Compounding Stress: The Timing and Duration Effects of Homelessness on Children's Health

New research from Children's HealthWatch illustrates there is no safe level of homelessness. The timing (pre-natal, post-natal) and duration of homelessness (more or less than six months) compounds the risk of harmful child health outcomes. The younger and longer a child experiences homelessness, the greater the cumulative toll of negative health outcomes, which can have lifelong effects on the child, the family, and the community.Researchers from Children's HealthWatch collected data from over 20,000 caregivers of low-income children under the age of four with public or no health insurance. These caregivers were interviewed in urban pediatric clinics and emergency departments in five U.S. cities from 2009 through 2014. Interview data were analyzed to assess children's health and development and to compare outcomes for children who experienced homelessness at some point in their lives with children who were never homeless

Research into learning and teaching in higher education: underground and undervalued?

Previous studies have drawn attention to the challenges faced by researchers undertaking research into learning and teaching in higher education. These challenges are particularly highlighted at times of national measurement of research excellence. It is against the context of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), that this paper presents findings from a recent survey of research into higher education in Scottish Higher Education Institutions. Discussion focuses on the underground and undervalued nature of some of this research. Researchers are often based within disciplines and their research is not always well known within wider higher education research discourse. Many academics face pressure to prioritise publishing within their main discipline over publishing research into higher education. There is also a lack of capacity within some Scottish institutions to return research into higher education within the forthcoming REF exercise. The wider implications of these findings are then examined

Higher Education Research in Scotland: Report of a Survey Undertaken by Universities Scotland Educational Development Sub-Committee

The aim of this study was to gain an insight into a range of higher educational research taking place across Scotland with a particular focus on the nature, expertise, support and dissemination of this research. For the purposes of this study, we used the term ‘research into higher education’ to refer to a range of higher educational research activity that included: research into higher education policies and practice, pedagogical research, research into learning and teaching taking place in higher education and research about transition from further education or school into higher education. The findings point to the underground nature of pedagogic research taking place in Scotland. Many researchers are based within disciplines and their pedagogic research is disseminated in a variety of settings that do not always make it easily accessible within generic higher education research discourse. Pedagogic research is also apparently undervalued, with many academic staff experiencing pressure to prioritise publishing within their main discipline over and above pedagogic research. In addition there appears to be a lack of capacity within Scottish institutions to maximise the profile of higher educational research in the forthcoming UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise

Prevalence of eating disorders at three universities in the Western Cape

Bibliography: leaves 49-57.Since the 1970's there has been prevalence of eating disorders in especially among adolescent and young women, notably university students. While eating disorders are multidetermined, sociocultural factors have been particularly implicated, among them, pressures to be thin and successful. In developing countries and among ethnic minorities in Western societies, increasing numbers of women, especially achievement-orientated, Westernised young women from upwardly mobile families, have also been found to be at risk for developing eating disorders. This study seeks to establish the prevalence of eating disorders in a sample of South African university students, to investigate the presentation of eating disturbance in African and coloured students, and to establish the extent of body shape dissatisfaction

Neutralizing antibody responses in HIV-1 dual infection : lessons for vaccine design

Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references

Neutralizing antibody responses in HIV dual infection: lessons for vaccine design

