Critical Thinking in a Service-Learning Course: Impacts of Information Literacy Instruction

It is well demonstrated that service-learning positively impacts a variety of student outcomes. However, methodological limitations have contributed to a lack of clear understanding of the mechanisms through which these effects occur. Additionally, little research has connected information literacy instruction explicitly with outcomes in service-learning courses. The present study used a pre-/post-test design to investigate cognitive outcomes, including critical thinking, using the Problem-Solving Analysis Protocol (P-SAP). Fifty-nine students from an undergraduate family services course participated. Results highlight the importance of library instruction to students’ critical thinking skills and suggest implications for collaborations between discipline faculty and library faculty in service-learning courses

Central Asia and the globalisation of the contemporary legal consciousness

What is the logic which governs the processes of legal globalization? How does the transnational proliferation of legal forms operate in the contemporary geo-juridical space? What are the main defining characteristics of the currently dominant mode of transnational legal consciousness and how can the concept of legal consciousness help us understand better the historical ebb and flow of the Western-led projects of good governance promotion in regions like Central Asia after the fall of the Soviet Union? Using Duncan Kennedy’s seminal essay Three Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought as its starting platform, this essay seeks to explore these and a series of other related questions, while also drawing on the work of the Greek Marxist lawyer-philosopher Nicos Poulantzas to help elucidate some latent analytical stress-points in Kennedy’s broader theoretical framework. Reacting against the neo-Orientalist tone adopted across much of the contemporary field of Central Asian studies, it develops an alternative account of the internal history of the legal-globalizational encounter between the Western-based reform entrepreneurs and the national legal-political elites in Central Asia in the post-1991 period, complementing it with a detailed description of the general institutional and discursive structures within which this encounter took place

Landscape Transformation During Ceramic Age and Colonial Occupations of Barbuda, West Indies

This research documented the history of landscape transformation on the island of Barbuda in the Lesser Antilles, Caribbean through cross-disciplinary research approaches. Excavations confirmed a human presence for the seasonal exploitation of conch meat and other mollusks during the Archaic Age (c.3000–500 BC), but more substantial impacts to terrestrial ecosystems likely began during the Ceramic Age (c.500 BC–AD 1500). Our combined sedimentary and charcoal records revealed that human-induced environmental transformations began with Ceramic Age peoples as they cleared vegetation for settlements and gardens with intentional burning. Sedimentary charcoal indicated a dramatic decline in fire during post-Ceramic Age abandonment, continuing through the Colonial Period, as the dominant human activities shifted to herding, farming, and selective wood harvesting. Historical sources showed that during the Colonial Period (post-1492), the island was intermittently settled until the mid-seventeenth century, while the Codrington family of Antigua held the lease to the island from 1681 to 1870. They used the island for farming and stock-rearing, exporting meat and draught animals along with lime, timber, and subsistence crops. Macrocharcoal recovered from Colonial Period archaeological sites reflect the use of a variety of local species and wood imported to the island or harvested from shipwrecks

Varying the rate of intravenous cocaine infusion influences the temporal dynamics of both drug and dopamine concentrations in the striatum

The faster drugs of abuse reach the brain, the greater is the risk of addiction. Even small differences in the rate of drug delivery can influence outcome. Infusing cocaine intravenously over 5 vs. 90â 100 s promotes sensitization to the psychomotor and incentive motivational effects of the drug and preferentially recruits mesocorticolimbic regions. It remains unclear whether these effects are due to differences in how fast and/or how much drug reaches the brain. Here, we predicted that varying the rate of intravenous cocaine infusion between 5 and 90 s produces different rates of rise of brain drug concentrations, while producing similar peak concentrations. Freely moving male Wistar rats received acute intravenous cocaine infusions (2.0 mg/kg/infusion) over 5, 45 and 90 s. We measured cocaine concentrations in the dorsal striatum using rapidâ sampling microdialysis (1 sample/min) and highâ performance liquid chromatographyâ tandem mass spectrometry. We also measured extracellular concentrations of dopamine and other neurochemicals. Regardless of infusion rate, acute cocaine did not change concentrations of nonâ dopaminergic neurochemicals. Infusion rate did not significantly influence peak concentrations of cocaine or dopamine, but concentrations increased faster following 5â s infusions. We also assessed psychomotor activity as a function of cocaine infusion rate. Infusion rate did not significantly influence total locomotion, but locomotion increased earlier following 5â s infusions. Thus, small differences in the rate of cocaine delivery influence both the rate of rise of drug and dopamine concentrations, and psychomotor activity. A faster rate of rise of drug and dopamine concentrations might be an important issue in making rapidly delivered cocaine more addictive.Varying the rate of i.v. cocaine delivery between 5 and 90 s determines the drug’s effects on brain and behaviour. We show that injecting cocaine between 5 and 90 s in rats alters the rates of rise of cocaine and dopamine in the dorsal striatum, without significantly changing peak concentrations. Faster injections also increase locomotor behaviour earlier than slower injections. Thus, beyond achieved dose, differences in the rates of rise of cocaine and dopamine can determine outcome.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151808/1/ejn13941-sup-0002-reviewer-Comments.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151808/2/ejn13941.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151808/3/ejn13941-sup-0001-FigS1-S3.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151808/4/ejn13941_am.pd

