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Project-based learning (PBL) instructional methods attempt to make connections between students and their ability to solve real problems. We framed our qualitative study within sociocultural theory and used the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) model to define the positive and negative factors occurring during a PBL activity. We followed 22 rural community college chemistry students during a garden-based PBL activity and collected data through discussions, observations, open-ended exam questions, semi-structured interviews, and reflective journals. Our goal was to identify the social influences on groups in real time, meaning defining group interactions as they were occurring, and organize the findings within a SWOT framework. We discovered four strengths (discussions, groups, instructor support, and knowledge/experience), six weaknesses (absences, collaboration, communication, dominant member, motivation, and procrastination), four opportunities (Canvas and Google Docs, community members/ family, out-of-class communication/discussions, and websites), and two threats (animosity and personal issues/ignoring the group). The results offer insight into the complex network of social interactions within the peer group. We include strategies for finding the right balance between SWOT factors.

This research report explores the potential racial disparity in the use of regional nerve blocks for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in hospitals. The study found that hospitals with a higher proportion of Black patients undergoing TKA were less likely to administer nerve blocks. This difference persisted even after accounting for patient characteristics. The findings suggest that there may be a racial disparity in access to nerve blockade for pain management during TKA. However, it is important to note that the study has limitations and may not apply to the entire US population. [Extracted from the article]

Alcohol use is a contributor in the premature deaths of approximately 3 million people annually. Among the risk factors for alcohol misuse is circadian rhythm disruption; however, this connection remains poorly understood. Inhibition of the circadian nuclear receptor REV-ERBα is known to disrupt molecular feedback loops integral to daily oscillations, and impact diurnal fluctuations in the expression of proteins required for reward-related neurotransmission. However, the role of REV-ERBα in alcohol and substance use-related phenotypes is unknown. Herein, we used a Rev-erbα knockout mouse line and ethanol two-bottle choice preference testing to show that disruption of Rev-erbα reduces ethanol preference in male and female mice. Rev-erbα null mice showed the lowest ethanol preference in a two-bottle choice test across all genotypes, whereas there were no ethanol preference differences between heterozygotes and wildtypes. In a separate experiment, alcohol-consuming wildtype C57Bl/6N mice were administered the REV-ERBα/β inhibitor SR8278 (25 mg/kg or 50 mg/kg) for 7 days and alcohol preference was evaluated daily. No differences in alcohol preference were observed between the treatment and vehicle groups. Our data provides evidence that genetic variation in REV-ERBα may contribute to differences in alcohol drinking.

A falta de informações sobre o real custo dos serviços públicos provoca uma demanda social em saber qual a qualidade dos gastos públicos. Entretanto, há uma carência de estudos práticos que abordam a gestão de custos aplicados a instituições do setor público. Assim, objetivou-se estimar e avaliar os custos da atividade leiteira do Instituto Federal de Minas Gerais - Campus Bambuí, no período de 2012 a 2014, com a finalidade de obter um diagnóstico gerencial. A abordagem da pesquisa caracteriza-se como quali-quantitativa; em relação aos objetivos, é classificada como descritiva e explicativa, e, quanto aos procedimentos, define-se como pesquisa documental e estudo de caso. O estudo demonstrou que a atividade é subsidiada e depende de recursos financeiros do governo para manter a atual estrutura produtiva, pois não possuiviabilidade operacional mínima, ou seja, os recursos próprios não são suficientes para arcar com os gastos operacionais. Dessa forma, será necessário rever a atual estrutura produtiva do setor de bovinocultura e seu planejamento de gastos, uma vez que os recursos empregados na atividade são públicos e precisam ser aplicados de forma eficaz e eficiente para que gerem a maior quantidade de benefícios e atenda às expectativas da sociedade.

After implementation of the Real Plan in July 1994 by the Brazilian government, the industrial chicken was established in consumer preference causing change in their spending habits. This change was attributed in great part due to their affordability to the consumer. This article aims to analyze the price transmission elasticity of poultry in the state of São Paulo market and identify which market level focuses on the greatest power of pricing, either at the producer level, wholesale and retail. By studying São Paulo’s poultry market, we intend to provide information to support decision making by managers of the production chain. Furthermore, São Paulo is the largest poultry consumer market in the country. Therefore, it is used in the treatment of poultry price data at the producer level, wholesale and retail the econometric model of Vector Autoregressive (VAR). The results found by analyzing the variance decomposition of forecast errors demonstrate that the producer has a high power setting of prices of poultry in the São Paulo’s market, having direct influence on the formation of prices both at wholesale as well as retail.

