Feeling culture: The emotional experience of six early childhood educators while teaching in a cross-cultural context

This research uncovers the emotional experience of six US early childhood educators during a 3-week teaching experience at two preschools in Kathmandu, Nepal. The following research questions guided the study and data analysis: What emotions do early childhood educators experience while teaching in a cross-cultural context? How were these emotions related to a Western discourse of teaching young children? Ethnographic methods of data collection consisted of formal and informal interviews, focus groups, weekly journals, group blog with written text and photographs, and participant observation by the lead researcher. Analysis of the themes uncovered the following: (1) a discourse of the Privileged Westerner and Marginalized Other was related to the emotions of excitement and nervousness about teaching/helping young children in Nepal, and (2) the emotion of frustration with the educational practices of the Nepali schools was related to a national love for their own Western educational ideals

Impact of Arterial Stiffness on All-Cause Mortality in Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 in Spain

Older age and cardiovascular comorbidities are well-known risk factors for all-cause mortality in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Hypertension and age are the 2 principal determinants of arterial stiffness (AS). This study aimed to estimate AS in patients with COVID-19 requiring hospitalization and analyze its association with all-cause in-hospital mortality. This observational, retrospective, multicenter cohort study analyzed 12 170 patients admitted to 150 Spanish centers included in the SEMI-COVID-19 Network. We compared AS, defined as pulse pressure ≥60 mm Hg, and clinical characteristics between survivors and nonsurvivors. Mean age was 67.5 (±16.1) years and 42.5% were women. Overall, 2606 (21.4%) subjects died. Admission systolic blood pressure (BP) <120 and ≥140 mm Hg was a predictor of higher all-cause mortality (23.5% and 22.8%, respectively, P<0.001), compared with systolic BP between 120 and 140 mm Hg (18.6%). The 4379 patients with AS (36.0%) were older and had higher systolic and lower diastolic BP. Multivariate analysis showed that AS and systolic BP <120 mm Hg significantly and independently predicted all-cause in-hospital mortality (adjusted odds ratio [ORadj]: 1.27, P=0.0001; ORadj: 1.48, P=0.0001, respectively) after adjusting for sex (males, ORadj: 1.6, P=0.0001), age tertiles (second and third tertiles, ORadj: 2.0 and 4.7, P=0.0001), Charlson Comorbidity Index (second and third tertiles, ORadj: 4.8 and 8.6, P=0.0001), heart failure, and previous and in-hospital antihypertensive treatment. Our data show that AS and admission systolic BP <120 mm Hg had independent prognostic value for all-cause mortality in patients with COVID-19 requiring hospitalization

Mechanisms of Defence to Pathogens : Biochemistry and Physiology

Plant defences comprise both pre-existing barriers as well as defences induced upon perception of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) or microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) or molecules produced from damage as a result of infection (damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs)). This chapter focuses on the induced mechanisms of defence. The inducibility of phytoalexin biosynthesis has probably been favoured in the course of evolution by biological constraints such as metabolic costs and functional side-effects associated with chemical defence. Historically, the term ‘hypersensitive’ refers to the rapid and localized cell death induced in specific cereal cultivars by the fungal pathogen Puccinia graminis. The expression ‘hypersensitive response’ (HR) was coined later on when it appeared that this form of plant cell death was generally associated with resistance to many pathogens. Infection by pathogens is accompanied by the local and systemic induction of plant encoded proteins referred to as pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins