Inequality and the American classroom:: Experiential strategies for teaching social justice

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a mixed format, experiential course on changes in Honors students’ attitudes about various issues of inequality.  Methodology: Students enrolled in the course (N = 75), taught during the 2016 Presidential election, were asked about their opinions on a variety of inequality topics using a pre-test and post-test survey, with the post-test survey including questions on how perceptions of inequality had changed over the course of the semester.  Findings and implications: Results indicate that some students became more self-aware of their position in society and were less sure that people in general, and they themselves in particular, would be responsible for their own hard work. Importantly, students were less likely to believe that people faced fair and equal opportunities in the labor market and their overall level of support for unions increased during the semester. Most students agreed that the outside speakers, a key component of the course, provided new information on various aspects of inequality and impacted their overall perceptions of inequality. However, students were much less agreed on how they felt both about the future of the country and the future of inequality

Achilles tendon mechanosensitivity is preserved in old age: In vivo evidence from a 1.5 years long resistance training intervention

Introduction Ageing deteriorates musculoskeletal system structure and function and limits its adaptability to mechanical loading. Medium-term (12-14 weeks) exercise interventions in older adults have been shown to increase tendon stiffness by increasing the tendon’s Young’s modulus [1], rather than the tendon’s cross-sectional area (CSA). However, little is known about the time-adaptive response relationship of the tendon in long-term (years) interventions involving alteration in mechanical loading. Therefore, we investigated whether the older human Achilles tendon (AT) demonstrates mechanosensitivity and alterations in material and/or size in response to long-term mechanical loading. Methods Thirty-four older female adults (age: 65±7 y) were recruited to a medium-term (14 weeks; n=21) strength training intervention with high AT strain cyclic loading (five sets of four repetitions of isometric plantarflexion contractions 3 times a week with 90% of MVC as in [2]) or a control group (n=13), with a sub-group of the intervention group (n=12) continuing exercise for 1.5 years. AT stiffness and Young’s modulus were quantified in vivo using ultrasonography and dynamometry. Tendon CSA was measured along the whole free AT by means of magnetic resonance imaging. Results Following 14 weeks of resistance training, the intervention group showed a significant (p<.05) increase in ankle plantarflexor muscle strength (141.5±36.2 vs 116.3±30.8 Nm at baseline), along with a 23% increase in AT stiffness (598.2±141.2 Nmm-1 vs 488.4±136.9 Nmm-1 at baseline), 20% increase in Young’s modulus (1.63±0.46 GPa vs 1.37±0.39 GPa at baseline) and a homogenous hypertrophy by about 6% along the entire free AT. However, continuing the exercise training for 1.5 years did not cause any further changes in muscle strength and tendon properties. The control group did not show any differences in muscle and tendon functional and structural properties between time points. Discussion The AT seems to have the capability to increase its stiffness in response to 14 weeks of mechanical loading exercise by altering both its material and size, and may thereby tolerate higher mechanical loading by reducing both the strain and stress it experiences during tensile loading. Continuing strength training appears to maintain, but not cause any further adaptive changes in tendons, which implies that the time-adaptive response relationship to mechanical loading is non-linear in ageing tendons. References 1. Reeves et al. (2003). J Physiol, 548, 971–981. 2. Arampatzis et al. (2007). J Exp Biol, 210, 2743–2753

Clinical outcomes and safety of rituximab treatment for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) - results from a nationwide cohort in Germany (GRAID)

