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This educational research seeks to develop novel laboratory modules by using Case Studies in the Science Teaching method to introduce sustainability and environmental engineering laboratory concepts to 21st century learners. The increased interest in "going green" has led to a surge in the number of engineering students studying sustainable engineering concepts in their courses. This educational research project has worked to improve critical thinking and the transfer of laboratory concepts to tangible real world applications for students. A total of four case study laboratory modules were developed for a junior level, Environmental Engineering Laboratory course. The case modules focused on providing (1) the contextual case-study or problem based learning modules that link engineering topics to real world sustainable engineering issues and (2) hands-on experiences for students that are designed to address new areas in sustainable engineering. Four case studies were developed to engage students in a "short case story" with real or fictional characters experiencing a real world event. Following the case story, students conducted independent research related to the case and the laboratory exercise. This paper investigates the use of this method of laboratory instruction to improve student learning, self-efficacy and student engagement. Feedback from the student interviews suggested they felt the case studies methods used in the course were more engaging compared to their traditional laboratory classes they had taken during their education. The students particularly enjoyed the real world approaches and seeing how they could expect to apply course laboratory skills to their real jobs after graduation.

Curiosity is fundamental to scientific inquiry and pursuance. Parents are important in encouraging children's involvement in science. This longitudinal study examined pathways from parental stimulation of children's curiosity per se to their science acquisition (SA). A latent variable of SA was indicated by the inter-related variables of high school science course accomplishments, career interest, and skill. A conceptual model investigated parental stimulation of children's curiosity as related to SA via science intrinsic motivation and science achievement. The Fullerton Longitudinal Study provided data spanning school entry through high school (N = 118). Parental stimulation of curiosity at age 8 years comprised exposing children to new experiences, promoting curiosity, encouraging asking questions, and taking children to a museum. Intrinsic motivation was measured at ages 9, 10, and 13 years, and achievement at ages 9, 10, and 11 years. Structural equation modelling was used for analyses. Controlling for socio-economic status, parental stimulation of curiosity bore positive and significant relations to science intrinsic motivation and achievement, which in turn related to SA. Gender neither related to stimulation of curiosity nor contributed to the model. Findings highlight the importance of parental stimulation of children's curiosity in facilitating trajectories into science, and relevance to science education is discussed.

Bird–window collisions (BWCs) are a major threat to avian populations, annually causing up to one billion bird deaths in the US alone and untold numbers of fatalities worldwide. Until recently, there has been limited institutional and governmental recognition of this issue and few coordinated, national‐level efforts to address it. To fill this need, citizen‐science campaigns have stepped in to generate scientific information about BWCs, raise public awareness, and advocate for policy and actions to reduce collisions. We review the BWC issue and showcase how citizen‐science programs in multiple countries have achieved these outcomes. Additional citizen‐driven successes in addressing BWCs are possible if key constraints are overcome, including funding limitations and challenges of proactively engaging stakeholders who can reduce BWCs at scale. Addressing this global conservation issue will also require building upon the recent increase in attention to BWCs by government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, commercial entities, and professional scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The engineering profession continues to struggle to attract new talent, in part because it is not well understood by the general public and often viewed in a negative light. Therefore, engineering professionals have called for new approaches promote better understanding and change negative perceptions. One suggested approach is for engineering professors to create and teach courses for non-majors, perhaps as an option to fulfill general studies requirements. This paper describes one such course developed and offered at Elon University. The "Experience Engineering" course features hands-on, interdisciplinary team experiences that result in a tangible product: a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). Students are guided through the fundamental principles of physics, engineering, and electronics that govern the basic system components and operation. Teams are then challenged to integrate these basic components into a system design that is capable of achieving simulated real-world tasks within the confines of the materials provided, allotted budget, and available class time. In addition to discussing the course content in greater detail, this paper describes the assessment methods and outcomes from the first offering of the course. (Contains 5 tables.)

