Education for Democracy: A co-constructivist perspective

En el presente artículo describimos el papel que la educación ha de desempeñar en el proceso de mejora de la calidad de vida en el mundo moderno. El enfoque específico de este artículo enfatiza el papel que la educación debe desempeñar para promover la evolución de las formas de vida democráticas como un medio para mejorar la calidad de la vida tanto personal como colectiva e institucional. La calidad de vida, al menos en lo concerniente a la conducta orientada a fines, supone elegir los valores y alcanzar con éxito los objetivos de la vida. Esto último, está relacionado con la utilización del pensamiento y la discusión crítica para realizar elecciones vitales de tipo individual y colectivo. Lo cual, a su vez, tiene que ver con la institucionalización del ideal democrático. En este sentido, el enfoque principal de nuestro trabajo aplicado trata de promover la evolución de las formas de vida democráticas como un medio para mejorar la calidad de vida en los niveles personal, interpersonal e institucional

Technical Report Number 115

This report projects cumulative demographic and economic effects expected from the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas lease sale program in Alaska. Econometric modeling techniques are used to develop projections including and excluding OCS exploration and development for the state of Alaska and the state's Southcentral region. The projected cumulative effects of the OCS program include and increase of approximately 3.5 percent in state population and employment and a modest decline in real per capita state expenditures. The statewide employment and population effects grow as OCS development proceeds but diminish very slowly as construction employment declines in the late 1990s. The effects grow more slowly in the Southcentral Region, continuing to increase until 2000 to reach or exceed the same percentage increases in population and employment as observed for the state as a whole. The delayed response is due to the importance of the support sector in projected Alaska economic growth, especially in the Southcentral region.Minerals Management Service Alaska OCS Region Prepared under contract number 14-12-0001-30139Ye

Technical Report No. 124

This report contains projections and analyses of economic and demographic effects of petroleum exploration and development that may occur in Alaska under the proposed Five-Year program, 1987-1991, for leasing the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Econometric modeling techniques are used to develop projections for the state of Alaska and the state's Southcentral Region. The projected cumulative effects of the Five-Year Program include an increase of approximately 3 percent in population and employment for both the state and for the Southcentral region. The statewide effects grow during construction of facilities for OCS development and remain relatively constant as petroleum development moves into the operations phase in the late 1990s. Economic activity related to expanded OCS development yields modest new revenues for the state, by the new revenues are not sufficient to offset new demands on public services created by the influx of new residents. The effects grow more slowly in the Southcentral Region, continuing to increase until 2010 to reach or exceed the same percentage increases in population and employment as observed for the state as a whole. The effect of the Five-Year program on Southcentral Region population and employment occurs later than for the state as a whole due to the lags in the multiplier process producing these largely indirect effects.Prepared for Social and Economic Studies Program Minerals Management Service Alaska OCS Region under Contract Number 14-12-0001-30139Ye

(Draft Final Report)

The Senate Finance Committee, through its Senate Energy Working Group, has asked a series of important questions about energy prices, energy costs, and energy use. The Committee also asks the “overarching” question of what can be done to reduce gasoline and heating fuel prices in Alaska? Which of these strategies has the greatest likelihood of success for the least cost to state government? This report contains our responses to both the overarching and specific questions posed. Our answers and recommendations are based on reviews of the most current, publicly available data regarding fuel prices and fuel use. We interviewed numerous agency officials, businesspeople, and residents participating in a range of energy related programs supported by the State of Alaska

Effectiveness guidance document (EGD) for Chinese medicine trials: a consensus document

Background: There is a need for more Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) on Chinese medicine (CM) to inform clinical and policy decision-making. This document aims to provide consensus advice for the design of CER trials on CM for researchers. It broadly aims to ensure more adequate design and optimal use of resources in generating evidence for CM to inform stakeholder decision-making. Methods: The Effectiveness Guidance Document (EGD) development was based on multiple consensus procedures (survey, written Delphi rounds, interactive consensus workshop, international expert review). To balance aspects of internal and external validity, multiple stakeholders, including patients, clinicians, researchers and payers were involved in creating this document. Results: Recommendations were developed for “using available data” and “future clinical studies”. The recommendations for future trials focus on randomized trials and cover the following areas: designing CER studies, treatments, expertise and setting, outcomes, study design and statistical analyses, economic evaluation, and publication. Conclusion: The present EGD provides the first systematic methodological guidance for future CER trials on CM and can be applied to single or multi-component treatments. While CONSORT statements provide guidelines for reporting studies, EGDs provide recommendations for the design of future studies and can contribute to a more strategic use of limited research resources, as well as greater consistency in trial design

Practical computational toolkits for dendrimers and dendrons structure design

Dendrimers and dendrons offer an excellent platform for developing novel drug delivery systems and medicines. The rational design and further development of these repetitively branched systems are restricted by difficulties in scalable synthesis and structural determination, which can be overcome by judicious use of molecular modelling and molecular simulations. A major difficulty to utilise in silico studies to design dendrimers lies in the laborious generation of their structures. Current modelling tools utilise automated assembly of simpler dendrimers or the inefficient manual assembly of monomer precursors to generate more complicated dendrimer structures. Herein we describe two novel graphical user interface (GUI) toolkits written in Python that provide an improved degree of automation for rapid assembly of dendrimers and generation of their 2D and 3D structures. Our first toolkit uses the RDkit library, SMILES nomenclature of monomers and SMARTS reaction nomenclature to generate SMILES and mol files of dendrimers without 3D coordinates. These files are used for simple graphical representations and storing their structures in databases. The second toolkit assembles complex topology dendrimers from monomers to construct 3D dendrimer structures to be used as starting points for simulation using existing and widely available software and force fields. Both tools were validated for ease-of-use to prototype dendrimer structure and the second toolkit was especially relevant for dendrimers of high complexity and size.Peer reviewe

