Making the Case for Advancing Age Inclusivity

How do you present the most effective case for promoting age-inclusivity to your campus leadership? Educational institutions differ in their missions and resources; and these factors affect their readiness to becoming more age-inclusive. This presentation suggests that the best approaches are tailored to intentionally and robustly advance your institution’s values, mission, and strategic plan as demonstrated through your proposed age-inclusivity initiative. We review the persuasive arguments for increasing the focus on age-inclusivity in higher education, including securing increasing external research and development funding, supporting employees and alums exploration of encore careers, attracting more students in light of demographic shifts, contributions to overall campus diversity, etc. Identifying the most compelling arguments for particular institutions, consistent with their missions, is connected to the various resources in the AFU toolkit. Finally, we show examples from a range of institutions who successfully made their cases for embracing age inclusivity and have not looked back.

Eumycetoma Medical Treatment: Past, Current Practice, Latest Advances and Perspectives

Mycetoma is a neglected tropical disease that is associated with poor communities and socioeconomically impaired individuals in the tropical and sub-tropical areas. Interestingly, the disease is caused by either bacteria (actinomycetoma) or fungus (eumycetoma). The latter form of the disease, eumycetoma, is the most common type in Africa. Eumycetoma is characterized by a prolonged disease duration and low cure rate. The effective case management of eumycetoma largely depends on the accurate diagnosis and identification of the causative agent to the species level and evaluating its susceptibility to the available drugs. This review summarizes the currently available and used antifungal agents for the treatment of eumycetoma and discusses optimizing the newly developed antifungals as a potential second line for eumycetoma treatment.

Analysis of AC/DC/DC Converter Modules for Direct Current Fast-Charging Applications

The paper is a comprehensive laboratory comparison study of two galvanic isolated solution off-board battery chargers: (1) Si-based cost-effective case, and (2) SiC-bidirectional ready for vehicle to grid concept case. All circuits are modular, and in both cases the DC/DC converter can be replaced according to the end user requirements (the coupled transformer remains the same and is constructed based on 12xC100 cores to avoid additional choke). In the case of single active bridge, an active RCD snubber is proposed to protect against overvoltage above 1kV in the DC_2 circuit. The dual active bridge is equipped with soft-star modulation using a zero vector to reduce in-rush current in case of no-load operation, while the AC/DC grid connected converter remains bidirectional to assure the highest power quality at the point of common coupling. All tests were made with real second-used batteries, which improves environmental, economic and technical feasibility of such systems for prosumers. The total efficiency of both AC/DC/DC converters (>97% in SiC and >94% in Si versions) was investigated in the same laboratory conditions.

Case Management

This chapter details the provisions on case management under the European Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 47 provides that ‘parties must present their claims, defences, factual allegations and offers of evidence as early and completely as possible and as appropriate to the careful conduct of litigation in order to secure procedural expedition’. In general, responsibility for the efficient and speedy resolution of disputes is shared between the court and parties. Rule 48 concerns the court control of proceedings. Meanwhile, Rule 49 sets out the court's general duty of active case management, which is part of the principle of co-operation. All European jurisdictions' procedural codes employ court orders or court directions as a means of communication between the court and parties in order to facilitate effective case management as provided in Rules 48 and 49. The process of rendering court orders under Rule 50 is intended to ensure that management under these Rules is carried out effectively and with sufficient respect for the parties' right to be heard.

Impact of IRS: Four-years of entomological surveillance of the Indian Visceral Leishmaniases elimination programme

Background In 2005, Bangladesh, India and Nepal agreed to eliminate visceral leishmaniasis (VL) as a public health problem. The approach to this was through improved case detection and treatment, and controlling transmission by the sand fly vector Phlebotomus argentipes, with indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticide. Initially, India applied DDT with stirrup pumps for IRS, however, this did not reduce transmission. After 2015 onwards, the pyrethroid alpha-cypermethrin was applied with compression pumps, and entomological surveillance was initiated in 2016. Methods Eight sentinel sites were established in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. IRS coverage was monitored by household survey, quality of insecticide application was measured by HPLC, presence and abundance of the VL vector was monitored by CDC light traps, insecticide resistance was measured with WHO diagnostic assays and case incidence was determined from the VL case register KAMIS. Results Complete treatment of houses with IRS increased across all sites from 57% in 2016 to 70% of houses in 2019, rising to >80% if partial house IRS coverage is included (except West Bengal). The quality of insecticide application has improved compared to previous studies, average doses of insecticide on filters papers ranged from 1.52 times the target dose of 25mg/m2 alpha-cypermethrin in 2019 to 1.67 times in 2018. Resistance to DDT has continued to increase, but the vector was not resistant to carbamates, organophosphates or pyrethroids. The annual and seasonal abundance of P. argentipes declined between 2016 to 2019 with an overall infection rate of 0.03%. This was associated with a decline in VL incidence for the blocks represented by the sentinel sites from 1.16 per 10,000 population in 2016 to 0.51 per 10,000 in 2019. Conclusion Through effective case detection and management reducing the infection reservoirs for P. argentipes in the human population combined with IRS keeping P. argentipes abundance and infectivity low has reduced VL transmission. This combination of effective case management and vector control has now brought India within reach of the VL elimination targets.

