Assessing K-12 Leaders’ Level of Critical Consciousness and Social Justice Predisposition in an Effort to Address Inequity in Suburban School Districts

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive phenomenological research study was to identify the level of critical consciousness of kindergarten through Grade 12 building leaders (principals and assistant principals) in suburban districts with graduation rates of 90% or above. The study also sought to understand the leaders’ predisposition toward social justice in an effort to redesign and implement educational structures that attend more holistically to a diverse student population. Through nine semi-structured interviews, reflection, and sharing, this study was able to gauge the participants’ existing levels of critical consciousness based on their past experiences. The data was coded and interpreted to better understand how the lived experiences of school leaders helped to develop and understand their own critical consciousness. The findings of the study confirmed that the development and understanding of one’s critical consciousness is a process and evolves over time based on changing lived experiences. A variety of strategies were utilized by the school leaders to reflect on their experiences to better understand their biases, values, beliefs, power, and privilege. The recommendations of this study include providing—not only school leaders—but all educators, the time and structure, through ongoing professional development, to consistently reflect on and process their experiences. College and university training programs for educational leadership may also consider a similar component to provide future leaders with the opportunity to reflect and learn from their lived experiences

Intraosseous ganglion in the subchondral region of the lateral femoral condyle in an 11-year-old girl: a case report

We report the case of a patient with intraosseous ganglion in the lateral femoral condyle. An 11-year-old girl presented with right knee pain following a twisting injury. Plain radiographs of the knee showed a small circumscribed radiolucency with a thin sclerotic margin in the subchondral region of the lateral femoral condyle. Although the image findings and location are not typical, the lesion was tentatively diagnosed as osteochodritis dissecans. Six months after the conservative treatment with a break from vigorous sports activities, the size of the bony lesion had not decreased. Thus, we performed arthroscopy to make a definitive diagnosis. Arthroscopic examination revealed an area with dimple and surface irregularity at the lateral femoral condyle. On excision of the overlying tissue, the lesion was cystic containing brown mucous fluid. No association between the cyst and the articular structures was observed. Histologic examination of the resected cyst wall showed dense fibrous tissue with spotty areas of calcification. Base on these findings, we made a diagnosis of intraosseous ganglion. At the nine-month postoperative follow-up, the radiographic examination showed healing of the lesion. We speculate that the lesion in this case might have occurred as a result of repetitive overstress or microtrauma

Large infrapatellar ganglionic cyst of the knee fat pad: a case report and review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Large ganglionic cystic formations arising from the infrapatellar fat pad are quite uncommon and only a few are mentioned in the literature. An open excision in these cases is mandatory.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a large infrapatellar fat pad ganglion in a 37-year-old Greek man with chronic knee discomfort. The ganglionic cyst originated from the infrapatellar fat pad and had no intrasynovial extension. The final diagnosis was determined with magnetic resonance imaging of the knee, and the lesion was treated with surgery.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These lesions are asymptomatic in most cases but often are misdiagnosed as meniscal or ligamentous lesions of the knee joint. Nowadays, the therapeutic trend for such lesions is arthroscopic excision, but when there is a large ganglion, as in this case report, the treatment should be an open and thorough resection. This report is intended mostly but not exclusively for clinical physicians and radiologists.</p

Dutch orthopedic thromboprophylaxis: a 5-year follow-up survey

Background and purpose Previous surveys in the Netherlands have revealed that guidelines regarding orthopedic thromboprophylaxis were not followed and that a wide variation in protocols exists. This survey was performed to assess the current use of thromboprophylactic modalities and to compare it with the results of a previous survey

Evaluation of ADC Physicochemical Characteristics and Their Impact on Pharmacokinetics in Transgenic huFcRn Mice

