Colorectal Cancer Brochure Development for African Americans

Introduction: African Americans are more likely to die from colorectal cancer (CRC) than any other racial/ethnic group in the United States. Unfortunately, African Americans are also less likely to undergo screening for CRC than their White counterparts. Focus groups methodology was used to refine educational brochures designed to increase CRC screening among African Americans. Methods: Two series of focus groups were completed, with a total of seven groups and 39 participants. Six different brochures (stage-matched and culturally sensitive) designed to promote CRC screening among African Americans were evaluated. Results: All participants thought that the brochures motivated them to talk with their health care providers about screening. Cost, pain, medical mistrust and fear were identified as major barriers and the brochures were modified to address these concerns. Conclusions: Focus groups methodology with African Americans can be used to inform brochures designed to increase African Americans CRC screening that addresses their major concerns

Depression and PTSD in Pashtun Women in Kandahar, Afghanistan

ObjectivesThe objectives were (a) to establish prevalence of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Afghanistan and, (b) to investigate sociodemographic and quality of life variables, which predict depression and PTSD.MethodsTranslated versions of the Beck Depression Inventory, Impact of Event Scale-Revised, and Quality of Life Inventory were administered to 125 Pashtun women in Kandahar, and statistically analyzed.ResultsApproximately half of the participants showed moderate to severe levels of depression, and more than half of the participants exhibited symptoms of PTSD. Education and income showed significant associations with PTSD symptoms or depression. The way one spends time, general health status, and general feeling towards life predicted low levels of depression and PTSD.ConclusionsThe high prevalence of depression and PTSD indicate the continuing need for mental health intervention. While education has been found to be a protective factor for mental health in previous studies, the relationship between education and mental health appear to be more complex among Afghan women. Quality of life variables could be further investigated and incorporated into mental health interventions for Afghan women

Making sense of Wnt signaling—linking hair cell regeneration to development

Wnt signaling is a highly conserved pathway crucial for development and homeostasis of multicellular organisms. Secreted Wnt ligands bind Frizzled receptors to regulate diverse processes such as axis patterning, cell division, and cell fate specification. They also serve to govern self-renewal of somatic stem cells in several adult tissues. The complexity of the pathway can be attributed to the myriad of Wnt and Frizzled combinations as well as its diverse context-dependent functions. In the developing mouse inner ear, Wnt signaling plays diverse roles, including specification of the otic placode and patterning of the otic vesicle. At later stages, its activity governs sensory hair cell specification, cell cycle regulation, and hair cell orientation. In regenerating sensory organs from non-mammalian species, Wnt signaling can also regulate the extent of proliferative hair cell regeneration. This review describes the current knowledge of the roles of Wnt signaling and Wnt-responsive cells in hair cell development and regeneration. We also discuss possible future directions and the potential application and limitation of Wnt signaling in augmenting hair cell regeneration

Developing Inclusive Multilingual Family Literacy Projects

"October 2018""Our Multilingual Family Literacy Project was designed in collaboration with a language immersion school in the Midwest that we call the Spanish Immersion Elementary School (SIES). At the time of our partnership, SIES was a one-way or foreign-language immersion school serving kindergarten to fifth grades. Providing the majority of instruction in Spanish through second grade (at which point students attended an English Language Arts class each day), SIES was designed primarily for native English speakers to learn and study their content material in Spanish. However, with a diverse population that included many native Spanish speakers as well as African American youth, there was not one dominant home language across the student body (see Figure 1). The school was rich in language varieties and cultural diversity. Ultimately, SIES aimed to graduate biliterate students with academic proficiency in Spanish and English, and they wanted to develop a family literacy project that honored and built upon families’ backgrounds and languages. In turn, we worked with SIES to develop a Multilingual Family Literacy Project, which included one major introductory event for the entire school and a series of workshops for a small number of families. In contrast to traditional family literacy programs, our project was designed with the following ethos."--Page 2.Includes bibliographical reference

