Baring it All for the Environment

The EPA has declared that indoor air can actually be more toxic than outdoor air–but one Des Moines company is trying to change that. Naked Binder, which celebrated its second anniversary in November 2010, specializes in binders, folders, and labels made from 100 percent post-consumer waste (mainly newspapers and magazines), which are more environmentally friendly both to produce and to have in homes and offices. “Vinyl is really toxic. It’s off-gassing–that ‘new binder smell,” says Savannah Herr, who calls herself the Director of Awesome on the Naked Binder team

The importance of the teams in Iowa team-based variable pay pilot project schools

In May 2001, the Iowa legislature enacted Teacher Quality legislation to improve student achievement. This legislation included four components, one of which was the Team-Based Variable Pay Pilot Project (TBVP), which coupled alternative teacher compensation with student achievement.;There has been much research on alternative teacher compensation, which includes recognizing and rewarding teachers as a team, but the research has not focused on the importance of teacher teams. Dianne Chadwick found student and staff achievement were key to the success of TBVP, not variable pay . The researcher found the principals believed the team structure to be the key to the success of TBVP.;The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the importance of the team by collecting information from all the schools in the pilot project. The researcher used Crow and Pounder\u27s constructs to provide a sketch of the teacher teams. The sketch led to purposeful sampling and a limited number of teacher teams were included in the case study.;The researcher used on-site interviews and observations to probe the degree to which teacher teams exhibited the characteristics of teamness and functioned as a learning community. The researcher identified the strategies used to promote teamness, impact student achievement (student learning), and impact professional growth and development (teacher learning).;The researcher concluded that the team structure and the teams represented the heart of the TBVP Pilot Project. Teachers and principals valued the increased cooperation, collaboration, communication, and shared commitment and credited the teacher teams.;The researcher made a number of recommendations related to traditional and nontraditional teacher teams. The traditional team structure alone was not enough nor were the departments, grade level, and interdisciplinary teams. Iowa\u27s legislators need to continue to fund TBVP in order to further explore the roles the teacher teams play. Principals need to know more about teacher teams in order to create, and recreate as needed, teacher teams that fulfill the promise of teacher teams and serve student and adult needs until every child is successful and every teacher is effective

Automaticity of lexical access in deaf and hearing bilinguals: Cross-linguistic evidence from the color Stroop task across five languages

The well-known Stroop interference effect has been instrumental in revealing the highly automated nature of lexical processing as well as providing new insights to the underlying lexical organization of first and second languages within proficient bilinguals. The present cross-linguistic study had two goals: 1) to examine Stroop interference for dynamic signs and printed words in deaf ASL-English bilinguals who report no reliance on speech or audiological aids; 2) to compare Stroop interference effects in several groups of bilinguals whose two languages range from very distinct to very similar in their shared orthographic patterns: ASL-English bilinguals (very distinct), Chinese-English bilinguals (low similarity), Korean-English bilinguals (moderate similarity), and Spanish-English bilinguals (high similarity). Reaction time and accuracy were measured for the Stroop color naming and word reading tasks, for congruent and incongruent color font conditions. Results confirmed strong Stroop interference for both dynamic ASL stimuli and English printed words in deaf bilinguals, with stronger Stroop interference effects in ASL for deaf bilinguals who scored higher in a direct assessment of ASL proficiency. Comparison of the four groups of bilinguals revealed that the same-script bilinguals (Spanish-English bilinguals) exhibited significantly greater Stroop interference effects for color naming than the other three bilingual groups. The results support three conclusions. First, Stroop interference effects are found for both signed and spoken languages. Second, contrary to some claims in the literature about deaf signers who do not use speech being poor readers, deaf bilinguals’ lexical processing of both signs and written words is highly automated. Third, cross-language similarity is a critical factor shaping bilinguals’ experience of Stroop interference in their two languages. This study represents the first comparison of both deaf and hearing bilinguals on the Stroop task, offering a critical test of theories about bilingual lexical access and cognitive control

Case Report: Concomitant Diagnosis of Plasma Cell Leukemia in Patient With JAK2 Positive Myeloproliferative Neoplasm.