Enrollment, retention, and effective strategies for including disadvantaged populations in controlled trials: A systematic review protocol

Background: Many randomized controlled trials fail to reach their target sample size. When coupled with the omission and underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups in randomized controlled trials, many trials fail to obtain data that accurately represents the true diversity of their target population. Policies and practices have been implemented to increase representation of disadvantaged groups in many randomized controlled trials, with some trials specifically targeting such groups. To our knowledge, no systematic review has quantified the enrollment metrics and effectiveness of inclusion and retention strategies in randomized controlled trials focused on disadvantaged populations specifically. Methods: We will conduct a systematic search across EMBASE, MEDLINE, Web of Science, and CINAHL as well as grey literature, conference proceedings, research monographs, and Google Scholar from inception onwards. We will include randomized controlled trials where at least 50% of enrolled participants are considered to be disadvantaged, as per the RCT authors’ definition and in line with our inclusion criteria. Two independent researchers per article will conduct preliminary title and abstract screening, subsequent full text review, and data extraction for the selected trials, with a third reviewer available to resolve conflicts. We will assess the quality of all included studies using specific criteria regarding data reporting, external validity, and internal validity. We will combine all selected studies and conduct a narrative synthesis to assess enrollment metrics. If there is sufficient homogeneity and sufficient trials comparing recruitment strategies within disadvantaged populations, we will conduct a random effects meta-analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies designed to maximize the inclusion of disadvantaged populations in randomized controlled trials. Discussion: The findings of this systematic review will establish baseline recruitment and enrollment metrics of trials targeting disadvantaged populations to elucidate the scope of the challenge of recruiting such populations. We hope that our findings will promote future research on the distinct barriers that may prevent disadvantaged populations from participating in health intervention research, will encourage more trials exploring effective, tailored recruitment strategies, and will establish a foundation to track future progress in the recruitment of disadvantaged populations. Trial registrations: PROSPERO ID: CRD4202015281

Suboptimal gestational weight gain and neonatal outcomes in low and middle income countries: individual participant data meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the associations between gestational weight gain (GWG) during pregnancy and neonatal outcomes in low and middle income countries. DESIGN: Individual participant data meta-analysis. SETTING: Prospective pregnancy studies from 24 low and middle income countries. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Nine neonatal outcomes related to timing (preterm birth) and anthropometry (weight, length, and head circumference) at birth, stillbirths, and neonatal death. ANALYSIS METHODS: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science which identified 53 prospective pregnancy studies published after the year 2000 with data on GWG, timing and anthropometry at birth, and neonatal mortality. GWG adequacy was defined as the ratio of the observed maternal weight gain over the recommended weight gain based on the Institute of Medicine body mass index specific guidelines, which are derived from data in high income settings, and the INTERGROWTH-21st GWG standards. Study specific estimates, adjusted for confounders, were generated and then pooled using random effects meta-analysis models. Maternal age and body mass index before pregnancy were examined as potential modifiers of the associations between GWG adequacy and neonatal outcomes. RESULTS: Overall, 55% of participants had severely inadequate (<70%) or moderately inadequate (70% to <90%) GWG, 22% had adequate GWG (90-125%), and 23% had excessive GWG (≥125%). Severely inadequate GWG was associated with a higher risk of low birthweight (adjusted relative risk 1.62, 95% confidence interval 1.51 to 1.72; 48 studies, 93 337 participants; τ2=0.006), small for gestational age (1.44, 1.36 to 1.54; 51 studies, 93 191 participants; τ2=0.016), short for gestational age (1.47, 1.29 to 1.69; 40 studies, 83 827 participants; τ2=0.074), and microcephaly (1.57, 1.31 to 1.88; 31 studies, 80 046 participants; τ2=0.145) compared with adequate GWG. Excessive GWG was associated with a higher risk of preterm birth (1.22, 1.13 to 1.31; 48 studies, 103 762 participants; τ2=0.008), large for gestational age (1.44, 1.33 to 1.57; 47 studies, 90 044 participants; τ2=0.009), and macrosomia (1.52, 1.33 to 1.73; 29 studies, 68 138 participants; τ2=0) compared with adequate GWG. The direction and magnitude of the associations between GWG adequacy and several neonatal outcomes were modified by maternal age and body mass index before pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: Inadequate and excessive GWG are associated with a higher risk of adverse neonatal outcomes across settings. Interventions to promote optimal GWG during pregnancy are likely to reduce the burden of adverse neonatal outcomes, however further research is needed to assess optimal ranges of GWG based on data from low and middle income countries

