What's good for the goose is good for the gander: Implementing the SIOP model into an urban elementary classroom of African American students

Research points to many factors that contribute to the achievement gap between white and minority students however; one important issue that is often overlooked is the academic language status of the student. Knowing that lack of familiarity and proficiency in academic English severely limits an individual’s chances at academic success (Mace- Matluck, Alexander-Kasparik, & Queen, 1998), purposefully teaching the skills associated with academic English proficiency is of the utmost importance. While the use of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) has shown to positively impact the academic English language proficiency levels of English language learners, little research exists as to its impact on the proficiency levels of urban students who are not fully proficient in academic English. Employing an action research methodology, this study examined the journey experienced by a teacher and her students when the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) was implemented into an urban classroom of academic English language learners (AELL). The main findings of this qualitative study are: 1) The implementation of the SIOP model in any classroom should be accompanied by thorough training and on- going support; 2) The SIOP model has a positive effect on student interactions in the classroom; 3) For the implementation of the SIOP model to be successful issues of ‘control’ must be addressed; 4) There was a positive impact of the SIOP model on the academic language skills of students

Climate change drives poleward increases and equatorward declines in marine species

Marine environments have increased in temperature by an average of 1°C since preindustrial (1850) times [1]. Given that species ranges are closely allied to physiological thermal tolerances in marine organisms [2], it may therefore be expected that ocean warming would lead to abundance increases at poleward range edges, and abundance declines towards the equator [3]. Here we report a global analysis of abundance tends of 304 widely distributed marine species over the last century, across a range of taxonomic groups from phytoplankton to fish and marine mammals. Specifically, using a literature database we investigate the extent that the direction and strength of longterm species abundance changes depend on the sampled location within the latitudinal range of species. Our results show that abundance increases have been most prominent where sampling has taken place at the poleward edges of species ranges, while abundance declines have been most prominent where sampling has taken place at the equatorward edge of species ranges. These data provide evidence of omnipresent large-scale changes in abundance of marine species consistent with warming over the last century, and suggest that adaptation has not provided a buffer against the negative effects of warmer conditions at the equatorward extent of species ranges. On the basis of these results we suggest that projected sea temperature increases of up to 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels by 2050 [4] will continue to drive latitudinal abundance shifts in marine species, including those of importance for coastal livelihoods

Antibiotic prescribing for acute gastroenteritis during ambulatory care visits-United States, 2006-2015.

OBJECTIVE: To describe national antibiotic prescribing for acute gastroenteritis (AGE). SETTING: Ambulatory care. METHODS: We included visits with diagnoses for bacterial and viral gastrointestinal infections from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS/NHAMCS; 2006-2015) and the IBM Watson 2014 MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database. For NAMCS/NHAMCS, we calculated annual percentage estimates and 99% confidence intervals (CIs) of visits with antibiotics prescribed; sample sizes were too small to calculate estimates by pathogen. For MarketScan, we used Poisson regression to calculate the percentage of visits with antibiotics prescribed and 95% CIs, including by pathogen. RESULTS: We included 10,210 NAMCS/NHAMCS AGE visits; an estimated 13.3% (99% CI, 11.2%-15.4%) resulted in antibiotic prescriptions, most frequently fluoroquinolones (28.7%; 99% CI, 21.1%-36.3%), nitroimidazoles (20.2%; 99% CI, 14.0%-26.4%), and penicillins (18.9%; 99% CI, 11.6%-26.2%). In NAMCS/NHAMCS, antibiotic prescribing was least frequent in emergency departments (10.8%; 99% CI, 9.5%-12.1%). Among 1,868,465 MarketScan AGE visits, antibiotics were prescribed for 13.8% (95% CI, 13.7%-13.8%), most commonly for Yersinia (46.7%; 95% CI, 21.4%-71.9%), Campylobacter (44.8%; 95% CI, 41.5%-48.1%), Shigella (39.7%; 95% CI, 35.9%-43.6%), typhoid or paratyphoid fever (32.7%; (95% CI, 27.2%-38.3%), and nontyphoidal Salmonella (31.7%; 95% CI, 29.5%-33.9%). Antibiotics were prescribed for 12.3% (95% CI, 11.7%-13.0%) of visits for viral gastroenteritis. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, ∼13% of AGE visits resulted in antibiotic prescriptions. Antibiotics were unnecessarily prescribed for viral gastroenteritis and some bacterial infections for which antibiotics are not recommended. Antibiotic stewardship assessments and interventions for AGE are needed in ambulatory settings

Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to improve the health and social care and wellbeing of minoritised ethnic groups with chronic conditions or impairments: protocol for the mixed methods intersectional asset-based study CICADA

