A Student Research Manual: Helping Students Help Themselves Identifying and Addressing Challenges Facing Prospective Undergraduate Researchers

Undergraduate research does not only help equip STEM majors to be better researchers and employees but increases retention of students to graduate school in needed scientific fields. However, while resources are being produced for undergraduates like Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs), Centers for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURS), and Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs), undergraduate involvement and awareness about these resources, and the value of undergraduate research in general, does not seem to be improving. Therefore, it would be valuable to figure out why undergraduates aren\u27t autonomously seeking out undergraduate research during their studies. To investigate why, a two-part survey was developed using the experience of a single undergraduate who, after complications, was able to participate in undergraduate research via a summer research fellowship. The survey asks undergraduates to rate their ability to perform certain aptitudes that are important for research as well as skills that aren\u27t important to research but undergraduates still consider valuable. They were then asked to rate the importance of these skills for acquiring and undergraduate research position. The same survey was administered to faculty. The goal is to determine where faculty and undergraduates are and aren\u27t aligned in terms of both undergraduates\u27 skill level and the importance of each skill. With this data we hope to communicate both to faculty and undergraduates the misconceptions facing each party and to bridge the gap between researchers and undergraduates. In doing so, increasing communication and fostering a climate that will enable more undergraduates to participate in undergraduate research

Defining the presymptomatic phase of frontotemporal dementia

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a clinically, pathologically and genetically heterogeneous disorder. Whilst disease modifying therapies trials are mostly focused on the symptomatic phase, future studies will move earlier in the disease aiming to prevent symptom onset. This review summarizes the recent work to better understand this presymptomatic period. RECENT FINDINGS: The presymptomatic phase can be split into preclinical and prodromal stages. The onset of the preclinical phase is defined by the first presence of pathological inclusions of tau, TDP-43 or fused in sarcoma in the brain. Definitive biomarkers of these pathologies do not yet exist for FTD. The prodromal phase is defined by the onset of mild symptoms. Recent work has highlighted the wide phenotypic spectrum that occurs, with the concept of mild cognitive ± behavioural ± motor impairment (MCBMI) being put forward, and additions to scales such as the CDR plus NACC FTLD now incorporating neuropsychiatric and motor symptoms. SUMMARY: It will be important to better characterize the presymptomatic period moving forward and develop robust biomarkers that can be used both for stratification and outcome measures in prevention trials. The work of the FTD Prevention Initiative aims to facilitate this by bringing together data from natural history studies across the world

Kindergarten readiness and performance of Latino children participating in Reach Out and Read

Journal ArticleBackground: Literacy is a vital skill that forms the basis for academic, occupational, and social success. Minority populations, especially immigrant Latinos in the US, have achievement gaps in literacy when compared to the White population. The Reach Out and Read (ROR) program is a pediatric, primary-care intervention designed to promote emergent literacy skills. The objectives of this study were to provide descriptive information at kindergarten on Latino immigrant children's emergent literacy skills and home literacy environments, and correlation data between ROR exposure and emergent literacy skills. Method: A sample of 40 low-income Latino immigrant mothers and their children participated. Medical records were reviewed to determine level of ROR exposure. Home literacy environment was assessed through maternal interview. Children's emergent literacy skills were assessed before kindergarten through interviews with the children and with the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), and at the end of kindergarten through teachers' reports based on a modified version of the Kindergarten Teacher Questionnaire - Part C from the Department of Education Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-K (ECLS-K). We completed descriptive analyses for the demographics of our sample, ROR exposure, home literacy environment, emergent literacy skills and teacher evaluations. We created composite scores of children's print awareness, teacher-rated literacy skills, and ROR exposure. Finally, partial correlations controlling for child age and maternal education were conducted between the composite score of ROR exposure and children's literacy skills as assessed by the child interview, the DIBELS test, and teacher-report. Child age and maternal education were controlled. Results: The majority of children evaluated came from two-parent households and had high compliance rates with well-child care. All children began ROR at 6 months; the mean number of ROR books received was 6. Home literacy environments of families were strong as demonstrated by book ownership and parent-reported adult-child reading. Evaluation of early literacy skills in the clinic demonstrated children had good familiarity with print, and greater ROR exposure was related to significantly greater print and phonemic awareness before kindergarten entry. DIBELS testing performed in the clinic setting identified 37%-45%of the children as at risk for reading difficulty prior to kindergarten. At the end of kindergarten, teachers reported ECLS-K identifying 60% of children as intermediate or proficient in reading and rated the literacy skills of 77% of the children exposed to ROR as average, above average, or far above average when compared to all students of the same grade. Discussion: The kindergarten literacy performance of this small sample of Latino children participating in the ROR program from infancy was good. Though these children were living in poverty and had other risk factors for poor-school performance, they had good home literacy environments and average or above average literacy skills by the end of kindergarten. Protective factors including family stability, well-child care, and early and consistent participation in the ROR program may have improved the school readiness of these high-risk children

