Decreased serum prohepcidin concentration in patients with polycythemia vera

Objective: Iron deficiency is a common complication in patients with polycythemia vera (PV). Hepcidin is a principal regulator of iron homeostasis. The aim of our study was to assess prohepcidin, a hepcidin precursor, and other iron status pa-rameters in the serum of PV patients. Methods: The study was performed in 60 patients (F/M 26/34) aged 38～84 (66±10) years. The control group consisted of 20 healthy volunteers, age and sex matched. The following parameters were determined in blood serum samples: prohepcidin concentration, iron content, unsaturated iron binding capacity (UIBC), total iron binding capacity (TIBC), transferrin saturation (TfS), and concentrations of ferritin and soluble transferrin receptor (sTIR). Results: All PV patients showed significantly lower levels of prohepcidin, higher levels of sTIR and TIBC compared to the control group. 40% of the patients from the study group showed concentrations of ferritin below the normal range and significantly lower levels of serum iron and TfS, and significantly higher levels of sTfR, UIBC and TIBC in comparison with the rest of the study group. In this group of patients, prohepcidin concentrations were significantly lower than those in other patients. Conclusion: The results indicate that PV patients suffer from iron metabolism disorders. The decreased serum level ofprohepcidin in PV patients may be a result of iron deficiency.     

Optimizing Intent to Transfer: Engagement and Community College English Learners

Researchers have long struggled to accurately identify the needs of English learner (EL) students and the factors that facilitate their postsecondary success. Although prior research suggests that EL students disproportionately select into community colleges, there is a dearth research that examines transfer to four-year schools among community college English learner (CCEL) students. In this study, we examined whether and to what extent community college students’ linguistic status shapes the relationship between engagement and intent to transfer to a four-year institution. Using data from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, we used logistic regression to examine how, if at all, the relationships between the multiple forms of student engagement and intent to transfer might differ by linguistic status, net of various student and school-level controls. Ultimately, our findings suggest that students’ returns to engagement do differ by linguistic status, with CCEL students experiencing the greatest gains relative to their intent to transfer. Not only are CCEL students are more likely to engage in academic discourse, internalize teachers’ pedagogical offerings, and recognize institutional supports than their non-CCEL peers, but they appear to derive greater benefits from both academic engagement and instruction in the use critical thinking skills than their non-CCEL peers. We conclude with recommendations for educators, policymakers, and researchers seeking to improve CCEL students’ educational attainment and engagement.

     

Multiple Employment as an Additional Source of Revenue: Under What Conditions Can it be of Advantage to Both Academics and Universities?

This paper considers the question of when it can be advantageous, for both academics and universities, for individuals to be employed by more than one institution by first analysing the meanings of “advantage”, understood as profitable and valuable, and “disadvantage”. The question is whether it is possible to reach a matrix‐like balance of these opposing meanings/factors in higher education. The analysis is followed by a presentation of the Polish higher education case study seen through three possible scenarios, or Situations: when the alma mater is (1) the only place, (2) the principal place, and (3) one of [too] many places of employment and revenue. The quantitative growth of Polish higher education and its consequences are thought to be the main reason for the emergence of Situation 3. But, with the introduction of a new Law on Higher Education and efforts to create a new institutional culture there are signs of a shift from Situation 3 to Situation 2.     

Overwrought copyright: Why copyright law from the Analog Age does not work in the Digital Age’s society and classroom

In this article, the authors argue that copyright law, conceived of in an “analog” age, yet made stricter in our present Digital Age, actively stifles creativity among today’s student creators, both by its bias toward content owners and its legal vagueness. They also illustrate that copyright law is too stringent in protecting intellectual content, because physical and virtual objects have different properties. They conclude with a call to revise copyright for new media content that meets the needs of both content creators and pre-existing media content owners, and that, most importantly, benefits the education of the creative and innovative mind in today’s mediacentric classrooms.     

Navigating the good ol’ boys club: women,marginality, and communities of practice in a military non-profit organization

Academic work is changing fast, as is the work of other professionals, because of challenges such as accountability and regulations frameworks and globalised academic markets. Such changes also have consequences for everyday academic practice and learning. This paper seeks to explore some of the ways in which academic work is changing by opening the ‘black-box’ of everyday academic work and examining the enactment of academics’ everyday learning. The paper draws on a study of everyday academic practice in the social sciences with respect to the institution, the department and the discipline. Assuming a sociomaterial sensibility, the study also sought to understand how academics’ learning is enacted in everyday work. Within three universities, fourteen academics were work-shadowed; social, material, technological, pedagogic and symbolic actors were observed and, where possible, connections and interactions were traced. The paper illuminates through two stories from the study how specific practices and meanings of disciplinary academic work are negotiated, configured and reconfigured within and beyond the department or meso-level, attending to resistance and rejection as well as accommodation and negotiation. The paper responds to educational concerns of professional (here, academic) learning by foregrounding both the assembling and reassembling of academic work and the enactment of learning.     

Dual-task effect on postural control in high-level competitive dancers

We investigated balance in 33 competitive dancers (17 females, 16 males) and 22 controls (17 females, 5 males) (age 16-27 years) on a force plate in two conditions: single task (quiet stance) and dual task (with a concurrent mental task). Balance was evaluated using centre-of-pressure shift (sway) variability, mean speed, frequency, and sample entropy. The effect of the dual task in the medio-lateral plane was comparable in both groups, decreasing sway variability (P < 0.05) and increasing mean speed (P < 0.001), frequency, and sample entropy (P < 0.001), showing that the participants effectively increased the level of automaticity. In the antero-posterior plane, the dual task also increased sway frequency and sample entropy (P < 0.01) in dancers without affecting their standing performance. In contrast, postural control in non-dancers was vulnerable to reduced cognitive investment, which adversely interfered with baseline performance. There were very high correlations between sway sample entropy and frequency in each group, plane, and task (r = 0.92-0.98, P < 0.001), indicating that both parameters may measure the same characteristic of postural control and that higher sway frequency may play an important role in protecting stability in dual tasking. The postural control of dancers and non-dancers appears to be similar, although dancing seems to facilitate the increased level of automatic control in the antero-posterior plane.     

Engineering Education Taught in Foreign Languages in Poland

After the recent political and economic changes in Poland the country as a whole has changed beyond recognition in the last few years. These changes have also resulted in new requirements in the field of engineering education. In order to improve the quality of teaching and to meet West European standards, some Polish universities offer to Polish and foreign students courses taught in foreign languages which usually follow the American‐English pattern of education.     

“Having it All” at Sleep's Expense: The Forced Choice of Participants in Advanced Placement Courses and International Baccalaureate Programs

The gifted can suffer from too many demands on their time and attention. This qualitative study tested the theory that advanced placement (AP) and international baccalaureate (IB) participants may feel forced to choose between academic success and social acceptance. The results, however, did not support the theory. Not only did gifted students not consider the necessity of choice between academic success and productive navigation in the social environment, they believed that they could, and should, maintain both high levels of academic success and healthy social lives. They reported that they could only have it all, both social and academic success, at the expense of sleep.