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The purpose of this study was to examine the sociological aspects of music education and perspectives of university music education professors in five continents in relation to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The concepts of community of practice and agency were used to investigate the social interaction, socialization, and collective impact of people and experiences observed in university-level music education in different parts of the world. As the global pandemic completely changed the conditions on university campuses and music education programs, each participant-author provided 1) an overview of the parameters of virtual and in-person instruction implemented by select institutions, 2) sociological aspects of music education in select institutions, and 3) the social, emotional, and mental health of students, faculty, and staff amidst the pandemic. As the conditions of the global pandemic had consequential impacts on music education programs at institutions of higher education in Brazil, Canada, Israel, Norway, and the United States, each university implemented varied models of instruction to address remote learning. Changes in conditions, circumstances, and sociological aspects of music education had an impact on the socialization, physical presence, and interaction, as well as on the social, emotional, and mental health of students, faculty, and staff. Universities need to broaden and secure services available to students, faculty, and staff that will cultivate supportive environments of learning, instruction, socialization, and communities of practice within music education departments and across the university.

Purpose: Since new digital micro-credential technologies emerged a decade ago, there has been a rapid rise in micro-credentials in the education landscape. Much has been promised about these educational technologies, yet there is much confusion by key stakeholders in the digital micro-credential ecosystem. This confusion has led to significant efforts globally to define micro-credentials to ensure quality learning and generate beneficial impacts to learners, employers, education providers and edtech organisations. Design/methodology/approach: This commentary reviews relevant literature on digital micro-credentials and other alternative credentials to determine how these educational technologies can meet the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to nurture lifelong learning for working learners. Findings: Universities are being challenged to address the changing needs and uncertainty being introduced by the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions, particularly with implications for workforce upskilling and lifelong learning. To adapt, universities will need to rethink their roles and shift their institutional mindsets in how they may approach the challenges through mechanisms such as digital micro-credentials. Research limitations/implications: This paper focuses on the analysis of five policy statements about micro-credentials. While these policy statements represent a sample, there is a representation of Western education-related systems. Thus, they skew the findings towards Western education systems thinking. Practical implications: Understanding how micro-credentials are being positioned within education-related systems is useful for applying the educational technologies by, for example, universities, learners and employers. Social implications: Provides an overview of how these educational technologies may provide beneficial impacts for society as it plans to adapt to economic uncertainty and change. Originality/value: The commentary provides a policy context for the emerging use of micro-credential technologies to examine demands for workforce upskilling.

This article demonstrates the use of structural equation modeling to develop norms for a translated version of a standardized scale, the Supports Intensity Scale-Children's Version (SIS-C). The latent variable norming method proposed is useful when the standardization sample for a translated version is relatively small to derive norms independently but the original standardization sample is larger and more robust. Specifically, we leveraged a large, representative US standardization sample (n = 4,015) to add power and stability to a smaller Spanish (n = 405) standardization sample. Using a series of multiple-group mean and covariance structures confirmatory factor analyses using effects-coded scaling constraints, measurement invariance was tested across (a) Spanish only and (b) both US and Spanish age bands (5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, and 15-16). After establishing measurement invariance across the US and Spain, tests for latent means and variance differences within age-bands were only performed for Spanish data; the latent means and variances in the US sample were freely estimated. The study findings suggest that the information in the US data stabilized the overall model parameters, and the inclusion of the US sample did not influence on the norms of the SIS-C Spanish Translation.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, socio-economic inequalities have become exacerbated and COVID-19 related hate crimes have increased. This paper explores how citizenship education might be reimagined in response to this context, with the vision of rebuilding a more equitable and compassionate society. By using a collective autobiographical writing approach, this study documented six different autobiographical reflexivities of citizenship education scholars who were from different parts of the world: China, South Korea, the Philippines, the United States, Nepal and the United Kingdom. It also observed the way the pandemic played out in the location where they were situated during the research as well as how it played out in their countries of origin, and further, how it affected the civic development in each context. The scholars' range of autobiographical expressions resulted in insights for developing a type of citizenship education, namely, education for active and compassionate citizenship.

