FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Stephen Ostroff, presented on Food Fraud at the April 4-5, 2017 Food Fraud Conference, Quebec City. FDA has been consistent in its direction and activities – all types of Food Fraud has been illegal since the adoption of the Food Drug & Cosmetics Act of 1938. …
I was asked a question that reduced to the following: if \(x\), \(y\) and \(z\) are all binary variables, how do we handle (in an integer programming model) the requirement “if \(x=1\) and \(y=1\) then \(z=1\)”? In the absence of any constraints on \(z\) when the antecedent is not true, this is very easy: add …
Yesterday I ran into one of those mystifying glitches that, will infrequent, serve as a reminder that Linux is not for the faint of heart. When I booted my desktop system (Linux Mint 18.1 Serena), the system tray icon for the software updater was displaying a red “X” that indicates it tried and failed to …
This blog gets about 100k page views per month. My sense is that there are a lot of additional views through RSS feeds and social media (FB, G+, etc.), but those are hard to track. Most of the hits are on the main landing page, with a smaller fraction going to a specific article. I’d …
This spring both Michigan and Oregon have changed their court rules to allow out of state attorneys to appear in ICWA cases on behalf of a tribe (Michigan and Oregon) or parent or Indian custodian (Oregon). Both waive the pro hac fees, and do not require the attorneys to associate with local counsel. Michigan’s rule, …
Humans are going to have to learn to “trust the AI” without understanding why it is right. I often make an analogous point to my kids — “At your age, if you and Dad disagree, chances are that Dad is right” :-) Of course, I always try to explain the logic behind my thinking, but …
The English Premier League is an obsession for millions of African fans. Author and fútbologist David Goldblatt recently traveled to Lagos, Nigeria, to find out what this cultural phenomenon looks like and why there is such deep reverence for Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs, and . . . Bournemouth. In a newly released piece for …
Lessons from the Dragon Boat None of us knew quite what to expect on Saturday as we gathered at Hawk Island for our one-hour training session for the Capital City Dragon Boat Race to support the Women’s Resource Center of Greater Lansing. Earlier this year, my wife, Val, suggested that the MSU College of Arts & …
Problems Books, Pencils, and Billboards: Local School Ad Spending Spikes (link is external) IPPSR Affiliate David Arsen discusses school choice and marketing. Researchers: Fake News Not Swaying Elections (link is external) IPPSR Affiliate William Dutton leads report on the impact of fake news on public opinion. Trump Fires Comey: It Looked Bad Right Away (link …
Behind the scenes view of the 4T Virtual Keynote Yesterday I had the honor of presenting at the 2017 4T Virtual Conference. I am a tremendous fan of the conference and was honored that Liz Kolb and the 4T Virtual organizers asked me to be a keynote this year. I HIGHLY recommend that you …
I was honored and humbled to speak at the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony last weekend at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I received my Ph.D. there in 1982. It was great to be back in Chapel Hill, seeing some old friends and making many new ones. There was also one of those interesting …
The Nature Genetics paper below made a big splash in today’s NYTimes: In ‘Enormous Success,’ Scientists Tie 52 Genes to Human Intelligence. The picture above is of a UK Biobank storage facility for blood (DNA) samples. The results are not especially surprising to people who have been following the subject, but this is the largest …
How Alexander Sachs, acting on behalf of Szilard and Einstein, narrowly convinced FDR to initiate the atomic bomb project. History sometimes hangs on a fragile thread: had the project been delayed a year, atomic weapons might not have been used in WWII. Had the project completed a year earlier, the bombs might have been used …
Almost everything we hear from the media these days is simply motivated reasoning — i.e., partisan nonsense. Wikipedia: …When people form and cling to false beliefs despite overwhelming evidence, the phenomenon is labeled “motivated reasoning”. In other words, “rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information …
The R package for person-oriented analysis (prcr) is updated (it’s now version 0.1.4). In particular, it was not clear how to use the profile assignments (i.e., what cluster each response is in) in subsequent analyses. So, the update now returns two different representations of the profile assignments, or which profile is associated with each observation: …
Here: In Lewis v. Clarke, the U.S. Supreme Court held that individual capacity suits against tribal employees are not cloaked by an Indian tribe’s sovereign immunity. As most Indian tribes have already acquired general liability insurance to cover the tortious actions of their employees, the ruling might have little impact. But the breadth of the court’s opinion should …
Mark Squillace, Eric Biber, Nicholas S. Bryner, and Sean B. Hecht have posted “Presidents Lack the Authority to Abolish or Diminish National Monuments” on SSRN. Here is the abstract: By any measure, the Antiquities Act of 1906 has a remarkable legacy. Under the Act, 16 presidents have proclaimed 157 national monuments, protecting a diverse range …
Pitts is one of the least studied geniuses of the early information age. See also Wikipedia, Nautil.us. Cabinet Magazine: There are no biographies of Walter Pitts, and any honest discussion of him resists conventional biography. Pitts was among the original participants in the mid-century cybernetics conferences, though he began his association with that group of …
“Because that’s what Hermione does,’ said Ron, shrugging. ‘When in doubt, go to the library.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Like many in my generation, I am a Harry Potter fan, and I’ve long identified with the character Hermione Granger (the series’ bookish and know-it-all heroine). Hermione was a role model for …
I have tried to pinpoint the person or thing that made me Google while listening, but, I can’t quite put my finger on it. In the fall of 1997 (after quickly giving up on dreams of becoming a DJ) I started my career as “Technician I” at the International Academy. Google and the Internet as …
