Liberal Arts 2.0

The title, Liberal Arts 2.0., stems from the term Web 2.0, which refers to the recent evolution of the Web as interactive, participatory, collaborative and collective. Web 2.0 includes blogs, wikis, user-generated media, social networking: like much of what it describes, the definition is amorphous and inexact. Baird believes that Web 2.0 and all that it implies will necessitate a revision of the way we do liberal arts and thus the title “Liberal Arts 2.0.” Her premise: that a liberal arts college is a place where teaching and research are improved by digital tools, where students are taught to negotiate and synthesize the sea of information available to them, where important ethical questions are discussed and aired. It is a place where the liberal arts are evolving into version 2.0., And that a liberal arts college is also exactly where students should be in this digital era

Digital Diaries, Digital Tools: A Comparative Approach to Eighteenth-Century Women’s History

The diaries of Martha Ballard and Elizabeth Drinker are two of the best-known American sources in the field of eighteenth-century women’s history. As a rural Maine midwife, Ballard was made famous by historian Laurel Ulrich in her Pulitzer prize-winning A Midwife’s Tale. Drinker, meanwhile, was the wife of a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker and chronicled the dramatic impact of the American Revolution from a female perspective. Both diaries present historians with a staggering amount of material: thousands of entries and hundreds of thousands of words stretched across three decades. Our project uses the tools of the digital age to re-examine these classic sources of eighteenth-century women’s history. We use data mining and analytical tools such as topic modeling in order to compare the two women’s writing: What persistent issues appeared in the two diaries and how did they reflect differences of class and education? How did environment (rural Maine vs. urban Philadelphia) shape their experiences? What was their scope of daily interactions with other people? Answering questions such as these offers insight not only into the lives of Drinker and Ballard, but also into how digital technology can illuminate women’s history in new ways

Digital Diaries, Digital Tools: A Comparative Approach to Eighteenth-Century Women’s History

The diaries of Martha Ballard and Elizabeth Drinker are two of the best-known American sources in the field of eighteenth-century women’s history. As a rural Maine midwife, Ballard was made famous by historian Laurel Ulrich in her Pulitzer prize-winning A Midwife’s Tale. Drinker, meanwhile, was the wife of a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker and chronicled the dramatic impact of the American Revolution from a female perspective. Both diaries present historians with a staggering amount of material: thousands of entries and hundreds of thousands of words stretched across three decades. Our project uses the tools of the digital age to re-examine these classic sources of eighteenth-century women’s history. We use data mining and analytical tools such as topic modeling in order to compare the two women’s writing: What persistent issues appeared in the two diaries and how did they reflect differences of class and education? How did environment (rural Maine vs. urban Philadelphia) shape their experiences? What was their scope of daily interactions with other people? Answering questions such as these offers insight not only into the lives of Drinker and Ballard, but also into how digital technology can illuminate women’s history in new ways

Assessing beef hide interventions as a means to reduce carcass contamination

Food safety is a critical issue for beef harvest operations. There are multiple interventions available for treating carcasses; however, this project was designed to evaluate an intervention capable of reducing bacterial counts on the hide prior to opening in order to minimize carcass contamination. In Trial I, fresh beef hides (n = 12) were cut into sections and assigned to serve as either clipped (hair trimmed) or non-clipped sections. Sections were inoculated with a bovine fecal slurry and sampled following a water wash. Treatments (distilled water, isopropyl alcohol, 3% hydrogen peroxide, 2% L-lactic acid, 1% cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), and 10% Povidone-iodine) then were applied to each section and sampled for aerobic plate counts (APCs), coliform, and Escherichia coli counts. Within clipped samples, 1% CPC and 3% hydrogen peroxide caused the greatest reductions in aerobic plate counts, and 1% CPC, 2% L-lactic acid, and 3% hydrogen peroxide showed among the greatest reductions in coliform counts. In Trial II, beef carcasses with hides on were sampled initially and clipped, and then antimicrobials (2% L-lactic acid, 3% hydrogen peroxide, and 1% CPC) were applied before sampling again for APC, coliform, and E. coli counts. This procedure was replicated in Trial II utilizing a non-pathogenic E. coli Type I indicator strain transformed to produce a green fluorescing protein (GFP). In Trial II, though few differences existed between antimicrobial treatments, all three (1% CPC, 2% L-lactic acid, and 3% hydrogen peroxide) resulted in approximately a 2-log10 CFU/100-cm2GFP reduction when applied to clipped hide surfaces in the brisket region of the carcass. In Trial III, 1% CPC produced the greatest reduction on the hide surface for APCs. In Trial IV clipped beef hide sections were sampled initially and then antimicrobials (2% L-lactic acid, 3% hydrogen peroxide, and 1% CPC) were applied before sampling again to determine reduction. Trial IV also involved the use of the E. coli GFP indicator strain. In Trial IV, non-clipped samples had a mean reduction of 2.8 log10 CFU/100 cm2, and clipped samples had a mean reduction of 2.2 log10 CFU/100 cm2. Within the antimicrobials tested, 1% CPC and 3% hydrogen peroxide produced the greatest reductions

The Association between Physical Environment and Externalising Problems in Typically Developing and Neurodiverse Children and Young People: A Narrative Review

