Impacting the Academic Writing Culture of Israel

Amos Oz writes that in pre-State Israel, ‘All Jerusalem [...] sat at home and wrote [...] everyone had a pencil and a notebook’ (Oz 2004: 285). Later, when he moved to the kibbutz, farmers devoted to manual labor often wrote modest articles and sometimes even poetry (2004: 468). When students entered the university, there was no need to instruct them in academic writing. However, times have changed, technology pervades our lives, and the population of the country has also changed. Today, many students enter institutions of higher education with insufficient writing experience. Although there are a growing number of programs in academic writing throughout the country, even within the same institution instructors often know little of what is happening outside their own programs. Inspired by the symposium at the 2007 EATAW conference, ‘Historical Roots of National Writing Cultures’, we decided to tackle this problem by establishing an organization for people engaged in academic writing instruction. Its purpose was to share resources and insights, to involve policy makers in education in the writing needs of students, and ultimately to provide the best possible writing instruction for Israel's wide variety of students. In this paper we will trace the history of academic writing in Israel and describe the progress of IFAW, the Israel Forum for Academic Writing, in achieving these goals

Poison prevention practices and medically attended poisoning in young children: multicentre case-control study

Introduction Childhood poisonings are common, placing a substantial burden on health services. Case-control studies have found inconsistent evidence about modifiable risk factors for poisonings amongst 0-4 year olds. This study quantifies associations between poison prevention practices and medically attended poisonings in 0-4 year olds. Methods Multicentre case-control study conducted at hospitals, minor injury units and family practices from four study centres in England between 2010 and 2013. Participants comprised 567 children presenting with unintentional poisoning occurring at home, and 2320 community control participants matched on age, sex, date of event and study centre. Parents/caregivers provided data on safety practices, safety equipment use, home hazards and potential confounders, by means of self-completion questionnaires. Data were analysed using conditional logistic regression. Results Compared with community controls, parents of poisoned children were significantly more likely not to store medicines out of reach (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 1.59; 95%CI, 1.21, 2.09; population attributable fraction (PAF) 15%), not to store medicines safely (locked or out of reach (AOR 1.83; 95%CI 1.38, 2.42; PAF 16%) and not to have put all medicines (AOR 2.11; 95%CI 1.54, 2.90; PAF 20%) or household products (AOR 1.79, 95%CI 1.29, 2.48; PAF 11%) away immediately after use. Conclusions Not storing medicines out of reach or locked away and not putting medicines and household products away immediately after use increased the odds of secondary care attended poisonings in 0-4 year olds. If associations are causal, implementing these poison prevention practices could each prevent between 11% and 20% of poisonings

Evaluating implementation of a fire-prevention injury prevention briefing in children's centres: cluster randomised controlled trial

Background: Many developed countries have high mortality rates for fire-related deaths in children aged 0–14 years with steep social gradients. Evidence-based interventions to promote fire safety practices exist, but the impact of implementing a range of these interventions in children’s services has not been assessed. We developed an Injury Prevention Briefing (IPB), which brought together evidence about effective fire safety interventions and good practice in delivering interventions; plus training and facilitation to support its use and evaluated its implementation. Methods: We conducted a cluster randomised controlled trial, with integrated qualitative and cost-effectiveness nested studies, across four study sites in England involving children’s centres in disadvantaged areas; participants were staff and families attending those centres. Centres were stratified by study site and randomised within strata to one of three arms: IPB plus facilitation (IPB+), IPB only, usual care. IPB+ centres received initial training and facilitation at months 1, 3, and 8. Baseline data from children’s centres were collected between August 2011 and January 2012 and follow-up data were collected between June 2012 and June 2013. Parent baseline data were collected between January 2012 and May 2012 and follow-up data between May 2013 and September 2013. Data comprised baseline and 12 month parent- and staff-completed questionnaires, facilitation contact data, activity logs and staff interviews. The primary outcome was whether families had a plan for escaping from a house fire. Treatment arms were compared using multilevel models to account for clustering by children’s centre. Results: 1112 parents at 36 children’s centres participated. There was no significant effect of the intervention on families’ possession of plans for escaping from a house fire (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) IPB only vs. usual care: 0.93, 95%CI 0.58, 1.49; AOR IPB+ vs. usual care 1.41, 95%CI 0.91, 2.20). However, significantly more families in the intervention arms reported more behaviours for escaping from house fires (AOR IPB only vs. usual care: 2.56, 95%CI 01.38, 4.76; AOR IPB+ vs. usual care 1.78, 95%CI 1.01, 3.15). Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that children’s centres can deliver an injury prevention intervention to families in disadvantaged communities and achieve changes in home safety behaviours

Overexpression of Myocilin in the Drosophila Eye Activates the Unfolded Protein Response: Implications for Glaucoma

Glaucoma is the world's second leading cause of bilateral blindness with progressive loss of vision due to retinal ganglion cell death. Myocilin has been associated with congenital glaucoma and 2-4% of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) cases, but the pathogenic mechanisms remain largely unknown. Among several hypotheses, activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR) has emerged as a possible disease mechanism.We used a transgenic Drosophila model to analyze whole-genome transcriptional profiles in flies that express human wild-type or mutant MYOC in their eyes. The transgenic flies display ocular fluid discharge, reflecting ocular hypertension, and a progressive decline in their behavioral responses to light. Transcriptional analysis shows that genes associated with the UPR, ubiquitination, and proteolysis, as well as metabolism of reactive oxygen species and photoreceptor activity undergo altered transcriptional regulation. Following up on the results from these transcriptional analyses, we used immunoblots to demonstrate the formation of MYOC aggregates and showed that the formation of such aggregates leads to induction of the UPR, as evident from activation of the fluorescent UPR marker, xbp1-EGFP. CONCLUSIONS / SIGNIFICANCE: Our results show that aggregation of MYOC in the endoplasmic reticulum activates the UPR, an evolutionarily conserved stress pathway that culminates in apoptosis. We infer from the Drosophila model that MYOC-associated ocular hypertension in the human eye may result from aggregation of MYOC and induction of the UPR in trabecular meshwork cells. This process could occur at a late age with wild-type MYOC, but might be accelerated by MYOC mutants to account for juvenile onset glaucoma