The article discusses the increase in U.S. herbal supplement sales in 2023, reaching an estimated $12.551 billion, indicating a market normalization post-pandemic, with consumers focusing on cardiovascular and cognitive health products. Topics include sales growth trends in various retail channels, the top-selling herbal ingredients like psyllium and beet root, and the health benefits associated with these supplements.

There is a need for outreach programs to attract a diverse range of students to the computing discipline. The lack of qualified computing graduates to fill the growing number of computing vacancies is of concern to government and industry and there are few female students entering the computing pipeline at high school level. This paper presents three outreach programs that have the underlying assumption that students need to be reminded about the creativity and potential of computing so that it remains on the radar of their future career options. Each program instigated social and cultural change through a paradigm shift where girls moved from being ICT consumers to ICT creators. By exposing students to a wide variety of ICT activities and careers during secondary schooling, they were more likely to consider studying information systems, computer science or any other computing course at the university level. Results are presented showing student attitudinal changes as well as observed increases in enrolments at secondary school and university courses.

Transportation can simply be defined as the movement of goods, services, and people from one location to another. Without an efficient means to transport goods from place to place, the economy would be nothing like it is today. Throughout the history of the United States, American railroads have paved the way toward creating a nation of great prosperity. With the development of the interstate highway system and air freight transportation, there have been many changes in the dynamics of our national transportation system over the past century. In this article, the author provides a perspective and some background on domestic railroads and describes some of the reasons that rail transport is once again on the rise. (Contains 4 figures.)

The authors analyze the economic opinions of teachers and economists from the former Soviet Union who participated in economic education programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education under the auspices of the National Council on Economic Education from 1995-2001. They sought to determine the level of consensus on economic topics among the participants, and then analyzed their concordance with U.S. economists. They conclude that there is a significant level of consensus among the participants from the former Soviet Union, but this consensus is often at odds with the views of American economists. (Contains 2 tables.)

Computeen, a preventive technology and psychosocial skills development program for at-risk adolescents, was designed to improve computer skills, self-esteem, and school attitudes, and reduce behavior problems, by combining elements of community-based and empirically supported prevention programs. Fifty-five mostly Latino adolescents from 12 to 16 years old who were living in affordable housing communities participated in this randomized wait-list control study. Results showed considerable improvements in computer self-efficacy, decreases in internalizing behavior problems, and excellent attendance and consumer satisfaction. Self-esteem and school motivation results were mixed. Computer self-efficacy mediated the relationship between improved computer skills and self-esteem. Younger adolescents showed greater improvement than did older adolescents. Editors' Strategic Implications: Although there are limitations to this study's sample size and scope, Computeen appears promising as a developmentally appropriate, strengths-based prevention program.

This paper investigates the intersection of system articulation, transfer, and the choices that secondary school students make when they apply to college and university. The investigation is based on the results of a study that was undertaken to determine factors that influence choices that secondary school students make between enrolling in community college or university, and in particular whether or not those choices are affected by the degree of "articulation" within a public system of post-secondary education. There are several studies that have emerged recently in the United States and Canada that examine factors that influence the choice of university and 4-year college. There are a few studies that examine the choice of community and 2-year college. None, however, either in Canada or in the United States, has sought to examine "college choice" comparatively among students who apply to baccalaureate (4-year colleges and universities) and sub-baccalaureate (community colleges) programs. This study examines college choice on the basis of two series of longitudinal surveys conducted in the province of Ontario since the late 1980s, and on a series of surveys and interviews of students, parents and guidance counselors in six secondary schools, each with a different student population, since 2004. The third study--called the "college choice" project--tracked secondary school students as they made decisions about attending college or university, and as they finally selected the institutions that they would attend. The study concludes that greater conventional articulation will not significantly affect rates of transfer, that for most students plans to transfer develop after they enter college and are not a major factor in their initial "choice," that the rate of transfer is highly dependent on the corresponding arrays of programs at colleges and universities, and that articulation might better be thought of as a subset of other basic forms of inter-institutional cooperation.