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a promising and fast-growing class of targeted anti-cancer therapeutics. They consist of highly potent chemotherapeutic drugs that are covalently linked to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) which guide the drug to cancer cells. The concept of targeted delivery of a chemotherapeutic agent via an ADC aims at enhanced therapeutic efficacy and safety compared to the individual components of an ADC - the mAb and cytotoxic agent. Despite various successful ADC approvals, their development is complex and associated with a high risk of costly late-stage failures. It has been shown that the overall design of an ADC and every component can influence the critical physicochemical properties which in turn can lead to fast non-specific clearance of the ADCs. Elevated non-specific clearance can directly affect the efficacy and safety and limit the therapeutic window of ADCs. To address this problem, the aim of this study was to evaluate physicochemical property assays that indicate a risk for poor pharmacokinetics (PK) of ADCs. Physicochemical property assays were applied to an ADC series to evaluate whether ADC hydrophobicity (hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC)), thermal stability (nano differential scanning fluorimetry (nanoDSF)), and the binding behavior to the human neonatal Fc-receptor (huFcRn; huFcRn binding kinetics by Bio-Layer Interferometry (BLI)) could serve as an indicator of the PK of the ADCs that was analyzed in huFcRn transgenic Tg276 mice. For this, eight trastuzumab-based ADCs with a homogenous DAR of 2 (drug-to-antibody ratio of 2) were generated by conjugation to cysteines, genetically introduced at positions N325, L328, S239, D265, or S442, and by enzymatic conjugation via microbial transglutaminase (mTG) either to C-terminal light (LC) or heavy chain (HC) recognition motifs or to the endogenous position Q295 of the native antibody. Interestingly, pronounced differences in the ADC PK profiles were observed which allowed to confirm the recently described position L328 as favorable site for cysteine conjugation, comparable to the well-established position S239, and emphasizes the favorable position Q295 of native antibodies and the tagged LC antibody variant for enzymatic conjugations via mTG. Furthermore, to explore if conjugation site and method effects would apply to antibody scaffolds other than trastuzumab, two of the positions, L328 and the mTG LC variant, were evaluated in context of the clinically evaluated mAbs briakinumab and secukinumab. This showed that the influence of conjugation sites and methods on PK resulted in same ADC PK rankings also for briakinumab- and secukinumab-based variants. Physicochemical property assay data were obtained for all study ADCs and correlated with ADC clearance (CL) that serves as important PK parameter. Interestingly, similar huFcRn binding and differently pronounced hydrophobicity and thermal stabilities were observed which did not correlate with the ADC CL values. Consequently, additional physicochemical property assays were explored in this study that could serve as indicators for poor PK of ADCs and that were adapted from various reports where they allowed prediction of poor PK of mAbs. To enable a more robust correlation between PK and the in vitro assay outcome, 13 ADCs were used that varied not only in the conjugation site and method but also in the DAR and antibody scaffold and for which a broad range of CL values (1.18-8.38 mL/h/kg) were observed in hemizygous huFcRn Tg276 mice. These ADCs were assessed by seven physicochemical property assays that were implemented to analyze either the degree of self-association (clone self-interaction Bio-Layer Interferometry (CSI-BLI) and affinity-capture self-interaction nanoparticle spectroscopy (AC-SINS)), non-specific binding (polyspecificity reagent Bio-Layer Interferometry (PSR-BLI), baculovirus particle (BVP) and heparin enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)), hydrophobicity (bis-ANS), or huFcRn binding (huFcRn affinity chromatography). Assay data was used for the correlation to CL values. Overall, ADCs with lower CL showed lower assay results compared to ADCs with fast CL (about >4 mL/h/kg) which showed elevated assay results. These results indicate for the first time that the selected in vitro assays could be a powerful tool for the early development not only for mAbs but also for ADCs allowing the selection of ADCs with favorable PK characteristics. Consequently, application of the in vitro assay panel could serve as screening paradigm for PK risk mitigation during early ADC development. However, further work is needed to expand the data set and to conduct robust statistical analyses which could serve as basis to define thresholds for each assay

Assessing K-12 Leaders’ Level of Critical Consciousness and Social Justice Predisposition in an Effort to Address Inequity in Suburban School Districts

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive phenomenological research study was to identify the level of critical consciousness of kindergarten through Grade 12 building leaders (principals and assistant principals) in suburban districts with graduation rates of 90% or above. The study also sought to understand the leaders’ predisposition toward social justice in an effort to redesign and implement educational structures that attend more holistically to a diverse student population. Through nine semi-structured interviews, reflection, and sharing, this study was able to gauge the participants’ existing levels of critical consciousness based on their past experiences. The data was coded and interpreted to better understand how the lived experiences of school leaders helped to develop and understand their own critical consciousness. The findings of the study confirmed that the development and understanding of one’s critical consciousness is a process and evolves over time based on changing lived experiences. A variety of strategies were utilized by the school leaders to reflect on their experiences to better understand their biases, values, beliefs, power, and privilege. The recommendations of this study include providing—not only school leaders—but all educators, the time and structure, through ongoing professional development, to consistently reflect on and process their experiences. College and university training programs for educational leadership may also consider a similar component to provide future leaders with the opportunity to reflect and learn from their lived experiences