Non-Pharmacological Interventions for Postoperative Pain After Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasties

The purpose of this project is to decrease the incidence of postoperative pain in the total knee and hip arthroplasties population by using non-pharmacological methods. For this project I developed an educational electronic PowerPoint for the staff at OrthoCincy to review and understand the benefits of the non-pharmacological methods that will be offered to patients. The methods included in the voiceover PowerPoint are acupuncture, cryotherapy, electrotherapy, and guided imagery. The staff will have a better understanding of the approaches outlined on a handout available for patients, to answer any questions they may have as well as make any necessary referrals

Digital makeover: what do pre-service teachers learn from microteaching primary science and how does an online video analysis tool enhance learning?

This paper reports on pre-service teachers’ experiences of using the web-based video analysis tool VideoAnt during microteaching seminars in primary science. Opportunities for pre-service teachers to observe and teach high quality primary science lessons during placement may be restricted by the focus on Numeracy and Literacy and recently reported decrease in the profile of science within the primary curriculum. This in turn will compromise the confidence and competence of future teachers with respect to teaching science. Within initial teacher education Microteaching continues to be used widely as a means of introducing the practice of teaching in a gradual and controlled manner. Data obtained from questionnaires and focus group interviews of 93 undergraduate students suggests that the online video analysis tool VideoAnt adds significant value to the learning resulting from each of the three features of microteaching; shortened lessons, video analysis and feedback. The majority of pre-service teachers enjoyed using the tool and reported that the experience had increased their levels of confidence in teaching primary science and that as a result they would now be better equipped to learn during the course of school placement. The findings may help address the challenge of achieving greater integration between the college-based and school-centred components of ITE programmes, and enhance pre-service teachers’ experience of teaching in curricular areas such as primary science where the opportunity for practice during placement may be limited

“It is through others that we become ourselves.” A study of Vygotskian play in Russian and Irish schools.

<div> <div> <div> <p>Fifty years after publishing his seminal work on play and its role in child development, Vygotskian theory is still highly influential in education, and particularly in early years. This paper presents two examples of full integration of Vygotskian principles into schools in two very different settings. Both report improvements in learning and in well-being, and exemplify the theory–practice–theory cycle, highlighting the development of new theoretical constructs arising out of putting theory firmly into practice. In both settings, the positive results have come from years of effort, in which school personnel who may have been skeptical at first, have been inspired by the impact of adopting Vygotskian play on the children they teach. The Northern Ireland study shows that at least some of the Golden Key principles (mixed-age play and enhanced home–school links) translate perfectly into very different cultural-historical contexts. </p><p>International Research in Early Childhood Education, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–146</p> </div> </div> </div

Individual Fairness in Bayesian Neural Networks

We study Individual Fairness (IF) for Bayesian neural networks (BNNs). Specifically, we consider the $\epsilon$-$\delta$-individual fairness notion, which requires that, for any pair of input points that are $\epsilon$-similar according to a given similarity metrics, the output of the BNN is within a given tolerance $\delta>0.$ We leverage bounds on statistical sampling over the input space and the relationship between adversarial robustness and individual fairness to derive a framework for the systematic estimation of $\epsilon$-$\delta$-IF, designing Fair-FGSM and Fair-PGD as global,fairness-aware extensions to gradient-based attacks for BNNs. We empirically study IF of a variety of approximately inferred BNNs with different architectures on fairness benchmarks, and compare against deterministic models learnt using frequentist techniques. Interestingly, we find that BNNs trained by means of approximate Bayesian inference consistently tend to be markedly more individually fair than their deterministic counterparts

Estimating age-based antiretroviral therapy costs for HIV-infected children in resource-limited settings based on World Health Organization weight-based dosing recommendations

Background: Pediatric antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been shown to substantially reduce morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected infants and children. To accurately project program costs, analysts need accurate estimations of antiretroviral drug (ARV) costs for children. However, the costing of pediatric antiretroviral therapy is complicated by weight-based dosing recommendations which change as children grow. Methods: We developed a step-by-step methodology for estimating the cost of pediatric ARV regimens for children ages 0–13 years old. The costing approach incorporates weight-based dosing recommendations to provide estimated ARV doses throughout childhood development. Published unit drug costs are then used to calculate average monthly drug costs. We compared our derived monthly ARV costs to published estimates to assess the accuracy of our methodology. Results: The estimates of monthly ARV costs are provided for six commonly used first-line pediatric ARV regimens, considering three possible care scenarios. The costs derived in our analysis for children were fairly comparable to or slightly higher than available published ARV drug or regimen estimates. Conclusions: The methodology described here can be used to provide an accurate estimation of pediatric ARV regimen costs for cost-effectiveness analysts to project the optimum packages of care for HIV-infected children, as well as for program administrators and budget analysts who wish to assess the feasibility of increasing pediatric ART availability in constrained budget environments

