SUBJECT: Planning the 2018 ACSM abstracts
DATE: July 11, 2017.
Hi all,
Of almost no importance, I hope everyone's summer is going well. (I do hope that, sincerely, but who cares. I can hope it with all my might and it wouldn't change anything.)
Of much greater importance, it's time to begin work on ACSM projects. I realize the length of this announcement is going to be hard on your attention deficit disorder. I trust you can make it through anyway.
I'll outline the feasible 2018 projects below. In a minute. Pre-then, realize that I can't write everyone's abstracts for them. Remember: I work 12-16 hours/day, 365 days/year. On Christmas day, I might only work 10, but I make up for it on December 26th. So if you expect me to do yours for you, I promise that work won't get done. I'll definitely give you the resources for an ACSM presentation though. That's my role: resources.
Moving on: Congratulations to the authors of the last round of ACSM presentations. ResearchGate finally added the points today (it takes time for them to verify authorship/etc.).
Jessica Lopez (3.69 points): https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Lopez29
Alexis King (3.69 points): https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexis_King2
That's a lot. It's a lot of points. Go click around on ResearchGate and make some comparisons. You'll be surprised how far into the race you already are. That's important because life is competitive and your competition is really racing (refer to the bottom of Announcement 15). Yes, we have fun (photo evidence of fun), but at the same time, it's a gigantic CV enhancer. The purpose of the Pacific Paper Mill is to feed your CV until it's obese. And it starts here. Your future career will be very grateful for your current ACSM involvement.
For everyone else who presented (other than Jessica and Alexis), I'm sure you have a few points assigned too; you just haven't created an account yet. So those points are floating in the abyss. You should go claim them.
For those who haven't seen the list of last year's ACSM abstracts that were accepted, presented, and published, it's here: http://pacificpapermill.com/pastpublications.html
There were 8 of them. We had 8 groups present. Our little HES track had a huge presence, competing with the top-ranked R1 institutions.
So now, for the 2018 conference, we have to beat our 2017 team. It's doable. Michelle Amaral (Econ) and Bill Herrin (SIS) are teaming up with us this year. They're statistical wizards. The quality of our projects will be hugely enhanced and the collaboration will get us some more meat onto the presentation plate. Unless you're a vegan. Then it will get you a bigger hunk of tofurkey. With bones. Tofurkey with bones in it.
The deadline for submission: The national conference submissions are due the day before Halloween. 111 days and 11 hours to go. That seems like a long time from now. It isn't. Halloween is a long way away because it requires no work to accomplish Halloween's occurrence. ACSM submissions, on the other hand, take work. And that means the deadline is really soon.
Once you submit (October 30), you can forget all about it for a while. You find out who was accepted in February and then the actual conference is May 29 to June 2, 2018. So you submit in October and then start making your posters in April. (If you want me to look at your poster and help edit it, you have to send it to me at least 2 weeks before the print date. So May 11th. I need time; I'm a busy guy.)
Important note: Make sure you read the details about your specific project below. In some of them, I ask questions and give instructions. Remember: I work nearly 16 hours a day every day of the year. I don't have spare minutes that I can waste. So if I have to ask someone the same question 10 times in order to get an answer, that's not time out of my workday; that's time out of my sleep. Very little frustrates me more. So make sure you read about your project below, take note of any instructions, and get back to me if I asked something. If I ask something and don't hear back, I'll assume that's your way of saying you're not interested and we'll get that project assigned to someone else.
A second important note: For those who agree to go, you have to actually follow through. You can't submit and then decide you don't want to go after it's been accepted. Unless the explanation is death, of course. Among the living, ACSM has a ridiculously unforgiving history with absences. Lots of accounts of multiple-decade grudges over no-shows. People have been forever ostracized because they were lazy one week, or they had the sniffles. Yes, you can get a coauthor to present in your place. And ACSM will accept that outcome. But that means someone else doing your work for you while you get first authorship. And that makes you an asshole. Those people will never work with you again. (We had this exact thing happen last year. I removed that person from the Paper Mill website and none of us will ever work with that person again in any capacity.) So that option -- the substitute presenter option -- isn't good for your career either. What I'm saying is this: If we submit with you as first author, you have to actually attend. Or it's much worse for your career than not submitting at all. I hope that makes sense. That said, I do trust everyone in the "to" box with this. I'm just announcing it because it is a problem we encountered last year. And that person's research career was made (much) worse because of it.
Okay, moving on again. Here's the updated list of projects to be submitted:
1) Evelyn Delgado, some PEK people, Courtney D. Jensen. The effect of audience presence on Wingate power output.
