African American English And Urban Literature: Creating Culturally Caring Classrooms

Language and literacy are a means of delivering care through consideration of students’ home culture; however, a cultural mismatch between the predominantly white, female educator population and the diverse urban student population is reflected in language and literacy instruction. Urban curricula often fail to incorporate culturally relevant literature, in part due to a dearth of texts that reflect student experiences. Dialectal differences between African American English (AAE) and Mainstream American English (MAE) and a history of racism have attached a reformatory stigma to AAE and its speakers. The authors assert that language and literacy instruction that validates children’s lived experience mediates this hegemony, leads to empathetic relationships between teachers and students of different cultural backgrounds, and promotes academic success. This paper seeks to 1) dissect the relationship between academic achievement and affirmation of student culture through language and literacy instruction, 2) enumerate classroom strategies that empower students and foster the development of self-efficacy 3) identify ways teachers might weave value for diversity in language and literacy into a pedagogy of care for urban classrooms

Valuing Adjuncts as Liaisons for University Excellence (VALUE) Program

Adjuncts are increasingly becoming more important in higher education and make up nearly onethird of VCU’s teaching faculty. While VCU has made strides in increasing the number of tenuretrack and term professors, the size and needs of certain departments will always make adjunct instructors necessary. A number of schools on both the Monroe Park and MCV campuses utilize professionals from the Richmond community to enhance experiential learning, thereby making a university investment in adjunct faculty a means by which to elevate VCU’s strategic mission. Adjuncts often provide a community perspective that comes from the professional work they do outside of the university setting and as a whole are reflective of VCU’s diverse student population. As a result, they serve a critical role in student success and diversity initiatives. Keeping adjuncts connected with campus resources and engaged with the larger VCU community is also an important step in making the university more inclusive. This project will study opportunities associated with the orientation and support of adjunct faculty at VCU on both Monroe Park and MCV campuses. This project is research-oriented and will serve as an important foundation for developing and implementing a plan for institutionalized adjunct support. To develop a detailed proposal for implementation, our team consulted with several key stakeholders including: academic leaders who hire and support adjuncts in the current decentralized process students who have taken classes with adjunct instructors adjunct faculty who have recently taught at VCU Through a combination of methods, we aim to determine how adjuncts are utilized across the university, identify resources currently provided, and assess additional resource needs in an effort to inform a new orientation and support program for adjunct faculty at VCU

Stroke Quality Measures in Mexican Americans and Non-Hispanic Whites

Mexican Americans (MAs) have been shown to have worse outcomes after stroke than non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs), but it is unknown if ethnic differences in stroke quality of care may contribute to these worse outcomes. We investigated ethnic differences in the quality of inpatient stroke care between MAs and NHWs within the population-based prospective Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC) Project (February 2009- June 2012). Quality measures for inpatient stroke care, based on the 2008 Joint Commission Primary Stroke Center definitions were assessed from the medical record by a trained abstractor. Two summary measure of overall quality were also created (binary measure of defect-free care and the proportion of measures achieved for which the patient was eligible). 757 individuals were included (480 MAs and 277 NHWs). MAs were younger, more likely to have hypertension and diabetes, and less likely to have atrial fibrillation than NHWs. MAs were less likely than NHWs to receive tPA (RR: 0.72, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.52, 0.98), and MAs with atrial fibrillation were less likely to receive anticoagulant medications at discharge than NHWs (RR 0.73, 95% CI 0.58, 0.94). There were no ethnic differences in the other individual quality measures, or in the two summary measures assessing overall quality. In conclusion, there were no ethnic differences in the overall quality of stroke care between MAs and NHWs, though ethnic differences were seen in the proportion of patients who received tPA and anticoagulant at discharge for atrial fibrillation

