Common Complications of Sickle Cell Disease: A Simulation-Based Curriculum

Introduction: Sickle cell disease (SCD), the most common autosomal recessive genetic disorder worldwide, affects nearly every organ of the body and results in accelerated mortality. Nationally, internal medicine physicians lack a complete understanding of morbidity and mortality in this population leading to health care disparities. Methods: We created a 2-hour curriculum consisting of three SCD case vignettes representing common disease complications (acute stroke, acute chest syndrome, and septic shock) with the goal to increase medicine house staff knowledge and confidence in patient management. Residents completed a pretest to assess baseline knowledge and were divided into groups of four to five. Three simulation cases were completed by each group; learners needed to work through a differential diagnosis and describe key management steps. Each group was graded on achieving the 10 critical actions for each case. Following each case, there was a faculty-led debriefing session. Residents repeated the pretest 30 days after completion of the curriculum (posttest). RESULTS: Thirty-six second year internal medicine residents participated in this curriculum. After completing this curriculum, residents improved their test score from 33% (SD = 12%) to 57% (SD = 18%) (p \u3c .0001). Additionally, self-reported confidence in management scores increased from 2.6 (SD = 0.8) in the pretest to 3.5 (SD = 0.4) in the posttest (p = .02) on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not very confident, 5 = very confident). Discussion: Use of a simulation curriculum increased knowledge and confidence of internal medicine residents in the management of critical illness in patients with SCD

Afrika im Klimawandel

"Auf der Weltklimakonferenz vom 3. bis 14. Dezember 2007 in Bali wurde eine neue Etappe der internationalen Klimaverhandlungen eingeläutet. Die afrikanischen Länder werden von allen Verpflichtungen zur Reduzierung ausgeschlossen bleiben. Von den weiteren Verhandlungen erhoffen sie massive internationale Finanztransfers, um sich an die gravierenden Folgen des Klimawandels besser anpassen zu können. Wissenschaftler des UN-Weltklimarats (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC) sind sich einig: Kein Kontinent wird so stark vom Klimawandel betroffen sein wie Afrika - und sie fügen hinzu, 'dass der Kontinent besonders verletzlich (...) sein wird, weil die weit verbreitete Armut die Kapazitäten, sich an den Klimawandel anzupassen, erheblich einschränkt'(Hulme et al. 2001). Afrikas Interessen waren bei den globalen Klimaverhandlungen im Dezember 2007 in Bali kaum zu vernehmen. Die klimawissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse für Afrika finden erst allmählich die Aufmerksamkeit der politischen Entscheidungsträger und der Zivilgesellschaft. Jüngst räumten auch afrikanische Regierungschefs ein, dass die Folgen des Klimawandels verstärkt auf die nationale wie internationale Tagesordnung gehören - und auf Bali forderten sie einen hohen Anteil am Fonds zur Anpassung an den Klimawandel. Ein klimabezogener African Peer Review Mechanism ('Klima-APRM') könnte das Koordinationsinstrument für eine effektive, konsistente und länderübergreifende Klimaschutzpolitik sein." (Autorenreferat

Poverty in the elementary school. A current problem must not be ignored any longer

Immer mehr Kinder wachsen in Armut auf und kommen mit entsprechenden Erfahrungen in die Schule. Die Grundschule vereint Kinder aller Lebenslagen und wird sich diesem Problem stellen müssen. Eine explorative Befragung unter Grundschullehrerinnen zeigt auf, wie dieses Problem (nicht) wahrgenommen wird und welche Konsequenzen für Schule und Schulpädagogik gezogen werden sollten. (DIPF/Orig.)More and more children grow up in poverty and enter school with these experiences. Elementary schools admit children of all living conditions and they have to face and react to this problem. Questioning a small sample of elementary school teachers indicates that very often this problem is not perceived. Consequences for school and educational theory are discussed. (DIPF/Orig.

