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Background: The gut microbiome is an important determinant of health and disease in preterm infants. Objectives: The objective of this article was to share our current protocol for other neonatal intensive care units to potentially expand their existing protocols, aiming to characterize the relationship between the intestinal microbiome and health outcomes in preterm infants. Methods : This prospective, longitudinal study planned to recruit 160 preterm infants born <32 weeks gestational age or weighing <1,500 g and admitted to one of two Level III/IV neonatal intensive care units. During the neonatal intensive care unit period, the primary measures included events of early life pain/stress, gut microbiome, host genetic variations, and neurobehavioral assessment. During follow-up visits, gut microbiome; pain sensitivity; and medical, growth, and developmental outcomes at 4, 8-12, and 18-24 months corrected age were measured. Discussion : As of February 14, 2020, 214 preterm infants have been recruited. We hypothesize that infants who experience greater levels of pain/stress will have altered gut microbiome, including potential adverse outcomes such as necrotizing enterocolitis and host genetic variations, feeding intolerance, and/or neurodevelopmental impairments. These will differ from the intestinal microbiome of preterm infants who do not develop these adverse outcomes. To test this hypothesis, we will determine how alterations in the intestinal microbiome affect the risk of developing necrotizing enterocolitis, feeding intolerance, and neurodevelopmental impairments in preterm infants. In addition, we will examine the interaction between the intestinal microbiome and host genetics in the regulation of intestinal health and neurodevelopmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was made to determine whether typing teachers in Connecticut secondary schools were aware of practices used by beginning office workers. It was concluded that business education teachers must keep abreast of current office practices and procedures. (JOW)

Reaffirming its leadership role toward better oral health for all Americans, the ADA has produced a white paper that also challenges policy-makers and the US to improve access to dental services. The white paper, "State and Community Models for Improving Access to Dental Care for the Underserved," was presented October 1 to the House of Delegates meeting in Orlando, Florida, as "a resource for change," states ADA President Richard Haught. He said the white paper and its feasible models for positive change contribute to growing momentum among the ADA, constituent dental societies, and many other organizations. The models in the paper are innovative programs currently in operation--three at the state level and two community based. All of them, according to the white paper, have produced significant gains in both utilization of dental services by Medicaid-eligible children and participation by private-practice dentists. Brief summaries of the five models, as delineated in the ADA white paper, are presented. (Contains 1 table.)

The article reports that International Paper Co. in Stamford, Connecticut has completed the acquisition of a majority share of corrugated packager Compagnie Marocaine des Cartons et des Papiers in Morocco.

Provides information on the British and American Art at Yale, a symposium held in Hew Haven in October 1995, with reference to a tribute paid to Jules David Prown, professor of art history and material culture at Yale University. Contributions made by Prown to the college; Information on the participants of the symposium; When Prown began teaching at Yale.

Presents an inventory on three volumes of the archives of Renaissance painter Giorgio Vasari at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Highlights of the archives; Document on the work of Vasari on the decoration of the cupola of Florence Cathedral in Italy; Insights on account books in the archives.

Child protective services (CPS) case records contain a vast amount of narrative information that is underutilized for estimating risk, conceptualizing family needs, and planning for services. The current study applied a novel method for quantifying family-level severity of maltreatment and non-maltreatment-related adversity types to narrative information reflecting a family's full CPS history. Cases were randomly sampled (N = 100) from two regions of Connecticut that were referred over a specified 6-month period. De-identified data were extracted through comprehensive chart review of electronic and paper case records. The Yale-Vermont Adversity in Childhood Scale (Y-VACS; Holbrook et al., 2015) was used to quantify adversity severity across a range of intrafamilial and extrafamilial experiences. Several family-level adversity severity ratings were associated with administrative data on allegations and investigative outcomes. Poly-victimization (β =.47, p <.001) and poly-deprivation (β =.25, p =.005) significantly predicted total allegation types and total substantiation types (β =.30, p =.002; β =.26, p =.008, respectively) across the case history. Poly-victimization significantly predicted the presence of a new allegation within 12 months of the index report, OR = 1.72, SE =.25, p =.027. Findings support the feasibility of a novel method that uses narrative case record information to quantify severity of maltreatment and non-maltreatment-related adversity types, as well as cumulative measures of threat- and deprivation-based adversities at the family level. Implications for utilizing case record data to inform CPS intervention are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several states had an assessment that they considered to be an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards (AA-MAS) in place, or in development, when the April 2007 federal regulations on modified achievement standards were finalized. This article uses publicly available information collected by the National Center on Educational Outcomes to analyze changes in states' AA-MAS between 2007 and 2008. The article compares across the 2 years the number of states that had an assessment they considered to be an AA-MAS, states' participation guidelines, and the characteristics of these assessments. We also provide information about the number of students who participated in this assessment option during the 2006-07 school year. In 2007, six states (Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma) either had or were in the process of developing an assessment they considered to be an AA-MAS. In 2008, California, Connecticut, and Texas also offered this assessment option. Six of the nine states that have been early implementers of the AA-MAS were states that had offered an out-of-level testing option until federal policies required that option to be phased out. Most states had fewer items on their AA-MAS than on their regular assessment. States that had participation guidelines for the AA-MAS in 2007 developed them prior to finalization of the federal regulations, and some changes between 2007 and 2008 in states' participation guidelines appear to have been made to better align the guidelines with the regulations. The characteristics of the assessments states consider to be AA-MASs are changing rapidly and will probably continue to change rapidly over the next few years as more is learned about the advantages and limitations of this assessment. (Contains 5 tables and 4 footnotes.)

