Antiracist Teaching Self-Efficacy: A Case Study Needs Analysis

There is an urgent need to address racial inequity in higher education. As teaching in higher education continues to adopt technology, virtual learning spaces become sites for enacting anti-oppressive teaching methods. In the context of offering teaching with technology professional development, the current study sought to better understand equity-focused professional development needs through the lens of antiracist teaching self-efficacy. In this holistic single case study, investigators analyzed secondary data from an anonymous racial equity needs analysis survey and de-identified focus group notes. Descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis examined perceived confidence level, barriers, and needs related to implementation of antiracist teaching methods in higher education courses in a Midwestern public university with 15,000 students. Key findings include: (1) There were approximately the same number of items coded for negative (N=24) and positive (N=25) sources of teaching self-efficacy, with positive sources of efficacy cross-coded with themes such as culturally responsive teaching, collaboration, and antiracist teaching and negative sources of efficacy cross-coded with non-racist teaching methods among other codes. (2) Barriers to implementing antiracist teaching included organizational factors (such as time, competing priorities, and perceived barriers to measuring/accessing course equity data), professional development design/facilitation (such as lack of modeling methods, practice and feedback, and ongoing support), and perceptions/beliefs (including mismatch of expressed beliefs and antiracist teaching praxis, among others). (3) Professional development needs include addressing identified barriers and differentiation/customization of professional learning. This case study investigation is not generalizable to other contexts or audiences but may be a useful model for similar research in other contexts. As technology did not emerge as a theme in this data, future research in this area should explore the role of technology in enacting antiracist teaching methods

Nurses’ and Patients’ Perceptions of the Availability of Post-hospital Instrumental Support as a Predictor of 30- And 60-Day Acute Care Utilization

Social support is now part of the social determinants of health objective in Healthy People 2030. Positive social support improves health and well-being. Social support is concerned with people having the support they need within the community, including interacting and communicating with others on a regular basis. Instrumental support is a type of social support that is action oriented, involving one person directly assisting another person. A concept analysis of instrumental support was completed and revealed that the concept is well defined, but the terms used to describe it vary. Other terms in the research literature, most commonly “tangible support”, are used in the same context as “instrumental support”. In addition, tangible support and instrumental support were used interchangeably by some researchers. However, “instrumental support” is the most common term used in the health-related research literature and has been identified as essential for people recovering at home after a hospitalization. A lack of instrumental support has been linked to an increased risk of hospital readmission. A scoping review completed on the topic of social support and hospital readmissions identified instrumental support as the specific type of social support needed by people after a hospital stay. Nurses spend time interacting with patients and their family members in the acute care setting. They assess the post-discharge needs of the patient as well as the potential ability of the caregiver to provide needed help at home after discharge. Using data from an ongoing study of patient readiness for hospital discharge, we used responses to two items on the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Survey (RHDS) to assess nurses’ and v patients’ perceptions of the potential instrumental support the patient would have at home after discharge. Findings revealed that nurses, as compared to patients, perceived patients would have less instrumental support after discharge. In addition, findings revealed that nurses’ perceptions of the amount of support the patient would have at home were related to subsequent acute care utilization whereas patients’ perceptions of expected support were not related to subsequent utilization in most cases. When there was a relationship between patients’ perceptions of expected support and subsequent acute care utilization, it was in the wrong direction such that perceptions of more available support were related to more acute care use following the initial hospital discharge. Instrumental support is an important element of hospital to home care transitions. Accurate ways to assess it during the discharge planning process are needed, and patients and caregivers are critical members of the team planning for care beyond the hospital setting

Development and Pilot of the Caregiver Strategies Inventory

Children with autism spectrum disorder often demonstrate unusual behavioral responses to sensory stimuli (i.e., sensory features). To manage everyday activities, caregivers may implement strategies to address these features during family routines. However, investigation of specific strategies used by caregivers is limited by the lack of empirically developed measures. In this study, we describe the development and pilot results of the Caregiver Strategies Inventory (CSI), a supplement to the Sensory Experiences Questionnaire Version 3.0 (SEQ 3.0; Baranek, 2009) that measures caregivers’ strategies in response to their children’s sensory features. Three conceptually derived and empirically grounded strategy types were tested: cognitive–behavioral, sensory–perceptual, and avoidance. Results indicated that the CSI demonstrated good internal consistency and that strategy use was related to child age and cognition. Moreover, parent feedback after completing the CSI supported its utility and social validity. The CSI may be used alongside the SEQ 3.0 to facilitate a family-centered approach to assessment and intervention planning

