In general, I have the belief that most ethics courses whether they be medical ethics or business ethics tend to be taught from too theoretical of a standpoint.  Scenarios are often defined to have black and white answers, and thus the students never actually deal with true moral dilemmas until they are actually on the job.  This is especially true for those who spend their lives in consulting and/or academia, with no real understanding of the pressures that actually happen in an operational environment.  Having gone through some particularly stressful board meetings, I was quite excited when I heard about a new PBS production that will attempt to showcase some of the moral complexity involved:

Everyday we hear about business people who gamble on ethics to meet business goals. The ongoing stream of scandals begs the question, “Why does this keep happening?” From an Emmy-winning team of producers, “In Search of the Good Corporate Citizen” weaves together expert panel discussions with personal accounts from real-life white-collar criminals and whistleblowers.

Unable to catch the show on the air, I contacted Light On Production to try and get a copy of the DVD. After several phone calls, Denny Swenson, the producer of the show sent me a *free* copy of their first show, “Hitting the Numbers”!

I think the show is quite well done, and the stories that they showed were truly remarkable. The show leveraged a small panel to discuss each story after they were presented.   The panel was moderated by Thomas Donaldson from the Wharton School of Business and was composed of:

• William W. George, the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic
• Ben Heineman, General Counsel of General Electric
• Donna C. Boehme, former chief compliance officer of BP

Given the show was filmed in 2008, one can reasonably assume that Boehme did not lose her job over the oil scandal.  However, just from the body language of the panelists, it was quite obvious that they were quite dismissive of the idea of having a chief compliance officer and frankly I am as well.  Perhaps such a role is indeed necessary in many large institutions, but it was not clear from the panel discussions how a CCO as described by Boehme would have in anyway contributed to ethical behaviors in an organization.  What was truly disappointing with this panel was that they never really acknowledged how much pressure there was in middle management and how sometimes the decisions are actually not that black and white.  Even with Donaldson offering up truly gray and realistic scenarios, the panel always converged on black and white solutions.  I would assume that the panelists themselves were at least somewhat worried about their professional image if they had mention doubts.  Perhaps true ethical discussions involving business executive can never happen in front of a camera?

College campuses are increasingly turning into hubs for the spread of STDs as college students take on an increasing number of sexual partners. On average, college students now have around 3 sexual partners a year (Martens et al).

It turns out that male students in general would like to be much more promiscuous than their female counterparts. Undergraduate men expressed a desire for a significantly greater mean number of sex partners than did undergraduate women, over a 1-year period, women, on average, were interested in a single sex partner, whereas the average man expressed a desire for about seven partners (Fenigstein et al, 2007). This result did not change in a statistically significant way for those in serious relationships. What was particularly surprising to me is that males are actually successful in being more promiscious, even among the supposedly more conservative asian subgroup (Arliss 2008). As one can observe from the graph below, males have a much higher percentage of being sexually active with more than 3 partners than females.

The implications above are particularly disturbing for the spread of Human papillomavirus (HPV) infections. HPV is mostly harmless in men but might develop into cervical cancer in women. HPV is estimated to be the most commonly transmitted STD. A recent paper from Sexually Transmitted Disease: Influence of Partner’s Infection Status on Prevalent Human Papillomavirus Among Persons With a New Sex Partner included some extremely surprising statistics.

Women attending university or college in Montreal, Canada, and their male partners (N = 263 couples) were enrolled in 2005–2008. HPV was detected in 56% of women and men. 44% have a type that can lead to cancer. New relationships are when HPV transmission is most likely.

The overall prevalence rate of HPV in the US has never been firmly established, with rates ranging from 14% to 90% being published in peer-reviewed literature (Dunne et al, Revzina et al). Studies however, agree on the trend that a much higher incident rate of HPV is being reported on college campuses than in the general public.

The highest prevalence of HPV was identified among women attending sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinics and college students, identifying them as target populations for prevention interventions. Conversely, the lowest HPV prevalence was among women in the general population. …

With the recently released and much publicized HPV vaccine, many women might be lulled into a false sense of security. For one, the vaccine is only mildly effective on a few strains of the HPV virus, and only particularly effective PRIOR to exposure to the virus (Sawaya et al, 2007).

