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Early Childhood Education in Global Society: Who Are We Missing?
No full textThis article was originally published in Childhood Education. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2026.2617102
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Childhood Education on 29 Jan 2026, available at:https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2026.2617102.
© 2026 Childhood Education International
This article is embargoed until July 29, 2027This paper explores the overlooked population in early childhood education (ECE) in global society: refugee children, and children/families experiencing homelessness. As part of global political shifts, the world has witnessed the increasing presence of vulnerable populations—including immigrants, refugees, and children and families experiencing homelessness. I present the status of refugee population and families experiencing homelessness and its implication for early childhood educators. The paper advocates for a global, justice-oriented approach to ECE, emphasizing compassion, empathy, and the importance of play-based education for vulnerable children. It calls for a shift from advocacy to activist research, urging professionals to engage with marginalized communities to co-create inclusive educational practices and policies. The future of ECE depends on who we choose to include—and support
Characterization of bubble mobility during flow through fibrous porous media
No full textThis article was originally published in Experimental and computational multiphase flow. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42757-024-0219-9
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Multiphase flow through porous media is a common phenomenon during the processing of composite materials in which viscous liquid thermoset resin containing small bubbles due to entrapped air is injected into reinforcing porous fibrous media. The composite part is formed once the resin cures. Entrapped bubbles cause porosity, which is characteristic of materials fabricated by this technique and results in reduced mechanical properties. Hence, the reduction in porosity during the processing stage remains a critical issue. To investigate this, an experimental study was conducted to characterize the movement of bubbles within the pore network of the fabric’s weave architecture representing the porous media. Bubble dynamics, as the simulated resin impregnated the fibrous network, were observed in transparent molds for three fabric architectures, with bubble diameter and velocity being measured as they traversed through the fabric. A dimensionless number is introduced to correlate the fabric weave architecture to the bubble size, revealing that higher bubble mobility (indicating how fast the bubble moves compared to the pore averaged resin velocity) is observed in tighter weaves and with larger bubbles. To predict bubble mobility based on bubble size and fabric weave, two physics-based models are introduced. The predicted results are compared with the experimental data, facilitating void minimization by regulating bubble mobility.The present work is funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Award No. 2023323, which is gratefully acknowledged by the authors
Brain ECM-mimetic hydrogel platform to investigate cellular and extracellular dynamics in the early metastatic niche of triple-negative breast cancer
No full textSlater, John H.Brain metastasis of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) rapidly progresses, causing severe neurological decline with a median survival of less than 6 months. This tragic disease is often difficult to identify with sufficient time for treatment and is exacerbated by a lack of effective pharmacological intervention. Replicating the biochemical and mechanical properties of the pre-metastatic niche in vitro is a critical step in expediting the development of new therapeutics. However, a high fidelity and reproducible model system is needed. In an effort to develop a model to simulate the adhesion signaling and cell to cell communication present in the pre-metastatic brain, we produced and characterized an in vitro, PEG based hydrogel and co-culture method to evaluate the cellular and extracellular dynamics of early cancer colonization. ☐ To quantify the influence of a brain-mimetic microenvironment on brain metastatic TNBC, we encapsulated and cultured the TNBC cell line, MDA-MB-231 (P231), and its braintropic subline MDA-MB-231-BrM2a-831 (BrM2a), in three premetastatic niches: a highly cell adhesive and highly cell degradable permissive niche, a highly adhesive but less degradable niche, and a non-adhesive but highly degradable niche. To mimic brain ECM, we functionalized the adhesive formulations with a brain-mimetic peptide cocktail and compared the cell responses to a ‘generic’ RGDS-only functionalization. This suite of conditions allowed