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This study explores the extent to which student, family, peer, and school factors predict (a) whether students take "Advanced Placement®" ("AP®") courses, International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, and dual enrollment courses and (b) in models limited to course takers, how many courses they completed. Our findings, based on a nationally representative, longitudinal sample, suggest that, when it comes to college-level high school course taking, the relative advantage of higher socioeconomic status (SES) is less for African American students than it is for White and Asian students. Ninth-grade math skills are the strongest predictor of AP or IB and dual enrollment course taking, above and beyond demographic background characteristics like SES and race or ethnicity. High school girls take AP/IB and dual enrollment courses at a higher rate than boys, and they take more of these courses. The level of academic focus of students and their peers is associated with both AP or IB and dual enrollment course taking, whereas having parents focused on college preparation and course taking only predicts AP or IB course taking. School factors associated with AP or IB course taking include U.S. region and rural location; the percentage of math teachers with a master's degree is also positively associated with the number of AP or IB courses students take. These findings highlight the importance of equitable educational opportunities starting from a young age. They also indicate a need for increased early attention to student math skills and for more supports for parents and school staff to enable them to encourage and prepare all students, especially those from historically marginalized groups, to take college-level courses in high school.

The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is a widely used resource that comprehensively organizes and defines the phenotypic features of human disease, enabling computational inference and supporting genomic and phenotypic analyses through semantic similarity and machine learning algorithms. The HPO has widespread applications in clinical diagnostics and translational research, including genomic diagnostics, gene-disease discovery, and cohort analytics. In recent years, groups around the world have developed translations of the HPO from English to other languages, and the HPO browser has been internationalized, allowing users to view HPO term labels and in many cases synonyms and definitions in ten languages in addition to English. Since our last report, a total of 2239 new HPO terms and 49235 new HPO annotations were developed, many in collaboration with external groups in the fields of psychiatry, arthrogryposis, immunology and cardiology. The Medical Action Ontology (MAxO) is a new effort to model treatments and other measures taken for clinical management. Finally, the HPO consortium is contributing to efforts to integrate the HPO and the GA4GH Phenopacket Schema into electronic health records (EHRs) with the goal of more standardized and computable integration of rare disease data in EHRs.

Lithium (Li) is one of the most effective drugs for treating bipolar disorder (BD), however, there is presently no way to predict response to guide treatment. The aim of this study is to identify functional genes and pathways that distinguish BD Li responders (LR) from BD Li non-responders (NR). An initial Pharmacogenomics of Bipolar Disorder study (PGBD) GWAS of lithium response did not provide any significant results. As a result, we then employed network-based integrative analysis of transcriptomic and genomic data. In transcriptomic study of iPSC-derived neurons, 41 significantly differentially expressed (DE) genes were identified in LR vs NR regardless of lithium exposure. In the PGBD, post-GWAS gene prioritization using the GWA-boosting (GWAB) approach identified 1119 candidate genes. Following DE-derived network propagation, there was a highly significant overlap of genes between the top 500- and top 2000-proximal gene networks and the GWAB gene list (Phypergeometric = 1.28E-09 and 4.10E-18, respectively). Functional enrichment analyses of the top 500 proximal network genes identified focal adhesion and the extracellular matrix (ECM) as the most significant functions. Our findings suggest that the difference between LR and NR was a much greater effect than that of lithium. The direct impact of dysregulation of focal adhesion on axon guidance and neuronal circuits could underpin mechanisms of response to lithium, as well as underlying BD. It also highlights the power of integrative multi-omics analysis of transcriptomic and genomic profiling to gain molecular insights into lithium response in BD.

The time is now to examine the nation's capacity to help guide students in gaining access to, paying for, and graduating from college. College promise programs have served as an excellent model. But because a uniform, national college promise model would not adequately serve the estimated 20 million students in postsecondary education, ETS and College Promise launched an effort to expand the work on college promise programs to identify ecosystems of support for specific student populations. In 2021, we invited scholars, practitioners, and student representatives to join a design team and cocreate the college promise program for their student populations: first-generation students, youth in or aged out of foster care, students with disabilities, student parents, and students needing academic support. In multiple panel discussions, other colleagues reviewed the ecosystem designs, focusing on college promise programs in general, the design of the ecosystems of support, or the financing of the ecosystems. Several key themes emerged from the meeting: (a) Although the design teams focused on one aspect of a student's life, they stressed the importance of focusing on the intersectionality of their identities; (b) terminology and definitions are important not only for policy and practice reasons but for the messages they send to students about inclusion; (c) financing a college education is more than paying tuition and fees; (d) enhanced data collection will support research, policy, and practice; and (e) developing a college promise program requires a focus on both students and postsecondary institutions. [This publication is a joint initiative of College Promise and ETS.]

