Management's Search for Balance

Abstract included in article

Management's Search for Balance

Abstract included in article

Building the ACS Exams Anchoring Concept Content Map for Undergraduate Chemistry

The ability to coherently assess content knowledge throughout an entire undergraduate career represents a significant advantage for programmatic assessment strategies. Chemistry, as a discipline, has an unusual tool in this regard because of the nationally standardized exams from the ACS Exams Institute. These exams are norm-referenced and allow chemistry departments to make comparisons between the performance of their own students relative to national samples; however, currently there appears to be no systematic means for noting students’ content knowledge growth over a four-year degree. The Exams Institute is undertaking the task of organizing content along an anchoring concept or “big ideas” framework to facilitate this type of analysis

Comparing Recent Organizing Templates for Test Content between ACS Exams in General Chemistry and AP Chemistry

Two different versions of “big ideas” rooted content maps have recently been published for general chemistry. As embodied in the content outline from the College Board, one of these maps is designed to guide curriculum development and testing for advanced placement (AP) chemistry. The Anchoring Concepts Content Map for general chemistry from the ACS Exams Institute is a component of a larger content map for the four-year undergraduate curriculum. This article compares the structure and content in these two maps to provide perspective on the current nature of the general chemistry curriculum. This contribution is part of a special issue on teaching introductory chemistry in the context of the AP chemistry course redesign

New pyridine and chromene scaffolds as potent vasorelaxant and anticancer agents

Based on studies that have reported the association between cancer and cardiovascular diseases, new series of pyridine- (3a-o) and/or chromene- (4a-e) carbonitrile analogous were designed, synthesized and screened for their vasodilation and cytotoxic properties. The majority of the new chemical entities demonstrated significant vasodilation efficacies, compounds 3a, 3h, 3j, 3m, 3o, 4d and 4e exhibited the most promising potency with IC50 = 437.9, 481.0, 484.5, 444.8, 312.1, 427.6 and 417.2 µM, respectively, exceeding prazosin hydrochloride (IC50 = 487.3 μM). Compounds 3b-e, 3k and 3l also, revealed moderate vasodilation activity with IC50 values ranging from 489.7 to 584.5 µM. In addition, the anti-proliferative activity evaluation of the experimental compounds at 10 µM on the MCF-7 and MDA-MB 231 breast cancer cell lines illustrated the excellent anti-proliferative properties of derivatives 3d, 3g and 3i. Compound 3d was the most potent analogue with IC50 = 4.55 ± 0.88 and 9.87 ± 0.89 µM against MCF-7 and MDA-MB 231, respectively. Moreover, compound 3d stimulated apoptosis and cell cycle arrest at the S phase in MCF-7 cells in addition to its capability in accumulation of cells in pre-G1phase and activating caspase-3. Furthermore, the molecular docking of 3d was performed to discover the binding modes within the active site of caspase-3. 3d, as the only common bi-functional agent among the tested hits, demonstrated that new pyridine-3-carbonitrile derivatives bearing cycloheptyl ring systems offer potential as new therapeutic candidates with combined vasodilation and anticancer properties

The geography of recent genetic ancestry across Europe

The recent genealogical history of human populations is a complex mosaic formed by individual migration, large-scale population movements, and other demographic events. Population genomics datasets can provide a window into this recent history, as rare traces of recent shared genetic ancestry are detectable due to long segments of shared genomic material. We make use of genomic data for 2,257 Europeans (the POPRES dataset) to conduct one of the first surveys of recent genealogical ancestry over the past three thousand years at a continental scale. We detected 1.9 million shared genomic segments, and used the lengths of these to infer the distribution of shared ancestors across time and geography. We find that a pair of modern Europeans living in neighboring populations share around 10-50 genetic common ancestors from the last 1500 years, and upwards of 500 genetic ancestors from the previous 1000 years. These numbers drop off exponentially with geographic distance, but since genetic ancestry is rare, individuals from opposite ends of Europe are still expected to share millions of common genealogical ancestors over the last 1000 years. There is substantial regional variation in the number of shared genetic ancestors: especially high numbers of common ancestors between many eastern populations likely date to the Slavic and/or Hunnic expansions, while much lower levels of common ancestry in the Italian and Iberian peninsulas may indicate weaker demographic effects of Germanic expansions into these areas and/or more stably structured populations. Recent shared ancestry in modern Europeans is ubiquitous, and clearly shows the impact of both small-scale migration and large historical events. Population genomic datasets have considerable power to uncover recent demographic history, and will allow a much fuller picture of the close genealogical kinship of individuals across the world.Comment: Full size figures available from http://www.eve.ucdavis.edu/~plralph/research.html; or html version at http://ralphlab.usc.edu/ibd/ibd-paper/ibd-writeup.xhtm

Clinical effectiveness of unilateral deep brain stimulation in Tourette syndrome

Dysfunctional basal ganglia loops are thought to underlie the clinical picture of Tourette syndrome (TS). By altering dopaminergic activity in the affected neural structures, bilateral deep brain stimulation is assumed to have a modulatory effect on dopamine transmission resulting in an amelioration of tics. While the majority of published case reports deals with the application of bilateral stimulation, the present study aims at informing about the high effectiveness of unilateral stimulation of pallidal and nigral thalamic territories in TS. Potential implications and gains of the unilateral approach are discussed

Rivastigmine: an open-label, observational study of safety and effectiveness in treating patients with Alzheimer's disease for up to 5 years

BACKGROUND: Rivastigmine, a butyl- and acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, is approved for symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Data supporting the safety and efficacy of second-generation cholinesterase inhibitors, such as rivastigmine, are available for treatment up to 1 year, with limited data up to 2 1/2 years. The purpose of this report is to present safety and effectiveness data for rivastigmine therapy in patients with mild to moderately severe AD receiving treatment for up to 5 years. METHODS: An observational approach was used to study 37 patients with originally mild to moderate AD receiving rivastigmine as a therapy for AD in an open-label extension (ENA713, B352 Study Group, 1998). RESULTS: The initial trial demonstrated rivastigmine was well-tolerated and effective in terms of cognition, global functioning and activities of daily living. In this open label extension, high-dose rivastigmine therapy was safe and well tolerated over a 5-year period. Two thirds of the participants still enrolled at week 234 were in the original high-dose rivastigmine group during the double-blind phase, suggesting that early therapy may confer some benefit in delaying long-term progression of symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Long-term cholinesterase inhibition therapy with rivastigmine was well tolerated, with no dropouts due to adverse effects past the initial titration period. Early initiation of treatment, with titration to high-dose therapy, may have an advantage in delaying progression of the illness