Changes in Classroom Quality Predict Ghanaian Preschoolers’ Gains in Academic and Social-Emotional Skills

Rates of participation in early childhood education (ECE) programs are on the rise globally, including in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet little evidence exists on the quality of these programs and on the role of classroom quality in predicting learning for young children across diverse contexts. This study uses data from the Greater Accra Region of Ghana (N = 3,407; Mage = 5.8 years; 49.5% female) to examine how changes in four culturally-validated dimensions of ECE classroom quality predict children’s growth in early academic and social-emotional skills from the beginning to the end of one academic year. We find that improvements in domains of classroom instructional quality are related to small, positive gains in children’s early academic and social-emotional outcomes over the school year, and that these improvements are generally larger for children and classrooms with higher baseline proficiency and quality levels. Associations between changes in social-emotional aspects of classroom quality and child outcomes were mixed. These results extend the knowledge base on ECE quality to a new and under-represented context while also providing important information regarding the contexts and children for whom teacher training and other quality-focused improvement efforts may be most needed

The Role of Executive Function and Social-emotional Skills in the Development of Literacy and Numeracy during Preschool: A Cross-Lagged Longitudinal Study

The majority of evidence on the interplay between academic and non-academic skills comes from high-income countries. The aim of this study was to examine the bidirectional associations between Ghanaian children\u27s executive function, social-emotional, literacy, and numeracy skills longitudinally. Children (N = 3,862; M age = 5.2 years at time 1) were assessed using direct assessment at three time points over the course of two school years. Controlling for earlier levels of the same skill, early executive function predicted higher subsequent literacy and numeracy skills, and early literacy and numeracy skills predicted higher subsequent executive function, indicating that the development of executive function and academic skills is inter-related and complementary over time. Early literacy and numeracy predicted subsequent social-emotional skills, but early social-emotional skills did not predict subsequent literacy and numeracy skills. The findings provide longitudinal evidence on children’s learning and development in West Africa and contribute to a global understanding of the relations between various developmental skills over time

Aging and the Law

https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/fac_books/1138/thumbnail.jp

Asbestos fibre dimensions and lung cancer mortality among workers exposed to chrysotile

ObjectivesTo estimate exposures to asbestos fibres of specific sizes among asbestos textile manufacturing workers exposed to chrysotile using data from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and to evaluate the extent to which the risk of lung cancer varies with fibre length and diameter.Methods3803 workers employed for at least 1 day between 1 January 1950 and 31 December 1973 in any of three plants in North Carolina, USA that produced asbestos textile products and followed for vital status through 31 December 2003 were included. Historical exposures to asbestos fibres were estimated from work histories and 3578 industrial hygiene measurements taken in 1935–1986. Exposure–response relationships for lung cancer were examined within the cohort using Poisson regression.ResultsIndicators of fibre length and diameter obtained by TEM were positively and significantly associated with increasing risk of lung cancer. Exposures to longer and thinner fibres tended to be most strongly associated with lung cancer, and models for these fibres fit the data best. Simultaneously modelling indicators of cumulative mean fibre length and diameter yielded a positive coefficient for fibre length and a negative coefficient for fibre diameter.ConclusionsThe results support the hypothesis that the risk of lung cancer among workers exposed to chrysotile asbestos increases with exposure to longer fibres. More research is needed to improve the characterisation of exposures by fibre size and number and to analyse the associated risks in a variety of industries and populations

Thoracic aorta transobturator bipopliteal bypass as eventual durable reconstruction after removal of an infected aortofemoral graft

AbstractA 36-year-old man was referred with aortofemoral graft infection and perigraft duodenal erosion. The aortofemoral graft was removed, and bilateral axillo–superficial femoral grafts were constructed. Recurrent failures of these grafts prompted us to convert to a more-durable reconstruction. A straight graft was anastomosed to the lower thoracic aorta, routed retroperitoneally, and attached to an inverted U-shaped bilateral transobturator bypass graft, which was anastomosed to both above-knee popliteal arteries. After 3 years, the patient has remained well and the grafts are patent. This operation represents a durable in-line reconstruction that avoids all previously infected areas after removal of an infected aortofemoral graft. (J Vasc Surg 1997;26:693-6.

Flexible heat pumps: must-have or nice to have in a power sector with renewables?

Heat pumps are a key technology for reducing fossil fuel use in the heating sector. A transition to heat pumps implies an increase in electricity demand, especially in cold winter months. Using an open-source power sector model, we examine the power sector impacts of a massive expansion of decentralized heat pumps in Germany in 2030, combined with buffer heat storage of different sizes. Assuming that the additional electricity used by heat pumps has to be fully covered by renewable energies in a yearly balance, we quantify the required additional investments in renewable energy sources. If wind power expansion potentials are limited, the roll-out of heat pumps can also be accompanied by solar PV with little additional costs, making use of the European interconnection. The need for additional firm capacity and electricity storage generally remains limited even in the case of temporally inflexible heat pumps. We further find that relatively small heat storage capacities of 2 to 6 hours can substantially reduce the need for short- and long-duration electricity storage and other generation capacities, as well as power sector costs. We further show that 5.8 million additional heat pumps save around 120 TWh of natural gas and 24 million tonnes of CO$_2$ emissions per year

Career Readiness for First Year General Education Students: A Curricular Pilot

In winter 2023, University Studies formed a working group to develop and pilot embedded career readiness within first year general education courses. The working group collaborated to create and pilot the curriculum in spring 2023. After the pilot, the working group collected and analyzed student, faculty, and mentor observations and course evaluation data, identified key themes, made recommendations, and created an online repository and website interface for career readiness curriculum and resources. The working group and pilot participants successfully developed curriculum and piloted it in their courses, gained feedback and insight from students, mentors, and faculty, and created resources for career readiness curriculum. This curriculum and the experience of implementing it provide the groundwork for moving forward with development of career readiness curriculum in first year general education courses and additional levels of general education

HUMAN: Hierarchical Universal Modular ANnotator

A lot of real-world phenomena are complex and cannot be captured by single task annotations. This causes a need for subsequent annotations, with interdependent questions and answers describing the nature of the subject at hand. Even in the case a phenomenon is easily captured by a single task, the high specialisation of most annotation tools can result in having to switch to another tool if the task only slightly changes. We introduce HUMAN, a novel web-based annotation tool that addresses the above problems by a) covering a variety of annotation tasks on both textual and image data, and b) the usage of an internal deterministic state machine, allowing the researcher to chain different annotation tasks in an interdependent manner. Further, the modular nature of the tool makes it easy to define new annotation tasks and integrate machine learning algorithms e.g., for active learning. HUMAN comes with an easy-to-use graphical user interface that simplifies the annotation task and management.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, EMNLP - Demonstrations 202