Engaging Students in the Research Process: Comparing Approaches Used with Diverse Learners in Two Urban High School Classrooms

This paper describes instructional choices used by two high school teachers to engage students in the research process. Working with diverse learners in large urban high schools, the teachers used different approaches to support students’ through the research process. The teachers’ intentional teaching helped to engage students through structured and semi-structured explorations of real-world issues

Stressful Life Events and Behavior Change: A Qualitative Examination of African American Women\u27s Participation in a Weight Loss Program

We qualitatively assessed how life stressors affected African American women\u27s participation in a weight reduction program. A sample of 9 women, who completed a behavioral lifestyle intervention, participated in individual, structured, in-depth interviews. Life stressors, ranging from personal illness to changes in employment status, had varied effects on participation. Some women coped with life stressors by using them as a motivational tool to improve their own health, while others reported limited ability to devote time to attend meetings or engage in the prescribed lifestyle changes due to life stressors. A critical key to improving weight loss outcomes for African American women may be using intervention strategies that teach positive coping skills to alter maladaptive responses to life stressors

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Forouzanfar MH, Afshin A, Alexander LT, et al. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015. LANCET. 2016;388(10053):1659-1724.Background The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 provides an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence for risk factor exposure and the attributable burden of disease. By providing national and subnational assessments spanning the past 25 years, this study can inform debates on the importance of addressing risks in context. Methods We used the comparative risk assessment framework developed for previous iterations of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate attributable deaths, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and trends in exposure by age group, sex, year, and geography for 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks from 1990 to 2015. This study included 388 risk-outcome pairs that met World Cancer Research Fund-defined criteria for convincing or probable evidence. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from randomised controlled trials, cohorts, pooled cohorts, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. We developed a metric that allows comparisons of exposure across risk factors-the summary exposure value. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk level, we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We decomposed trends in attributable burden into contributions from population growth, population age structure, risk exposure, and risk-deleted cause-specific DALY rates. We characterised risk exposure in relation to a Socio-demographic Index (SDI). Findings Between 1990 and 2015, global exposure to unsafe sanitation, household air pollution, childhood underweight, childhood stunting, and smoking each decreased by more than 25%. Global exposure for several occupational risks, high body-mass index (BMI), and drug use increased by more than 25% over the same period. All risks jointly evaluated in 2015 accounted for 57.8% (95% CI 56.6-58.8) of global deaths and 41.2% (39.8-42.8) of DALYs. In 2015, the ten largest contributors to global DALYs among Level 3 risks were high systolic blood pressure (211.8 million [192.7 million to 231.1 million] global DALYs), smoking (148.6 million [134.2 million to 163.1 million]), high fasting plasma glucose (143.1 million [125.1 million to 163.5 million]), high BMI (120.1 million [83.8 million to 158.4 million]), childhood undernutrition (113.3 million [103.9 million to 123.4 million]), ambient particulate matter (103.1 million [90.8 million to 115.1 million]), high total cholesterol (88.7 million [74.6 million to 105.7 million]), household air pollution (85.6 million [66.7 million to 106.1 million]), alcohol use (85.0 million [77.2 million to 93.0 million]), and diets high in sodium (83.0 million [49.3 million to 127.5 million]). From 1990 to 2015, attributable DALYs declined for micronutrient deficiencies, childhood undernutrition, unsafe sanitation and water, and household air pollution; reductions in risk-deleted DALY rates rather than reductions in exposure drove these declines. Rising exposure contributed to notable increases in attributable DALYs from high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, occupational carcinogens, and drug use. Environmental risks and childhood undernutrition declined steadily with SDI; low physical activity, high BMI, and high fasting plasma glucose increased with SDI. In 119 countries, metabolic risks, such as high BMI and fasting plasma glucose, contributed the most attributable DALYs in 2015. Regionally, smoking still ranked among the leading five risk factors for attributable DALYs in 109 countries; childhood underweight and unsafe sex remained primary drivers of early death and disability in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Interpretation Declines in some key environmental risks have contributed to declines in critical infectious diseases. Some risks appear to be invariant to SDI. Increasing risks, including high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, drug use, and some occupational exposures, contribute to rising burden from some conditions, but also provide opportunities for intervention. Some highly preventable risks, such as smoking, remain major causes of attributable DALYs, even as exposure is declining. Public policy makers need to pay attention to the risks that are increasingly major contributors to global burden. Copyright (C) The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd

Tourism and economic growth: Evidence from ASEAN-5 using granger causality test

Promoting tourism has always been regarded as an important tool in enhancing economic growth with its capacity to increase GDP in the host country. In recent years, many studies have found that long-run causality between tourism and economic growth varies across different countries, whether there is a unidirectional, bidirectional, or no causality in the relationship. Using annual panel data from the year 1995-2011, we conducted Panel Granger analysis, which includes the panel unit root tests, panel cointegration tests, and panel Granger causality to answer our objectives. Our study estimates if there exists a long-run unidirectional, bidirectional, or no causal relationship between tourism activities and economic growth in ASEAN-5 countries. Our empirical findings support both the tourism-led growth hypothesis and the growth-led tourism hypothesis, which means there exists bidirectional causal relationship in ASEAN-5 countries. This signifies that further efforts to strengthen tourism should be pushed. Furthermore, we suggest that the current strategy of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) on the tourism sector is successful and can provide a lot more opportunities in the future

A conceptual understanding of the impact of interconnected forms of racism on maternal hypertension through Black Women’s lived experiences

Rationale: Significant racial disparities in maternal mortality and morbidity rates in the U.S. have persisted over time, with Black women disproportionately bearing the burden. Studies have documented how experiences of structural racism contributes the disparities we see. However, most of these studies have focused on how domains of racism operate simultaneously, yet little is known about how these domains are interconnected and adversely impact health during pregnancy for Black women. To address this gap in the literature, this study explored how various domains of racism interconnect to shape Black women's lived experience during pregnancy, with a particular focus on factors maternal hypertension. Methods: Using a Charmaz grounded theory approach, this study presents qualitative findings from focus groups with Black women living in Greater New Haven, Connecticut and conducted between August 2020 and October 2020. Results: We identified five domains of racism and four ways these domains interconnect. These findings highlight the multidimensional nature of structural racism and the ways interconnected marginalization across domains creates novel pathways that adversely impact health. Conclusions: Our results show how institutions interact at various levels to create distinct health barriers for Black women that need to be addressed through holistic policies and interventions. To truly dismantle structural racism, we must attend to the underlying ideologies that allow these inequities in resources and opportunities to continue, especially capitalism and white supremacy. As we continue to challenge these larger ideologies, policy is a key tool to mitigate the health harms caused by structural racism

Zinc-induced embrittlement in nickel-base superalloys by simulation and experiment

<p>The high cost of Re has driven interest in processes for recovering Re from scrap superalloy parts. In this work thermodynamic modelling is used to study Zn-induced embrittlement of a superalloy and to direct experiments. Treating superalloy powder with Zn vapour reduces the average particle size after milling from approximately m to 0.5–10 m, vs. m for untreated powder. Simulations predict the required treatment time to increase with temperature. Agreement between predictions and experiments suggests that an embrittling liquid forms in less than an hour of Zn vapour treatment between 950–1000 C and partial pressures of Zn between 14–34 kPa (2–5 psi).</p