Background: It is unclear how school segregation, a form of structural racism, affects late‐life cognition. Though segregated schools were often under‐resourced, they likely shielded Black students from interpersonal racism present at integrated schools. Social support may mediate and/or modify the relationship between school segregation and cognition. Method: 467 STAR participants aged 50+ reported if they attended a segregated school in 1st and 6th grade and received grade‐specific school‐based social support (feeling cared for by an adult at school). Baseline executive function (EF), semantic memory (SM), and verbal episodic memory (VEM) were measured using the Spanish and English Neuropsychological Assessment Scales. For each grade, linear regression models evaluated the association of segregated school attendance with each cognitive domain, sequentially adjusting for demographics, school‐based social support, and education (in pooled models). Effect modification by school‐based social support was examined through stratified models and interaction terms. Result: The mean age was 68.2 (Table 1). Participants attending a segregated school in either grade were more likely to report school‐based social support than those in integrated schools (both p‐values<0.05; Figure 1). For each grade, attending a segregated vs integrated school was not associated with EF or VEM but was associated with lower SM (β(95% CI): ‐0.28(‐0.48, ‐0.08); Figure 2); results were similar when adjusting for social support. For each grade, effect estimates of attending a segregated school on SM and EF were smaller among those with social support than those without, though differences were not statistically significant (interaction p‐values>0.05;Table 2). In first grade, attending a segregated school was associated with SM among those without social support (β(95% CI): ‐0.40(‐0.78, ‐0.02)) but not among those with social support (β(95% CI): ‐0.10(‐0.36, 0.16)). The effect of attending a segregated school on VEM was not lower among those with social support in 1st or 6th grade than their counterparts without it. Stratified results were similar when adjusting for education. Conclusion: Having attended a segregated school may have both harmful and protective effects on late‐life cognition. Our findings suggest that potential harmful effects of having attended segregated schools may be diminished by the increased likelihood of school‐based social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A nascent body of research suggests that higher adult child educational attainment may have beneficial impacts on older parents' cognitive aging. Children with higher education may offer both financial and non‐financial resources that help support healthy brain aging for older parents. The causality of these relationships is difficult to evaluate; quasi‐experimental approaches are needed to address the confounding bias expected for observational studies. Method: We used data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (n = 6741), a nationally representative cohort of adults aged ≥50 years (2012), with repeated measures of verbal memory and verbal fluency assessed in 2012, 2015, and 2018. We leveraged a 1993 national compulsory schooling law (CSL), which raised minimum schooling from six to nine years, as a source of quasi‐experimental variation in (adult) children's education that is independent of confounders of the relationship between adult child education and parents' cognition. We generated a binary instrumental variable based on the respondents' oldest child's birth cohort and used two‐stage least squares estimation (2SLS). We compared 2SLS estimates to those generated via ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and mixed linear models adjusted for respondent and family‐level characteristics. Result: At baseline, participants (55.3% female) were on average 60.0 years old. OLS models suggested that more schooling among oldest adult children was associated with better baseline verbal memory (ß(95% CI): 0.017(0.012,0.022)) and verbal fluency z‐scores (ß(95% CI): 0.020(0.014,0.026)). Exposure to the CSL was associated with an increase in average educational attainment by 0.612 years (95% CI: 0.384, 0.842). However, estimates from 2SLS suggested no quasi‐experimental association between increased adult child schooling and older respondents' verbal memory (ß(95% CI): ‐0.039(‐0.102,0.023)) or verbal fluency scores (ß(95% CI): ‐0.005(‐0.080,0.071)). In observational analyses, each year of increased schooling among oldest children was associated with slower decline in verbal memory z‐scores (ß(95% CI): 0.010(0.001,0.019)) per decade, but not with verbal fluency. Conclusion: Our