Validating Chemistry Faculty Members’ Self-Reported Familiarity with Assessment Terminology

With the increasing emphasis placed upon chemistry instructors and departments to assess and evaluate their courses and curricula, understanding the structure of chemistry faculty members’ knowledge and use of assessment terms and concepts can shed light on potential areas for targeted professional development. Survey research that might accomplish this objective often relies on self-reported responses from the target audience, and such information is sometimes difficult to assess in terms of validity. As an example of an internal mechanism to help establish validity, it is possible to include an “internal standard” item early in the survey. For the sake of understanding faculty members’ familiarity with assessment terminology, an item that asked participants to identify analogous pairs of terms comparing assessment measures (assessment validity and assessment reliability) to laboratory measures (accuracy and precision) served this purpose. Using ordered logistic regression, participants who answered the analogy question completely correctly were more likely to report higher levels of familiarity with the assessment terms. Because the self-reported data appears to be valid, these data can be further used in subsequent analyses in order to determine the general familiarity trends among chemistry faculty regarding assessment terminology

Airborne Emissions from 1961 to 2004 of Benzo[a]pyrene from U.S. Vehicles per km of Travel Based on Tunnel Studies

We identified 13 historical measurements of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in U.S. vehicular traffic tunnels that were either directly presented as tailpipe emission factors in μg per vehicle-kilometer or convertible to such a form. Tunnel measurements capture fleet cruise emissions. Emission factors for benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) for a tunnel fleet operating under cruise conditions were highest prior to the 1980s and fell from more than 30-μg per vehicle-km to approximately 2-μg/km in the 1990s, an approximately 15-fold decline. Total annual U.S. (cruise) emissions of BaP dropped by a lesser factor, because total annual km driven increased by a factor of 2.7 during the period. Other PAH compounds measured in tunnels over the 40-year period (e.g., benzo[ghi]perylene, coronene) showed comparable reduction factors in emissions. PAH declines were comparable to those measured in tunnels for carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and particulate organic carbon. The historical PAH “source terms” determined from the data are relevant to quantifying the benefits of emissions control technology and can be used in epidemiological studies evaluating the health effects of exposure, such as those undertaken with breast cancer in New York State

“Benign” early repolarization versus malignant early abnormalities: Clinical-electrocardiographic distinction and genetic basis

In the great majority of cases the ECG pattern of early repolarization (ERP) is a benign phenomenon observed predominantly in teenagers, young adults, male athletes and the black race. The universally accepted criterion for its diagnosis is the presence, in at least two adjoining leads, of ≥ 1 mm or 0.1 mV ST segment elevation. In benign ERP reciprocal ST segment changes are possible only in lead aVR. In contrast, reciprocal ST segment changes can be observed in several leads in idiopathic ventricular fibrillation (IVF) and acute coronary syndrome. In benign ERP the ST segment and T wave patterns have a relative temporal stability. IVF is an entity with low prevalence, possibly familiar, and characterized by the occurrence of VF events in a young person. More frequently this occurs in male subjects without structural heart disease and with otherwise with normal ECG even using high right accessory leads and/or after ajmaline injection. Several clinical entities cause ST segment elevation include asthenic habitus, acute pericarditis, ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, Brugada syndrome, congenital short QT syndrome, and idiopathic VF. In these circumstances clinical and ECG data are most important for differential diagnosis. In IVF the modifications could be dramatic and predominantly at night during vagotonic predominance when J waves > 2 mm in amplitude. The ST/T abnormalities are dynamic, inconstant, and reversed with isoproterenol. Convex upward J waves, with horizontal/descending ST segments or “lambda-wave” ST shape are suggestive of IVF with early repolarization abnormalities. Premature ventricular contractions with very short coupling and “R on T” phenomenon are characteristics with two pattern: When originate from right ventricular outflow tract left bundle branch block morphology and from peripheral Purkinje network, left bundle branch block pattern. The inherited-familial forms are not frequent in IVF; however mutations were identified in the genes KCNJ8, DPP6, SCN5A, SCN3B, CACNA1C, CACNB2, and CACNA2D1. The management of IVF has class I indication for ICD implantation. Ablation therapy is considered additional to ICD implantation in those patients with repetitive ventricular arrhythmia. Quinidine is a highly efficient drug that prevents recurrence