Responding to the Child Care Shortage: Case Studies of Innovation in Greater Minnesota

This report features seven accessible case studies that highlight different community approaches to increasing child care access. The case studies are built on information gained from interviews with those involved in the efforts. Each case has “key words” that allow readers to quickly understand its context and model. The cases highlight the shortages that led to community efforts, what assets were available, and why communities chose the solutions they did. The options available to each community look different because of their unique assets, but the report synthesizes valuable insights that may be useful for others looking for solutions. Some of the key takeaways from the cases are summarized below: ● There are a variety of ways for communities to support or attract child care providers. Assistance can come from community members, local government, businesses, and community organizations, and there are a variety of ways interested parties can get involved besides direct financial support. ● Non-traditional child care models, like cooperative family providers and employer-supported child care offer advantages over typical family and center-based models. ● While the community solutions discussed were successful at expanding access to child care for local families, they didn’t eliminate the existing shortages. This suggests community-level efforts may not be able to fully ease pressure on families and providers, and changes need to be made at the state level instead.https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/cst/1081/thumbnail.jp

Do Human Rights Matter? An Analysis of Presidential Human Rights Rhetoric from 1993-2014

My research examines how and why American presidents speak about human rights issues around the world, using rhetoric about human rights from the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations. I theorized that rhetorical attention to human rights issues would be dependent on the strategic value of the region where the abuses take place, and that the president would shy away from criticizing countries where high numbers of U.S. military personnel were stationed. Using descriptive statistics and a measure of bivariate correlation, I found compelling evidence that presidential human rights attention was influenced by regional location, but only weak evidence to tie presidential speech to the presence of military personnel

Modes of multipurpose disinfection: What are the costs?

Modes of multipurpose disinfection: What are the costs

The impact of STEM experiences on student self-efficacy in computational thinking

Citation: Weese, J. L., Feldhausen, R., & Bean, N. H. (2016). The impact of STEM experiences on student self-efficacy in computational thinking.Since the introduction of new curriculum standards at K-12 schools, computational thinking has become a major research area. Creating and delivering content to enhance these skills, as well as evaluation, remain open problems. This paper describes two different interventions based on the Scratch programming language which aim to improve student self-efficacy in computer science and computational thinking. The two interventions were applied at a STEM outreach program for 5th-9th grade students. Previous experience in STEM related activities and subjects, as well as student self-efficacy, were collected using a developed pre- and post-survey. We discuss the impact of our intervention on student performance and confidence, and evaluate the validity of our instrument. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2016

Bayesian Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Using Model Averaging

Multi-regional clinical trials (MRCTs) provide the benefit of more rapidly introducing drugs to the global market; however, small regional sample sizes can lead to poor estimation quality of region-specific effects when using current statistical methods. With the publication of the International Conference for Harmonisation E17 guideline in 2017, the MRCT design is recognized as a viable strategy that can be accepted by regional regulatory authorities, necessitating new statistical methods that improve the quality of region-specific inference. We develop novel methodology using Bayesian model averaging (BMA) to estimate region-specific and global treatment effects for MRCTs that compare two treatment groups with respect to a continuous outcome, a time-to-event (TTE) outcome, or both a TTE outcome and a longitudinal marker jointly. This approach accounts for the possibility of heterogeneous treatment effects between regions, and we discuss how to assess the consistency of these effects using posterior model probabilities. In the case of a continuous or TTE endpoint, we show through simulation studies that the proposed modeling approaches estimate region-specific treatment effects with lower mean squared error than commonly used models (e.g., fixed effects linear regression models, Cox proportional hazards models) while resulting in higher rejection rates of the global treatment effect compared to Bayesian hierarchical models. For both types of endpoints, we further develop three measures to evaluate the consistency of the treatment effect across regions. These three approaches quantify the strength of evidence that a lack of clinically relevant differences exists between treatment effects (1) among regions overall, (2) for any two regions, and (3) for any given region versus all other regions together. When jointly modeling a TTE endpoint and an associated longitudinal marker, we show that the BMA approach can result in an increase in the global rejection rate compared to survival models that account for only the TTE endpoint. We then apply both the survival and joint model variations of the BMA approach to data from the LEADER trial, an MRCT designed to evaluate the cardiovascular safety of an anti-diabetic treatment.Doctor of Philosoph

Dioptric power differences in prescribing the Acuvue Advance silicone hydrogel lens

Background: Based on anecdotal evidence it was thought that in fitting Acuvue Advance contact lenses, more plus power is needed than would be expected from the vertex corrected spectacle prescription. Methods: We looked at 127 records of patients who had been fitted with the Acuvue Advance contact lens and compared their spherical equivalent spectacle correction with the power of lens dispensed to the patients. Discussion: We found that final prescription powers tended to be within+/- 0.50 Diopters of the spherical equivalent spectacle correction. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found that it was as equally likely for the contact lens prescription to deviate in the minus direction as in the plus. Conclusion: From our results, it is apparent that our anecdotal evidence was faulty and there is not a statistically significant difference between the spectacle prescriptions and the final contact lens prescriptions of the patients in the study. Therefore, an over refraction is needed to pick the optimum lens for any contact lens candidate

