Exotic mix in China’s delivery of moon rocks

Reports and Proceedings

EUROPLANET

 

IMAGE: IMAGE SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE CHANG’E-5 LANDING SITE (43.06°N, 51.92°W) AND ADJACENT REGIONS OF THE MOON, AS WELL AS IMPACT CRATERS THAT WERE EXAMINED AS POSSIBLE SOURCES OF EXOTIC FRAGMENTS AMONG THE RECENTLY RETURNED LUNAR MATERIALS. view more 

CREDIT: QIAN ET AL. 2021

On 16 December 2020 the Chang'e-5 mission, China's first sample return mission to the Moon, successfully delivered to Earth nearly two kilograms of rocky fragments and dust from our celestial companion. Chang’e-5 landed on an area of the Moon not sampled by the NASA Apollo or the Soviet Luna missions nearly 50 years ago, and retrieved fragments of the youngest lunar rocks ever brought back for analysis in laboratories on Earth. Early-stage findings, which use geological mapping to link ‘exotic’ fragments in the collected samples to features near the landing site, have been presented by Mr Yuqi Qian, a PhD student at the China University of Geosciences, at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2021 virtual meeting.

The Chang'e-5 landing site is located on the western edge of the nearside of the Moon in the Northern Oceanus Procellarum. This is one of the youngest geological areas of the Moon with an age of roughly two billion years. The materials scraped from the surface comprise a loose soil that results from the fragmentation and powdering of lunar rocks over billions of years due to impacts of various sizes.  

The study presented by Qian suggests that ninety percent of the materials collected by Chang’e-5 likely derive from the landing site and its immediate surroundings, which are of a type termed ‘mare basalts’. These volcanic rocks are visible to us as the darker grey areas that spilled over much of the nearside of the Moon as ancient eruptions of lava. Yet ten percent of the fragments have distinctly different, ‘exotic’ chemical compositions, and may preserve records of other parts of the lunar surface as well as hints of the types of space rocks that have impacted the Moon’s surface. 

Qian and colleagues from Brown University and the University of Münster have looked at the potential sources of beads of rapidly cooled glassy material. They have traced these glassy droplets to now extinct volcanic vents known as ‘Rima Mairan’ and ‘Rima Sharp’ located roughly 230 and 160 kilometres southeast and northeast of the Chang’e-5 landing site. These fragments could give insights into past episodes of energetic, fountain-like volcanic activity on the Moon.

The team has also looked at the potential sources of impact-related fragments. The young geological age of the rocks at the landing site narrows the search, as only craters with ages less than 2 billion years can be responsible, and these are relatively rare on the side of the Moon that faces Earth.  The team has modelled the potential contributions from specific craters to the south and southeast (Aristarchus, Kepler, and Copernicus), northwest (Harding), and northeast (Harpalus). Qian’s findings show that Harpalus is a significant contributor of many exotic fragments among Chang’e-5’s sample haul, and these pieces of rock could offer a way to address persisting uncertainty about this crater’s age. Some fragments may have been thrown into Chang’e-5 landing area from nearly 1,300 kilometres away. 

Modelling and review of work by other teams has linked other exotic pieces of rock to domes rich in silica or to highland terranes, mountains of pale rock that surround the landing site.

“All of the local and exotic materials among the returned samples of Chang’e-5 can be used to answer a number of further scientific questions,” said Qian. “In addressing these we shall deepen our understanding of the Moon’s history and help prepare for further lunar exploration.” 

CAPTION

Image zooming in on the location of the Chang’e-5 landing site while showing nearby impact craters that were examined as possible sources of exotic fragments among the recently returned lunar materials.

CREDIT

Qian et al. 2021

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2021-447 

 

Observations confirm that aerosols formed from plant emitted compounds can make clouds brighter

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND

An observational study by Finnish research groups confirms a prevailing theory that volatile organic compounds emitted by vegetation form atmospheric aerosols which make clouds more reflective. Brighter clouds reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, thereby cooling the surface. Emissions of organic compounds from vegetation increase with increasing temperature, thus having the capability to slow down climate warming.

Atmospheric aerosols scatter and absorb solar light, and influence the formation of clouds. However, these processes are not yet completely understood, which leads to significant uncertainties when estimating the role of aerosols in climate change. In order to reliably estimate the effect of humans on climate change, we need to be able to separate the effects of natural and anthropogenic aerosols.

