Community-Based Intervention Strategies to Reduce Tobacco Use in Asia: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials

Introduction Tobacco use remains a global health challenge as one-tenth of world’s population consume it regularly–thereby increasing its disease burden. Among all programs implemented, community-based interventions showed great potential, considering its ubiquity and practicableness. However, since tobacco consumption’s prevalence persists, especially in Asia, further reviews are needed. Objective To analyze prior community-based tobacco control programs in Asia and identify potential approaches to be implemented as a mean to reduce tobacco use Methods A systematic review was conducted through PubMed, Scopus, and CENTRAL, searching for randomized controlled trials (RCT) implementing community-based programs to control tobacco usage in Asia. Studies selected were assessed for bias risk with Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials. Results The search yielded eleven RCTs with a total of 28,805 subjects. Smoking cessation interventions focusing on education and counselling are proven to be effective in reducing tobacco consumption and increasing quit rate. Moreover, prevention programs which include school-based interventions, reduce the likeliness of adolescents to smoke in the future and also prevent further tobacco use in recent youth smokers. Conclusions To conclude, community-based interventions showed promising results to be widely implemented as tobacco control and prevention strategies, helping to raise public awareness towards tobacco hazards and reducing the number of tobacco-related diseases and mortality worldwide

Micromobility evolution and expansion: Understanding how docked and dockless bikesharing models complement and compete – A case study of San Francisco

Shared micromobility – the shared use of bicycles, scooters, or other low-speed modes – is an innovative transportation strategy growing across the United States that includes various service models such as docked, dockless, and e-bike service models. This research focuses on understanding how docked bikesharing and dockless e-bikesharing models complement and compete with respect to user travel behaviors. To inform our analysis, we used two datasets from February 2018 of Ford GoBike (docked) and JUMP (dockless electric) bikesharing trips in San Francisco. We employed three methodological approaches: 1) travel behavior analysis, 2) discrete choice analysis with a destination choice model, and 3) geospatial suitability analysis based on the Spatial Temporal Economic Physiological Social (STEPS) to Transportation Equity framework. We found that dockless e-bikesharing trips were longer in distance and duration than docked trips. The average JUMP trip was about a third longer in distance and about twice as long in duration than the average GoBike trip. JUMP users were far less sensitive to estimated total elevation gain than were GoBike users, making trips with total elevation gain about three times larger than those of GoBike users, on average. The JUMP system achieved greater usage rates than GoBike, with 0.8 more daily trips per bike and 2.3 more miles traveled on each bike per day, on average. The destination choice model results suggest that JUMP users traveled to lower-density destinations, and GoBike users were largely traveling to dense employment areas. Bike rack density was a significant positive factor for JUMP users. The location of GoBike docking stations may attract users and/or be well-placed to the destination preferences of users. The STEPS-based bikeability analysis revealed opportunities for the expansion of both bikesharing systems in areas of the city where high-job density and bike facility availability converge with older resident populations

Assuring the Quality of Teaching at Makerere University in Uganda: Practices and Experiences of Academics and Students

Quality is an ethos in academia and assuring it is top of the agenda at many universities. Since the 1990s, substantial research has been conducted on the quality assurance systems of developed countries with advanced higher education systems. However, literature on quality assurance systems in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa is limited. The study examined the practices and experiences of stakeholders at the student-academic interface in assuring the quality of teaching at Makerere University. A case study design was employed and respondents included academics and final-year students. Data was collected through documents review, interviews and focus group discussions. Thematic analysis and content analysis were used to analyse the data. The findings demonstrate that the university employs five practices to assure the quality of teaching, namely, recognition of teaching, student evaluation of teaching, pedagogical training, monitoring and supervision of teaching, competence-based deployment and interfacing. The findings further show that stakeholders had varying experiences of teaching quality assurance practices

Good Teaching: Aligning Student and Administrator Perceptions and Expectations

Literature attests to limited systematic inquiry into students’ conceptions of good teaching in higher education. Resultantly, there have been calls for engaging students in construing what makes good university teaching and in developing a richer conception of teaching excellence. This interpretivist study that is based on views of final year university students from six academic disciplines investigated students’ conceptions of good teaching at Makerere University in Uganda. Students conceived good teaching as being student-centred, demonstrating strong subject and pedagogical knowledge, being approachable, being responsive, being organised, and being able to communicate well. Most of the conceptions of good teaching hinge on what the teacher does (the means) rather than affording high quality student learning (an end). It can therefore been concluded that good teaching is a multi-dimensional construct that defies a single definition and cannot be assured and assessed using a single indicator

Making Sense of an Elusive Concept: Academics’ Perspectives of Quality in Higher Education