Evelyn: we just spoke. It sounds like this will be the PEK project. You'll be first (presenting) author at ACSM (which will give you the most ResearchGate points). The project will also be submitted to NCUR though. Not as important. ACSM is a much bigger conference (which enhances your CV much more). The two posters will be a little bit different. We can't use the same printed copy for both, unfortunately. It's okay though. I can explain why that's a good thing in person.
Question: Who are the other authors? Full names (with middles). What will the order of authors be? You're first, I'm last. In the middle, who lives there?
What needs to be done between now and soon: Collect 10 more subjects (5 men, 5 women) and send me your database. I'll do your analyses. And then we'll talk about how to write it up in a meaningful way (I can send you some citations for similar content). As long as you get me the updated/complete database by Friday, September 29, we'll get it in. It just has to be before October. Once October 1 happens, the timing wouldn't be feasible. So get me the database before September ends and we'll be all set. Pre-then: the IRB needs to be taken care of. Pretty ASAP. If it hasn't already been approved, submit it this month. For information on doing so, scroll down to the bottom of this page: http://pacificpapermill.com/information.html.
And then we'll have a good project. We'll have a lot of fun and then you'll have a few scholarly points to get you started. Great for grad aps.
2) Angela Nuccio, Cali VanValkenburg ... Courtney D. Jensen. Kinesio Tape fails to affect skeletal muscle recruitment characteristics.
Questions. Angela: what's your middle name? Cali: what's your middle name? (I need to know this for the author list and I'd rather get everything in order now.)
I know the first draft had Angela D'Souza, Sam Jamosmos, and Cynthia Villalobos as coauthors. Cynthia: You'll be mainly focused on diabetes this round (and we may be able to get two abstracts out of that; you would obviously be an author on both, but only lead on one, since you can't present two at the same time).
More questions. Cynthia: Will you be involved in this project, too? Angela: What's the author list? Did Angela D'Souza and Sam Jamosmos contribute a great deal to the original (enough to merit honorary authorship in future drafts)? Somebody give me the final author list... in order. First author is the presenting author. Cali is second. Last is me. Who is in the middle? (And include their middle names.) Angela: if you don't want it (or don't think you can attend), Cali will be first and you'll be second.
3) Lariel J. Mateo, CFS people, J. Mark VanNess. The phenomenology of post-exertional malaise.
I have no idea about this paper, but Lariel and Mark have it dialed in. Good. Done.
4) Someone, Lariel J. Mateo, Michelle M. Amaral, Lewis E. Jacobson, Jonathan M. Saxe, Courtney D. Jensen. Obesity in the trauma patient delays hospital discharge and increases treatment cost.
Lariel is second author, as she's writing the full paper. Someone else is taking first authorship on the poster. We did this last year, but only half of the equation. We'll do a much more comprehensive version this year. Who will be our lead author? Jeremy: Would you want this one or are you sticking with chronotropic intolerance (VanNess's database)? Carlos? Would you want it? Only if your PT schedule permits. It'd be really fun to have you there. Who else? Lena? We need to get a research profile started for you. Gianna? Sarah? Kendall? Megan? Angie?
5) Francisco H. Guiao, Michelle M. Amaral, Lariel J. Mateo, Lewis E. Jacobson, Jonathan M. Saxe, Courtney D. Jensen. BMI by subjective physician identification is equivalent to BMI by objective height/weight measurement.
This is an interesting concept; it just needs work on impact. We have to sell it as an important outcome. That's what the lead author must do. Start reading papers on the subject and figure out why it's important. To get you started, about 18% of men and about 18% of women aren't accurately characterized by BMI calculations ("skinny fat" and "healthy obese"). Someone with more muscle ("healthy obese") is unlikely to be characterized by a doctor's subjective assessment as "obese." (Skinny fat will likely still escape detection.) Also, we don't always have data. In our database, all or nearly all patients have a subjective assessment while many fewer have objective scores (I'll quantify this later). The importance of this topic can be sold, but it's going to take work. Francisco: you're going to have to read a dozen papers to understand the importance of BMI and its detection... and why this matters. It's doable. But start the pursuing now.
6) Jeremy P. McConnell, CFS people, J. Mark VanNess. Chronotropic intolerance...
I know nothing about this. Can I assume everything is in place? The data are available and Jeremy, you're working on it?
7) Cynthia Villalobos, J. Mark VanNess, doctorwhoever, Courtney D. Jensen. Exercise and diabetes.