The article presents several poster and oral abstracts on medical topics which won awards from the Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP) and announces awards given to physicians and several notable people including the Clinical Vignette award to Viktorija Overiene of the University of Connecticut Primary Care for her paper "Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism," the Chapter Laureate Award to Doctor Steve Angus and the Legislator of the Year Award to State Representative Chris Donovan.

State-based supports and services are essential to improving the quality of life of many individuals with intellectual disabilities. However, access to vital assistance is often reserved for those who satisfy the state's definition of "intellectual disability." On a national scale, Connecticut employs the most restrictive definition of intellectual disability, denying services to individuals with intensive needs simply because they have an IQ score above 69. Effectively, Connecticut quantifies the quality of life of individuals with intellectual disabilities. This Note argues that Connecticut's eligibility criteria is inconsistent with the best practices set forth by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). In assessing intellectual disability, the AAIDD dispels of strict IQ cutoff scores and instead engages in a holistic inquiry emphasizing the individual's overall well-being. This Note calls upon the Connecticut legislature to enact a statutory amendment that will modernize Connecticut's eligibility practices, and ensure that Connecticut is meeting its imperative of providing assistance to those most in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the Early Years Summit, meetings between kindergarten and preschool educators in New Canaan, Connecticut, to improve communication and foster collaboration. Outcomes included defining the kindergarten curricula and outlining expectations for children's preschool experiences. The Summit collaboratively drafted a statement of beliefs, developed standardized transition practices, built teamwork, and further strengthened commitment to children and families. (KB)

State-based supports and services are essential to improving the quality of life of many individuals with intellectual disabilities. However, access to vital assistance is often reserved for those who satisfy the state's definition of "intellectual disability." On a national scale, Connecticut employs the most restrictive definition of intellectual disability, denying services to individuals with intensive needs simply because they have an IQ score above 69. Effectively, Connecticut quantifies the quality of life of individuals with intellectual disabilities. This Note argues that Connecticut's eligibility criteria is inconsistent with the best practices set forth by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). In assessing intellectual disability, the AAIDD dispels of strict IQ cutoff scores and instead engages in a holistic inquiry emphasizing the individual's overall well-being. This Note calls upon the Connecticut legislature to enact a statutory amendment that will modernize Connecticut's eligibility practices, and ensure that Connecticut is meeting its imperative of providing assistance to those most in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights the American Society for Nondestructive Testing Digital Imaging VII conference, held on July 26-28, 2004 in Mashantucket, Connecticut. Keynote speakers; Programs and activities; Event description; Contact information.

The article offers a paper which deals with image building process and the particular image presented by Democrat Ella Grasso, Connecticut's first female governor. Grasso's election on November 5, 1974, established a first in the U.S. by making her the first woman to achieve a state governorship without having followed her husband in the holding of that office. Also discussed is the use by Grasso of brochures including "Why I Am Running for Governor" to highlight her experience and competence.

This article presents a paper which looks into the state of free speech within the American academic setting and suggests a plan for its revitalization. The university setting is traditionally been seen as open marketplace for free expression. An incident in 1966 at Wesleyan University in Connecticut is cited as symbolic of a shift in the direction of suppression on college campuses. Also presented is a proposed plan to preserve the university as an open forum for expression of all ideas.

The article reports that for many years Laura Manuelidis, a neuropathologist from Yale University has been arguing that the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is caused by virus. A recent paper by Manuelidis at the National Academy of Sciences shows that the debate is not over. The paper displays virus-like particles in infected cells and does not deny the prion hypothesis, it only shows that identification of disease source is difficult. Comments of many neurologists on this issue are also presented.

