Adapting the Framework at JMU Libraries and Educational Technologies: ​ A Collaboration between Instructional Designers and Librarian Liaisons​

At James Madison University (JMU), a small team of faculty members in Libraries & Educational Technologies (LET) collaborated to develop new information literacy student learning outcomes based on the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The Information Literacy Task Force was tasked with unifying the conversation around information literacy within LET and providing student learning outcomes that educators will be able to adapt into content, activities, and assessments. Instructional designers and librarians worked together to explore the framework in the diverse context of the JMU community. We will share how the unique collaboration between instructional designers and librarians created opportunities and challenges and how we approached building organizational consensus throughout the process. We also outline potential future uses of the new outcomes and goals

The Coping Mechanisms of First-Year Students in the Online Classes

The study aimed to determine the coping mechanisms of first-year college students taking Bachelor of Special Needs Education in a state university in the online class setting. It utilized Colaizzi’s (1978) descriptive phenomenological method which followed his seven-step method. Three emergent themes were revealed (1) coping mechanisms, (2) adjustment of 1st-year students to online classes, (3) perception of the effects of coping mechanisms. Most participants applied three coping mechanisms, and these were (1) meditation and (2) spirituality which are considered adaptive coping mechanisms, and (3) late-night internet usage, a maladaptive coping mechanism. The participants expressed their vulnerability as a 1st-year student in terms of unfamiliarity due to the absence of face-to-face interaction, being unaccustomed to the new college environment, pressure due to unfamiliar teacher-student dynamic, and pressure in studying at a state university

Learning to Sing from the Same Sheet of Music: A Study of Family Preservation Integration Projects for High-Risk, School-Age Children and Their Families in Minnesota.

The idea of integrating social service programs began emerging in the 1980s. In 1990 the Minnesota legislature funded demonstration projects for integrating programs for high-risk children in the schools. This study surveyed thirty-one integration projects in Minnesota in 1992. All were contacted by phone and seven were chosen for on-site focus group discussions. This report presents an overall view of the problems these projects confronted, case studies of seven strong programs, recommendations, and a prototype of how to set up an integration project for school-age children. The work was also presented in capsule form in a CURA Reporter article in September 1993

Association of cerebrospinal fluid Aβ42 with A2M gene in cognitively normal subjects

Low cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Aβ42 levels correlate with increased brain Aβ deposition in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which suggests a disruption in the degradation and clearance of Aβ from the brain. In addition, APOE ε4 carriers have lower CSF Aβ42 levels than non-carriers. The hypothesis of this investigation was that CSF Aβ42 levels correlate with regulatory region variation in genes that are biologically associated with degradation or clearance of Aβ from the brain. CSF Aβ42 levels were tested for associations with Aβ degradation and clearance genes and APOE ε4. Twenty-four SNPs located within the 5′ and 3′ regions of 12 genes were analyzed. The study sample consisted of 99 AD patients and 168 cognitively normal control subjects. CSF Aβ42 levels were associated with APOE ε4 status in controls but not in AD patientsA2M regulatory region SNPs were also associated with CSF Aβ42 levels in controls, but not in AD patients, even after adjusting for APOE ε4. These results suggest that genetic variation within the A2M gene influences CSF Aβ42 levels

The combination of autofluorescence endoscopy and molecular biomarkers is a novel diagnostic tool for dysplasia in Barrett's oesophagus.

OBJECTIVE: Endoscopic surveillance for Barrett's oesophagus (BO) is limited by sampling error and the subjectivity of diagnosing dysplasia. We aimed to compare a biomarker panel on minimal biopsies directed by autofluorescence imaging (AFI) with the standard surveillance protocol to derive an objective tool for dysplasia assessment. DESIGN: We performed a cross-sectional prospective study in three tertiary referral centres. Patients with BO underwent high-resolution endoscopy followed by AFI-targeted biopsies. 157 patients completed the biopsy protocol. Aneuploidy/tetraploidy; 9p and 17p loss of heterozygosity; RUNX3, HPP1 and p16 methylation; p53 and cyclin A immunohistochemistry were assessed. Bootstrap resampling was used to select the best diagnostic biomarker panel for high-grade dysplasia (HGD) and early cancer (EC). This panel was validated in an independent cohort of 46 patients. RESULTS: Aneuploidy, p53 immunohistochemistry and cyclin A had the strongest association with dysplasia in the per-biopsy analysis and, as a panel, had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.97 (95% CI 0.95 to 0.99) for diagnosing HGD/EC. The diagnostic accuracy for HGD/EC of the three-biomarker panel from AFI+ areas was superior to AFI- areas (p<0.001). Compared with the standard protocol, this panel had equal sensitivity for HGD/EC, with a 4.5-fold reduction in the number of biopsies. In an independent cohort of patients, the panel had a sensitivity and specificity for HGD/EC of 100% and 85%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: A three-biomarker panel on a small number of AFI-targeted biopsies provides an accurate and objective diagnosis of dysplasia in BO. The clinical implications have to be studied further

