The present status and future trends of business education programs in Nebraska public high schools

Curriculum and instruction decision making is a complex problem. Many attempts have been made in the past two decades to develop new curriculum and instructional techniques which the proponents of such programs and procedures hoped would be adopted by schools throughout the nation. In many cases, however, such hopes were never realized since the classroom teacherp were unwilling or unable to use the new approaches. Thus a more realistic picture of what is currently happening or what will happen in any curriculum area can be better determined by finding out what classroom teachers anticipate than by relying on the prediction of national experts. The data and findings of this study will provide information about what the business teachers in the state feel will be taking place in their classrooms in the next five years. Such information will provide business education curriculum developers with an indication of how those in the field view curriculum and instructional changes. It will also provide a baseline against which data obtained\u27in future surveys can be computed

1,3-Butadiene: Biomarkers and application to risk assessment

1,3-Butadiene (BD) is a known rodent and human carcinogen that is metabolized mainly by P450 2E1 to three epoxides, 1,2-epoxy-3-butene (EB), 1,2:3,4-diepoxybutane (DEB) and 1,2-epoxy-3,4-butanediol (EB-diol). The individual epoxides vary up to 200-fold in their mutagenic potency, with DEB being the most mutagenic metabolite. It is important to understand the internal formation of the individual epoxides to assign the relative risk for each metabolite and to understand the molecular mechanisms responsible for major species differences in carcinogenicity. We have conducted extensive exposure-biomarker studies on mice, rats and humans. Using low exposures that range from current occupational levels to human exposures from tobacco smoke has provided evidence that mice are very different from humans, with mice forming ~200 times more DEB than humans at exposures of 0.1–1.5 ppm BD. While no gender differences have been noted in mice and rats for globin adducts or N-7 guanine adducts, female rats and mice had 2–3-fold higher Hprt mutations and DNA-DNA cross-links, suggesting a gender difference in DNA repair. Numerous molecular epidemiology studies have evaluated globin adducts and Hprt mutations, SCEs and chromosomal abnormalities. None of the blinded studies have shown evidence of human genotoxicity at current occupational exposures and studies of globin adducts have shown similar or lower formation of adducts in females than males. If one calculates the EB dose-equivalents for the three species, mice clearly differ from rats and humans, being ~44 and 174 times greater than rats and humans, respectively. These data provide a scientific basis for improved risk assessment of BD