An exploration of Global Women’s Health: findings from a pilot online course elective for Health Sciences Studies at GW

In 1995, 189 countries endorsed the Platform for Action, designed to address issues of gender equality, including health. Despite this 23 year old initiative, women’s health issues continue to be a global crisis (WHO, 2015). The SMHS piloted an 8-week online 1-credit course in Fall 2017 to educate GW students on the top ten issues for women’s health delineated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Each of the eight weeks covered a core women’s health WHO issue while tying in a global human rights perspective. Issues included but were not limited to reproductive health, STIs, violence against women, to name a few. This course was designed to address two key gaps at GWU: 1) there is currently no other course at GW focused on Global Women’s Health offered to undergraduate students, and 2) this is the first 1 credit hybrid elective course, in Health Sciences, to be offered to undergraduate residency students. The teaching platform adopted for this course offered an “inter-school” student body. Enrollees included 7 students from the Elliott School of International Affairs, 6 from the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, and 1 had a major from the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Course evaluations revealed that students wanted to delve deeper into covered topics and expand to additional topics if we had more time. 90% of students said they would recommend it to others. Qualitative feedback was categorized to indicate that students enjoyed the types of course assignments, the range of topics that were covered throughout the course, as well as the online resources that were provided to supplement the reading material of the course textbook. About half of the students who took this course indicated they would enroll in the course regardless of the delivery platform, face-to-face, blended or online. Pilot course assessment findings also suggest that this course could be expanded into a 3-credit course, could be taught in person, and could be offered as an elective that could count for credit towards other majors within different departments in order to increase its reach. It is imperative to continue to raise awareness within our student body of the importance of addressing women’s health issues worldwide, so that they too can be a part of the commitment to achieve gender equality that began at the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action

Non-native contrasts in Tongan loans

We present three case studies of marginal contrasts in Tongan loans from English, working with data from three speakers. Although Tongan lacks contrasts in stress or in CC vs. CVC sequences, secondary stress in loans is contrastive, and is sensitive to whether a vowel has a correspondent in the English source word; vowel deletion is also sensitive to whether a vowel is epenthetic as compared to the English source; and final vowel length is sensitive to whether the penultimate vowel is epenthetic, and if not, whether it corresponds to a stressed or unstressed vowel in the English source. We provide an analysis in the multilevel model of Boersma (1998) and Boersma & Hamann (2009), and show that the loan patterns can be captured using only constraints that plausibly are needed for native-word phonology, including constraints that reflect perceptual strategies

Building Full-Service Schools: Lessons Learned in the Development of Interagency Collaboratives

Although the history of clinical-school-eommunity collaboration can be traced back to the end of the 19th century, the full-service school movement represents a new era in the quest for more effective ways to deliver human services to children. As awareness that school systems alone cannot address the social problems affecting millions of children, the concept of full-service schools has been embraced as a potential solution to service delivery problems affecting children living in high-risk environments. Built on shared commitment to positive child development, full-service schools represent an effort to make human service systems partners in the educational process, while simultaneously making school systems partners in the delivery of human services (Adelman & Taylor, 1999; Dryfoos, 1994a, 1995/1997/1998; Morrill, 1992)

1064 nm Dispersive Raman Microspectroscopy and Optical Trapping of Pharmaceutical Aerosols.

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool for investigating chemical composition. Coupling Raman spectroscopy with optical microscopy (Raman microspectroscopy) and optical trapping (Raman tweezers) allows microscopic length scales and, hence, femtolitre volumes to be probed. Raman microspectroscopy typically uses UV/visible excitation lasers, but many samples, including organic molecules and complex tissue samples, fluoresce strongly at these wavelengths. Here we report the development and application of dispersive Raman microspectroscopy designed around a near-infrared continuous wave 1064 nm excitation light source. We analyze microparticles (1-5 μm diameter) composed of polystyrene latex and from three real-world pressurized metered dose inhalers (pMDIs) used in the treatment of asthma: salmeterol xinafoate (Serevent), salbutamol sulfate (Salamol), and ciclesonide (Alvesco). For the first time, single particles are captured, optically levitated, and analyzed using the same 1064 nm laser, which permits a convenient nondestructive chemical analysis of the true aerosol phase. We show that particles exhibiting overwhelming fluorescence using a visible laser (514.5 nm) can be successfully analyzed with 1064 nm excitation, irrespective of sample composition and irradiation time. Spectra are acquired rapidly (1-5 min) with a wavelength resolution of 2 nm over a wide wavenumber range (500-3100 cm-1). This is despite the microscopic sample size and low Raman scattering efficiency at 1064 nm. Spectra of individual pMDI particles compare well to bulk samples, and the Serevent pMDI delivers the thermodynamically preferred crystal form of salmeterol xinafoate. 1064 nm dispersive Raman microspectroscopy is a promising technique that could see diverse applications for samples where fluorescence-free characterization is required with high spatial resolution

