A Phenomenological Study: A Pre-departure Study Abroad Course Interrupted by the COVID-19 Outbreak

The original plan of this research was to collect multiple sets of data from business students in a 2020 spring study abroad program including the pre-departure course, the experiential learning in Thailand and post experience. When the World Health Organization (2020c) categorized the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, the predeparture course was interrupted, resulting in the remaining sections of the program to be cancelled. To date, since no previous research was available on a pre-departure course interrupted by a pandemic of this kind, the experiences of the two faculty members teaching the course became central to the research making this study phenomenological. The experiences were captured by daily notes with reflections leading to four key findings: 1. The course lacked skills training and needed to be redesigned as it would be offered in spring 2021. Adding practical applications to the comprehensive collection of materials would lead students to start shifting their mindsets prior to the trip rather than during the trip resulting in maximized experiences. 2. The COVID-19 outbreak was unprecedented in that it was not a short-lived occurrence but an on-going crisis. The uniqueness of the situation brought futuristic thinking and scenario planning to the forefront when developing and implementing such global programs. 3. Faculty were not prepared for an on-going crisis. To be able to cope with similar uncertainties and act decisively, faculty leading such experiences needed training in futuristic thinking and scenario planning. 4. Faculty country-expertise strengthened student trust when teaching the course. Developing, teaching such courses, and leading such experiences need to be backed up by location-expertise to foster confidence for optimal benefits

Toxic chemicals taint Barton waters

Levels of toxic chemicals in Barton Springs Pool and just upstream on a hillside overlooking the pool have exceeded those found in a dozen of the worst hazardous waste sites in the country, an Austin American-Statesman investigation has found.Waller Creek Working Grou

Foster care survey: a short feasability study.

This study has shown that it is feasible to collect reliable data from local authorities in England to describe and partially quantify the foster care services they provide, and the households which supply foster care places. In order to provide this data, however, most local authorities will have to modify both the way they record and the way they store and retrieve information. The former will require changes in practice, the latter modifications to their information systems software. It may take a number of years to build up the staff experience and expertise, as well as the consistency of recording and information retrieval required to achieve full and reliable data at national level. Participating local authorities were unanimous in their concern to be given time to prepare for the introduction of any new data collection. They placed particular emphasis on the need for a clear understanding of the purpose of such a collection, of the use to which the data collected would be put by government, and of how they themselves could use and benefit from it. At the same time, however, staff interviewed during the fieldwork expressed keen interest in the details of the study, especially the attempt to codify the complexities of foster care services, and emphasized the usefulness of this work for their own planning, commissioning and monitoring. At present, most information is recorded on the fostering household and it is difficult to gather data on the characteristics of the individuals who comprise the foster carer workforce. Much of this data is recorded only manually during the approval process and is not included in the register of approved foster carers held, usually in electronic form, by all authorities. Collection of detailed financial information on the costs of foster care provision and remuneration of foster carers was considered to be beyond the scope of this study. The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) is at present conducting a comprehensive review of its procedures for inspection of foster care services and the data it collects from local authorities. This provides an excellent opportunity to harmonise the data collection requirements of DfES and CSCI and to minimise any duplication of work by local authorities. The principal output from this study is a set of two questionnaires, the Foster Care Baseline Survey and the Foster Care Questionnaire, and a document containing Guidance Notes1. Together, the questionnaires and guidance constitute a tool designed to be used for collecting data from local authorities. This report describes the background to the study and the methodology adopted. However, the main part of the report needs to be read in close conjunction with the questionnaires and the guidance, for which it supplies the context and a detailed commentary

The Knowledge: how to get the information you need out of your computers and information systems.

Information systems in current use in children’s social services, whether computer- or paper-based, are generally designed more for recording information than for retrieving and using it, especially in daily practice. This severely limits their usefulness and reduces the quality of the data they contain—users of a system who get nothing out of it are unlikely to care much about what they put in. This practical guide for local authority social services departments aims to show how that situation can be remedied—how you can exploit the information capital you accumulate in your daily operations to empower your staff and improve the quality of outcomes for the children and families you serve. The key is outputs: what you retrieve from your information systems. Most information systems are quite capable of producing outputs, but do so poorly, if at all, because time and resources have not been assigned to identifying and specifying the outputs that are required, who needs them and how they will be used. With most local authorities at present planning changes to their systems in order to implement the Integrated Children’s System, now is the time to include outputs in the specifications. The cost of providing outputs will be much lower if they are incorporated at this stage than if they are requested as piecemeal additions to an established system. While it may not be possible to obtain immediately all the outputs we describe in this report, the addition of even some of them should considerably improve the quality and usefulness of your information system. This guide is based on research commissioned by the DH/DfES, which involved consultation with childcare and IT experts in 13 local authorities in England and Wales, followed by detailed discussions with over fifty staff working at all levels in six authorities. It provides a methodology for describing and categorising outputs, identifies some of those required at each level of a children’s services department and provides clear advice to staff at each level on the steps they can take to obtain the outputs they require