Advancing dendrochronological studies of fire in the United States

© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Dendroecology is the science that dates tree rings to their exact calendar year of formation to study processes that influence forest ecology (e.g., Speer 2010 [1], Amoroso et al., 2017 [2]). Reconstruction of past fire regimes is a core application of dendroecology, linking fire history to population dynamics and climate effects on tree growth and survivorship. Since the early 20th century when dendrochronologists recognized that tree rings retained fire scars (e.g., Figure 1), and hence a record of past fires, they have conducted studies worldwide to reconstruct [2] the historical range and variability of fire regimes (e.g., frequency, severity, seasonality, spatial extent), [3] the influence of fire regimes on forest structure and ecosystem dynamics, and [4] the top-down (e.g., climate) and bottom-up (e.g., fuels, topography) drivers of fire that operate at a range of temporal and spatial scales. As in other scientific fields, continued application of dendrochronological techniques to study fires has shaped new trajectories for the science. Here we highlight some important current directions in the United States (US) and call on our international colleagues to continue the conversation with perspectives from other countries

Evaluation of a minimally invasive cell sampling device coupled with assessment of trefoil factor 3 expression for diagnosing Barrett's esophagus: a multi-center case-control study.

BACKGROUND: Barrett's esophagus (BE) is a commonly undiagnosed condition that predisposes to esophageal adenocarcinoma. Routine endoscopic screening for BE is not recommended because of the burden this would impose on the health care system. The objective of this study was to determine whether a novel approach using a minimally invasive cell sampling device, the Cytosponge, coupled with immunohistochemical staining for the biomarker Trefoil Factor 3 (TFF3), could be used to identify patients who warrant endoscopy to diagnose BE. METHODS AND FINDINGS: A case-control study was performed across 11 UK hospitals between July 2011 and December 2013. In total, 1,110 individuals comprising 463 controls with dyspepsia and reflux symptoms and 647 BE cases swallowed a Cytosponge prior to endoscopy. The primary outcome measures were to evaluate the safety, acceptability, and accuracy of the Cytosponge-TFF3 test compared with endoscopy and biopsy. In all, 1,042 (93.9%) patients successfully swallowed the Cytosponge, and no serious adverse events were attributed to the device. The Cytosponge was rated favorably, using a visual analogue scale, compared with endoscopy (p < 0.001), and patients who were not sedated for endoscopy were more likely to rate the Cytosponge higher than endoscopy (Mann-Whitney test, p < 0.001). The overall sensitivity of the test was 79.9% (95% CI 76.4%-83.0%), increasing to 87.2% (95% CI 83.0%-90.6%) for patients with ≥3 cm of circumferential BE, known to confer a higher cancer risk. The sensitivity increased to 89.7% (95% CI 82.3%-94.8%) in 107 patients who swallowed the device twice during the study course. There was no loss of sensitivity in patients with dysplasia. The specificity for diagnosing BE was 92.4% (95% CI 89.5%-94.7%). The case-control design of the study means that the results are not generalizable to a primary care population. Another limitation is that the acceptability data were limited to a single measure. CONCLUSIONS: The Cytosponge-TFF3 test is safe and acceptable, and has accuracy comparable to other screening tests. This test may be a simple and inexpensive approach to identify patients with reflux symptoms who warrant endoscopy to diagnose BE

Influence of socioeconomic deprivation on interventions and outcomes for patients admitted with COVID-19 to critical care units in Scotland: a national cohort study

