Is Dentistry at Risk? A Case for Interprofessional Education

The goal of interprofessional education (IPE) is to bring various professional groups together in the educational environment to promote collaborative practice and improve the health care of patients. Interest in IPE has been sparked by several factors in the health care system, including the increased awareness of oral-systemic connections, an aging population, the shift of the burden of illness from acute to chronic care, and lack of access to basic oral care. Increasingly, since the publication of the U.S. surgeon general's report in 2000, the dialogue surrounding IPE in dentistry has escalated. But how has dentistry changed regarding IPE since the report was released? This position paper argues that little has changed in the way dental students are taught and prepared to participate in IPE. The authors contend that academic dentistry and organized dentistry must take the lead in initiating and demanding IPE if dental students are to be prepared to work in the health care environment of the twenty-first century. Included are reasons why IPE is necessary and why dentistry must lead the conversation and participate in the solution to the oral health care crisis. It explores existing models and alternate approaches to IPE, barriers to implementation, and proposed strategies for academic institutions

AMSR2 Soil Moisture Product Validation

The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) is part of the Global Change Observation Mission-Water (GCOM-W) mission. AMSR2 fills the void left by the loss of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) after almost 10 years. Both missions provide brightness temperature observations that are used to retrieve soil moisture. Merging AMSR-E and AMSR2 will help build a consistent long-term dataset. Before tackling the integration of AMSR-E and AMSR2 it is necessary to conduct a thorough validation and assessment of the AMSR2 soil moisture products. This study focuses on validation of the AMSR2 soil moisture products by comparison with in situ reference data from a set of core validation sites. Three products that rely on different algorithms were evaluated; the JAXA Soil Moisture Algorithm (JAXA), the Land Parameter Retrieval Model (LPRM), and the Single Channel Algorithm (SCA). Results indicate that overall the SCA has the best performance based upon the metrics considered