ObjectiveThe objective of this article is to evaluate the safety and clinical outcome of rituximab treatment in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients refractory to standard of care therapy in a real-life setting in Germany. MethodsThe GRAID registry included patients with different autoimmune diseases who were given off-label treatment with rituximab. Data on safety and clinical response were collected retrospectively. In SLE patients, clinical parameters included tender and swollen joint counts, fatigue, myalgia, general wellbeing, Raynaud's and the SLEDAI index. Laboratory tests included dsDNA antibody titres, complement factors, hematologic parameters and proteinuria. Finally, the investigators rated their patients as non-, partial or complete responders based on clinical grounds. ResultsData from 85 SLE patients were collected, 69 female and 16 male, with a mean disease duration of 9.8 years. The mean follow-up period was 9.67.4 months, resulting in 66.8 patient years of observation. A complete response was reported in 37 patients (46.8%), partial response in 27 (34.2%), no response in 15 (19.0%). On average, major clinical as well as laboratory efficacy parameters improved substantially, with the SLEDAI decreasing significantly from 12.2 to 3.3 points. Concerning safety, one infusion reaction leading to discontinuation of treatment occurred. Infections were reported with a rate of 19.5 (including six severe infections) per 100 patient years. ConclusionWith the restrictions of a retrospective data collection, the results of this study confirm data of other registries, which suggest a favourable benefit-risk ratio of rituximab in patients with treatment-refractory SLE

Clinical outcomes and safety of rituximab treatment for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) - results from a nationwide cohort in Germany (GRAID)

ObjectiveThe objective of this article is to evaluate the safety and clinical outcome of rituximab treatment in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients refractory to standard of care therapy in a real-life setting in Germany. MethodsThe GRAID registry included patients with different autoimmune diseases who were given off-label treatment with rituximab. Data on safety and clinical response were collected retrospectively. In SLE patients, clinical parameters included tender and swollen joint counts, fatigue, myalgia, general wellbeing, Raynaud's and the SLEDAI index. Laboratory tests included dsDNA antibody titres, complement factors, hematologic parameters and proteinuria. Finally, the investigators rated their patients as non-, partial or complete responders based on clinical grounds. ResultsData from 85 SLE patients were collected, 69 female and 16 male, with a mean disease duration of 9.8 years. The mean follow-up period was 9.67.4 months, resulting in 66.8 patient years of observation. A complete response was reported in 37 patients (46.8%), partial response in 27 (34.2%), no response in 15 (19.0%). On average, major clinical as well as laboratory efficacy parameters improved substantially, with the SLEDAI decreasing significantly from 12.2 to 3.3 points. Concerning safety, one infusion reaction leading to discontinuation of treatment occurred. Infections were reported with a rate of 19.5 (including six severe infections) per 100 patient years. ConclusionWith the restrictions of a retrospective data collection, the results of this study confirm data of other registries, which suggest a favourable benefit-risk ratio of rituximab in patients with treatment-refractory SLE

A new method to determine the elastopalstic properties of ductile materials by conical indentation

Based on load-displacement curves, indentation is widely used to extract the elastoplastic properties of materials. It is generally believed that such a measure is non-unique and a full stress-strain curve cannot be obtained using plural sharp and deep spherical indenters. In this paper we show that by introducing an additional dimensionless function of DA / A (the ratio of residual area to the area of an indenter profile) in the reverse analysis, the elastoplastic properties of several unknown materials that exhibit visually indistinguishable load-displacement curves can be uniquely determined with a sharp indentation

Nanoscratch Characterization of GaN Epilayers on c- and a-Axis Sapphire Substrates

In this study, we used metal organic chemical vapor deposition to form gallium nitride (GaN) epilayers on c- and a-axis sapphire substrates and then used the nanoscratch technique and atomic force microscopy (AFM) to determine the nanotribological behavior and deformation characteristics of the GaN epilayers, respectively. The AFM morphological studies revealed that pile-up phenomena occurred on both sides of the scratches formed on the GaN epilayers. It is suggested that cracking dominates in the case of GaN epilayers while ploughing during the process of scratching; the appearances of the scratched surfaces were significantly different for the GaN epilayers on the c- and a-axis sapphire substrates. In addition, compared to the c-axis substrate, we obtained higher values of the coefficient of friction (μ) and deeper penetration of the scratches on the GaN a-axis sapphire sample when we set the ramped force at 4,000 μN. This discrepancy suggests that GaN epilayers grown on c-axis sapphire have higher shear resistances than those formed on a-axis sapphire. The occurrence of pile-up events indicates that the generation and motion of individual dislocation, which we measured under the sites of critical brittle transitions of the scratch track, resulted in ductile and/or brittle properties as a result of the deformed and strain-hardened lattice structure