The physical environment is of critical importance to child development. Understanding how exposure to physical environmental domains such as greenspace, urbanicity, air pollution or noise affects aggressive behaviours in typical and neurodiverse children is of particular importance given the significant long-term impact of those problems. In this narrative review, we investigated the evidence for domains of the physical environment that may ameliorate or contribute to the display of aggressive behaviours. We have considered a broad range of study designs that include typically developing and neurodiverse children and young people aged 0-18 years. We used the GRADE system to appraise the evidence. Searches were performed in eight databases in July 2020 and updated in June 2022. Additional articles were further identified by hand-searching reference lists of included papers. The protocol for the review was preregistered with PROSPERO. Results: We retrieved 7174 studies of which 67 are included in this review. The studies reported on green space, environmental noise and music, air pollution, meteorological effects, spatial density, urban or rural setting, and interior home elements (e.g., damp/sensory aspects/colour). They all used well validated parent and child reported measures of aggressive behaviour. Most of the studies were rated as having low or unclear risk of bias. As expected, noise, air pollution, urbanicity, spatial density, colour and humidity appeared to increase the display of aggressive behaviours. There was a dearth of studies on the role of the physical environment in neurodiverse children. The studies were heterogeneous and measured a range of aggressive behaviours from symptoms to full syndromes. Greenspace exposure was the most common domain studied but certainty of evidence for the association between environmental exposures and aggression problems in the child or young person was low across all domains. We found a large knowledge gap in the literature concerning neurodiverse children, which suggests that future studies should focus on these children, who are also more likely to experience adverse early life experiences including living in more deprived environments as well as being highly vulnerable to the onset of mental ill health. Such research should also aim to dis-aggregate the underlying aetiological mechanisms for environmental influences on aggression, the results of which may point to pathways for public health interventions and policy development to address inequities that can be relevant to ill health in neurodiverse young people

Individual common variants exert weak effects on the risk for autism spectrum disorders.

While it is apparent that rare variation can play an important role in the genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), the contribution of common variation to the risk of developing ASD is less clear. To produce a more comprehensive picture, we report Stage 2 of the Autism Genome Project genome-wide association study, adding 1301 ASD families and bringing the total to 2705 families analysed (Stages 1 and 2). In addition to evaluating the association of individual single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we also sought evidence that common variants, en masse, might affect the risk. Despite genotyping over a million SNPs covering the genome, no single SNP shows significant association with ASD or selected phenotypes at a genome-wide level. The SNP that achieves the smallest P-value from secondary analyses is rs1718101. It falls in CNTNAP2, a gene previously implicated in susceptibility for ASD. This SNP also shows modest association with age of word/phrase acquisition in ASD subjects, of interest because features of language development are also associated with other variation in CNTNAP2. In contrast, allele scores derived from the transmission of common alleles to Stage 1 cases significantly predict case status in the independent Stage 2 sample. Despite being significant, the variance explained by these allele scores was small (Vm< 1%). Based on results from individual SNPs and their en masse effect on risk, as inferred from the allele score results, it is reasonable to conclude that common variants affect the risk for ASD but their individual effects are modest

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Primaquine dose and the risk of haemolysis in patients with uncomplicated Plasmodium vivax malaria: a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis

Background: Primaquine radical cure is used to treat dormant liver-stage parasites and prevent relapsing Plasmodium vivax malaria but is limited by concerns of haemolysis. We undertook a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis to investigate the haematological safety of different primaquine regimens for P vivax radical cure. Methods: For this systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Central for prospective clinical studies of uncomplicated P vivax from endemic countries published between Jan 1, 2000, and June 8, 2023. We included studies if they had active follow-up of at least 28 days, if they included a treatment group with daily primaquine given over multiple days where primaquine was commenced within 3 days of schizontocidal treatment and was given alone or coadministered with chloroquine or one of four artemisinin-based combination therapies (ie, artemether–lumefantrine, artesunate–mefloquine, artesunate–amodiaquine, or dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine), and if they recorded haemoglobin or haematocrit concentrations on day 0. We excluded studies if they were on prevention, prophylaxis, or patients with severe malaria, or if data were extracted retrospectively from medical records outside of a planned trial. For the meta-analysis, we contacted the investigators of eligible trials to request individual patient data and we then pooled data that were made available by Aug 23, 2021. The main outcome was haemoglobin reduction of more than 25% to a concentration of less than 7 g/dL by day 14. Haemoglobin concentration changes between day 0 and days 2–3 and between day 0 and days 5–7 were assessed by mixed-effects linear regression for patients with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) activity of (1) 30% or higher and (2) between 30% and less than 70%. The study was registered with PROSPERO, CRD42019154470 and CRD42022303680. Findings: Of 226 identified studies, 18 studies with patient-level data from 5462 patients from 15 countries were included in the analysis. A haemoglobin reduction of more than 25% to a concentration of less than 7 g/dL occurred in one (0·1%) of 1208 patients treated without primaquine, none of 893 patients treated with a low daily dose of primaquine (<0·375 mg/kg per day), five (0·3%) of 1464 patients treated with an intermediate daily dose (0·375 mg/kg per day to <0·75 mg/kg per day), and six (0·5%) of 1269 patients treated with a high daily dose (≥0·75 mg/kg per day). The covariate-adjusted mean estimated haemoglobin changes at days 2–3 were –0·6 g/dL (95% CI –0·7 to –0·5), –0·7 g/dL (–0·8 to –0·5), –0·6 g/dL (–0·7 to –0·4), and –0·5 g/dL (–0·7 to –0·4), respectively. In 51 patients with G6PD activity between 30% and less than 70%, the adjusted mean haemoglobin concentration on days 2–3 decreased as G6PD activity decreased; two patients in this group who were treated with a high daily dose of primaquine had a reduction of more than 25% to a concentration of less than 7 g/dL. 17 of 18 included studies had a low or unclear risk of bias. Interpretation: Treatment of patients with G6PD activity of 30% or higher with 0·25–0·5 mg/kg per day primaquine regimens and patients with G6PD activity of 70% or higher with 0·25–1 mg/kg per day regimens were associated with similar risks of haemolysis to those in patients treated without primaquine, supporting the safe use of primaquine radical cure at these doses. Funding: Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Medicines for Malaria Venture