us to investigate the influence of integrin-mediated adhesion, cell-mediated degradation, and cell type on the fate of P231s and BrM2as. By quantifying viability, viable cell density, apoptosis, proliferation, and morphology we demonstrate that brain-mimetic adhesion has little to no impact on P231 phenotype, but the BrM2as display reduced viable cell density, reduced proliferation, and a higher proportion of both spherical clusters and spherical individual cells compared to the generic RGDS-functionalized niches. ☐ With the demonstrated impact of brain-mimetic adhesion on brain preferential cells, we implemented the brain-mimetic functionalization to characterize the cellular response of cell native to the central nervous system. Primary human astrocytes and iPSC derived neural progenitor cells (NPC) were encapsulated and evaluated. In the astrocytes these metrics show modest differences between the brain-mimetic and RGDS functionalizations with reduced apoptosis in the brain permissive formulation. Both permissive formulations showed high viability and a larger portion of elongated cells than the adhesion restricted formulation. This shows that in monoculture, the astrocytes require ECM adhesion signaling to survive well but the diversity of the brain mimetic functionalization aids in reducing apoptosis. The iPSC derived NPCs were encapsulated in the brain mimetic permissive formulation as either single cells or spheres and differentiated toward forebrain neurons. Both seeding conditions produce clusters with robust neurite/axonal extension with the enlarged size of the spheres allowing extension across the surface of the hydrogel and the single cell encapsulated samples show projections that are more subdued in length but far more numerous. This demonstrates the compatibility of the brain-mimetic permissive formulation to cultivate complex neuronal cultures and further replicate the environment of the brain. ☐ Having characterized the baseline response of astrocytes and BrM2as, we proceeded to evaluate them in coculture. Similar to the astrocyte mono-culture, the difference between the brain-mimetic and RGDS functionalization was slight, with the brain permissive formulation producing a greater proportion of elongated clusters. To closer examine the protein expression differences induced by these culture conditions, proteomics analysis was performed. This analysis revealed coculture samples encapsulated in the brain mimetic permissive formulation have significant changes to structural and regulatory ECM expression as well as secreted immune signaling factors. Taken together these studies present a well characterized brain mimetic hydrogel platform to cultivate central nervous system cells and provide a tool to investigate brain metastatic cancer in a tissue relevant context. Future implementation of this platform could be to model other cancers that frequently metastasize to the brain and investigate the mechanisms involved in cancer progression and response of the native cell population.University of Delaware, Department of Biomedical EngineeringPh.D
Supports for preservice teachers' metacognitive monitoring and explanations of fraction comparisons
No full textThis article was originally published in Instructional Science . The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-025-09773-0
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 275.9 kb)
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11251-025-09773-0/MediaObjects/11251_2025_9773_MOESM1_ESM.docxThe ability to provide clear and comprehensive instructional explanations on mathematical concepts is key to supporting student learning in the classroom. This is especially important when teaching content that students most often struggle with. A large body of literature has established the challenges that elementary students face with developing fraction magnitude concepts. More recent work points to the struggles that both pre- and in-service teachers have with fraction magnitude. Though much work exists on interventions for students in supporting their fraction understanding, there is a dearth of literature on how to support teachers’ provisions of high quality explanations. We designed and evaluated the effectiveness of three instructional supports on elementary pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) revision and improvements of their explanations of fraction concepts. We also examined their metacognitive monitoring and calibration skills as they relate to the revision process. Elementary PSTs were instructed to identify the larger of two fractions and then explain and justify their choice. They had an opportunity to revise after examining different instructional supports depending on their condition. We found that PSTs who were provided with instructional supports that provided a correct and complete exemplar of a fraction magnitude comparison showed greater improvements in their explanations