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Women are still a minority in the economics profession. By the mid-2000s, just under 35 percent of PhD students and 30 percent of assistant professors were female, and these numbers have remained roughly constant ever since. Over the past two decades, women's progress in academic economics has slowed, with virtually no improvement in the female share of junior faculty or graduate students in decades. Little consensus has emerged as to why, though there has been a renewal of widespread interest in the status and future of women in economics and of the barriers they face to professional success. In this paper, we first document trends in the gender composition of academic economists over the past 25 years, the extent to which these trends encompass the most elite departments, and how women's representation across fields of study within economics has changed. We then review the recent literature on other dimensions of women's relative position in the discipline, including research productivity and income, and assess evidence on the barriers that female economists face in publishing, promotion, and tenure. While differences in preferences and constraints may directly affect the relative productivity of men and women, productivity gaps do not fully explain the gender disparity in promotion rates in economics. Furthermore, the progress of women has stalled relative to that in other disciplines in the past two decades. We propose that differential assessment of men and women is one important factor in explaining this stalled progress, reflected in gendered institutional policies and apparent implicit bias in promotion and tenure processes.

Many skilled professional occupations are characterized by an early period of intensive skill accumulation and career establishment. Examples include law firm associates, surgical residents, and untenured faculty at research-intensive universities. High female exit rates are sometimes blamed on the inability of new mothers to survive the sustained negative productivity shock associated with childbearing and early childrearing in these environments. Gender-neutral family policies have been adopted in some professions in an attempt to “level the playing field.” The gender-neutral tenure clock stopping policies adopted by the majority of research-intensive universities in the United States in recent decades are an excellent example. But to date, there is no empirical evidence showing that these policies help women. Using a unique dataset on the universe of assistant professor hires at top-50 economics departments from 1980–2005, we show that the adoption of gender-neutral tenure clock stopping policies substantially reduced female tenure rates while substantially increasing male tenure rates. However, these policies do not reduce the probability that either men or women eventually earn tenure in the profession.

In academia, there remains a gender gap in promotion to tenure, such that men are more likely to receive tenure than women. This paper tests three explanations of this gender gap in promotion: (1) contextual and organizational differences across departments; (2) performance/productivity differences by gender; and (3) gendered inequality in evaluation. To test these explanations, this project uses a novel dataset drawing from a sample of assistant professors in Sociology, Computer Science, and English, across research universities. This dataset combines data from sources including curriculum vitae, Google Scholar, and web archive employment data, resulting in a dataset of assistant professors’ publication records, department affiliations, and job positions. Analyses examine the gender gap in the likelihood of promotion to tenure and in early career trajectories, while accounting for publication productivity and department/university context. The results demonstrate that productivity measures account for a portion of the gender gap in tenure, but in each discipline a substantial share of the gender gap remains unexplained by these factors. Department characteristics do not explain the tenure gender gap. Further, when women do receive tenure, they do so in lower-prestige departments than men, on average. These findings suggest that gendered inequality in the tenure evaluation process contributes to the gender gap in tenure rates.

In recent years, biosorption process has become an economic and eco-friendly alternative treatment technology in the water and wastewater industry. In this light, a number of biosorbents were developed and are successfully employed for treating various pollutants including metals, dyes, phenols, fluoride, and pharmaceuticals in solutions (aqueous/oil). However, still there are few technical barriers in the biosorption process that impede its commercialization and thus to overcome these problems there has been a steadily growing interest in this research field. This resulted in large numbers of publications and patents each year. This review reports the state of the art in biosorption research. In this review, we provide a compendium of know-how in laboratory methodology, mathematical modeling of equilibrium and kinetics, identification of the biosorption mechanism. Various mathematical models of biosorption were discussed: the process in packed-bed column arrangement, as well as by suspended biomass. Particular attention was paid to patents in biosorption and pilot-scale systems. In addition, we provided future aspects in biosorption research.

The scientific community faces numerous challenges in achieving gender equality among its participants. One method of highlighting the contributions made by female scientists is through their selection as featured speakers in symposia held at the conferences of professional societies. Because they are specially invited, symposia speakers obtain a prestigious platform from which to display their scientific research, which can elevate the recognition of female scientists. We investigated the number of female symposium speakers in two professional societies (the Society of Conservation Biology (SCB) from 1999 to 2015, and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH) from 2005 to 2015), in relation to the number of female symposium organizers. Overall, we found that 36.4% of symposia organizers and 31.7% of symposia speakers were women at the Society of Conservation Biology conferences, while 19.1% of organizers and 28% of speakers were women at the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists conferences. For each additional female organizer at the SCB and ASIH conferences, there was an average increase of 95% and 70% female speakers, respectively. As such, we found a significant positive relationship between the number of women organizing a symposium and the number of women speaking in that symposium. We did not, however, find a significant increase in the number of women speakers or organizers per symposium over time at either conference, suggesting a need for revitalized efforts to diversify our scientific societies. To further those ends, we suggest facilitating gender equality in professional societies by removing barriers to participation, including assisting with travel, making conferences child-friendly, and developing thorough, mandatory Codes of Conduct for all conferences.

