Perception and Barriers to Indoor Air Quality and Perceived Impact on Respiratory Health: An Assessment in Rural Honduras

Objective. The aim of this study was to identify household-specific factors associated with respiratory symptoms and to study the perceived impact of indoor air pollution (IAP) as a health issue. Methods. An IRB-approved, voluntary, anonymous 23-item survey was conducted in Spanish at a medical outreach clinic in June 2012 and at the homes of survey respondents (N = 79). Comparative analyses were performed to investigate relationships between specific house characteristics and respiratory complaints. Results. Seventy-nine surveys were completed. Respiratory symptoms were frequently reported by survey respondents: 42% stated that smoke in their household caused them to have watery eyes, 42% reported household members with coughs within the past two weeks, and 25% stated that there were currently household members experiencing difficulty in breathing. Stove location and kitchen roof construction material were significantly associated with frequency of respiratory symptoms. The vast majority used firewood as their major fuel type. Most respondents indicated that neither indoor air quality was a problem nor did it affect their daily life. Conclusions. Respiratory complaints are common in Yoro, Honduras. Stove location and kitchen roof construction material were significantly associated with frequency of respiratory symptoms; this may have implications for efforts to improve respiratory health in the region

Patterns in Illinois Educational School Data

We examine Illinois educational data from standardized exams and analyze primary factors affecting the achievement of public school students. We focus on the simplest possible models: representation of data through visualizations and regressions on single variables. Exam scores are shown to depend on school type, location, and poverty concentration. For most schools in Illinois, student test scores decline linearly with poverty concentration. However Chicago must be treated separately. Selective schools in Chicago, as well as some traditional and charter schools, deviate from this pattern based on poverty. For any poverty level, Chicago schools perform better than those in the rest of Illinois. Selective programs for gifted students show high performance at each grade level, most notably at the high school level, when compared to other Illinois school types. The case of Chicago charter schools is more complex. In the last six years, their students' scores overtook those of students in traditional Chicago high schools.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Antimicrobial stewardship practices in Virginia

The Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the President\u27s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recognize the need to combat antimicrobial resistance through the promotion of antimicrobial stewardship programs. Health care facilities in Virginia were surveyed using a 23-item survey focused on facility characteristics and antimicrobial stewardship strategies. Antimicrobial stewardship activities were highly variable and many are missing key personnel and resources

Ultrasound Use in Resource-limited Settings: A Systematic Review

Purpose: Over the past decade, ultrasound (US) machines have become smaller, less expensive, more reliable, durable and user-friendly, making ultrasonography an ideal imaging modality in resource-poor settings. We conducted a literature review to examine the use of ultrasound in resource-limited settings, with emphasis on common applications, barriers to implementation, and impact on clinical decision-making and patient disposition. Methods and Materials: Literature review. We conducted a PubMed and Cochrane Central search on the clinical use of ultrasound in the developing world. Search terms included ultrasonography, developing countries, resource limited, remote setting, poverty, and low income. Articles from 2000 to 2015 that included data on the clinical use of ultrasound in resource limited settings were eligible for inclusion. Data on country of origin, medical specialty, US modality, clinical impact, and potential barriers to implementation were recorded. Results: Fifty-eight articles were eligible for inclusion. Most studies were observational, with Africa as the most common site, accounting for 35 articles. Radiology was the most represented specialty. Cardiac and obstetric were the most commonly utilized ultrasound modalities. Most data on cardiac ultrasound pertained to its role in the diagnosis of rheumatic heart disease. Obstetric ultrasound was primarily used for pregnancy dating and diagnosing fetal abnormalities. Twelve studies examined clinical impact of ultrasound in resource-limited settings and showed that its use dramatically altered differential diagnosis and patient disposition. Common barriers to implementation were the high cost of equipment and maintenance, and lack of skilled personnel and formal training programs. A commonly cited consequence of ultrasound use in resource-poor settings was sex-selective abortions. Conclusion: Ultrasound has widespread clinical applications, particularly as a diagnostic tool in the developing world. Significant barriers exist with respect to access and training of US in resource-limited settings. Further research is needed to study its impact on medical decision-making, patient disposition and outcomes

Evolution of sociality by natural selection on variances in reproductive fitness: evidence from a social bee