findings present promising, but inconclusive evidence that increases in schooling may have a beneficial effect on parents' levels of cognitive performance. This work has important implications globally, given the massive increases in educational attainment achieved by recent generations in these settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To expand cognitive knowledge, increase language competency, and promote active learning, a content instructor and a language professor collaborated to develop a final unit in which teams of Japanese college sophomores, studying in a 10-month program in the United States, teach their classmates in English about a topic of interest concerning American society. (Author/VWL)

This study aims to evaluate the properties of essential oils (EOs) from cinnamon (Cinnamomum cassia) and clove (Eugenia caryophyllus). Mixtures of cinnamon and clove EOs at ratios of 75:25, 50:50, and 25:75 were encapsulated and applied in fresh sausage. The research includes a kinetic examination of active component release and preservation parameter monitoring. Clove EO showed superior antioxidant activity (0.039 mg/mL), while cinamon oil exhibited promising bacterial inhibition (minimum inhibitory concentration lower 1.5). Combinations of cinnamon and clove EOs demonstrated synergistic antioxidant and antimicrobial effects. Encapsulation efficiency for the 25:75 cinnamon and clove oil mixture reached 89.4%, with 80.9% EO retention. The microencapsulated mixture displayed commendable antimicrobial and antioxidant activities, slowing compound release (>50% after 15 days). The encapsulated EOs (25:75) showed comparable results in lipid oxidation (0.194 mg malonaldehyde/kg) and microbial control to traditional curing salt, suggesting substitution potential. By encapsulating cinnamon and clove essential oils and evaluating their efficacy in fresh sausages, this research demonstrates their potential to enhance the safety and quality of meat products while addressing consumer demand for healthier and more natural food options. [Display omitted] • Evaluate cinnamon and clove EOs for fresh sausage preservation alternatives. • Assess antioxidant and antimicrobial potential in cinnamon-clove EO mixtures. • EOs encapsulation enhances sausage quality, extend shelf life, improve quality. • Achieve 89.4% encapsulation efficiency for 25:75 cinnamon-clove EO mixture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general objective of this study was to assess the technical efficiency of Brazil’s teaching hospitals using data envelopment analysis (DEA). To this end, a quantitative exploratory study was conducted with secondary data from the national health information system (DATASUS) using an output-oriented DEA model. The study population consisted of 29 large-sized teaching hospitals located in the country’s Center-West, South, Southeast, and North regions. Twelve hospitals were shown to be on the efficient frontier (technically efficient) and 17 were off the frontier. Absolute efficiency values were calculated for the hospitals that were off the frontier, using benchmarks with weighting for benchmarking. Private for-profit hospitals were shown to be the most efficient, followed by private not-for-profit and public facilities. The findings of this study suggest that DEA has potential for assessing technical efficiency in hospital settings in relation to operational capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thrust-fault earthquakes are particularly hazardous in that they produce stronger ground motion than normal or strike-slip events of the same magnitude due to a combination of hanging-wall effects, vertical asymmetry, and higher stress drop due to compression. In addition, vertical surface displacement occurs in both blind-thrust and emergent thrust ruptures, and can potentially damage lifelines and infrastructure. Our 3D dynamic rupture modeling parameter study focuses on planar thrust faults of varying dip angles, and burial depth establishes a physics-based understanding of how ground motion and permanent ground surface displacement depend on these geometrical parameters. We vary dip angles from 20° to 70° and burial depths from 0 to 5 km. We conduct rupture models on these geometries embedded in a homogeneous half-space, using different stress drops but fixed frictional parameters, and with homogeneous initial stresses versus stresses tapered toward the ground surface. Ground motions decrease as we bury the fault under homogeneous initial stresses. In contrast, under tapered initial stresses, ground motions increase in blind-thrust faults as we bury the fault, but are still the highest in emergent faults. As we steepen dip angle, peak