than those who studied example explanations that displayed common misconceptions and errors. Correct and complete exemplars also supported greater detection and correction of errors and omissions in their explanations than those provided with a list of steps focused on structural aspects of the explanation. Hedges’ g effect sizes ranged from medium to large (g = 0.64 to 0.95) for the three comparison tasks. Most PSTs also showed limitations in calibration, indicating over-confidence in the degree of completeness of their explanations at both time points. These findings can inform instructional materials design for pre-service teacher mathematics content courses as they learn how to monitor their own thinking and explain fraction comparisons to students.This work was not grant-funded
Teacher and school predictors of middle school educators’ self-efficacy for instructing in culturally diverse classrooms
No full textThis is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development on January 19th, 2026, available at: https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.192113\
This article was originally published in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.192113\
This article will be embargoed until July 19, 2027Despite increasing student diversity in U.S. schools, there is a dearth of large-scale quantitative research revealing predictors of teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching in culturally diverse (CD) classrooms. This study addresses this gap by identifying key predictors of U.S. middle school educators’ CD teaching self-efficacy using large-scale multi-site data from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). We analyzed unweighted responses from 2,560 teachers across 165 schools using mixed-effects multilevel modeling. Survey items reflected teachers’ demographics, professional learning experiences, beliefs, and school-level diversity practices. Final results indicated that educators’ teaching experience, percentage of English learners (ELs), in-service training focused on culturally diverse (CD) learners, frequency of collaborative professional learning, CD-focused teaching preparation, CD-specific professional development (PD) need, and school’s diversity practices significantly predicted CD teaching self-efficacy. Except for teaching experience and PD need, all significant predictors showed positive associations with the outcome. Findings suggest that fostering CD teaching self-efficacy may require more than general teaching support, which should be equally given to educators, regardless of teaching experience and number of ELs taught. Further, sustained CD-focused in-service PD, collaborative professional learning, and school’s diversity practices are crucial. This study concludes with important implications for research, practice, and policy.This work was funded by the NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD; R03HD104051], Spencer Foundation [grant number 202200122], University of Delaware Research Foundation Strategic Initiative (UDRF-SI) Grant, and the University of Delaware College of Education and Human Development Faculty Start-Up Funds
Associations Between LGBTQIA+ Personal and Social Identity Dimensions and Well-Being in an International Sample of Autistic Adolescents and Adults
No full textThis article was originally published in Autism in Adulthood. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/25739581261419378Background: Sexual and gender diversity is greater in Autistic populations than in non-autistic populations, yet little research has been conducted to understand what resources related to sexual and gender identity may promote well-being and flourishing among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) Autistic people. We characterized sample sexual and gender diversity and tested associations of LGBTQIA+ personal and social identity dimensions with well-being outcomes using a strengths-based approach.
Methods: Using a subsample of Autistic participants (n=98; ages 16–54) of the Queer Joy Project conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States (2023-2024), linear regression tested associations between LGBTQIA+ identity dimensions (centrality, cognitive clarity, affective pride, behavioral engagement, and interpersonal closeness) and holistic well-being, flourishing, and life satisfaction.
Results: The sample was 72% transgender, 40% non-binary, 33% asexual spectrum, and 26% Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. LGBTQIA+ personal and social identity dimensions significantly predicted well-being (β=0.30), flourishing (βs=0.25-0.40), and life satisfaction (βs=0.30-39). Behavioral engagement with LGBTQIA+ people, community, and culture, a social identity dimension, was the strongest and most consistent predictor of well-being outcomes. Well-being outcomes were lower among participants who were asexual or experiencing economic insecurity.
