Impact!: Improving Student Learning through an Inquiry Crater Investigation

The fight against student compartmentalization of science concepts is an ongoing battle for all science educators. When an inquiry-based investigation of natural phenomena, like that presented here, is integrated into curricula new links between science concepts are created. These new connections promote a deep and robust understanding of science content. This cratering activity has students applying prior knowledge of gravitational forces, momentum, conservation of energy, and density while exploring the intricate relationships between these fundamental concepts. This activity also provides abundant opportunities for explicit connections to the nature of science. Impact cratering is a phenomena which can be easily modeled within a classroom, and deeply understanding it requires application of several fundamental science concepts. This article addresses National Science Education Standards A, B, D, and G and Iowa Teaching Standards 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

Web Applet For Predicting Structure And Thermodynamics Of Complex Fluids

Based on a recently introduced analytical strategy [Hollingshead et al., J. Chem. Phys. 139, 161102 (2013)], we present a web applet that can quickly and semi-quantitatively estimate the equilibrium radial distribution function and related thermodynamic properties of a fluid from knowledge of its pair interaction. We describe the applet's features and present two (of many possible) examples of how it can be used to illustrate concepts of interest for introductory statistical mechanics courses: the transition from ideal gas-like behavior to correlated-liquid behavior with increasing density, and the tradeoff between dominant length scales with changing temperature in a system with ramp-shaped repulsions. The latter type of interaction qualitatively captures distinctive thermodynamic properties of liquid water, because its energetic bias toward locally open structures mimics that of water's hydrogen-bond network. (C) 2015 American Association of Physics Teachers.Chemical Engineerin

Impact of Race and Sex on Pain Management by Medical Trainees: A Mixed Methods Pilot Study of Decision Making and Awareness of Influence

Objective Previous research suggests female and black patients receive less optimal treatment for their chronic pain compared with male and white patients. Provider-related factors are hypothesized to contribute to unequal treatment, but these factors have not been examined extensively. This mixed methods investigation examined the influence of patients' demographic characteristics on providers' treatment decisions and providers' awareness of these influences on their treatment decisions. Methods Twenty medical trainees made treatment decisions (opioid, antidepressant, physical therapy) for 16 virtual patients with chronic low back pain; patient sex and race were manipulated across patients. Participants then indicated from a provided list the factors that influenced their treatment decisions, including patient demographics. Finally, individual interviews were conducted to discuss the role of patient demographics on providers' clinical decisions. Results Individual regression analyses indicated that 30% of participants were reliably influenced by patient sex and 15% by patient race when making their decisions (P < 0.05 or P < 0.10). Group analyses indicated that white patients received higher antidepressant recommendations, on average, than black patients (P < 0.05). Half of the medical trainees demonstrated awareness of the influence of demographic characteristics on their decision making. Participants, regardless of whether they were influenced by patients' demographics, discussed themes related to patient sex and race; however, participants' discussion of patient demographics in the interviews did not always align with their online study results. Conclusions These findings suggest there is a considerable variability in the extent to which medical trainees are influenced by patient demographics and their awareness of these decision making influences

Preschool development of coloured children in Cape Town

Developmental screening was applied during infancy to a birth cohort of 1 000 coloured infants born consecutively in Cape Town. The developmental progress of a sample of 187 children randomly selected from the cohort was followed over a period of 5 years. The value of the use of developmental screening is questioned, since 4 of the children in the cohort with major handicap had been diagnosed before the first screening was carried out and a 5th child with deafness was not detected by the screening process.Developmental milestones were similar to those studies reported in the literature. At 12 months the development correlated best with family stability. Language development at 30 months was associated with mother's education and family stability and reflected a general lag in verbal skills. By 5 years there was a good correlation between development and social indicators, particularly income and mother's education

Which electronic health record system should we use? A systematic review

The UK government had intended to introduce a comprehensive EHRs system in England by 2020. These EHRs would run across primary, secondary, and social care linking data in a single digital platform. This systematic review's objectives were to identify studies that compare EHRs in terms of direct comparison between systems and evaluate them using System and Software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) ISO/IEC 25010. A systematic review was performed by searching EMBASE and Ovid MEDLINE databases between 1974 and April 2021. All original studies that appraised EHR systems and their providers were included. The main outcome measures were EHR system comparison and SQuaRE's eight characteristics: functional suitability, performance efficiency, compatibility, usability, reliability, security, maintainability, and portability. A total of 724 studies were identified using the search criteria. After review of titles and abstracts, this was filtered down to 40 studies as per exclusion and inclusion criteria set out in our study selection. Seven studies compared more than one EHR. The following number of studies looked at the various aspects of the SQuaRE respectively. Nineteen studies addressed functional suitability, n=18 performance efficiency, n=12 compatibility, n=25 usability, n=6 reliability, n=2 security, n=16 maintainability, and n=13 portability. Epic was the most studied EHR system and one of the most implemented vendors in the USA market, and one of the top ten in UK. It is difficult to assess which is the most advantageous EHR system currently available when looking at them in accordance with SQuaRE's eight characteristics for software evaluation

Immunizations with pneumococcal surface protein A and pneumolysin are protective against pneumonia in a murine model of pulmonary infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae

Intranasal infection of mice with certain strains of capsular group 19 Streptococcus pneumoniae can result in focal pneumonia in the absence of bacteremia. Using this model of murine pneumonia, we demonstrated that immunization with recombinant forms of either pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) or PdB (a genetically detoxified derivative of pneumolysin) elicited significant protection against focal pulmonary infection. This may be the first demonstration that a proposed vaccine antigen can protect against pneumococcal pneumonia. The best protection was obtained by immunizing mice with a mixture of PspA and PdB, indicating that the protection elicited by these antigens can complement each other. This result is in agreement with previous studies that used pneumococcal sepsis and nasal colonization models and demonstrate that the best protein vaccines for prevention of infection may be those that include more than one protection-eliciting pneumococcal protein.David E. Briles, Susan K. Hollingshead, James C. Paton, Edwin W. Ades, Lea Novak, Frederik W. van Ginkel, and William H. Benjamin, Jr

Immunizations with pneumococcal surface protein A and pneumolysin are protective against pneumonia in a murine model of pulmonary infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae

Intranasal infection of mice with certain strains of capsular group 19 Streptococcus pneumoniae can result in focal pneumonia in the absence of bacteremia. Using this model of murine pneumonia, we demonstrated that immunization with recombinant forms of either pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) or PdB (a genetically detoxified derivative of pneumolysin) elicited significant protection against focal pulmonary infection. This may be the first demonstration that a proposed vaccine antigen can protect against pneumococcal pneumonia. The best protection was obtained by immunizing mice with a mixture of PspA and PdB, indicating that the protection elicited by these antigens can complement each other. This result is in agreement with previous studies that used pneumococcal sepsis and nasal colonization models and demonstrate that the best protein vaccines for prevention of infection may be those that include more than one protection-eliciting pneumococcal protein.David E. Briles, Susan K. Hollingshead, James C. Paton, Edwin W. Ades, Lea Novak, Frederik W. van Ginkel, and William H. Benjamin, Jr

Pneumococcal surface protein A of invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates from Colombian children.

Pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) elicits protection in mice against fatal bacteremia and sepsis caused by genetically diverse pneumococci and protects against carriage and lung infection. We determined the PspA families of invasive isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae recovered from Colombian children <5 years of age. That 97.5% of Colombian isolates belong to PspA families 1 and 2 supports the hypothesis that a human PspA vaccine covering a few PspA families could be broadly effective