Algorithmic pedagogy: Using code analysis to deliver targeted supplemental instruction

Doctor of PhilosophyCurriculum and Instruction ProgramsJacqueline D SpearsLearning to program has long been known to be a difficult task, requiring a student to develop both fluency in the syntax and grammar of a formal programming language and learn the problem-solving approaches and techniques of computational thinking. The successful teaching strategies of the past have involved maintaining small teacher-student ratios and large amounts of supplemental instruction in lab courses. However, recent growth in the demand for programming courses from both computer science major and nonmajor students has drastically outpaced the expansion of computer science faculty and created a shortage in available lab space and time across American universities. This study involved creating a software tool for automatically delivering targeted supplemental instruction to students based on a real-time algorithmic analysis of the program code they were writing. This approach was piloted with students enrolled in a sophomore-level object-oriented software development course. The majority of students reported finding the detection and reporting of issues in their code helpful. Moreover, students who were less proficient programmers entering the course who utilized the tool showed statistically significant improvement in their final exam grade over those who did not. Thus, adopting the strategy piloted in this study could improve instruction in larger classes and relieve some of the strain on overburdened computer science departments while providing additional learning benefits for students

Mind the Gap: Student Researchers Use Secondary Data to Explore Disparities in STEM Education

Large data sets offer opportunities for graduate students to become involved in meaningful research, but also comes with a unique set of challenges. This paper seeks to examine that relationship through utilizing the High School Longitudinal Study 2009 – representative of US ninth graders in 2009 (n = 21,444) – to examine a set of research questions about STEM interest and preparation amongst secondary students. Student researchers identified gaps in plans and outcomes with regards to race, gender, exceptionalities, and socioeconomic status. Findings indicated inequities that affect STEM outcomes. A significant interaction was found between students education expectations by gender on science self-efficacy [F(4,1264) = 2.797, p =.025]. This interaction was not observed for math self-efficacy. Females and underrepresented minorities were less likely to pursue computer science courses and computer science careers [Females: Χ2 (2, N = 20,594) = 111.500, p \u3c .0001; Minorities: Χ2 (2, N = 13,069) = 6.455, p = .040]. Students’ expectations for post-secondary education differed by IEP status and socioeconomic status [Χ2 (3, n =165,684) = 26.886, p = 0.001]. Finally, time spent in extracurricular activities impacted academic achievement and students in lower socioeconomic groups were less involved in extracurricular activities [Χ2 (4, n = 20,598) = 132.298, p \u3c .0001]

Basket trials in oncology: a systematic review of practices and methods, comparative analysis of innovative methods, and an appraisal of a missed opportunity

BackgroundBasket trials are increasingly used in oncology drug development for early signal detection, accelerated tumor-agnostic approvals, and prioritization of promising tumor types in selected patients with the same mutation or biomarker. Participants are grouped into so-called baskets according to tumor type, allowing investigators to identify tumors with promising responses to treatment for further study. However, it remains a question as to whether and how much the adoption of basket trial designs in oncology have translated into patient benefits, increased pace and scale of clinical development, and de-risking of downstream confirmatory trials.MethodsInnovation in basket trial design and analysis includes methods that borrow information across tumor types to increase the quality of statistical inference within each tumor type. We build on the existing systematic reviews of basket trials in oncology to discuss the current practices and landscape. We conceptually illustrate recent innovative methods for basket trials, with application to actual data from recently completed basket trials. We explore and discuss the extent to which innovative basket trials can be used to de-risk future trials through their ability to aid prioritization of promising tumor types for subsequent clinical development.ResultsWe found increasing adoption of basket trial design in oncology, but largely in the design of single-arm phase II trials with a very low adoption of innovative statistical methods. Furthermore, the current practice of basket trial design, which does not consider its impact on the clinical development plan, may lead to a missed opportunity in improving the probability of success of a future trial. Gating phase II with a phase Ib basket trial reduced the size of phase II trials, and losses in the probability of success as a result of not using innovative methods may not be recoverable by running a larger phase II trial.ConclusionInnovative basket trial methods can reduce the size of early phase clinical trials, with sustained improvement in the probability of success of the clinical development plan. We need to do more as a community to improve the adoption of these methods

The Revised TESS Input Catalog and Candidate Target List

We describe the catalogs assembled and the algorithms used to populate the revised TESS Input Catalog (TIC), based on the incorporation of the Gaia second data release. We also describe a revised ranking system for prioritizing stars for 2-minute cadence observations, and assemble a revised Candidate Target List (CTL) using that ranking. The TIC is available on the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) server, and an enhanced CTL is available through the Filtergraph data visualization portal system at the URL http://filtergraph.vanderbilt.edu/tess_ctl.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures, submitted to AAS Journals; provided to the community in advance of publication in conjunction with public release of the TIC/CTL on 28 May 201