Objective: Since the 1990s studies on how stakeholders in higher education perceive quality have burgeoned. Nevertheless, the majority of studies on perception of quality in higher education focus on students and employers. The few studies on academics’ perceptions of quality in higher education treat academics as a homogeneous group and, therefore, do not point out cross-disciplinary perspectives in perceptions of quality. This article explores how academics across six disciplines perceive quality in higher education. Method: The article is anchored in the interpretivist paradigm. Data was collected from 14 purposely selected academics at Makerere University in Uganda and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The findings show that academics perceive quality in higher education as transformation, fitness for purpose, and exceptional. The findings further demonstrate that a stakeholder group or an individual stakeholder can subscribe to a notion of quality in higher education but voice divergent views on its variants. Similarly, the academic discipline, the perceived purpose of higher education, and the problems within a higher education system have an influence on stakeholders’ conception of quality in higher education. Conclusions: From the findings it can be inferred that quality in higher education defies a single definition and that stakeholders’ perceptions of quality do not take place in a vacuum. Implication for Theory and/or Practice: The multidimensional nature of quality and the contestations around it necessitate a multidimensional approach to assuring and assessing it

Mechanistic Assessment of Extrahepatic Contributions to Glucuronidation of Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors

Integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI)-based regimens dominate initial human immunodeficiency virus treatment. Most INSTIs are metabolized predominantly via UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs). For drugs predominantly metabolized by UGTs, including INSTIs, in vitro data recovered from human liver microsomes (HLMs) alone often underpredict human oral clearance. While several factors may contribute, extrahepatic glucuronidation may contribute to this underprediction. Thus, we comprehensively characterized the kinetics for the glucuronidation of INSTIs (cabotegravir, dolutegravir, and raltegravir) using pooled human microsomal preparations from liver (HLMs), intestine (HIMs), and kidney (HKMs) tissues; human embryonic kidney 293 cells expressing individual UGTs; and recombinant UGTs. In vitro glucuronidation of cabotegravir (HLMs≈HKMs>>>HIMs), dolutegravir (HLMs>HIMs>>HKMs), and raltegravir (HLMs>HKMs>> HIMs) occurred in hepatic and extrahepatic tissues. The kinetic data from expression systems suggested the major enzymes in each tissue: hepatic UGT1A9 > UGT1A1 (dolutegravir and raltegravir) and UGT1A1 (cabotegravir), intestinal UGT1A3 > UGT1A8 > UGT1A1 (dolutegravir) and UGT1A8 > UGT1A1 (raltegravir), and renal UGT1A9 (dolutegravir and raltegravir). Enzymes catalyzing cabotegravir glucuronidation in the kidney and intestine could not be identified unequivocally. Using data from dolutegravir glucuronidation as a prototype, a "bottom-up" physiologically based pharmacokinetic model was developed in a stepwise approach and predicted dolutegravir oral clearance within 4.5-fold (hepatic data only), 2-fold (hepatic and intestinal data), and 32% (hepatic, intestinal, and renal data). These results suggest clinically meaningful glucuronidation of dolutegravir in tissues other than the liver. Incorporation of additional novel mechanistic and physiologic underpinnings of dolutegravir metabolism along with in silico approaches appears to be a powerful tool to accurately predict the clearance of dolutegravir from in vitro data

Genomic screening in family-based association testing

Due to the recent gains in the availability of single-nucleotide polymorphism data, genome-wide association testing has become feasible. It is hoped that this additional data may confirm the presence of disease susceptibility loci, and identify new genetic determinants of disease. However, the problem of multiple comparisons threatens to diminish any potential gains from this newly available data. To circumvent the multiple comparisons issue, we utilize a recently developed screening technique using family-based association testing. This screening methodology allows for the identification of the most promising single-nucleotide polymorphisms for testing without biasing the nominal significance level of our test statistic. We compare the results of our screening technique across univariate and multivariate family-based association tests. From our analyses, we observe that the screening technique, applied to different settings, is fairly consistent in identifying optimal markers for testing. One of the identified markers, TSC0047225, was significantly associated with both the ttth1 (p = 0.004) and ttth1-ttth4 (p = 0.004) phenotype(s). We find that both univariate- and multivariate-based screening techniques are powerful tools for detecting an association

Comparison of linkage and association strategies for quantitative traits using the COGA dataset

Genome scans using dense single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data have recently become a reality. It is thought that the increase in information content for linkage analysis as a result of the denser scans will help refine previously identified linkage regions and possibly identify new regions not identifiable using the sparser, microsatellite scans. In the context of the dense SNP scans, it is also possible to consider association strategies to provide even more information about potential regions of interest. To circumvent the multiple-testing issues inherent in association analysis, we use a recently developed strategy, implemented in PBAT, which screens the data to identify the optimal SNPs for testing, without biasing the nominal significance level. We compare the results from the PBAT analysis to that of quantitative linkage analysis on chromosome 4 using the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism data, as released through Genetic Analysis Workshop 14

The Factor Structure of the 4-Item Perceived Stress Scale in English Adolescents

This study investigated the factor structure, internal consistency, and known-groups validity of the 4-item Perceived Stress Scale in a large sample of 29,388 English adolescents. Results indicated that the original unidimensional structure was not viable and instead provided support for a two-factor structure. Examination of a bifactor-(S − 1) model indicated that this multidimensionality can be attributed to reverse-worded items; however, beyond method effects, these factors appear to capture distinct, though inter-related, constructs. As this multidimensional structure relies on 2-item factors, we advise use of longer versions of this measure where possible