BACKGROUND: The pandemic has inequitably impacted the experiences of people living with ill health/impairments or from minoritised ethnic groups across all areas of life. Given possible parallels in inequities for disabled people and people from minoritised ethnic backgrounds, their existence before the pandemic and increase since, and the discriminations that each group faces, our interest is in understanding the interplay between being disabled AND being from a minoritised ethnic group. OBJECTIVE: The overarching aim of the CICADA project, building on this understanding, is to improve pandemic and longer-term support networks and access to and experiences of care, services and resources for these under-served groups, both during the pandemic and longer term, reducing inequities and enhancing social, health and wellbeing outcomes. METHODS: This mixed methods study involves three 'sweeps' of a new UK survey, secondary analyses of existing cohort and panel surveys, a rapid scoping review, a more granular review, and qualitative insights from over 200 semi-structured interviews including social network/map/photo elicitation methods, and two subsequent sets of remote participatory research workshops. Separate stakeholder co-creation meetings, running through the study, will develop analyses and outputs. Our longitudinal study design enables us to explore significant relationships between variables in the survey data we collect, and also changes in variables with time, including consideration of varying pandemic contexts. The qualitative data will provide more granular detail. We will take a strengths and assets-based approach, underpinned by the social model of disability and by intersectional considerations, to challenge discrimination. Our exploration of the social determinants of health and wellbeing is framed by the social ecological model. RESULTS: The CICADA project was funded by the Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in March 2021 and began in May 2021. Further work within the project (84 interviews) was commissioned in March 2022, focussing on mental health specifically in North-East England, Greater Manchester and the North-West Coast. Data collection began in August 2021, with the last participants due to be recruited in September 2022. As of January 2022, 5,792 survey respondents and 227 interviewees had provided data. From April 2022, the time of article submission, we will recruit participants for the sub-study and wave 2 of the surveys and qualitative work. We expect results to be published by winter 2022. CONCLUSIONS: In studying the experiences of disabled people with impairments and those living with chronic conditions who come from certain minoritised ethnic groups, we are aiming for transformative research to improve their health and wellbeing. CLINICALTRIAL: INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT: DERR1-10.2196/38361

Dyadic perspectives on loneliness and social isolation among people with dementia and spousal carers: findings from the IDEAL programme

YesThis study aims to investigate the impact of self and partner experiences of loneliness and social isolation on life satisfaction in people with dementia and their spousal carers. We used data from 1042 dementia caregiving dyads in the Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life (IDEAL) programme cohort. Loneliness was measured using the six-item De Jong Gierveld loneliness scale and social isolation using the six-item Lubben Social Network Scale. Data were analysed using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model framework. Self-rated loneliness was associated with poorer life satisfaction for both people with dementia and carers. The initial partner effects observed between the loneliness of the carer and the life satisfaction of the person with dementia and between social isolation reported by the person with dementia and life satisfaction of the carer were reduced to nonsignificance once the quality of the relationship between them was considered. Experiencing greater loneliness and social isolation is linked with reduced life satisfaction for people with dementia and carers. However, having a positive view of the quality of the relationship between them reduced the impact of loneliness and social isolation on life satisfaction. Findings suggest the need to consider the experiences of both the person with dementia and the carer when investigating the impact of loneliness and social isolation. Individual interventions to mitigate loneliness or isolation may enhance life satisfaction for both partners and not simply the intervention recipient.‘Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life: living well with dementia. The IDEAL study’ was funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through grant ES/L001853/2. ‘Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life: a longitudinal perspective on living well with dementia. The IDEAL-2 study’ is funded by Alzheimer’s Society, grant number 348, AS-PR2-16- 001

TESS Discovery of an ultra-short-period planet around the nearby M dwarf LHS 3844

Data from the newly-commissioned \textit{Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite} (TESS) has revealed a "hot Earth" around LHS 3844, an M dwarf located 15 pc away. The planet has a radius of $1.32\pm 0.02$ $R_\oplus$ and orbits the star every 11 hours. Although the existence of an atmosphere around such a strongly irradiated planet is questionable, the star is bright enough ($I=11.9$, $K=9.1$) for this possibility to be investigated with transit and occultation spectroscopy. The star's brightness and the planet's short period will also facilitate the measurement of the planet's mass through Doppler spectroscopy.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to ApJ Letters. This letter makes use of the TESS Alert data, which is currently in a beta test phase, using data from the pipelines at the TESS Science Office and at the TESS Science Processing Operations Cente

Demystifying academics to enhance university-business collaborations in environmental science