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Central Limit Theorem (CLT) is a statistical principle that states that as the number of repeated samples from any population increase, the variance among sample means will decrease and means will become more normally distributed. It has been conjectured that the CLT has the potential to provide benefits for group living in some animals via greater predictability in food acquisition, if the number of foraging bouts increases with group size. The potential existence of benefits for group living derived from a purely statistical principle is highly intriguing and it has implications for the origins of sociality.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we show that in a social allodapine bee the relationship between cumulative food acquisition (measured as total brood weight) and colony size accords with the CLT. We show that deviations from expected food income decrease with group size, and that brood weights become more normally distributed both over time and with increasing colony size, as predicted by the CLT. Larger colonies are better able to match egg production to expected food intake, and better able to avoid costs associated with producing more brood than can be reared while reducing the risk of under-exploiting the food resources that may be available.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These benefits to group living derive from a purely statistical principle, rather than from ecological, ergonomic or genetic factors, and could apply to a wide variety of species. This in turn suggests that the CLT may provide benefits at the early evolutionary stages of sociality and that evolution of group size could result from selection on variances in reproductive fitness. In addition, they may help explain why sociality has evolved in some groups and not others.</p

The interactive ecology of construal in gesture: a microethnographic analysis of peer learning at an EMI university in China

Depictive manual gestures do not appear in isolation, but are motivated by a complex of experiential knowledge, communicative goals, and contextual-environmental factors (Harrison 2018; Kendon 2004; Müller 2014; Streeck 1993, 1994, 2009b). However, little is known about the incremental, moment-by-moment formulation of depictions in elaborate sequences of talk. Furthermore, questions endure about depiction as a learning resource within the contingent interactivity of the foreign language academic classroom. This study explores these questions in the context of subject-related student talk at a Sino-foreign university in China by focusing on how gesturers build expositions through intercorporeal and intersubjective sense making (cf. Merleau-Ponty 1945/2012). Drawing on empirical material from the corpus of Chinese Academic Written and Spoken English (CAWSE), I aim to contribute greater understanding of the intersubjective ecology of depictive gesturing. The study builds on previous research on depictive gestures in the classroom (e.g. Rosborough 2014; Roth & Lawless 2002) by focusing on sequences of gesturing within two distinct classroom tasks: i) dialogic explanations of complex systems and ii) interactional multi-party group discussions. By converging theories of intersubjectivity drawing on Cognitive Grammar (e.g. Langacker 2008; Blomberg & Zlatev 2014) and Conversation Analysis (Heritage & Atkinson 1984; Schegloff 1992), I use microethnography for the investigation of gesture as a cognitive practice (Streeck 2009b; cf. Erickson 1995; Streeck & Mehus 2005). The analysis engages concepts in phenomenology, ecological cognition and enactivism in order to illustrate the publicly displayable achievement of enactive construal in spoken exposition. These analyses expose the ways that speakers depict for intersubjective visualization of the topic-at-hand, and anticipate and react to affordances that occur within the landscape of interaction. Speakers design their depictions, by manipulating construal dimensions in three ways: i) depictions are integrated into the exposition for projecting and delimiting epistemic arenas where construal relations are tailored for specific structural aspects of the depictions, ii) depictions invite participatory frameworks for co-analysis of the topic-at-hand, and iii) speakers refashion their depictions to anticipate previous trouble. Furthermore, the analysis of the interactional order of the tasks illustrates the intercorporeality, the pre-reflective disposition towards sense-making, of construal in the moment-by-moment construction of academic classroom talk. This study has implications that problematize the notion of the body as a communicative resource by obscuring the notions of planning and strategy. Overall, the analysis shows that explanations and discussions involve finely grained attenuation of the corporeal dimensions of spoken language

The Systems Analysis and Design Course: An Educators’ Assessment of the Importance and Coverage of Topics

This study examines instructors\u27 perceptions regarding the skills and topics that are most important in the teaching of a Systems Analysis and Design (“SAD”) course and the class time devoted to each. A large number of Information Systems (“IS”) educators at AACSB accredited schools across the United States were surveyed. Shannon‟s entropy is used to analyze the opinions and measure the agreement or disagreement among survey respondents. Findings suggest that object-oriented analysis and structured analysis are topics on which instructors spend the most time, and are also the topics for which there is the greatest disagreement regarding importance. Conversely, the greatest agreement among survey respondents occurs with topics that, on the whole, were perceived as less important and to which less class time is devoted. This analysis provides a basis for comparison to practitioner perceptions