Plasma cell dyscrasias and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are hematologic malignancies arising from two distinct hematopoietic cell lineages. They rarely occur concomitantly. Here, we report a case of a patient with a recent diagnosis of a JAK2 V617F positive MPN who presented with a new diagnosis of plasma cell leukemia. The patient had presented to the hospital with a leukocytosis predominantly comprised of plasma cells, followed by work-up involving peripheral blood flow cytometry, FISH analysis, and bone-marrow biopsy. FISH analysis was suggestive of a common progenitor cell for these distinct hematologic malignancies. To our knowledge, this case represents the second reported instance of a concomitant JAK2 positive MPN with primary plasma cell leukemia

Zur Situation von Studierenden in hochschulischen Lehrgängen. Zusatzbericht der Studierenden-Sozialerhebung 2019

Die hochschulische Weiterbildungslandschaft ist in Österreich in den letzten Jahren stark gewachsen, was auch im Rahmen der Studie „Stand und Entwicklung wissenschaftlicher Weiterbildung in Österreich“ gezeigt werden konnte (vgl. Kulhanek et al. 2019). Um darüber hinaus auch die Studien- und Lebensbedingungen der LehrgangsteilnehmerInnen näher beleuchten zu können, wurde im Sommersemester 2019 eine Zusatzerhebung zur Studierenden-Sozialerhebung durchgeführt. Diese untersucht die Situation von Weiterbildungsstudierenden – konkret von TeilnehmerInnen an hochschulischen Lehrgängen mit mindestens 30 ECTS an öffentlichen Universitäten, Fachhochschulen, Pädagogischen Hochschulen und Privatuniversitäten. Neben den Umfragedaten wurden auch Daten aus der Hochschulstatistik des BMBWF verarbeitet

Improving North Carolina's Capacity to Prevent Cervical Cancer through Community Engagement, a Needs Assessment, and Resource Strengthening

Background: In 2013, Cervical Cancer-Free North Carolina (CCFNC) identified the South Central and Northeast regions of North Carolina (NC) as disproportionately affected by cervical cancer based on epidemiological surveillance data. Women diagnosed with cervical cancer in NC are often minorities, older, recent immigrants, and/or of lower income. Cervical cancer cases also tend to occur in women who have below average screening rates and HPV vaccination uptake. To address this disparity, CCFNC works with a coalition of partners that deliver and promote cervical cancer prevention services. In 2012, CCFNC developed nine evidenced-based recommendations that could improve cervical cancer prevention. As the CCFNC Capstone team, we worked with stakeholders, who provide cervical cancer prevention services, to identify barriers and encourage the adoption of one of the recommended strategies to increase screening rates and HPV vaccination in high-need regions of NC. Methods: We attended the North Carolina Cervical Cancer Coalition Summit (State Summit) to gather information about the prevailing cervical cancer challenges and stakeholder attitudes towards strategies for improving prevention. We summarized and shared highlights from the event with attendees and coalition members. We then identified and recruited key informants (n=32) from the South Central and Northeast regions of NC using the list of coalition partners and participant referrals. We conducted semi-structured key informant interviews (KIIs) with healthcare providers and educators involved in women's health and immunization to identify challenges and opportunities to improve cervical cancer prevention services in their respective regions. Qualitative data informed the content of the Cervical Cancer Prevention: Strengthening Health Systems and Programs in South Central North Carolina regional meeting. Key informants, coalition members, and other cervical cancer prevention stakeholders attended the regional meeting and participated in community action planning to outline strategies and action steps to implement prioritized recommendations. Following the meeting, our team summarized participant strategies and action steps in the community action plan report, which we distributed to attendees of the meetings. We also updated the NC Cervical Cancer Resource Directory and established a process that can be replicated in the future using our phone survey and web form. Lastly, our team developed an online survey in Qualtrics and analyzed responses to determine recommendations for making the Resource Directory more useful to practitioners and promotional strategies to increase use of the Resource Directory. Results: Participants at the State Summit prioritized two evidence-based recommendations to improve cervical cancer prevention. KIIs identified challenges and opportunities to providing cervical cancer prevention services. They also informed the format and focus of the regional meeting and contributed to its success. At the regional meeting, participants outlined specific strategies and action steps to implement evidence-based recommendations deemed feasible for their organizations. Additionally, our Capstone team identified several barriers that limit use of the Resource Directory, including inaccurate entries, poor Spanish translation, and text with an advanced reading level. Based on these findings and results from the NC Cervical Cancer Resource Directory Survey, the team updated the directory, established a process for revising the directory in the future, and developed specific recommendations for improving utility and awareness of the tool among healthcare professionals. Discussion: Our Capstone project built upon CCFNC's recommendations to improve cervical cancer prevention by facilitating efforts to implement these recommendations. The project contributed to a deeper understanding of the resources, challenges, and opportunities to providing cervical cancer prevention services in South Central and Northeast NC, as well as identified specific ways to help organizations meet their goals and objectives for cervical cancer prevention. We recommend that CCFNC work with Eastern North Carolina Cancer Coalition (ENCCC) to coordinate a Northeast regional meeting, guided by the information obtained from KIIs, that focuses on community action planning to decrease cervical cancer incidence and mortality.Master of Public Healt

