The Case for Improving U.S. Computer Science Education

Despite the growing use of computers and software in every facet of our economy, not until recently has computer science education begun to gain traction in American school systems. The current focus on improving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the U.S. school system has disregarded differences within STEM fields. Indeed, the most important STEM field for a modern economy is not only one that is not represented by its own initial in "STEM" but also the field with the fewest number of high school students taking its classes and by far has the most room for improvement—computer science

Patterns of Written Response to Literature of Average Fifth Grade Readers

The purpose of this study was to analyze individual and group patterns in written responses to literature. The subjects for this study were six fifth-graders of average reading ability. The subjects attended a suburban public school which was structurally designed on an open plan model. Each day in class, the subjects read two novels, The Black Pearl, and The Moldanado Miracle. The children composed written responses in their personal reading logs to what they read the previous night. The teacher wrote back to the children in their reading logs on a daily basis. Individual student responses were then categorized into areas of response (see Tables 1-7) to establish individual response patterns. Group (all six children) patterns were determined by compiling the individuals categorized responses. Samples of typical responses in each response category for each individual student were also recorded. Two categories of response, Interpretive and Personal, received the greatest number of responses from all six subjects. The high number of responses in each of these two categories may be a result of the question used to prompt the children\u27s written responses ( How did you feel about what you read last night? ). The other five categories of responses (Literary Judgment, Narrational, Personal Associational, Prescriptive, and Miscellaneous) showed no continuity for all six students. There was variety among students regarding the latter five categories. Perhaps the variety in these response categories among individuals refers to the fact that reading is a very highly personal interaction between reader and text

Aboriginal Health Consumers Experiences of an Aboriginal Health Curriculum Framework

Introduction In settler colonised countries medical education is situated in colonist informed health systems. This form of colonisation is characterised by overt racism and contributes to the significant health inequities experienced by Indigenous peoples. Not surprisingly, medical accreditation bodies in these countries have mandated the curriculum include content relating to Indigenous peoples. However, what is absent is the Indigenous health consumer worldview of health care and their nuanced lived experience of the delivery of medical care. Methods Yarning methods, integral to Aboriginal peoples’ ways of understanding and learning, were utilised. A Yarning guide was constructed with Social Yarn and Research Topic Yarn questions to understand Aboriginal health consumer experiences of the five learning domains within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Curriculum Framework. Data were analysed using Framework Analysis. Results Seventeen Aboriginal adults from urban and rural areas participated in the Yarns during 2018 and 2019. Coding and mapping data identified medical practitioner enacting practices that either perpetuated racism and the settler colonial ideology or facilitated anti-racist health care. Unwanted care included three racism themes described as the practitioner perpetuating and being unresponsive to racism; assimilation and an inability to consider impacts of settler colonialism. Desired care included four anti-racist themes expressed as responsiveness to racism and settler colonialism; advocating within the settler colonial health system; engaging with diversity of Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing and lifelong learning and reflection. Conclusion Medical practitioners are promoting ill health through racist practices with Aboriginal health consumers. Aboriginal people’s experiences of racism via continued settler colonial processes and anti-racism in the Australian health system, are critical to meaningful curricula. However, there is a risk for tokenism if the academy continues its coloniality by privileging the biomedical model of illness and health over other models of health

Intersectionality Based Policy Analysis of How Racism is Framed in Medical Education Policies Guiding Aboriginal Health Curriculum

Introduction: Racism has a profound impact on health inequities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Australian medical schools are required to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health curriculum in their medical courses and policies have been developed to support this work. Methods: The research question was: how is racism framed in medical education policies guiding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health curriculum for entry-level medical courses? Applying an Indigenous Research Paradigm and Intersectionality Based Policy Analysis, three key policies were analysed: Australian Medical Council (AMC) Standards for Assessment and Accreditation of Primary Medical programs; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Curriculum Framework (ATSIHCF); Committee of Deans of Australasian Medical Schools Indigenous Health Curriculum Framework (CDAMS). Results: The AMC standards did not refer to racism, while CDAMS and ATSICF supported the notion that teaching students about racism would lead to reduced racism or increased anti-racism in healthcare practice. However, both policies’ learning objectives lacked inclusion of critical reflection required to inform responsive action to racism. As the CDAMS and ATSIHCF were not mandated, there is little accountability for medical schools to implement either of the curriculum policies. Conclusion: Realising the goal of medical practitioners who understand racism and practice anti-racism requires a multi-layered approach. This involves evidence-based teaching about racism and anti-racism, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in curriculum development, inclusion of racism and anti-racism in medical school accreditation standards, and development of student critical reflection skills. Importantly, education and health institutions need to value and model anti-racism

Prions to Pathways: Safeguarding Against Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in the Operating Room

Introduction: As defined by the Center for Disease Control (CDC, 2018), Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) is a rapidly progressive, rare, transmissible, and fatal illness. Miscoiling of healthy proteins caused by an abnormal isoform of cellular glycoprotein resulting in protein folding has been found to be the molecular mechanism during the pathological process of this malady (Figure 1), (Castle, Gill, 2017). The current problem is that few recommendations are available for organizations to consider how to manage potential CJD patient cases, and institutions are left to compile and develop their own guidelines and/or protocols for clinical practice. The standards of care for this rare disease in healthcare are evolving quickly and are often forged from experiences (Thomas et. al. , 2013). This poster displays a quality improvement project and synthetizes the process and experiences of how one organization transformed and optimized CJD prevention strategies. A pathway was developed that enhances patient identification, promotes multidirectional coordination, utilizes communication tools, and supports interprofessional debriefings, resulting in harmonized CJD patient care

