Women See Value and Benefits of College; Men Lag on Both Fronts, Survey Finds

Presents survey findings about views on the value of higher education, the necessity of a college degree to men and women, financing and affordability of college, and gender composition of college graduates by gender, race/ethnicity, and education

Modern Parenthood: Roles of Moms and Dads Converge as They Balance Work and Family

A lot has changed for women and men in the 50 years since Betty Friedan wrote "The Feminine Mystique". Women have made major strides in education and employment, and the American workplace has been transformed. But with these changes have come the added pressures of balancing work and family life, for mothers and fathers alike. Trends in time use going back to 1965 clearly show how the increased participation of women in the workforce has affected the amount of time mothers devote to paid work. In 2011, mothers spent, on average, 21 hours per week on paid work, up from eight hours in 1965. Over the same period, the total amount of time mothers spend in non-paid work has gone down somewhat. For their part, fathers now spend more time engaged in housework and child care than they did half a century ago. And the amount of time they devote to paid work has decreased slightly over that period. Fathers have by no means caught up to mothers in terms of time spent caring for children and doing household chores, but there has been some gender convergence in the way they divide their time between work and home.The report is divided into two main sections. Section I, Public Opinion Survey Findings, is based mainly on the new Pew Research survey and includes three chapters. Chapter 1 looks at women's growing presence in the labor market and explores changing attitudes about work. Chapter 2 looks at the challenges mothers and fathers face in attempting to balance work and family life. Chapter 3 explores how these challenges are affecting parents -- both in terms of their overall happiness and in how they evaluate the job they are doing raising their children. Section II of the report, Time Use Findings, primarily draws from time use surveys and includes public opinion questions related to time use when available. Chapter 4 provides an overview of how mothers and fathers spend their time in the workplace and at home and how they feel about their time. Chapter 5 goes into detail about the long-term trend in time use among men and women -- and fathers and mothers -- over the past five decades. Chapter 6 looks at current time use patterns among parents of different family types and living arrangements

Growing Old in America: Expectations vs. Reality

Presents survey results on indicators of old age, "felt age," and the upsides and downsides of growing older, by age, gender, income, and race/ethnicity. Highlights gaps between perceptions of younger adults and the self-reported experiences of seniors

Changing medical student attitudes to patient safety: A multicentre study

Background: Although patient safety is becoming widely taught in medical schools, its effect has been less rigorously evaluated. We describe a multicentre study to evaluate student changes in patient safety attitudes using a standardized instrument, the Attitudes to Patient Safety Questionnaire3 (APSQ3). Methods: A patient safety training package designed for medical students was delivered in the first year and second year in four Australian medical schools. It comprises eight face-to-face modules, each of two hours. Seminars start with an interactive introduction using questions, video and role play, followed by small group break-outs to discuss a relevant case study. Groups are led by medical school tutors with no prior training in patient safety. Students and tutors then reassemble to give feedback and reinforce key concepts. Knowledge and attitudes to patient safety were measured using the APSQ3, delivered prior to safety teaching, at the end of the first and second years and 12 months after teaching ceased. Results: A significant improvement in attitude over time was demonstrated for four of nine key items measured by the APSQ3: value of patient safety teaching; danger of long working hours, value of team work and the contribution patients can make in reducing error. Informal feedback from students was very positive. Conclusion: We showed persistent, positive learning from a patient safety education intervention 12 months after teaching finished. Building on the introduction of patient safety teaching into medical schools, pathways for motivated students such as appropriate electives, option terms and team-based research projects would be of value

Optimizing human pulmonary perfusion measurement using an in silico model of arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging.