The Opioid Crisis has been a major development in American public health alongside the recent proliferation of pain medication prescriptions. Indeed, there has been a gradual proliferation in drug overdose deaths. As a result, state governments across the United States including Michigan have designed policy programs like limiting the initial prescription of opioids for acute …
A 20 year lag between science fiction and reality… not bad! Embryo selection, but no additional engineering: Geneticist (Blair Underwood): Keep in mind, this child is still you — simply the best of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result … According to this discussion, an offer of …
Our weekly roundup of policy-relevant reads and IPPSR-connected research. Problems Fake News And Filters Aren’t Fooling Internet Users (link is external) IPPSR Affiliate William Dutton conducts international survey on internet users and fake news. Climate Change, Tornadoes And Mobile Homes: A Dangerous Mix (link is external) IPPSR Affiliate Mark Skidmore co-authors study on climate change …
There is probably a built in mechanism in our culture’s brain that the newest ideas and thoughts are better than older ones. Today’s thinkers have the chance to stand on the shoulders of those who came before. I know I’m always looking for fresh new ideas in the books recently published, thus my almost weekly …
I had a wonderful opportunity to make a (virtual) visit to Universidad de Murcia last week to speak with the students in #EHTC1617 . This was my second visit and it was wonderful to connect with Dr. Paz Prendes and her students again! I will be continuing the conversation over the next few weeks in …
To quote James Lee, the first author listed below: “Shock and Awe” for those who doubt that cognitive ability is influenced by genetic variants. See work from a year ago: ~100 hits from 300k individuals. Now ~600 hits from 750k. (SNPs associated with EA are likely to also be associated with cognitive ability — see …
It’s graduation weekend at my university and this morning we had our School of Social Work recognition ceremony. It’s a happy day. Faculty parade around in funny robes and hats. Family and friends come to applaud and honor the hard work their graduate has done. There’s no parking anywhere, but the usual campus hot spots …
USA Delegation: on the far left is Dr. Spink, and the group includes Head of Delegation Mary Stanley (USDA), Alternate Delegate Ms. Caroline Smith Dewaal (FDA), Alternate Delegate Ms. Camille Brewer (FDA), and Mr. Kenneth Lowery International Issues Analyst (US CODEX Office) Friday, May 5 Earlier today, Codex Alimentarius (CODEX, the world food code) …
An introduction to school voucher programs: School voucher systems are one of the leading topics of debate in education policy. A school voucher system offers state funds for financial assistance to parents who want to send their child to another school district or a private school. Oftentimes, legislatures will set parameters on who is able …
On Tuesday, May 2nd, MSU’s Department of Anthropology, Department of Infrastructure Planning and Facilities, and the Office of the President received the Michigan Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation and a special tribute from the State of Michigan Legislature on behalf of MSU Campus Archaeology. The award was given for their combined efforts to preserve the …
New York Magazine seems to have dedicated an entire issue to the Alt-Right. If you don’t recognize any of this subterranean internet stuff you should probably have a look. Somehow they left out the Illuminati, though. See The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Subaltern Postcolonial Gramsci Homi Bhabha Babble. BEYOND ALT: THE EXTREMELY REACTIONARY, …
While the Green & Write blog will soon be taking a break until the fall, teachers will be hard at work this summer. A common myth about the teaching profession is that teachers spend the summer months relaxing, but this is rarely the case. About half of teachers report working during the summer months, often …
If you think about a period in your life when you grew the most as an individual, discovered your independence, and started to become who you are today, it is likely to have happened during your young adult years. For many, this time occurs during, and is facilitated by, time away at college. These …
One of the authors pointed me to the interesting paper below, which contains a proposal meant to improve the reliability of scientific research (specifically in some areas such as social science or biomedicine). Could this proposal work if, say, it were strongly supported by scholarly associations and funding agencies? Note the authors’ use of “Crises …
15 states legislatures have term limits, but what does this mean? What are term limits supposed to do, and what observable effects do they have on government? This is the subject of the research I presented at the 2017 Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum. Term limits place a limit on the amount …
Here: The new administration’s undoing of the Obama administration’s clean environment rules, especially hydraulic fracking regulations and the Clean Power Plan, portend great division in Indian country as the few dozen energy tribes, whether they like it or not, stand apart from the remaining tribes. Energy tribes, such as the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, had sued the government to undo the …
Improving student success requires each of us to change in ways that are difficult. One example is the need to encourage most students to take 14-16 credit hours per semester, and complete 30 credits by the end of their first year. As the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, I’ve had the privilege to speak with …
It’s hard to believe another semester is in the books! Over the 2016-17 academic year, I had the pleasure of working with 10 amazing undergraduates (along with Jeff & Bill) in UGS200H. UGS 200H = Undergraduate Honors Research Seminar. This was my first opportunity to co-facilitate a freshman research seminar and work with undergraduates, and …
So what does history really taste like? As you can read from Susan’s event preview blog post, this past week we hosted a 1860s MSU-inspired meal based on archival and archaeological research. This event took place through the collaboration of Campus Archaeology and the MSU Culinary Service, specifically Chef Kurt Kwiatkowski, Chef Jay Makowski, and …
Our weekly roundup of policy-relevant reads and IPPSR-connected research. Problems Full Day Kindergarten: NH Republicans Have Lost Their Minds (link is external) IPPSR Affiliate Todd Elder discusses prescription drugs and their impact on children. National Mental Health Survey Finds Widespread Ignorance, Stigma (link is external) IPPSR Affiliate Mark Skidmore co-authors national survey on mental health …