Art and Design as Agent for Change

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Adams, J. (2018). Art and Design as Agent of Change. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 37(4), 558–559, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12215. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-ArchivingEditorial for a special conference issue of the journal. The iJADE conference in November 2017 took place in the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin. The conference theme chosen was ‘Art and design as agent for change’, since social justice has become a growing focus for many educators and practitioners in the visual arts, and the idea of art and design education having agency in the process of social chance has gained traction. All of the papers in this issue are written by delegates from the conference who, by popular demand, were invited to write up their presentations for publication in the journal

Toward automated evaluation of interactive segmentation

We previously described a system for evaluating interactive segmentation by means of user experiments (McGuinness and O’Connor, 2010). This method, while effective, is time-consuming and labor-intensive. This paper aims to make evaluation more practicable by investigating if it is feasible to automate user interactions. To this end, we propose a general algorithm for driving the segmentation that uses the ground truth and current segmentation error to automatically simulate user interactions. We investigate four strategies for selecting which pixels will form the next interaction. The first of these is a simple, deterministic strategy; the remaining three strategies are probabilistic, and focus on more realistically approximating a real user. We evaluate four interactive segmentation algorithms using these strategies, and compare the results with our previous user experiment-based evaluation. The results show that automated evaluation is both feasible and useful

Show Me the Argument: Empirically Testing the Armchair Philosophy Picture

Many philosophers subscribe to the view that philosophy is a priori and in the business of discovering necessary truths from the armchair. This paper sets out to empirically test this picture. If this were the case, we would expect to see this reflected in philosophical practice. In particular, we would expect philosophers to advance mostly deductive, rather than inductive, arguments. The paper shows that the percentage of philosophy articles advancing deductive arguments is higher than those advancing inductive arguments, which is what we would expect from the vantage point of the armchair philosophy picture. The results also show, however, that the percentages of articles advancing deductive arguments and those advancing inductive arguments are converging over time and that the difference between inductive and deductive ratios is declining over time. This trend suggests that deductive arguments are gradually losing their status as the dominant form of argumentation in philosophy

Should Pharmacy Technicians Administer Immunizations?

Purpose. To describe the potential role for pharmacy technicians in administering immunizations – limited for this discussion to specifically inserting the needle into the patient’s arm and pressing down on the plunger – at the discretion of a supervising pharmacist as a way to enhance patient care and workflow efficiency. Summary. Pharmacy technicians currently play an important role in facilitating pharmacy-based immunization programs. Technicians routinely perform non-clinical tasks related to pharmacy-based immunizations, though nearly all states prohibit technicians from administering vaccines. Several studies demonstrate that untrained laypersons can safely administer intranasal or intradermal vaccines, and laypersons routinely administer medications through intramuscular or subcutaneous routes (e.g., patients with diabetes or rheumatic conditions). It stands to reason that a trained pharmacy technician could perform comparably on these techniques that laypersons have mastered. One state has adopted rules to allow pharmacy technicians to administer immunizations if the technician has completed specific training on administration techniques and on basic life support. This task is performed at the discretion of the supervising pharmacist, and the pharmacist would still be responsible for clinical aspects of immunizing such as prescribing the right vaccine to the right patient. Additional considerations factoring into the decision as to whether or not to involve pharmacy technicians in immunization administration are also summarized. Conclusion. If safety can be reasonably assured through training and supervision, it may be appropriate to delegate vaccine administration to appropriately trained pharmacy technicians. Such delegation may enhance workflow efficiency, which may confer added value for patient care and potentially improve access to community pharmacy-based immunizations.   Type: Commentar

Long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution and the incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in a national English cohort.

OBJECTIVES: The role of outdoor air pollution in the incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains unclear. We investigated this question using a large, nationally representative cohort based on primary care records linked to hospital admissions. METHODS: A cohort of 812 063 patients aged 40-89 years registered with 205 English general practices in 2002 without a COPD diagnosis was followed from 2003 to 2007. First COPD diagnoses recorded either by a general practitioner (GP) or on admission to hospital were identified. Annual average concentrations in 2002 for particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <10 µm (PM10) and <2.5 µm (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone and sulfur dioxide (SO2) at 1 km(2) resolution were estimated from emission-based dispersion models. Hazard ratios (HRs) per interquartile range change were estimated from Cox models adjusting for age, sex, smoking, body mass index and area-level deprivation. RESULTS: 16 034 participants (1.92%) received a COPD diagnosis from their GP and 2910 participants (0.35%) were admitted to hospital for COPD. After adjustment, HRs for GP recorded COPD and PM10, PM2.5 and NO2 were close to unity, positive for SO2 (HR=1.07 (95% CI 1.03 to 1.11) per 2.2 µg/m(3)) and negative for ozone (HR=0.94 (0.89 to 1.00) per 3 µg/m(3)). For admissions HRs for PM2.5 and NO2 remained positive (HRs=1.05 (0.98 to 1.13) and 1.06 (0.98 to 1.15) per 1.9 µg/m(3) and 10.7 µg/m(3), respectively). CONCLUSIONS: This large population-based cohort study found limited, inconclusive evidence for associations between air pollution and COPD incidence. Further work, utilising improved estimates of air pollution over time and enhanced socioeconomic indicators, is required to clarify the association between air pollution and COPD incidence