audience

My work, “audience,” reflects binary oppressions sensed and recognized in my private memory and psychological space of living as a transnational being. Linguistic and sensical cognition I(a vulnerable transnational individual) had, have easily been dis-esteemed and devalued by White-centric epistemology. By confronting the reality of history that shapes my thoughts, performance, names, and meanings, I emphasize transnationality as an opportunity to multiply visual tools, dialogues, and inter-connections of individuals. This work integrates moments of physical connection and accountability by utilizing multidisciplinary expression, including ceramics, writing, sound, and the movements of performers and of the audience. Like an interfusion between artists and viewers (as object and subject or vice versa), which is invisibly bridged through artwork, it is my anticipation that this text transforms into an image of my work, “audience,” as the work transmits into the text. In this work, art becomes a way to communicate the dispersing emotion, thoughts, culture, and time of the maker in infinite ways, comparable to an endless parenthesis for every single vocabulary, space, and punctuation mark

audience

My work, “audience,” reflects binary oppressions sensed and recognized in my private memory and psychological space of living as a transnational being. Linguistic and sensical cognition I(a vulnerable transnational individual) had, have easily been dis-esteemed and devalued by White-centric epistemology. By confronting the reality of history that shapes my thoughts, performance, names, and meanings, I emphasize transnationality as an opportunity to multiply visual tools, dialogues, and inter-connections of individuals. This work integrates moments of physical connection and accountability by utilizing multidisciplinary expression, including ceramics, writing, sound, and the movements of performers and of the audience. Like an interfusion between artists and viewers (as object and subject or vice versa), which is invisibly bridged through artwork, it is my anticipation that this text transforms into an image of my work, “audience,” as the work transmits into the text. In this work, art becomes a way to communicate the dispersing emotion, thoughts, culture, and time of the maker in infinite ways, comparable to an endless parenthesis for every single vocabulary, space, and punctuation mark

Resident Physicians' Preparedness to Provide Cross-Cultural Care: Implications for Clinical Care and Medical Education Policy

Recommends integrating cross-cultural training into medical school curricula, training faculty to ensure useful instruction and mentoring, and mandatory and formal evaluation of residents' cross-cultural communication skills

International field experience for preservice teachers: A case study of undergraduate students in a TESOL practicum in Korea

This qualitative study explores the experiences and perspectives of TESOL preservice teachers on their international field experience in Korea. During this faculty-led, short-term internship program held in Korean EFL secondary classrooms, undergraduate students from both education and non-education majors underwent personal and professional transformations. In-depth interviews and reflective journals of the five focal participants as well as the researcher’s ethnographic observations – from the pre-departure preparations to post-arrival meetings with the participants – regarding their teaching and learning experience through the practicum abroad were analyzed to examine their development in teacher identity (trans)formation and teaching quality construction. The findings discuss the dynamics of TESOL preservice teachers’ identity formation and teaching quality building during their immersions and interactions within a new culture and a teaching context. Drawing from Wenger’s (1998) well-known concept, ‘community of practice,’ and teacher education studies, this study argues for teaching quality development for preservice teachers who will be working with diverse student populations in their careers. The preservice teachers’ field experience beyond their cultural context provided them with meaningful opportunities for their teacher identity (trans)formation and intercultural awareness development to be prepared for culturally and linguistically diverse learners in their future classrooms. Implications for teacher education are delineated along with recommendations to promote further research in TESOL teacher education through international field experience

The Measurement of Health Care System Efficiency: Cross-country Comparison by Geographical Region

Performance of health care delivery at the cross-country level has not often been directly evaluated by given inputs and outputs. This study estimates the efficiency of the health care systems of 170 countries by extending recent research using Simar and Wilsons bootstrap data envelopment analysis with a sensitivity test. The 170 countries are divided into four groups to compute efficiency estimators necessary to attaining a homogeneity requirement. The major finding is that most countries were inefficient to maximize the use of their inputs at the given output level. Countries in the high-income group have a relatively high average efficiency, but only 16.7% of the countries performed efficiently in the management of their health care systems. Notably, Asian countries performed more efficiently among other regions in each group. This study suggests that inefficient countries should pay attention to benchmark health care best practices within their regional peer groups.This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean government (NRF-2012S1A3A2033416)

Measurements of Location-Dependent Nitric Oxide Levels on Skin Surface in relation to Acupuncture Point

Location-dependent skin surface’s partial nitric oxide pressure (pNO) is studied using highly sensitive amperometric NO microsensor with a small sensing area (diameter  = 76 μm). The pNO level of LI4 (Hegu) acupuncture point is measured and compared with the pNO level of nonacupuncture point. In addition, the mapping of pNO is carried out over the left wrist skin area one- as well as two-dimensionally. Statistically higher pNO levels near the position of acupuncture points than non-acupuncture points are observed consistently, implying tight relationship between the level of NO release of skin and acupuncture points. The amperometric planar NO microsensor successfully monitors the heterogeneity of skin pNO distribution in high spatial resolution due to its advantageous features such as high sensitivity and small sensing dimension. The current study suggests the direct connection between NO and acupuncture points and possibly provides beneficial information to understand physiological roles and basis of the acupuncture points

Agmatine modulates the phenotype of macrophage acute phase after spinal cord injury in rats

Agmatine is a decarboxylated arginine by arginine decarboxylase. Agmatine is known to be a neuroprotective agent. It has been reported that agmatine works as a NMDA receptor blocker or a competitive nitric oxide synthase inhibitor in CNS injuries. In spinal cord injury, agmatine showed reduction of neuropathic pain, improvement of locomotor function, and neuroprotection. Macrophage is a key cellular component in neuroinflammation, a major cause of impairment after spinal cord injury. Macrophage has subtypes, M1 and M2 macrophages. M1 macrophage induces a pro-inflammatory response, but M2 inspires an anti-inflammatory response. In this study, it was clarified whether the neuroprotective effect of agmatine is related with the modulation of macrophage subdivision after spinal cord injury. Spinal cord injury was induced in rats with contusion using MASCIS. Animals received agmatine (100 mg/ kg, IP) daily for 6 days beginning the day after spinal cord injury. The proportion of M1 and M2 macrophages are confirmed with immunohistochemistry and FACS. CD206+ & ED1+ cells were counted as M2 macrophages. The systemic treatment of agmatine increased M2 macrophages caudal side to epicenter 1 week after spinal cord injury in immunohistochemistry. M2 macrophage related markers, Arginase-1 and CD206 mRNA, were increased in the agmatine treatment group and M2 macrophage expressing and stimulated cytokine, IL-10 mRNA, also was significantly overexpressed by agmatine injection. Among BMPs, BMP2/4/7, agmatine significantly increased only the expression of BMP2 known to reduce M1 macrophage under inflammatory status. These results suggest that agmatine reduces impairment after spinal cord injury through modulating the macrophage phenotype. © Experimental Neurobiology 201

A four-country survey of public attitudes towards restricting healthcare costs by limiting the use of high-cost medical interventions

Objective: To discern how the public in four countries, each with unique health systems and cultures, feels about efforts to restrain healthcare costs by limiting the use of high-cost prescription drugs and medical/surgical treatments. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Adult populations in Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA. Participants: 2517 adults in the four countries. A questionnaire survey conducted by telephone (landline and cell) with randomly selected adults in each of the four countries. Main outcome measures: Support for different rationales for not providing/paying for high-cost prescription drugs/medical or surgical treatments, measured in the aggregate and using four case examples derived from actual decisions. Measures of public attitudes about specific policies involving comparative effectiveness and cost-benefit decision making. Results: The survey finds support among publics in four countries for decisions that limit the use of high-cost prescription drugs/treatments when some other drug/treatment is available that works equally well but costs less. The survey finds little public support, either in individual case examples or when asked in the aggregate, for decisions in which prescription drugs/treatments are denied on the basis of cost or various definitions of benefits. The main results are based on majorities of the public in each country supporting or opposing each measure. Conclusions: The survey findings indicate that the public distinguishes in practice between the concepts of comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness analysis. This suggests that public authorities engaged in decision-making activities will find much more public support if they are dealing with the first type of decision than with the second