Conclusion: Facilitating personal sexual and gender identity development and integration and connection with LGBTQIA+ others may be important processes for promoting and supporting well-being and flourishing for LGBTQIA+ Autistic people. Services and programming for Autistic adolescents and adults should be attuned to the unique needs of LGBTQIA+ Autistic adolescents and adults and the opportunities for promoting well-being through facilitation of LGBTQIA+ identity development and social connections.Funding for this research was provided by the Massey University School of Psychology Postgraduate Research Fund and by the University of Delaware College of Education and Human Development
Numerical modeling of electrochemical transport and discharge mechanisms in hierarchically porous lithium-ion electrodes
No full textThis article was originally published in [Journal Name]. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1039/D5MA00902B
This Open Access Article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported Licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society of ChemistryHierarchical porous microstructures are promising candidates for lithium battery electrodes that maintain capacity and specific energy at high charging and discharging rates. The electrolyte channels embedded in these structures facilitate Li transport throughout the active material such that the accessible capacity is enhanced. We performed numerical simulations of the discharge process for four modeled electrode structures in order to investigate the impact of the size of electrolyte channels on the electrochemical performance. The results show that the size ratio of the electrolyte channels and active materials columns determines the discharge characteristics of hierarchical porous electrodes. Depending on the size ratio, electrodes discharge from the separator side and the current collector simultaneously which can enhance the accessible capacity and specific energy. The results from our simulations can aid in designing tailored hierarchical porous electrode structures for fabrication of electrodes with enhanced capacity and rate capability.The authors would like to thank Dr. Milad Azami-Ghadkolai and Prof. Steve Creager for insightful discussions. We also thank Prof. Creager for generously providing access to the COMSOL Battery Design Module. Clemson University is acknowledged for a generous allotment of computer time on the Palmetto cluster. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under award numbers OIA-1655740 and DMR-2119833, and the SC EPSCoR Program under award 20-GE05. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation nor the views of the SC EPSCoR Program
Focal spot mitigation with dynamic sampling conditions for high-resolution X-ray CT via diffusion priors
No full textThis article was originally published in Optics Express. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.581152
Some authors, as a condition of their funding, must publish their work under a Creative Commons license. We therefore offer a CC BY license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for authors who indicate that their work is funded by agencies that we have confirmed have this requirement. Authors must enter their funder(s) during the manuscript submission process. At that point, if appropriate, the CC BY license option will be available to select for an additional fee.High-resolution imaging in clinical X-ray CT is essential for accurate diagnosis, yet its performance is constrained by focal spot dynamics, which dominate image degradation under modern detector technology and low-dose acquisition protocols. We introduce dynamic focal spot diffusion CT (DFSD-CT), a reconstruction framework that jointly estimates both the tomographic image and the stochastic, time-varying focal spot profile. By leveraging a conditional forward operator integrated with a generative diffusion prior, DFSD-CT accounts for instantaneous and view-dependent source distortions, eliminating reliance on post hoc deblurring. Experiments with varied anatomical regions and challenging sampling conditions demonstrate improved modulation transfer function (MTF) and reconstruction fidelity by up to 3 dB with respect to state-of-the-art diffusion algorithms, narrowing the resolution gap between clinical and micro-CT imaging in low-dose settings, and thus offering a pathway toward enhanced diagnostic accuracy while maintaining safe radiation levels
Populism talks: contemporary drivers of the decline in global climate change cooperation
No full textBagozzi, Benjamin E.The issue of climate change has been annually negotiated at the international level under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for well over 25 years. Yet, and despite this quarter century of continuous, and robust negotiation, international climate change negotiations not only have repeatedly fallen short in reaching a comprehensive climate change agreement but have also worsened in their cooperative progress. What explains the ever-increasing gap between routine negotiation over climate change agreements and nation-states’ (in)abilities to reach effective and timely agreements on climate change? To answer this question, I posit that the recent global rise of populism has adversely influenced states’ abilities to reach international climate change agreements. To test this proposition, I first apply a Structural Topic Model to UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COPs) speeches from the 16th COPs to the 25th COPs, as made by high-level country representatives. After extracting 25 topics from the speeches, I evaluate whether populist heads-of-state influence certain countries to negotiate over climate change in unique manners. I then pair this automated text analysis with qualitative case studies and a quantitative analysis of actual policy outcomes (i.e., annual changes in CO2 emissions and renewable energy consumption). In each respect, I find that in most cases populist leaders express and exhibit less supportive stances towards climate change cooperation in favor of greater anti-elitism, isolationism, and sovereignty-reinforcing stances, priorities, and policy outcomes. However, I find that the presence of right-wing populist leaders does not affect countries’ level of CO2 emissions, whereas the presence of right-wing populist leaders is associated with a decrease in a country’s renewable energy consumption as a percentage of total energy consumption. I also found that right-wing populist leaders lack in the implementation of effective environmental policies that will benefit the country in the long run.University of Delaware, Department of Political Science and International RelationsPh.D