With grade 2 or 3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or adenocarcinoma in situ as the outcome, the difference in risk so far appears to be modest: 219 of 6087 vaccinated women (3.6%) received this diagnosis over an average of 3 years, as compared with 266 of 6080 unvaccinated women (4.4%). The absolute risk difference of 0.8% indicates that 129 women would need to be vaccinated in order to prevent one case of grade 2 or 3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or adenocarcinoma in situ occurring during this period. If grade 3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or adenocarcinoma in situ were the most relevant outcome, evidence was insufficient to infer the effectiveness of vaccination.

This does not mean that girls should not be given the HPV vaccine, rather that they should still be careful (condoms) and should still have regular screenings, even when vaccinated.

The Human Genome project was completed at the start of the last decade, and only in the last two years have we really begun to reap the fruits of the immense undertaking. I talk about some of commercial players and legal issues surrounding the wide spread adoption of personal genomic technology in medicine at the First AMA-IEEE Conference on Individualized Healthcare blog.

Incidentally, I’m also on the organizing committee for the conference mentioned above. Consider attending the conference if you are interested in Individualized Healthcare!

First AMA-IEEE EMBS Medical Technology Conference on Individualized Health Care
23-23 March 2010, Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC

In the interest of anti-stealth, I’m going to publicly announce one of the for profit ventures that I am currently working on. Incidentally, what exactly happened to the NextNY anti-stealth movement? There was a lot of activity at the end of October, and then the whole movement seemingly collapsed.

Anyway, a friend and I have started exploring the idea of a new campus based venture. Many of you who are students are probably familiar with the few awkward minutes that you spend every few hours in an elevator traveling to and from class. While you are in the elevator, wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice LCD displaying current campus events that might be of interest to you, or perhaps an ad telling you about the discounted food at Chipotle down the block this week?

Our idea is exactly that, we would like to create a network of LCDs in campus elevators that would stream both campus events as well as advertisements. A well established player, Captivate Network, currently does this in the office building market. We would like to stay away from office buildings at the moment, and focus purely on college campuses (Facebook vs LinkedIn analogy?).

Since both of us are current Columbia students, in fact both BME PhD students, we have decided to use Columbia University as a pilot site. I haven’t had time to put together a powerpoint presentation yet, but I will definitely post it in the next few days. For now we are tackling several thorny issues:

• Is it even possible to do it in NY? We are currently checking the New York Fire Code. Safety code for elevators and escalators : an American national standard by the American Society for Mechanical Engineers will be our guide. Looks like I won’t need sleeping pills tonight.
• We have done some back of the envelope calculations to see whether the idea is sustainable and scalable. If we intend to get more funding, we will have to produce a full financial projection. The projection itself is of course of no great importance to either investors or us, since reality almost always deviate significantly from the projections. Though it’s important to have one anyway, if nothing else than to show that due diligence was performed.
• To start campus based businesses that depend so much on campus infrastructure, we are clearly going to need a faculty champion. We have started approaching various members of the engineering faculty, the business school faculty, as well as Columbia’s Science and Technology Ventures group to begin soliciting feedback and buy-ins. We’ve had a lot of success getting people excited about the concept, but haven’t found a champion of the project yet. If you know of a Columbia faculty who might be interested, please let me know!
• I will also begin to approach NYU and CCNY about the idea as well, in case Columbia falls through as a pilot site.
• We will clearly need a powerpoint presentation down the line. I’ll put up version 1.0 of the presentation in a few days.

Since we are still very early in our planning stages, we are open to all suggestions and ideas. Let me know if any of you have any feedback or have seen existing implementations on college campuses! If you happen to be a college student / faculty, and are interested in joining our team, shoot me an email: mail @ jackpo dot org.

I really really hate math.. I don’t know if I’ve told this to anyone.

I HATE MATHEMATICS.

That is all. (Emo post of the month).

So once again I’ve vanished (even though I said I wouldn’t). Here is something amusing just to break the ice again. A few months ago I was leaving Columbia University’s iron gates when security handed me this flyer.

