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In this paper, the researchers use data from the tracer study to characterize the graduate’s employment profile, assess the perceived contribution of the program to their personal and professional growth, evaluate the perceived effectiveness of the delivery of the graduate program, and explore significant dimensions of curricular program relevance toward employment success. Tracer studies are common in higher education to evaluate, using relevant metrics, the effectiveness of the curricular programs. The researchers employed a cross-sectional research design and analyzed the results from a tracer study conducted in a Philippine state university among its graduates in the Master in Management program from 2020-2022 using descriptive, open-coding, and principal component analysis techniques. The results revealed that pursuing graduate studies enhanced graduate’s employment opportunities. The effective delivery of the graduate program contributes to the personal and professional growth of the graduates. Developing the graduate’s personal skills is shaped by many factors encompassing people, problem-solving, information technology skills, meeting present and future professional needs, exposure to the local and international communities within the field of specialisation, critical thinking skills, salary improvement and promotion, and personality development. Improving the graduates’ professional skills entails a strong foundation in the academic profession, research capability, learning efficiency, and communication skills. Indeed, the professional and personal growth of the graduates are the critical dimensions of curricular relevance. The graduates give a premium on the aspects of the curriculum that lead to their personal and professional development.

Introduction: Sacrococcygeal teratoma (SCT) is the most common congenital extragonadal germ cell tumor of infancy. Post-resection recurrence is attributed to tumor spillage, incomplete resection, no coccygectomy, and immature or malignant histology. However, in the absence of these risk factors, there are few reports of early aggressive tumor recurrence with intraspinal extension. This report describes a rare early SCT recurrence with intraspinal extension after oncologic resection. Case presentation: The primary SCT was initially detected at 29-weeks gestation and demonstrated interval growth from 8.5 × 9.5 × 7.7cm on prenatal MRI to 14.1 × 11.1 × 15.6cm on postnatal MRI. The primary SCT was resected on day of life three and noted to be a grade III immature teratoma (

BackgroundDespite the movement toward hospital-based medical centers acquiring pediatric primary care offices, many primary care pediatricians still work in small, independent practices. To expand mental healthcare access, service delivery models must consider primary care practice needs and regionally available resources.ObjectiveThis report describes the implementation and evaluation of the Mood, Anxiety, ADHD Collaborative Care (MAACC) program over a 4 years period. MAACC. MAACC engaged 97 pediatric primary care clinicians across 39 practices in mental health training and supported the treatment of referred patients through a collaborative care model. To support psychosocial treatment needs, we built a child community therapy referral network of 213 licensed psychotherapy providers.MethodsData were collected on service delivery patterns (e.g., referrals, treatment use, and attrition) and patient outcomes. Measures included parent and children and adolescents PROMIS anxiety and depression short forms and the Parent NICHQ Vanderbilt.ResultsSix hundred ninety-six children and adolescents aged 6–18 were evaluated and provided treatment recommendations. Anxiety disorders were the most common diagnosis (45.4%), followed by ADHD (30.7%) and mood disorder (17%). For children and adolescents with an anxiety or mood disorder, significant improvement was observed from baseline to any initial follow-up and from baseline to 6, 12-, and 18 weeks on children and adolescents and parent measures of anxiety and depression. For children and adolescents with ADHD, significant improvement was observed from baseline to any initial follow-up measure and at 6 and 18 weeks on parent-reported inattentive symptoms. Significant differences in treatment outcomes were identified for children and adolescents with anxiety receiving psychotherapy alone and medication management and psychotherapy.ConclusionMAACC utilization and patient outcomes suggest that real-world collaborative care can effectively provide high-quality care while cultivating increased primary care treatment capacity and building on existing community resources.

