Resettled Refugee Families: Parenting Practices and Educational Involvement

In 2020, there are 25.9 million refugees worldwide. With the rapidly rising refugee population (over 600,000 from 2010 to 2020) in the United States, supporting resettled refugee families is a pressing issue, in which a comprehensive understanding of the refugee families is sorely needed. The purpose of this paper was to identify the challenges of resettled refugee families in their parenting practices and educational involvement. Entering a country with a different language and culture than their own, refugees, parents in particular, face numerous challenges upon relocation (e.g., refugee parents who raise their children in a new and unfamiliar environment have to balance between the new adaptation and the preservation of their original culture). This obstacle is manifested in their parenting practices and involvement in their children’s education and schooling as well as language barrier. We provided an overview of the parenting challenges and explored the cultural dissonance in parenting and its impact on family dynamics. Implications were provided to address the challenges refugee families face in the areas of systemic and personnel support, effective strategies, and family-school relations

Developing internal medicine subspecialty fellows’ teaching skills: a needs assessment

Abstract Background For academic physicians, teaching represents an essential skill. The proliferation of educator training programs aimed at residents and medical students signals the increasing commitment of training programs to develop teaching skills in their trainees as early as possible. However, clinical fellowships represent an important opportunity to advance training as educators. In addition to enriching the pipeline of future teachers, developing fellows as teachers augments the training experience for more junior trainees and may impact patient care. Fellows’ needs for programs to improve teaching skills have been largely unexplored. Methods We conducted a multi-institutional needs assessment of internal medicine (IM) subspecialty fellows to gauge interest in teaching and improvement of teaching skills. We surveyed IM subspecialty fellows at three academic medical centers about their access to fellow-as-teacher programs and other mechanisms to improve their teaching skills during fellowship. We also elicited their attitudes towards teaching and interest in training related to teaching skills. Results One hundred eighty-three fellows representing 20 programs and nine different subspecialties responded to the survey (48% response rate). The majority of participants (67%) reported having no specific training focused on teaching skills and only 12% reported receiving regular feedback about their teaching during their fellowship. Seventy-nine percent of fellows anticipated teaching to be part of their careers, and 22% planned to participate in medical education scholarship. Fellows reported a strong interest in teaching and programs aimed at improving their teaching skills. Conclusions The majority of fellows reported a lack of mechanisms to advance their teaching skills as fellows, despite anticipating teaching to be an important aspect of their future careers and having strong interest in such programs. Our findings at three academic medical centers confirm a lost opportunity among subspecialty fellowships to accelerate teaching skills development for future educators.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145709/1/12909_2018_Article_1283.pd

Effects of ageing on pro-arrhythmic ventricular phenotypes in incrementally paced murine Pgc1β-/- hearts

A range of chronic clinical conditions accompany cardiomyocyte energetic dysfunction and constitute independent risk factors for cardiac arrhythmia. We investigated pro-arrhythmic and arrhythmic phenotypes in energetically deficient C57BL mice with genetic ablation of the mitochondrial promoter peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-γ coactivator-1β (Pgc-1β), a known model of ventricular arrhythmia. Pro-arrhythmic and cellular action potential (AP) characteristics were compared in intact Langendorff-perfused hearts from young (12-16 week) and aged (>52 week), WT and Pgc-1β-/- mice. Simultaneous electrocardiographic and intracellular microelectrode recordings were made through successive trains of 100 regular stimuli at progressively incremented heart rates. Aged Pgc-1β-/- hearts displayed an increased incidence of arrhythmia compared to other groups. Young and aged Pgc-1β-/- hearts showed higher incidences of alternans in both AP activation (maximum AP upshoot velocity (dV/dt)max and latency), recovery (action potential duration (APD90) and resting membrane potential (RMP)) characteristics compared to WT hearts. This was particularly apparent at lower pacing frequencies. These findings accompanied reduced (dV/dt)max and increased AP latency values in the Pgc-1β-/- hearts. APs observed prior to termination of the protocol showed lower (dV/dt)max and longer AP latencies, but indistinguishable APD90 and RMPs in arrhythmic compared to non-arrhythmic hearts. APD restitution analysis showed that Pgc-1β-/- and WT hearts showed similar limiting gradients. However, Pgc-1β-/- hearts had shortened plateau AP wavelengths, particularly in aged Pgc-1β-/- hearts. Pgc-1β-/- hearts therefore show pro-arrhythmic instabilities attributable to altered AP conduction and activation rather than recovery characteristics.We acknowledge the financial support from the Medical Research Council (MR/M001288/1); the Wellcome Trust (105727/Z/14/Z); the British Heart Foundation (PG/14/79/31102 and PG/15/12/31280), Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS) UK; The McVeigh Benefaction and by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/2/2014/SKK01/PERDANA/02/1), Ministry of Education, Malaysia