Our paper examines the latest frontier of the "War on Terror," countering violent extremism (CVE), non-coercive approaches that aim to prevent "radicalization" that may lead to "violent extremism" or terrorism. We look at the recent implementation of CVE in Québec's education sector. Based on an analysis of key policy documents and interviews with CVE practitioners, we find that: (1) teachers are responsibilized to safeguard society from the risk of terrorism through being expected to "know the signs" of radicalization and to build "resilience," (2) students are responsibilized as agents who can influence their peers against violent extremist messaging and toward "prosocial" behaviour, and (3) elements of school curriculum are responsibilized, especially social studies education, to provide students with "critical thinking" skills thought to be lacking among those at risk of radicalization. We highlight the inherent contradictions in CVE, which, in Québec, claims to foster pluralism and inclusivity to combat Islamophobia, but as a modality of the "War on Terror" also targets and stigmatizes Muslim communities. Critical discussion of CVE's social implications are needed to initiate critical dialogue in Canada over the impact of CVE in social services provision and the risk of securitizing the education sector in Québec.

An extensive body of work has demonstrated the benefits of participating in the arts, including when it is integrated into other disciplines, for young adults. In addition, this work highlights the likely advantages of engagement with the arts for students from low-income backgrounds as they transition into elite postsecondary institutions. Such findings have shaped the organization of the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), a rigorous academic and cultural enrichment program which supports high-achieving, low-income public high school students, from the communities surrounding campus, prepare for admission to and success at selective colleges and universities. More specifically, PUPP provides its scholars with a studio art course during each of their three summers in the program and school-year trips to performances and museums. During their time in PUPP, scholars attend approximately 21 live performances and visit at least six different art museums. In this paper, we add to the literature on art integration by examining whether, and how, the views of PUPP scholars on the arts programming they receive change over their time in the program. We also assess the PUPP alumni's perceptions of the extent to which PUPP's art and cultural activities influenced them. Taken together, these analyses of survey data help us understand whether there are differences in student views by the amount of art programming they receive ("dosage") and if there are sustained benefits of the arts integration and programming PUPP students receive ("fade-out"). We supplement this quantitative data with information from focus groups with a variety of stakeholders. Although our quantitative analyses of survey data revealed no dosage or fade-out effects, our interview data highlighted the cumulative development of art skills and knowledge over time and confirmed that the program's arts and cultural activities provided contextual information and experiences useful for PUPP alumni in college. Along with prior work that shows PUPP scholars' overwhelmingly positive views of the arts programing, these findings point to the benefits of university-led college access programs that provide arts and cultural exposure for students' social and cultural capital and college preparation.

OBJECTIVES: Persistent functional impairment is common in bipolar disorder (BD) and is influenced by a number of demographic, clinical, and cognitive features. The goal of this project was to estimate and compare the influence of key factors on community function in multiple cohorts of well-characterized samples of individuals with BD. METHODS: Thirteen cohorts from 7 countries included n = 5882 individuals with BD across multiple sites. The statistical approach consisted of a systematic uniform application of analyses across sites. Each site performed a logistic regression analysis with empirically derived higher versus lower function as the dependent variable and selected clinical and demographic variables as predictors. RESULTS: We found high rates of functional impairment, ranging from 41 to 75%. Lower community functioning was associated with depressive symptoms in 10 of 12 of the cohorts that included this variable in the analysis. Lower levels of education, a greater number of prior mood episodes, the presence of a comorbid substance use disorder, and a greater total number of psychotropic medications were also associated with low functioning. CONCLUSIONS: The bipolar clinical research community is poised to work together to characterize the multi-dimensional contributors to impairment and address the barriers that impede patients complete recovery. We must also identify the core features which enable many to thrive and live successfully with BD. A large-scale, worldwide, prospective longitudinal study focused squarely on BD and its heterogeneous presentations will serve as a platform for discovery and promote major advances toward optimizing outcomes for every individual with this illness.