Folkestone futures: an elevated excursion

The town of Folkestone on the south Kent coast in the UK once enjoyed a thriving identity as both seaside resort and gateway to Europe. From the 1960s onwards a gradual decline set in with the advent of mass global travel, culminating in the deathblow that was dealt by the nearby Eurotunnel’s inauguration towards century’s end, which signalled the end of the town’s ferry link to the continental mainland. A concerted attempt has been underway for a decade now to revitalise the town using the arts, creative industries and education as the drivers of regeneration. One of the main initiatives in this endeavour was the introduction in 2008 of the Folkestone Triennial, a three-month summer event in which high-profile international artists were commissioned to produce sited artworks for the town. Focusing on the third triennial in 2014, this article analyses some of the ways in which artists have sought to engage and identify with notions suggested by its title, Lookout. In particular it will outline a curated constellation of artworks – or complex – that implicitly inscribes itself into the townscape and is characterised by installations that are sited in elevated locations, from whose respective vantage points they contemplate what the future holds for Folkestone

A Project to Foster Behavioural Monitoring in the Field of ADHD

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Systems of Access: A Multidisciplinary Strategy for Assessing the Social Dimensions of Sustainability

The concept of access to natural resources has been a specific concern of economists and ecologists and is a distinct component in recent models of social sustainability. Using a series of conceptual and empirical examples, this article extends the notion of access broadly to social institutions and sociocultural norms. We argue that access may be usefully construed as an analytic tool that has direct applicability to many sustainability issues as it allows for cross-disciplinary and public engagement. Here the concept of access, linked to Amartya Sen’s theory of capabilities, also makes visible the multi-scaled and interconnected social processes that influence the material world and from which certain individuals and communities are excluded. This article examines access as a set of culturally appropriate and equitable engagements that promote social sustainability with a series of four examples: access to actions necessary to reclaim a polluted river; access to restorative natural environments; access to information and research findings; and access to decision-making processes. Insights from these examples are integrated within the wider discourse on sustainability

Process-based modelling of NH3 exchange with grazed grasslands

In this study the GAG model, a process-based ammonia (NH3) emission model for urine patches, was extended and applied for the field scale. The new model (GAG_field) was tested over two modelling periods, for which micrometeorological NH3 flux data were available. Acknowledging uncertainties in the measurements, the model was able to simulate the main features of the observed fluxes. The temporal evolution of the simulated NH3 exchange flux was found to be dominated by NH3 emission from the urine patches, offset by simultaneous NH3 deposition to areas of the field not affected by urine. The simulations show how NH3 fluxes over a grazed field in a given day can be affected by urine patches deposited several days earlier, linked to the interaction of volatilization processes with soil pH dynamics. Sensitivity analysis showed that GAG_field was more sensitive to soil buffering capacity (β), field capacity (θfc) and permanent wilting point (θpwp) than the patch-scale model. The reason for these different sensitivities is dual. Firstly, the difference originates from the different scales. Secondly, the difference can be explained by the different initial soil pH and physical properties, which determine the maximum volume of urine that can be stored in the NH3 source layer. It was found that in the case of urine patches with a higher initial soil pH and higher initial soil water content, the sensitivity of NH3 exchange to β was stronger. Also, in the case of a higher initial soil water content, NH3 exchange was more sensitive to the changes in θfc and θpwp. The sensitivity analysis showed that the nitrogen content of urine (cN) is associated with high uncertainty in the simulated fluxes. However, model experiments based on cN values randomized from an estimated statistical distribution indicated that this uncertainty is considerably smaller in practice

Infrared Spectroscopy of a Massive Obscured Star Cluster in the Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039) with NIRSPEC

We present infrared spectroscopy of the Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039) with NIRSPEC at the W. M. Keck Observatory. We imaged the star clusters in the vicinity of the southern nucleus (NGC 4039) in 0.39" seeing in K-band using NIRSPEC's slit-viewing camera. The brightest star cluster revealed in the near-IR (M_K(0) = -17.9) is insignificant optically, but coincident with the highest surface brightness peak in the mid-IR (12-18 micron) ISO image presented by Mirabel et al. (1998). We obtained high signal-to-noise 2.03 - 2.45 micron spectra of the nucleus and the obscured star cluster at R ~ 1900. The cluster is very young (4 Myr old), massive (16e6 M_sun), and compact (density ~ 115 M_sun pc^(-3) within a 32 pc half-light radius), assuming a Salpeter IMF (0.1 - 100 M_sun). Its hot stars have a radiation field characterized by T_eff ~ 39,000 K, and they ionize a compact H II region with n_e ~ 1e4 cm^(-3). The stars are deeply embedded in gas and dust (A_V ~ 9-10 mag), and their strong FUV field powers a clumpy photodissociation region with densities n_H >= 1e5 cm^(-3) on scales of up to 200 pc, radiating L[H_2 1-0 S(1)] = 9600 L_sun.Comment: 4 pages, 5 embedded figures. To appear in proceedings of 33d ESLAB Symposium: Star Formation from the Small to the Large Scale, held in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, Nov. 1999. Also available at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~agilber