Background: Falls are the most common medication‐related safety event in older adults. Deprescribing fall risk‐increasing drugs (FRIDs) may mitigate fall risk. This study assesses the effects of an innovative deprescribing program in reducing FRID burden and falls‐related acute visits over 1 year. Methods: The Falls Assessment of Medications in the Elderly (FAME) Program is a pilot deprescribing program designed to improve medication safety in Veterans aged ≥65, screening positive for high fall risk at the Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Central case finding and electronic case reviews with deprescribing recommendations were completed by an interdisciplinary team, forwarded to prescribers for approval, then implemented during follow‐up telephone visits by FAME team. Primary outcome was change in FRID burden calculated by modified Drug Burden Index (DBI) at 1 year and an exploratory outcome was 1‐year fall‐related acute visits. Results: Overall, 472 patients (236 intervention cases, 236 matched controls) were included in the study. Of the 236 patients receiving a FAME deprescribing plan, 147 had recommendations approved by prescriber and patient. In the intention‐to‐treat analysis, the 1‐year change in modified DBI was −0.15 (95% CI −0.23, −0.08) in the intervention cohort and −0.11 (−0.21, −0.00) in the matched control cohort (p = 0.47). The odds of increasing DBI by a clinically important threshold of 0.5 was significantly lower in the FAME cohort (OR 0.37, 0.21, 0.66). Fall‐related acute events occurred in 6.3% of patients in the intervention group versus 11.0% in control patients over a one‐year period (p = 0.10). Conclusions: The program was associated with a significantly lower odds of further increasing FRID burden at 1 year compared to matched controls. An electronic case review and telephone counseling program has the potential to reduce drug‐related falls in high‐risk older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All superclasses of retinal neurons, including bipolar cells (BCs), amacrine cells (ACs) and ganglion cells (GCs), display gap junctional coupling. However, coupling varies extensively by class. Heterocellular AC coupling is common in many mammalian GC classes. Yet, the topology and functions of coupling networks remains largely undefined. GCs are the least frequent superclass in the inner plexiform layer and the gap junctions mediating GC-to-AC coupling (GC::AC) are sparsely arrayed amidst large cohorts of homocellular AC::AC, BC::BC, GC::GC and heterocellular AC::BC gap junctions. Here, we report quantitative coupling for identified GCs in retinal connectome 1 (RC1), a high resolution (2 nm) transmission electron microscopy-based volume of rabbit retina. These reveal that most GC gap junctions in RC1 are suboptical. GC classes lack direct cross-class homocellular coupling with other GCs, despite opportunities via direct membrane contact, while OFF alpha GCs and transient ON directionally selective (DS) GCs are strongly coupled to distinct AC cohorts. Integrated small molecule immunocytochemistry identifies these as GABAergic ACs (γ+ ACs). Multi-hop synaptic queries of RC1 connectome further profile these coupled γ+ ACs. Notably, OFF alpha GCs couple to OFF γ+ ACs and transient ON DS GCs couple to ON γ+ ACs, including a large interstitial amacrine cell, revealing matched ON/OFF photic drive polarities within coupled networks. Furthermore, BC input to these γ+ ACs is tightly matched to the GCs with which they couple. Evaluation of the coupled versus inhibitory targets of the γ+ ACs reveals that in both ON and OFF coupled GC networks these ACs are presynaptic to GC classes that are different than the classes with which they couple. These heterocellular coupling patterns provide a potential mechanism for an excited GC to indirectly inhibit nearby GCs of different classes. Similarly, coupled γ+ ACs engaged in feedback networks can leverage the additional gain of BC synapses in shaping the signaling of downstream targets based on their own selective coupling with GCs. A consequence of coupling is intercellular fluxes of small molecules. GC::AC coupling involves primarily γ+ cells, likely resulting in GABA diffusion into GCs. Surveying GABA signatures in the GC layer across diverse species suggests the majority of vertebrate retinas engage in GC::γ+ AC coupling.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a progressive retinal degeneration resulting in central visual field loss, ultimately causing debilitating blindness. AMD affects 18% of Americans from 65 to 74, 30% older than 74 years of age and is the leading cause of severe vision loss and blindness in Western populations. While many genetic and environmental risk factors are known for AMD, we currently know less about the mechanisms mediating disease progression.The pathways and mechanisms through which genetic and non-genetic risk factors modulate development of AMD pathogenesis remain largely unexplored. Moreover, current treatment for AMD is palliative and limited to wet/exudative forms. Retina is a complex, heterocellular tissue and most retinal cell classes are impacted or altered in AMD. Defining disease and stage-specific cytoarchitectural and metabolic responses in AMD is critical for highlighting targets for intervention. The goal of this paper is to illustrate cell types impacted in AMD and demonstrate the implications of those changes, likely beginning in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), for remodeling of the the neural retina.Tracking heterocellular responses in disease progression is best achieved with computational molecular phenotyping (CMP), a tool that enables acquisition of a small molecule fingerprint for every cell in the retina. CMP uncovered critical cellular and molecular pathologies (remodeling and reprogramming) in progressive retinal degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). We now applied these approaches to normal human and AMD tissues mapping progression of cellular and molecular changes in AMD retinas, including late-stage forms of the disease.Major findings: 1) Evidence of metabolic instability in RPE in dry-AMD.2) Photoreceptors show clear indications of stress prior to cell death.3) Cone opsin processing by the RPE in AMD retinas may be differentially compromised vs. rod opsin.4) Müller cells in AMD exhibit alterations in metabolism and morphology consistent with other retinal degenerative diseases.5) Inner retinal neurons in AMD remodel by sprouting neurites and projecting to aberrant locations.6) Retinal remodeling occurs underneath drusen.7) Retinal remodeling occurs in the presence of cone and rod photoreceptors.