The ASCENT trial demonstrated the efficacy of sacituzumab govitecan for the treatment of advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The current study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of receiving sacituzumab govitecan compared with standard of care chemotherapy from the United States payer perspective. A partitioned survival approach was used to project the disease course of advanced or metastatic TNBC. Two survival modes were applied to analyze two groups of patients. The survival data were gathered from the ASCENT trial. Direct medical costs were derived from the data of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Utility data was collected from the published literature. The incremental cost-utility ratio (ICUR) was the primary outcome that measured the cost-effectiveness of therapy regimen. One-way sensitivity and probabilistic sensitivity analysis were implemented to explore the uncertainty and validate the stability of results. In the base-case, the ICUR of sacituzumab govitecan versus chemotherapy is $ 778,771.9/QALY and $ 702,281/QALY for full population group and brain metastatic-negative (BMN) group with the setting of classic survival mode. And in the setting of cure survival mode, the ICUR is $ 506,504.5/QALY for the full population group and $ 274,232.0/QALY for BMN population group. One-way sensitivity analyses revealed that the unit cost of sacituzumab govitecan and body weight were key roles that lower the ICUR value. Probabilistic sensitivity analyses also showed that reducing the unit price of sacituzumab govitecan can improve the likelihood of becoming cost-effective. The cost-effectiveness analysis suggested that from a US payer perspective, sacituzumab govitecan at current price is unlikely to be a preferred option for patients with advanced or metastatic TNBC at a threshold of $ 150,000/QALY. • Sacituzumab govitecan was better in the brain metastases-negative group than in the full population. • The survival benefit is more significant in the cure mode than in the classic mode. • The unit price of sacituzumab govitecan and the body weight could have a significant impact on the reduction in ICUR. • From a US payer perspective, sacituzumab govitecan is unlikely to be a preferred option for patients with advanced or metastatic TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Low-dose glucocorticoids are commonly used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Observational studies have found an increased risk of serious infection associated with low-dose glucocorticoids, but concerns about residual confounding remain.Methods: We identified adults with RA on stable immunomodulatory therapy for >6 months receiving no glucocorticoids or ≤5 mg/day using Medicare data from 2006 to 2015. We used provider preference for glucocorticoids as an instrumental variable (IV) to assess associations between low-dose glucocorticoid use and the risk of infection requiring hospitalization using a cause-specific proportional hazards model.Results: We identified 163,603 qualifying treatment episodes among 120,656 patients. Glucocorticoids ≤5 mg/day were used by 25,373/81,802 (31.0%) of patients seen by a rheumatologist with low provider preference for glucocorticoids and by 36,087/81,801 (44.1%) of patients seen by a rheumatologist with high provider preference for glucocorticoids (adjusted odds ratio 1.81, 95% confidence interval 1.77, 1.84 for association between provider preference and glucocorticoids). Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, opioids, antibiotics, previous emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and infections requiring hospitalization infections were unbalanced with regard to exposure but not to the IV. The incidence of infection requiring hospitalization was 8.0/100 person-years among patients unexposed to glucocorticoids versus 11.7/100 person-years among those exposed. The association between glucocorticoids and infection requiring hospitalization from IV analysis (hazard ratio 1.26 [1.02-1.56]) was similar to results from a standard multivariable model (hazard ratio 1.24 [1.21-1.28]).Conclusions: Among patients with RA on stable immunomodulatory therapy, IV analysis based on provider preference demonstrated an increased risk of infection requiring hospitalization associated with low-dose glucocorticoids, similar to a traditional analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/purpose: To verify the staging system of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) 8th edition for uveal melanoma, and to propose the prognostic factors of uveal melanoma by a 45-year cohort study.Methods: We collected patients who underwent operation with pathological proof from 1973 to 2017. The demographic data including gender, age, laterality, metastatic pattern, and histopathology type were recorded. The predictability for survival and monotonicity of gradients of the AJCC 8th edition were evaluated. The prognostic factors for survival were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis.Results: A total of 72 patients were collected. The median age was 55 year-old (range 24-100). No specific gender predilection was revealed in our study. About 75.9% of metastases events happened in the first five-year of follow-up, and hepatic involvement was the most common. By the AJCC 8th edition, the distribution for stage I: II: III was 8 (11.1%), 37 (51.4%), and 27 (37.5%). The prognostic staging groups manifested fair predictability and monotonicity of gradients for survival outcome. The tumors with epithelioid cell type and ciliary body involvements had higher tumor-related mortality.Conclusion: The AJCC 8th edition prognostic staging groups for outcome prediction was validated. Periodic screening for metastases should be more frequent in the first five-year follow-up. The tumors with epithelioid cell pattern and ciliary body involvements were at risk of higher tumor-related mortality in Taiwanese patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trauma leads to 5.7 million annual deaths globally, accounting for 25%-33% of global unintentional deaths and 90% of the global trauma burden in low- and middle-income countries. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery and the World Health Organization assert that emergent and essential surgical capacity building and trauma system improvement are essential to address the global burden of trauma. In response, the Rutgers Global Surgery program, the School of Nursing and Medicine, and the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital faculty collaborated in the first Interprofessional Models in Global Injury Care and Education Symposium in June 2016. This 2-week symposium combined lectures, high-fidelity simulation, small group workshops, site visits to Level I trauma centers, and a 1-day training course from the Panamerican Trauma Society. The aim was to introduce global trauma nurses to trauma leadership and trauma system development. After completing the symposium, 10 nurses from China, Colombia, Kenya, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay were surveyed. Overall, 88.8% of participants reported high levels of satisfaction with the program and 100% stated being very satisfied with trauma lectures. Symposia, such as that developed and offered by Rutgers University, prepare nurses to address trauma within system-based care and facilitate trauma nursing leadership in their respective countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Politics Presidents Make, Stephen Skowronek provides a useful typology for recognizing reoccurring political arrangements as they relate to presidential leadership within the larger milieu of American history. Central to Skowronek's work is the notion of a "regime". Political change occurs when the strength and unity of ideological attachments--or regime--begins to breakdown. Once a regime breaks down, a president of reconstruction can create a new, legitimate political order and reconstitute a regime. However, missing from Skowronek's work is a quantitative analysis of this necessary regime breakdown leading to the politics of reconstruction. Therefore, this paper seeks to develop an understanding of what presidents can do to perpetuate their regime attachments, or what we are calling "regime maintenance." To answer this question, the paper employs a model to measure cohesion among parties in Congress to substantiate its definition of a regime and to identify regime breakdown. The article finds that modern presidents are more successful in managing the ideological composition of their respective regimes. This result points to the importance of "political time" and the periodization of presidential history as we see a clear distinction between the early and the modern presidents regarding managing unity in the House of Representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: School recess is an opportunity to include students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) with their typically developing peers and is a setting in which instruction can occur. However, the educational opportunities for children with ASD within recess are often overlooked and recess time is being reduced or eliminated in the United States. This review involved a systematic search and analysis of 15 studies that utilized recess to implement academic, social, or behavioral interventions for students with ASD. Each identified study that met pre-determined inclusion criteria was analyzed and summarized in terms of: (a) participant characteristics, (b) intervention procedures, (c) dependent variables, and (d) intervention outcomes. This review has three main aims: (a) to evaluate and synthesize the evidence-base, (b) to inform and guide teachers interested in utilizing recess time for educational purposes, and (c) to stimulate and guide future research in this area. Results demonstrate that recess time can indeed be used to teach target behaviors to students with ASD. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Regression results for a sample of 367 U.S. colleges and universities identify important determinants of differing rates of freshman-to-sophomore retention. Factors representing the quality of the institution (percentage of faculty holding PhDs, SAT scores, and admissions acceptance rates) help to explain retention rate variations between colleges. Other factors related to retention rates include the following: whether the institution is private or public, tuition levels, the percentage of freshmen housed on campus, and student performance as represented by the percentage of the freshman class in good academic standing at the end of the freshman year. The estimates from the regressions are utilized to compare predicted and actual retention rates for a sample of Virginia colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although the initial response to salvage (also known as, post-disturbance or sanitary) logging is known to vary among system components, little is known about longer term forest recovery. We examine forest overstory, understory, soil, and microtopographic response 25 years after a 1977 severe wind disturbance on the Flambeau River State Forest in Wisconsin, USA, a portion of which was salvage logged. Within this former old-growth hemlock-northern hardwoods forest, tree dominance has shifted from Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) to broad-leaf deciduous species (Ulmus americana, Acer saccharum, Tilia americana, Populus tremuloides, and Betula alleghaniensis) in both the salvaged and unsalvaged areas. While the biological legacies of pre-disturbance seedlings, saplings, and mature trees were initially more abundant in the unsalvaged area, regeneration through root suckers and stump sprouts was common in both areas. After 25 years, tree basal area, sapling density, shrub layer density, and seedling cover had converged between unsalvaged and salvaged areas. In contrast, understory herb communities differed between salvaged and unsalvaged forest, with salvaged forest containing significantly higher understory herb richness and cover, and greater dominance of species benefiting from disturbance, especially Solidago species. Soil bulk density, pH, organic carbon content, and organic nitrogen content were also significantly higher in the salvaged area. The structural legacy of tip-up microtopography remains more pronounced in the unsalvaged area, with significantly taller tip-up mounds and deeper pits. Mosses and some forest herbs, including Athyrium filix-femina and Hydrophyllum virginianum, showed strong positive responses to this tip-up microrelief, highlighting the importance of these structural legacies for understory biodiversity. In sum, although the pathways of recovery differed, this forest appeared to be as resilient to the compound disturbances of windthrow plus salvage logging as to wind disturbance alone, by most vegetative measures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on the capability of the Turnitin.com (Tii) and Safe Assignment (SA), the electronic plagiarism checkers, to develop the writing skills of students in the U.S. An analysis has been conducted on the freshmen essays of the First-Year Writing Program at Texas Tech University to be able to determine the method interpretation process of the plagiarism-detection system. It provides the quantitative and qualitative results derived on the use of Tii and SA which matches the content of the essay to the information on the Internet or database.