Larceny – Crime Prevention Tips

• Take extreme care of your personal property (e.g., backpacks, laptops, wallets, purses, etc.) while shopping and dining. Keep property in sight, and never leave it unattended, not even for a minute.
• Beware of any individual who attempts to distract you (e.g. asks you a simple question) because s/he or an accomplice may be looking to take your property.
• Don’t carry your purse loosely around your shoulder. Clutch it tightly under your arm or, better yet, avoid carrying a purse and keep a wallet (containing only items you need) in your pocket instead.
• Never leave valuable items unsecured at your work location. Secure them and immediately report any suspicious persons wandering about at your work place.
• The best and really the only way to prevent larcenies from motor vehicles is never to leave valuables in your car unattended (.e.g., electronic goods such as cellular phones, laptops computers as well as credit/debit cards).
• In addition to cash, thieves desire credit cards. Carry only credit/debit cards that you frequently use and properly safeguard them.

Now isn’t this advice just a bit extreme? Interestingly, the same advice was given to me when I was in Barcelona. In fact, every single time I asked for directions, the locals would always begin by warning me how dangerous parts of the city could be. Is crime really that rampant internationally?!

Amherst College has once again demonstrated why they are one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. Without external pressure or a committed donor, Amherst, a need-blind institution, have decided to do away with all financial aid and instead award scholarships only.

It’s quite unfortunate to have institutions like my alma maters Hopkins and Columbia getting literally billions in alumni donations and still can’t offer something so profoundly important.

Dear Amherst College Alumnus or Alumna:

I write to let you know about an important new change to Amherst’s financial aid practices. Acting on the advice of faculty committees, the Board of Trustees has decided that beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, Amherst College will replace all loans with scholarships in its financial aid packages. This should be especially helpful to students from middle-income families, who too often have had to take on significant debt in order to ensure access to an outstanding education, and who too often graduate feeling that their career choices are constrained by that debt. With this change of policy, Amherst is ensuring that we can attract the most talented students, regardless of their economic standing, while providing further, proactive leadership to higher education in this important area.

This new policy—one in place at only two other colleges and universities nationally—builds on Amherst’s longstanding leadership around accessibility and scholarship. Seven years ago, Amherst demonstrated its commitment to being a leader in making education more accessible to low-income students by eliminating loans for students from families with incomes of less than $40,000 a year. A few years ago, we expanded this policy to include families whose incomes were below $60,000 a year. The new initiative that will be implemented next year significantly broadens our commitment by eliminating loans for all families. Once implemented, this new policy will affect not only incoming students in the Class of 2012, but also current Amherst students.

Let me be clear about what this new policy will mean. Because Amherst is need-blind, every student admitted to the College receives financial aid that meets the student’s full financial need. Currently, middle-income students take on federal or college loans as part of financial aid packages that also include scholarships, grants and job opportunities. Beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, the loan component of this financial aid package will be replaced with scholarships; no Amherst student will be required to take out loans in order to come to Amherst. (We know that many families will still choose to take some private loans to cover their expected payment.)

This is a significant new financial commitment for Amherst. But, as our Board of Trustees chair, Jide Zeitlin ’85, noted in a news release about this program, for almost two centuries Amherst’s alumni, parents and friends have consistently demonstrated a commitment to supporting Amherst when it has taken steps to broaden access to the college by the most talented students from across the nation and the world. We believe that this new program, designed to eliminate barriers for middle-income families and allow an even greater number of students to graduate from Amherst without debt, will inspire new levels of commitment from those who know the College best. We hope, too, that our actions will encourage other institutions to take similar steps to open their doors to talented young people, regardless of circumstance.

With best wishes and thanks for all you do for Amherst,

Anthony W. Marx

Once again, ARML has come and gone. This year marks the 10th consecutive ARML that I’ve attended. It was really fun seeing old timers and meeting so many great kids for the first time. I even met a few really cool kids from Dalton and Horrace Mann! Of course, then there’s the usual suspects from Stuyvesant and Hunter… but we all know those schools suck

NYC Math Team did very well this year, and placed third nationally. Taoran Chen from NYC Math team even took top honors at ARML, and placed first individually!

I of course, will always have a soft spot for Baltimore’s team, which once again improved significantly in its rankings under Raymond Cheong. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if Baltimore wins it all within the decade .

Florida also did very well, and I’m really happy to see Chenyu Lin kicking ass at ARML after all the work he’s put in!

Incidentally, I had written an earlier post about ARML’s financials being questionable. This year, ARML actually disclosed fairly detailed financial information to all the coaches and asked for approval. Personally, I still don’t think ARML is running as financially lean as it could (and some of its expenses are kind of odd), but I really appreciate its new efforts in increasing transparency. Given what I do, It’s probably true that I expect organizations to run much tighter ships than normal.