The Alice Springs Hospital Readmission Prevention Project (ASHRAPP): a randomised control trial

Background: Hospitals are frequently faced with high levels of emergency department presentations and demand for inpatient care. An important contributing factor is the subset of patients with complex chronic diseases who have frequent and preventable exacerbations of their chronic diseases. Evidence suggests that some of these hospital readmissions can be prevented with appropriate transitional care. Whilst there is a growing body of evidence for transitional care processes in urban, non-indigenous settings, there is a paucity of information regarding rural and remote settings and, specifically, the indigenous context. Methods: This randomised control trial compares a tailored, multidimensional transitional care package to usual care. The objective is to evaluate the efficacy of the transitional care package for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian patients with chronic diseases at risk of recurrent readmission with the aim of reducing readmission rates and improving transition to primary care in a remote setting. Patients will be recruited from medical and surgical admissions to Alice Springs Hospital and will be followed for 12 months. The primary outcome measure will be number of admissions to hospital with secondary outcomes including number of emergency department presentations, number of ICU admissions, days alive and out of hospital, time to primary care review post discharge and cost-effectiveness. Discussion: Successful transition from hospital to home is important for patients with complex chronic diseases. Evidence suggests that a coordinated transitional care plan can result in a reduction in length of hospital stay and readmission rates for adults with complex medical needs. This will be the first study to evaluate a tailored multidimensional transitional care intervention to prevent readmission in Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian residents of remote Australia who are frequently admitted to hospital. If demonstrated to be effective it will have implications for the care and management of Indigenous Australians throughout regional and remote Australia and in other remote, culturally and linguistically diverse populations and settings

Protostellar Accretion Flows Destabilized by Magnetic Flux Redistribution

Magnetic flux redistribution lies at the heart of the problem of star formation in dense cores of molecular clouds that are magnetized to a realistic level. If all of the magnetic flux of a typical core were to be dragged into the central star, the stellar field strength would be orders of magnitude higher than the observed values. This well-known "magnetic flux problem" can in principle be resolved through non-ideal MHD effects. Two dimensional (axisymmetric) calculations have shown that ambipolar diffusion, in particular, can transport magnetic flux outward relative to matter, allowing material to enter the central object without dragging the field lines along. We show through simulations that such axisymmetric protostellar accretion flows are unstable in three dimensions to magnetic interchange instability in the azimuthal direction. The instability is driven by the magnetic flux redistributed from the matter that enters the central object. It typically starts to develop during the transition from the prestellar phase of star formation to the protostellar mass accretion phase. In the latter phase, the magnetic flux is transported outward mainly through advection, by strongly magnetized low-density regions that expand against the collapsing inflow. The tussle between the gravity-driven infall and magnetically driven expansion leads to a filamentary inner accretion flow, more disordered than previously pictured. The efficient outward transport of magnetic flux by advection lowers the field strength at small radii, making the magnetic braking less efficient and the formation of rotationally supported disks easier in principle. However, we find no evidence for such disks in any of our rotating collapse simulations. We conclude that the inner protostellar accretion flow is shaped to a large extent by this magnetic interchange instability. How disks form in such an environment is unclear.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Ap

Form factors and photoproduction amplitudes

We examine the use of phenomenological form factors in tree level amplitudes for meson photoproduction. Two common recipes are shown to be fundamentally incorrect. An alternate form consistent with gauge invariance and crossing symmetry is proposed.Comment: To be published in PR

Childhood and the politics of scale: Descaling children's geographies?

This is the post-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 SAGE Publications.The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of interest in the geographies of children's lives, and particularly in engaging the voices and activities of young people in geographical research. Much of this growing body of scholarship is characterized by a very parochial locus of interest — the neighbourhood, playground, shopping mall or journey to school. In this paper I explore some of the roots of children's geographies' preoccupation with the micro-scale and argue that it limits the relevance of research, both politically and to other areas of geography. In order to widen the scope of children's geographies, some scholars have engaged with developments in the theorization of scale. I present these arguments but also point to their limitations. As an alternative, I propose that the notion of a flat ontology might help overcome some difficulties around scalar thinking, and provide a useful means of conceptualizing sociospatiality in material and non-hierarchical terms. Bringing together flat ontology and work in children's geographies on embodied subjectivity, I argue that it is important to examine the nature and limits of children's spaces of perception and action. While these spaces are not simply `local', they seldom afford children opportunities to comment on, or intervene in, the events, processes and decisions that shape their own lives. The implications for the substance and method of children's geographies and for geographical work on scale are considered