Effects of a high fat diet on brain metabolism in rats: An in vivo 1H-MRS study

Diet-induced obesity and its metabolic consequences can lead to neurological dysfunction and increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Despite these realities, the effects of a high fat diet on the central nervous system are not well understood. To better understand effects of high fat consumption on the metabolic status of brain regions affected by AD and PD, we used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) to measure neurochemicals in the hippocampus and in the striatum of rats fed a high-fat diet vs rats fed normal low-fat chow. We detected lower levels of total creatine (tCr: phosphocreatine; PCr + creatine; Cr) and higher glutamine in both the hippocampus and striatum of high fat-fed rats. Additional effects observed in the hippocampus included higher n-acetylaspartylglutamic acid (NAAG), and lower myo-inositol (Ins), gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), and serine (Ser). Post-mortem tissue analyses revealed lower phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and nuclear respiratory factor-1 (NRF-1) protein levels in the striatum but not the hippocampus. Overall, these changes indicate diet induced alterations in bioenergetic function and neurotransmission within both the hippocampal and striatal tissue

Presence in Double Vision

Early childhood offers us the opportunity to view humanity in its rawest form – the joys, sorrows, desires are expressed through words, body, play, and creative expression. Cuffaro (1995) teaches us that in early childhood classrooms, we begin to learn to live in community, practice democratic living, and experience, enact and build essential understandings of the social world. In early childhood classrooms where play is encouraged, facilitated, and observed, the essential tensions of our culture are played out. These spaces offer perceptive observers an opportunity to understand how gender identity, development, and relationship shape teaching and learning (Chu, 2014; Katch, 2002; Paley, 1986). The inquiry described in this article stems from the observations of an astute, wise, kindergarten teacher named Eric, who was dedicated to being “vitally present” in relationship to his students and whose capacity for presence was challenged by a young boy named TJ

Presence in Context: Teachers’ Negotiations with the Relational Environment of School

This inquiry research builds on the theory of presence in teaching (Rodgers & Raider-Roth, 2006) adding nuanced understandings of how school contexts play into teachers’ abilities to support students’ learning. Findings are drawn from multiple interviews with five veteran middle school teachers, teachers’ written work, and field observations. Illustrating these findings is the compelling story of an exemplary teacher’s negotiations of her practice in response to the school’s relational environment. Our findings point to the teacher’s sense of isolation and vulnerability–indicators of the relational context in the school as a threat to undermining her presence. They also create a compelling argument for the importance of a healthy relational context to support teachers’ most powerful teaching, hence students’ learning

Selected Works by Harriet Cuffaro

Selected works by Harriet Cuffaro

Introduction: Living a Philosophy of Early Childhood Education - A Festschrift for Harriet Cuffaro

This issue of the Occasional Paper Series is a Festschrift in honor of Harriet K. Cuffaro, a Bank Street College faculty member from 1968-1998. A Festschrift—a volume reflecting the values, theories, and passions of a senior scholar in a field—seeks to offer scholarship that builds on these contributions. Harriet Cuffaro has touched and shaped more lives of teachers, scholars, and colleagues than we can possibly count. A teacher in her soul, and an esteemed scholar of John Dewey, Harriet has “unfolded and connected” essential Deweyan ideas and made them accessible and meaningful in the lives of teachers. It is our hope that this volume honors the lessons we have all learned from Harriet

A Hopeful Pedagogy to Critical Thinking

Elements of what we are calling a “hopeful pedagogy” emerged when faculty reflected on the question - Do you think your current approach to develop CT in students is successful? Faculty across disciplines and institutions used the word “hope” to characterize the outcome of their efforts. While attempting to disentangle the “hopeful pedagogy”, we found answers in (a) how faculty defined CT in disciplinary and non-disciplinary contexts; (b) a misalignment between faculty and institutional approaches to CT; (c) a disconnect between faculty and their own approaches to CT, and (d) logistical and curricular issues within general education programs that placed constraints on the ability of faculty to adequately focus on CT. The “hopeful pedagogy” brought to the forefront the serious implications of a misaligned system for student learning, faculty engagement, institutional improvement and accountability

Evaluation of the effect of poor water, sanitation and hygiene practices on growth and the incidence of infectious diseases in infants and young children aged 6-23 months in a selected rural district, Zambia

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (School of Public Health)Poor water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and practices in communities are known to be responsible for most of the infections occurring among infants and young children in developing countries. A combined effect of disease, poor diet, care practices and other factors among infants/children are known to lead to undernutrition reported in most developing countries. Apart from the reduced growth and productivity potential that malnutrition exhibits on the affected population, it is also an underlying cause to 50% of child mortality in poor communities. In light of this, the primary objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of poor WASH practices on growth and infectious disease incidence in infants and young children aged 6-23 months in the rural district of Monze in Zambia

Performance Evaluation of Eleven Severe Acute Malnutrition Community Based Outpatient Therapeutic Care (SAMCTC) Centres in Lusaka District of Zambia