Utility of surveillance blood cultures in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Background Surveillance blood cultures are often obtained in hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) patients for detection of bloodstream infection. The major aims of this retrospective cohort study were to determine the utility of the practice of obtaining surveillance blood cultures from asymptomatic patients during the first 100 post-transplant days and to determine if obtaining more than one positive blood culture helps in the diagnosis of bloodstream infection. Methods We conducted a 17-month retrospective analysis of all blood cultures obtained for patients admitted to the hospital for HSCT from January 2010 to June 2011. Each patient’s clinical course, vital signs, diagnostic testing, treatment, and response to treatment were reviewed. The association between number of positive blood cultures and the final diagnosis was analyzed. Results Blood culture results for 205 patients were reviewed. Cultures obtained when symptoms of infection were present (clinical cultures) accounted for 1,033 culture sets, whereas 2,474 culture sets were classified as surveillance cultures (no symptoms of infection were present). The total number of positive blood cultures was 185 sets (5.3% of cultures obtained) and accounted for 84 positive culture episodes. Incidence of infection in autologous, related allogeneic and unrelated allogeneic transplants was 8.3%, 20.0%, and 28.6% respectively. Coagulase-negative staphylococci were the most common organisms isolated. Based on our application of predefined criteria there were 29 infections and 55 episodes of positive blood cultures that were not infections. None of the patients who developed infection were diagnosed by surveillance blood cultures. None of the uninfected patients with positive blood cultures showed any clinical changes after receiving antibiotics. There was a significant difference between the incidence of BSI in the first and second 50-day periods post-HSCT. There was no association between the number of positive blood cultures and the final diagnosis. Conclusion Surveillance blood cultures in patients who have undergone HSCT do not identify bloodstream infections. The number of positive blood cultures was not helpful in determining which patients had infection. Patients are at higher risk of infection in the first 50 days post-transplant period

The interactive ecology of construal in gesture: a microethnographic analysis of peer learning at an EMI university in China

Depictive manual gestures do not appear in isolation, but are motivated by a complex of experiential knowledge, communicative goals, and contextual-environmental factors (Harrison 2018; Kendon 2004; Müller 2014; Streeck 1993, 1994, 2009b). However, little is known about the incremental, moment-by-moment formulation of depictions in elaborate sequences of talk. Furthermore, questions endure about depiction as a learning resource within the contingent interactivity of the foreign language academic classroom. This study explores these questions in the context of subject-related student talk at a Sino-foreign university in China by focusing on how gesturers build expositions through intercorporeal and intersubjective sense making (cf. Merleau-Ponty 1945/2012). Drawing on empirical material from the corpus of Chinese Academic Written and Spoken English (CAWSE), I aim to contribute greater understanding of the intersubjective ecology of depictive gesturing. The study builds on previous research on depictive gestures in the classroom (e.g. Rosborough 2014; Roth & Lawless 2002) by focusing on sequences of gesturing within two distinct classroom tasks: i) dialogic explanations of complex systems and ii) interactional multi-party group discussions. By converging theories of intersubjectivity drawing on Cognitive Grammar (e.g. Langacker 2008; Blomberg & Zlatev 2014) and Conversation Analysis (Heritage & Atkinson 1984; Schegloff 1992), I use microethnography for the investigation of gesture as a cognitive practice (Streeck 2009b; cf. Erickson 1995; Streeck & Mehus 2005). The analysis engages concepts in phenomenology, ecological cognition and enactivism in order to illustrate the publicly displayable achievement of enactive construal in spoken exposition. These analyses expose the ways that speakers depict for intersubjective visualization of the topic-at-hand, and anticipate and react to affordances that occur within the landscape of interaction. Speakers design their depictions, by manipulating construal dimensions in three ways: i) depictions are integrated into the exposition for projecting and delimiting epistemic arenas where construal relations are tailored for specific structural aspects of the depictions, ii) depictions invite participatory frameworks for co-analysis of the topic-at-hand, and iii) speakers refashion their depictions to anticipate previous trouble. Furthermore, the analysis of the interactional order of the tasks illustrates the intercorporeality, the pre-reflective disposition towards sense-making, of construal in the moment-by-moment construction of academic classroom talk. This study has implications that problematize the notion of the body as a communicative resource by obscuring the notions of planning and strategy. Overall, the analysis shows that explanations and discussions involve finely grained attenuation of the corporeal dimensions of spoken language