Mathematics Career Carnival: Integration of Content, Pedagogy, & Authentic Learning

This project is the result of the integration of online methods and field experience to give students a unique opportunity in field experience that we can control and assess rather than “assume” that mentors and placements around the state are modeling the way we believe mathematics should be taught and assessed

Faculty Input in Evaluation for a College with Many Disciplines

The co-presenters will describe how faculty in one academic unit of a large College combining many academic disciplines were tasked with examining best practices and development of a faculty merit performance evaluation rubric. Perspective on the project will be offered by the initiating School Director, Dean of the College and Associate Dean of the College

Lessons Learned From Interdisciplinary Efforts to Combat COVID-19 Misinformation: Development of Agile Integrative Methods From Behavioral Science, Data Science, and Implementation Science

BACKGROUND: Despite increasing awareness about and advances in addressing social media misinformation, the free flow of false COVID-19 information has continued, affecting individuals\u27 preventive behaviors, including masking, testing, and vaccine uptake. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, we describe our multidisciplinary efforts with a specific focus on methods to (1) gather community needs, (2) develop interventions, and (3) conduct large-scale agile and rapid community assessments to examine and combat COVID-19 misinformation. METHODS: We used the Intervention Mapping framework to perform community needs assessment and develop theory-informed interventions. To supplement these rapid and responsive efforts through large-scale online social listening, we developed a novel methodological framework, comprising qualitative inquiry, computational methods, and quantitative network models to analyze publicly available social media data sets to model content-specific misinformation dynamics and guide content tailoring efforts. As part of community needs assessment, we conducted 11 semistructured interviews, 4 listening sessions, and 3 focus groups with community scientists. Further, we used our data repository with 416,927 COVID-19 social media posts to gather information diffusion patterns through digital channels. RESULTS: Our results from community needs assessment revealed the complex intertwining of personal, cultural, and social influences of misinformation on individual behaviors and engagement. Our social media interventions resulted in limited community engagement and indicated the need for consumer advocacy and influencer recruitment. The linking of theoretical constructs underlying health behaviors to COVID-19-related social media interactions through semantic and syntactic features using our computational models has revealed frequent interaction typologies in factual and misleading COVID-19 posts and indicated significant differences in network metrics such as degree. The performance of our deep learning classifiers was reasonable, with an F-measure of 0.80 for speech acts and 0.81 for behavior constructs. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights the strengths of community-based field studies and emphasizes the utility of large-scale social media data sets in enabling rapid intervention tailoring to adapt grassroots community interventions to thwart misinformation seeding and spread among minority communities. Implications for consumer advocacy, data governance, and industry incentives are discussed for the sustainable role of social media solutions in public health

Social work students on the island of Ireland: a cross-sectional survey

Understanding the characteristics, motivations, and experiences of student social workers is important to inform their professional education and support needs. To date, there has been relatively little research about social work students in Ireland, both North and South. This study reports on an all-Ireland survey of students beginning their social work course in Autumn 2018 in the six Universities delivering social work education. It describes the characteristics of the student cohort, examines the motivations behind choosing this career, and highlights some of the potentially relevant life experiences and beliefs which may have contributed to their ambition to join the social work profession. Implications for social work education, recommendations for curriculum development, workforce planning, and the provision of appropriate support for students are discussed

Development of a standardised set of metrics for monitoring site performance in multicentre randomised trials : a Delphi study

Funding This study was supported by an NIHR Clinical Trials Unit Support Funding grant for supporting efficient and innovative delivery of NIHR research. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Health Service, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. The Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, receives core funding from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates. The study was not registered. Availability of data and materials The data generated or analysed during the current study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files). Additional information is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Efficacy and safety of givosiran for acute hepatic porphyria: 24-month interim analysis of the randomized phase 3 ENVISION study

Background & Aims Upregulation of hepatic delta-aminolevulinic acid synthase 1 with accumulation of potentially toxic heme precursors delta-aminolevulinic acid and porphobilinogen is fundamental to the pathogenesis of acute hepatic porphyria. Aims: evaluate long-term efficacy and safety of givosiran in acute hepatic porphyria. Methods Interim analysis of ongoing ENVISION study (NCT03338816), after all active patients completed their Month 24 visit. Patients with acute hepatic porphyria (≥12 years) with recurrent attacks received givosiran (2.5 mg/kg monthly) (n=48) or placebo (n=46) for 6 months (double-blind period); 93 received givosiran (2.5 mg or 1.25 mg/kg monthly) in the open-label extension (continuous givosiran, n=47/48; placebo crossover, n=46/46). Endpoints included annualized attack rate, urinary delta-aminolevulinic acid and porphobilinogen levels, hemin use, daily worst pain, quality of life, and adverse events. Results Patients receiving continuous givosiran had sustained annualized attack rate reduction (median 1.0 in double-blind period, 0.0 in open-label extension); in placebo crossover patients, median annualized attack rate decreased from 10.7 to 1.4. Median annualized days of hemin use were 0.0 (double-blind period) and 0.0 (open-label extension) for continuous givosiran patients and reduced from 14.98 to 0.71 for placebo crossover patients. Long-term givosiran led to sustained lowering of delta-aminolevulinic acid and porphobilinogen and improvements in daily worst pain and quality of life. Safety findings were consistent with the double-blind period. Conclusions Long-term givosiran has an acceptable safety profile and significantly benefits acute hepatic porphyria patients with recurrent attacks by reducing attack frequency, hemin use, and severity of daily worst pain while improving quality of life

HST and Optical Data Reveal White Dwarf Cooling, Spin and Periodicities in GW Librae 3-4 Years after Outburst

Since the large amplitude 2007 outburst which heated its accreting, pulsating white dwarf, the dwarf nova system GW Librae has been cooling to its quiescent temperature. Our Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet spectra combined with ground-based optical coverage during the 3rd and 4th year after outburst show that the fluxes and temperatures are still higher than quiescence (T=19,700K and 17,300K vs 16,000K pre-outburst for a log g=8.7 and d=100 pc). The K{wd} of 7.6+/-0.8 km/s determined from the CI1463 absorption line, as well as the gravitational redshift implies a white dwarf mass of 0.79+/-0.08 Msun. The widths of the UV lines imply a white dwarf rotation velocity vsin i of 40 km/s and a spin period of 209 s (for an inclination of 11 deg and a white dwarf radius of 7x10^{8} cm). Light curves produced from the UV spectra in both years show a prominent multiplet near 290 s, with higher amplitude in the UV compared to the optical, and increased amplitude in 2011 vs 2010. As the presence of this set of periods is intermittent in the optical on weekly timescales, it is unclear how this relates to the non-radial pulsations evident during quiescence.Comment: 36 pages, 15 figures; Astrophysical Journal, 2012, 75