5-SPICE: the application of an original framework for community health worker program design, quality improvement and research agenda setting

Introduction: Despite decades of experience with community health workers (CHWs) in a wide variety of global health projects, there is no established conceptual framework that structures how implementers and researchers can understand, study and improve their respective programs based on lessons learned by other CHW programs. Objective: To apply an original, non-linear framework and case study method, 5-SPICE, to multiple sister projects of a large, international non-governmental organization (NGO), and other CHW projects. Design: Engaging a large group of implementers, researchers and the best available literature, the 5-SPICE framework was refined and then applied to a selection of CHW programs. Insights gleaned from the case study method were summarized in a tabular format named the ‘5×5-SPICE chart’. This format graphically lists the ways in which essential CHW program elements interact, both positively and negatively, in the implementation field. Results: The 5×5-SPICE charts reveal a variety of insights that come from a more complex understanding of how essential CHW projects interact and influence each other in their unique context. Some have been well described in the literature previously, while others are exclusive to this article. An analysis of how best to compensate CHWs is also offered as an example of the type of insights that this method may yield. Conclusions: The 5-SPICE framework is a novel instrument that can be used to guide discussions about CHW projects. Insights from this process can help guide quality improvement efforts, or be used as hypothesis that will form the basis of a program's research agenda. Recent experience with research protocols embedded into successfully implemented projects demonstrates how such hypothesis can be rigorously tested

Minimal regulation of platelet activity by PECAM-1

PECAM-1 is a member of the superfamily of immunoglobulins (Ig) and is expressed on platelets at moderate level. PECAM-1 has been reported to have contrasting effects on platelet activation by the collagen receptor GPVI and the integrin, αIIbβ3, even though both receptors signal through Src-kinase regulation of PLCγ2. The present study compares the role of PECAM-1 on platelet activation by these two receptors and by the lectin receptor, CLEC-2, which also signals via PLCγ2. Studies using PECAM-1 knockout-mice and cross-linking of PECAM-1 using specific antibodies demonstrated a minor inhibitory role on platelet responses to the above three receptors and also under some conditions to the G-protein agonist thrombin. The degree of inhibition was considerably less than that produced by PGI2, which elevates cAMP. There was no significant difference in thrombus formation on collagen in PECAM-1-/- platelets relative to litter-matched controls. The very weak inhibitory effect of PECAM-1 on platelet activation relative to that of PGI2 indicate that the Ig-receptor is not a major regulator of platelet activation. PECAM-1 has been reported to have contrasting effects on platelet activation. The present study demonstrates a very mild or negligible effect on platelet activation in response to stimulation by a variety of agonists, thereby questioning the physiological role of the immunoglobulin receptor as a major regulator of platelet activation

Frequency drift in MR spectroscopy at 3T

Purpose: Heating of gradient coils and passive shim components is a common cause of instability in the B0 field, especially when gradient intensive sequences are used. The aim of the study was to set a benchmark for typical drift encountered during MR spectroscopy (MRS) to assess the need for real-time field-frequency locking on MRI scanners by comparing field drift data from a large number of sites. Method: A standardized protocol was developed for 80 participating sites using 99 3T MR scanners from 3 major vendors. Phantom water signals were acquired before and after an EPI sequence. The protocol consisted of: minimal preparatory imaging; a short pre-fMRI PRESS; a ten-minute fMRI acquisition; and a long post-fMRI PRESS acquisition. Both pre- and post-fMRI PRESS were non-water suppressed. Real-time frequency stabilization/adjustment was switched off when appropriate. Sixty scanners repeated the protocol for a second dataset. In addition, a three-hour post-fMRI MRS acquisition was performed at one site to observe change of gradient temperature and drift rate. Spectral analysis was performed using MATLAB. Frequency drift in pre-fMRI PRESS data were compared with the first 5:20 minutes and the full 30:00 minutes of data after fMRI. Median (interquartile range) drifts were measured and showed in violin plot. Paired t-tests were performed to compare frequency drift pre- and post-fMRI. A simulated in vivo spectrum was generated using FID-A to visualize the effect of the observed frequency drifts. The simulated spectrum was convolved with the frequency trace for the most extreme cases. Impacts of frequency drifts on NAA and GABA were also simulated as a function of linear drift. Data from the repeated protocol were compared with the corresponding first dataset using Pearson\u27s and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Results: Of the data collected from 99 scanners, 4 were excluded due to various reasons. Thus, data from 95 scanners were ultimately analyzed. For the first 5:20 min (64 transients), median (interquartile range) drift was 0.44 (1.29) Hz before fMRI and 0.83 (1.29) Hz after. This increased to 3.15 (4.02) Hz for the full 30 min (360 transients) run. Average drift rates were 0.29 Hz/min before fMRI and 0.43 Hz/min after. Paired t-tests indicated that drift increased after fMRI, as expected (p \u3c 0.05). Simulated spectra convolved with the frequency drift showed that the intensity of the NAA singlet was reduced by up to 26%, 44 % and 18% for GE, Philips and Siemens scanners after fMRI, respectively. ICCs indicated good agreement between datasets acquired on separate days. The single site long acquisition showed drift rate was reduced to 0.03 Hz/min approximately three hours after fMRI. Discussion: This study analyzed frequency drift data from 95 3T MRI scanners. Median levels of drift were relatively low (5-min average under 1 Hz), but the most extreme cases suffered from higher levels of drift. The extent of drift varied across scanners which both linear and nonlinear drifts were observed