Illinois Homeowners and Wildlife Report

We conducted a mail survey designed to replicate the 2000 study “Attitudes of Homeowners in the Greater Chicago Metropolitan Region (GCMR) Toward Nuisance Wildlife.” The purpose of this study was to determine homeowners’ attitudes toward wildlife around their home, extent and types of wildlife damages experienced,and interactions with and preferences for management actions related to coyotes. A stratified random sample of 5,000 homeowners in the Greater Chicago Metropolitan Region was selected for this study. A total of 1,624 questionnaires (34%) were received. Forty percent of residents responded they fed wildlife on their property during the 12 months prior to the study, and 71% of those respondents were actively feeding wildlife at the time of the survey. Most wildlife feeding was done all year (56%), whereas fewer respondents fed wildlife during winter (22%), spring,summer,and fall (16% for each, respectively) only. Respondents (45%) were not sure if their neighbors were feeding wildlife. Approximately one-third(35%) of homeowners planted flowers, shrubs,provided water or nest boxes on property to specifically benefit wildlife.About 80% of homeowners enjoyed most or all wildlife species around their home, and the same proportion felt wildlife was not a threat or was only as light threat to their home or property. Seeing wildlife on a daily basis was important for 80% of respondents. Problems with wildlife were experienced by 54% of survey respondents, with digging or burrowing being the most frequent problem reported (52%), and45%of respondents had damage to shrubs, yard, or landscaping. Raccoons, skunk, and squirrels were the wildlife species identified to cause the greatest problems to residents.Half (50%) of respondents took action themselves to correct the problem, and a majority (51%) spent less than $50 on the problem during the 12 months prior to this study. Of the residents who hired private professional services (14%), most (65%) rated the services provided as “Good” or “Excellent.” A minority of residents (9%) received information about preventing wildlife damage, or requested information(5%) about wildlife from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Of those who did request information from the IDNR, a majority (72%) rated the information provided as “Good” or “Excellent.” Most (69%) survey respondents had not visited the University of Illinois Extension website “Living with Wildlife in Illinois.”A majority(68%)of survey respondents were aware of coyotes in their current community;62% of respondents or their family members observed a coyote in their current community and 55% saw one in a forest preserve. There was no or slight concern for homeowners ’perceived risks of coyotes in their community. When given the options to let the coyote live or to“trap and destroy,” most survey respondents preferred to let coyotes live regardless of frequency or location of coyote situation. Only when a coyote made a den on one’s property did 49% of respondents favor the “trap and destroy” option.unpublishednot peer reviewedOpe

Peer assessment of outpatient consultation letters – feasibility and satisfaction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Written correspondence is one of the most important forms of communication between health care providers, yet there is little feedback provided to specialists. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility and satisfaction of a peer assessment program on consultation letters and to determine inter-rater reliability between family physicians and specialists.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A rating scale of nine 5-point Likert scale items including specific content, style items, education value of the letter and an overall rating was developed from a previous validated tool.</p> <p>Nine Internal Medicine specialists/subspecialists from two tertiary care centres submitted 10 letters with patient and physician identifiers removed. Two Internal Medicine specialists, and 2 family physicians from the other centre rated each letter (to protect writer anonymity). A satisfaction survey was sent to each writer and rater after collation of the results. A follow-up survey was sent 6–8 months later.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was a high degree of satisfaction with the process and feedback. The rating scale information was felt to be useful and appropriate for evaluating the quality of consultation letters by 6/7 writers. 5/7 seven writers felt that the feedback they received resulted in immediate changes to their letters. Six months later, 6/9 writers indicated they had maintained changes in their letters.</p> <p>Raters rank ordered letters similarly (Cronbach's alpha 0.57–0.84) but mean scores were highly variant. At site 1 there were significant differences in scoring brevity (p < 0.01) between family physician and specialist raters; whereas, at site 2 there were differences in scoring of history (p < 0.01), physical examination (p < 0.01) and educational value (p < 0.01) of the letter.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Most participants found peer assessment of letters feasible and beneficial and longstanding changes occurred in some individuals. Family physicians and specialists appear to have different expectations on some items. Further studies on reliability and validity, with a larger sample, are required before high stakes professional assessments include consultation letters.</p

Role of Ventral Subiculum in Context-Induced Relapse to Alcohol Seeking after Punishment-Imposed Abstinence

In many human alcoholics, abstinence is self-imposed because of the negative consequences of excessive alcohol use, and relapse is often triggered by exposure to environmental contexts associated with prior alcohol drinking. We recently developed a rat model of this human condition in which we train alcohol-preferring P rats to self-administer alcohol in one context (A), punish the alcohol-reinforced responding in a different context (B), and then test for relapse to alcohol seeking in Contexts A and B without alcohol or shock. Here, we studied the role of projections to nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell from ventral subiculum (vSub), basolateral amygdala, paraventricular thalamus, and ventral medial prefrontal cortex in context-induced relapse after punishment-imposed abstinence. First, we measured double-labeling of the neuronal activity marker Fos with the retrograde tracer cholera toxin subunit B (injected in NAc shell) and demonstrated that context-induced relapse is associated with selective activation of the vSub→NAc shell projection. Next, we reversibly inactivated the vSub with GABA receptor agonists (muscimol+baclofen) before the context-induced relapse tests and provided evidence for a causal role of vSub in this relapse. Finally, we used a dual-virus approach to restrict expression of the inhibitory κ opioid-receptor based DREADD (KORD) in vSub→NAc shell projection neurons. We found that systemic injections of the KORD agonist salvinorin B, which selectively inhibits KORD-expressing neurons, decreased context-induced relapse to alcohol seeking. Our results demonstrate a critical role of vSub in context-induced relapse after punishment-imposed abstinence and further suggest a role of the vSub→NAc projection in this relapse. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In many human alcoholics, abstinence is self-imposed because of the negative consequences of excessive use, and relapse is often triggered by exposure to environmental contexts associated with prior alcohol use. Until recently, an animal model of this human condition did not exist. We developed a rat model of this human condition in which we train alcohol-preferring P rats to self-administer alcohol in one context (A), punish the alcohol-reinforced responding in a different context (B), and test for relapse to alcohol seeking in Contexts A and B. Here, we used neuroanatomical, neuropharmacological, and chemogenetic methods to demonstrate a role of ventral subiculum and potentially its projections to nucleus accumbens in context-induced relapse after punishment-imposed abstinence