Large compilations of heterogeneous environmental observations are increasingly available as public databases, allowing researchers to test hypotheses across datasets. Statistical complexities arise when analyzing compiled data due to unbalanced spatial sampling, variable environmental context, mixed measurement techniques, and other reasons. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling is increasingly used in environmental science to describe these complexities, however few studies explicitly compare the utility of hierarchical Bayesian models to simpler and more commonly applied methods. Here we demonstrate the utility of the hierarchical Bayesian approach with application to a large compiled environmental dataset consisting of 5,741 marine vertical organic carbon flux observations from 407 sampling locations spanning eight biomes across the global ocean. We fit a global scale Bayesian hierarchical model that describes the vertical profile of organic carbon flux with depth. Profile parameters within a particular biome are assumed to share a common deviation from the global mean profile. Individual station-level parameters are then modeled as deviations from the common biome-level profile. The hierarchical approach is shown to have several benefits over simpler and more common data aggregation methods. First, the hierarchical approach avoids statistical complexities introduced due to unbalanced sampling and allows for flexible incorporation of spatial heterogeneitites in model parameters. Second, the hierarchical approach uses the whole dataset simultaneously to fit the model parameters which shares information across datasets and reduces the uncertainty up to 95% in individual profiles. Third, the Bayesian approach incorporates prior scientific information about model parameters; for example, the non-negativity of chemical concentrations or mass-balance, which we apply here. We explicitly quantify each of these properties in turn. We emphasize the generality of the hierarchical Bayesian approach for diverse environmental applications and its increasing feasibility for large datasets due to recent developments in Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms and easy-to-use high-level software implementations.

There are many varied approaches to involving parents in assessment, but a coherent knowledge base is lacking. To gain a deeper understanding of the role of parental involvement in student learning, we accessed journal articles from three databases following the "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses" (PRISMA) guidelines. Two hundred and eleven articles were generated, but upon application of exclusion criteria, 25 articles remained for final analysis. We examined the outcomes and approaches for parental involvement in assessment, including the research focus, countries, school context, research design, the terminology used, definition, and challenges. The findings of our review highlight the competing understandings of parental involvement, geographical, theoretical, and practical gaps. We also highlighted significant areas for future investigations.

Autophagy targets cellular components for lysosomal-dependent degradation in which the products of degradation may be recycled for protein synthesis and utilized for energy production. Autophagy also plays a critical role in cell homeostasis and the regulation of many physiological and pathological processes and prompts this investigation of new agents to effect abnormal autophagy in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). 2,5-Dichloro-N-(2-methyl-4-nitrophenyl) benzenesulfonamide (FH535) is a synthetic inhibitor of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway that exhibits anti-proliferative and anti-angiogenic effects on different types of cancer cells. The combination of FH535 with sorafenib promotes a synergistic inhibition of HCC and liver cancer stem cell proliferation, mediated in part by the simultaneous disruption of mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis. We demonstrated that FH535 decreased HCC tumor progression in a mouse xenograft model. For the first time, we showed the inhibitory effect of an FH535 derivative, FH535-N, alone and in combination with sorafenib on HCC cell proliferation. Our study revealed the contributing effect of Wnt/β-catenin pathway inhibition by FH535 and its derivative (FH535-N) through disruption of the autophagic flux in HCC cells.

Background: The US Latino population is rapidly aging and becoming increasingly diverse with respect to nativity and national origin. Increased longevity along with medical advancements in treatment have resulted in a higher number of older Latinos living with morbidity. Therefore, there is a need to understand variability in Latino health among older adults. Objective: This paper documents mid- and late-life health differences in morbidity by race/ethnicity, nativity, and country of origin among adults aged 50 and older. Methods: We use data from the 2000-2015 National Health Interview Survey to calculate age- and gender-specific proportions based on reports of five morbidity measures: hypertension, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes among non-Latino Whites and seven Latino subgroups. Results: The foreign-born from Mexico, Cuba, and Central/South America, regardless of gender, exhibit an immigrant advantage for heart disease and cancer in comparison to non-Latino Whites across all age categories. Conversely, island-born Puerto Ricans are generally characterized with higher levels of morbidity. Similarly, US-born Puerto Ricans and Mexicans exhibit morbidity patterns indicative of their minority status. Latinos, regardless of gender, were more likely to report diabetes than non-Latino Whites. Hypertension and stroke have significant variability in age patterns among US- and foreign-born Latinos. Conclusions: Recognizing the importance of within-Latino heterogeneity in health is imperative if researchers are to implement social services and health policies aimed at ameliorating the risk of disease. Contribution: Considering intersectional ethnic, nativity, and country-of-origin characteristics among older Latinos is important to better understand the underlying causes of racial/ethnic disparities in morbidity across the life course.

