A Comparison of Two Engineering Outreach Programs for Adolescents

There is continued growth and development of outreach programs designed to increase pre-college students’ awareness and understanding of engineering as a profession and as a career. These outreach programs vary in format and in the groups targeted for participation but maintain the same fundamental goal of increasing participant knowledge of engineering. Many of these outreach programs also maintain the implicit goal of increasing the participants\u27 knowledge and attitudes toward college. The additional resources and funding that are commonly allocated to support outreach programs frequently involve documenting accountability which motivates evaluation of program impact. Therefore, many outreach events include program evaluation to assess impact on the pre-college participants’ knowledge and perceptions of engineering, but they have not included the assessment of program impact on college attitudes. In this outreach program evaluation study, we examined the impact of two residential engineering outreach events on the participants\u27 engineering perceptions and attitudes and their college attitudes. Our results indicate a number of personal variables were predictors of college attitude, but we failed to expose any variables as indicators of engineering perceptions and attitudes. Analysis of the pre-post survey scores revealed a significant change in engineering perceptions and attitudes (p \u3c .01), but no significant change in college attitude (p =.07). We also exposed a differential impact by outreach event. Results, implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed

The Party’s Over: Sustaining Support Programs When the Funding is Done

In the lifecycle of an engineering education grant, the phase where best practices are sustained and disseminated is perhaps the most crucial stage for maximizing impact. Yet this transition phase often receives the least attention as project team enthusiasm can wane, while funding tapers off, and faculty priorities are pulled in other directions. There are numerous obstacles associated with sustaining program changes, even those perceived as very valuable. Typical challenges are: What happens when the funding runs out? What grant-developed programs should be sustained by the university? Does the institution need to internally allocate resources in an annual budget large enough to replace the grant? Ultimately, sustaining successful programmatic improvements is about “change management” in an institution. In this paper, we will review the literature relating to institutional change in engineering education. We will build on current curriculum change models, in the context of a major engineering education grant at Boise State University that included a variety of curricular enhancements, academic support, and outreach efforts. Over the past two years, the project team focused considerable effort on institutionalizing the most successful programs, and met with mixed results. While many programs will continue and benefit students long-term, other programs, even ones with stellar success and solid assessment, have not been entirely adopted for a number of reasons that we will examine. We will review the role assessment played in the process of program transfer (from the grant to the university) and lessons learned about building alliances with other campus partners to achieve university-level buy-in, well before the last stage of the grant. Finally, we will discuss two factors that are not identified in institutional change literature, but that contributed significantly to the successful transition of our programs—the importance of taking a research based approach, and flexibility in time and resource allocation

Panel Discussion on the History of the Women in Engineering Division: Reflections From Past Chairs of the Division

In celebration of 125 years of the American Society of Engineering Education, past Chairs of the Women in Engineering Division (WIED), Beth Holloway, Donna Llewellyn, Sarah Rajala, and Noel Schulz convened in a focused panel that looked back through the division’s history. To help archive the historical perspective of these leaders, this paper was developed to help the former Chairs focus their perspectives with guiding questions. One additional chair, who could not attend the conference, Donna Reese participated in this paper. The guiding questions for chairs concerned: the influence of their leadership of the WIED on their career, their perspective on the climate for women, the main issues the division faced when they were chair, and what research questions people should be asking now

Comparing Dutch Case management care models for people with dementia and their caregivers: The design of the COMPAS study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dementia care in the Netherlands is shifting from fragmented, ad hoc care to more coordinated and personalised care. Case management contributes to this shift. The linkage model and a combination of intensive case management and joint agency care models were selected based on their emerging prominence in the Netherlands. It is unclear if these different forms of case management are more effective than usual care in improving or preserving the functioning and well-being at the patient and caregiver level and at the societal cost. The objective of this article is to describe the design of a study comparing these two case management care models against usual care. Clinical and cost outcomes are investigated while care processes and the facilitators and barriers for implementation of these models are considered.</p> <p>Design</p> <p>Mixed methods include a prospective, observational, controlled, cohort study among persons with dementia and their primary informal caregiver in regions of the Netherlands with and without case management including a qualitative process evaluation. Inclusion criteria for the cohort study are: community-dwelling individuals with a dementia diagnosis who are not terminally-ill or anticipate admission to a nursing home within 6 months and with an informal caregiver who speaks fluent Dutch. Person with dementia-informal caregiver dyads are followed for two years. The primary outcome measure is the Neuropsychiatric Inventory for the people with dementia and the General Health Questionnaire for their caregivers. Secondary outcomes include: quality of life and needs assessment in both persons with dementia and caregivers, activity of daily living, competence of care, and number of crises. Costs are measured from a societal perspective using cost diaries. Process indicators measure the quality of care from the participant’s perspective. The qualitative study uses purposive sampling methods to ensure a wide variation of respondents. Semi-structured interviews with stakeholders based on the theoretical model of adaptive implementation are planned.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study provides relevant insights into care processes, description of two case management models along with clinical and economic data from persons with dementia and caregivers to clarify important differences in two case management care models compared to usual care.</p

Mechanisms of leukocyte migration across the blood–retina barrier

Immune-mediated inflammation in the retina is regulated by a combination of anatomical, physiological and immuno-regulatory mechanisms, referred to as the blood–retina barrier (BRB). The BRB is thought to be part of the specialised ocular microenvironment that confers protection or “immune privilege” by deviating or suppressing destructive inflammation. The barrier between the blood circulation and the retina is maintained at two separate anatomical sites. These are the endothelial cells of the inner retinal vasculature and the retinal pigment epithelial cells on Bruch’s membrane between the fenestrated choroidal vessels and the outer retina. The structure and regulation of the tight junctions forming the physical barrier are described. For leukocyte migration across the BRB to occur, changes are needed in both the leukocytes themselves and the cells forming the barrier. We review how the blood–retina barrier is compromised in various inflammatory diseases and discuss the mechanisms controlling leukocyte subset migration into the retina in uveoretinitis in more detail. In particular, we examine the relative roles of selectins and integrins in leukocyte interactions with the vascular endothelium and the pivotal role of chemokines in selective recruitment of leukocyte subsets, triggering adhesion, diapedesis and migration of inflammatory cells into the retinal tissue