Child and Family Characteristics Influencing Intervention Choices in Autism Spectrum Disorders

A myriad of treatment options are available for children with autism, yet little is understood regarding characteristics of parents (e.g., education) and children (e.g., severity of autism symptoms) that influence types and amounts of therapy utilization. Interviews from 70 families were analyzed to determine potential influences on utilization (e.g., start of first services, use of traditional services). Descriptive findings regarding therapy types were similar to national studies. However, only three of the variables predicted utilization of specific therapies: severity of sensory processing problems was associated with earlier initiation of services in general, and higher maternal and paternal education was associated with the use of dietary and/or vitamin therapy as well as with more types of services. No other variables had predictive value; thus, the amount and type of therapies received may be more related to diagnostic practices and/or to the affordances/constraints of service delivery and reimbursement systems at particular ages

Observational Characterization of Sensory Interests, Repetitions, and Seeking Behaviors

Sensory interests, repetitions, and seeking behaviors (SIRS) are common among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities (DD) and involve unusual actions that intensify or reinforce a sensory experience. Researchers and practitioners typically use parent-report measures or informal clinical observations to understand the presence and nature of SIRS. In this study, we used a scoring supplement to the Sensory Processing Assessment for Young Children, an observational measure, to characterize SIRS across three groups of children—those with ASD (n = 40), DD (n = 37), and typical development (n = 39). Group differences were identified in frequency and intensity of overall SIRS, complexity of SIRS, and incidence of particular types of SIRS (i.e., posturing, sighting, proprioceptive seeking, spinning). Facial affect was also explored and found to be primarily neutral during engagement in SIRS across groups. Implications for practice and future research are discussed

Patterns of mtDNA Diversity in Northwestern North America

The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups of 54 full-blooded modern and 64 ancient Native Americans from northwestern North America were determined. The control regions of 10 modern and 30 ancient individuals were sequenced and compared. Within the Northwest, the frequency distribution for haplogroup A is geographically structured, with haplogroup A decreasing with distance from the Pacific Coast. The haplogroup A distribution suggests that a prehistoric population intrusion from the subarctic and coastal region occurred on the Columbia Plateau in prehistoric times. Overall, the mtDNA pattern in the Northwest suggests significant amounts of gene flow among Northwest Coast, Columbia Plateau, and Great Basin populations

Clinical resistance to crenolanib in acute myeloid leukemia due to diverse molecular mechanisms.

FLT3 mutations are prevalent in AML patients and confer poor prognosis. Crenolanib, a potent type I pan-FLT3 inhibitor, is effective against both internal tandem duplications and resistance-conferring tyrosine kinase domain mutations. While crenolanib monotherapy has demonstrated clinical benefit in heavily pretreated relapsed/refractory AML patients, responses are transient and relapse eventually occurs. Here, to investigate the mechanisms of crenolanib resistance, we perform whole exome sequencing of AML patient samples before and after crenolanib treatment. Unlike other FLT3 inhibitors, crenolanib does not induce FLT3 secondary mutations, and mutations of the FLT3 gatekeeper residue are infrequent. Instead, mutations of NRAS and IDH2 arise, mostly as FLT3-independent subclones, while TET2 and IDH1 predominantly co-occur with FLT3-mutant clones and are enriched in crenolanib poor-responders. The remaining patients exhibit post-crenolanib expansion of mutations associated with epigenetic regulators, transcription factors, and cohesion factors, suggesting diverse genetic/epigenetic mechanisms of crenolanib resistance. Drug combinations in experimental models restore crenolanib sensitivity.This work was supported in part by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Beat AML Program, the V Foundation for Cancer Research, the Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research and the National Cancer Institute (1R01CA183947–01; 1U01CA217862–01; 1U54CA224019-01; 3P30CA069533-18S5). H.Z. received a Collins Medical Trust research grant. S.D.B. was supported by the National Cancer Institute (5R01CA138744-08)

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN