The Development of Hypersensitivity Reactions in the Pediatric Population: A Review

Over the past several years, pediatric allergies have come to the forefront of many studies. Reports of immune-mediated hypersensitivity in younger patients have grown and led to an interest researching the causes of pediatric hypersensitivities. There are various risk factors that have been discussed that may lead to the development of allergies including genetic inheritance, genetic mutation, and environmental sensitization. It is important for all of these factors to be discussed in relation to the function of the immune system and its role in hypersensitivity reactions. If the causes of hypersensitivity reactions could be further studied and understood, treatments might be developed to reduce or eliminate these hypersensitivity reactions in younger pediatric populations. Much research has been done regarding the risk factors for pediatric hypersensitivity reactions and many recommendations have been made to combat this growing phenomenon. It is important to review the mechanisms of hypersensitivity reactions, the risk factors for developing them, and to research the incidences of pediatric hypersensitivity reactions and the recommended interventions for future diagnosis and treatment of hypersensitivity reactions in the pediatric population

Fostering Resiliency and Care: Integrating Self-Compassion Into a Graduate Course

Self-compassion, which involves mindful awareness of feelings and offering ourselves compassion, has been shown to support balancing emotions, overcoming challenges, and achieving goals. This action research study integrated self-compassion theory and practice in a graduate course in which students wrote their final comprehensive papers in sustainability education. This study found that self-compassion practice resulted in more self-awareness, more acceptance of difficult emotions, and more ability to handle stress. Additionally, students experienced more clarity and calm in the writing process and began to integrate self-compassion into their lives and work. This study points to the promise of self-compassion as a beneficial contemplative practice in academic settings, and also highlights the personal and relational benefits of mindful self-compassion practice

PREVENTING CHILDHOOD OBESITY WITH INCREASED EDUCATION ON RESPONSIVE FEEDING PRACTICES IN PARENTS OF NEWBORNS IN A COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER

This project sought to increase healthcare providers’ responsive feeding education to parents of newborns at a community health center in Southeast Kansas. An educational offering was held for participating providers who provided health services throughout infancy. The offering reviewed the projects’ methodology, instruments, and intervention to increase responsive feeding education. Parents of newborns who met the inclusion criteria and who presented for an initial newborn visit with their healthcare provider were invited to participate. Parents completed surveys prior to receiving education at the initial appointment and the a follow-up survey at the infant’s two-month well child appointment to analyze parental feeding style beliefs and behaviors. The project’s findings indicated that not all parents receive education on responsive feeding prior to their initial appointment despite current responsive feeding guidelines, and there was a high degree of mobility in the population. Future projects may seek to analyze feeding education in birthing centers and programs that incorporate care to newborns and infants. Healthcare providers’ current practice of educating parents on responsive feeding were low prior to implementing the project’s methodology which increased parental education on responsive feeding. The only significant change to pre and post parental feeding styles was an increase in restrictive and indulgent feeding behaviors at the two-month follow up. No significant change was found among the other styles. Higher beliefs of Laissez-Faire style were correlated to decreased weight gain in infants at their follow up compared to other feeding styles. No significant change was found at follow up with an already high agreement on responsive feeding style among parents. The project’s findings indicated that parents of newborns need more education on the importance of feeding styles throughout infancy. Findings further supported a need for more feeding education among healthcare professionals in direct positions providing education to parents of infants. Further research is needed to analyze providers’ knowledge of responsive feeding guidelines and the importance and significance that feeding practices play in the prevention of childhood obesity

Teaching Sustainability: Recommendations for Best Pedagogical Practices

Although sustainability has become a key focus in higher education, developing a better understanding of how sustainability competencies can be cultivated in college and university courses and programs is still needed. This article argues that learners who are to become capable of affecting holistic sustainable change, transforming values and culture, healing the earth and human communities, and designing creative solutions, must have the opportunity to engage in learning processes that reflect these learning outcomes. We outline key elements of sustainability pedagogy and suggest best pedagogical practices for designing engaging and holistic sustainability learning, and highlight these practices through a sustainability course offered at our institution

The Capstone Journey: Exploring Design, Delivery and Evaluation in an Undergraduate Management Discipline Context

The focus of this paper is the development of a capstone management course and the application of educational action research through continual learning. In this article, we use the continual learning frame of plan, do, study, and act to underpin an educational action research design on the development of a capstone management course. As part of an Active Learning Trial, the development of the capstone experience has been captured in the embodiment of that experience. Our aim is to guide other academics in developing their own capstone course, particularly, within management with extension into other disciplines. Through continual improvement, we stress the importance of integrating the primary voice of the students, to emphasize the active learning and to optimize a meaningful experience in connecting theory to practice – the key to the capstone experience. Examples of how to gain feedback and integrate classroom improvements are given. To do this we present two cycles where we applied and practiced continual learning and educational action research to understand and evoke improvements within the course. These changes are evidenced through aggregated student feedback

