Promoting employer desired competencies through a multiphased workgroup project

Employers and business leaders have long been advocating for the importance of career readiness skills like critical thinking/problem solving, information literacy, teamwork/collaboration, professionalism/work ethic, and oral/written communication (NACE, 2019; Partnership, 2008). While faculty and students see value in projects that develop these skills, such projects can be some of the most challenging to incorporate effectively into business courses (Chapman et al., 2010; Detmering & Johnson, 2012; Lee et al., 2016; Marks & O’Connor, 2013). This article reports on a multi-phase group project that aims to strengthen a selection of these employer-desired skills while ameliorating student concerns about the research process and group work by combing a collaborative process with individually graded major products. The project design provides students with opportunities to strengthen their interpersonal communication, teamwork, and information literacy skills. Through anonymous surveys, students (n=33) indicated a positive response to the project design and that they perceived improvement in their information literacy skills. They indicated less improvement in their interpersonal communication and teamwork skills, prompting some recommended adjustments to the workgroup project for more effective implementation in a business course

A few good men and women : the rhetorical constitution of military personnel identity.

In this dissertation, I examine the public negotiation of service member identity by multiple stakeholders as a way to better understand the available rhetorical strategies for affecting ideological constructions of identity. While current Rhetoric and Composition research attends mostly to student-veterans, I draw on cultural and rhetorical theorists, such as Louis Althusser, Kenneth Burke, Maurice Charland, to identify the rhetorical approaches used to construct military personnel identity, particularly in the post-9/11 era. Through analysis of films, recruiting materials, and the publicly-shared stories of personnel, I extend current understandings of constitutive rhetoric and rhetorical identification—which tend to focus on the work of the rhetor as he or she addresses a target, constituted audience—to consider the interventions made by other institutional and individual stakeholders. In the first two chapters, I provide the scholarly and cultural context for this dissertation. In the first chapter, I review cultural studies and rhetoric scholarship regarding ideology, rhetoric, and identity to form the groundwork for a study that enriches our understanding of not only military personnel but importantly of the way in which rhetors—as representatives of institutions and as individuals—negotiate, challenge, and shape ideological understandings. In the second chapter, I argue that the general ideological understanding of military personnel—as seen in film—is that they are physical, aggressive, and superior in their pursuit of morally-guided endeavors. This construction of military personnel identity establishes the basic perceptions of service members and forms the ideological definition that other stakeholders begin from when adding to or challenging common notions of personnel. Chapters Three and Four examine the rhetorical strategies and tactics used by the Military institution and military service members (acting as individuals and citizens) to intervene in dominant ideological constructions of their identity. Through an analysis of Military recruiting materials, I argue that the Military makes use of a unique form of constitutive rhetoric, which I call recruiting rhetoric, to refine the popular representations of military personnel. In Chapter Four, I examine the publicly-shared stories of American military personnel and the rhetorical features used therein which demonstrate that military service members’ primary intervening approach is the use of the stories to reshape the current topoi used in public discourse about service members. These efforts by current and former military personnel serve as models for the ways in which individuals can affect powerful ideological constructions of their identity and thereby facilitate the reproduction of more accurate public representations. In my concluding chapter, I discuss the implications that my analysis has for the development and extension of constitutive rhetoric and other rhetorical strategies used to shape ideological understandings of identity generally and of military personnel identity in particular

“My Understanding … Has Literally Changed”: Addressing the Military-Civilian Gap with an Academic-Community Engagement Project

The Military-Civilian Gap, a label for the lack of civilian understanding about the military, is one of many concerns for those invested in supporting the military and the nation. While the factors contributing to the Military-Civilian Gap are many and are nuanced, academic-community engagement course projects provide one strategy for improving understanding between civilians and military-affiliated individuals and thus bridging the gap. This article analyzes final reflections of forty-four upper-level business communication students who completed an academic-community engagement project for which they developed a proposal for a recreational retreat for local military personnel and veterans. Analysis of the reflections shows that such service-learning projects increase civilian students' knowledge of the military and its members as well as civilian students' commitment to future engagement with military-affiliated individuals. In addition, student-veterans' reflections reveal that working with civilian students on projects that serve military-affiliated individuals improves the student-veterans' understanding of the military-civilian gap and potentially how to address it