The promise of single-objective light-sheet microscopy is to combine the convenience of standard single-objective microscopes with the speed, coverage, resolution and gentleness of light-sheet microscopes. We present DaXi, a single-objective light-sheet microscope design based on oblique plane illumination that achieves: (1) a wider field of view and high-resolution imaging via a custom remote focusing objective; (2) fast volumetric imaging over larger volumes without compromising image quality or necessitating tiled acquisition; (3) fuller image coverage for large samples via multi-view imaging and (4) higher throughput multi-well imaging via remote coverslip placement. Our instrument achieves a resolution of 450 nm laterally and 2 μm axially over an imaging volume of 3,000 × 800 × 300 μm. We demonstrate the speed, field of view, resolution and versatility of our instrument by imaging various systems, including Drosophila egg chamber development, zebrafish whole-brain activity and zebrafish embryonic development - up to nine embryos at a time.

In a prior study (Millett & Kevelson, 2018a), we demonstrated that college access program participants have positive views of the extent to which the program supports the development of their social and emotional skills and related college help-seeking behaviors in college. In this follow-up study, we explore the extent to which participant views vary by length of participation in the program in high school (i.e., dosage) and the extent to which alumni enrolled in college differ from college graduate alumni in their perceptions of the influences of the college access program. Results reveal that a multi-year college access program may influence different social and emotional skills over the course of the program, and dosage may matter. Moreover, alumni perceptions may differ depending on the stage of life they are in. Overall, the study findings reiterate that college access programs may help low income, high-achieving students develop social and emotional skills and prepare program alumni to successfully navigate college life.

In addition to literacy and numeracy skills, social and emotional skills are increasingly recognized as being essential for success in school and beyond. This commentary paper summarizes the discussions from a 2018 seminar on social and emotional learning (SEL) in tertiary education in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The summary is framed through the lenses of competition, cooperation, and complementarity. While institutions of higher education compete for students, they cooperate by leveraging knowledge of how students succeed at a particular institution and they seek complementarity by recognizing that student/institutional fit may increase completion. Their shared goal is for students to succeed in getting to, through, and beyond tertiary education.

In this study, we investigated factors predictive of disconnection, or not being in education, employment, or training (NEET), among young adults with at least a 2-year college degree. We also explored the extent to which disconnection influences civic participation and well-being among NEETs with and without college degrees. The authors used 2012 and 2015 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data from the Survey of Adult Skills in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) for 29 countries, including the United States, along with US 2012 data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Results highlight that college-educated individuals whose parents have low levels of educational attainment actually have a higher likelihood of becoming NEET relative to college-educated individuals whose parents are more highly educated. Study findings also emphasize the influence of economic and geographic differences (country-level for OECD and county-level for United States) on NEET rates, in addition to the extent to which mothers have a higher likelihood and fathers have a lower likelihood of being NEET relative to their childless peers and the influence of country-level family leave policies on the odds of being NEET across the OECD. College field of study also emerges as an important influence on disconnection across the 29 OECD countries in the study, but not in the United States separately. Finally, comparing results for college-educated NEETs and NEETs without degrees, we found that higher education appears to reduce the likelihood of community disengagement and reports of poor health among NEETs across the OECD countries. However, this is not the case within the United States where NEETs are less likely to be engaged in their communities and more likely to describe themselves as in poor health regardless of their educational attainment.

Lithium remains the gold standard for the treatment of bipolar disorder (BD); however, its use has declined over the years mainly due to the side effects and the subjective experience of cognitive numbness reported by patients. In the present study, we aim to methodically test the effects of lithium on neurocognitive functioning in the largest single cohort (n = 262) of BD patients reported to date by harnessing the power of a multi-site, ongoing clinical trial of lithium monotherapy. At the cross-sectional level, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted to examine potential group differences across neurocognitive tests [California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT trials 1-5,CVLT delayed recall), Wechsler Digit Symbol, Trail-making Test parts A and B (TMT-A; TMT-B), and a global cognition index]. At the longitudinal level, on a subset of patients (n = 88) who achieved mood stabilization with lithium monotherapy, we explored the effect of lithium treatment across time on neurocognitive functioning. There were no differences at baseline between BD patients that were taking lithium compared with those that were not. At follow-up a significant neurocognitive improvement in the global cognitive index score [F = 31.69; p

In summer 2015, Princeton University contracted with Educational Testing Service (ETS) to conduct an evaluation of the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), the college access program developed by Princeton University faculty and staff. The mixed-method ETS evaluation of PUPP included the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data on the program and its participants. Data revealed that the PUPP model is perceived by a majority of participants and stakeholders as a well-designed and comprehensive program with effective practices, in particular the highly personalized nature of its services--lasting more than 3 years--and its strong emphasis on personal relationships. PUPP activities and instruction are viewed as high quality and rigorous. PUPP participants and stakeholders describe the program as highly beneficial for participants' academic and social-emotional skills and cultural knowledge and for their access to and preparation for college. Outcomes analyses confirm that participants tend to demonstrate strong academic outcomes and succeed in college. Participants also report attending more selective colleges than they otherwise would have, largely due to the supports provided by PUPP.