Thermal feedback in virtual reality and telerobotic systems

A new concept has been developed that allows temperature to be part of the virtual world. The Displaced Temperature Sensing System (DTSS) can 'display' temperature in a virtual reality system.The DTSS can also serve as a feedback device for telerobotics. For virtual reality applications the virtual world software would be required to have a temperature map of its world. By whatever means (magnetic tracker, ultrasound tracker, etc.) the hand and fingers, which have been instrumented with thermodes, would be tracked. The temperature associated with the current position would be transmitted to the DRSS via a serial data link. The DTSS would provide that temperature to the fingers. For telerobotic operation the function of the DTSS is to transmit a temperature from a remote location to the fingers where the temperature can be felt

HUMAN CELLS FOR PROSTATE CANCER VACCINE THERAPY - THE IMPACT OF CENTRIFUGATION UPON KEY PRODUCT QUALITY ATTRIBUTES

Centrifugation is a unit operation used within a wide range of bioprocesses, including the production of a whole cell cancer vaccine to treat Hormone Refractory Prostate Cancer (HRPC) which has been tested in Phase II clinical trials. To quantify the effect of centrifugation-related stresses upon a whole cell vaccine population, a design of experiments (DOE) based investigation at micro-scale was implemented. Qualification of the cells may be by membrane integrity and by surface marker density as well as cytokines released and retained during bioprocessing. These and possibly other factors combine to affect the biopotency of the cells and their clinical efficacy. A range of processing factors that included relative centrifugal force, spin time and ambient cell holding time prior to processing were investigated, and their impact upon an array of cell quality attributes measured. A screening study indicated that both relative centrifugal force (RCF) and spin time were statistically significant factors with regards to the loss of cell membrane integrity. A range of two or more factor interactions were also suggested as having a significant negative impact upon the key cell quality attribute of membrane integrity, illustrating the power of multi-factorial experimental design. Data also indicated that loss of cell size was as the result of an increase within all three processing parameters, resulting in the emergence of a smaller, membrane-compromised cell population. Cell surface phenotype analysis by quantitative flow cytometry suggested no significant change in the surface staining profile for the range of product quality surface markers tested. The findings should allow for the creation of a design space for associated centrifugation operations, allowing an optimum processing window to be established. A UK Technology Strategy Board funded program in collaboration with LGC, Nottingham Trent University (bioinformation centre) and formerly with Onyvax

Abrogation of E-Cadherin-Mediated Cellular Aggregation Allows Proliferation of Pluripotent Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells in Shake Flask Bioreactors

A fundamental requirement for the exploitation of embryonic stem (ES) cells in regenerative medicine is the ability to reproducibly derive sufficient numbers of cells of a consistent quality in a cost-effective manner. However, undifferentiated ES cells are not ideally suited to suspension culture due to the formation of cellular aggregates, ultimately limiting scalability. Significant advances have been made in recent years in the culture of ES cells, including automated adherent culture and suspension microcarrier or embryoid body bioreactor culture. However, each of these methods exhibits specific disadvantages, such as high cost, additional downstream processes or reduced cell doubling times.Here we show that abrogation of the cell surface protein E-cadherin, using either gene knockout (Ecad-/-) or the neutralising antibody DECMA-1 (EcadAb), allows culture of mouse ES cells as a near-single cell suspension in scalable shake flask culture over prolonged periods without additional media supplements. Both Ecad-/- and EcadAb ES cells exhibited adaptation phases in suspension culture, with optimal doubling times of 7.3 h±0.9 and 15.6 h±4.7 respectively and mean-fold increase in viable cell number of 95.1±2.0 and 16±0.9-fold over 48 h. EcadAb ES cells propagated as a dispersed cell suspension for 15 d maintained expression of pluripotent markers, exhibited a normal karyotype and high viability. Subsequent differentiation of EcadAb ES cells resulted in expression of transcripts and proteins associated with the three primary germ layers.This is the first demonstration of the culture of pluripotent ES cells as a near-single cell suspension in a manual fed-batch shake flask bioreactor and represents a significant improvement on current ES cell culture techniques. Whilst this proof-of-principle method would be useful for the culture of human ES and iPS cells, further steps are necessary to increase cell viability of hES cells in suspension

Mammoth Cave International Center for Science and Learning

The Mammoth Cave International Center for Science and Learning (MCICSL) is a cooperative venture of Mammoth Cave National Park and Western Kentucky University. Funding, logistical support, and governance of MCICSL are shared equally by both entities. MCICSL is part of a national network of research learning centers located within the National Park Service. The goals of MCICSL and the other research learning centers are to: I. Facilitate the use of parks for scientific inquiry. II. Support science-informed decision making. III. Communicate the relevance of and provide access to knowledge gained through scientific research. IV. Promote science literacy and resource stewardship. MCICSL has been operational since the middle of 2005, so it is still building programs. Current staffing consists of a Research Director (Toomey) and a part-time Education Program Specialist (Trimboli). In spite of the limited staff, MCICSL is meeting its goals and is leading both research and education based programs