Comparing The Effect Of Overspeed Training On NCAA Division III Lacrosse Athletes

Please view abstract in the attached PDF file

Promoting the work of librarians through the Academic Pediatric Association Educational Scholars Program

Background The Academic Pediatric Association Educational Scholars Program is a 3-year national faculty development program for pediatricians. This program is designed to aid junior faculty early in their academic careers, with each scholar creating and completing a scholarly project to build their skills and a niche in educational scholarship and leadership. In 2014, a medical librarian and two pediatric educators collaborated to conceive, create and design a new module centering on the topic of literature searching. The module provides the junior faculty scholars with fundamental skills to conduct their projects. Description As an entrée into understanding the place of a project in the literature, the module authors created a new rubric to evaluate the quality of a manuscript’s introduction, background, and reference sections. The authors created and narrated six narrated videos: 1) Turning Your Research Question/Project into Concepts, 2) Controlled Vocabulary, 3) Keyword Searching (MESH), 4) Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria, 5) Medical Education Databases and 6) Getting to the Full Text. After viewing the videos and completing a consultation worksheet, participants scheduled a meeting with their local medical librarian for further help with the development of their project. Next, participants viewed three videos focused on understanding the impact of their scholarly work (Impact Factors, H-Index and Citation Counts, Altmetrics, and Educational scholarship and promotion). Finally, scholars performed a guided reflective critique of their scholarship moving forward. Conclusion Currently, three cohorts of junior faculty scholars have completed the course. The rubric aided participants to be objective when evaluating papers and provides a tool for use in future manuscript evaluations. While the videos provided context and content, the scholars repeatedly mentioned the most valuable part of this module being the actual meeting with their local medical librarian. The librarian taught the junior faculty about specific databases and nuances of searching, making writing an introduction more manageable. Several participants now consider their librarians as part of “their team” and are working for future collaborations in publishing together

Fresh perspectives for classic forest restoration challenges

Restoration ecology is a young scientific discipline whose limitations can compromise the recovery of ecosystem biodiversity and functions. Specifically for limitations on forest restoration, we first recommend considering measures prior to land use changes to deal with the common lack of efforts to anticipate and plan restoration. Second, we suggest using multiple references in restoration planning to avoid simplified reference characterization, and we advise assessing ecosystem recovery with indicators that better incorporate ecosystem complexity in recovery assessments. Finally, we propose initiatives to encourage scientific communication outside academia to diminish the communication gap between scientists and practitioners. © 2019 Society for Ecological RestorationA.R.U. was funded by Environmental Fellowship Programme of Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno Foundation (2016) and María de Maeztu excellence accreditation (MDM-2017-0714) from the Spanish Government; V.C.A. by REMEDINAL4 (Madrid Government, TE-CM S2018/EMT-4338); Z.R. by the LafargeHolcim, FIRE Foundation, and UAH partnership; and L.M.B. by the FPI Fellowship (BES-2015-075276) from the Spanish Government

Understanding adhesion at as-deposited interfaces from ab initio thermodynamics of deposition growth: thin-film alumina on titanium carbide

We investigate the chemical composition and adhesion of chemical vapour deposited thin-film alumina on TiC using and extending a recently proposed nonequilibrium method of ab initio thermodynamics of deposition growth (AIT-DG) [Rohrer J and Hyldgaard P 2010 Phys. Rev. B 82 045415]. A previous study of this system [Rohrer J, Ruberto C and Hyldgaard P 2010 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 22 015004] found that use of equilibrium thermodynamics leads to predictions of a non-binding TiC/alumina interface, despite the industrial use as a wear-resistant coating. This discrepancy between equilibrium theory and experiment is resolved by the AIT-DG method which predicts interfaces with strong adhesion. The AIT-DG method combines density functional theory calculations, rate-equation modelling of the pressure evolution of the deposition environment and thermochemical data. The AIT-DG method was previously used to predict prevalent terminations of growing or as-deposited surfaces of binary materials. Here we extent the method to predict surface and interface compositions of growing or as-deposited thin films on a substrate and find that inclusion of the nonequilibrium deposition environment has important implications for the nature of buried interfaces.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to J. Phys.: Condens. Matte