Beyond Assumptions: How Urban Students View and Practice Digital Literacies In and Out of School

This qualitative, ethnographic case study investigates digital literacy practices and perceptions of students at an urban public high school in the Boston metropolitan area comprising a racially, ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse student body, an under-studied demographic. The study compares in-school and out-of-school literacy practices and posits the role schools might play in preparing learners. The study examines digital literacy practices among student based on information gathered through focus groups, survey methods, and interviews. Three controlling questions guided the study:What digital literacy practices are students in Washington High School engaging in outside of school?What purposes do these youth have for engaging in these digital literacy practices? What role do these digital literacies play in youths’ lives?How are students asked to use digital literacies within the school setting? How do these compare to students’ life world uses? With Web 2.0 conceptions of digital literacies

Processi di scattering e applicazioni astrofisiche

L'elaborato contiene la descrizione fisica dei processi di scattering Thomson, Compton e Compton inverso. Sono trattati i fenomeni di Comptonizzazione, Synchrotron Self Compton, Catastrofe Compton ed Effetto Sunyaev-Zeldovich nel panorama astrofisico. Nell'elaborato sono inclusi due articoli scientifici pubblicati in "The Astronomical Journal", in particolare l'effetto Sunyaev-Zeldovich impiegato per la determinazione della Costante di Hubble

Equilibrium in a two-agent assignment problem

In this paper we address a particular generalisation of the Assignment Problem (AP) in a Multi-Agent setting, where distributed agents share common resources. We consider the problem of determining Pareto-optimal solutions that satisfy a fairness criterion (equilibrium). We show that the solution obtained is equivalent to a Kalai Smorodinsky solution of a suitably defined bargaining problem and characterise the computational complexity of finding such an equilibrium. Additionally, we propose an exact solution algorithm based on a branch-and-bound scheme that exploits bounds obtained by suitably rounding the solutions of the corresponding linear relaxation, and give the results of extensive computational experiments. Copyright © 2009, Inderscience Publishers

Complex people, actions, and contexts: How transformative digital literacies do (and do not) get taken up in a comprehensive high school

Thesis advisor: Leigh PatelDigital literacies have become central in today's society, used in various personal and public incarnations (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008), occupying prominent space in social and professional worlds (boyd, 2014; Leu et al., 2011). Despite digital literacies' centrality in society, schools have a notoriously difficult time integrating these into curriculum and instruction (O'Brien & Scharber, 2008). Accordingly, I asked: How do teachers in a large, public comprehensive secondary school navigate the challenges and benefits of digital literacies within the structure of Washington High, the curriculum, and their pedagogy? Using a case study design both ethnographic and collaborative in nature, I examined teachers' beliefs and practices to investigate how digital literacies were being used in the classroom, as well as why. Data included a school-wide survey, participant interviews and observations with six teachers, and informal meetings with school staff, most notably the vice-principal. Data was analyzed through the lens of theories of literacy curricular design (New London Group, 1996) and an eye toward New Literacies (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006). Notable results include the finding that technology at Washington often plays out in fairly traditional, teacher-directed, "wine in new bottles" (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006, p. 55) sorts of ways. However, this study also concludes that why this is so moves far beyond these teachers' individual beliefs and practices. Their contexts (unreliable technology, control of uses imposed by the administration), their cultures (narratives of adolescents needing protection from themselves and others), and compulsory schooling itself (traditional conceptions of time and space, narrow definitions of success, high-stakes testing and teacher evaluations) all play dynamic and complicated parts in how digital literacies get taken up, along with teachers' own beliefs and practices. As such, I draw upon theories of complex personhood (Gordon, 1997) and complexity thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2008) in positing ways digital literacies may be utilized in relationship to schools. Implications address these practices' collaborative, creative potentials to transform schools.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction

Perifollicular Hypopigmentation in Systemic Sclerosis: Associations With Clinical Features and Internal Organ Involvement

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether perifollicular hypopigmentation in systemic sclerosis (SSc) is associated with demographics, distinct clinical features, and autoantibody profiles. METHODS: Patients with SSc were prospectively enrolled, with a standardized data form used to collect anatomic distribution of perifollicular hypopigmentation. Associations between hypopigmentation and features of SSc were assessed. RESULTS: Of 179 adult patients with SSc, 36 (20%) patients had perifollicular hypopigmentation. Of these 36 patients, 94% (n = 34) were female and 33% (n = 12) had limited cutaneous SSc. In univariable logistic regression, Black race (odds ratio [OR] 15.63, 95% CI 6.6-37.20, CONCLUSION: Perifollicular hypopigmentation is observed in a subset of patients with SSc and associated with diffuse subtype. Larger prospective studies determining whether perifollicular hypopigmentation precedes end-organ involvement and whether specific patterns associate with internal organ involvement are needed