This paper presents an extension of work from our previous study by investigating the use of Local Quinary Patterns (LQP) for breast density classification in mammograms on various neighbourhood topologies. The LQP operators are used to capture the texture characteristics of the fibro-glandular disk region ( F G D r o i ) instead of the whole breast area as the majority of current studies have done. We take a multiresolution and multi-orientation approach, investigate the effects of various neighbourhood topologies and select dominant patterns to maximise texture information. Subsequently, the Support Vector Machine classifier is used to perform the classification, and a stratified ten-fold cross-validation scheme is employed to evaluate the performance of the method. The proposed method produced competitive results up to 86.13 % and 82.02 % accuracy based on 322 and 206 mammograms taken from the Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) and InBreast datasets, which is comparable with the state-of-the-art in the literature.

En este artículo se analizan nuevas propuestas teóricas sobre tres orientaciones principales en el gasto en responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC) y se construyen índices por tipo de gasto en RSC, así como un índice de competencia. Para ello se emplearon modelos de regresión y se encontró que el tipo de gasto en RSC influye directamente sobre la utilidad esperada. La nueva propuesta teórica cuestiona gran parte de la evidencia empírica sobre la relación que guardan los gastos en RSC y la rentabilidad de las empresas que los llevan a cabo.

The mammalian AII retinal amacrine cell is a narrow-field, multistratified glycinergic neuron best known for its role in collecting scotopic signals from rod bipolar cells and distributing them to ON and OFF cone pathways in a crossover network via a combination of inhibitory synapses and heterocellular AII::ON cone bipolar cell gap junctions. Long considered a simple cell, a full connectomics analysis shows that AII cells possess most complex interaction repertoire of any known vertebrate neuron, contacting at least 28 different cell classes, including every class of retinal bipolar cell. Beyond its basic role in distributing rod signals to cone pathways, the AII cell may also mediate narrow-field feedback and feedforward inhibition for the photopic OFF channel, photopic ON-OFF inhibitory crossover signaling, and serves as a nexus for a collection of inhibitory networks arising from cone pathways that likely negotiate fast switching between cone and rod vision. Further analysis of the complete synaptic counts for five AII cells shows that (1) synaptic sampling is normalized for anatomic target encounter rates; (2) qualitative targeting is specific and apparently errorless; and (3) that AII cells strongly differentiate partner cohorts by synaptic and/or coupling weights. The AII network is a dense hub connecting all primary retinal excitatory channels via precisely weighted drive and specific polarities. Homologues of AII amacrine cells have yet to be identified in non-mammalians, but we propose that such homologues should be narrow-field glycinergic amacrine cells driving photopic ON-OFF crossover via heterocellular coupling with ON cone bipolar cells and glycinergic synapses on OFF cone bipolar cells. The specific evolutionary event creating the mammalian AII scotopic-photopic hub would then simply be the emergence of large numbers of pure rod bipolar cells.

The article reports on updates in the proposed elimination of fetal and gonadal shielding during abdominopelvic radiography and other medical imaging procedures using ionizing radiation. Also cited are the proposals by organizations like the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the American College of Radiology, and the Health Physics Society, and the update from the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP).