Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy versus nonoperative therapy in the treatment of degenerative meniscus tears

Objective: To determine the efficacy of arthroscopic partial meniscectomy versus nonoperative therapies in the treatment of degenerative meniscus tears in adults 35 years of age and older. Design: Systematic literature review. Methods: Primary searches were done in PubMed and New England Journal of Medicine, using key search terms including meniscectomy, degenerative meniscus tears, conservative, physical therapy, and long term outcomes. Within both search engines the following limits were set: humans, English, publication within past 5 years, full text, randomized control trials, adults: \u3e35 years. Results: The Yim et al. study was included due to its examination of both meniscectomy and nonoperative treatment for degenerative meniscus tear and the use of a standardized exercise and medication regimen in both groups.1 The demographics of the two groups in this study were highly comparable. The Katz et al. study was included secondary to its large, multicenter, randomized controlled trial assessing symptomatic patients 45 years or older with meniscus tears.2 The Sihvonen et al. study was included as it was a double blinded study assessing symptomatic patients with meniscus tears and optimal treatment outcomes.3 Conclusion: Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy provided no long term relief in functional status or pain after 12 months when compared to the conservative treatment of a physical therapy regimen.1,2,

Development of Biodegradable Footwear Inputs from Mushroom Mycelium

This research developed and evaluated mushroom mycelium composites that have a potential application for shoe soles. To offer a solution to problems of waste, pollution, human health concerns, and resource depletion, this research incorporated exclusively natural and non-toxic materials, and many of the inputs were locally sourced

Mobile Up-Cycle Portable Research and Educational Outreach Unit

The purpose of this project was to develop and test a portable maker-platform and educational outreach unit as a design-based and creatively interactive solution to objectives defined by Goodwill of DE. This significant and novel research approach combined the concepts of portable platform and maker space. The lab offered skill and tool sharing, demonstration, exploratory studio, and dialogue. In this way, Mobile Upcycle Research and Education Unit is a model that encourages empowerment and agency to wearers and consumers of clothing as a method of changing destructive patterns of waste generation

A Tangled Web of Terms: The Overlap and Unique Contribution of Involvement, Engagement, and Integration to Understanding College Student Success

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_college_student_development/v050/50.4.wolf-wendel.html.Established theories and constructs long associated with student success, including involvement, engagement, and integration, provide common language and a body of knowledge to inform understanding of the challenges currently facing higher education. This paper examines how the theories and terms have evolved, explores how the terms are currently used, and considers their legacy for understanding contemporary concerns about student development and success

An Examination of Middle School Students’ Attitudes Toward Science

For more than 40 years, researchers have been studying the persistent underrepresentation of women in science. Today, the gender gap has narrowed in some, but not all, disciplines of science. To better understand the impetus of this continuing problem, the attitudes of middle school students toward science were examined using a causal-comparative design based on biological sex across four attitude constructs: attitudes toward school science, desire to become a scientist, value of science to society, and perceptions of scientists. A sample of 450 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade science students located in suburban, central New Jersey responded to Likert-type items on the My Attitudes Toward Science (MATS) survey during their regularly scheduled science class periods. Data analysis was performed through a multivariate analysis of variance. The findings indicated no statistically significant differences in middle school students’ attitudes toward school science, desire to become a scientist, value of science to society, and perceptions of scientists based on biological sex of the students. Implications for the findings are discussed

Mycelium Afoot: Fashioning Sustainable Footwear

Concept: Mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms, has been used to make composite materials for applications including packaging, construction bricks, and shoe soles (Holt et al., 2012; Boyer, 2014; Jiang, Walczyk, McIntyre, & Chan, 2016). Grown on agricultural byproducts, mycelium acts as a natural binder, digesting and bonding to the surface of damp substrates as it grows (Jiang et al., 2016). Since all of the raw materials are natural, the mycelium composite is fully biodegradable (Holt et al., 2012). The purpose of this research was to develop and evaluate mushroom mycelium composites that have a potential application for shoe soles. To offer a solution to problems of waste, pollution, human health concerns, and resource depletion, this research incorporated exclusively natural and non-toxic materials, and many of the inputs were locally sourced. As previous studies focused on conservative footwear for men (Nam & Lee, 2016, Cao et al., 2014). The design challenge was to develop feminine footwear based on our target market of a college-aged woman between 18 and 25. We chose the format of a strappy fashion sandal with a cork-like shoe sole

Effects of Inclination on Measuring Velocity Dispersion and Implications for Black Holes

The relation of central black hole mass and stellar spheroid velocity dispersion (the M-$\sigma$ relation) is one of the best-known and tightest correlations linking black holes and their host galaxies. There has been much scrutiny concerning the difficulty of obtaining accurate black hole measurements, and rightly so; however, it has been taken for granted that measurements of velocity dispersion are essentially straightforward. We examine five disk galaxies from cosmological SPH simulations and find that line-of-sight effects due to galaxy orientation can affect the measured $\sigma$ by 30%, and consequently black hole mass predictions by up to 1.0 dex. Face-on orientations correspond to systematically lower velocity dispersion measurements, while more edge-on orientations give higher velocity dispersions, due to contamination by disk stars when measuring line of sight quantities. We caution observers that the uncertainty of velocity dispersion measurements is at least 20 km/s, and can be much larger for moderate inclinations. This effect may account for some of the scatter in the locally measured M-$\sigma$ relation, particularly at the low-mass end. We provide a method for correcting observed $\sigma_{\rm los}$ values for inclination effects based on observable quantities.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, replaced with accepted versio

Applying Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Strategy to Strengthen Sustainability Education in Textile and Apparel Curriculum

In this paper, we applied problem-based learning (PBL) in four required courses in apparel design and merchandising programs and reported the PBL projects and student learning assessment. In the Fall 2016 semester, four courses, i.e., Seminar on Fashion Sustainability, Fundamentals of Textiles I, Fundamentals of Textiles II, and Advance Apparel Product Development, were revised and taught to include PBL projects. All of the PBL projects were related to sustainability and described in the paper. The student learning outcomes were evaluated using pre- and post-quizzes and PBL project evaluation rubrics. Students averaged a score of 5 on the pre-quiz (50%) and increased to an average score of 8 (80%) on the post-quiz, demonstrating short-term gains in their sustainability content knowledge. The average PBL project scores were between 89% to 99% in the four courses, which overwhelmingly demonstrated the students\u27 analytical, problem solving, and decision-making skills in the completed PBL projects

Interactions between female lawyers and clients in rural settings

The purpose of this study was to discover the perceptions of individual female rural lawyers in regards to their interactions with clients. The results show that female rural lawyers have unique experiences in terms of: quality of life, expectations and client relationships, homophily , and expectations of duty