Construction of a dairy microbial genome catalog opens new perspectives for the metagenomic analysis of dairy fermented products

Microbial communities of traditional cheeses are complex and insufficiently characterized. The origin, safety and functional role in cheese making of these microbial communities are still not well understood. Metagenomic analysis of these communities by high throughput shotgun sequencing is a promising approach to characterize their genomic and functional profiles. Such analyses, however, critically depend on the availability of appropriate reference genome databases against which the sequencing reads can be aligned. We built a reference genome catalog suitable for short read metagenomic analysis using a low-cost sequencing strategy. We selected 142 bacteria isolated from dairy products belonging to 137 different species and 67 genera, and succeeded to reconstruct the draft genome of 117 of them at a standard or high quality level, including isolates from the genera Kluyvera, Luteococcus and Marinilactibacillus, still missing from public database. To demonstrate the potential of this catalog, we analysed the microbial composition of the surface of two smear cheeses and one blue-veined cheese, and showed that a significant part of the microbiota of these traditional cheeses was composed of microorganisms newly sequenced in our study. Our study provides data, which combined with publicly available genome references, represents the most expansive catalog to date of cheese-associated bacteria. Using this extended dairy catalog, we revealed the presence in traditional cheese of dominant microorganisms not deliberately inoculated, mainly Gram-negative genera such as Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis or Psychrobacter immobilis, that may contribute to the characteristics of cheese produced through traditional methods.https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-110

Planetary system architectures with low-mass inner planets: Direct imaging exploration of mature systems beyond 1 au

The discovery of planets orbiting at less than 1 au from their host star and less massive than Saturn in various exoplanetary systems revolutionized our theories of planetary formation. The fundamental question is whether these close-in low-mass planets could have formed in the inner disk interior to 1 au, or whether they formed further out in the planet-forming disk and migrated inward. Exploring the role of additional giant planets in these systems may help us to pinpoint their global formation and evolution. We searched for additional substellar companions by using direct imaging in systems known to host close-in small planets. The use of direct imaging complemented by radial velocity and astrometric detection limits enabled us to explore the giant planet and brown dwarf demographics around these hosts to investigate the potential connection between both populations. We carried out a direct imaging survey with VLT/SPHERE to look for outer giant planets and brown dwarf companions in 27 systems hosting close-in low-mass planets discovered by radial velocity. Our sample is composed of very nearby (<20pc) planetary systems, orbiting G-, K-, and M-type mature (0.5-10Gyr) stellar hosts. We performed homogeneous direct imaging data reduction and analysis to search for and characterize point sources, and derived robust statistical detection limits. Of 337 point-source detections, we do not find any new bound companions. We recovered the emblematic very cool T-type brown dwarf GJ229B. Our typical sensitivities in direct imaging range from 5 to 30 MJup beyond 2 au. The non-detection of massive companions is consistent with predictions based on models of planet formation by core accretion. Our pilot study opens the way to a multi-technique approach for the exploration of very nearby exoplanetary systems with future ground-based and space observatories.Comment: 49 pages including 31 pages of appendices and references, 31 figures, A&A, accepte

Single-dose cholera vaccine in response to an outbreak in Zambia

Producción CientíficaKilled oral cholera vaccines (OCVs) are part of the standard response package to a cholera outbreak, although the two-dose regimen of vaccines that has been prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) poses challenges to timely and efficient reactive vaccination campaigns.1 Recent data suggest that the first dose alone provides short-term protection, similar to that of two doses, which may largely dictate the effect of OCVs during epidemic