Completing College: National and State Reports

The national six-year college completion rate reached 62.2 percent, a 1.2 percentage point increase from last year. The completion rate increased regardless of starting institution types. Two-thirds of states increased at least 1 percentage point in completion rates over last year.This is the tenth report in the Completing College report series, featuring the completion rate trends nationally and for states, updated with the fall 2015 entering cohort's outcomes tracked through June 2021.The new longitudinal data dashboard offers national and multi-state comparisons through interactive visualizations and analysis tools. Underlying data are available online for downloading. The national eight-year completion rates are not included in the current report and will be published at a later time

Cooperative Evaluation of Western Hemisphere Grassland Germplasm in Inner Mongolia, PRC

Replicated studies were established jointly by Chinese and American scientists in central Inner Mongolia. Both Asian and North American plant materials were included. Results of the Chinese plots show USA saline-tolerant species have potential to assist the Chinese with saline soil reclamation. On saline sites, USA cultivars rated the best stands and had the highest yields. Generally, Chinese desert steppe species outperformed USA upland entries with the Chinese legumes establishing the best stands and producing the most biomass

Cooperative Evaluation of Western Hemisphere Grassland Germplasm in Inner Mongolia, PRC

Replicated studies were established jointly by Chinese and American scientists in central Inner Mongolia. Both Asian and North American plant materials were included. Results of the Chinese plots show USA saline-tolerant species have potential to assist the Chinese with saline soil reclamation. On saline sites, USA cultivars rated the best stands and had the highest yields. Generally, Chinese desert steppe species outperformed USA upland entries with the Chinese legumes establishing the best stands and producing the most biomass

Cooperative Evaluation of Inner Mongolia, PRC, Grassland Germplasm in the Western USA

Replicated dryland studies were established at three USDA, NRCS, Plant Materials Centers in the USA northern intermountain west by Chinese and American scientists. Forty-six Asian and 16 USA grasses, legumes, and shrubs were included. These plantings were evaluated for vigor, percent stand, and foliage height in 1994 and 1995, and for biomass production in 1995. Generally, USA grasses outperformed Asian grasses, while Inner Mongolian legumes show the highest potential for use in the intermountain west

Utilisation and perceptions towards smart device visual acuity assessment in Australia: a mixed methods approach

Objectives: To investigate mobile health product use in Australia and societal and clinician perceptions towards smartphone based visual acuity (VA) assessment tools. Design: Quantitative analysis of a cross-sectional survey delivered to the general public and thematic analysis of in-depth interviews of eye health clinicians. Setting: Online survey within Australia and face-to-face in-depth interviews of clinicians. Participants: 1016 adults were recruited via Survey Monkey Audience, social media (Facebook and Twitter), Rotary Australia and Lions Clubs Australia. Six clinicians were recruited from private and public settings in Melbourne, Australia. Primary and secondary outcome measures: The study assessed socio-demographic characteristics, history of mobile health product use and perceived advantages and potential drawbacks of smartphone based VA assessment tools. Results: A total of 14.4% of the study population had previously used a mobile-based health product. After adjusting for covariates, younger age (p=0.001), male gender (p=0.01) and higher income (>$45 000) were associated with increased likelihood of having used a mobile health product (p=0.005). Seventy-two per cent of participants would use an automated smartphone based VA assessment tool, provided that the accuracy was on par to that of human assessors. Convenience (37.3%) and cost-savings (15.5%) were ranked as the greatest perceived advantages. While test accuracy (50.6%), a lack of personal contact with healthcare providers (18.3%) and data security (11.9%) were the greatest concerns. Themes to emerge from clinician qualitative data included the potential benefits for identifying refractive error in patients, as well as the ability to self-monitor vision. Concerns were raised over the potential misuse of self-testing vision apps and the inability to detect pathology. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that a substantial proportion of the Australian population do not use mobile health products. Furthermore, there remains notable concerns, including test accuracy and data privacy, with smartphone-based VA assessment tools by both clinicians and the public

Trends in and predictors of carbapenem consumption across North American hospitals: Results from a multicenter survey by the MAD-ID research network

This Special Issue is dedicated to the late Dr. Charles (Charlie) D. Hufford, former Professor of Pharmacognosy and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at University of Mississippi [...]

