PARENT SESSIONSaturday Afternoon Short Courses
- 18. Tips, Tricks, and Strategies for Superior Platform and Poster Presentations.
Saturday, 16 November 2002
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Off-site
Ever wonder why some posters are so crowded with readers that you have to stand in line for a chance to talk to the author, while other posters down the row go unread? Do you sometimes struggle to follow one oral presentation and find that the next sparks insights, interest, and questions? Sometimes issues such as these have much more to do with effective scientific communication than scientific content. In this short course we will discuss the principles and strategies that will help scientists develop presentations that successfully convey the content and importance of their work instead of hindering that communication. Good scientific communication skills are necessary to present your information to the community. and to get feedback from other experts. Additionally, scientific communication skills can help people get promotions, good grades, and choice assignments, as well as help them network in the professional community. This short course will teach participants the basics of preparing a solid presentation and will allow more experienced persons to hone their current skills and learn more advanced techniques. Course instructors will, specifically, introduce the participants to the reasons why good presentation skills are necessary for success, discuss the importance and advantages of poster presentations, offer explicit, concrete guidance on creating effective posters, introduce advanced features of commonly-used spreadsheet and presentation software, demonstrate subtleties that can transform an average figure into a superior slide that is easy to see and understand, and will discuss optimum organization of presented material, introduce techniques for delivering first-class platform presentations. A practical session will give course participants an opportunity to apply their new skills to critique and improve a variety of sample posters and presentations.
Course participants will gain an expanded appreciation of the importance of presentation skills and will learn how to improve their own presentations. Participants will understand the basics of presentation software - and what the software is and is not capable of doing. In addition, the participants will learn how to organize a talk or seminar and how to deal with the stresses of the actual presentation. Course participants will also come to understand the mechanics that make posters clear and informative - and how to enhance their presentation. Finally, course participants will learn the skills necessary to critically evaluate poster and platform presentations. Note: This class will be held off-site. Participants will be transported from the Convention Center 30 minutes prior to the class. Transportation will be provided by SETAC. Look for a sign at Registration.
Level of difficulty: Introductory to Intermediate
Attendance limit: 30
Instructors:
Mimi Meredith, Wordsmiths Unlimited
Paige Leitman, ARCADIS G&M
Daniel J. Karen, CH2M Hill
Ryan Casey, Towson University
19. Ecological Risk Assessment for Arid Ecosystems.
Saturday, 16 November 2002
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Room 151 C
Arid and semiarid environments comprise almost one third of the earth's land surface and most of the western and southwestern United States. Ecological risk assessment will be an important process for evaluating contaminant impacts in such environments. Given the potentially vast scope of assessment work entailed, it is imperative that dry-land ERA’s be ecologically applicable and technically defensible. While ERA is a rapidly emerging field receiving much attention, some ERA tools developed for moist climates may not be appropriate for assessing risk in arid environments. Examples include the types of toxicity bioassays and bioaccumulation models typically employed in assessments at mesic sites. At extremely dry sites biological transport processes can dwarf water transport. This half-day offering provides an overview of the tools and challenges for performing ERA in arid and semiarid ecosystems and illustrates the overview with examples. By covering the common ERA considerations for any environment, this course is designed for an introductory to intermediate risk assessor level. Guidance on assessing arid ecosystems will benefit more experienced practitioners as well.
Level of difficulty: Introductory to Intermediate
Attendance limit: 40
Instructors:
Jim Markwiese, Neptune and Company, Inc.
Randy Ryti, Neptune and Company, Inc.
Bruce Hope, Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality
20. Soil Ecotoxicology: Chemical, Molecular, and Biological Techniques to Assess Bioavailability.
Saturday, 16 November 2002
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Room 250 A
This short course will explain chemical, molecular, and biological techniques to assess contaminant bioavailability in soil. The use of sequential extraction techniques to assess chemical availability of heavy metals will be explained and their appropriate use discussed. In combination with this approach, genetically engineered microorganisms that produce colorimetric or fluormetric compounds in proportion to contaminants serve as molecular reporters of microbial bioavailability in soil extracts. Rather than assess chemical availability, biomimetic devices which clone human receptors such as aryl-hydrocarbon and estrogen into yeast cells allow one to assess toxicological activity present in the soil. The exposure of humans to contaminants via ingestion can be assessed using simulated gastrointestinal systems to predict the release of contaminants present in ingested soil as it undergoes the digestive process. Instructors will specifically discuss heavy metal extraction from soil, lux fusion bioreporters, the yeast human estrogen receptor assay, the arylhydrocarbon assay and the use of a Simulated Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem (SHIME) to assess PAH bioavailability. The techniques will be explained not only at the theoretical level but also the technical level with Standard Operating Protocols provided to attendees. These techniques are advanced state of the art approaches and attendees should already have an understanding of soil ecotoxicology and bioavailability.
Level of difficulty: Intermediate to Advanced
Attendance limit: 50
Instructors:
Steven Douglas Siciliano, Ghent University
Nicholas Thomas Basta, Oklahoma State University
Tom Van deWiele, Ghent Unversity
Anthony Hay, Cornell University
21. Use of SPC and DOE in Environmental Toxicology.
Saturday, 16 November 2002
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Room 250 B
Bioassays are widely used in environmental toxicology. Since living organisms are employed, there is usually increased variability in the testing system compared to systems that do not involve living organisms. The ultimate result of the potentially large variability in bioassays is that the ability to detect toxicity is compromised. In the past years, a lot of efforts have been made to obtain and interpret the results of bioassays, and not enough attention has been paid to improving the consistency of the bioassays. Since the performance of a bioassay can be affected by several operating factors, among which interactions may be present, effectively optimize consistency as well as other aspects of the performance of a bioassay requires careful study. This course focuses on Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Design of Experiments (DOE), two useful statistical tools in both laboratory research and industrial production. SPC helps identify the sources of and subsequently reduce the variability in a system and DEO can be used to efficiently optimize the operations of a system. Although this course is initiated by limitations of bioassays, the extension of the concepts and methods of SPC and DOE to other areas of environmental toxicology is direct.
Level of difficulty: Introductory
Attendance limit: 50
Instructors:
Mary G. Leitnaker, University of Tennessee
Ms. Catherine L. Cheng, Eli Lilly and Company
Shijin Ren, University of Tennessee