particle velocities in the homogeneous stress case generally increase in emergent faults but decrease in blind-thrust faults. Meanwhile, ground motion consistently increases with steepening dip angle under the stress gradient. We find that varying stress drop has a considerable scalar effect on both ground motion and permanent surface displacement, whereas changing fault strength has a negligible effect. Because of the simple geometry of a planar fault, our results can be applied to understanding basic behavior of specific real-world thrust faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HIV-1 restriction factor SAM domain and HD domain-containing protein 1 (SAMHD1) blocks HIV-1 in-fection in human myeloid cells. Mutations in the SAMHD1 gene are associated with rare genetic diseases including Aicardi-Goutieres syndrome. However, it is unknown whether polymorphisms of SAMHD1 are associated with infection and natural control of HIV-1 in humans. Our objective was to determine whether the expression of SAMHD1 mRNA is affected by common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in SAMHD1 and whether the SNPs are associated with HIV-1 infection status. Using a tagging SNP approach, we determined the association between eight tagging SNPs in SAMHD1 and the mRNA expression in B-lymphocyte cell lines from 70 healthy white donors. We identified one SNP (rsl291142) that was significantly associated with SAMHD1 mRNA expression, with minor allele carriers having 30% less mRNA levels (p = 0.015). However, after analyzing the published genome-wide association study data of 857 HIV-1 controllers and 2088 HIV-1 pro-gressors from the European and African-American cohorts, we did not find a significant association between SNPs in SAMHD1 and HIV-1 infection status, including SNP rsl291142 (p>0.05). We also observed 2- to 6-fold variations of SAMHD1 mRNA levels in primary B-lymphocytes, CD4+ T-lymphocytes, and CD14+ monocytes from five healthy donors. Our results suggest that common regulatory polymorphism(s) exist in the SAMHD1 gene that affects its mRNA expression in B-lymphocyte cell lines from healthy whites. However, polymorphisms of SAMHD1 are unlikely to contribute to the infection and natural control of HIV-1 in European and African-American individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pain is associated with cognitive decline, but research has not considered low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) such as Mexico and gender differences. This is an important gap, as individuals living in Mexico have a large burden of chronic pain due to exposure to risk factors over the life course. Methods: Using data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), a nationally representative study of Mexicans aged 50 and older, we assessed the association of persistent pain with cognition from 2001 to 2015. Persistent pain was defined as moderate or severe pain reported in 2001 and 2003. Non‐persistent pain was defined as pain that was not moderate or severe in 2001 and 2003. Cognition was measured using the MHAS cognitive battery and was standardized for global cognition, memory, and non‐memory domains. We used linear mixed models to evaluate the association between persistent pain and cognition over time, adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic, and health factors. We evaluated heterogeneity by respondent's gender. Results: Our sample was 55.8% female with a mean baseline age of 61.8 (n=10,053). About 13% of participants reported persistent pain and 45% reported non‐persistent pain. Persistent pain was associated with a higher rate of decline for global (β: −0.005, 95% CI: ‐0.008, ‐0.002), memory (β: −0.004, 95% CI: ‐0.008, ‐0.001), and non‐memory (β: ‐0.005, 95% CI: ‐0.009, ‐0.002) domains, compared to no pain. Among women, persistent pain was associated lower global (β: ‐0.006, 95% CI: ‐0.010, ‐0.002), memory (β: ‐0.005, 95% CI: ‐0.009, ‐0.0003), and non‐memory (β: ‐0.008, 95%CI: ‐0.012, ‐0.003) scores over time, while among men, persistent pain was only associated with lower memory (β: ‐0.008, 95% CI: ‐.014, ‐0.002) scores over time. Non‐persistent pain was not associated with cognition for women, while for men, it was associated with lower global (β: −0.004, 95% CI: ‐0.006, ‐0.001) and memory (β: −0.004, 95%CI: ‐0.007, ‐0.001) scores over time. Conclusions: Persistent pain may impact cognitive decline for years and differentially impact individuals by gender. Treatment may result in population‐level benefits in cognition for those living with persistent pain. This is important in LMICs, where most individuals requiring pain relief have their needs unmet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]