Japanese tourists’ relatedness and connectedness with nature

Accepted manuscript version. Published version available at https://doi.org/10.18261/ISSN.1504-3134-2018-01-01.Nature-based tourism continues to gain importance globally. Research on sustainability claims that disconnection between nature and humanity may contribute to the environmental problems that we face in the 21st century. It is, thus, quintessential to better understand the underlying variables for sustainable behaviour in a tourism context. Research suggests scales on nature relatedness (NRS) and connectedness to nature (CNS) to better understand people’s attitudes towards nature. The current paper tests the applicability of these scales in a tourism in an East Asian context. The study is performed on Japanese tourists. The scales seem, to a certain degree, appropriate in a Japanese tourism context, however they may need further refinement. In contrast to the conventionally recognized differences, which focus on the physical aspects of the human–nature relationship (relatedness) and affective community with nature (connectedness), relatedness and connectedness have different dimensions. According to the strong tendency of developing and selling outdoor activities among nature-based destinations combined with the strong increase of East Asian tourists, i.e., visiting Norway, further researching and testing of these aspects is recommended and directions are provided, taking into consideration of the new emergent markets in particular

Demonstration of mode splitting in an optical microcavity in aqueous environment

Scatterer induced modal coupling and the consequent mode splitting in a whispering gallery mode resonator is demonstrated in aqueous environment. The rate of change in splitting as particles enter the resonator mode volume strongly depends on the concentration of particle solution: The higher is the concentration, the higher is the rate of change. Polystyrene nanoparticles of radius 50nm with concentration as low as 5x10^(-6)wt% have been detected using the mode splitting spectra. Observation of mode splitting in water paves the way for constructing advanced resonator based sensors for measuring nanoparticles and biomolecules in various environments.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 21 Reference

Cycling Li-O2 Batteries via LiOH Formation and Decomposition

The rechargeable aprotic Li-air (O₂) battery is a promising potential technology for next generation energy storage, but its practical realization still faces many challenges. In contrast to the standard Li-O₂ cells, which cycle via the formation of Li₂O₂, we use a reduced graphene oxide electrode, the additive LiI, and the solvent dimethoxyethane to reversibly form/remove crystalline LiOH with particle sizes > 15 μm during discharge/charge. This leads to high specific capacities, excellent energy efficiency (93.2%) with a voltage gap of only 0.2 V, and impressive rechargeability. The cells tolerate high concentrations of water, water being the dominant proton source for the LiOH; together with LiI it has a decisive impact on the chemical nature of the discharge product and battery performance.This work was partially supported by the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Vehicle Technologies of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, under the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies (BATT) Program subcontract #7057154 (WY, ML, PB), EPSRC (TL), Johnson Matthey (AM) and Marie Curie Actions (PB and ML).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from AAAS via http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aac773

Cycling Li-O₂ batteries via LiOH formation and decomposition.

The rechargeable aprotic lithium-air (Li-O2) battery is a promising potential technology for next-generation energy storage, but its practical realization still faces many challenges. In contrast to the standard Li-O2 cells, which cycle via the formation of Li2O2, we used a reduced graphene oxide electrode, the additive LiI, and the solvent dimethoxyethane to reversibly form and remove crystalline LiOH with particle sizes larger than 15 micrometers during discharge and charge. This leads to high specific capacities, excellent energy efficiency (93.2%) with a voltage gap of only 0.2 volt, and impressive rechargeability. The cells tolerate high concentrations of water, water being the dominant proton source for the LiOH; together with LiI, it has a decisive impact on the chemical nature of the discharge product and on battery performance.This work was partially supported by the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Vehicle Technologies of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, under the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies (BATT) Program subcontract #7057154 (WY, ML, PB), EPSRC (TL), Johnson Matthey (AM) and Marie Curie Actions (PB and ML).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from AAAS via http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aac773