Common strategies employed in preventing STI/AIDS transmission among young adults in America include abstinence, monogamy and safer sex. These strategies require a high level of vigilance and responsibility and, according to inner city participants in Project PHRESH.comm, neither option is always desirable, available, or rational in the context of their lived experiences. This article reports findings from Project PHRESH.comm, a mixed-method, ethnographic study incorporating data from focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, coital diaries, systematic cultural assessments and a structured survey designed to explore concepts of risk and decision making about condom use among at risk African American and Puerto Rican young adults aged 18-25 years in Hartford, CT. We found that many young adults from our study population rely on a strategy of using clinic-sponsored STI/AIDS screening when wanting to discontinue condom use with a partner. While our data suggest that screening is a common strategy used by many couples to transition to having sex without a condom, the data also show that most youth do not maintain monogamy even in long-term, serious relationships. Thus, sharing test results may provide a false sense of security in the sexual culture of inner city, minority youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on school-based crisis intervention services for adolescents endorsed by the Committees on Adolescence and School Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics chapter in Connecticut. Requirements for the crisis intervention plan; Staff training and education; Liaisons with community resources; Need for follow-up services and services for related problems.

The design strategies for flood risk reduction in coastal towns must be informed by the likelihood of flooding resulting from both precipitation and coastal storm surge. This paper discusses various bivariate extreme value methods to investigate the joint probability of the exceedance of thresholds in both precipitation and sea level and estimate their dependence structure. We present the results of the dependence structure obtained using the observational record at Bridgeport, CT, a station with long data records representative of coastal Connecticut. Furthermore, we evaluate the dependence structure after removing the effects of harmonics in the sea level data. Through this comprehensive analysis, our study seeks to contribute to the understanding of the joint occurrence of sea level and precipitation extremes, providing insights that are crucial for effective coastal management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working waterfront space is limited, leading to competition for coastal space among different waterfront‐dependent industries as well as non‐waterfront dependent users. Coastal margins will be shrinking as sea levels rise due to climate change, squeezing already scarce port resources, exacerbating competition for these spaces, and generating conflicts. This paper focuses on the competition for waterfront space on the Thames River of Connecticut bordered by the municipalities of New London, Groton, Norwich, Ledyard, and Montville. Emerging wind power in the new Blue Economy looks to reshape port usage in the Thames River. The recent focus on wind generation by the State of Connecticut, coupled with several competitive bidding events for wind‐generated electricity, has augmented demand for port space that will serve as a staging area for this offshore development. Although the development of wind power will occur offshore, Connecticut ports are anticipating port use by wind companies with winning bids. This paper explores the processes by which port space has been (re)allocated and contested, and examines the nature of the ensuing conflicts and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a human-centered design approach to investigate unmet adolescent sexual health wants and needs among youth of color in low-income and rural communities in Texas, North Carolina, and Connecticut (n = 149). The approach involved gathering qualitative data through in-depth interviews and other human-centered design activities between April 2016 and August 2016. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis after each round of data collection. Themes were triangulated across multiple data sources to identify key insights. Results highlighted several important unmet wants and needs. Participants shared that schools were not the preferred place to learn about sexual health and healthy relationships, due to uncomfortable and sometimes even hostile environments. When discussing the potential to use internet- and technology-based sexual health resources, participants expressed concerns over privacy, safety, and credibility of information available. Similarly, participants preferred mobile apps over websites due to the privacy of the experience. Most importantly, key emotions impacting adolescents' access to and use of sexual health resources were identified. Results indicated a preference for consuming story-based information in a text message format that described diverse experiences related to sexual health topics. Together, these findings led to the development of an innovative, mobile health intervention for adolescents, the Real Talk mobile app. This human-centered approach can support researchers and practitioners in strengthening intervention development efforts to improve the reach, adoption, and implementation of sexual health interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to