The study by Finnish researchers, published in Nature Communications, estimated the impact of volatile organic compounds emitted by boreal forests on aerosol concentration and cloud properties. The analysis was based on aerosol observations at the Hyytiälä SMEAR II station in Finland and remote sensing observations of cloud properties over Southern Finland from NASA’s spaceborne MODIS instrument. The observations showed that biogenic aerosols formed from volatile organic compounds reduced the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface by scattering more radiation back to space. Furthermore, these aerosols increased the amount of cloud droplets and made clouds more reflective. Both processes become stronger as temperature increases, indicating that these natural aerosols can slow down the warming of climate. The magnitudes of the radiative effects of these processes are similar and their combined effect is significant when compared with the radiative effect of anthropogenic aerosols in the boreal region. Therefore, this natural mechanism needs to be considered in more detail in climate model simulations.

The long-term and versatile observations from the SMEAR network and NASA’s comprehensive satellite observations enable this kind of breakthrough research.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-021-25850-7 

ARTICLE TITLE

A. Significance of the organic aerosol driven climate feedback in the boreal area

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Sep-2021

VACCINE HESITANT ARE NOT VACCINE RESISTANT

Trajectory of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Over Time and Association of Initial Vaccine Hesitancy With Subsequent Vaccination

Aaron J. Siegler, MHS, PhD¹; Nicole Luisi, MS¹; Eric W. Hall, MPH, PhD¹; et alHeather Bradley, PhD²; Travis Sanchez, PhD, DVM¹; Benjamin A. Lopman, PhD¹; Patrick S. Sullivan, PhD, DVM¹

Author Affiliations Article Information

JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(9):e2126882. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.26882

COVID-19 Resource Center

Research Letter 

Public Health

September 24, 2021

Introduction

Vaccine hesitancy is a critical barrier to achieving high COVID-19 vaccine coverage.^1,2 The stability of hesitancy over time is unclear, as is the association between hesitancy and eventual vaccine receipt. Moreover, despite widespread use, the validity of self-reported COVID-19 vaccine receipt has not been established. Using a population-based, serosurvey cohort in the US, we assessed the association between baseline vaccine hesitancy and vaccine receipt at study follow-up and explored the validity of vaccine self-report.

Methods

This cohort study, combined with study methods published elsewhere,³ follows the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) reporting guideline. The study was approved by the Emory University institutional review board. All study participants completed an online informed consent procedure.

As described elsewhere,³ participants were recruited from a national address-based frame. At baseline (August 9 to December 8, 2020) and follow-up (March 2 to April 21, 2021), surveys measured COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, and biological specimens measured antibody response. Validation analysis compared anti-spike IgG (Platelia Total Antibody Assay; Bio-Rad) with self-reported vaccination status. Vaccine self-report was assessed with the question, “Have you received a COVID-19 vaccine?” with responses of “Yes, one dose,” “Yes, two doses,” and “No.” Vaccine hesitancy was assessed with responses of “very unlikely,” “unlikely,” or “unsure” categorized as hesitant and “likely” or “very likely” categorized as willing. Sociodemographic variables, including race and ethnicity, were self-reported and were collected as part of the cohort study. Design weights were adjusted using classification and regression tree analysis and a raking procedure. Weighted estimates and 2-sided 95% CIs were developed in SAS statistical software version 9.4 (SAS Institute), with alluvial plots conducted in R statistical software version 4.0.5 (R Project for Statistical Computing).