A blinded, randomized, controlled trial assessing conservative management strategies for frozen shoulder

BACKGROUND: There is little evidence for the optimal form of nonoperative treatment in the management of frozen shoulder. This study assesses the efficacy of current physiotherapy strategies. METHODS: All primary care referrals of frozen shoulder to our physiotherapy department were included during a 12-month period. Of these referrals, 17% met the inclusion criteria for primary idiopathic frozen shoulder. The 75 patients were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: group exercise class, individual physiotherapy, and home exercises alone. A single independent physiotherapist, who was blinded to the treatment groups, made all assessments. Range of motion, Constant score, Oxford Shoulder Score, Short Form 36, and Hospital Anxiety and Disability Scale (HADS) outcome measures were performed at baseline, 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year. RESULTS: The exercise class group improved from a mean Constant score of 39.8 at baseline to 71.4 at 6 weeks and 88.1 at 1 year. There was a significant improvement in shoulder symptoms on Oxford and Constant scores (P < .001). This improvement was greater than with individual physiotherapy or home exercises alone (P < .001). The improvement in range of motion was significantly greater in both physiotherapy groups over home exercises (P < .001). HADS scores significantly improved during the course of treatment (P < .001). The improvement in HADS anxiety score was significantly greater in both physiotherapy intervention groups than in home exercises alone. CONCLUSIONS: A hospital-based exercise class can produce a rapid recovery from a frozen shoulder with a minimum number of visits to the hospital and is more effective than individual physiotherapy or a home exercise program

Heat Shock Protein 70 Prevents both Tau Aggregation and the Inhibitory Effects of Preexisting Tau Aggregates on Fast Axonal Transport

Aggregation and accumulation of the microtubule-associated protein tau are associated with cognitive decline and neuronal degeneration in Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies. Thus, preventing the transition of tau from a soluble state to insoluble aggregates and/or reversing the toxicity of existing aggregates would represent a reasonable therapeutic strategy for treating these neurodegenerative diseases. Here we demonstrate that molecular chaperones of the heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) family are potent inhibitors of tau aggregation in vitro, preventing the formation of both mature fibrils and oligomeric intermediates. Remarkably, addition of Hsp70 to a mixture of oligomeric and fibrillar tau aggregates prevents the toxic effect of these tau species on fast axonal transport, a critical process for neuronal function. When incubated with preformed tau aggregates, Hsp70 preferentially associated with oligomeric over fibrillar tau, suggesting that prefibrillar oligomeric tau aggregates play a prominent role in tau toxicity. Taken together, our data provide a novel molecular basis for the protective effect of Hsp70 in tauopathies