highlight how a group of novice principals in Connecticut and New York used relational, dispositional and situational factors to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The study aims to support new principals and educational leaders. Design/methodology/approach: Using Mutch's (2015) dispositional, relational and situational framework to guide the inquiry, this paper uses qualitative methods and interviewing in particular to explore the questions of interest. Six novice principals were each interviewed over the 2020–2021 school year, each interview lasting approximately forty-five minutes. Data were analyzed thematically using both deductive coding techniques and cross comparative analysis. Findings: Findings show that novice principals tended to rely on dispositional factors to respond to the crisis. Additionally, novice principals reported limited responses to the situational factors of the crisis due to restricted access and guidance from the district leadership. Research limitations/implications: Due to the small sample size and methodological approach, it may be inappropriate to generalize the findings across all novice principals in all settings. Further research in additional settings and larger samples are encouraged to support the proposed findings. Practical implications: This paper has several implications for districts and leadership preparation programs. Among these is the need for leadership preparation programs to adjust their curricula to train new principals properly. Originality/value: This work fills a gap in the research regarding how new principals respond to a crisis. It also provides insights into practice and possible means to enhance the growing population of new principals entering the educational leadership workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, every aspect of daily life is being altered in response to the virus. The pandemic has altered secondary education. Classes online, teachers struggling to learn Zoom and make lessons meaningful and relevant to students. Students struggling to make sense of this moment, struggling with mental health issues due to the loss of routine and in many cases contact with adult role models. Unfortunately, in times of crisis such as these some of the most disenfranchized people in society are completely overlooked and forgotten, such as refugees. However, if more teachers were to leverage the social studies potential of current events such as the Coronavirus, greater empathy would be felt for marginalized people more starkly impacted by the pandemic, leading ultimately to a heightened sense of civic engagement among the next generation. The purpose of this paper is to assist teachers in guiding their students through analyzing current events, such as COVID-19's impact on refugees, toward developing civic mindedness. In addition to this, the paper will discuss some of the broader societal impacts the virus is having within the United States, as well as ways in which this event may be viewed as a historical subject in the future. The paper will begin by building the content knowledge of high school social studies teachers through addressing the following question: "What is the difference between a refugee entering the United States now versus one year ago before the COVID-19 pandemic?" Following this, the authors will present an inquiry-based learning segment designed to teach the History correlated to the COVID-19 pandemic to a classroom of secondary education students. The inquiry template follows the standard C3 format utilized by the State of Connecticut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We share our collective stories as instructors and graduate students with an interest in decolonial education on how we learned together in a course on Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). The course occurred in the environmental studies department at a predominantly White graduate school in the Connecticut river basin in the area now known as the USA. The topic of IKS is steadily gaining interest in the environmental education (EE) field, as evidenced by an increase (albeit small) in the number of publications in peer-reviewed journals. At the same time, decolonial educators are looking for ways to teach IKS in an ethical and respectful manner. Our goal for this paper was to share how we grappled with questions around ethics and cultural appropriation. For instance, as decolonial educators who are not Indigenous to communities where we work and reside, can we facilitate lessons on IKS? If so, how can we do it in a manner that honors IKS and knowledge holders, is ethical, respectful and not appropriating? We learned that applying decolonization factors was crucial. Specifically, our work revealed four key decolonization factors: centering programs in Indigenous philosophies of education, privileging Indigenous voices and engaging Elders as experts, promoting Etuptmumk/two-eyed seeing, and employing Indigenous ways of teaching and learning. This paper makes contributions to the environmental education field, particularly decolonial educators who are seeking respectful and ethical ways to engage with Indigenous knowledge systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explains the indifference to the goal of peace through international cooperation in Connecticut. Deficiences of the local peace leaders; Component and weakness of the Connecticut peace movement; Presence of social, psychological and political handicaps of the leadership that stunted the growth of peace movement.