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can lead to significant respiratory failure with between 14% and 18% of hospitalised patients requiring critical care admission. This study describes the impact of socioeconomic deprivation on 30-day survival following critical care admission for COVID-19, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on critical care capacity in Scotland. Methods: This cohort study used linked national hospital records including ICU, virology testing and national death records to identify and describe patients with COVID-19 admitted to critical care units in Scotland. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the impact of deprivation on 30-day mortality. Critical care capacity was described by reporting the percentage of baseline ICU bed utilisation required. Findings: There were 735 patients with COVID-19 admitted to critical care units across Scotland from 1/3/2020 to 20/6/2020. There was a higher proportion of patients from more deprived areas, with 183 admissions (24.9%) from the most deprived quintile and 100 (13.6%) from the least deprived quintile. Overall, 30-day mortality was 34.8%. After adjusting for age, sex and ethnicity, mortality was significantly higher in patients from the most deprived quintile (OR 1.97, 95%CI 1.13, 3.41, p=0.016). ICUs serving populations with higher levels of deprivation spent a greater amount of time over their baseline ICU bed capacity. Interpretation: Patients with COVID-19 living in areas with greatest socioeconomic deprivation had a higher frequency of critical care admission and a higher adjusted 30-day mortality. ICUs in health boards with higher levels of socioeconomic deprivation had both higher peak occupancy and longer duration of occupancy over normal maximum capacity. Funding: None

Risk stratification of Barrett's oesophagus using a non-endoscopic sampling method coupled with a biomarker panel: a cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Barrett's oesophagus predisposes to adenocarcinoma. However, most patients with Barrett's oesophagus will not progress and endoscopic surveillance is invasive, expensive, and fraught by issues of sampling bias and the subjective assessment of dysplasia. We investigated whether a non-endoscopic device, the Cytosponge, could be coupled with clinical and molecular biomarkers to identify a group of patients with low risk of progression suitable for non-endoscopic follow-up. METHODS: In this multicentre cohort study (BEST2), patients with Barrett's oesophagus underwent the Cytosponge test before their surveillance endoscopy. We collected clinical and demographic data and tested Cytosponge samples for a molecular biomarker panel including three protein biomarkers (P53, c-Myc, and Aurora kinase A), two methylation markers (MYOD1 and RUNX3), glandular atypia, and TP53 mutation status. We used a multivariable logistic regression model to compute the conditional probability of dysplasia status. We selected a simple model with high classification accuracy and applied it to an independent validation cohort. The BEST2 study is registered with ISRCTN, number 12730505. FINDINGS: The discovery cohort consisted of 468 patients with Barrett's oesophagus and intestinal metaplasia. Of these, 376 had no dysplasia and 22 had high-grade dysplasia or intramucosal adenocarcinoma. In the discovery cohort, a model with high classification accuracy consisted of glandular atypia, P53 abnormality, and Aurora kinase A positivity, and the interaction of age, waist-to-hip ratio, and length of the Barrett's oesophagus segment. 162 (35%) of 468 of patients fell into the low-risk category and the probability of being a true non-dysplastic patient was 100% (99% CI 96-100) and the probability of having high-grade dysplasia or intramucosal adenocarcinoma was 0% (0-4). 238 (51%) of participants were classified as of moderate risk; the probability of having high-grade dysplasia was 14% (9-21). 58 (12%) of participants were classified as high-risk; the probability of having non-dysplastic endoscopic biopsies was 13% (5-27), whereas the probability of having high-grade dysplasia or intramucosal adenocarcinoma was 87% (73-95). In the validation cohort (65 patients), 51 were non-dysplastic and 14 had high-grade dysplasia. In this cohort, 25 (38%) of 65 patients were classified as being low-risk, and the probability of being non-dysplastic was 96·0% (99% CI 73·80-99·99). The moderate-risk group comprised 27 non-dysplastic and eight high-grade dysplasia cases, whereas the high-risk group (8% of the cohort) had no non-dysplastic cases and five patients with high-grade dysplasia. INTERPRETATION: A combination of biomarker assays from a single Cytosponge sample can be used to determine a group of patients at low risk of progression, for whom endoscopy could be avoided. This strategy could help to avoid overdiagnosis and overtreatment in patients with Barrett's oesophagus. FUNDING: Cancer Research UK.The BEST2 study was funded by Cancer Research UKThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(16)30118-