Engaging Undergraduates in Science Research: Not Just About Faculty Willingness.

Despite the many benefits of involving undergraduates in research and the growing number of undergraduate research programs, few scholars have investigated the factors that affect faculty members' decisions to involve undergraduates in their research projects. We investigated the individual factors and institutional contexts that predict faculty members' likelihood of engaging undergraduates in their research project(s). Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute's 2007-2008 Faculty Survey, we employ hierarchical generalized linear modeling to analyze data from 4,832 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty across 194 institutions to examine how organizational citizenship behavior theory and social exchange theory relate to mentoring students in research. Key findings show that faculty who work in the life sciences and those who receive government funding for their research are more likely to involve undergraduates in their research project(s). In addition, faculty at liberal arts or historically Black colleges are significantly more likely to involve undergraduate students in research. Implications for advancing undergraduate research opportunities are discussed

Prophylactic cranial irradiation in small cell lung cancer: a systematic review of the literature with meta-analysis

PURPOSE: A systematic review of the literature was carried out to determine the role of prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) . METHODS: To be eligible, full published trials needed to deal with SCLC and to have randomly assigned patients to receive PCI or not. Trials quality was assessed by two scores (Chalmers and ELCWP). RESULTS: Twelve randomised trials (1547 patients) were found to be eligible. Five evaluated the role of PCI in SCLC patients who had complete response (CR) after chemotherapy. Brain CT scan was done in the work-up in five studies and brain scintigraphy in six. Chalmers and ELCWP scores are well correlated (p < 0.001), with respective median scores of 32.6 and 38.8 %. This meta-analysis based on the available published data reveals a decrease of brain metastases incidence (hazard ratio (HR): 0.48; 95 % confidence interval (CI): 0.39 - 0.60) for all the studies and an improvement of survival (HR: 0.82; 95 % CI: 0.71 - 0.96) in patients in CR in favour of the PCI arm. Unfortunately, long-term neurotoxicity was not adequately described . CONCLUSIONS: PCI decreases brain metastases incidence and improves survival in CR SCLC patients but these effects were obtained in patients who had no systematic neuropsychological and brain imagery assessments. The long-term toxicity has not been prospectively evaluated. If PCI can be recommended in patients with SCLC and CR documented by a work-up including brain CT scan, data are lacking to generalise its use to any CR situations

Five insights from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 provides a rules-based synthesis of the available evidence on levels and trends in health outcomes, a diverse set of risk factors, and health system responses. GBD 2019 covered 204 countries and territories, as well as first administrative level disaggregations for 22 countries, from 1990 to 2019. Because GBD is highly standardised and comprehensive, spanning both fatal and non-fatal outcomes, and uses a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of hierarchical disease and injury causes, the study provides a powerful basis for detailed and broad insights on global health trends and emerging challenges. GBD 2019 incorporates data from 281 586 sources and provides more than 3.5 billion estimates of health outcome and health system measures of interest for global, national, and subnational policy dialogue. All GBD estimates are publicly available and adhere to the Guidelines on Accurate and Transparent Health Estimate Reporting. From this vast amount of information, five key insights that are important for health, social, and economic development strategies have been distilled. These insights are subject to the many limitations outlined in each of the component GBD capstone papers.Peer reviewe