The aim of this qualitative research paper was to identify how social isolation policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the lives of pregnant women and mothers with opioid use disorder. Between 2020 and 2022, in-depth interviews were conducted with 37 mothers and pregnant women living in the suburbs of Newark, NJ, and New Haven, CT. Participants had to be at least 18 years old, misused or abused opioids in the last 12 months while residing in a suburban location, and pregnant or caring for children aged 12 and younger. We used syndemics theory to guide our grounded theory analysis to identify relationships between social situations, health conditions, and opioid use disorder. Five major themes emerged that were either directly or indirectly impacted by social isolation caused by policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic: Relationships, Environment, Services, Drug Use, and Health. Findings from this study reveal new insights into how mothers and their health were impacted by prolonged social isolation policies and offer suggestions for policymakers and service providers to better address future crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the Recovering Citizenship Learning Collaborative (RCLC), a training, consultation and implementation effort for 13 local mental health authorities and two state hospitals. Design/methodology/approach: The learning collaborative used a Recovering Citizenship approach, which holds that recovery occurs in the context of people's lives in their communities and society, that is, their citizenship. The RCLC was implemented by the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) in the USA and the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health along with lived experience leaders. The RCLC supported system change through training DMHAS staff on concepts of recovery and citizenship and developing agency action plans, with the long-term goal of improving citizenship-oriented care at the agency-level and recovery and citizenship-related outcomes for people receiving services. Findings: Lessons learned include the importance of assessing organizational readiness for change, addressing leadership investment and attention to systemic barrier, and offering tools to promote structure and accountability. Next steps are supporting agency action plans through technical assistance, state-wide educational offerings and a resource library. Research limitations/implications: Systemic barriers are considerable and must be addressed before system transformation is possible. Practical implications: The authors are hopeful that the RCLC has been part of overcoming those challenges and can be a tool for building foundations for improving citizen practices and people's citizenship-related outcomes. Social implications: Next steps are sustaining agency action plans, ongoing agency-specific technical assistance, ongoing state-wide educational offerings and a resource library. Originality/value: The RCLC has provided tools and supports to build the foundation for improved citizenship practices and client outcomes at the multiagency system level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a Lasso-type estimator for a high-dimensional sparse parameter identified by a single index conditional moment restriction (CMR). In addition to this parameter, the moment function can also depend on a nuisance function, such as the propensity score or the conditional choice probability, which we estimate by modern machine learning tools. We first adjust the moment function so that the gradient of the future loss function is insensitive (formally, Neyman orthogonal) with respect to the first-stage regularisation bias, preserving the single index property. We then take the loss function to be an indefinite integral of the adjusted moment function with respect to the single index. The proposed Lasso estimator converges at the oracle rate, where the oracle knows the nuisance function and solves only the parametric problem. We demonstrate our method by estimating the short-term heterogeneous impact of Connecticut's Jobs First welfare reform experiment on women's welfare participation decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a statistical modeling framework that contributes to advancing methods for modeling insurance policy premium in the actuarial literature. Specification of separate frequency and severity models, accounting for territorial risk and performing accurate inference, are some of the challenges an actuary faces while modeling policy premium. Policy premiums are characterized to follow a semi-continuous probability distribution, featuring a non-zero probability at zero along with a positive continuous support. Interpretability is a concern when quantifying unobserved risks premiums face from spatial variation. Commonly used strategies in the literature are known to successfully quantify this risk, but do not necessarily produce interpretable estimates. Resorting to frequency-severity models leaves the actuary indecisive about the specification of covariates and spatial effects. The novelty of our proposed approach lies in the development of a parsimonious and interpretable zero-adjusted modeling framework that allows for joint estimation of the effect of policy and individual characteristics on the mean premium and dispersion, while quantifying spatial variability in the mean model. The developed methods are applied to a database featuring premiums arising from the collision coverage in insurance policies for motor vehicles within the state of Connecticut, USA, for the year 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand response (DR) program empowers the dynamic prices to actively optimize the consumption. This optimized consumption plays a vital role in resolving the complex operation and reliability issues in the electricity market. The human behavior aspect of consumers explained by several models that have been reported in the literature. These models depend on the classical utility factor. The effect of price on the consumer's decision in the field of energy efficiency and reduction of consumption based on behavioral characteristics are two important aspects of DR programs. In absence of such characteristics, results become non‐viable. In this paper, the footprint of two time‐based DR programs is explored on the peak reduction namely; Real‐Time Pricing (RTP) and Peak Time Rebate (PTR). Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based topologies for two DR programs are proposed. The proposed topologies employ variation in demand and price, subsequently for simulating an online DR simulator. Demand before and after the RTP and PTR was calculated and compared with four ANN‐based DR topologies namely; Radial Basis Function Neural Network‐Demand Response (RBFN‐DR), Feedforward Backprop‐Demand Response (FFBP‐DR), Layer Recurrent‐Demand Response (LR‐DR), and Generalized Regression‐Demand Response (GR‐DR). The proposed models are tested on three test cases. The first case tested on hourly data of New England ISO of Connecticut on August 18, 2014, the second case tested on hourly data of the same system on August 18, 2020, and the third case tested on hourly residential data of test smart grid. By assessing the results from all three test cases, depicted that RBFN‐DR proved its efficacy by giving better results for both price‐based programs namely; RTP and PTR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on Stamford, Connecticut-based International Paper's announcement of definitive agreements with two separate investor groups. The company would sell a total of about 5.1 million acres of forestlands for aggregate proceeds of approximately 6.1 billion. The sale of forestlands is part of the company's transformation plan.

