22689 research outputs found
Sort by
Self-Regulation in Addressing Math Anxiety in High-Achieving Students in an Affluent Asian American Community
Get PDFAdolescent learners in a high-achieving school in an affluent, predominantly Asian, and Asian American community in a suburb of Silicon Valley, California, face a myriad of stressors and challenges impacting their math achievement. Existing literature suggests parenting styles, ability-grouping practices, and self-beliefs including math anxiety are a few of the salient factors impacting adolescents’ math achievement. A mixed methods needs assessment was conducted to understand the portrait of a struggling math student through the lens of 16 teachers using a mixed methods design. Results indicated divergent beliefs surrounding math education and a sense of pressure for children to take advanced math classes. Self-regulatory interventions such as mindfulness exercises have been shown to reduce math anxiety. Expressive writing was used as an intervention on math anxiety in 69 7th-grade students in a mixed methods convergent parallel intermittent time series design. Parents (N=16) were interviewed to provide insight on their children’s math learning experiences. Students’ math anxiety levels were not significantly related to the expressive writing. Students’ writing content included themes of parents’ expectations, peer relations, perceptions of math teachers and classrooms, and reflections around math anxiety. A range of themes also appeared in parent interviews including parents’ experiences with schooling in other countries, navigating their children’s school system, and emphasizing performance, well-being, and/or effort in their children. Further research examining antecedents to math anxiety and additional interventions to reduce math anxiety are suggested
Teaching For Creativity and Teaching Creatively: Creative Mindsets, Self Concept, Teaching Efficacy, And Intellectual Risk Taking
Get PDFThe focus of this mixed methods study was to explore the construct of creativity in the context of K–12 education and address how teachers understand and, in turn, cultivate or impede creativity in instructional practice. The researcher developed a professional development and community of practice website that engaged teachers with concepts associated with creativity via the learning sciences and instructional methodologies through reflection and interactive discussion. A convergent parallel mixed methods study design was used to evaluate how participants define creativity and view and value their (a) willingness to take intellectual risks, (b) creative self-efficacy, (c) creative personal identity, and (d) creative teaching efficacy before and after participation in CoP interactions and PD in learning sciences and instructional methodologies associated with IRT and influenced. The findings demonstrated positive shifts across all constructs. Participants were generally excited about newly constructed ideas of themselves as being creative, informed by learning science research, and how they could teach for creativity by cultivating learning environments that allow room for intellectual risk-taking, idea exchange, and information processing. Furthermore, teachers were excited to facilitate discussions with their students to help them situate themselves within the context of this valued construct
Assessing the Role and Regulatory Impact of Digital Assets in Decentralizing Finance
Get PDFThis project will explore the development of decentralized financial (DeFi) markets since the first introduction of digital assets created through the application of a form of distributed ledger technology (DLT), known as blockchain, in 2008. More specifically, a qualitative inquiry of the role of digital assets in relation to traditional financial markets infrastructure will be conducted in order to answer the following questions:
(i) can the digital asset and decentralized financial markets examined in this thesis co-exist with traditional assets and financial markets, and, if so,
(ii) are traditional or novel forms of regulation (whether financial or otherwise) needed or desirable for the digital asset and decentralized financial markets examined herein?
The aim of this project will be to challenge a preliminary hypothesis that traditional and decentralized finance can be compatible; provided, that governments and other centralized authorities approach market innovations as an opportunity to improve existing monetary infrastructure and delivery of financial services (both in the public and private sector), rather than as an existential threat. Thus, this thesis seeks to establish that, through collaborating with private markets to identify the public good to which DeFi markets contribute, the public sector can foster an appropriate environment which is both promotive and protective of the public interest without unduly stifling innovation and progress
Exploring the Impact of Patient Race on Cancer Genetic Counselors’ Use of Polygenic Risk Scores for Risk Assessments and Prevention Strategy Discussions
No full textBackground: Polygenic risk scores (PRS) are clinically available for risk stratification to guide prevention and screening management in oncology, but the impact of PRS on genetic counselors’ clinical judgments remains unknown. Most data used to generate PRS come from populations of European descent, raising concerns about the contribution of PRS to existing health disparities. The conflation of race, a social construct, with ancestry, a biological construct, adds to the complication and confusion of the information carried by race in clinical genomics.
Method: A randomized trial was conducted to explore the influence of patient race and provision of PRS on risk assessments and management decisions. From June to July 2023, 170 cancer genetic counselors were presented with one of two sets of vignettes of cancer genetic counseling via an online survey, using breast cancer as the example, with the only difference of patient race (White vs Black).