Students\u27 Perceptions of Professional Short-Messaging Education in Undergraduate Courses

The popularity of short-messaging formats, like text and chat, is on the rise in the workplace with many employees preferring this style over long-form options like email. While many businesses expect employees to communicate using short messages, students may be ill-equipped to effectively use these methods due to a lack of formal training. This study sets out to understand students’ experience, confidence, and education related to professional short messaging. Results indicate a correlation between confidence and experience levels in writing text and chat messages. Further, the participants who indicated they had training on writing short messages, indicated they learned it in a business communication class. Thus, this study highlights a need for education on short messaging in the business communication classroom to increase student experience, and thus, their confidence in writing these messages

Combination interventions for Hepatitis C and Cirrhosis reduction among people who inject drugs: An agent-based, networked population simulation experiment

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is endemic in people who inject drugs (PWID), with prevalence estimates above 60 percent for PWID in the United States. Previous modeling studies suggest that direct acting antiviral (DAA) treatment can lower overall prevalence in this population, but treatment is often delayed until the onset of advanced liver disease (fibrosis stage 3 or later) due to cost. Lower cost interventions featuring syringe access (SA) and medically assisted treatment (MAT) for addiction are known to be less costly, but have shown mixed results in lowering HCV rates below current levels. Little is known about the potential synergistic effects of combining DAA and MAT treatment, and large-scale tests of combined interventions are rare. While simulation experiments can reveal likely long-term effects, most prior simulations have been performed on closed populations of model agents--a scenario quite different from the open, mobile populations known to most health agencies. This paper uses data from the Centers for Disease Control's National HIV Behavioral Surveillance project, IDU round 3, collected in New York City in 2012 by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to parameterize simulations of open populations. Our results show that, in an open population, SA/MAT by itself has only small effects on HCV prevalence, while DAA treatment by itself can significantly lower both HCV and HCV-related advanced liver disease prevalence. More importantly, the simulation experiments suggest that cost effective synergistic combinations of the two strategies can dramatically reduce HCV incidence. We conclude that adopting SA/MAT implementations alongside DAA interventions can play a critical role in reducing the long-term consequences of ongoing infection

Seroprevalence and risk factors of herpes simplex virus type-2 infection among pregnant women in Northeast India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Herpes simplex virus type-2 (HSV-2) is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections that facilitate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition by over two fold or more. The development of HSV-2 control methods as a measure to control HIV epidemic in high HSV-2/HIV areas has become a priority. Two out of the six high HIV prevalent states of India are located in the Northeastern region of India. Due to lack of documented HSV-2 studies from this part of the country; there was a need for estimating the seroprevalence and risk factors of HSV-2 infection in this defined population.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Pregnant women (n = 1640) aged18 years and above attending antenatal clinics of tertiary referral hospitals in five Northeastern states of India were screened for type specific HSV-2 IgG antibodies. Blood samples were collected from all the participants after conducting interviews. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify the risk factors associated with HSV-2 seropositivity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overall seroprevalence of HSV-2 infection was 8.7% (142/1640; 95% CI 7.3-10.0) with a highest prevalence of 15.0% (46/307; 95% CI 11.0-19.0) in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Higher seroprevalence was observed with increasing age (Adj. Odds Ratio [AOR] 1.9 for 22-25 years old, AOR 2.29 for > 29 years old). The risk factors associated with HSV-2 seropositives were multiple sex partners (AOR 2.5, <it>p </it>= 0.04), condom non-user's (AOR 4.7, p <it><</it>0.001), early coitarchal age (age of first intercourse) 'less than 18 years' (AOR 9.6, <it>p = </it>0.04), middle income group (AOR 2.1, <it>p = </it>0.001) compared to low income group and low level of education (AOR 3.7, <it>p = </it>0.02) compared to higher education. HSV-2 seropositivity was higher among Christians (12.6%) compared to Muslims (3.8%). The most frequent clinical symptoms among HSV-2 seropositives were excess vaginal discharge in last one year (53.5%, 76/142) and pelvic pain (26.1%, 37/142). While among subjects with genital ulcers, HSV-2 seroprevalence was 36.8% (7/19).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Overall seroprevalence of HSV-2 infection among pregnant women of Northeast India is relatively low. The generation of awareness among high risk groups may have played key role to limit the infection. The role of vaccination against HSV-2 in near future and elimination of HSV-2 viral shedding along with genital tract inflammation in high HIV/HSV-2 areas may be an option for initiating successful intervention strategies to reduce the transmission and acquisition of HIV infection in Northeast India.</p