Developing standardized patient-based cases for communication training: lessons learned from training residents to communicate diagnostic uncertainty

Health professions education has benefitted from standardized patient (SP) programs to develop and refine communication and interpersonal skills in trainees. Effective case design is essential to ensure an SP encounter successfully meets learning objectives that are focused on communication skills. Creative, well-designed case scenarios offer learners the opportunity to engage in complex patient encounters, while challenging them to address the personal and emotional contexts in which their patients are situated. Therefore, prior to considering the practical execution of the patient encounter, educators will first need a clear and structured strategy for writing, organizing, and developing cases. The authors reflect on lessons learned in developing standardized patient-based cases to train learners to communicate to patients during times of diagnostic uncertainty, and provide suggestions to develop a set of simulation cases that are both standardized and diverse. Key steps and workflow processes that can assist educators with case design are introduced. The authors review the need to increase awareness of and mitigate existing norms and implicit biases, while maximizing variation in patient diversity. Opportunities to leverage the breadth of emotional dispositions of the SP and the affective domain of a clinical encounter are also discussed as a means to guide future case development and maximize the value of a case for its respective learning outcomes.

Numerical Analysis of Concentrated Solar Heaters for Segmented Heat Accumulators

This presented paper focuses on the design and evaluation of the concept of concentrated solar heaters for segmental heat accumulators, which are designed to cover the energy needs of selected communities in terms of food preparation without the need for fossil fuels, which have a negative impact not only on the climate but especially on health. The proposed device is based on the traditional method of food preparation in the so-called earth oven; however, the fire-heated stones are replaced with heat accumulators heated by solar radiation. This approach eliminates the need to change common and long-term habits of food preparation for selected communities. The device connects solar vacuum heat pipes, a solar radiation concentrator, and heat accumulators. The concept was evaluated based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis with the use of a transient simulation of selected operating situations in three geographical locations. The results showed a significant temperature increase of the heat accumulators, where in the most effective case the temperature increased up to 227.23 °C. The concept was also evaluated based on a calorimetric analysis of the system consisting of heat accumulators and food. The resulting temperature in the considered case reached the pasteurization temperature necessary for safe and healthy food preparation.

Strategies for Effective Case Method Teaching in Large Undergraduate Business Classes

This study finds that the case method pedagogy, originally designed for use with graduate students, can also be effective in large, undergraduate business classes. While most of the case method research has historically focused on the graduate level, the method has now become popular for undergraduate teaching. There is a growing need for large class pedagogy and best practices due to the fast growing enrolment in North American business schools, and this study presents a preliminary opinion on how the case method could be adapted to meet the needs of large and diverse classes. The study reviews the challenges of teaching cases, and the challenges of using active learning techniques in large class teaching. The study presents a definition for “large” and “very large” classes in the context of case teaching, and suggests several practices from case-teaching instructors that can be used to teach the method effectively in these environments.

Strategies for Effective Case Method Teaching in Large Undergraduate Business Classes

This study finds that the case method pedagogy, originally designed for use with graduate students, can also be effective in large, undergraduate business classes. While most of the case method research has historically focused on the graduate level, the method has now become popular for undergraduate teaching. There is a growing need for large class pedagogy and best practices due to the fast growing enrolment in North American business schools, and this study presents a preliminary opinion on how the case method could be adapted to meet the needs of large and diverse classes. The study reviews the challenges of teaching cases, and the challenges of using active learning techniques in large class teaching. The study presents a definition for “large” and “very large” classes in the context of case teaching, and suggests several practices from case-teaching instructors that can be used to teach the method effectively in these environments.