurological surgery

The number of women pursuing training opportunities in neurological surgery has increased, although they are still underrepresented at senior positions relative to junior academic ranks. Research productivity is an important component of the academic advancement process. We sought to use the h-index, a bibliometric previously analyzed among neurological surgeons, to evaluate whether there are gender differences in academic rank and research productivity among academic neurological surgeons. The h-index was calculated for 1052 academic neurological surgeons from 84 institutions, and organized by gender and academic rank. Overall men had statistically higher research productivity (mean 13.3) than their female colleagues (mean 9.5), as measured by the h-index, in the overall sample (p < 0.0007). When separating by academic rank, there were no statistical differences (p > 0.05) in h-index at the assistant professor (mean 7.2 male, 6.3 female), associate professor (11.2 male, 10.8 female), and professor (20.0 male, 18.0 female) levels based on gender. There was insufficient data to determine significance at the chairperson rank, as there was only one female chairperson. Although overall gender differences in scholarly productivity were detected, these differences did not reach statistical significance upon controlling for academic rank. Women were grossly underrepresented at the level of chairpersons in this sample of 1052 academic neurological surgeons, likely a result of the low proportion of females in this specialty. Future studies may be needed to investigate gender-specific research trends for neurosurgical residents, a cohort that in recent years has seen increased representation by women.     

A lack of genetic basis for biovar differentiation in clinically important Corynebacterium diphtheriae from whole genome sequencing

The differentiation of clinically important Corynebacterium diphtheriae into specific biovars is complex and phylogenetically unclear. Comparative genomic analyses of 17 strains indicate that the division of C. diphtheriae into different biovars does not correlate with the variation in the gene content in the relevant metabolic categories that are potentially involved in the biovar discrimination. The biochemical separation is also not supported by phylogenetic analyses, suggesting molecular methods of typing C. diphtheriae strains should be adopted much more widely.     

The application of Gammatone frequency cepstral coefficients for forensic voice comparison under noisy conditions

ABSTRACT

Compared with humans, who have more powerful auditory ability in discriminating and identifying speakers in noisy environments, traditional forensic automatic speaker recognizers do not perform well when dealing with noisy recordings. This paper proposes a GMM-UBM Forensic Automatic Speaker Recognition (FASR) System to reduce the effect of noise on performance. The system uses Gammatone Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (GFCC) based on an auditory periphery model and also incorporates a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) algorithm. The system was tested and validated using Mandarin voice databases compromised with different levels of white noise and office noise. The performance of the system was compared with a baseline system using Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and also PCA under the same conditions. The results show that the performance of the combined GFCC system achieved a substantial improvement when compared with the baseline MFCC system under conditions of a high level of office noise.     

Categorical or Dimensional: How Do Attachment Measures Inform Clinicians in Couple Therapy?

Self-report measures of adult romantic attachment have been widely used in research but their application in clinical practice has not been adequately examined. One important issue is the selection of a practical and reliable attachment measure that therapists can rely on in couple therapy. In the present study, the three-category Attachment Style Prototype (Hazan & Shaver, 1987) representing the original classic conceptualization of attachment, and the Experiences in Close Relationships (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998), a more recent scale with two dimensions representing a new conceptualization, were compared. Experiences in Close Relationships data were also used to establish four clusters based on the scores of the two dimensions. The Experiences in Close Relationships and Attachment Style Prototype categories were related in meaningful ways; however, Attachment Style Prototype was less effective in detecting a group of insecurely attached individuals who tended to self-identify as securely attached. Experiences in Close Relationships clearly shows an advantage over Attachment Style Prototype in clinical application, and therefore was recommended. Examples of the clinical utilization of Experiences in Close Relationships in couple therapy were provided using Experiences in Close Relationships scores from couples seeking therapy.     

Sociodemographic,sexual, and reproductive variables associated with pregnancy among adolescents from low socioeconomic background

Adolescent pregnancy remains a public health concern in both developed and developing countries. Portugal and Brazil represent some of the best examples of this phenomenon. The present study aimed to identify sociodemographic, sexual, and reproductive health-related variables associated with adolescent pregnancy among students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in both countries. The sample included 984 female adolescents, among whom 215 became pregnant. Living with a partner and lack of information about sex and contraception from the family were the best explicative factors for pregnancy occurrence in both countries. Country-specific variables were also identified. Our results may contribute to developing global preventive interventions, addressing the school as an ideal setting for primary intervention and considering culture-specific characteristics of high-risk populations.     

CANADIAN CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON OF THE HIGH-RISK PREGNANCY STRESS SCALE

The purpose of this article is to present the French and English versions of the High-Risk Pregnancy Stress Scale (HRPSS) and the reliability and validity analyses. This instrument contains 16 items representing psychological and environmental stressors of the at-risk pregnancy situation with or without hospitalization. The HRPSS was developed specifically to measure the degree of stress as experienced by women with high-risk pregnancy. The results of the principal component analyses with Varimax rotation (N=105) reveal that the HRPSS has two components. The first component represents physical restriction, while the second represents concerns related to pregnancy. These two components have been identified as forming the basis of the concept of antenatal-related stress. The HRPSS demonstrates internal consistency, equivalence and stability reliability. The psychometric analyses reveal that both the French and English versions have similar qualities.