Acute atrial arrhythmogenesis in murine hearts following enhanced extracellular Ca2+ entry depends on intracellular Ca2+ stores

Aim To investigate the effect of increases in extracellular Ca2+ entry produced by the L-type Ca2+ channel agonist FPL-64176 (FPL) upon acute atrial arrhythmogenesis in intact Langendorff-perfused mouse hearts and its dependence upon diastolic Ca2+ release from sarcoplasmic reticular Ca2+ stores. Methods: Confocal microscope studies of Fluo-3 fluorescence in isolated atrial myocytes were performed in parallel with electrophysiological examination of Langendorff-perfused mouse hearts. Results: Atrial myocytes stimulated at 1 Hz and exposed to FPL (0.1 μm) initially showed (10 min) this reverted to a regular pattern of evoked transients with increased amplitudes but in which diastolic peaks were absent. Higher FPL concentrations (1.0 μm) produced sustained and irregular patterns of cytosolic Ca2+ activity, independent of pacing. Nifedipine (0.5 μm), and caffeine (1.0 mm) and cyclopiazonic acid (CPA) (0.15 μm) pre-treatments respectively produced immediate and gradual reductions in the F/F0 peaks. Such nifedipine and caffeine, or CPA pre-treatments, abolished, or reduced, the effects of 0.1 and 1.0 μm FPL on cytosolic Ca2+ signals. FPL (1.0 μm) increased the incidence of atrial tachycardia and fibrillation in intact Langendorff-perfused hearts without altering atrial effective refractory periods. These effects were inhibited by nifedipine and caffeine, and reduced by CPA. Conclusion: Enhanced extracellular Ca2+ entry exerts acute atrial arrhythmogenic effects that is nevertheless dependent upon diastolic Ca2+ release. These findings complement reports that associate established, chronic, atrial arrhythmogenesis with decreased overall inward Ca2+ current

Zeolite Degradation: An Investigation of CO2 Capacity Loss of 13x Sorbent

System testing of the Carbon Dioxide Removal and Compression System (CRCS) has revealed that sufficient CO2 removal capability was not achieved with the designed system. Subsystem component analysis of the zeolite bed revealed that the sorbent material suffered significant degradation and CO2 loading capacity loss. In an effort to find the root cause of this degradation, various factors were investigated to try to reproduce the observed performance loss. These factors included contamination by vacuum pump oil, o-ring vacuum grease, loading/unloading procedures, and operations. This paper details the experiments that were performed and their results

Comparison of Hermetic Storage of Wheat with Traditional Storage Methods in India

India is among the countries experiencing high postharvest losses. Four hermetic bags, two metallic bins, and two gunny bag (also known as jute or burlap bag) piles each containing 1 tonne of wheat were instrumented with temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide sensors. Representative samples from each structure were collected each month and tests for moisture, germination, insect-damaged grain, and milling yield were performed. After nine months, wheat stored in hermetic bags had higher germination (87%) and lower insect-damaged grain percentages (0% to 0.33% with a mean value of 0.2%). Hermetic bags with deliberately introduced Rhyzopertha dominica successfully eliminated the pests. Gunny bag piles had infestations; metallic bins also were infested. Wheat moisture content in all structures varied depending upon ambient conditions; moisture variation was largest in gunny bag piles. Milling yields were lowest for gunny bag piles. Hermetic bags can be an effective and environmentally friendly solution for reducing storage losses of wheat in India

Rice yields decline with higher night temperature from global warming

The impact of projected global warming on crop yields has been evaluated by indirect methods using simulation models. Direct studies on the effects of observed climate change on crop growth and yield could provide more accurate information for assessing the impact of climate change on crop production. We analyzed weather data at the International Rice Research Institute Farm from 1979 to 2003 to examine temperature trends and the relationship between rice yield and temperature by using data from irrigated field experiments conducted at the International Rice Research Institute Farm from 1992 to 2003. Here we report that annual mean maximum and minimum temperatures have increased by 0.35°C and 1.13°C, respectively, for the period 1979–2003 and a close linkage between rice grain yield and mean minimum temperature during the dry cropping season (January to April). Grain yield declined by 10% for each 1°C increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season, whereas the effect of maximum temperature on crop yield was insignificant. This report provides a direct evidence of decreased rice yields from increased nighttime temperature associated with global warming