Currently college promise programs are proliferating in number at the local and state levels. Most promise programs provide financial resources beyond conventional state and federal student aid to students who live in designated places and meet local- or state-defined eligibility criteria.There is an immense variety of models and funding designs for these programs. In this study, we conducted a rigorous content analysis of the public web sites for a diverse subsample of 35 promise programs to explore how college promise programs promote student academic and financial readiness. Although our analysis made it clear that there is more to learn about promise programs, including understanding general administrative processes and program operations, we highlight several design and implementation considerations that may increase the capacity of these programs to promote equity in higher education access and success.

An evaluation of the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), a college access program for low-income, high-achieving public high school students, yielded favorable findings regarding the perceptions of program participants. Survey results, which include responses from all 71 participants in the 2015-2016 program, indicated that the participants perceived the program as positively impacting their academic and social-emotional skills, increasing their knowledge of the college application process, broadening their pool of target colleges, and exposing them to new arts and cultural experiences, as the program is intended to do. Scholars' responses also highlight the strength of the PUPP community and social network and confirm that PUPP is helping some scholars to address personal and financial challenges that could prevent them from participating in educational experiences such as PUPP. Findings also highlight the PUPP academic enrichment program as a possible area for growth.

This report summarizes the findings of focus groups conducted with parents of former and current participants in the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), a college access and preparation program for low-income and high-achieving students attending public high schools in Princeton, New Jersey, and its surrounding communities. Conducted as part of the evaluation of PUPP by Educational Testing Service, the parent focus groups provided insights into the perceptions parents have of PUPP, its impacts on their children, and their suggestions for programmatic improvements. Findings suggest that parents perceived that PUPP prepared their children for academically rigorous environments and supported the development of their social-emotional skills. Parents also praised PUPP's assistance with the college and financial aid application processes but noted that their children continued to face financial challenges despite receiving sizeable aid packages. Overall, parents would like to see PUPP expanded to serve more students in more public high schools.

An evaluation of the Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP), a college access program for low-income and high-achieving public high school students, yielded favorable findings regarding the perceptions of program alumni. PUPP Alumni Survey respondents (N =126) reported that PUPP had positively impacted their development of academic and social-emotional skills and their knowledge of college admissions and financial aid application processes and that they attended and graduated from college, including selective colleges, after completing PUPP. Some PUPP alumni believe that the program made college attendance a reality for them, while others believe PUPP enabled them to attend a more selective college than they otherwise would have. Although alumni were not immune from continued challenges, both financial and academic, during college, they tended to attribute their college enrollment and graduation successes at least in part to the personalized supports and resources PUPP provided.

Recent research has highlighted the critical problem of high rates of "disconnected youth"--youth and young adults who are neither employed nor in school. Practitioners, scholars, policymakers, and a range of stakeholders express mounting concern that disconnected youth are a societal burden that costs countries trillions of dollars. This phenomenon could threaten social cohesion and social development, in addition to costing large amounts of money in the forms of foregone labor productivity and tax revenues and increased incarceration and social services uptake rates. Whereas other studies explore disconnection among a cross-sectional sample of U.S. young adults, we set out to document the longitudinal education and employment pathways of a nationally representative cohort of U.S. millennial young adults from approximately age 16 to age 26. The results of this study highlight that both socioeconomic status (SES) and high school academic abilities are associated with disconnection from society at ages 18, 20, and 26. However, these associations diminish over time, and by age 26 SES is a weaker predictor of disconnection than having been on a college preparatory track (e.g., taking practice college entrance examinations) or having special educational needs in high school. At the same time, high school literacy and mathematics skills and grades are unrelated to disconnection at age 26. Prior disconnection remains one of the strongest predictors of disconnection at ages 20 and 26, highlighting the problem of repeated disconnection experienced by a small group of youth and young adults (only 0.6% of our full sample, or 11.1% of high school leavers). Finally, the odds of dropping out of the labor force--not seeking employment--are most strongly explained by gender and having dependent children, and to a lesser extent by race and high school region and urbanicity. Recommendations for supporting those most at risk of disconnection are discussed in relation to the findings. In this study, the authors used nationally representative data from a longitudinal study of U.S. young adults (from their sophomore year of high school in 2002 through approximately age 26) to explore reasons that young adults become disconnected from society. Whereas most studies of disconnected youth used data from individuals aged 16-24 at a particular point in time, the authors used longitudinal data to track changes in education, employment, and disconnection status over time and to clarify how disconnection rates vary at approximately ages 18, 20, and 26. In an attempt to clarify the relative importance of factors associated with disconnection, they conducted analyses of data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002; https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/els2002/). The ELS:2002 follows a cohort of millennials who were high school sophomores (10th graders) in 2002, providing data on their demographic background and their educational and employment activities at the end of high school, at approximately age 18; 2 years later, at approximately age 20; and 6 years later, at approximately age 26. This study can serve as a foundation for future efforts to identify solutions to the problem of youth disconnection.

