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Importance Severe acute esophagitis occurs in up to 20% of patients with locally advanced lung cancer treated with chemoradiation therapy to at least 60 Gy once daily and represents a dose-limiting toxic event associated with poor outcomes. Objective To assess whether formalized sparing of the contralateral esophagus (CE) is associated with reduced risk of severe acute esophagitis. Design, setting, and participants This single-center phase 1 nonrandomized clinical trial assessing an empirical CE-sparing technique enrolled patients from July 2015 to January 2019. In total, 27 patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung carcinoma (with or without solitary brain metastasis) or limited-stage small cell lung carcinoma with gross tumor within 1 cm of the esophagus were eligible. Interventions Intensity-modulated radiation therapy to 70 Gy at 2 Gy/fraction concurrent with standard chemotherapy with or without adjuvant durvalumab. The esophageal wall contralateral to gross tumor was contoured as an avoidance structure to guide a steep dose falloff gradient. Target coverage was prioritized over CE sparing, and 99% of internal and planning target volumes had to be covered by 70 Gy and at least 63 Gy, respectively. Main outcomes and measures The primary end point was the rate of at least grade 3 acute esophagitis as assessed by Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events, version 4. Results Of 27 patients enrolled, 25 completed chemoradiation therapy. Nineteen patients had non-small cell lung carcinoma, and 6 had small cell lung carcinoma. The median age at diagnosis was 67 years (range, 51-81 years), and 15 patients (60%) were men. Thirteen patients (52%) had stage IIIA cancer, 10 (40%) had stage IIIB cancer, and 2 (8%) had stage IV cancer. The median CE maximum dose was 66 Gy (range, 44-71 Gy); the median volume of CE receiving at least 55 Gy was 1.4 cm3 (range, 0-5.3 cm3), and the median volume of CE receiving at least 45 Gy was 2.7 cm3 (range, 0-9.2 cm3). The median combined percentage of lung receiving at least 20 Gy was 25% (range, 11%-37%). The median follow-up was 33.3 months (range, 11.1-52.2 months). Among the 20 patients who had treatment breaks of 0 to 3 days and were thus evaluable for the primary end point, the rate of at least grade 3 esophagitis was 0%. Other toxic events observed among all 25 patients included 7 (28%) with grade 2 esophagitis, 3 (12%) with at least grade 2 pneumonitis (including 1 with grade 5), and 2 (8%) with at least grade 3 cardiac toxic event (including 1 with grade 5). There was no isolated local tumor failure. The 2-year progression-free survival rate was 57% (95% CI, 33%-75%), and the 2-year overall survival rate was 67% (95% CI, 45%-82%). Conclusions and relevance This phase 1 nonrandomized clinical trial found that the CE-sparing technique was associated with reduced risk of esophagitis among patients treated uniformly with chemoradiation therapy (to 70 Gy), with no grade 3 or higher esophagitis despite tumor within 1 cm of the esophagus. This technique may be translated into clinical practice. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02394548.

This chapter explores justifications for and movements toward critical approaches to open education. While “open” is often framed as an unequivocal good, the deceptively simple term hides a “reef of complexity” (Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009, p. 114), much of which depends on the particular context within which openness is considered and practiced. Critical approaches to open education consider the nuances of context, focus on issues of participation and power, and encourage moving beyond the binaries of open and closed.

Catherine Cronin is an open educator, open researcher, and Strategic Education Developer at the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education in Ireland. Her work focuses on digital and open education, critical approaches to openness, digital identity practices, and exploring the interplay between formal and informal learning. She began her career as a Systems Engineer in the 1980’s, eventually changing paths to pursue a master’s degree in Women’s Studies completing her dissertation in gender and technology. Catherine has achieved over 25 years working in higher education. In her PhD research (2018), She explored the use of open educational practices (OEP) in higher education.