The Impact of eHealth on the Quality and Safety of Health Care: A Systematic Overview

Aziz Sheikh and colleagues report the findings of their systematic overview that assessed the impact of eHealth solutions on the quality and safety of health care

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Ready for action: Developing classroom teams to prepare students for the business world

The ability to work in teams is one of the most highly valued professional skills. Preparing students to operate effectively in workplace teams, therefore, is naturally a priority for business and management faculty. Managing course-based teams, however, can be a challenging and complicated process for many instructors. This article offers instructors practical solutions to those challenges. After a brief review of relevant literature on workplace and course-based teams, the authors provide the results of a survey of 207 current undergraduate business students conducted in the fall of 2015 in which the authors sought to determine: (1) the factors that influence students’ best and worst team experiences, and (2) undergraduate students’ overall impressions of teamwork. Based on these results, the authors developed two successful—though very different—strategies for managing the classroom group process, which were implemented in business communication courses in the spring of 2016

Patterns and Gaps Identified in a Systematic Review of the Hepatitis C Virus Care Continuum in Studies among People Who Use Drugs

IntroductionSystematic reviews are useful for synthesizing data on various health conditions and for identifying gaps in available data. In the US, the main risk group for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is people who use drugs (PWUD); as a group, PWUD have the highest prevalence of chronic HCV. While the care continuum construct has been increasingly applied to studies of HCV care among PWUD, what constitutes the steps in an HCV care continuum is not standardized. We sought to examine the range of HCV care continuum outcomes that studies reported on, to identify gaps in the literature, and to develop strategies that allowed for valuable syntheses of care continuum data.MethodsWe conducted searches of electronic databases for published literature. Reports were eligible if they provided original data from 1990 to 2016 from the US, presented data on one or more HCV care continuum outcomes, and provided outcome data on PWUD as a distinct group.ResultsA total of 313 full-text reports were assessed for eligibility. Of 212 potentially eligible reports, 32 (15.1%) did not present outcomes for PWUD separately from those who were non-PWUD. Among 101 eligible reports, a total of 166 care continuum outcomes were extracted; outcomes could be grouped into three categories that represent the HCV care continuum: testing (39.8%, n = 66/166); linkage to care (16.9%, n = 28/166); and treatment (43.4%, n = 72/166). Seventy-four reports (73.3%, n = 74/101) presented data on only one step. Linkage to care occurred variably after only antibody, or after antibody and viral load (VL) testing. Six (5.9%, n = 6/101) reports presented data on all three steps.ConclusionReports examined a variety of HCV care continuum outcomes that could be grouped into the three steps of testing, linkage to care, and treatment. The application of this care continuum model would facilitate subsequent data synthesis for program comparison and public health evaluation. Given the two-step nature of HCV testing, analyses also need to account for variation in whether linkage to care occurred after antibody testing or after sequential antibody and VL testing. Additional data are needed on the progression of PWUD through the entire care continuum