Results: PRS that elevated or lowered risk relative to the standard of care model, Tyrer-Cuzick, were associated with corresponding increases and decreases in risk assessments and levels of support for prevention strategies, respectively. Patient race did not impact pre- and post-PRS assessment or levels of support for prevention strategies except for prophylactic mastectomy. Few genetic counselors recommended prophylactic mastectomy, but some genetic counselors were slightly more likely to recommend prophylactic mastectomy to Black rather than White patients regardless of whether PRS predicted higher or lower lifetime risk than Tyrer-Cuzick model, but the statistically significant differences have complex patterns. Participants with higher ratings of confidence and beliefs of the utility of PRS were more likely to change their risk assessments and level of support for prevention strategies after access to PRS information.
Conclusions: It is critically important to further investigate how PRS influence the interpretation of risk and clinical management and to demonstrate the clinical utility prior to widespread adoption. This study emphasizes the need to inform considerations for the development of PRS educational resources, practice guidelines, and workforce preparation
Personalized Cardiac Arrhythmia Treatment and Risk Stratification in Patients with Ischemic and Non-Ischemic Cardiomyopathies
Get PDFCardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality around the world. Many of these deaths result from abnormal heart rhythms, or arrhythmias, including ventricular tachycardia (VT). Effective treatments and preventative measures for VT include prophylactic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapy, invasive catheter radiofrequency ablation (RFA), and anti-arrhythmic drugs (AADs). However, ICD therapy comes with a significant risk of adverse events, RFA is not effective or tolerable for all patients, and AADs can be pro-arrhytmic. For many patient populations, it is unknown how to identify the patients at highest risk for arrhythmia and other adverse cardiac events, and it is difficult to predict how each patient will respond to therapy.
In recent years, multi-scale (i.e. from cellular to the whole heart) computational cardiac modeling has emerged as a way to predict arrhythmia risk by investigating the susceptibility of a patient’s fibrotic substrate to sustaining reentrant activity. These computational, or virtual heart models, reconstructed from contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance images (MRI), may have the potential to assess VT risk and accurately identify RFA targets in previously unexplored patient populations, such as patients with pro-arrhythmic genetic disorders and patients with myocardial infarction. Here, cardiac models that represent these pathophysiologies and the imaging modalities used to reconstruct them, are developed and validated, thus expanding the population of patients for whom cardiac modeling is an applicable risk prediction tool and improving the predictions made.
My overall objective is to develop and optimize computational risk prediction tools that use mechanistic cardiac modeling and imaging features, and demonstrate their utility in predicting the course of a variety of cardiac diseases to guide clinical decision making
Irrational Exuberance in Global Development
No full textI draw an analogy between the development marketplace and financial markets, arguing that the spread of some ideas in global development is characterized by irrational exuberance. Like financial markets where there often can be a strong dissonance between the pricing or investment in an asset or a stock compared to its underlying value, a similar incongruence happens between the effectiveness of some ideas in development and the
corresponding investment. I ask two questions: (i) Why do some ideas experience irrational exuberance? and (ii) among such ideas, why do some ideas survive while others die?
Given the lack of a priori theoretical frameworks, I take an exploratory and inductive approach that relies on two case studies, clean cooking and microfinance. Through a combination of in-process tracing and comparative analysis, I find that development ideas take off because and when they undergo a ‘reconstruction,’ which increases the likelihood that more development actors will want to adopt or invest in such ideas. This reconstruction can happen as actors’ interests evolve once material changes in their environment alter their
situation through crises or new opportunities. It can also happen as agents reconstitute their interests by altering their understanding and recalculating their priorities. After a period of active socialization, such ideas spread through a process of social contagion where emulation and mimicry become common mechanisms to generate informational and reputational payoffs. The idea declines in importance when the relationship between the idea and the aforementioned change turns out to be flawed or becomes obsolete. It survives when it continues to conform to the context that supplied such reconstruction
UNDERSTANDING RISK FACTORS, INCLUDING SUBSTANCE USE, FOR ASSAULT-RELATED INJURY
No full textBackground: U.S. Black men are disproportionately affected by violence andconsequences from substance use. Black men are nearly 12 times more likely to die from homicide compared to white men. Drug overdose death rates increased by 213% for Black men compared to 69% for white men from 2015-2020. The relationship between substance use and assault-related injury is not well known.
Objectives: To further understand individual- (including drug/alcohol use & comorbid diagnoses) and neighborhood-level factors associated with mechanisms for assault- related injury (blunt force, cutting/piercing, firearm) among Black men in Baltimore, MD. Methods: A convergent multi-method study design was used. The quantitative phase used hospital admission data from 1,922 Black men aged 18 to 34 years admitted for an assault-related injury (blunt force, stabbing, firearm) with a documented toxicology screen between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2017. The qualitative phase used individual interview data from 12 Black men who were hospitalized for a recent assault- related injury and had a positive toxicology screen or reported current alcohol or other drug use.