Questions. First: you don't have a middle name, do you? And then who is the MD to whom these patients belong? He's third author. Mark: you're second author. It might be a multivariate project. That's your space. Cynthia: we need to figure our your project soon. Within a couple weeks. You're around over the summer, right? Let's meet, chat, and plan. And then you can submit it to Pacific's IRB (retrospective analysis of a de-identified patient registry... should be a very quick turnaround, but let's get it done before the end of the summer). If there's a second poster we can do from this database, Cynthia, you'll be second author... and the first author would be... Sarah McDowell? Megan Darling? You all know each other from PEK, right? We'll figure this out when we start figuring out the analyses.
8) Ieoma C. Agwuenu, Cali VanValkenburg, Vincent Nittoli, Adam Shunk, Courtney D. Jensen. Concussion reporting: athletes vs. parents.
I know Cali is in. Question. Ify: are you in? We'll do this over email. I'll do the analyses soon. Whoever is first author will be the one who presents it. We might be able to get two papers out of the concussion stuff. I'll see what I can do. If so, Cali and Ify: you would just trade places (first and second author swapped) in the second abstract.
9) Brianna Tracy, William E. Herrin, UBOSperson, Courtney D. Jensen. The interaction between HIV and physical activity on health outcomes in Equatorial Africa.
UBOS data.
Questions: Which of the UBOS statisticians will be our collaborator? Norah? Grace? And what's your middle name?
We'll have to do the IRB (de-identified retrospective analysis; won't be a problem).
What I need. I need an Excel, SPSS, or Stata database to do your analyses. Your database and Lonnae's database are probably going to be the same thing. But don't give me a giant, sloppy database with every possible variable in it. I need a database that only has the variables we'll be using in it. (I'll do your analyses, but I don't have time to create the database that I'll be analyzing.)
10) Lonnae Hohman, William E. Herrin, UBOSperson, Courtney D. Jensen. Engagement in (and promotion of) physical activity is limited in Equatorial Africa.
Or something like this. Aim small. We just need an ACSM project. We can build on it later. No need to dream big here. Dream narrow, dream precise, and follow through. We can start with how much physical activity is actually done in Uganda and then suggest the creation of the Ugandan equivalent of ACSM. Ugandan College of Sports Medicine? Ugandan College of Health Sciences? Demonstrate a need for governmental guidelines for physical activity. Good enough for a first poster.
Questions. What's your middle name? Who will be the UBOS coauthor?
Needs. Same as above. I need a database to analyze.
11) Jessica M. Lopez, Michelle M. Amaral, Kathy L. Leslie, Lewis E. Jacobson, Jonathan M. Saxe, Courtney D. Jensen. Using the medication cabinet to predict risk of falls (and what you can do about it).
Jessica: Just write your thesis. Start putting time into that ASAP and this poster will come naturally. It's not likely to come at all (certainly not "naturally") if we wait until September to start though. If we wait until October, there's no chance we'll have one. So... that's the timeline. Earlier = more likely.
12) Someone, Michelle M. Amaral, Jessica M. Lopez, Kathy L. Leslie, Lewis E. Jacobson, Jonathan M. Saxe, Courtney D. Jensen. The financial cost of falls in the elderly.
Carlos? Gianna? Kendall? Lena? Angie? Megan? Sarah? Who would want this one? Michelle: is there a capable econ student who would be eager to do ACSM? Start merging our research at the student level?
13) Alexis King, J. Mark VanNess, Courtney D. Jensen. Thesis.
We'll come up with something here. And we'll make it good. If we can't, we'll do a trauma database thing. Or something.
14) Courtney D. Jensen, Michelle M. Amaral, Lewis E. Jacobson, Jonathan M. Saxe. Smoking Saves Lives.
I don't think this one will be accepted. It's a couple steps past provocative and in complete opposition to everything ACSM stands for. I'll submit it myself. Just for fun.
15) Thoren Bradley, Joey Rossi, Courtney Jensen, J. Mark VanNess. Athletics. Sparta. Lactate. Fatigue. Muscle Something.
Questions. Joey: What's your middle name? Joey: Can you get data and if so, what data? And Joey: Do you mind facilitating this? Thoren: I would (very highly) recommend going to ACSM and presenting athletic data, but that doesn't mean you have to. Are you interested and willing? Thoren: what's your middle name?
16) Somebody, J. Mark VanNess, Margaret E. Ciccolella. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing and the law: how does the legal system interpret functional capacity?
Who is taking this one? Peg and Mark have looked at this issue with regard mandatory retirements of police and firefighters as well as CFS: the malingerer/poorly conditioned person versus the metabolic inability to recover? This is a workable project that someone can take the lead on.
Okay, that's everything. Get back to me on the questions, start following any instructions, and try to make progress before the summer ends. If you don't start until late September, it's too late. You won't go.
-Courtney