Critical success factors and the role of the board of trustees in the comprehensive internationalization of community colleges: a qualitative case study

For over four decades, scholars and national community college associations have called upon community colleges to internationalize their institutions and produce students with a global competency - students with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century in an era of globalization. Many community colleges have been slow to respond to the needs of their students in this globalized society. Efforts by college champions are often programmatic initiatives that do not result in long-term systemic change; when these champions are no longer at the institution, the programs falter. This study serves as an additional reference for community colleges seeking to initiate and institutionalize global education programs with a focus on the role of the governing body, the board of trustees. A qualitative methodology and case study design, this study analyzed the role of community college board of trustees in an urban college that has attempted to internationalize their institution. The factors, processes, and obstacles that community colleges face when creating global initiatives in their institutions were also examined. This study revealed ten major themes: (a) role of the board of trustees, (b) chancellor leadership, (c) programs, (d) faculty, (e) curriculum infusion, (f) partnerships, (g) college mission, (h) student success, (i) planning, structures, and systems, and (j) barriers. The findings reveal that the role of the board of trustees in the internationalization of a community college is important, but often limited by knowledge of initiatives and competing demands. The results also point to the importance of participation in the Salzburg Global Seminar as a means of garnering faculty support and course infusion, both critical factors to internationalization.Educational Administratio

Promoting Healthy Families and Communities for Boys and Young Men of Color

This report talks about boys and young men of color who are at risk for poor health and developmental outcomes beginning at birth and persisting through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. As a result of household poverty and residence in segregated neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage, they are disproportionately bombarded by environmental threats -- often without the benefits of supportive systems of prevention, protection, and care. This exposure to chronic stress undermines cognitive, social-emotional, and regulatory human development as well as the immune system. The parents of boys and young men of color are similarly affected, which affects boys directly in utero and interferes with their parents' abilities to promote their health and development and to protect them from harm as they mature

General practice based psychosocial interventions for supporting carers of people with dementia or stroke: a systematic review

Background Particularly with ageing populations, dementia and stroke and their resultant disability are worldwide concerns. Much of the support for people with these conditions comes from unpaid carers or caregivers. The carers’ role is often challenging and carers themselves may need support. General practice is often the first point of contact for people with these conditions and their carers, making it potentially an important source of support. This systematic review therefore synthesised the available evidence for the impact of supportive interventions for carers provided in general practice. Methods PRISMA guidelines were adopted and the following databases were searched: MEDLINE; EMBASE; the Cochrane Library; PsycINFO; CINAHL Plus; Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts and Healthcare Management Information Consortium. Results 2489 results were identified. Four studies, involving 447 carers, fitted the inclusion criteria. Three of these came from the United States of America. None investigated supportive interventions for carers of people with stroke. Primarily by the provision of information and educational materials, the interventions focussed on improving carer mental health, dementia knowledge, caregiving competence and reducing burden, difficulties and frustrations. Overall the evidence suggests that these interventions may improve carer well-being and emotional health but the impact on physical health and social variables was less clear. However, the diversity of the carer outcomes and the measures used means that the findings must be viewed with caution. Conclusions Unpaid carers pay an essential role in caring for people with stroke and dementia and the dearth of literature investigating the impact of supportive interventions for these carers of is surprising. The available evidence suggests that it may be possible to offer support for these carers in general practice but future research should consider focussing on the same outcome measures in order to allow comparisons across interventions

Investigating Reasons for Disagreement in Natural Language Inference

We investigate how disagreement in natural language inference (NLI) annotation arises. We developed a taxonomy of disagreement sources with 10 categories spanning 3 high-level classes. We found that some disagreements are due to uncertainty in the sentence meaning, others to annotator biases and task artifacts, leading to different interpretations of the label distribution. We explore two modeling approaches for detecting items with potential disagreement: a 4-way classification with a "Complicated" label in addition to the three standard NLI labels, and a multilabel classification approach. We found that the multilabel classification is more expressive and gives better recall of the possible interpretations in the data.Comment: accepted at TACL, pre-MIT Press publication versio