Prevalence of avascular necrosis in idiopathic inflammatory myositis: a single center experience.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the prevalence of avascular necrosis (AVN) in a large cohort of patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) and define the major associated risk factors. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the electronic medical records of all patients with a definitive diagnosis of IIM enrolled in our registry between 2003-2017 and followed until 2020. Pertinent demographic, clinical, serologic and imaging data were collected. A matched group of patients without AVN was then selected for comparison. RESULTS: 1680 patients were diagnosed with IIM. Fifty-one patients developed AVN, with an overall prevalence of 3%. Musculoskeletal magnetic resonance imaging (MSK MRI) was available for 1085 patients and AVN was present in 46 patients (43 lower extremities and 3 upper extremities MRI studies), with a relative prevalence of 4.2%. Most patients with AVN were Caucasian females (57%) with a mean age at diagnosis of 44.5 ± 12.4 years. 61% had dermatomyositis (DM) and 29% had polymyositis (PM). The median time from onset of IIM to diagnosis of AVN was 46 months. The hip joint was most commonly involved in 76% of cases, followed by the knee joint in 15% and shoulder joint in 9%. 81% of patients were asymptomatic. Established risk factors for AVN were not found to be associated with the development of AVN in IIM patients. CONCLUSION: Although mostly asymptomatic and incidental, the overall prevalence of AVN in IIM was 3% and the prevalence by MRI was 4.2%. None of the established risk factors were found to be associated with AVN development

Myositis autoantibodies:recent perspectives

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To provide an overview of recent discoveries related to myositis-specific autoantibodies (MSAs) and assays used for their measurement.RECENT FINDINGS: New autoantibody specificities have been reported including a MSA directed against eukaryotic initiation factor 3 and a myositis-associated autoantibody directed against heat shock factor 1. The association of anti-TIF1γ with cancer-associated dermatomyositis dependent on age has been confirmed in several large cohorts. Despite MSAs being almost entirely mutually exclusive, several myositis autoantigens are overexpressed in regenerating muscle and do not correlate with the corresponding MSA in any one patient. Further mechanisms may determine the final MSA specificity and are likely to include the need for autoantigen processing and presentation with adaptive T-cell help. The presence of CD4-positive T cells specific for histidyl tRNA synthetase protein in bronchial lavage fluid from antisynthetase patients lends support to this view. Finally, it is widely held that MSA do play an important role in clinical practice among some evidence and concern about commercial assay reliability.SUMMARY: MSAs continue to provide important tools for clinical diagnosis and management as well as insights into disease mechanisms. Further improvement in the standardization and reliability of routine detection of MSAs is a high priority.</p

Methods for conducting international Delphi surveys to optimise global participation in core outcome set development: a case study in gastric cancer informed by a comprehensive literature review

Copyright © 2021, The Author(s) Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.Background: Core outcome sets (COS) should be relevant to key stakeholders and widely applicable and usable. Ideally, they are developed for international use to allow optimal data synthesis from trials. Electronic Delphi surveys are commonly used to facilitate global participation; however, this has limitations. It is common for these surveys to be conducted in a single language potentially excluding those not fluent in that tongue. The aim of this study is to summarise current approaches for optimising international participation in Delphi studies and make recommendations for future practice. Methods: A comprehensive literature review of current approaches to translating Delphi surveys for COS development was undertaken. A standardised methodology adapted from international guidance derived from 12 major sets of translation guidelines in the field of outcome reporting was developed. As a case study, this was applied to a COS project for surgical trials in gastric cancer to translate a Delphi survey into 7 target languages from regions active in gastric cancer research. Results: Three hundred thirty-two abstracts were screened and four studies addressing COS development in rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, vascular malformations and polypharmacy were eligible for inclusion. There was wide variation in methodological approaches to translation, including the number of forward translations, the inclusion of back translation, the employment of cognitive debriefing and how discrepancies and disagreements were handled. Important considerations were identified during the development of the gastric cancer survey including establishing translation groups, timelines, understanding financial implications, strategies to maximise recruitment and regulatory approvals. The methodological approach to translating the Delphi surveys was easily reproducible by local collaborators and resulted in an additional 637 participants to the 315 recruited to complete the source language survey. Ninety-nine per cent of patients and 97% of healthcare professionals from non-English-speaking regions used translated surveys. Conclusion: Consideration of the issues described will improve planning by other COS developers and can be used to widen international participation from both patients and healthcare professionals.This study is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Doctoral Research Fellowship Grant (DRF-2015-08-023). JMB is partially funded by the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre and the MRC ConDUCT-II Hub for Trials Methodology Research. PRW was funded by the MRC North West Hub for Trials Methodology Research (Grant ref: MR/K025635/01).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Current management of the gastrointestinal complications of systemic sclerosis.

Systemic sclerosis is a multisystem autoimmune disorder that involves the gastrointestinal tract in more than 90% of patients. This involvement can extend from the mouth to the anus, with the oesophagus and anorectum most frequently affected. Gut complications result in a plethora of presentations that impair oral intake and faecal continence and, consequently, have an adverse effect on patient quality of life, resulting in referral to gastroenterologists. The cornerstones of gastrointestinal symptom management are to optimize symptom relief and monitor for complications, in particular anaemia and malabsorption. Early intervention in patients who develop these complications is critical to minimize disease progression and improve prognosis. In the future, enhanced therapeutic strategies should be developed, based on an ever-improving understanding of the intestinal pathophysiology of systemic sclerosis. This Review describes the most commonly occurring clinical scenarios of gastrointestinal involvement in patients with systemic sclerosis as they present to the gastroenterologist, with recommendations for the suggested assessment protocol and therapy in each situation