When you get information from the free internet you get what you pay for. Regardless of this warning...
I have a few websites which speak of the stress interview:
http://www.as.pitt.edu/undergraduate/experience/internships/how-to-interview.html
http://www.fazeteen.com/articles/stressinterviews.htm
http://www.seek4job.com/content/view/38/2/
This last page states, "you should not give a directly answer to the questions at stress interview," and I agree.
This page then goes on to discuss the typical answer to the weakness question. I say that they break their own rule by directly answering the weakness question by giving a obviously rehearsed and information-less answer.
As the webpages say, the stress interview is to see how you handle stress. Thus, the weakness question finds out: Do you give useless and trite answers when under stress or do you know to keep your mouth shut?
Friday, September 28, 2007
Searching for Literature Reviews
EBSCO has changed how to search for literature reviews again. Hopefully they stick to this method because it's very simple.
Click the Advanced Search tab.
Go down until you see the Methodology window:
click to enlarge
and select Literature Review. Go up and search as normal.
And EBSCO has always made it very easy to identify Lit Reviews on the abstract page:
click to enlarge
Framing - Something that Bill can't remember the details of ...
Tversky and Kahneman (1981) demonstrated systematic reversals of preference when the same problem is presented in different ways, for example in the 'Asian disease' problem. Participants were asked to "imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows." The first group of participants were presented with a choice between two programs:
Program A: "200 people will be saved"
Program B: "there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved"
72 percent of participants preferred program A (the remainder, 28 percent, opting for program B).
The second group of participants were presented with the choice between:
Program C: "400 people will die"
Program D: "there is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-third probability that 600 people will die"
In this decision frame, 78 percent preferred program D, with the remaining 22 percent opting for program C.
However, programs A and C, and programs B and D, are effectively identical in accordance with von-Neumann's expected utility hypothesis, in which the value of the outcome of an event is multiplied by the probability of its occurrence
Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman, 1981. "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice." Science 211: 453-458.
Program A: "200 people will be saved"
Program B: "there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved"
72 percent of participants preferred program A (the remainder, 28 percent, opting for program B).
The second group of participants were presented with the choice between:
Program C: "400 people will die"
Program D: "there is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-third probability that 600 people will die"
In this decision frame, 78 percent preferred program D, with the remaining 22 percent opting for program C.
However, programs A and C, and programs B and D, are effectively identical in accordance with von-Neumann's expected utility hypothesis, in which the value of the outcome of an event is multiplied by the probability of its occurrence
Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman, 1981. "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice." Science 211: 453-458.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Neat Program - Deadline 10/1/07
Thurgood Marshal scholarship program. I had a student do this and she felt it was very useful.
click to enlarge
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Doubt is our product
As a result of these trends, Lisa Bero says, science has become one of the most powerful tools that private companies can use to fight regulation. The strategy they most often deploy was pioneered by the tobacco industry, which learned to foment scientific uncertainty as a means of staving off regulation. A famous tobacco industry document from 1969 spells out the strategy succinctly: "Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing controversy."
In 2003, Frank Luntz, a political consultant to the Republican Party, recommended using the same strategy to combat public environmental concerns. "Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community," he wrote. "Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."
"Some policymakers fail to recognize that all studies are not created equal," says Michaels, the author of a forthcoming book, Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. "This results in the existence of what appear to be equal and opposite studies, encouraging policymakers to do nothing in the face of what appear to be contradictory findings."
Virtually everyone interviewed for this article agrees about one thing: The U.S. government must strengthen its investment in science. The members of Norman Augustine's 2005 National Academies panel continue to call for an immediate doubling of federal investment in basic science, arguing that basic science is a quintessential public good that only the federal government can properly fund. The rewards of basic research are risky and diffuse, making it difficult for individual companies to invest in.
- Liza Lentini, “One Universe, Under God,” Discovery Magazine (Oct, 2007).
In 2003, Frank Luntz, a political consultant to the Republican Party, recommended using the same strategy to combat public environmental concerns. "Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community," he wrote. "Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."
"Some policymakers fail to recognize that all studies are not created equal," says Michaels, the author of a forthcoming book, Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. "This results in the existence of what appear to be equal and opposite studies, encouraging policymakers to do nothing in the face of what appear to be contradictory findings."
Virtually everyone interviewed for this article agrees about one thing: The U.S. government must strengthen its investment in science. The members of Norman Augustine's 2005 National Academies panel continue to call for an immediate doubling of federal investment in basic science, arguing that basic science is a quintessential public good that only the federal government can properly fund. The rewards of basic research are risky and diffuse, making it difficult for individual companies to invest in.
- Liza Lentini, “One Universe, Under God,” Discovery Magazine (Oct, 2007).
Friday, September 21, 2007
Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?
A magazine story from the NYT on how research (in this case medical) is communicated (and miscommunicated) to the public.
Much of what we’re told about diet, lifestyle and disease is based on epidemiologic studies. What if it is just bad science?
The catch with observational studies like the Nurses’ Health Study, no matter how well designed and how many tens of thousands of subjects they might include, is that they have a fundamental limitation. They can distinguish associations between two events — that women who take H.R.T. have less heart disease, for instance, than women who don’t. But they cannot inherently determine causation — the conclusion that one event causes the other; that H.R.T. protects against heart disease. As a result, observational studies can only provide what researchers call hypothesis-generating evidence — what a defense attorney would call circumstantial evidence.
Testing these hypotheses in any definitive way requires a randomized-controlled trial — an experiment, not an observational study — and these clinical trials typically provide the flop to the flip-flop rhythm of medical wisdom. Until August 1998, the faith that H.R.T. prevented heart disease was based primarily on observational evidence, from the Nurses’ Health Study most prominently. Since then, the conventional wisdom has been based on clinical trials — first HERS, which tested H.R.T. against a placebo in 2,700 women with heart disease, and then the Women’s Health Initiative, which tested the therapy against a placebo in 16,500 healthy women. When the Women’s Health Initiative concluded in 2002 that H.R.T. caused far more harm than good, the lesson to be learned, wrote Sackett in The Canadian Medical Association Journal, was about the “disastrous inadequacy of lesser evidence” for shaping medical and public-health policy. The contentious wisdom circa mid-2007 — that estrogen benefits women who begin taking it around the time of menopause but not women who begin substantially later — is an attempt to reconcile the discordance between the observational studies and the experimental ones. And it may be right. It may not. The only way to tell for sure would be to do yet another randomized trial, one that now focused exclusively on women given H.R.T. when they begin their menopause.
Much of what we’re told about diet, lifestyle and disease is based on epidemiologic studies. What if it is just bad science?
The catch with observational studies like the Nurses’ Health Study, no matter how well designed and how many tens of thousands of subjects they might include, is that they have a fundamental limitation. They can distinguish associations between two events — that women who take H.R.T. have less heart disease, for instance, than women who don’t. But they cannot inherently determine causation — the conclusion that one event causes the other; that H.R.T. protects against heart disease. As a result, observational studies can only provide what researchers call hypothesis-generating evidence — what a defense attorney would call circumstantial evidence.
Testing these hypotheses in any definitive way requires a randomized-controlled trial — an experiment, not an observational study — and these clinical trials typically provide the flop to the flip-flop rhythm of medical wisdom. Until August 1998, the faith that H.R.T. prevented heart disease was based primarily on observational evidence, from the Nurses’ Health Study most prominently. Since then, the conventional wisdom has been based on clinical trials — first HERS, which tested H.R.T. against a placebo in 2,700 women with heart disease, and then the Women’s Health Initiative, which tested the therapy against a placebo in 16,500 healthy women. When the Women’s Health Initiative concluded in 2002 that H.R.T. caused far more harm than good, the lesson to be learned, wrote Sackett in The Canadian Medical Association Journal, was about the “disastrous inadequacy of lesser evidence” for shaping medical and public-health policy. The contentious wisdom circa mid-2007 — that estrogen benefits women who begin taking it around the time of menopause but not women who begin substantially later — is an attempt to reconcile the discordance between the observational studies and the experimental ones. And it may be right. It may not. The only way to tell for sure would be to do yet another randomized trial, one that now focused exclusively on women given H.R.T. when they begin their menopause.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Is the Surge Working?
Besides answering this question Steven D. Levitt makes a great observation about science and politics (or as I often say in class objective vs subjective) in this Freakonomics blog.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
In Favor of Disruption
Spotting the next disruptive technology, understanding the future and expecting less from insurance.
... and be able to predict the next business/marketing trend!
... and be able to predict the next business/marketing trend!
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Is Cultural Diversity Bad?
A study conducted by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam suggests that diversity hurts civic life and that differences can actually translate into distrust. The political scientist and author explains his findings on the flip-side of cultural diversity.
I'm not surprised about this finding. One basic idea in group work is that while diversity in a group is beneficial regarding the task, diversity requires more psychological work to be done in the group.
There were two social psychological topics touched upon. First, Putnam was talking about the stress of living in a diverse environment. Stanley Milgram talked about stimulus overload among city dwellers (because of the social stimulus city dwellers experience, they "turn off" and ignore much of the environment) and I'm surprised that Putnam never heard of it. Second, when Putnam was talking about the mega-church he was describing using a superordinate identity allow people of different backgrounds to -- literally -- ignore their differences.
I'm not surprised about this finding. One basic idea in group work is that while diversity in a group is beneficial regarding the task, diversity requires more psychological work to be done in the group.
There were two social psychological topics touched upon. First, Putnam was talking about the stress of living in a diverse environment. Stanley Milgram talked about stimulus overload among city dwellers (because of the social stimulus city dwellers experience, they "turn off" and ignore much of the environment) and I'm surprised that Putnam never heard of it. Second, when Putnam was talking about the mega-church he was describing using a superordinate identity allow people of different backgrounds to -- literally -- ignore their differences.
Monday, September 3, 2007
The Laws of Simplicity
John Maeda, of MIT's Media Law, has written a book enumerating 10 laws of simplicity for technology.
Here's his blog.
Here's his blog.
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