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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
As promised in the previous post, I am going from body to bottom. No one attacked my risky etymology of body. Perhaps no one was sufficiently interested, or (much more likely) the stalwarts of the etymological establishment don’t read this blog and have no idea that a week ago a mine was planted under one of their theories.
To most of us, good scientific research is often defined by the “eureka” moment – the moment at which a successful result is discovered. We tend to only glorify research that leads us to definite solutions and we tend to only praise the scientists that are responsible for this research.
Companies care about the job satisfaction of their employees, because this is in their very own interest. In fact, dissatisfied workers perform poorly, are often absent and impose hiring costs as they switch employers frequently. Managers, as well as management researchers, agree on the importance of job satisfaction, since the Hawthorne experiments suggested in the 1920s that employees like attentive employers.
The American Mathematical Society held on October 1903 its regular meeting in New York City. The program announced a talk by Frank Nelson Cole (1861-1921), with the unpretending title of ‘On the factorization of large numbers’. In due course, Cole approached the board and started to multiply the number 2 by itself, step after step and without saying a word, sixty seven times.
Giles Cory has the dubious distinction of being the only person in American history to be pressed to death by a court of law. It is one of the episodes in the Salem witch trials that has captured the American imagination.
That time of the year is upon us again – Strictly Come Dancing is on the telly, Starbucks is selling spiced pumpkin lattes, and the kids are getting ready for a night of trick-or-treating. It can mean only one thing: Open Access Week is upon us.
I recently attended an event at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine “Celebrating 200+ Women Professors”. The celebration of these women and their careers inspired me, especially as a “young” woman and an assistant professor. It was also humbling to hear about their successes in spite of the many challenges they faced solely due to their sex.
This year, on 21st October, marks the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. This naval battle was between the British Royal Navy, led by Admiral Lord Nelson, and the combined French and Spanish fleets led by French Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve. The most decisive victory of the Napoleonic Wars, this battle ensured Nelson’s place as one of Britain’s greatest war heroes.
Although there are several different bell-shaped brass instruments, from trumpets to tubas, it’s the French horn that people are talking about when they mention “the horn”. Known for its deep yet high-ranging sound, the French horn is an indispensable part of any orchestra or concert band.
The growth of United States’ shale oil and gas production over the last decade has been nothing short of phenomenal. Already the premier natural gas producer, Already the premier natural gas producer, the United States is poised to surpass Saudi Arabia and Russia as the largest oil producer and will likely become a net exporter of both oil and gas within a decade or more.
In the six hundred year since it was fought the battle of Agincourt has become an exceptionally famous one, which has generated a huge and enduring cultural legacy. Everybody thinks they know what the battle was about but is the Agincourt of popular image the real Agincourt, or is our idea of the battle simply taken from Shakespeare’s famous depiction of it?
On 20 October 2015, the global mathematical community is celebrating World Statistics Day. In honour of this, we present here a reading list of OUP books and journal articles that have helped to advance the understanding of these mathematical concepts.
The fifth annual ASIL Research Forum is taking place 23-24 October 2015 in Washington, DC. Attendees will present and discuss works-in-progress that explore many topics in international law including energy, financial regulation, international criminal courts, trade, and treaty practice.
When I started my career as a medical statistician in September 1972, medical research was very different from now. In that month, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal published 61 research reports which used individual participant data, excluding case reports and animal studies. The median sample size was 36 people. In July 2010, I had another look.
Repeatedly blind-sided, chasing the latest crisis, reacting to new realities established by others, and trying to find silver linings in the storm clouds, the Obama administration has failed to adjust its grand strategy of restraint
Sometimes, what your brain wants is not always good for your body. Donuts are a good example. It’s early morning and you’re driving to work after a nice breakfast of black coffee and two eggs, easy-over, with bacon. Yet, you’re still hungry and having difficulty paying attention to the traffic. Why? Your brain is not cooperating because it is not satisfied with that breakfast because it lacked one critical ingredient that your brain urgently needs: sugar.