Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls: A Call to Action for Educational Equity

This report seeks to expand conversations around educational opportunity by taking a comprehensive look at the barriers African American girls face and the educational and economic outcomes that result. One important barrier is the prevalence of stereotypes that adversely impact the educational experiences of African American girls. Structural and institutional barriers examined in this report -- such as under-resourced schools, disparate discipline practices, gender-based violence and harassment, and lack of support for pregnant and parenting students -- further compromise educational outcomes for African American girls. This report fills an important gap in existing data on educational achievement and its attendant economic consequences. Although there is plentiful data on American children and education, the lack of data broken down by race and gender together has fueled the assumption that all girls are doing fine in school. But in fact, although girls overall graduate from high school at higher rates than boys, girls of color are graduating at far lower rates than white girls and boys. In almost all states with available data, the high school graduation rate for African American girls is below the national average for girls overall, resulting in severe economic consequences for African American women and their families

Do the Mechanical and Chemical Properties of Invisalign\u3csup\u3eTM\u3c/sup\u3e Appliances Change After Use? A Retrieval Analysis

Aim: To investigate the mechanical and chemical alterations of Invisalign appliances after intraoral aging. Materials and methods: Samples of Invisalign appliances (Align Technology, San Jose, California, USA) were collected following routine treatment for a mean period of 44±15 days (group INV), whereas unused aligners of the same brand were used as reference (group REF). A small sample from the central incisors region was cut from each appliance and the buccal surface was analysed by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy (n = 5). Then the appliances were cut (n = 25) and embedded in acrylic resin, ground/polished in a grinding polishing machine, and the prepared surfaces were subjected to Instrumented Indentation Testing under 4.9 N load. Force-indentation depth curves were recorded for each group and the following parameters were calculated according to ISO 14577-1; 2002 specification: indentation modulus (E IT), elastic to total work ratio also known as elastic index (ηIT), Martens Hardness (HM), and indentation creep (C IT) The mean values of the mechanical properties were statistically analysed by unpaired t-test (a = 0.05). Results: ATR-FTIR analysis confirmed the urethane based structure of the appliances, without important chemical differences attributed to the aging process. INV group showed significantly lower E IT (REF: 2466±20, INV: 2216±168MPa), HM (REF: 119±1, INV: 110±6 N mm−2) and higher ηIT (REF: 40.0±0.3, INV: 41.5±1.2%), and C IT (REF: 3.7±0.2 INV: 4.0±0.1%). The increase in ηIT indicates that INV is a more brittle than REF, whereas the increase in C IT, a decrease in creep resistance. Conclusion: Despite the lack of detectable chemical changes, intraoral aging adversely affected the mechanical properties of the Invisalign appliance

SB 226: Amendments to the Quality Basic Education Act

The Act requires each local board of education to adopt a complaint resolution process to be used by its local school system to address parents’ or permanent guardians’ complaints alleging that harmful material has been provided or is currently available to a minor student

Researcher, PI and CEO - Managing a Large Scale Environmental Restoration Project in New York City; Creating Expectations, Establishing Structure, Protocols and Realistic Outcomes

[EN] Research consistently shows that children who have opportunities to actively investigate natural settings and engage in problem-based learning greatly benefit from the experiences? This project developed a model of curriculum and community enterprise to address that issue within the nation's largest urban school system. Middle school students will study New York Harbor and the extensive watershed that empties into it, as they conducted field research in support of restoring native oyster habitats. The project builds on the existing Billion Oyster Project, and was implemented by a broad partnership of institutions and community resources, including Pace University, the New York City Department of Education, the Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the New York Academy of Sciences, the New York Harbor Foundation, the New York Aquarium, and others. The project model includes five interrelated components: A teacher education curriculum, a digital platform for project resources, museum exhibits, and an afterschool STEM mentoring program. It targets middle-school students in low-income neighborhoods with high populations of English language learners and students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields and education pathways. This paper explores the management of this large-scale project and provides insight with regard to the governance of the various project components.Birney, L.; Diamantakos, G. (2017). Researcher, PI and CEO - Managing a Large Scale Environmental Restoration Project in New York City; Creating Expectations, Establishing Structure, Protocols and Realistic Outcomes. En Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 444-454. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD17.2017.525244445

Examining facilitators of trust in a pediatric collaborative care model: a qualitative study

Community-based participatory research is an equitable approach to research involving the community in all aspects of the research process to help promote the application of research findings directly to populations. The current study employed a community-based participatory research approach to help identify barriers and facilitators of trust in providers in a collaborative care model of integrated behavioral health at a Federally Qualified Health Center serving mostly Latine children and families called the psychiatry conference. 14 parents and six children were interviewed qualitatively about their experiences with the psychiatry conference and a thematic analysis approach was employed to identify themes related to facilitators of trust in providers. Results found that facilitators of trust included: the primary care provider serving as a bridge to help trusting relationships form between the psychiatrist and families, reciprocal respect between providers and families, and the psychiatrist taking an educational approach. Barriers to trust included: the quality and availability of interpreter services as well as lack of a tailored approach for patients depending on diagnosis. Other factors such as parent-child synchrony and optimism contributed to final reactions to the psychiatry conference as well as retention processes. This study helps to elucidate how to implement a CBPR study in an integrated care setting as well as ways to improve the acceptability of primary care behavioral health services for Latine children and families.Educational Psycholog

Developing a Workshop to Help Small Businesses Get Unstuck

This master’s project presents my journey of developing and running a two-day workshop specifically designed to help entrepreneurs get unstuck. It includes principles, frameworks, and materials developed for this two-day workshop. Inspiration for this project came from my own entrepreneur experience over the last 13 years. Over that time period I have encountered many roadblocks and found that the resources available to established small business owners were limited and those that do exist did not always meet my needs. This workshop has been developed keeping in mind the two things that are most important to small business owners, time and money. The tools and materials shared in this project have been designed from my experience along with my studies at the International Center for Studies in Creativity

Feature analysis of functional MRI data for mapping epileptic networks

Issued as final reportUniversity of Pennsylvani

Open Research Pilot case studies: research integrity and reproducibility

This is the third blog in our series marking the end of the Open Research Pilot (a two-year initiative involving University of Cambridge research groups, University Research Support, and Wellcome Trust’s Open Research Team). Professor David Savage tells the Research Support Team how he is concerned with how to improve and ensure research integrity and reproducibility

Open Research Pilot case studies: sharing all research outputs and future sustainability of data repositories

In this final blog from the researchers involved in the Open Research Pilot, the Jefferis group discuss their participation. During this time, their open interests have been focused particularly on how to share all outputs from the research process, and on issues around sustainability of data repositories into the future

Open Research Pilot case studies: sharing image data

January 2017 saw the launch of the Open Research Pilot Project. This two-year initiative comprised four volunteer University of Cambridge research groups, University Research Support, and Wellcome Trust’s Open Research Team. The aims of the project were to perceive what is needed for researchers to make openly available, and be rewarded for, all outputs of the research process (e.g. along with traditional publications, other outputs include negative results, protocols, source code)