Results

Of 4654 baseline respondents (2727 women [59%]; mean [SD] age, 50.7 [17.2] years), a total of 3439 (74%) completed follow-up (Table). Alluvial plots show the path of persons from baseline hesitancy status to follow-up vaccination status, with the widths corresponding to proportions observed (Figure). Among persons hesitant to vaccinate at baseline, at follow-up, 32% (95% CI, 27%-37%) reported receiving 1 or more vaccine doses, 37% (95% CI, 32%-42%) reported being likely to be vaccinated, and 32% (95% CI, 27%-37%) remained unlikely to be vaccinated. In contrast, among persons likely to be vaccinated at follow-up, 54% (95% CI, 50%-57%) had received 1 or more vaccine doses, 39% (95% CI, 36%-43%) remained likely to be vaccinated, and 7% (95% CI, 5%-9%) reported being unlikely to be vaccinated. Baseline vaccine willingness was higher among persons with a bachelor’s or graduate degree than among persons with lower education (76% [95% CI, 72%-78%] vs 65% [95% CI, 61%-69%]), and at follow-up these differences were reflected in vaccination, with vaccination rates of 54% (95% CI, 51%-58%) vs 43% (95% CI, 39%-47%). For Hispanic individuals, baseline vaccine willingness was similar to that of non-Hispanic White individuals (71% [95% CI, 64%-78%] vs 69% [95% CI, 66%-72%]), yet at follow-up fewer Hispanic individuals than non-Hispanic White individuals were vaccinated (31% [95% CI, 25%-38%] vs 51% [95% CI, 47%-54%]). Because not all participants were eligible for vaccines at follow-up, we conducted a sensitivity analysis restricted to participants reporting vaccine eligibility and found that among persons hesitant to vaccinate at baseline, at follow-up 51% reported receiving 1 or more vaccine dose, 22% reported being likely to be vaccinated, and 27% remained unlikely to be vaccinated.

Self-reported vaccine receipt indicated substantial validity compared with the reference standard detection of anti-spike IgG among 1949 participants (excluding 378 with natural infection and 868 without full dosing or with unknown vaccine manufacturer). Self-report had 98.2% (638 of 650 respondents) positive predictive value, 97.3% (35 of 1299 respondents) negative predictive value, 94.8% (638 of 673 respondents) sensitivity, and 99.1% (12 of 1276 respondents) specificity.

Discussion

This cohort study found that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is not a stable trait precluding vaccination but, instead, is labile. Hesitancy decreased between late 2020 and early 2021, with nearly one-third (32%) of persons who were initially hesitant being vaccinated at follow-up and more than one-third (37%) transitioning from vaccine hesitant into vaccine willing. Early plans regarding vaccination frequently deviated from later action in vaccine seeking. Self-reported vaccination status was congruent with biological tests, indicating that it is a valid metric. Changes in hesitancy have not alleviated health inequities in vaccines received, and further studies are needed to explore the reasons why vaccine hesitancy is changing over time by group. Our analysis is limited in that vaccines were not available to all respondents until April 19, 2021, and our follow-up period ended before this date.

Conclusions

Vaccine hesitancy is waning, yet inequities in receipt remain. There is a clear public health opportunity to convert higher vaccine willingness into successfully delivered vaccinations.

Back to top

Article Information

Accepted for Publication: July 25, 2021.

Published: September 24, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.26882

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License. © 2021 Siegler AJ et al. JAMA Network Open.

Corresponding Author: Aaron J. Siegler, MHS, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30322 (asiegle@emory.edu).

Author Contributions: Dr Siegler had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Siegler, Luisi, Sanchez, Lopman, Sullivan.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: All authors.

Drafting of the manuscript: Siegler, Hall, Sullivan.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors.

Statistical analysis: Siegler, Luisi, Hall, Bradley.

Obtained funding: Siegler, Lopman, Sullivan.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Luisi, Sanchez, Lopman.

Supervision: Siegler, Sanchez, Sullivan.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Siegler reported receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Woodruff Foundation paid to his institution during the conduct of the study. Dr Sanchez reported receiving grants from the NIH during the conduct of the study. Dr Sullivan reported receiving grants and personal fees from the NIH during the conduct of the study, grants and personal fees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and grants from Gilead Sciences outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding/Support: Salesforce donated licenses and system development, and the Kaiser Family Foundation provided design contributions. This study was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (grant 3R01AI143875-02S1 to Dr Siegler).

Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funder had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Additional Contributions: We appreciate and acknowledge the contributions of our study participants. Mariah Valentine-Graves, MPH, Palmer Ramsay-Hipp, MPH, Radhika Prakash Asrani, MPH, and Ryan Zahn, MPH (all from Emory University), provided project management support, including participant management; they were not compensated beyond their normal salaries.

References

1.

Gharpure  R, Patel  A, Link-Gelles  R.  First-dose COVID-19 vaccination coverage among skilled nursing facility residents and staff.   JAMA. 2021;325(16):1670-1671. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.2352
ArticlePubMedGoogle ScholarCrossref

2.

Murphy  J, Vallières  F, Bentall  RP,  et al.  Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the United Kingdom.   Nat Commun. 2021;12(1):29. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-20226-9PubMedGoogle ScholarCrossref

3.