Few studies focus on the distribution of office development across the United States as an clement of urban form. Joel Garreau argues that all office space found outside central-city downtowns is grouped into large, mixed-use clusters he termed "edge cities." The reality is that edge cities capture only a modest share of non-CBD office space, with a significant proportion located in what Lang referred to as "edgeless cities." This study reexamines the distribution of edge and edgeless cities using a spatial analysis of more than 3 billion square feet of office space in 13 large U.S. markets. The office patterns revealed do not fit a downtown versus edge city development model, but instead show complex and regional variation. The findings confirm the "edgeless" nature of U.S. office development. Although primarily descriptive, this paper highlights issues of urban form from a holistic and novel perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancy in the United States. More than 80% of patients present with advanced disease, with 5 year survival rates between 15% and 45%. In contrast, the survival rate for stage I disease, with malignancy confined to the ovary, is approximately 95%. Given the discrepancy in survival outcomes between early- and late-stage disease, strategies that would allow for the detection of ovarian cancer in its early stages would hold promise to significantly improve the mortality rate from ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, current screening methods for the detection of early stage ovarian cancer are inadequate. However, several recent proteomics-based biomarker discovery projects show promise for the development of highly sensitive and specific markers for gynecological malignancies, including ovarian cancer. In this review, we hope to provide an overview of the early detection ovarian cancer from traditional methods to recent promises in the proteomics pipeline. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the United States Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is cause for hope and reflection on the status of women's leadership in world politics. The prospect of a woman occupying the oval office represents an exciting turning point in history that is in need of further attention, particularly as it affects current Canadian political discourse. This article looks at recent developments in some other countries and considers the prospects for more women in Canada's Parliament following the next election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Updated asthma care guidelines have recently been released. This review will focus on several elements in the Expert Panel Report (EPR) 3 guidelines that reflect substantial differences compared with recommendations of the EPR2 guidelines, issued in 1997 and updated in 2002. A major difference is the emphasis on asthma control. The revised paradigm for asthma management now recommends that asthma management decisions should be initially based on categorization of asthma severity, and subsequently on assessment of asthma control. Asthma control can be assessed serially by use of validated instruments. The goal of asthma therapy is to achieve asthma control by reducing current impairment and future risk. Recommendations for asthma pharmacotherapy have also been revised since release of updated EPR2 guidelines. The revisions in asthma management proposed in these guidelines offer the potential for improved normative care outcomes in asthmatic patients in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the increasing popularity of podcasting and the growing implications of podcasting violations of US copyright law through the unauthorized reproduction and transmission of patented works. It also provided an overview and examined the law that affect podcasting. It also addressed statutory licensing legislation and the other types of licenses and rights implicated such as performing rights organizations. It also highlighted the difficulties of granting podcast a blanket licensing exemption and the call for congressional action to expand current blanket-licensing schemes to include podcasts. It also discussed the digital rights management systems and the rise of less restrictive licensing options that Congress must take into account.