The development of a safe, effective prophylactic HIV vaccine remains a major global health priority. Stabilized, soluble trimers that mimic the native functional HIV trimer have been developed that elicit strain-specific neutralizing HIV antibodies in animal models, and are currently being evaluated in several human clinical trials. Identifying whether multiple immunogens could be administered to facilitate the broadening of responses represents a pivotal challenge. In this thesis, we characterized the antibody response in individuals infected with multiple HIV strains to inform the development of polyvalent and sequential HIV vaccine regimens. We found that conventional approaches to detect HIV co- and superinfection are confounded by recombination. Therefore, we developed an automated, Bayesian approach to detect superinfection explicitly accounting for recombination. Using simulated and real sequence data, we demonstrated that this approach is sensitive, highly specific, and robust to recombination. Furthermore, analyzing previously published sequence datasets, we identified cases of superinfection that previously went undetected, indicating that superinfection occurs more frequently than previously estimated. We characterized the development of antibodies in five superinfected individuals identified in the CAPRISA 002 acute infection cohort. Specifically, we evaluated whether superinfection re-engaged cross-reactive memory B cells, promoting the development of cross-neutralizing antibodies. By comparing the breadth of the neutralizing antibody response in superinfected individuals to those that typically develop in singly infected individuals, we showed that HIV superinfection was not sufficient to broaden responses. By characterizing the kinetics and specificity of autologous neutralizing antibody responses, we show that responses to the superinfecting viruses failed to efficiently recruit neutralizing memory B cells. Instead, the secondary infection elicited strain-specific, de novo responses. This occurred even though the superinfecting viruses were relatively closely related (from the same subtype). To determine whether the co-exposure to diverse Env antigens favours the development of cross-neutralizing antibodies better than sequential exposure, we characterized the development of neutralizing antibodies in HIV co-infected individuals where several divergent viruses were transmitted prior to seroconversion. We identified three cases of co-infection that encompassed immunological exposure to: (i) two diverse, unlinked Envs, (ii) two related Envs with diversity uniformly distributed over the trimer, and (iii) two diverse but recombined Envs such that clusters of high homology were preserved in the presence of high diversity elsewhere. We found that, like superinfection, co-infection was not sufficient to broaden neutralizing antibody responses. Co-exposure to two HIV Env antigens did not necessarily produce additive or cross-neutralizing antibody responses, and in some cases was subject to immunological interference. This was most evident in the case of co-infection with two related Envs where diversity was uniformly distributed across the Env trimer; in this case neutralizing antibody responses to one variant arose to the near exclusion of responses to the other. However, in the case of co-exposure to diverse Envs but where the trimer apex was conserved in both variants through recombination, potent neutralization of both variants was evident. This was the co-infected participant who developed the broadest neutralizing antibody response, and we show that cross-neutralization was mediated, in part, by trimer apextargeting neutralizing antibodies. In conclusion, we find that HIV superinfection fails to efficiently recruit neutralizing memory B cells and, at best, results in additive nAb responses rather than a synergistic effect leading to cross-neutralization; a distinction that is highly relevant for vaccine design. While sequential immunizations with heterologous Env immunogens may be able to improve the potency of elicited responses, alone, they are unlikely to promote the development of bnAbs. Our observations from cases of co-infection suggests that cocktails of divergent stabilized Env trimers are unlikely to drive the development of cross-neutralizing antibodies, and may be subject to interference. However, the rational design of more similar immunogen cocktails where conserved epitopes are preserved across immunogens may be able to facilitate neutralizing antibodies to these targets, as seen in one individual. Thus, the use of related, stabilized Env trimers with diversity introduced in key regions together with strategies to reduce the immunogenicity of immunodominant, strain-specific epitopes may represent one path to a cross-neutralizing antibody response to multiple Envs within a cocktail

Research into learning and teaching in higher education: underground and undervalued?

Previous studies have drawn attention to the challenges faced by researchers undertaking research into learning and teaching in higher education. These challenges are particularly highlighted at times of national measurement of research excellence. It is against the context of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), that this paper presents findings from a recent survey of research into higher education in Scottish Higher Education Institutions. Discussion focuses on the underground and undervalued nature of some of this research. Researchers are often based within disciplines and their research is not always well known within wider higher education research discourse. Many academics face pressure to prioritise publishing within their main discipline over publishing research into higher education. There is also a lack of capacity within some Scottish institutions to return research into higher education within the forthcoming REF exercise. The wider implications of these findings are then examined

Creating Connection by Design: Supporting Adult Learners by Building Inclusive Online Academic Communities

Students are struggling to build online connections in classrooms. This instructional model provides strategies for working with learners with social skill, mental health, and communication challenges to improve community