Personal Observations of the Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic On Micromanufacturing Research and Education in the United States

Author(s):  
Lawrence Kulinsky

Abstract n/a

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Barbara Orlans

Attitudes toward the Three Rs concept of refinement, reduction and replacement in the United States in research and education are widely divergent. Positive responses have come from several sources, notably from four centres established to disseminate information about alternatives. Funding sources to support work in the Three Rs have proliferated. The activities of institutional oversight committees have resulted in the nationwide implementation of important refinements. In the field of education, student projects involving pain or death for sentient animals have declined, and the right of students to object to participation in animal experiments on ethical grounds has been widely established. However, there is still a long way to go. Resistance to alternatives is deep-seated within several of the scientific disciplines most closely associated with animal research. The response of the National Institutes of Health to potentially important Congressional directives on the Three Rs has been unsatisfactory. The prestigious National Association of Biology Teachers, which at first endorsed the use of alternatives in education, later rescinded this policy, because of opposition to it. An impediment to progress is the extreme polarisation of viewpoints between the biomedical community and the animal protectionists.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Newman*

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and US President Donald Trump have something in common: both recently issued directives to colleges and universities intended to promote free speech on campus. Premier Ford’s came first. In August 2018, shortly after winning the provincial election, Ford required all colleges and universities in the province to devise policies upholding free speech on their campuses in line with a minimum standard prescribed by his government. The policies were to be in place no later than January 1, 2019. Failure to comply would result in a reduction of operating grant funding from the province. President Trump’s executive order concerning “free inquiry” on American campuses was issued in March 2019. The order states that it is the policy of the federal government to encourage institutions of higher learning “to foster environments that promote open, intellectually engaging, and diverse debate, including through compliance with the First Amendment for public institutions and compliance with stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech for private institutions.”1 Colleges and universities that fail to do so are threatened with the loss of federal research and education grants.   * Associate Professor, Department of Politics, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University where he teaches political theory.1 Andy Thomason, “Here’s What Trump’s Executive Order on Free Speech Says”, The Chronicle of Higher Education (21 March 2019), online: <chronicle.com/article/Heres-Wat-Trumps-Executive/245943?cid+bn&utm_medium=en&cid=bn>. An executive order is a directive issued by the President of the United States in his capacity as head of the executive branch and has the force of law. Trump’s executive order on campus free speech is reproduced in its entirety online.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e26385
Author(s):  
Lindsay Walker ◽  
Erica Krimmel ◽  
Jann Vendetti ◽  
Austin Hendy

The Invertebrate Paleontology Collection at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLA) has received support from the United States National Science Foundation (NSF DBI 1702342) to digitize the museum’s unique and historic collection of 28,000+ fossil insects. The primary goal of this project, “Fossil Insects of L.A.”, is to increase access to these collections for both research and education. Key collections to be become discoverable through iDigBio and iDigPaleo include the Georg Statz Collection (Oligocene, Rott Formation, Germany) and three faunas from Southern California: Barstow (Miocene), Rancho La Brea (Pleistocene), and McKittrick (Pleistocene). Fossil Insects of L.A. constitutes the final contribution to the Fossil Insect Collaborative Thematic Collections Network (TCN), a consortium of institutions that have been digitizing the largest fossil insect collections in the United States. As a project beginning at the tail-end of the TCN’s active funding, Fossil Insects of L.A. is actively leveraging existing TCN knowledge and resources to streamline workflows and efficiently achieve project goals. In addition to basing imaging and preservation protocols on those designed by TCN partners, Fossil Insects of L.A. is using a layered approach to provide high-quality taxonomic information without sacrificing the pace of specimen digitization. Previously unidentified specimens are initially identified only to Order, allowing them to quickly continue through the digitization process; specimens can then be re-examined by experienced project participants and external experts, who are able to reference the specimen images generated during digitization. A critical and novel aspect of this component of the project’s workflow is the concurrent digitization of the literature associated with the Statz Collection. These data will be used as a test case for the "Enhancing Paleontological and Neontological Data Discovery API" (ePANDDA) project (NSF ICER 1821039), which seeks to associate related datasets found in iDigBio, iDigPaleo, and the Paleobiology Database. Fossil Insects of L.A. will digitize and make 10,960 specimens publically available online, of which over 6,200 will include images. An additional 15,684 specimen records from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits will also be included in the data mobilization. In doing so, Fossil Insects of L.A. intends to dramatically enhance the research potential of these formerly hidden collections, as well as synthesize and demonstrate digitization best practices generated through the TCN.


2006 ◽  
Vol 512 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
M. Meshii

The discipline of Materials Science is, we believe, in the midst of the second transformation. The research and education of most of the Materials Science and Engineering departments in the United States have traditionally emphasized hard materials. The recent surge in research of soft materials and our perceptions that the Materials Science Methodology (both experimental and numerical) holds the advantage in the research of the soft materials prompt us to expand the area of soft materials at the expense of hard materials. Clearly the struggle between the two types of materials will continue for some time to come. The current struggle in weighting will be described in an historical fashion comparing it to the struggle in the first transformation that took place in the 1950's and 1960's.


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