Quantifying regional α -synuclein, amyloid β, and tau accumulation in Lewy body dementia

OBJECTIVE: Parkinson disease (PD) is defined by the accumulation of misfolded α-synuclein (α-syn) in Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites. It affects multiple cortical and subcortical neuronal populations. The majority of people with PD develop dementia, which is associated with Lewy bodies in neocortex and referred to as Lewy body dementia (LBD). Other neuropathologic changes, including amyloid β (Aβ) and tau accumulation, occur in some LBD cases. We sought to quantify α-syn, Aβ, and tau accumulation in neocortical, limbic, and basal ganglia regions. METHODS: We isolated insoluble protein from fresh frozen postmortem brain tissue samples for eight brains regions from 15 LBD, seven Alzheimer disease (AD), and six control cases. We measured insoluble α-syn, Aβ, and tau with recently developed sandwich ELISAs. RESULTS: We detected a wide range of insoluble α-syn accumulation in LBD cases. The majority had substantial α-syn accumulation in most regions, and dementia severity correlated with neocortical α-syn. However, three cases had low neocortical levels that were indistinguishable from controls. Eight LBD cases had substantial Aβ accumulation, although the mean Aβ level in LBD was lower than in AD. The presence of Aβ was associated with greater α-syn accumulation. Tau accumulation accompanied Aβ in only one LBD case. INTERPRETATION: LBD is associated with insoluble α-syn accumulation in neocortical regions, but the relatively low neocortical levels in some cases suggest that other changes contribute to impaired function, such as loss of neocortical innervation from subcortical regions. The correlation between Aβ and α-syn accumulation suggests a pathophysiologic relationship between these two processes

Viral Linkage in HIV-1 Seroconverters and Their Partners in an HIV-1 Prevention Clinical Trial

Characterization of viruses in HIV-1 transmission pairs will help identify biological determinants of infectiousness and evaluate candidate interventions to reduce transmission. Although HIV-1 sequencing is frequently used to substantiate linkage between newly HIV-1 infected individuals and their sexual partners in epidemiologic and forensic studies, viral sequencing is seldom applied in HIV-1 prevention trials. The Partners in Prevention HSV/HIV Transmission Study (ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT00194519) was a prospective randomized placebo-controlled trial that enrolled serodiscordant heterosexual couples to determine the efficacy of genital herpes suppression in reducing HIV-1 transmission; as part of the study analysis, HIV-1 sequences were examined for genetic linkage between seroconverters and their enrolled partners.We obtained partial consensus HIV-1 env and gag sequences from blood plasma for 151 transmission pairs and performed deep sequencing of env in some cases. We analyzed sequences with phylogenetic techniques and developed a Bayesian algorithm to evaluate the probability of linkage. For linkage, we required monophyletic clustering between enrolled partners' sequences and a Bayesian posterior probability of ≥ 50%. Adjudicators classified each seroconversion, finding 108 (71.5%) linked, 40 (26.5%) unlinked, and 3 (2.0%) indeterminate transmissions, with linkage determined by consensus env sequencing in 91 (84%). Male seroconverters had a higher frequency of unlinked transmissions than female seroconverters. The likelihood of transmission from the enrolled partner was related to time on study, with increasing numbers of unlinked transmissions occurring after longer observation periods. Finally, baseline viral load was found to be significantly higher among linked transmitters.In this first use of HIV-1 sequencing to establish endpoints in a large clinical trial, more than one-fourth of transmissions were unlinked to the enrolled partner, illustrating the relevance of these methods in the design of future HIV-1 prevention trials in serodiscordant couples. A hierarchy of sequencing techniques, analysis methods, and expert adjudication contributed to the linkage determination process