A Preliminary Evaluation of a Digital Token Economy to Increase Student Engagement during Group Teletherapy

Shortly following the temporary nationwide school dismissal amid COVID-19, the current exploratory case-study evaluated the feasibility of two engagement strategies delivered during group teletherapy: Class Dojo and opportunities to respond (OTR). Three elementary students with emotional and behavioral difficulties participated. An A-B-A design was used to evaluate the effects of Class Dojo on student engagement with therapist-delivered OTRs. Due to one student’s poor response to the contingency, an A-B-C design was used to evaluate the additive effect of student-delivered OTRs on his engagement. Results indicated moderate to high rates of student attendance, and consistently high rates of engagement for two students. When students delivered OTRs, the student who initially struggled to engage demonstrated an increase in engagement. Practical issues are discussed and recommendations are considered for future research on increasing student engagement during online settings

A Pilot Study of Sidewalk Equity in Seattle Using Crowdsourced Sidewalk Assessment Data

We examine the potential of using large-scale open crowdsourced sidewalk data from Project Sidewalk to study the distribution and condition of sidewalks in Seattle, WA. While potentially noisier than professionally gathered sidewalk datasets, crowdsourced data enables large, cross-regional studies that would be otherwise expensive and difficult to manage. As an initial case study, we examine spatial patterns of sidewalk quality in Seattle and their relationship to racial diversity, income level, built density, and transit modes. We close with a reflection on our approach, key limitations, and opportunities for future work.Comment: Workshop paper presented at "The 1st ASSETS'22 Workshop on The Future or urban Accessibility (UrbanAccess'22)

A cluster randomised controlled trial of the community effectiveness of two interventions in rural Malawi to improve health care and to reduce maternal, newborn and infant mortality

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The UN Millennium Development Goals call for substantial reductions in maternal and child mortality, to be achieved through reductions in morbidity and mortality during pregnancy, delivery, postpartum and early childhood. The MaiMwana Project aims to test community-based interventions that tackle maternal and child health problems through increasing awareness and local action.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This study uses a two-by-two factorial cluster-randomised controlled trial design to test the impact of two interventions. The impact of a community mobilisation intervention run through women's groups, on home care, health care-seeking behaviours and maternal and infant mortality, will be tested. The impact of a volunteer-led infant feeding and care support intervention, on rates of exclusive breastfeeding, uptake of HIV-prevention services and infant mortality, will also be tested. The women's group intervention will employ local female facilitators to guide women's groups through a four-phase cycle of problem identification and prioritisation, strategy identification, implementation and evaluation. Meetings will be held monthly at village level. The infant feeding intervention will select local volunteers to provide advice and support for breastfeeding, birth preparedness, newborn care and immunisation. They will visit pregnant and new mothers in their homes five times during and after pregnancy.</p> <p>The unit of intervention allocation will be clusters of rural villages of 2500-4000 population. 48 clusters have been defined and randomly allocated to either women's groups only, infant feeding support only, both interventions, or no intervention. Study villages are surrounded by 'buffer areas' of non-study villages to reduce contamination between intervention and control areas. Outcome indicators will be measured through a demographic surveillance system. Primary outcomes will be maternal, infant, neonatal and perinatal mortality for the women's group intervention, and exclusive breastfeeding rates and infant mortality for the infant feeding intervention.</p> <p>Structured interviews will be conducted with mothers one-month and six-months after birth to collect detailed quantitative data on care practices and health-care-seeking. Further qualitative, quantitative and economic data will be collected for process and economic evaluations.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ISRCTN06477126</p

Alendronate-Functionalized Poly(2-oxazoline)s with Tunable Affinity for Calcium Cations

Contains fulltext : 207002.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Alendronate-functionalized poly(2-oxazoline)s with tunable affinity for calcium cations

\u3cp\u3eA library of poly(2-oxazoline)s functionalized with controllable amounts of alendronate, hydroxyl, and carboxylic acid side groups was successfully synthesized to create novel polymers with tunable affinity for calcium cations. The affinity of alendronate-containing polymers for calcium cations was quantified using isothermal titration calorimetry. Thermodynamic measurements revealed that the Ca\u3csup\u3e2+\u3c/sup\u3e-binding affinity of these polymers increased linearly with the amount of alendronate functionalization, up to values (K\u3csub\u3eCa\u3c/sub\u3e \u3csup\u3e2+\u3c/sup\u3e = 2.4 × 10\u3csup\u3e5\u3c/sup\u3e M\u3csup\u3e-1\u3c/sup\u3e) that were about 120-fold higher than those for previously reported polymers. The calcium-binding capacity of alendronate-functionalized poly(2-oxazoline)s was exploited to form robust hydrogel networks cross-linked using reversible physical bonds. Oscillatory rheology showed that these hydrogels recovered more than 100% of their initial storage modulus after severe network destruction. The versatile synthesis of alendronate-functionalized polymers and their strong and tunable affinity for calcium cations render these polymers promising candidates for various biomedical applications.\u3c/p\u3