Energy Choices and Environmental Constraints

This paper acknowledges the fact that there is no such thing as a free lunch - energy used is waste made. The paper reviews the environmental problems associated with two distinct classes of emerging energy technologies—solar and synfuels. Although the recent push towards synfuels has raised serious environmental concerns, it will be shown that developing the clean solar technologies also will demand sound environmental management practices. While changes in technology-use projections based on environmental constraints are not developed in this paper, it will be seen that some impacts could be quite significant; and still others could very well be showstoppers . Finally, the Federal regulatory scene is reviewed to determine what steps are being taken to prevent environmental damage without unnecessarily constraining, development of new energy technologies

Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance amongst parents of children under 18 years of age in Ireland

As COVID-19 vaccination for children becomes commonplace in Ireland, it is important to understand parent’s willingness to vaccinate their children and factors associated with hesitancy and resistance. Amongst a nationally representative sample of parents from Ireland, surveyed in March/April 2021, 52.1% had, or were intending to have their child vaccinated; 30.1% reported they might vaccine their child; and 17.8% reported they would not vaccinate their child. Compared to vaccine-accepting parents, hesitant parents were more likely to be younger, less educated, poorer, to not know somebody who was sick from COVID-19, to believe the COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe, and to hold negative beliefs about scientists and healthcare professionals. Vaccine-resistant parents were more likely to be younger, living alone, to distrust scientists, and to believe the COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe. Public health messaging should target younger, lower income parents with clear information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for children

Left of bang interventions in trauma : ethical implications for military medical prophylaxis

Advances in medical capability should be accompanied by discussion of their ethical implications. In the military medical context there is a growing interest in developing prophylactic interventions that will mitigate the effects of trauma and improve survival. The ethics of this novel capability are currently unexplored. This paper describes the concept of trauma prophylaxis (Left Of Bang Interventions in Trauma) and outlines some of the ethical issues that need to be considered, including within concept development, research and implementation. Trauma prophylaxis can be divided into interventions that do not (type 1) and those that do (type 2) have medical enhancement as an unintended side effect of their prophylactic action. We conclude that type 1 interventions have much in common with established military medical prophylaxis, and the potentially enhancing qualities of type 2 interventions raise different issues. We welcome further debate on both interventions

Critical Pedagogy Abroad: A Case Study of the Center for Global Education in Mexico

This study examines the critical pedagogy utilized by the Center for Global Education's study abroad program in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The Center for Global Education (Centro de Educación Mundial en America Latina- CEMAL) facilitates two semester long study abroad programs per year as well as a variety of short term programs, all of which focus on teaching learners about issues of social justice. This thesis is based on an ethnographic case study of CEMAL's fall semester program, Women/Gender and Development: Latin American Perspectives, which focuses on social justice issues specifically pertaining to women. This study looks particularly at the communication between the members of this study abroad program in order to discover the instructional communication and instructional methods used to teach about social justice. Ethnography of communication serves as a theoretical and methodological foundation for this study. The first article examines the importance of community in teaching social justice issues at CEMAL Participants each developed their own meaning of social justice through their unique experiences within the program's living and learning environment and through their contact with the local community. The meaning of social justice emerged through participants' communicative experience within these communities, a process that was transformative and empowering for participants. The second article examines the speech events and instructional strategies used to implement critical pedagogy within this program. Four different classroom speech events as well as out of class speech events served as spaces in which to teach students about gender justice. Within these speech events, instructors used critical analysis, instructional weaving, and a student-centered approach to craft an educational experience that was interdisciplinary and transformative for participants. This case study provides insight as to how pedagogy is used within one study abroad program and offers communication research that focuses on social justice. In addition, this study provides evidence of specific instructional strategies that are used to implement critical pedagogy and their effects on learners

Computational Micromodel for Epigenetic Mechanisms

Characterization of the epigenetic profile of humans since the initial breakthrough on the human genome project has strongly established the key role of histone modifications and DNA methylation. These dynamic elements interact to determine the normal level of expression or methylation status of the constituent genes in the genome. Recently, considerable evidence has been put forward to demonstrate that environmental stress implicitly alters epigenetic patterns causing imbalance that can lead to cancer initiation. This chain of consequences has motivated attempts to computationally model the influence of histone modification and DNA methylation in gene expression and investigate their intrinsic interdependency. In this paper, we explore the relation between DNA methylation and transcription and characterize in detail the histone modifications for specific DNA methylation levels using a stochastic approach