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an imaging methodology that uses blood as an endogenous contrast agent to quantify flow. One limitation of this method of capillary blood quantification when applied in the lung is the contribution of signals from non-capillary blood. Intensity thresholding is one approach that has been proposed for minimizing the non-capillary blood signal. This method has been tested in previous in silico modeling studies; however, it has only been tested under a restricted set of physiological conditions (supine posture and a cardiac output of 5 L/min). This study presents an in silico approach that extends previous intensity thresholding analysis to estimate the optimal "per-slice" intensity threshold value using the individual components of the simulated ASL signal (signal arising independently from capillary blood as well as pulmonary arterial and pulmonary venous blood). The aim of this study was to assess whether the threshold value should vary with slice location, posture, or cardiac output. We applied an in silico modeling approach to predict the blood flow distribution and the corresponding ASL quantification of pulmonary perfusion in multiple sagittal imaging slices. There was a significant increase in ASL signal and heterogeneity (COV = 0.90 to COV = 1.65) of ASL signals when slice location changed from lateral to medial. Heterogeneity of the ASL signal within a slice was significantly lower (P = 0.03) in prone (COV = 1.08) compared to in the supine posture (COV = 1.17). Increasing stroke volume resulted in an increase in ASL signal and conversely an increase in heart rate resulted in a decrease in ASL signal. However, when cardiac output was increased via an increase in both stroke volume and heart rate, ASL signal remained relatively constant. Despite these differences, we conclude that a threshold value of 35% provides optimal removal of large vessel signal independent of slice location, posture, and cardiac output

Artequakt: Generating tailored biographies from automatically annotated fragments from the web

The Artequakt project seeks to automatically generate narrativebiographies of artists from knowledge that has been extracted from the Web and maintained in a knowledge base. An overview of the system architecture is presented here and the three key components of that architecture are explained in detail, namely knowledge extraction, information management and biography construction. Conclusions are drawn from the initial experiences of the project and future progress is detailed

An Exploratory Study of Personal Reflection and Collaboration Skills using Online Collaborative Tool in Project-Based Learning

By deepening our understanding of the use of Web 2.0 for reflective practice, knowledge co-construction and project based learning this paper aims to contribute to our understanding of collaborative learning. The paper investigates a case study of a post-graduate system development subject to increase student learning through the development of students’ personal reflection and collaboration skills. The project aims to develop key foundational knowledge and skills identified in the IS 2010 curriculum guidelines, i.e. the ability to work collaboratively. Of particular interest was the ability of student collaboration combined with personal reflective learning to lead to negotiation of meaning and co-construction of knowledge. A case study approach was used to investigate the use Web 2.0 tools of wikis and blogs to facilitate online collaborative project development. Our result shows that individual learning experience can influence contribution made to team project

A single supplement of a standardised bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) extract (36 % wet weight anthocyanins) modifies glycaemic response in individuals with type 2 diabetes controlled by diet and lifestyle

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Cultivating Cultural Intelligence for Serving International Students

We are proposing a 50-minute panel. Presenters: Dr. Wendy Doucette, East Tennessee State University; Ms. Mandy Havert, University of Notre Dame; Dr. Kyung Kim, Florida State University The number of international graduate students continues to rise at American universities nationwide. While academic librarians wish to serve this student population effectively, few of us have received formal training or meaningful exposure to this sector of our student populace. This panel will provide first-person experiences from academic librarians who are actively engaging with and researching international students. Acknowledging and encouraging cultural diversity fosters the awareness of building inclusivity into graduate programming. Rather than viewing international students as a challenge to be resolved with a one-size-fits-all approach, cultivating cultural intelligence makes us more thoughtful and effective instructors and service providers for all students. This panel will discuss Tailoring services and support from the perspective of inclusivity for all students. Empirical best practices and lessons learned from focus groups with international students Tips for providing sessions tailored to multicultural audiences across the disciplines Partnerships with International offices, programs, and groups on campus The problem of academic writing Shared aspects of the graduate student experience Plagiarism and the academic honor code Thoughts about future engagement A current list of professional resources will be provided. We anticipate audience discussion will be generated by this topic and will encourage participation through informal polling and direct questions

Using Protege for automatic ontology instantiation

This paper gives an overview on the use of Protégé in the Artequakt system, which integrated Protégé with a set of natural language tools to automatically extract knowledge about artists from web documents and instantiate a given ontology. Protégé was also linked to structured templates that generate documents from the knowledge fragments it maintains