The recently developed computer program BayesX provides a Bayesian approach to the estimation of non-parametric additive models. Such models can be useful in applications when the effect of metrical covariates (such as time) are to be estimated while controlling for other factors. In an application of this methodology, trends in the height of West Point cadets in the 19th century are estimated. The results indicate that the biological standard of living of the “middle class” increased relative to the rest of the American society during the Antebellum years. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• This study estimates the material recycling effect on environmental quality and economic development in the United States. • Few studies have been studied through national scale material recycling, environmental, and economic indicators. • This study employs a novel bootstrapping autoregressive distributed lag modeling for investigating the attributes' causality interrelationships. • This study utilizes quarterly data from 1990 to 2018. • This study is to confirm an uni-directional causality from material recycling to economic growth, carbon emissions, and energy efficiency. This study contributes to estimate the municipal solid waste (MSW) recycling effect on environmental quality and economic growth in the United States. Few studies have been given to macro-level aggregate analysis through national scale MSW recycling, environmental, and economic indicators. This study employs bootstrapping autoregressive distributed lag modeling for investigating the cointegration relationship among MSW recycling, economic growth, carbon emissions, and energy efficiency utilized quarterly data from 1990 to 2017. The result implies that a one percent increase in MSW recycling contributes to economic growth and reduce carbon emissions by 0.317% (0.157%) and 0.209% (0.087%) in the long-run (short-run). Similarly, a one percent improvement in energy efficiency stimulates economic growth by 0.489% (0.281%) and mitigates carbon emissions by 0.285% (0.197%) in the long-run (short-run). A higher per capita income and population growth caused higher emissions by 0.197% and 0.401% in the long-run. The overall results reveal stronger impacts in the long-run than the short-run with significant convergence towards long-run equilibrium, suggesting a prominent long-run transmission of economic and environmental fallouts. This study confirms a uni-directional causality from MSW recycling to economic growth, carbon emissions, and energy efficiency. These outcomes signify that any policy intervention related to MSW recycling produces significant changes in the level of economic growth and carbon emissions. The finding provides valuable insight for policymakers to counteract carbon emissions through recyclable waste management that simultaneously create significant economic value. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including access to higher education in the U.S., student affairs services and the role of student affairs practitioners.