The Princeton University Preparatory Program (PUPP) is a high-touch, intensive college access program aimed at providing a multiyear college preparation experience to high-achieving, low-income students in the Princeton, New Jersey, area. This report presents the theory of change and logic model of PUPP, detailing the theoretical basis for the expectation that PUPP inputs, resources, and activities will lead to the expected program outcomes, which include that program participants gain admittance to and graduate from selective colleges and universities providing comprehensive financial aid in the form of grants and scholarships.

This study compared the reading speed, comprehension and perceptions of two groups of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Each group addressed one of two types of narrow reading: same genre and same title. The same genre texts were three graded readers in the "Sherlock Holmes" series, and the same title texts were "The Railway Children," published by three different publishers at different language levels. The study was conducted over a 3-week period. Then, two approximately 1,000-word texts, one related to "Sherlock Holmes" and one to "The Railway Children," were used to measure whether the participants' reading speed and comprehension differed in reading the two types of texts. The results showed that all participants read significantly faster and comprehended more with the related text than the unrelated text. A questionnaire on participants' perceptions showed positive responses to narrow reading, especially the same title treatment. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

We develop topological methods for characterizing the relationship between polymer chain entanglement and bulk viscoelastic responses. We introduce generalized Linking Number and Writhe characteristics that are applicable to open linear chains. We investigate the rheology of polymeric chains entangled into weaves with varying topologies and levels of chain density. To investigate viscoelastic responses, we perform non-equilibrium molecular simulations over a range of frequencies using sheared Lees⁻Edwards boundary conditions. We show how our topological characteristics can be used to capture key features of the polymer entanglements related to the viscoelastic responses. We find there is a linear relation over a significant range of frequencies between the mean absolute Writhe W r and the Loss Tangent tan ( δ ) . We also find an approximate inverse linear relationship between the mean absolute Periodic Linking Number L K P and the Loss Tangent tan ( δ ) . Our results show some of the ways topological methods can be used to characterize chain entanglements to better understand the origins of mechanical responses in polymeric materials.

College promise programs are spreading throughout this United States. These programs fund tuition and/or fees for eligible students who are actively progressing toward earning postsecondary certificates and undergraduate degrees. While existing college promise programs have varying designs, each one appears to be seeking continuous and long-term financial sustainability. The existing programs appear to be aimed toward ensuring that the promise of college tuition and fees can be fulfilled for future generations of students. Towards that end, ETS and the College Promise Campaign convened the "Designing Sustainable Funding for College Promise Initiatives" conference on June 2 and 3, 2016, for the primary purpose of reviewing and refining five models. This report contains the five papers that the appointed design teams presented: (1) College Promise Models and College Savings Accounts: How College Savings Can Bolster the Early Financial Aid Commitment (William Elliott and Andrea Levere); (2) Designing Sustainable Funding for College Promise Initiatives: State-Funded Model Group (Randy Boyd and Teresa Lubbers); (3) Privately Funded Models and Public--Private Partnerships to Promote College Promise Initiatives (Lezli Baskerville and Hugh Fitzpatrick); (4) The Federal Government's Role in Promoting Promise Programs and Their Goals (Sandy Baum and Bill Hansen); and (5) Designing Sustainable Funding for College Promise Initiatives: Outcomes-Based Financing Models (Gloria Gong, Steve Goldberg, Audrey Peek, Kevin James, and Miguel Palacios).