In countries globally there is intense political interest in fostering effective university-business collaborations, but there has been scant attention devoted to exactly how an individual scientist's workload (i.e. specified tasks) and incentive structures (i.e. assessment criteria) may act as a key barrier to this. To investigate this an original, empirical dataset is derived from UK job specifications and promotion criteria, which distil universities' varied drivers into requirements upon academics. This work reveals the nature of the severe challenge posed by a heavily time-constrained culture; specifically, tension exists between opportunities presented by working with business and non-optional duties (e.g. administration and teaching). Thus, to justify the time to work with business, such work must inspire curiosity and facilitate future novel science in order to mitigate its conflict with the overriding imperative for academics to publish. It must also provide evidence of real-world changes (i.e. impact), and ideally other reportable outcomes (e.g. official status as a business' advisor), to feed back into the scientist's performance appraisals. Indicatively, amid 20-50 key duties, typical full-time scientists may be able to free up to 0.5 day per week for work with business. Thus specific, pragmatic actions, including short-term and time-efficient steps, are proposed in a "user guide"to help initiate and nurture a long-term collaboration between an early- to mid-career environmental scientist and a practitioner in the insurance sector. These actions are mapped back to a tailored typology of impact and a newly created representative set of appraisal criteria to explain how they may be effective, mutually beneficial and overcome barriers. Throughout, the focus is on environmental science, with illustrative detail provided through the example of natural hazard risk modelling in the insurance sector. However, a new conceptual model of academics' behaviour is developed, fusing perspectives from literature on academics' motivations and performance assessment, which we propose is internationally applicable and transferable between sectors. Sector-specific details (e.g. list of relevant impacts and user guide) may serve as templates for how people may act differently to work more effectively together

Myths and Methodologies:Standardisation in human physiology research—should we control the controllables?

The premise of research in human physiology is to explore a multifaceted system whilst identifying one or a few outcomes of interest. Therefore, the control of potentially confounding variables requires careful thought regarding the extent of control and complexity of standardisation. One common factor to control prior to testing is diet, as food and fluid provision may deviate from participants’ habitual diets, yet a self‐report and replication method can be flawed by under‐reporting. Researchers may also need to consider standardisation of physical activity, whether it be through familiarisation trials, wash‐out periods, or guidance on levels of physical activity to be achieved before trials. In terms of pharmacological agents, the ethical implications of standardisation require researchers to carefully consider how medications, caffeine consumption and oral contraceptive prescriptions may affect the study. For research in females, it should be considered whether standardisation between‐ or within‐participants in regards to menstrual cycle phase is most relevant. The timing of measurements relative to various other daily events is relevant to all physiological research and so it can be important to standardise when measurements are made. This review summarises the areas of standardisation which we hope will be considered useful to anyone involved in human physiology research, including when and how one can apply standardisation to various contexts

Clinical management guidelines for Friedreich ataxia : best practice in rare diseases

BACKGROUND: Individuals with Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) can find it difficult to access specialized clinical care. To facilitate best practice in delivering healthcare for FRDA, clinical management guidelines (CMGs) were developed in 2014. However, the lack of high-certainty evidence and the inadequacy of accepted metrics to measure health status continues to present challenges in FRDA and other rare diseases. To overcome these challenges, the Grading of Recommendations Assessment and Evaluation (GRADE) framework for rare diseases developed by the RARE-Bestpractices Working Group was adopted to update the clinical guidelines for FRDA. This approach incorporates additional strategies to the GRADE framework to support the strength of recommendations, such as review of literature in similar conditions, the systematic collection of expert opinion and patient perceptions, and use of natural history data. METHODS: A panel representing international clinical experts, stakeholders and consumer groups provided oversight to guideline development within the GRADE framework. Invited expert authors generated the Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome (PICO) questions to guide the literature search (2014 to June 2020). Evidence profiles in tandem with feedback from individuals living with FRDA, natural history registry data and expert clinical observations contributed to the final recommendations. Authors also developed best practice statements for clinical care points that were considered self-evident or were not amenable to the GRADE process. RESULTS: Seventy clinical experts contributed to fifteen topic-specific chapters with clinical recommendations and/or best practice statements. New topics since 2014 include emergency medicine, digital and assistive technologies and a stand-alone section on mental health. Evidence was evaluated according to GRADE criteria and 130 new recommendations and 95 best practice statements were generated. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Evidence-based CMGs are required to ensure the best clinical care for people with FRDA. Adopting the GRADE rare-disease framework enabled the development of higher quality CMGs for FRDA and allows individual topics to be updated as new evidence emerges. While the primary goal of these guidelines is better outcomes for people living with FRDA, the process of developing the guidelines may also help inform the development of clinical guidelines in other rare diseases