Purpose: Vaccine effectiveness (VE) studies are often conducted after the introduction of new vaccines to ensure they provide protection in real-world settings. Control of confounding is often needed during the analyses, which is most efficiently done through multivariable modeling. When many confounders are being considered, it can be challenging to know which variables need to be included in the final model. We propose an intuitive Bayesian model averaging (BMA) framework for this task. Patients and Methods: Data were used from a matched case–control study that aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Lyme vaccine post-licensure. Cases were residents of Connecticut, 15– 70 years of age with confirmed Lyme disease. Up to 2 healthy controls were matched to each case subject by age. All participants were interviewed, and medical records were reviewed to ascertain immunization history and evaluate potential confounders. BMA was used to systematically search for potential models and calculate the weighted average VE estimate from the top subset of models. The performance of BMA was compared to three traditional single-best-model-selection methods: two-stage selection, stepwise elimination, and the leaps and bounds algorithm. Results: The analysis included 358 cases and 554 matched controls. VE ranged between 56% and 73% and 95% confidence intervals crossed zero in < 5% of all candidate models. Averaging across the top 15 models, the BMA VE was 69% (95% CI: 18– 88%). The two-stage, stepwise, and leaps and bounds algorithm yielded VE of 71% (95% CI: 21– 90%), 73% (95% CI: 26– 90%), and 74% (95% CI: 27– 91%), respectively. Conclusion: This paper highlights how the BMA framework can be used to generate transparent and robust estimates of VE. The BMA-derived VE and confidence intervals were similar to those estimated using traditional methods. However, by incorporating model uncertainty into the parameter estimation, BMA can lend additional rigor and credibility to a well-designed study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the weaknesses of the U.S. national food system, with grocery store shelves emptied in March and April 2020 and COVID outbreaks reported throughout the summer of 2020 at meat processing plants across the country. Fleetingly, Americans turned to local farms to ensure they could access food safely in a time of uncertainty. This paper examines the economies of community that formed around local farms and how direct engagements between consumers and producers in the face of the pandemic deepened these economic structures that often put community well-being above profits. Within a capitalist system that prioritizes efficient mass production, economies of community illustrate that solidarity can improve local food system resilience. Based on qualitative and quantitative research carried out in the summer of 2020 in New London County in southeastern Connecticut, this research draws on ethnographic interviews with small-scale farmers who developed innovative ways to feed some of their community's most vulnerable members. Community economies show that we should not only depend on standardized large-scale farms and giant retail distribution; the American food system needs to continue to cultivate smallscale local production in order to improve resilience and food access. At present, the sustainability of producing and distributing food occurs at the farmer's expense. The government needs to support local food producers so they can continue to play an integral part in community well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an ongoing argument about the potency of chrysotile asbestos to cause malignant mesothelioma. Authors of chrysotile risk assessments have relied upon the results of an epidemiologic study, published in 1984, to state that there were no mesotheliomas found among workers at a Connecticut friction products plant. McDonald reported the first two cases in 1986. In 2010, we reported the work histories and pathologic reports of five individuals from the Connecticut plant who were diagnosed with mesothelioma. Despite this, a review of the health effects of chrysotile published in 2018 continued to state that there were no cases of mesothelioma from this plant. We report here two new cases that were diagnosed after the publication of our previous report, bringing the current total to nine cases. We also discuss the results of previously unpublished air sampling data from the plant. Chrysotile, mainly from Canada, was the only asbestos fiber type used until 1957 when some anthophyllite was added in making paper discs and bands. Beyond this original description of the anthophyllite usage from McDonald, there is a dearth of information about the amount of anthophyllite used in the plant, the frequency of its use, and the specific departments where it was used. For over 30 years in the published literature, this factory has alternatively been described as a 'chrysotile' or 'predominantly chrysotile' factory. While it is clear that some anthophyllite was used in the factory (in addition to 400 pounds of crocidolite in the laboratory), given the volume, frequency, and processes using chrysotile, it still seems satisfactory to describe this cohort as a predominantly, but not exclusively, chrysotile-exposed cohort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests whether potential coastal sea walls would pass a cost benefit test given current risks of flooding. The paper combines detailed GIS property data with local scientific measurements of relative SLR and storm risks to measure expected benefits and applies this methodology to measure the optimal strategy for the coastal town of East Haven, Connecticut. The paper finds that East Haven should build sea walls that are about 1 m high along its entire coastline. The benefit to cost ratio is about 2 to 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palliative care and medical-legal partnership are complementary disciplines dedicated to integrating care to treat the whole patient and intervening before a legal or medical issue is at a crisis point. In this paper, we discuss the founding and operations of the Yale Palliative Medical Legal Partnership, give examples of typical cases, explain special considerations in this area of law, and propose areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire for students to graduate with more than basic skills has fueled interest in performance assessment methods such as essay writing, group science experiments, or portfolio preparation. Officials in Vermont, California, Kentucky, Maryland, and other states are betting that performance assessments may prove as powerful a classroom influence as paper-and-pencil testing used to be. (MLH)