The KnotProt 2.0 database (the updated version of the KnotProt database) collects information about proteins which form knots and other entangled structures. New features in KnotProt 2.0 include the characterization of both probabilistic and deterministic entanglements which can be formed by disulfide bonds and interactions via ions, a refined characterization of entanglement in terms of knotoids, the identification of the so-called cysteine knots, the possibility to analyze all or a non-redundant set of proteins, and various technical updates. The KnotProt 2.0 database classifies all entangled proteins, represents their complexity in the form of a knotting fingerprint, and presents many biological and geometrical statistics based on these results. Currently the database contains >2000 entangled structures, and it regularly self-updates based on proteins deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB).

Invasive alien species are a major threat to native insular species. Eradicating invasive mammals from islands is a feasible and proven approach to prevent biodiversity loss. We developed a conceptual framework to identify globally important islands for invasive mammal eradications to prevent imminent extinctions of highly threatened species using biogeographic and technical factors, plus a novel approach to consider socio-political feasibility. We applied this framework using a comprehensive dataset describing the distribution of 1,184 highly threatened native vertebrate species (i.e. those listed as Critically Endangered or Endangered on the IUCN Red List) and 184 non-native mammals on 1,279 islands worldwide. Based on extinction risk, irreplaceability, severity of impact from invasive species, and technical feasibility of eradication, we identified and ranked 292 of the most important islands where eradicating invasive mammals would benefit highly threatened vertebrates. When socio-political feasibility was considered, we identified 169 of these islands where eradication planning or operation could be initiated by 2020 or 2030 and would improve the survival prospects of 9.4% of the Earths most highly threatened terrestrial insular vertebrates (111 of 1,184 species). Of these, 107 islands were in 34 countries and territories and could have eradication projects initiated by 2020. Concentrating efforts to eradicate invasive mammals on these 107 islands would benefit 151 populations of 80 highly threatened vertebrates and make a major contribution towards achieving global conservation targets adopted by the worlds nations.

The New Careers in Nursing (NCIN) Alumni Survey was designed to advance knowledge in the field of nursing education by looking at post-degree experiences of NCIN scholarship recipients, such as employment and graduate degree attainment. The NCIN Alumni Study also focused on the reflections of NCIN scholars who have graduated and moved into the field, on their satisfaction with various aspects of NCIN and their academic programs, and on how these programmatic aspects have influenced their postdegree experiences.

The Study of Teaching and Learning in Accelerated Nursing Degree Programs explores how nurse educators are adapting their teaching practices for accelerated, second-degree nursing program students. To provide findings on topics including instructional practices and the roles and attitudes of faculty, a web survey was administered to almost 100 staff members from schools of nursing that received grant and scholarship funds through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's New Careers in Nursing program for accelerated nursing students. The study revealed that nursing school faculty have positive perceptions of working with accelerated nursing students and that instructional approaches do not differ much between traditional and nursing students. At the same time, the factors described as most predictive of accelerated nursing student success were noncognitive attributes such as motivation and commitment to the nursing profession; prior degrees in the science or health fields were not necessarily seen as predictive of the success of second-degree students working toward an accelerated bachelor's or master's degree in nursing.

In 2014, ETS conducted a study investigating how the New Careers in Nursing (NCIN) program may have influenced the culture of participating schools of nursing. Select schools of nursing received grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide scholarships and support services for students in accelerated nursing programs. Case studies involving multiple interviews and focus groups were conducted in 8 NCIN schools of nursing chosen to represent public and private schools from all US regions. Results suggested that, in addition to benefiting accelerated nursing program students through the financial support of scholarships, the NCIN program may have increased the enrollment of male and minority students in accelerated nursing programs. Furthermore, the orientation, mentoring, and leadership supports provided with NCIN resources may have contributed to positive program and career outcomes for participating students, and in many cases the supports will be extended to all nursing students after the NCIN program ends. Lessons learned for the field include the potential for schools of nursing to employ strategies used by NCIN grantees to increase the diversity of their incoming cohorts and the ongoing need for financial supports for accelerated nursing students.

Black men who have sex with men and women (BMSMW) are at increased HIV risk, but few efficacious interventions meet their unique needs. Three HIV prevention interventions were evaluated with a common protocol. Baseline data were pooled to describe sexual behavior involving transmission risk with male, female, and male-to-female transgender partners and identify factors associated with transmission risk. BMSMW from Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago who reported sexual risk and bisexual behavior in the past year were recruited via modified chain referral sampling and community recruitment. Baseline assessments were conducted via audio computer-assisted interview and sexual behaviors assessed over the past 3 months. From December 2010 to November 2012, 584 BMSMW were enrolled across the three cities. More than half (55%) were recruited by other participants. Overall, the mean age was 43 years. Seventy-five percent reported an annual income