Bewegen, Aufzeichnen, Aufheben, Ausstellen: Archivprozesse der Aufführungskünste: Ein Arbeitsbuch

Das Feld der diskursiven und auch normativen Bestimmungen des Archivbegriffes ist in den letzten Jahren in Bewegung geraten. Das betrifft auch Fragen nach dem Zugang zu Geschichten der Aufführungskünste und die Praxis von Archivprozessen und Sammeltätigkeiten in künstlerischen und kuratorischen Kontexten. Dieses Arbeitsbuch fasst Ergebnisse des Forschungsprojekts „Verzeichnungen. Medien und konstitutive Ordnungen von Archivprozessen der Aufführungskünste“ zusammen. Es wurde zwischen 2012 und 2017, gefördert von der DFG, in Leipzig und Berlin durchgeführt. Enthält: Performance im Museum als Historisierung; Performance der Institution Museum; Performancekunst an der Schnittstelle von visueller und darstellender Kunst; Sammeln und Archivieren als Themen der Kunst; US-amerikanische Performancekunst; Performa New York; Rituals of Rented Island New York; Radical Presence/ Black Performance; Karneval und Performance; Performancekunst in/aus Osteuropa; Reenactment und Re-Staging; MUMOK Factory und Tanzquartier Wien; dispositive Konstellationen Museum und TheaterThe discursive and normative field of archivalities has considerably shifted in recent years. This shift also concerns questions of access to histories of performance-based arts as well as archival practices both in artistic and curatorial contexts. This workbook presents results of the research project “Records and Representations. Media and constitutive systems of archiving performance-based arts” conducted between 2012 and 2017 in Leipzig and Berlin with funding by DFG (German Research Foundation)

Assessing phonological awareness in kindergarten children: Issues of task comparability

Ten different phonological awareness tasks were administered to a group of kindergarten children whose reading ability was assessed 1 year later. The extraneous cognitive requirements inherent in the tasks varied widely. The children's performance on three tasks that involved a rhyming response was at ceiling, and these tasks did not correlate with subsequent reading progress. The other seven measures were all moderately related to later reading ability and, employed in sets, were very strong predictors. The relative predictive accuracy of the phonological tasks was equal to or better than more global measures of cognitive skills such as an intelligence test and a reading readiness test. The phonological tasks had a large amount of common variance. Factor analysis revealed only one factor on which all the nonrhyming phonological tasks loaded highly. The results bolster the construct validity of phonological awareness, indicate considerable comparability and interchangeability among the tasks used to measure the construct, and are encouraging as regards the possible use of such tasks in predictive test batteries.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/24679/1/0000098.pd

Quantifying range-wide variation in population trends from local abundance surveys and widespread opportunistic occurrence records

1. Species’ abundances vary in space and time. Describing these patterns is a cornerstone of macroecology. Moreover, trends in population size are an important criterion for the assessment of a species’ conservation status. Because abundance trends are not homogeneous in space, we need to quantify variation in abundance trends across the geographical range of a species. A basic difficulty exists in that data sets that cover large geographic areas rarely include population abundance data at high temporal resolution. Whilst both broad-scale geographic distribution data and site-specific population trend data are becoming more widely available, approaches are required which integrate these different types of data. 2. We present a hierarchical model that integrates observations from multiple sources to estimate spatio-temporal abundance trends. The model links annual population densities on a spatial grid to both long-term count data and to opportunistic occurrence records from a citizen science programme. Specific observation models for both data types explicitly account for differences in data structure and quality. 3. We test this novel method in a virtual study with simulated data and apply it to the estimation of abundance dynamics across the range of a butterfly species (Pyronia tithonus) in Great Britain between 1985 and 2004. The application to simulated and real data demonstrates how the hierarchical model structure accommodates various sources of uncertainty which occur at different stages of the link between observational data and the modelled abundance, thereby it accounts for these uncertainties in the inference of abundance variations. 4. We show that by using hierarchical observation models that integrate different types of commonly available data sources, we can improve the estimates of variation in species abundances across space and time. This will improve our ability to detect regional trends and can also enhance the empirical basis for understanding range dynamics