Linking Students and Professional Associations: A Curricular Strategy

Students in professional social work programs in the United States traditionally receive little direct information about or contact with professional associations. What exposure they do get is haphazard and primarily through extracurricular means. This article describes and evaluates a curricular module to enhance student awareness of and connection to professional associations. The group work classes at a Midwestern U.S. university were adapted to include a course module addressing the role of professional associations. Components of the module include readings, discussions, presentations and attendance at a professional association meeting. A pre- and post-test was administered to assess the initial impact of this module. The module appears to have had an impact upon students\u27 knowledge of and appreciation for professional associations. The authors advocate for increased curricular attention to facilitating this connectio

Sibling Violence: The Missing Piece in Family Violence Policy

Social work has played an integral role in the conceptualization and implementation of policy aimed at prevention and intervention of various forms of family violence. Seminal federal policies to address child abuse and neglect (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act), elder abuse (Elder Justice and Older Americans Acts), and intimate partner violence (Violence Against Women and Family Violence Prevention and Services Acts) all focus on specific types of violence in the family. To date, however, there are no federal policies specifically addressing physical and/or emotional sibling violence (Perkins, Coles, & O’Connor, 2017; Perkins & O’Connor, 2016). This article examines the exclusion of policy addressing physical and emotional sibling violence considering other family violence policies. Along with prevalence, consequences, and associative factors connected to sibling violence, definitional issues that impede the creation of policy to address this form of family violence are highlighted. Children as a marginalized population, deserving the attention of social workers through policy advocacy will be discussed as well as psychoeducation and interprofessional collaboration that may facilitate the creation of policies aimed at addressing this form of family violence

The Impact of COVID-19 on Family Violence in Immigrant Communities in the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic has threatening implications for all individuals; and has been particularly unsettling for immigrants. Given their unique positionality in the U.S., the intersectional discussion about the impact of this pandemic on immigrants and issues of family violence is salient. The position of some groups of immigrant women is even more precarious due to the increased dependency on their spouse/partner for emotional, economic and immigration-related reasons. While immigrants have been on the frontlines as responders for COVID-19, there are limited policies that provide them with healthcare, employment guarantee, or benefits. Further, the immigration restrictions created by the U.S. Government have worsened the position of immigrants. All these stressors create unprecedented challenges for immigrants. Therefore, it is vital to delve into the family dynamics, unique challenges, and potential solutions that can provide support to immigrant families. This commentary highlights the atypical challenges of immigrants in relation to the pandemic and how these challenges may impact the incidence of family violence. Through our discussion, we hope to encourage social work scholars, practitioners, and policy advocates to support and advocate for immigrants; especially, during the new normal under the COVID-19 pandemic

First Wave Survey Results: A Preliminary Evaluation of Chicagos Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness

2ExecutiveSummaryThis report contains preliminary information about services to homeless clients in Chicago. The information is part of a comprehensive attempt to evaluate Chicago's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, a plan endorsed by Chicago's Mayor in 2003 and first outlined in Getting Housed, Staying Housed: Chicago's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness (Chicago Continuum of Care, 2000). In brief, the Plan calls for the implementation of a Housing First approach, under which clients are provided housing as soon as possible. Services are provided under the approach, but access to housing does not depend on the use of services.While the homeless service system is complex, offering services ranging from outreach and engagement to transportation to housing, this report focuses on and summarizes findings from the first of a three wave survey of clients residing in the three housing options that are provided under the Plan: emergency shelters, interim housing programs, and supportive permanent housing programs. Shelters generally house clients for a night at a time and are deemed to offer temporary placements. Interim housing programs offer accommodations to clients for a period that can last up to between 90 to 120 days. These programs generally are charged with providing linkage to services needed to address client problems, assessing clients for appropriate housing options and helping clients obtain the financial resources needed to afford housing. Supportive permanent housing programs allow people to stay as long as they wish and are charged with locating wraparound services for their clients. While they may not be unprecedented, the interim and permanent supportive housing programs are innovations suggested by the Plan.During 2009 and using a stratified, two-stage design, the first wave survey sampled a random sample of adult clients in the three types of programs. When surveying families, the head of the family was the respondent. The final sample includes 554 individuals and family heads. Of this total, 185 are from overnight shelter programs, 192 from interim housing programs and 177 from what for the purposes of this report are called permanent housing programs. The report summarizes basic findings about the surveyed clients. It analyzes the frequency with which clients evince certain traits or circumstances by the type of program. It also compares the frequencies across program types. In general, results of the analyses suggest that there has been considerable progress toward the goals of the Ten-Year Plan. The Plan's innovative programs, that is, interim and permanent housing programs, focus on clients who have long histories of homelessness. Those programs also reportedly engage in many required activities. Respondents also rate those programs higher than they rate shelters and report that agency and city workers tend to refer the clients to the new programs rather than to the old ones. On the other hand, service provision appears to be uneven in all types of programs. At the same time, largely due to policies and funding opportunities, the programs vary in the clients they serve

Sustainable Agriculture Education and Civic Engagement: The Significance of Community-University Partnerships in the New Agricultural Paradigm

Universities and colleges across the United States are making innovative strides in higher education programming to catalyze a more sustainable era of agriculture. This is clearly exemplified through the formation of community-university partnerships as critical illustrations of civic engagement (CE) for sustainable agriculture (SA) education. This paper explores the praxis of CE for SA education by focusing on the ways in which five land-grant universities (LGUs) with undergraduate programs in SA have developed and put into practice community-university partnerships. Drawing upon these programs and supportive literature, this article specifically attempts to describe the role and significance of CE for SA education, emerging community-university partnership models and their implications for prompting food and agriculture sustainability, and student learning and program assessment outcomes. We also reveal the many challenges and opportunities encountered by stakeholders involved in the creation and continuation of these programs and their subsequent coursework. Conclusions offer real world recommendations for other faculty, staff, student, and community stakeholders to implement and generate action-oriented scholarship for and with communities as a viable thread of SA education

A prospective, multicenter, phase I matched-comparison group trial of safety, pharmacokinetics, and preliminary efficacy of riluzole in patients with traumatic spinal cord injury.