Ethnographers spend a tremendous amount of time in the field, collecting all sorts of empirical material-but how do they turn their work into books or articles that people actually want to read? This concise, engaging guide will help academic writers at all levels to write better. Manyethnography textbooks focus more on the 'ethno' portion of our craft, and less on developing our 'graph' skills. Gullion fills that gap, helping ethnographers write compelling, authentic stories about their fieldwork. From putting the first few words on the page, to developing a plot line, to publishing, Writing Ethnography offers guidance for all stages of the writing process.

Basidiomycetes of the genus Hericium are among the most praised medicinal and edible mushrooms, which are known to produce secondary metabolites with the potential to treat neurodegenerative diseases. This activity has been attributed to the discovery of various terpenoids that can stimulate the production of nerve growth factor (NGF) or (as established more recently) brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in cell-based bioassays. The present study reports on the metabolite profiles of a Lion’s Mane mushroom (Hericium erinaceus) strain and a strain of the rare species, Hericium flagellum (synonym H. alpestre). While we observed highly similar metabolite profiles between the two strains that were examined, we isolated two previously undescribed metabolites, given the trivial names erinacines Z1 and Z2. Their chemical structures were elucidated by means of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and high resolution mass spectrometry. Along with six further, previously identified cyathane diterpenes, the novel erinacines were tested for neurotrophin inducing effects. We found that erinacines act on BDNF, which is a neurotrophic factor that has been reported recently by us to be induced by the corallocins, but as well on NGF expression, which is consistent with the literature.

We study the contribution of doctoral students to innovation at 2,300 American science and engineering departments from 1973 to 1998. Macroeconomic and policy shocks in source countries that differentially affect enrolments across fields and universities isolate exogenous variation in the supply of students. Both US and international students contribute significantly to the production of knowledge at scientific laboratories, and their contributions are statistically comparable, consistent with an optimising department. A theoretical model of scholarships helps us to infer the productivity effects of student quality. Visa restrictions limiting entry of high-quality students are found to be particularly costly for academic innovation.

Molybdenum (Mo) is an essential trace element in all kingdoms of life. Mo is bioavailable as the oxyanion molybdate and gains biological activity in eukaryotes when bound to molybdopterin, forming the molybdenum cofactor. The imbalance of molybdate homeostasis results in growth deficiencies or toxic symptoms within plants, fungi and animals. Recently, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) methods have emerged, monitoring cellular and subcellular molybdate distribution dynamics using a genetically encoded molybdate-specific FRET nanosensor, named MolyProbe. Here, we show that the MolyProbe system is a fast and reliable in vitro assay for quantitative molybdate determination. We added a Strep-TagII affinity tag to the MolyProbe protein for quick and easy purification. This MolyProbe is highly stable, resistant to freezing and can be stored for several weeks at 4 °C. Furthermore, the molybdate sensitivity of the assay peaked at low nM levels. Additionally, The MolyProbe was applied in vitro for quantitative molybdate determination in cell extracts of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the fungus Neurospora crassa and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Our results show the functionality of the Arabidopsis thaliana molybdate transporter MOT1.1 and indicate that FRET-based molybdate detection is an excellent tool for measuring bioavailable Mo.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify criteria for and definitions of disciplinarity, and how they differ between different types of literature. Design/methodology/approach – This synthesis is achieved through a purposive review of three types of literature: explicit conceptualizations of disciplinarity; narrative histories of disciplines; and operationalizations of disciplinarity. Findings – Each angle of discussing disciplinarity presents distinct criteria. However, there are a few common axes upon which conceptualizations, disciplinary narratives, and measurements revolve: communication, social features, topical coherence, and institutions. Originality/value – There is considerable ambiguity in the concept of a discipline. This is of particular concern in a heightened assessment culture, where decisions about funding and resource allocation are often discipline-dependent (or focussed exclusively on interdisciplinary endeavors). This work explores the varied nature of disciplinarity and, through synthesis of the literature, presents a framework of criteria that can be used to guide science policy makers, scientometricians, administrators, and others interested in defining, constructing, and evaluating disciplines.