Later in the 1990s, the Community Based Therapeutic Care (CTC) program was introduced first in emergency areas (refugee camps, disaster areas), and later expanded to other locations where severe malnutrition existed. The program has several components including Out-Patient Therapeutic Care Program (OTP). The CTC program aims at treating malnourished children at home while those with complications are referred to inpatient care. The merits of CTC program include timely detection of severely malnourished children in their communities, it uses and builds on existing capacities, and it is an easily accessible service that provides treatment. When it is well implemented, it has the ability to reduce mortality rate among malnourished children to as low as 4.1%. In Zambia CTC program was introduced in 2005 in Lusaka district. It is currently implemented in 25 health facilities. Since 2005, there has not been any study to comprehensively determine its performance. Scaling up of the program has been carried out without adequate knowledge of program performance with regard to the outlined humanitarian minimum standards in the non emergency response (CTC Standards). For this reason, there was need to evaluate the program. This study was undertaken in order to evaluate the OTP component of the CTC program in eleven health centres in Lusaka district from September 2005 to September 2007 The target population were records of children who were discharged from the program from September 2005 to September 2007 and health care staff working in the OTP. Both quantitative (records and self administered questionnaires) and qualitative methods (in-depth interviews and observations) were used. Using multistage sampling, 828 out of the 2424 records were selected for the study using the Population Proportion to Size Sampling (PPS) method. At health facility level, systematic random selection was used to get the records. Health care staff in a health facility were listed and then randomly selected for interview. Based on health facility and sex as indicators for completeness, a non response rate of 3.5% was incurred. Quantitative data was entered in epi data and analysed using SPSS software while qualitative data was transcribed manually. Analysis of data was further guided by proximate determinant conceptual framework. The associations between performance and predictors were measured using logistic regression models and chi-square methods. Performance of the program was determined by the use of composite indicator. Data quality control involving pretesting of tools, training of research assistants and ensuring thorough check of completed questionnaires were done. Prior to data collection, ethical approval was given as part of the process of dealing with humans.The findings established that 86% (n=828) performance rate was achieved by OTP while indicating a contrasting difference of health facility specific performance ranging from 73% to 100% in N’gombe and Matero, respectively. In addition, 60% of children were within the recommended weight gain of above 4 grams per day with a mean weight of 5.7 g per day (±SD 4.89). Seventy five percent of children cured stayed less than 60 days (±SD 22.9%). The defaulter rate was found to be 31% while transfer rate, refusal of transfer and non cure rate percentages were 4.6, 0.1 and 1.9, respectively. The multivariate analysis showed that health facility, source of admission and appetite of the child were found to be significant factors associated with performance, while breastfeeding was also an important factor in univariate analysis. The analysis further showed that the goodness of fit Hosmer and Lemeshow Test (x2, 7 df, p=0.97) on the determinants of performance was used. The cox and Snell R Square and Nagelkerke R Squared indicated that between 39.9% and 61% of variability was explained by the variables in the model. Regarding availability and adequacy of food and logistics it was found that 9.1%, 8.9% 3.0 % and 2.1% of children in the age ranges 5.5-6.9 kg, 7.0-8.4 kg, 8.5-9.4 kg and 9.5-10.4 kg, respectively, received correct amounts of RUTF. About 77% of health care staff observed during the study gave the correct amount of RUTF to children. Other supplies such as height boards were inadequate and transport was poor. Staffing levels seemed adequate although the majority of staff working for the OTP centres were volunteers. The knowledge of staff was rated good (over 60%) after assessing key admission criterion (oedema, MUAC, visible severe wasting), appetite test elements, and outreach follow up. However, knowledge in some component seemed to be inadequate particularly in MUAC and height measurements, child referral, weight gain, appetite test and health education.In conclusion, high level of good performance of OTP associated with several factors which suggests the need for OTP scaling up to other remaining provinces and districts. The factors include source of admission, appetite of the child at admission and the health facility providing the OTP services. These findings are also consistent with the Proximate determinant conceptual framework which depicts that severe malnutrition is caused by poor food utilisation in the body, diseases and other factors such as poor appetite which are also influenced by proximate determinant factors such as feeding practices, food preparation and health seeking behaviour. The status of the proximate determinants and biological factors at admission will influence how good the recovery process of the child will be while in the OPT. Therefore, directing efforts on one factor does not yield much success in addressing mortality in the OTP and malnutrition in general.. The knowledge of staff was fairly good but requires to be intensified especially in the area of infant feeding practices, health information and education, and health care practices. However, this research had a limitation in that almost all data was obtained from the records of children already discharged thus there was no data collected on the socioeconomic factors that may have affected performance of children such as education of the mother, income level, perception of mother on the diseases and others. Although the focus of the study was on management of severely malnourished children, the critical question still remained as, “is it feasible, sustainable and cost effective?”. It is consequently vital to consider carrying out a cost effectiveness study of the program and other factors associated with poor feeding practices among OTP children with particular attention to breastfeeding. In addition there is need to investigate the causes of high defaulter rates in health facilitie

“The False Promise of Group Harmony”: The Centrality of Challenging Practices in Teachers’ Professional Development

This article discusses an action research study of a week-long Summer Teachers Institute which immersed teachers in the study of Jewish historical and cultural texts. We investigate how this kind of cultural immersion created opportunities for transformative learning – the kind of learning that would not merely be the application of “new lessons,” but that would also help teachers reconceptualize their teaching practices regarding Jewish religion and culture. Our findings suggest that text study practices of challenging – in tandem with practices of supporting and voicing – were central in constructing a “relational learning community.” Such a community was a necessary condition for transformative learning