Open Textbooks and Increased Student Access and Outcomes

This study reports findings from a year-long pilot study during which 991 students in 9 core courses in the Virginia State University School of Business replaced traditional textbooks with openly licensed books and other digital content. The university made a deliberate decision to use open textbooks that were copyrighted under the Creative Commons license. This decision was based on the accessibility and flexibility in the delivery of course content provided by open textbooks. More students accessed digital open textbooks than had previously purchased hard copies of textbooks. Higher grades were correlated with courses that used open textbooks

Steps to Growing Up Healthy: a Pediatric Primary Care Based Obesity Prevention Program for Young Children

Background Leading medical organizations have called on primary care pediatricians to take a central role in the prevention of childhood obesity. Weight counseling typically has not been incorporated into routine pediatric practice due to time and training constraints. Brief interventions with simple behavior change messages are needed to reach high-risk children, particularly Latino and Black children who are disproportionately affected by obesity and related comorbidities. Steps to Growing Up Healthy (Added Value) is a randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of brief motivational counseling (BMC) delivered by primary care clinicians and the added value of supplementing BMC with monthly contact by community health workers (CHW) in the prevention/reversal of obesity in Latino and Black children ages 2-4 years old. Methods/Design Mother-child dyads (targeted n=150) are recruited for this 12-month randomized trial at an inner-city pediatric primary care clinic and randomized to: 1) BMC delivered by clinicians and nurses at well, sick, and WIC visits with the goal of reducing obesogenic behaviors (BMC); 2) BMC plus monthly phone calls by a CHW (BMC+Phone); or 3) BMC plus monthly home visits by a CHW (BMC+Home). During BMC, the medical team facilitates the selection of a specific goal (i.e., reduce sugar sweetened beverage consumption) that is meaningful to the mother and teaches the mother simple behavioral strategies. Monthly contacts with CHWs are designed to identify and overcome barriers to goal progress. Dyads are assessed at baseline and 12 months and the primary outcome is change in the child’s BMI percentile. We hypothesize that BMC+Phone and BMC+Home will produce greater reductions in BMI percentiles than BMC alone and that BMC+Home will produce greater reductions in BMI percentiles than BMC+Phone. Discussion Steps to Growing Up Healthy will provide important information about whether a brief primary care-based intervention that utilizes a motivational interviewing and goal setting approach can be incorporated into routine care and is sufficient to prevent/reverse obesity in young children. The study will also explore whether monthly contact with a community health worker bridges the gap between the clinic and the community and is an effective strategy for promoting obesity prevention in high-risk families

The Impact Of External Loads Carried By Police Officers On Vertical Jump Performance

International Journal of Exercise Science 13(6): 1179-1189, 2020. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact that external loads have on vertical jump height and peak anaerobic power output (PAPw) of police officers during a vertical jump (VJ) test. Retrospective data of 47 (mean age 38.79 ± 7.97 years) police officers from a US Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) were used for analysis. VJ heights and body mass were used in the Sayers Peak Power Equation to calculate PAPw. Power-to-weight (P:W) ratios were then calculated by dividing PAPw by the officer’s body mass. VJ height significantly (p \u3c .001) decreased with load (unloaded = 49.49 ± 8.46 cm: loaded = 43.62 ± 7.68 cm). A Pearson’s correlation showed a significant (p \u3c .01) low-moderate (r = .387) relationship between absolute load (9.57 ± .94 kg) and change in PAPw, and a significant (p \u3c .01) strong (r = .794) correlation between relative load and changes in P:W. This study supports previous research that suggests that occupational load carriage has a negative impact on VJ performance in police officers and may influence job performance, and that training programs may mitigate these negative effects

American Society of Clinical Oncology Summit on Addressing Obesity Through Multidisciplinary Provider Collaboration: Key Findings and Recommendations for Action

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139117/1/oby21987.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139117/2/oby21987_am.pd

Open Education and the emancipation of academic labour

I have previously argued that open education is a liberal project with a focus on the freedom of things rather than the freedom of people (Winn, Joss. 2012. “Open Education: From the Freedom of Things to the Freedom of People.” In Towards Teaching in Public: Reshaping the Modern University, edited by Michael Neary, Howard Stevenson, and Les Bell, 133– 147. London: Continuum). Furthermore, I have argued that despite an implicit critique of private property with its emphasis on ‘the commons’, the literature on open education offers no corresponding critique of academic labour (Neary, Mike, and Joss Winn. 2012. “Open Education: Common(s), Commonism and the New Common Wealth.” Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 12 (4): 406–422). In this paper, I develop my critical position that an emancipatory form of education must work towards the emancipation of teachers and students from labour, the dynamic, social, creative source of value in capitalism. In making this argument, I first establish the fundamental characteristics of academic labour. I then offer a ‘form-analytic’ critique of open access, followed by a corresponding critique of its legal form. Finally, I critically discuss the potential of ‘open cooperatives’ as a transitional organisational form for the production of knowledge through which social relations become ‘transparent in their simplicity’ (Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital, Vol. 1. London: Penguin Classics, 172)

Sry delivery to the adrenal medulla increases blood pressure and adrenal medullary tyrosine hydroxylase of normotensive WKY rats

BACKGROUND: Our laboratory has shown that a locus on the SHR Y chromosome increases blood pressure (BP) in the SHR rat and in WKY rats that had the SHR Y chromosome locus crossed into their genome (SHR/y rat). A potential candidate for this Y chromosome hypertension locus is Sry, a gene that encodes a transcription factor that is responsible for testes development and the Sry protein may affect other target genes. METHODS: The following study examined if exogenous Sry would elevate adrenal Th, adrenal catecholamines, plasma catecholamines and blood pressure. We delivered 10 μg of either the expression construct, Sry1/pcDNA 3.1, or control vector into the adrenal medulla of WKY rats by electroporation. Blood pressure was measured by the tail cuff technique and Th and catecholamines by HPLC with electrochemical detection. RESULTS: In the animals receiving Sry there were significant increases after 3 weeks in resting plasma NE (57%) and adrenal Th content (49%) compared to vector controls. BP was 30 mmHg higher in Sry injected animals (160 mmHg, p < .05) compared to vector controls (130 mmHg) after 2–3 weeks. Histological analysis showed that the electroporation procedure did not produce morphological damage. CONCLUSION: These results provide continued support that Sry is a candidate gene for hypertension. Also, these results are consistent with a role for Sry in increasing BP by directly or indirectly activating sympathetic nervous system activity