BackgroundRecent efforts have been made to collect data on neighborhood-level attributes and link them to longitudinal population-based surveys. These linked data have allowed researchers to assess the influence of neighborhood characteristics on the health of older adults in the US. However, these data exclude Puerto Rico. Because of significantly differing historical and political contexts, and widely ranging structural factors between the island and the mainland, it may not be appropriate to apply current knowledge on neighborhood health effects based on studies conducted in the US to Puerto Rico. Thus, we aim to (1) examine the types of neighborhood environments older Puerto Rican adults reside in and (2) explore the association between neighborhood environments and all-cause mortality.MethodsWe linked data from the 2000 US Census to the longitudinal Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions Project (PREHCO) with mortality follow-up through 2021 to examine the effects of the baseline neighborhood environment on all-cause mortality among 3,469 participants. Latent profile analysis, a model-based clustering technique, classified Puerto Rican neighborhoods based on 19 census block group indicators related to the neighborhood constructs of socioeconomic status, household composition, minority status, and housing and transportation. The associations between the latent classes and all-cause mortality were assessed using multilevel mixed-effects parametric survival models with a Weibull distribution.ResultsA five-class model was fit on 2,477 census block groups in Puerto Rico with varying patterns of social (dis)advantage. Our results show that older adults residing in neighborhoods classified as Urban High Deprivation and Urban High-Moderate Deprivation in Puerto Rico were at higher risk of death over the 19-year study period relative to the Urban Low Deprivation cluster, controlling for individual-level covariates.ConclusionsConsidering Puerto Rico's socio-structural reality, we recommend that policymakers, healthcare providers, and leaders across industries to (1) understand how individual health and mortality is embedded within larger social, cultural, structural, and historical contexts, and (2) make concerted efforts to reach out to residents living in disadvantaged community contexts to understand better what they need to successfully age in place in Puerto Rico.

Cardiometabolic diseases are among the leading causes of mortality worldwide and are increasingly prevalent in rapidly aging populations. Neighborhood socioeconomic position (SEP) and living arrangements are increasingly recognized as important determinants of cardiometabolic health but have not been examined within Puerto Rico. This study examined the association between neighborhood SEP, living arrangements, and incidence of cardiometabolic conditions among island-dwelling older Puerto Ricans, using longitudinal data from the Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions Project (Waves I 2002/03 and II 2006/07) linked with 2000 Census data for neighborhood-level conditions. Our sample consists of non-institutionalized adults aged 60 and older who remained in the same residence over both waves of data collection (N = 2,769). We used multilevel multinomial logistic regression models to examine the relationship between neighborhood SEP and the prevalence and incidence of cardiometabolic disease. Findings show that residence in a socioeconomically advantaged neighborhood was positively associated with reporting having one cardiometabolic condition at baseline, but not associated with the incidence of cardiometabolic conditions at follow-up. Living without a partner was negatively associated with reporting having cardiometabolic conditions compared to living with a partner. Similar results were found for the incidence of cardiometabolic conditions. Living arrangements significantly modified the relationship between neighborhood SEP and cardiometabolic conditions. Compared to living with a partner, living alone in a socioeconomically advantaged neighborhood was associated with a reduced risk of reporting having one condition. Living with children in a socioeconomically advantaged neighborhood was associated with a reduced risk of developing one cardiometabolic condition than living with a partner. Living arrangements are more salient to cardiometabolic health than neighborhood SEP. Social programs and services focused on household composition and familial support are needed to identify older Puerto Ricans potentially at risk of underdiagnosed chronic conditions, especially as ongoing economic, demographic, environmental, and healthcare crises potentially exacerbate social inequalities.