Siegler  AJ, Sullivan  PS, Sanchez  T,  et al.  Protocol for a national probability survey using home specimen collection methods to assess prevalence and incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and antibody response.   Ann Epidemiol. 2020;49:50-60. doi:10.1016/j.annepidem.2020.07.015PubMedGoogle ScholarCrossref

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the biggest decrease in life expectancy since World War II

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered life expectancy losses not seen since World War II in Western Europe and exceeded those observed around the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc in central and Eastern European countries, according to research published [27 September], led by scientists at Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science.

The research team assembled an unprecedented dataset on mortality from 29 countries, spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile – countries for which official death registrations for 2020 had been published. They found that 27 of the 29 countries saw reductions in life expectancy in 2020, and at a scale which wiped out years of progress on mortality, according to the paper published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Women in 15 countries and men in 10 countries were found to have a lower expectancy at birth in 2020 than in 2015, a year in which life expectancy was already negatively affected by a significant flu season.

According to the study’s co-lead author Dr José Manuel Aburto, ‘For Western European countries such as Spain, England and Wales, Italy, Belgium, among others, the last time such large magnitudes of declines in life expectancy at birth were observed in a single year was during WW-II.’

But, he says, the scale of the life expectancy losses was stark across most countries studied, ‘22 countries included in our study experienced larger losses than half a year in 2020. Females in eight countries and males in 11 countries experienced losses larger than a year. To contextualize, it took on average 5.6 years for these countries to achieve a one-year increase in life expectancy recently: progress wiped out over the course of 2020 by COVID-19.’

Across most of the 29 countries, males saw larger life expectancy declines than females. The largest declines in life expectancy were observed among males in the US, who saw a decline of 2.2 years relative to 2019 levels, followed by Lithuanian males (1.7 years).

According to co-lead author, Dr Ridhi Kashyap, ‘The large declines in life expectancy observed in the US can partly be explained by the notable increase in mortality at working ages observed in 2020. In the US, increases in mortality in the under 60 age group contributed most significantly to life expectancy declines, whereas across most of Europe increases in mortality above age 60 contributed more significantly.’

In addition to these age patterns, the team’s analysis reveals that most life expectancy reductions across different countries were attributable to official COVID-19 deaths.

Dr Kashyap adds, ‘While we know that there are several issues linked to the counting of COVID-19 deaths, such as inadequate testing or misclassification, the fact that our results highlight such a large impact that is directly attributable to COVID-19 shows how devastating a shock it has been for many countries. We urgently call for the publication and availability of more disaggregated data from a wider-range of countries, including low- and middle-income countries, to better understand the impacts of the pandemic globally.’

Life expectancy, also known as period life expectancy, refers to the average age to which a newborn live if current death rates continued for their whole life. It does not predict an actual lifespan. It provides a snapshot of current mortality conditions and allows for a comparison of the size of the mortality impacts of the pandemic between different countries and populations.

 

Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science

The Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) was set up in 2019 to build an internationally recognized and interdisciplinary centre of demographic science that will disrupt, realign and raise the value of demography in science and society. For more information about the Trust, please visit www.leverhulme.ac.uk and follow the Trust on Twitter @LeverhulmeTrust

 

The University of Oxford

Oxford University has been placed number one in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the fifth year running, and at the heart of this success is our ground-breaking research and innovation. Oxford is world-famous for research excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.

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JOURNAL

International Journal of Epidemiology

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Quantifying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through life expectancy losses: a population-level study of 29 countries

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Sep-2021

 

Play ball! (It’s good for you)

UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL

Boys who participate in sports in early childhood are less likely to experience later depressive and anxiety symptoms – known as emotional distress – in middle childhood, a new study led by Université de Montréal psychoeducator Marie-Josée Harbec.

Published today in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the study also suggests that  boys who experience less emotional distress in middle childhood are also more likely to be more physically active in early adolescence.

In the study, “we wanted to clarify the long-term and reciprocal relationship in school-aged children  between participation in sports and depressive and anxiety symptoms,” said Harbec, who did the work as a doctoral student supervised by UdeM psychoeducation professor Linda Pagani.

“We also wanted to examine whether this relationship worked differently in boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 12,” said Harbec, who along with Pagani practices at CHU Ste-Justine chuldren’s hospital.

“There’s widespread evidence of a crisis these days in childhood physical inactivity, and this may ultimately have implications for later mental and physical health,” she added.

