Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood exposure to secondhand smoke before and after smoke-free legislation in three UK countries

Background: Secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure is higher among lower socioeconomic status (SES) children. Legislation restricting smoking in public places has been associated with reduced childhood SHS exposure and increased smoke-free homes. This paper examines socioeconomic patterning in these changes.<p></p> Methods: Repeated cross-sectional survey of 10 867 schoolchildren in 304 primary schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Children provided saliva for cotinine assay, completing questionnaires before and 12 months after legislation.<p></p> Results: SHS exposure was highest, and private smoking restrictions least frequently reported, among lower SES children. Proportions of saliva samples containing <0.1 ng/ml (i.e. undetectable) cotinine increased from 31.0 to 41.0%. Although across the whole SES spectrum, there was no evidence of displacement of smoking into the home or increased SHS exposure, socioeconomic inequality in the likelihood of samples containing detectable levels of cotinine increased. Among children from the poorest families, 96.9% of post-legislation samples contained detectable cotinine, compared with 38.2% among the most affluent. Socioeconomic gradients at higher exposure levels remained unchanged. Among children from the poorest families, one in three samples contained > 3 ng/ml cotinine. Smoking restrictions in homes and cars increased, although socioeconomic patterning remained.<p></p> Conclusions Urgent action is needed to reduce inequalities in SHS exposure. Such action should include emphasis on reducing smoking in cars and homes

Internationalizing the Teacher Education Curriculum Toward Global Competency: Academic Leaders’ Perceptions

To prepare students for an increasingly interconnected world, P-12 teachers must be trained to infuse intercultural and global perspectives into their teaching practice. However, teacher education programs (TEPs) have been criticized for their lack of global perspectives in the curriculum and have been found to be the least internationalized programs at United States (U.S.) universities. Though university senior international officers (SIOs) play a large role in developing a strategic approach toward curriculum internationalization, there is a paucity of research on their perspectives on this process. In this explanatory sequential mixed methods study, TEP leaders and SIOs at universities in the U.S. were surveyed on their knowledge of research-backed frameworks to internationalize teacher education toward global competency for teacher candidates as well as whether these strategies are included in their TEPs’ strategic plans. Most TEP leaders were somewhat familiar with these strategies and more than half of the SIOs were somewhat or very familiar with them. Most TEP leaders reported that the strategies were included in their program’s strategic plan while nearly half of SIOs did not know whether they were included. Selected leaders then participated in semi-structured interviews to elaborate on their perspectives of the strategic planning and internationalization processes. The data was examined through the theoretical framework of loose coupling, which illuminated the degree to which the separate university, internationalization, and TEP strategic planning processes at U.S. universities are responsive to each other while maintaining some autonomy. SIOs and TEP leaders both acknowledged that external factors other than strategic planning such as accreditation and teacher licensing standards most affected their internationalization strategies. These factors also sometimes served as barriers to internationalizing. Additionally, SIOs see university strategic plans as vague on internationalization, and they are unconcerned with directly addressing every component of the plan in their own internationalization strategic planning process. These findings indicate that the university and internationalization strategic planning processes appear to be loosely coupled while the internationalization and TEP strategic planning processes are largely decoupled. Insights regarding how SIOs can better support internationalization within teacher education programs are provided

V. Tabriz, Persia

n/

The retroflection of part of the East Greenland Current at Cape Farewell

The East Greenland Current (EGC) and the smaller East Greenland Coastal Current (EGCC) provide the major conduit for cold fresh polar water to enter the lower latitudes of the North Atlantic. They flow equatorward through the western Irminger Basin and around Cape Farewell into the Labrador Sea. The surface circulation and transport of the Cape Farewell boundary current region in summer 2005 is described. The EGCC merges with Arctic waters of the EGC to the south of Cape Farewell, forming the West Greenland Current. The EGC transport decreases from 15.5 Sv south of Cape Farewell to 11.7 Sv in the eastern Labrador Sea (where the water becomes known as Irminger Sea Water). The decrease in EGC transport is balanced by the retroflection of a substantial proportion of the boundary current (5.1 Sv) into the central Irminger Basin; a new pathway for fresh water into the interior of the subpolar gyre

Identification of diverse database subsets using property-based and fragment-based molecular descriptions

This paper reports a comparison of calculated molecular properties and of 2D fragment bit-strings when used for the selection of structurally diverse subsets of a file of 44295 compounds. MaxMin dissimilarity-based selection and k-means cluster-based selection are used to select subsets containing between 1% and 20% of the file. Investigation of the numbers of bioactive molecules in the selected subsets suggest: that the MaxMin subsets are noticeably superior to the k-means subsets; that the property-based descriptors are marginally superior to the fragment-based descriptors; and that both approaches are noticeably superior to random selection

PhD students, interculturality, reflexivity, community and internationalisation

Interviews with a small group of doctoral students at a British university indicate that the students feel that the programme provides an environment within which they develop interculturality through reflexive engagement with the PhD community and in some cases with the participants in their research. Significant here is that they are interpretivist, constructivist qualitative researchers within a larger university community of qualitative researchers where there is a shared reflexivity that is at the core of interculturality. They also bring with them existing cultural complexity with which to engage, build on, make reflexive sense of and resolve in this experience. This complexity which they all share make it difficult to consider them differently as 'international' or 'home' students, which are revealed as inappropriately divisive labels within an intercultural community. Where there are apparent issues with English as a second or other language among some of the students, it is realised that this represents a broader struggle, shared with all students, regarding self-expression in writing. These findings demand cultural belief in whatever backgrounds the students come from. This belief impacts on how we understand internationalisation and the nature of academic knowledge and process

Active power sharing in input-series-input-parallel output-series connected DC/DC converters

A high-capacity DC/DC converter with novel input-series-input-parallel output-series connection and with autonomous power sharing between modules is proposed. The proposed scheme is well suited for large-scale wind farm DC collection networks, as it avoids the charging current issues associated with its AC counterpart, and offers lower losses and reduced size and weight when a medium- or high-frequency transformer is used. Small-signal analysis is used to derive the control structures for the converter input and output stages. The proposed control scheme is validated through simulation and experimentation, including demonstration of autonomous power sharing between modules under several operating conditions

High power density STATCOM with extended reactive power control range

This paper proposes a new configuration for static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) based on the ac-side voltage doubling voltage source converter (ACVD-VSC), which has twice of the dc-link voltage utilization as two-level VSC, hence improved power density per unit dc-link voltage. This means its dc voltage limit for reactive power generation is higher than that using conventional two-level VSC. Therefore, extended reactive power control range is resulted for the proposed solution. Also the ACVD converter has zero dc common mode voltage between the ac neutral point and the dc-link negative terminal, reducing the insulation level for the interfacing transformer when the negative dc bus is grounded. The basic operation principles of ACVD-VSC are reviewed. Then, it is used to perform voltage or power flow control as shunt compensators