Group descent algorithms for nonconvex penalized linear and logistic regression models with grouped predictors

Penalized regression is an attractive framework for variable selection problems. Often, variables possess a grouping structure, and the relevant selection problem is that of selecting groups, not individual variables. The group lasso has been proposed as a way of extending the ideas of the lasso to the problem of group selection. Nonconvex penalties such as SCAD and MCP have been proposed and shown to have several advantages over the lasso; these penalties may also be extended to the group selection problem, giving rise to group SCAD and group MCP methods. Here, we describe algorithms for fitting these models stably and efficiently. In addition, we present simulation results and real data examples comparing and contrasting the statistical properties of these methods

Blood Biomarkers and Metabolomic Profiling for the Early Diagnosis of Vancomycin-Associated Acute Kidney Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies

Background: several blood-based biomarkers have been proposed for predicting vancomycin-associated kidney injury (VIKI). However, no systematic analysis has compared their prognostic value. Objective: this systematic review and meta-analysis was designed to investigate the role of blood biomarkers and metabolomic profiling as diagnostic and prognostic predictors in pre-clinical studies of VIKI. Methods: a systematic search of PubMed was conducted for relevant articles from January 2000 to May 2022. Animal studies that administered vancomycin and studied VIKI were eligible for inclusion. Clinical studies, reviews, and non-English literature were excluded. The primary outcome was to investigate the relationship between the extent of VIKI as measured by blood biomarkers and metabolomic profiling. Risk of bias was assessed with the CAMARADES checklist the SYRCLE's risk of bias tool. Standard meta-analysis methods (random-effects models) were used. Results: there were four studies for the same species, dosage, duration of vancomycin administration and measurement only for serum creatine and blood urea nitrogen in rats. A statistically significant increase was observed between serum creatinine in the vancomycin group compared to controls (pooled p = 0.037; Standardized Mean Difference: 2.93; 95% CI: 0.17 to 5.69; I-2 = 92.11%). Serum BUN levels were not significantly different between control and vancomycin groups (pooled p = 0.11; SMD: 3.05; 95% CI: 0.69 to 6.8; I-2 = 94.84%). We did not identify experimental studies using metabolomic analyses in animals with VIKI. Conclusions: a total of four studies in rodents only described outcomes of kidney injury as defined by blood biomarkers. Blood biomarkers represented included serum creatinine and BUN. Novel blood biomarkers have not been explored

Heritability and impact of environmental effects during pregnancy on antral follicle count in cattle

peer-reviewedPrevious studies have documented that ovarian antral follicle count (AFC) is positively correlated with number of healthy follicles and oocytes in ovaries (ovarian reserve), as well as ovarian function and fertility in cattle. However, environmental factors (e.g., nutrition, steroids) during pregnancy in cattle and sheep can reduce AFC in offspring. The role that genetic and environmental factors play in influencing the variability in AFC and, correspondingly, the size of the ovarian reserve, ovarian function, and fertility, are, however, poorly understood. The present study tests the hypothesis that variability in AFC in offspring is influenced not only by genetic merit but also by the dam age and lactation status (lactating cows vs. nonlactating heifers) and milk production during pregnancy. Antral follicle count was assessed by ultrasonography in 445 Irish Holstein-Friesian dairy cows and 522 US Holstein-Friesian dairy heifers. Heritability estimates for AFC (± standard error) were 0.31 ± 0.14 and 0.25 ± 0.13 in dairy cows and heifers, respectively. Association analysis between both genotypic sire data and phenotypic dam data with AFC in their daughters was performed using regression and generalized linear models. Antral follicle count was negatively associated with genetic merit for milk fat concentration. Also, AFC was greater in offspring of dams that were lactating (n = 255) compared with nonlactating dams (n = 89) during pregnancy and was positively associated with dam milk fat concentration and milk fat-to-protein ratio. In conclusion, AFC in dairy cattle is a moderately heritable genetic trait affected by age or lactation status and milk quality but not by level of dam’s milk production during pregnancy