Results: Within the context of inequitable access to substance use risks and resources, burden of community violence, decreased community social connectedness, parental substance use, and motivations for personal substance use, this sample of Black men hospitalized for assault-related injuries have varied substance use types associated with differing types of assault-related injuries. Experiencing a stabbing assault compared to firearm assault was associated with alcohol use; experiencing a blunt force assault compared to firearm assault was associated with alcohol and polysubstance use; and experiencing a firearm assault compared to stabbing and blunt force assaults was associated with cannabis use. Cannabis use is a response to chronic exposures to community violence.
Conclusion: Substance use varied by mechanisms for assault-related injury. Societal and community factors that impact physical and social environments are critical to shaping substance use and violent injury risk among Black men in Baltimore. The findings from this dissertation reinforce the need for upstream, targeted, and community-centered substance use and violence prevention interventions. Research- based policy must be directed at eliminating structural factors that lead to racial disparities in substance use and assault-related injuries
An Asset-Based Approach to Immigrant Education
No full textThis dissertation proposes an asset-based approach to immigrant education. It explores the environmental and student-related factors that impact and influence the academic outcomes and success of older immigrant English Learners. This dissertation centers around a problem of practice dedicated to exploring why it is that Latino English-learning immigrant-origin youth continue to academically underperform and are less academically prepared for college than their peers, making it more difficult for them to achieve academic success. The current study draws from sociocultural theory and borrows from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1979) to explore the lived academic experiences of immigrant students in the Southeast. Moreover, in drawing insights from these theoretical frameworks, this dissertation eschews reductive approaches to promoting and understanding immigrant student success, and instead aims to offer authentic student-centered perspectives on success that come directly from Latino immigrant English-learning youth through a case study
AN EXAMINATION OF GRANDPARENT-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS, ECONOMIC CONDITION, AND CHILD HEALTH OUTCOMES
No full textNearly two million children are being raised by grandparents without a parent present. These children have poorer health status compared to children in parent-headed households. Much of what is known about the health of children in grandparent-headed households is based on their comparison to children in parent-headed households. However, there may be diversity in the health status of children in grandparent-headed households based on economic condition.
Using the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), this multi-year (2016-2019) cross-sectional study explored the physical and mental health of children in grandparent-headed households. Latent class analysis was used to identify classes of economic condition across grandparent-headed households. These classes were based on indicators of income, material hardship, and receipt of government assistance. Additionally, logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between economic condition and child physical and mental health outcomes.
The study found that grandparent-headed households are economically diverse, and this diversity was associated with child health status. Three latent classes were identified for economic condition – No Need, Unmet Need, and Under-met Need. Children associated with the No Need class had better physical health outcomes than the Unmet Need and Under-met Need classes. Mental health disorders were high across the population; few differences were found between classes. Findings supported an association between the economic condition and child health status among grandparent-headed households.
Child health outcomes for children in grandparent-headed households are diverse and are associated with the economic condition of their caregivers. Acknowledging this diversity allows for the development of targeted efforts that cater to the specific needs of this population. Additionally, current approaches to providing government assistance to families are not meeting the needs of grandparent-headed households, which has implications for child health. Future research, policy, and programs should prioritize strategies aimed at providing financial support and improving access to resources for grandparent-headed households. This, in turn, can positively impact the well-being of children, promoting their health development and overall quality of life
THE INFLUENCE OF TELEMEDICINE ON CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT OF RESPIRATORY DEPARTMENT IN PUBLIC PRIMARY HOSPITALS IN CHINA
Get PDFWith the rapid development of telemedicine equipment and information communication technology, telemedicine has developed rapidly and is used widely around the world as a new mode of medical service. This new technology has been used widely in China and has benefited a large number of patients. China-Japan Friendship Hospital has actively carried out telemedicine practice. Since the first batch of telemedicine pilots were launched in 1998, three telemedicine centers have been established, including the National Telemedicine and Internet Medical Center, the National Health Commission's telemedicine management and training center, and the National Health Commission's grass-roots telemedicine development guidance center.
On the basis of reviewing the development process and current situation of telemedicine at home and abroad, this study is aimed to analyze and study the telemedicine construction of China-Japan Friendship Hospital, mainly including the following three aspects: First of all, collect and analyze the data related to the telemedicine construction of China-Japan Friendship Hospital in the form of questionnaires and descriptive statistics; Secondly, introduce the characteristics of telemedicine construction of China-Japan Friendship Hospital, especially the application of the latest technology such as AI and 5G in telemedicine; Thirdly, introduce and analyze other telemedicine related cases of Guangdong province to provide a more comprehensive understanding of telemedicine