Academic Dishonesty: Recommendations for the Future of Higher Education

The culture of academic dishonesty has become a common practice among students across numerous college campuses. It is imperative to address the policies designed to clearly define plagiarism and academic integrity, as they are not universally understood. The authors explore how academic dishonesty and academic integrity are defined at varying institutions and compare and contrast how such policy violations are addressed by campus administrators. The authors propose recommendations for campus administrators and policymakers to redefine best practices for faculty and staff to instill a culture of academic integrity on college campuses

Metabolomic study of the LDL receptor null mouse fed a high-fat diet reveals profound perturbations in choline metabolism that are shared with ApoE null mice

Failure to express or expression of dysfunctional low-density lipoprotein receptors (LDLR) causes familial hypercholesterolemia in humans, a disease characterized by elevated blood cholesterol concentrations, xanthomas, and coronary heart disease, providing compelling evidence that high blood cholesterol concentrations cause atherosclerosis. In this study, we used 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to examine the metabolic profiles of plasma and urine from the LDLR knockout mice. Consistent with previous studies, these mice developed hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis when fed a high-fat/cholesterol/cholate-containing diet. In addition, multivariate statistical analysis of the metabolomic data highlighted significant differences in tricarboxylic acid cycle and fatty acid metabolism, as a result of high-fat/cholesterol diet feeding. Our metabolomic study also demonstrates that the effect of high-fat/cholesterol/cholate diet, LDLR gene deficiency, and the diet-genotype interaction caused a significant perturbation in choline metabolism, notably the choline oxidation pathway. Specifically, the loss in the LDLR caused a marked reduction in the urinary excretion of betaine and dimethylglycine, especially when the mice are fed a high-fat/cholesterol/cholate diet. Furthermore, as we demonstrate that these metabolic changes are comparable with those detected in ApoE knockout mice fed the same high-fat/cholesterol/cholate diet they may be useful for monitoring the onset of atherosclerosis across animal models

Language and Reading Progress of Young Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children.

We examined the language and reading progress of 336 young DHH children in kindergarten, first and second grades. Trained assessors tested children's language, reading, and spoken and fingerspelled phonological awareness in the fall and spring of the school year. Children were divided into groups based on their auditory access and classroom communication: a spoken-only group (n = 101), a sign-only group (n = 131), and a bimodal group (n = 104). Overall, children showed delays in language and reading compared to norms established for hearing children. For language, vocabulary standard scores were higher than for English syntax. Although delayed in language, children made expected gains based on hearing norms from kindergarten to second grade. Reading scores declined from kindergarten to second grade. Spoken-only and bimodal children had similar word reading and reading comprehension abilities and higher scores than sign-only children. Spoken-only children had better spoken phonological awareness and nonword reading skills than the other two groups. The sign-only and bimodal groups made similar and significant gains in ASL syntax and fingerspelling phonological awareness

The Annotation of Skin

Taking my cue from Black Skin, White Masks where Frantz Fanon suggests the skin's profound impact, physically and psychically, in an ‘epidermal racial schema’ (2008 [1952]: 92), I examine how the annotated skin–culturally marked skin that is further marked–plays a crucial role in opening up questions around heritage, cultural memory and difference. I propose that British Asian artists like Hetain Patel, through deliberately chosen strategies such as the hyper-visualization and hyper-orientalizing of the skin in performance, urge us as audience to confront certain fixed racial and cultural assumptions around the meaning of skin, and force us instead to look closely at skin as a palimpsestic surface of a complex lived experience

Association between Sleep Duration and 24-Hour Urine Free Cortisol in the MrOS Sleep Study

