By Laura Tropp. In light of recent accusations of plagiarism within portions of speeches delivered at the Republican National Convention this week, I thought it would be helpful for me to offer a perspective from the ivory towers of academia. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: A Study in Scarlet
By Rosemarie Emanuele. One of the central concepts in Economics is the idea of “comparative advantage.” This idea, which originates from those who founded the discipline, says that people and countries should build on their strengths and do what they do best. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: This Was the Summer
By Rosemarie Emanuele. In the next week, classes will begin for both me and my daughter. This means that the summer is now officially over, and “the year” begins. As this transition happens, I reflect on what experiences this summer brought with it, as I mourn its passing. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: Academic Parent Triathlon
By Rosemarie Emanuele. Triangular numbers are numbers that can be arranged into equilateral triangles. For example, the number three can form such a triangle with two dots on the base and one on the top, yielding three sides each with two elements in them. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: Hello, World!
By Rosemarie Emanuele. In Economics, we often talk of goods and services as being “needs” or “wants.” Needs are things like food and housing, which one cannot do without, while wants are things that are optional, but desired. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: A Broken Pickle Jar (Or How I Stumbled Into the Jesuits)
By Rosemarie Emanuele. In math, two numbers, such as ½ and 2, are called “reciprocals” if, when multiplied together, their product is one. I thought of this recently when discussing what my daughter’s college search will look like. She will most likely choose a college that is on a list of schools that provide “reciprocal” tuition to employees of Ursuline. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: A New “Normal”
By Rosemarie Emanuele. In Statistics, we often use a probability distribution, the “Z” distribution, that is usually called the “normal” distribution. This is because the mean of this distribution is set at some value that is agreed upon as being the most common value of the variable in question. Read more...
The Woes of Wikipedia
By Barbara Fister. A Wikipedia editor who I know, Karen Coyle, recently left the site, finding it an inhospitable place for a woman. It’s nothing new. But considering the cumulative impact of the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” it’s troubling when it turns out a lot of people actually can’t edit it because there’s a significant chance they will run into fellow editors who engage in trollish behavior. Read more...
The Acceleration of Open Access
By Barbara Fister. I noted with loud applause the launch of SocArXiv just in the nick of time. SSRN had been a for-profit but pretty useful place to store papers in the social sciences, but it was fairly old-school; since it didn’t have the resources to make renovations, it teamed up with Elsevier and that makes it no longer useful for those who think making research findings public should be in the public interest, not in shareholders’ interest. Read more...
We Can Handle the Truth
By Barbara Fister. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics starts out with a bang: Seek truth and report it. Read more...