There can be no doubt of the prestige possessed by quantitative methods in the minds of social scientists of the present generation. It is the purpose of this article to point the inevitable subjectivism of a certain type of so-called measurement, and to present a partially developed technique for determining the extent of variations among separate investigators who attempt to measure the same material. This technique relates, that is, to the problem of verification, and permits the calculation of a coefficient which will throw some light on the validity of the measurements. As illustrative of the field of inquiry to which the argument relates, researchers have conducted an experiment in the measurement of newspaper content, employing the methods developed by Professor Malcolm M. Willey in his noteworthy study of the country press in Connecticut. He has made every effort to achieve objectivity and he has covered an extensive range of newspaper material. Professor Willey's method is simple in its main outlines. He classifies all printed matter exclusive of advertisements in the papers analyzed, placing each news item in a single category. The system of categories that he has developed contains ten major headings and minor or subcategories into which the content of any newspaper may presumedly be fitted.

This article provides a list of several conferences related to sports philosophy to be held in 1981. The ninth annual meeting of the Philosophic Society for the Study of Sport will be held at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, from October 15-17, 1981. The seventh annual conference of the Association for the Anthropological Study of Play will be held April 1-4, 1981, in Forth Worth, Texas. The R. Tait McKenzie Symposium on Sport will be held May 7-8 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee.

In 2020, Connecticut became the first U.S. state to require all public high schools to offer Black and Latinx studies. This monumental decision has raised a fair amount of concern over what constitutes effective and conscionable teaching practices for Black and Latinx studies at the classroom level. In this paper, I propose several teaching strategies, all grounded in critical, dialectical, and responsive theories of pedagogical praxis. I deliberate on the strengths and potential weaknesses of each approach with equal attention, and at the end of each section I offer some examples of how these strategies can be applied in the classroom. I conclude by restating how important Black and Latinx studies are in facilitating the reimagining of educational practice and classroom pedagogies throughout Connecticut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the plans of Stamford, Connecticut-based MeadWestvaco Corp. to reorgnize packaging and packaging solutions in key global markets. It initiative consists of realigning its packaging businesses; establishing a research-focused Packaging Innovation Center in Raleigh, North Carolina and consolidating its corporate locations and key administrative functions into a new headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. In addition, six divisions in its packaging segment will transition into two packaging groups.

Background: Although Good Samaritan laws (GSLs) have been widely adopted throughout the United States, their efficacy in individual states is often unknown. This paper offers an approach for assessing the impact of GSLs and insight for policy-makers and public health officials who wish to know whether they should expect to see outcomes from similar policy interventions.Methods: Utilizing a system dynamics (SD) modeling approach, the research team conducted a policy evaluation to determine the impact of GSLs on opioid use disorder (OUD) in Connecticut and evaluated the GSL based upon the following health outcomes: (1) emergency department (ED) visits for overdose, (2) behavioral changes of bystanders, and (3) overdose deaths.Results: The simulation model suggests that Connecticut's GSL has not yet affected overdose deaths but has resulted in bystander behavioral changes, such as increased 911 calls for overdose. ED visits have increased as the number of opioid users has increased.Conclusions: The simulation results indicate that the number of opioid-related deaths will continue to increase and that the GSL alone cannot effectively control the crisis. However, the SD approach that was used will allow policymakers to evaluate the effectiveness of the GSL over time using a simulation framework. This SD model demonstrates great potential by producing simulations that allow policymakers to assess multiple strategies for combating the opioid crisis and select optimal public health interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates a dynamic model of price level, school performance, and school racial and ethnic composition in the State of Connecticut. The paper finds that increasing minority representation in a Labor Market Area reinforces the existing pattern of school segregation. Changes in segregation appear to be influenced by demographic trends in urban areas and by the labour market factors that determine those trends. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that this process affects housing prices; rather, the housing market appears to adjust relatively quickly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To support public health policymakers in Connecticut, we developed a flexible county-structured compartmental SEIR-type model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19 disease progression. Our goals were to provide projections of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, and estimates of important features of disease transmission and clinical progression. In this paper, we outline the model design, implementation and calibration, and describe how projections and estimates were used to meet the changing requirements of policymakers and officials in Connecticut from March 2020 to February 2021. The approach takes advantage of our unique access to Connecticut public health surveillance and hospital data and our direct connection to state officials and policymakers. We calibrated this model to data on deaths and hospitalizations and developed a novel measure of close interpersonal contact frequency to capture changes in transmission risk over time and used multiple local data sources to infer dynamics of time-varying model inputs. Estimated epidemiologic features of the COVID-19 epidemic in Connecticut include the effective reproduction number, cumulative incidence of infection, infection hospitalization and fatality ratios, and the case detection ratio. We conclude with a discussion of the limitations inherent in predicting uncertain epidemic trajectories and lessons learned from one year of providing COVID-19 projections in Connecticut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare the efficacy of gentamicin and steroids in patients with Meniere's disease (MD). Methods: The study protocol was structured in accordance with the Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome (PICO) framework. We used "Endnote" (Thomson ResearchSoft; Stanford, Connecticut, the United States) to retrieve database documents. A systematic literature search of Web of Science and PubMed Database through May 2020 was conducted using specific search terms. Inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, vertigo improvement, and exact hearing changes were defined. Review Manager 5.3 (Cochrane) was used for data analysis. Results: A total of 80 articles were searched from Web of Science and 23 articles were searched from PubMed database. After further reviewing the specific points of the inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria, 9 papers were finally selected. Intratympanic gentamicin (ITG) was superior to intratympanic steroid (ITS) in reducing the number of vertigo attacks (odds ratio (OR) 3.08, 95% confidence intervals (CI) [2.05–3.65]), probability (P) < 0.01). As for hearing improvement, we did the analysis twice. With all the studies included, the odds of hearing improvement (by "x") was 0.31 among patients receiving gentamicin compared to those treated by steroids (OR 0.31, 95% CI [0.16–0.61]). But after removing one study with outlying results from the analysis, this effect disappeared. Hearing loss of ITG and ITS was not statistically significant (P = 0.29). Conclusions: ITG is superior to ITS in reducing the number of vertigo attacks in the treatment of MD (P < 0.01); the impact on hearing is more heterogeneous in the studies. Overall, there was no clear difference between ITG and ITS on hearing improvement and on hearing loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on inauguration of a project to collect and edit the papers of Frederick Douglass at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Collaboration between the university and the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History; Goal of publishing a multi-volume edition of the speeches, letters and essays of Douglass.

