Education Aspirations and Barriers to Achievement for Street‐Involved Youth in Victoria, Canada

Much of the literature on street‐involved youth focuses on their deficits, including their high risk of withdrawing before completing high school, which is often interpreted as a rejection of formal education. Missing from the literature is an understanding of street‐involved youth’s educational aspirations. We employed thematic analysis of qualitative data from in‐person interviews with a purposive sample of street‐involved youth (N = 69) residing in one city in Canada, who were partly or fully disengaged from school at the time of the interview. We asked the youth to talk about their opinions of formal education, its importance for young people, whether learning was important for them, and whether they imagined returning to school/continuing with school. We discovered that the majority of youth had a positive view of school/formal education and stated they liked learning new things and recognized the benefits of continuing/completing their education. At the same time, the youth identified material hardship and other barriers to achieving their educational goals. We discuss these findings in light of the relevant literature and make policy recommendations to improve educational success for youth struggling with poverty and homelessness in Canada

Tumor on a Chip (2022-23)

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a form of cancer that metastasizes in the lymph nodes, liver and bone marrow mainly affecting young pediatric patients, yielding a low survival rate of 50% over a five-year period. This pathological condition has a high level of diversity and heterogeneity amongst the diagnosed patients causing difficulty in the progression of treatment development. There is a need for the research and development of methods that allow for detailed in-vitro tumor modeling to inform personalized therapeutic drug delivery options that can help tackle the issue of tumor diversity amongst patients. Currently, the Coburn Lab at WPI utilizes multilayered scaffold stacks made from silk fibroin and cultures them with cells to model a solid tumor. A previous MQP team developed a fluidic bioreactor as an attempt to create a better modeling system, but there were issues with keeping the scaffolds in place. The team aimed to create a better tumor modeling method by designing a fluidic chip device that houses a scaffold stack with double-interfaced flow aiming to closely model a physiologic tumor microenvironment. The device setup included a five layer fluidic chip, media recycling chamber and a peristaltic pump. Through testing the team concluded that the microfluidic device better addressed the client needs of increased handleability

Cultural adaptations to augment health and mental health services: a systematic review

Background: Membership in diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural groups is often associated with inequitable health and mental health outcomes for diverse populations. Yet, little is known about how cultural adaptations of standard services affect health and mental health outcomes for service recipients. This systematic review identified extant themes in the research regarding cultural adaptations across a broad range of health and mental health services and synthesized the most rigorous experimental research available to isolate and evaluate potential efficacy gains of cultural adaptations to service delivery. Methods: MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, EMBASE, and grey literature sources were searched for English-language studies published between January 1955 and January 2015. Cultural adaptations to any aspect of a service delivery were considered. Outcomes of interest included changes in service provider behavior or changes in the behavioral, medical, or self-reported experience of recipients. Results: Thirty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. The most frequently tested adaptation occurred in preventive services and consisted of modifying the content of materials or services delivered. None of the included studies focused on making changes in the provider’s behavior. Many different populations were studied but most research was concerned with the experiences and outcomes of African Americans. Seventeen of the 31 retained studies observed at least one significant effect in favor of a culturally adapted service. However there were also findings that favored the control group or showed no difference. Researchers did not find consistent evidence supporting implementation of any specific type of adaptation nor increased efficacy with any particular cultural group. Conclusions: Conceptual frameworks to classify cultural adaptations and their resultant health/mental health outcomes were developed and applied in a variety of ways. This review synthesizes the most rigorous research in the field and identifies implications for policy, practice, and research, including individualization, cost considerations, and patient or client satisfaction, among others.Other UBCNon UBCReviewedFacult

Additional file 3: of Cultural adaptations to augment health and mental health services: a systematic review

Complete Electronic Database Search Strategy for the Systematic Review. A record of search strategy and dates for the electronic database searches. (DOCX 48 kb

Additional file 6: of Cultural adaptations to augment health and mental health services: a systematic review

One Example of a Conceptual Hierarchy of Client Engagement. An example of another potential dimension by which adaptations could be evaluated. (DOCX 20 kb

'A Divided Soul'? the Cold War odyssey of O. John Rogge

In 1948 O. John Rogge, a prominent American liberal, was a contender for the Progressive Party's vice-presidential nomination. He was then a man of the Left: an activist in the international peace movement, a champion of radical causes and a defender of organizations deemed subversive by the Department of Justice. In 1951 he persuaded his\ud client to turn government witness in the Rosenberg espionage trial and was converted into 'Rogge the Rat' by his former allies. In tracing this transformation, this paper will argue that Rogge was neither a typical Cold War apostate nor a typical anti-Stalinist intellectual. Instead, his political trajectory was the outcome of a failed attempt to steer global politics away from Cold War dichotomies. The paper will therefore throw new light\ud both on the movement to find a 'third way' between East and West, and on the phenomenon of non-communist Left activism during the early Cold War

Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma, an ultra-rare cancer : a consensus paper from the community of experts

Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE) is an ultra-rare, translocated, vascular sarcoma. EHE clinical behavior is variable, ranging from that of a low-grade malignancy to that of a high-grade sarcoma and it is marked by a high propensity for systemic involvement. No active systemic agents are currently approved specifically for EHE, which is typically refractory to the antitumor drugs used in sarcomas. The degree of uncertainty in selecting the most appropriate therapy for EHE patients and the lack of guidelines on the clinical management of the disease make the adoption of new treatments inconsistent across the world, resulting in suboptimal outcomes for many EHE patients. To address the shortcoming, a global consensus meeting was organized in December 2020 under the umbrella of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) involving >80 experts from several disciplines from Europe, North America and Asia, together with a patient representative from the EHE Group, a global, disease-specific patient advocacy group, and Sarcoma Patient EuroNet (SPAEN). The meeting was aimed at defining, by consensus, evidence-based best practices for the optimal approach to primary and metastatic EHE. The consensus achieved during that meeting is the subject of the present publication