We consider the principles of communities of practice (CoP) and networked learning in higher education, illustrated with a case study. iCollab has grown from an international community of practice connecting students and lecturers in seven modules across seven higher education institutions in six countries, to a global network supporting the exploration and evaluation of mobile web tools to engage in participatory curriculum development and supporting students in developing international collaboration and cooperation skills. This article explores the interplay of collaboration and cooperation, CoP and networked learning; describes how this interplay has operated in iCollab; and highlights opportunities and challenges of learning, teaching and interacting with students in networked publics in higher education. Keywords: communities of practice; networked learning; collaboration; cooperation; social media; mobile social media (Published: 1 March 2016) Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2016, 24 : 26497 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v24.26497

Open educational practices (OEP) is a broad descriptor of practices that include the creation, use, and reuse of open educational resources (OER) as well as open pedagogies and open sharing of teaching practices. As compared with OER, there has been little empirical research on individual educators’ use of OEP for teaching in higher education. This research study addresses that gap, exploring the digital and pedagogical strategies of a diverse group of university educators, focusing on whether, why, and how they use OEP for teaching. The study was conducted at one Irish university; semi-structured interviews were carried out with educators across multiple disciplines. Only a minority of educators used OEP. Using constructivist grounded theory, a model of the concept “Using OEP for teaching” was constructed showing four dimensions shared by open educators: balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, valuing social learning, and challenging traditional teaching role expectations. The use of OEP by educators is complex, personal, and contextual; it is also continually negotiated. These findings suggest that research-informed policies and collaborative and critical approaches to openness are required to support staff, students, and learning in an increasingly complex higher education environment.

A conceptual framework of positions on women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) was developed, showing a chronological progression of the main approaches to women’s underrepresentation in SET during the past 20 years. Numerous initiatives have been advocated to address women’s underrepresentation in SET in higher education. This article arose out of one such initiative, Winning Women, which was intended to help higher education in Scotland move toward good practice in this field. Two members of the project team describe their key findings and experiences. They illustrate how the underrepresentation of women in SET continues to be both progressive and persistent (using a SET parity index). The conceptual framework was conceived and developed from a metaanalysis of feminist theories of the gendered politics of science and technology.

‘SET for the Future˚s was a research/action project undertaken at Heriot-Watt University in 1996–97, funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC). The SET acronym in the title refers to Science, Engineering and Technology curricula in higher education. The goals of the project were to survey SET students' education experiences, to compare this information with previous research, and to use the results to modify two existing SET modules—specifically to increase the participation of women SET students and improve their experiences. In this article the following are described: first, the project design and overall findings and, second, the project team's reflections on the process. The latter are described in detail, because specific aspects of the process of change are likely to be of most interest to others working towards building inclusive learning environments in their own departments and institutions.

In July 1995 the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) announced an initiative aimed at redressing the underrepresentation of women in science, engineering, and technology in higher education in Scotland. The first step in the initiative was to support a research and development project that would investigate good practice in women's access to, participation in, and progression through courses and careers in science, engineering, and technology (SET) in higher education. The initiative had its roots in the growing awareness of the problem of the underrepresentation of women in these disciplines that had been communicated through such pressure groups as "Women Scientists and Engineers in Scotland" (WSES) and "Women into Science and Engineering" (WISE) among others. The recruitment problem in SET is not confined to women; it is much more general and a cause of concern across the United Kingdom, but it is clear that women experience particular obstacles and barriers in their pursuit of studies an...

This article outlines the findings of a SHEFC‐funded project aimed at redressing the gender imbalance within science, engineering and technology (SET) subjects in higher education (HE). A review is...

Within the background where education is increasingly driven by the economies of scale and research funding, we propose an alternative online open and connected framework (OOC) for building global learning communities using mobile social media. We critique a three year action research case study involving building collaborative global learning communities around a community of practice of learning researchers and practitioners. The results include the development of a framework for utilising mobile social media to support collaborative curriculum development across international boundaries. We conclude that this framework is potentially transferrable to a range of educational contexts where the focus is upon student-generated mobile social media projects.Keywords: community of practice; mlearning; global collaboration framework(Published: 6 September 2013)Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2013, 21: 21955 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21i0.21955

The paper describes the analytical process and simulation-based tools that were used to perform a study of alternatives for an automated transit system (ATS) that would serve as an airport circulator system for possible future conditions at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. The paper describes the alternative ATS configurations that would provide non-secure landside connections between the three terminals and remote landside facilities, and in some case studies include a separate additional automated people mover (APM) circulator system to provide secure airside connections. The analysis was primarily performed utilizing the Advanced Land-Transportation Performance Simulation T M (ALPS T M ) software, which is described in the paper to include the flight schedule processing and the integrated pedestrian and transit system simulations.

Reference ranges for cortisol and 17-hydroxyprogesterone were developed with sera from 39 healthy preterm infants less than 31 weeks of gestational age, collected weekly until 37 weeks of corrected age. (J P EDIATR 1995;126:985-7)