Ecologically Valid Explanations for Label Variation in NLI

Human label variation, or annotation disagreement, exists in many natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including natural language inference (NLI). To gain direct evidence of how NLI label variation arises, we build LiveNLI, an English dataset of 1,415 ecologically valid explanations (annotators explain the NLI labels they chose) for 122 MNLI items (at least 10 explanations per item). The LiveNLI explanations confirm that people can systematically vary on their interpretation and highlight within-label variation: annotators sometimes choose the same label for different reasons. This suggests that explanations are crucial for navigating label interpretations in general. We few-shot prompt large language models to generate explanations but the results are inconsistent: they sometimes produces valid and informative explanations, but it also generates implausible ones that do not support the label, highlighting directions for improvement.Comment: Findings at EMNLP 2023. Overlap with previous version arXiv:2304.1244

Are Adolescent Mothers Just Single Mothers?

Published in Journal of Research on Adolescence v. 3 no. 4 pp.353-371, 1993.Support for the preparation of the paper was provided by the W.T. Grant Foundation Faculty Scholars Progam

Resolvin D1 and Aspirin-Triggered Resolvin D1 Regulate Histamine-stimulated Conjunctival Goblet Cell Secretion

Resolution of inflammation is an active process mediated by pro-resolution lipid mediators. Since resolvin (Rv) D1 is produced in the cornea, pro-resolution mediators could be effective in regulating inflammatory responses to histamine in allergic conjunctivitis. Two key mediators of resolution are the D-series resolvins RvD1 or aspirin-triggered RvD1 (AT-RvD1). We used cultured conjunctival goblet cells to determine whether histamine actions can be terminated during allergic responses. We found cross-talk between two types of G protein-coupled receptors, as RvD1 interacts with its receptor GPR32 to block histamine-stimulated H1 receptor increases in intracellular [Ca2+] ([Ca2+]i) preventing H1 receptor-mediated responses. In human and rat conjunctival goblet cells RvD1 and AT-RvD1 each block histamine-stimulated secretion by preventing its increase in [Ca2+]i and activation of extracellular regulated protein kinase (ERK)1/2. We suggest that D-series resolvins regulate histamine responses in the eye and offer new treatment approaches for allergic conjunctivitis or other histamine-dependent pathologies

Assessing medical student knowledge and attitudes about shared decision making across the curriculum: protocol for an international online survey and stakeholder analysis

Introduction: Shared decision making (SDM) is a goal of modern medicine; however, it is not currently embedded in routine care. Barriers include clinicians’ attitudes, lack of knowledge and training and time constraints. Our goal is to support the development and delivery of a robust SDM curriculum in medical education. Our objective is to assess undergraduate medical students’ knowledge of and attitudes towards SDM in four countries. Methods and analysis: The first phase of the study involves a web-based cross-sectional survey of undergraduate medical students from all years in selected schools across the United States (US), Canada and undergraduate and graduate students in the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom (UK), the survey will be circulated to all medical schools through the UK Medical School Council. We will sample students equally in all years of training and assess attitudes towards SDM, knowledge of SDM and participation in related training. Medical students of ages 18 years and older in the four countries will be eligible. The second phase of the study will involve semistructured interviews with a subset of students from phase 1 and a convenience sample of medical school curriculum experts or stakeholders. Data will be analysed using multivariable analysis in phase 1 and thematic content analysis in phase 2. Method, data source and investigator triangulation will be performed. Online survey data will be reported according to the Checklist for Reporting the Results of Internet E-Surveys. We will use the COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research for all qualitative data. Ethics and dissemination: The study has been approved for dissemination in the US, the Netherlands, Canada and the UK. The study is voluntary with an informed consent process. The results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and will help inform the inclusion of SDM-specific curriculum in medical education worldwide

Women’s economic empowerment : a review of evidence on enablers and barriers

This rapid evidence review summarizes the evidence that women’s economic empowerment (WEE) promotes economic growth, firm productivity, and human development. It also reviews the key enablers and barriers to WEE. We have followed strict criteria regarding the rigor of studies included in this review, noting inconsistencies in the scale and quality of evidence on key questions about WEE. We draw on this evidence to distill key findings to support the United Nations High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment’s priority setting and make recommendations for policy interventions or important topics requiring further research