Pen Pal Club: Handwriting and fine motor development

This Pen Pal Club targets K-2 students. The lesson plans provided aim to develop handwriting, letter formation, and fine motor skills to create confident and competent young writers who can excel in the classroom

Dr. Seuss Fine Motor Development Club

After school club that helps students develop fine motor skills by doing hands-on activities relating to Dr. Seuss\u27s most popular books

Assistierter Suizid : welche Rolle spielt die zunehmende Akzeptanz breiter Kreise?

Während sich die Rate der nicht assistierten Suizide deutlich nach unten bewegt, steigt die Zahl der assistierten Suizide steil an. Fördert die verbreitete positive Einstellung zu Letzteren die Suizidwünsche bei Kranken

Scientific visualisation of complex interdependencies in hospitals

The IFM is on a quest to find ways to manage the complexity of hospital processes from different perspectives. An interdisciplinary project was conducted using scientific visualisation to support this goal. The findings indicated that there is a lot more involved than simply devising methods to illustrate the multiple variable context and the hypothetical data situation

Plastic Perception: An Analysis on Single-Use Consumerism

Plastic has become essential to everyday use as the material is very costeffective and therefore used to create various single-use products. According to the Ocean Conservancy, the amount of ocean plastic in weight will outweigh fish by 2050. Concerns about plastic pollution have provided an incentive for people to buy reusable products, which has been encouraged by legislation banning certain single-use products from being freely distributed. Data indicates that massive quantities of singleuse plastic are simultaneously being produced and thrown away daily; however, there is little data that indicates whether reusable efforts have made a difference in slowing this process. Thus, the purpose of this study is to better understand: 1) whether people have measurably made a switch from using single-use items to reusable items; 2) whether levels of plastic pollution have changed following the implementation of plastic bans; and 3) whether knowledge about single-use products varies by a person’s geographic location, income, education, or other demographic factors. Methods will include conducting surveys with individuals in both inland and coastal communities in Los Angeles, California, as well as analyzing data from beach cleanups from local organizations. We anticipate the findings will help show whether these reusable measures are effective, and if so, whether that is consistent across locations and populations. This can provide useful information to municipalities and other local organizations working to reduce plastic pollution.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cures_posters/1026/thumbnail.jp

Efficacy of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in Tanzania after two years as first-line drug for uncomplicated malaria: assessment protocol and implication for treatment policy strategies.

BACKGROUND\ud \ud Systematic surveillance for resistant malaria shows high level of resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) across eastern and southern parts of Africa. This study assessed in vivo SP efficacy after two years of use as an interim first-line drug in Tanzania, and determined the rates of treatment failures obtained after 14 and 28 days of follow-up.\ud \ud METHODS\ud \ud The study was conducted in the Ipinda, Mlimba and Mkuranga health facilities in Tanzania. Children aged 6-59 months presenting with raised temperature associated exclusively with P. falciparum (1,000-100,000 parasites per microl) were treated with standard dose of SP. Treatment responses were classified according to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition as Adequate Clinical and Parasitological Response (ACPR), Early Treatment Failure (ETF), Late Clinical Failure (LCF) and Late Parasitological Failure (LPF) on day 14 and day 28.\ud \ud RESULTS\ud \ud Overall 196 (85.2%) of 230 patients had ACPR on day 14 but only 116 (50.9%) on day 28 (57.7% after excluding new infections by parasite genotyping). Altogether 21 (9.1%) and 13 (5.7%) of the 230 patients assessed up to day 14 and 39 (17.1%) and 55 (24.1%) of the 228 followed up to day 28 had clinical and parasitological failure, respectively.\ud \ud CONCLUSION\ud \ud These findings indicate that SP has low therapeutic value in Tanzania. The recommendation of changing first line treatment to artemether + lumefantrine combination therapy from early next year is, therefore, highly justified. These findings further stress that, for long half-life drugs such as SP, establishment of cut-off points for policy change in high transmission areas should consider both clinical and parasitological responses beyond day 14

U.S. Public Opinion of Reproductive Control Options for Free-roaming Horses on Western Public Lands

Free-roaming horses (Equus ferus caballus; horses) inhabit public rangelands located primarily in 10 western U.S. states. Recent horse population increases are impacting rangeland ecosystems, native wildlife species and their habitats, and exacerbating conflicts with domestic livestock grazing. While contraceptives and physical sterilization are promising options to manage horse herd levels, public opinion concerning the use of fertility control is not well understood. To better inform policymakers, we completed a rigorous study of a random sample of public land stakeholders across the United States (n = 3,500) in 2020 using a Likert scale online survey to assess their level of agreement with the general use of reproductive controls and their preferences regarding 4 available reproductive control options. We used chi-square likelihood ratio tests to determine the associations between the knowledge of horse origins in North America and horse management in the United States, and public support of contraception and sterilization methods to control horse populations. We also assessed the associations between survey responses and respondent demographics. Most respondents either “somewhat agreed” or “strongly agreed” with the use of contraceptives to control horse birth rates (36.6% and 26.9%, respectively) when no specific type of contraceptive was described. Respondents who believed horses were native to North America “strongly agreed” with the statement regarding the use of contraceptives less often (22.2%) than respondents who recognized that European explorers introduced horses (36.6%) or believed horses arrived by crossing a land bridge (35.8%); however, this association exhibited very low power to predict the response (λ \u3c 0.1). Similarly, while there were some associations indicated by chi-square analyses between demographic variables and support for contraceptives, these associations exhibited very low power to explain the responses. When asked to rank 4 generalized population control options, more respondents ranked physical sterilization as their preferred option (37.1%). There was an association between age and ranking order of sterilization. For ages 18–53, the range was 40.6–45.3%, significantly more than older ages, 54 to ≥73, where the range was 31.1–33.8%. Knowledge did not influence the preference for control options. Our results suggest that our respondents were more supportive of the use of contraceptives or sterilization, when described in generalities, to control the birth rates in free-roaming horses. Our research provides policymakers with objective, novel insights into public knowledge and perceptions concerning the population control of free-roaming horses on designated western rangelands. We encourage the federal, state, and tribal agencies charged with the management of free-roaming horses to develop and deliver outreach programs to better educate public land stakeholders about the ecological and economic impacts of free-roaming horses on western landscapes and efficacy of available population management options to mitigate impact and sustain herds

Nano dust impacts on spacecraft and boom antenna charging

High rate sampling detectors measuring the potential difference between the main body and boom antennas of interplanetary spacecraft have been shown to be efficient means to measure the voltage pulses induced by nano dust impacts on the spacecraft body itself (see Meyer-Vernet et al, Solar Phys. 256, 463 (2009)). However, rough estimates of the free charge liberated in post impact expanding plasma cloud indicate that the cloud's own internal electrostatic field is too weak to account for measured pulses as the ones from the TDS instrument on the STEREO spacecraft frequently exceeding 0.1 V/m. In this paper we argue that the detected pulses are not a direct measure of the potential structure of the plasma cloud, but are rather the consequence of a transitional interruption of the photoelectron return current towards the portion of the antenna located within the expanding cloud