INTRODUCCIÓN Y OBJETIVOS Los virus respiratorios son la causa principal de las crisis de asma en niños y adultos. Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) ha sido relacionado con la exacerbación del asma, aunque su papel en las crisis sigue siendo controvertido. Nuestro objetivo fue determinar la prevalencia de infecciones por virus y MP mediante técnicas moleculares en niños de 2 a 15 años con crisis de asma que consultaron a los servicios de urgencias y consulta prioritaria de dos instituciones de salud en Bogotá, y establecer diferencias entre grupos en las variables severidad de la crisis, necesidad de hospitalización, estancia hospitalaria y edad. MATERIALES Y MÉTODOS Estudio analítico transversal en niños de 2 a 15 años con crisis de asma. Incluyó análisis de datos demográficos y clínicos y de pruebas moleculares (reacción en cadena de la polimerasa [PCR], PCR de transcripción reversa [RT-PCR] y secuenciación) usadas para la detección y tipificación de MP y virus ADN y ARN. Se compararon grupos con y sin MP y virus mediante pruebas de Chi cuadrado, Fisher y t de Student. RESULTADOS Se incluyeron 169 niños. Prevalencia de virus: 83,4%: rinovirus: 71,6% (subtipos C: 47,7%; A: 20,6% y B: 3,4%); Influenza A: 27,8%, VSR: 8%, Parainfluenza 1: 5,3%, no se detectó Parainfluenza 2; Parainfluenza 3: 1,8%; hubo 3 casos (1,8%) de enterovirus tipo 68. Prevalencia global de MP 12,4% (IC95%: 7,4-17,5), de 2 a 5 años: 18,2% (IC95%: 8,7-27,6) y en mayores de 5 años: 8,7% (IC95%: 3,2-14,3) (p = 0,07). Se halló coinfección con más de un virus en 18 pacientes; todos los niños con MP presentaron infección mixta con algún virus. Hubo un porcentaje menor de niños con MP en los que estaban recibiendo un corticosteroide inhalado (38,1% vs 68,2%, p = 0,007) en los 6 meses previos. No hubo diferencias entre los grupos con y sin MP o con y sin virus en cuanto a la hospitalización, la severidad de las crisis, el uso de esteroides sistémicos o antibióticos. MP circuló en diciembre de 2011 y enero-febrero de 2012; la circulación viral ocurrió durante todo el período con picos entre mayo-junio de 2011 y febrero de 2011 y de 2012. CONCLUSIONES La infección por virus y por MP y la coinfección virusvirus y virus-MP es frecuente como desencadenante de crisis de asma en niños. Los rinovirus fueron los agentes virales más frecuentes. La distribución de casos sugiere patrones estacionales. La coinfección virus-MP sugiere que los virus pueden predisponer a la infección por MP.

INTRODUCCIÓN: en Colombia la prevalencia de asma en menores de 4 años es de 18.9%. La mayoría de las exacerbaciones del niño con asma son causadas por infecciones virales. OBJETIVO: determinar la prevalencia de infecciones por virus y Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) en niños de 2 a 15 años con crisis de asma y explorar diferencias entre los grupos con y sin infección. MATERIALES Y MÉTODOS: estudio transversal analítico en niños de 2 a 15 años con crisis de asma de diciembre de 2010 a abril de 2012. Se analizaron variables demográficas y clínicas y los resultados de la prueba de reacción en cadena de polimerasa (PCR) para virus y MP en aspirado nasofaríngeo. Se compararon los grupos con y sin virus o MP por pruebas chi cuadrado, Fisher y t de Student. RESULTADOS: se incluyeron 175 niños. La prevalencia global de virus fue de 83.4%, predominando Rhinovirus con 71.4% (67% de los Rhinovirus fueron tipo C) y virus Sincitial Respiratorio con 8%. La prevalencia de MP fue de 12.4%, 18.2% en niños de 2 a 5 años y 8.7% en mayores de 5 años (p=0.07). No se encontraron diferencias significativas entre los grupos con y sin infección por virus. El grupo con infección por MP usaba menos frecuentemente esteroides inhalados en los seis meses previos que los no infectados (p:0,007). La mayor parte de los casos de infección por MP se presentaron en los 3 últimos meses del período de estudio. CONCLUSIONES: la prevalencia de infección por virus (83,4%) y MP (12,4%) en niños con crisis de asma es alta y similar a la descrita en la literatura. No hubo diferencias significativas por edad, sexo, IMC y severidad de la crisis entre niños infectados y no infectados por virus o MP. Se sugiere un patrón estacional de estas infecciones