Context Short sleep duration is associated with adverse health outcomes, but the mechanisms involved are unknown. It has been postulated that short sleep duration may elevate cortisol levels, but studies have had conflicting results. It is unclear whether these differing findings may be due to methodological issues, such as assessment of sleep duration. Specifically, objective versus subjective methods of measuring habitual sleep duration may account for the conflicting results found in epidemiological studies. Objective: Our goal was to determine whether habitual sleep duration, measured objectively (by actigraphy) and subjectively (by self-report), was associated with 24-hour urine free cortisol (UFC), a measure of integrated cortisol secretion. Our secondary goal was to determine whether slow wave sleep (SWS, determined by polysomnography) was associated with 24-hour UFC. Design/Setting Cross sectional study of community dwelling older men. Patients/Participants 325 men (mean age = 76.6 years, SD = 5.5) from the Portland site of the MrOS Sleep Study, who underwent 24-hour urine collection, polysomnography, actigraphy and sleep questionnaire. Primary Outcome 24-hour UFC. Results: In this study of community dwelling older men, self-reported sleep duration was inversely related to 24-hour UFC levels. Participants reporting 5 to 8 hours of habitual sleep. However, sleep duration determined by actigraphy was not associated with 24-hour UFC in either univariable or multivariable regression models. SWS was not associated with 24-hour UFC. Conclusion: Objectively measured (i.e., actigraphic) sleep duration is not associated with 24-hour UFC in these community dwelling older men. This finding, together with prior studies, suggests that elevated levels of integrated cortisol secretion is not the mechanisms by which short sleep duration leads to adverse health outcomes

Zoning Discrimination Affecting Retarded Persons

The Cleburne Court\u27s opinion leaves readers uninformed as to why it subjected the Cleburne City Council\u27s action to the more searching inquiry that resulted in its being held unconstitutional. Perhaps, as Justice Marshall has been arguing for years, the decision is sensible when one considers and balances the following three factors: the character of the classification in question, the relative importance to the individual of the right affected and the importance of the governmental interest supporting the classification.61 Mentally retarded persons evidence several indicia of a suspect class; the right to housing is very important; and the city\u27s denying CLC a permit only served a limited public purpose. The real problem with the Cleburne decision, though, lies in the fact that the court fails to provide any clear direction as to when, if ever, zoning discrimination against retarded persons is constitutional

Factors associated with health care personnel intentions to respond to a public health event

Health care personnel (HCP) are an important link in emergency response. Yet, researchers have reported that not all HCP intend to respond when a public health event (PHE) occurs. Ajzen\u27s theory of planned behavior (TPB) was the theoretical framework for this study. The objective of this study was to explore factors associated with HCP intentions to respond to a future PHE

Candidate gene analysis of femoral neck trabecular and cortical volumetric bone mineral density in older men.

In contrast to conventional dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, quantitative computed tomography separately measures trabecular and cortical volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD). Little is known about the genetic variants associated with trabecular and cortical vBMD in humans, although both may be important for determining bone strength and osteoporotic risk. In the current analysis, we tested the hypothesis that there are genetic variants associated with trabecular and cortical vBMD at the femoral neck by genotyping 4608 tagging and potentially functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 383 bone metabolism candidate genes in 822 Caucasian men aged 65 years or older from the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study (MrOS). Promising SNP associations then were tested for replication in an additional 1155 men from the same study. We identified SNPs in five genes (IFNAR2, NFATC1, SMAD1, HOXA, and KLF10) that were robustly associated with cortical vBMD and SNPs in nine genes (APC, ATF2, BMP3, BMP7, FGF18, FLT1, TGFB3, THRB, and RUNX1) that were robustly associated with trabecular vBMD. There was no overlap between genes associated with cortical vBMD and trabecular vBMD. These findings identify novel genetic variants for cortical and trabecular vBMD and raise the possibility that some genetic loci may be unique for each bone compartment

Improving care for the veteran population through respectful interprofessional collaboration: One college\u27s experience

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of a novel educational offering on the interprofessional knowledge and attitudes related to health care of the rural veteran. With roots back in the 1960s, the interprofessional education (IPE) movement did not become energized in the United States until 2009 when six national education associations of schools of the health professions formed the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) followed in 2010 when the World Health Organization s (WHO) proposed a global framework for implementing IPE and collaborative practice. Yet, Bankston and Glazer (2013) and even the American Nurses Association (2013) ponder why despite concerted efforts by some institutions of higher learning and healthcare systems, many future health care providers are not educated to provide cost-effective, patient centered coordinated care as part of an integrated team. Challenged by resource shortages, many smaller colleges continue to funnel future health care students through fast-paced, highly technical, and specialty focused curricula or silos. However, as Hudson, Sanders and Pepper (2013) detailed, there is only a limited amount of evidence to help nursing educators break these silos and enrich the future practice of nursing students