I’ve actually been thinking about making this year the last ARML that I attend, and quitting all math competition related endeavors by next year. This year’s ARML is definitely making my decision much harder….

Straight from Jim Zhuang @ Google China comes one of the more hilarious education fraud stories that has come across my IM window.

IMPOSTER CAUGHT

High school graduate pretends to be a Stanford student, even living in the dorms, buying textbooks and ‘studying’ for exams

Azia Kim was like any other Stanford freshman. She graduated from one of California’s most competitive high schools last June, moved into the dorms during New Student Orientation, talked about upcoming tests and spent her free time with friends.

Azia Kim allegedly climbed through this first-floor window in Okada to sleep during spring quarter. The 18-year-old was evicted after her ruse was uncovered Monday night.

The only problem is that Azia Kim was never a Stanford student.

Kim, an 18-year-old from Orange County who graduated from Fullerton’s Troy High School, lived in Kimball throughout fall and winter quarter. She lived in Okada, the Asian-American theme dorm, until Monday night, when University staff finally caught onto her ruse.

…

I always knew that this was possible, given how lax security is on college campuses. I just didn’t think someone would actually carry this through! Now let’s hope Stanford doesn’t over-react in its response.

I am a big proponent of colleges having “open classrooms”. By that I mean, anyone who wants to attend class, whether a student or not, should be allow to attend. The students are really paying for the diploma anyway. Afterall, colleges are suppose to spread knowledge and produce our next generation of leaders, why not let those who want to learn.. learn?

Unfortunately, Azia Kim went overboard when she decided to move into University Housing. Her “roommate” is actually pretty cute:

But seriously, how do you not know something is amiss.. when she’s going through windows every day.

Still, Kim had neither a Stanford ID nor a key, forcing her to sneak into meals and enter her room through its window, which overlooked the Munger construction pit, the Wilbur parking lot and a dumpster, three feet off the ground. Zhou never noticed, as she spent nearly all her nights in her boyfriend’s room.

The Stanford Daily later posted another article poking fun at the situation. There’s some prized quotes in this one as well.

Dear Ms. Azia Kim . . .

I tip my hat to you. Many of us actual Stanford students read your story in awed delight yesterday, but I for one saw through the carefully orchestrated deceit to the underlying genius of your plan. You are an American heroine for managing to pull a fast one on so many of us who considered ourselves the best and the brightest. Turning lemons into lemonade — or rather, I should say, a free college education — is no easy feat, but you, Ms. Azia Kim are a mastermind, deserving to be ranked up there with Frank Abagnale and D.B. Cooper as one of the greatest con artists of the 20th century.

…

The only drawbacks to your plan were the potential ramifications for your roommate from Okada — her parents just found out that their daughter was sleeping with her boyfriend so much that she practically wasn’t even in the room they were paying for. Oy. I know my parents would kill me. I can’t even imagine what hers will do to her.

…

That . is . just . priceless .

UPDATE: Since someone asked, here‘s the PDF copy of “Dear Ms. Azia Kim” from Google Cache, since the actual article got taken down.

UPDATE 2: It seems like the Stanford Daily didn’t completely take down Dear. Ms. Azia Kim, but rather updated the article with the new title “Dear Ms. Kim“

One especially poignant hero was professor Liviu Librescu. He barricaded the door to buy time for his students to escape, then threw himself in front of the gunman when the attacker finally got through. Nearly all of his students survived…

Holocaust survivor saved students’ lives

By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer

Romanian-born Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mathematics professor at Virginia Tech, who was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre, is seen in this reproduction of an image taken in Bucharest, Romania, in the year 2000, when he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa title by the Romanian Polytechnic University, where Librescu graduated in mechanics and aviation construction in 1953. Librescu, was born in the southern Romanian city of Ploiesti, emigrated to Israel in 1978 and later moved to the United States, and received U.S. citizenship.

The e-mails from grateful students arrived soon after Liviu Librescu was shot to death, telling how the Holocaust survivor barricaded the doorway of his Virginia Tech classroom and saved their lives at the cost of his own.

Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who survived the Nazi killings and later escaped from Communist Romania, was one of several foreign victims of Monday’s shootings, which coincided with Israel’s Holocaust remembrance day.

…