Supporting graduate teaching assistants in two STEM areas

No abstract available

Giving patients granular control of personal health information: Using an ethics ‘Points to Consider’ to inform informatics system designers

Objective: There are benefits and risks of giving patients more granular control of their personal health information in electronic health record (EHR) systems. When designing EHR systems and policies, informaticists and system developers must balance these benefits and risks. Ethical considerations should be an explicit part of this balancing. Our objective was to develop a structured ethics framework to accomplish this. Methods: We reviewed existing literature on the ethical and policy issues, developed an ethics framework called a “Points to Consider” (P2C) document, and convened a national expert panel to review and critique the P2C. Results: We developed the P2C to aid informaticists designing an advanced query tool for an electronic health record (EHR) system in Indianapolis. The P2C consists of six questions (“Points”) that frame important ethical issues, apply accepted principles of bioethics and Fair Information Practices, comment on how questions might be answered, and address implications for patient care. Discussion: The P2C is intended to clarify whatis at stake when designers try to accommodate potentially competing ethical commitments and logistical realities. The P2C was developed to guide informaticists who were designing a query tool in an existing EHR that would permit patient granular control. While consideration of ethical issues is coming to the forefront of medical informatics design and development practices, more reflection is needed to facilitate optimal collaboration between designers and ethicists. This report contributes to that discussion

In Vitro Assessment of Tobacco Smoke Toxicity at the BBB: Do Antioxidant Supplements Have a Protective Role?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Tobacco smoke (TS) contains highly reactive oxygen species (such as hydrogen peroxide, peroxynitrite, etc), which cause oxidative damage in vascular tissue and may exacerbate inflammatory events leading to the blood-brain barrier damage (BBBD) which accompanies the development of a variety of neurological disorders. Smokers often have elevated leukocyte counts (primarily neutrophils and monocytes), and significant decreases in plasma alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) levels due to increased anti-oxidative mobilization in response to oxidative stress evoked by TS. For this purpose, using static culture systems and a well-established dynamic <it>in vitro </it>BBB model (DIV-BBB) we tested the hypothesis that antioxidant vitamin supplementation (E and/or C) can protect the BBB during exposure to whole soluble TS.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>TS exacerbates inflammatory events and leads to endothelial overexpression of vascular adhesion molecules (VCAM-1, P-selectin and E-selectin), release of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α and IL-6) and nitric oxide (NO), release and activation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP-2 and MMP-9), monocytic maturation into macrophages, and adhesion to the vascular endothelium. Furthermore, TS altered the normal glucose metabolic behaviour of <it>in vitro </it>BBB capillaries and caused a period of transient anaerobic respiration to meet the cellular bioenergetic demand. Pre-treatment with antioxidant vitamins (C and/or E) effectively reduced the pro-inflammatory activity associated with TS, protecting the viability and functions of the BBB.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results have shown that loss of endothelial viability as well as BBB function and integrity caused by TS exposure can be prevented or at least reduced by normal physiologic concentrations of antioxidant vitamins <it>in vitro</it>.</p

Expressive Messaging on Mobile Platforms

We present a design for expressive multimodal messaging on mobile platforms. Strong context, simple text messages, and crude animations combine well to produce surprisingly expressive results

Supporting graduate teaching assistants in two STEM areas

No abstract available

Rainfall regimes of the Green Sahara

During the “Green Sahara” period (11,000 to 5000 years before the present), the Sahara desert received high amounts of rainfall, supporting diverse vegetation, permanent lakes, and human populations. Our knowledge of rainfall rates and the spatiotemporal extent of wet conditions has suffered from a lack of continuous sedimentary records. We present a quantitative reconstruction of western Saharan precipitation derived from leaf wax isotopes in marine sediments. Our data indicate that the Green Sahara extended to 31°N and likely ended abruptly. We find evidence for a prolonged “pause” in Green Sahara conditions 8000 years ago, coincident with a temporary abandonment of occupational sites by Neolithic humans. The rainfall rates inferred from our data are best explained by strong vegetation and dust feedbacks; without these mechanisms, climate models systematically fail to reproduce the Green Sahara. This study suggests that accurate simulations of future climate change in the Sahara and Sahel will require improvements in our ability to simulate vegetation and dust feedbacks

Improving Outcomes for Refugee Children: A case study on the impact of Montessori education along the Thai-Burma border

There are 25 million displaced children worldwide, and those receiving schooling are often educated in overcrowded classrooms. Montessori is a child-centred educational method that provides an alternative model to traditional educational approaches. In this model, students are able to direct their own learning and develop at their own pace, working with materials rather than in supervised groups or with direct teacher instruction. Because most children are working alone, teachers have more time to work one-on-one with children even when student-teacher ratios are quite large. This gives teachers increased opportunity to tailor their teaching to the specific needs and strengths of each student. We conducted an evaluation of Montessori classroom conversion for displaced students on the Thai-Myanmar border. We administered the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) to 66 children before and after classroom conversion and across treatment and control classroom conditions. We then conducted difference in difference testing. All domains showed meaningful improvements in ASQ scores, with the Montessori students gaining 18 points relative to the traditional students (p = 0.33). However, only the personal-social domain of the ASQ was statistically significant (8.8 point gain for the Montessori students relative to the control, p < 0.05) in our underpowered sample