After being sued for inequity and inadequacy in school funding, many states in the US have reformed their education aid formulas but have still faced many criticisms. Using Connecticut as an example, this paper shows how to design a more equitable and adequate aid formula with tools to win broad support from communities and lawmakers. It develops a measure of the gap between education cost and revenue capacity as an indicator for each district's need for state aid. Both education cost and revenue capacity are estimated using school district characteristics that are outside the direct control of local officials at any given point in time. This paper shows that Connecticut school districts have a wide range of cost-capacity gaps, due to disparities in cost factors and property tax base, and therefore have different needs for state aid. While larger-gap districts, on average, received more state aid per pupil than smaller-gap districts, many districts --especially the largest-gap ones-- received less aid than they needed to close their cost-capacity gaps. Further analysis suggests that inadequate school funding could have a negative impact on student test performance. As a potential solution, this paper proposes a gap-based formula to allocate state aid and includes tools to make the formula more attractive to a wide range of school districts. The policy simulations show that the gap-based formulas can align aid with the gaps better than the existing formula does. However, applying tools to increase the formula's attractiveness to small-gap districts would compromise the ability of state aid to eliminate inequity and inadequacy and would often require a larger state aid pool. This paper expands the academic community's knowledge about the US education equity and adequacy by examining Connecticut's school funding for the first time under the regression-based cost-capacity gap approach. This analysis can be relevant and useful for other states facing similar issues, as it provides a practical, step-by-step roadmap how to apply the sufficiently general research method and formula design to an individual state.

This paper examines how in-service teachers enrolled in an MA in TESOL program demonstrated critical language awareness (CLA) as they designed and implemented ethnographic action research projects anchored in funds of knowledge. The action research project aimed to introduce teachers to school-based ethnographic research and to provide an opportunity to incorporate community funds of knowledge into their unit plans. Drawing from program documents such as the in-service teachers' research proposals, papers, and unit plans, the study highlights how awareness of the intersections of language and local power dynamics in their schools informed their decision-making about their research and curricular designs. At each stage of the research process, the teachers narrated how they restructured their interactional roles within established classroom routines, school-playtime, community, and family-school events for purposes of inquiring about student and family funds of knowledge. By integrating theories of funds of knowledge and CLA, the analysis shows how teacher understandings of sociopolitical and sociolinguistic contexts shaped which, how, and whose knowledge became resources (or not) in their curricular plans. The study suggests the benefit of professional development that includes CLA for purposes of supporting teachers as they aim to incorporate and leverage funds of knowledge of students, families, and communities in their curricula.