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This article describes a first-person qualitative research study to understand how common pedagogical approaches and cultural learning environments in STEM impact individuals. Prior to the study, the author observed that many students who were successful in advanced undergraduate neuroscience courses reported having struggled academically, socially, or emotionally in introductory STEM courses. The objective was to generate new ideas for approaches to address high rates of student attrition from introductory STEM courses related to this full range of issues through curriculum development. The author, a neurobiologist and tenured faculty member at the institution, audited four introductory STEM courses: Introduction to Cellular and Molecular Biology, Atoms & Molecules, Calculus 1, and Introductory Physics 2: Electromagnetism, Optics, and Modern Physics, offered by tenured colleagues in four different departments. A total of approximately 600 hours was spent by the author attending lectures, participating in classroom activities, completing homework, and studying for assessments. Homework, quizzes, and exams were marked by the course faculty using the same criteria as were applied for student work. In addition to measures of academic performance collected through the normal assessments, the author made note of her own emotional responses throughout the course of the study, which is why the process was dubbed 'embodied' curriculum mapping. The emotional responses revealed high levels of emotional stress associated with assessment, sensitivity to disciplinary boundary reinforcement, and a complex role of social and academic identity in all aspects of the experience. Given the first-person nature of the study, the potential future generalizability of the findings must be considered in light of the various revealed aspects of identity and experience of the author and subjected to further study using a broader range of empirical methodologies. The focus of this article's conclusions and recommendations is therefore the impact of the process on the author and the potential for a similar process to serve as a foundation for critical self-reflection and learning for other STEM educators. The author recommends the process as a generative tool for pedagogical innovation and building faculty capacity for culture change in STEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A general methodology for measurement of solute-surfactant associations for volatile solutes based on headspace gas chromatography has been developed. A general theoretical model is also developed to treat the experimental data that requires no analytical solute standard. The model is applicable to any volatile solutes, especially very hydrophobic solutes such as n-alkylbenzenes, for which accurate aqueous standard solutions cannot be prepared. Parameters such as solute-surfactant association constant, solute-micelles association constant and partition coefficient, critical micelles concentration, intramicellar mole fraction, and intramicellar activity coefficient of n-alkylbenzenes are obtained as a function of aqueous surfactant concentrations.

Purpose: Preeclampsia and eclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Visual disturbances in (pre)eclampsia seem to be frequent phenomena. Therefore, the obstetrician/gynecologist may encounter women with serious, and sometimes debilitating, pathology of the visual pathways. Methods: This is a cross sectional observational study was conducted over a period of 12 months (January 2016-December 2016) at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Patients with severe preeclampsia and eclampsia were included in the study. The association was measured with Chi-squared test and p value of 0.05 was treated as significant. Results: During this 12-month period, 100 patients with severe preeclampsia and eclampsia were studied the mean age was 26.4 ± 5.5 years. The association between retinal changes and different variables was statistically significant positive association between the presence of retinal changes and blood pressure (P= 0.0118), proteinuria (P= 0.0025). However, age (P= 0.7123), and gravida (P= 0.7998) were not associated with occurrence of retinopathy in our study. The most common retinal change was noted and narrowing of arterioles, (83%) that retinal changes were significantly more in patients with severe hypertension, exudate (12%) and haemorrhages (10%) observed in present study. The presence of macular edema (5%) and retinal detachment (2%) are the warning signs for termination of pregnancy to save the vision of the mother. Conclusion: It is called that eye is the gateway of medicine, so in pregnancy induced hypertension presence of changes in the retinal arterioles and retinal haemorrhages may indicate similar changes in the placenta. Since the well-being of the foetus depends on the placental circulation, ophthalmoscopic examination of mother's fundus may give a clue to similar micro-circulation changes in the placenta and indirectly to the foetal wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]