A prospective, multicenter phase I trial was undertaken by the North American Clinical Trials Network (NACTN) to investigate the pharmacokinetics and safety of, as well as obtain pilot data on, the effects of riluzole on neurological outcome in acute spinal cord injury (SCI). Thirty-six patients, with ASIA impairment grades A-C (28 cervical and 8 thoracic) were enrolled at 6 NACTN sites between April 2010 and June 2011. Patients received 50 mg of riluzole PO/NG twice-daily, within 12 h of SCI, for 14 days. Peak and trough plasma concentrations were quantified on days 3 and 14. Peak plasma concentration (Cmax) and systemic exposure to riluzole varied significantly between patients. On the same dose basis, Cmax did not reach levels comparable to those in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Riluzole plasma levels were significantly higher on day 3 than on day 14, resulting from a lower clearance and a smaller volume of distribution on day 3. Rates of medical complications, adverse events, and progression of neurological status were evaluated by comparison with matched patients in the NACTN SCI Registry. Medical complications in riluzole-treated patients occurred with incidences similar to those in patients in the comparison group. Mild-to-moderate increase in liver enzyme and bilirubin levels were found in 14-70% of patients for different enzymes. Three patients had borderline severe elevations of enzymes. No patient had elevated bilirubin on day 14 of administration of riluzole. There were no serious adverse events related to riluzole and no deaths. The mean motor score of 24 cervical injury riluzole-treated patients gained 31.2 points from admission to 90 days, compared to 15.7 points for 26 registry patients, a 15.5-point difference (p=0.021). Patients with cervical injuries treated with riluzole had more-robust conversions of impairment grades to higher grades than the comparison group

A clinical prediction model for long-term functional outcome after traumatic spinal cord injury based on acute clinical and imaging factors.

To improve clinicians\u27 ability to predict outcome after spinal cord injury (SCI) and to help classify patients within clinical trials, we have created a novel prediction model relating acute clinical and imaging information to functional outcome at 1 year. Data were obtained from two large prospective SCI datasets. Functional independence measure (FIM) motor score at 1 year follow-up was the primary outcome, and functional independence (score ≥ 6 for each FIM motor item) was the secondary outcome. A linear regression model was created with the primary outcome modeled relative to clinical and imaging predictors obtained within 3 days of injury. A logistic model was then created using the dichotomized secondary outcome and the same predictor variables. Model validation was performed using a bootstrap resampling procedure. Of 729 patients, 376 met the inclusion criteria. The mean FIM motor score at 1 year was 62.9 (±28.6). Better functional status was predicted by less severe initial American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale grade, and by an ASIA motor score \u3e50 at admission. In contrast, older age and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal characteristics consistent with spinal cord edema or hemorrhage predicted worse functional outcome. The linear model predicting FIM motor score demonstrated an R-square of 0.52 in the original dataset, and 0.52 (95% CI 0.52,0.53) across the 200 bootstraps. Functional independence was achieved by 148 patients (39.4%). For the logistic model, the area under the curve was 0.93 in the original dataset, and 0.92 (95% CI 0.92,0.93) across the bootstraps, indicating excellent predictive discrimination. These models will have important clinical impact to guide decision making and to counsel patients and families

Observing Direct CP Violation in Untagged B-Meson Decays

Direct CP violation can exist in untagged B-meson decays to self-conjugate, three-particle final states; it would be realized as a population asymmetry in the untagged decay rate across the mirror line of the Dalitz plot of the three-body decay. We explore the numerical size of this direct CP-violating effect in a variety of B-meson decays to three pseudoscalar mesons; we show that the resulting asymmetry is comparable to the partial rate asymmetry in the analogous tagged decays, making the search for direct CP violation in the untagged decay rate, for which greater statistics accrue, advantageous.Comment: 31 pages, REVTeX4, 1 eps figure, references added, typos corrected, version to appear in PR

The \u3cem\u3eChlamydomonas\u3c/em\u3e Genome Reveals the Evolution of Key Animal and Plant Functions

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga whose lineage diverged from land plants over 1 billion years ago. It is a model system for studying chloroplast-based photosynthesis, as well as the structure, assembly, and function of eukaryotic flagella (cilia), which were inherited from the common ancestor of plants and animals, but lost in land plants. We sequenced the ∼120-megabase nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas and performed comparative phylogenomic analyses, identifying genes encoding uncharacterized proteins that are likely associated with the function and biogenesis of chloroplasts or eukaryotic flagella. Analyses of the Chlamydomonas genome advance our understanding of the ancestral eukaryotic cell, reveal previously unknown genes associated with photosynthetic and flagellar functions, and establish links between ciliopathy and the composition and function of flagella

BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene.

MotivationThe BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.Main types of variables includedThe database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record.Spatial location and grainBioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km2 (158 cm2) to 100 km2 (1,000,000,000,000 cm2).Time period and grainBioTIME records span from 1874 to 2016. The minimal temporal grain across all datasets in BioTIME is a year.Major taxa and level of measurementBioTIME includes data from 44,440 species across the plant and animal kingdoms, ranging from plants, plankton and terrestrial invertebrates to small and large vertebrates.Software format.csv and .SQL