Harbec and Pagani examined the sporting and physical activity habits reported by the kids at ages 5 and 12 years, as well by their parents, and also looked at symptoms of emotional distress from ages 6 to 10 years that were reported by the kids’ teachers.

“We found that 5-year-old boys who never participated in sports were more likely between the ages of 6 and 10 to look unhappy and tired, had difficulty having fun, cried a lot, and appeared fearful or worried.” said Pagani, the study’s senior author.

“Also, boys who exhibited higher levels of depressive and anxious symptoms during middle childhood were subsequently less physically active at 12 years old. For girls, on the other hand, we did not find any significant changes.”

Collaborating with researchers at McGill University and the Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Harbec and Pagani examined data from a Quebec cohort of kids born in 1997 and 1998, part of the the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development done by the Institut de de la statistique du Québec.

Parents of 690 boys and 748 girls they looked at had reported their past-year participation in sport at age 5 and their weekly level of physical activity at age 12; their teachers assessed emotional-distress symptoms observed in school from ages 6 to 10. The data were stratified by sex to identify any significant link between physical activity and emotional distress.

Many confounding factors were ruled out, said Harbec.

“Our goal was to eliminate any pre-existing conditions of the children or families that could throw a different light on our results, such as child temperament, parental education or family income,”  she said.

 

Girls and boys function differently

Boys who engage in sport in preschool might benefit from physical activities that help them develop  life skills such as taking initiative, engaging in teamwork and practicing self-control, and build supportive relationships with their peers and adult coaches and instructors, the researchers said.

“Conversely, boys who experience symptoms of depression and anxiety might be more socially isolated, and have a decreased level of energy and lower feelings of competence, which could in turn negatively influence engagement in physical activity,” said Pagani.

For girls, depression and anxiety risks and protective factors work differently, said Harbec. Girls are more likely than boys to seek help from and disclose emotional distress to family, friends or health providers, and psychological support from these social ties protects them better.

“Also, because more girls experience emotional distress than boys, this gender-related risk may have led to early identification and intervention for girls,” and so protect them from further damage, said Harbec.

About this study

“Physical activity as both predictor and outcome of emotional distress trajectories in middle childhood’,” by Marie-Josée Harbec et al, was published Sept. 27, 2021 in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Physical activity as both predictor and outcome of emotional distress trajectories in middle childhood

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Sep-2021

FOR PROFIT MEDICINE

Patients at higher-rated dialysis centers more likely to get on kidney transplant waitlists

Study supports including kidney transplant accessibility in dialysis center ratings

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL

Dialysis centers, the gatekeepers of kidney transplantation waitlisting, produce more data and inspire more policies today than ever before. However, existing Dialysis Facility Compare (DFC) quality metrics for these centers have not included longitudinal metrics, such as time to transplantation waitlisting, which incentivize coordinating care across the spectrum of dialysis centers, nephrologists, hospitals, and transplant centers. A new study by a team of Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers aimed to fill this gap by investigating potential associations between patient, facility, and waitlisting characteristics and a center’s DFC ratings. By combining data from the U.S. Renal Data System (USRDS) to DFC center ratings between 2013 and 2018, researchers found that higher-rated facilities yielded a 47 percent higher likelihood of waitlisting for patients. Results are published in JAMA Network Open.

“Historically, quality metric programs have focused on specific sites of care, so our objective was to focus on the continuum of experience for the patient,” said Thomas Tsai, MD, MPH, of the Brigham’s Center for Surgery and Public Health (CSPH) in the Department of Surgery. “We wanted to know if current quality measurements reflected the full continuum of care, and if patients receiving care at higher-rated centers were more likely to be listed for kidney transplantation.”

Patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) no longer have viable kidneys that effectively filter blood; thus, without treatment, dangerous biowaste levels persist inside the body. For these patients, there are few treatment options: dialysis, kidney transplantation or conservative kidney management. Kidney transplantation is often the best option for patients, but to receive a transplant, patients must be referred by their dialysis center to a national waitlist managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). ESKD diagnosis is life-threatening, which further emphasizes the importance of quality intervention after diagnosis — quality which is measured by the Medicare DFC star system. The star system accounts for nine separate health statistics, including deaths, hospitalizations, blood transfusions, and then ranks facilities to get final ratings.

To assess existing quality metrics of dialysis centers, researchers used the USRDS data and — after excluding patients that attended unrated centers or had already received transplants — 507,581 year-long patient experiences were captured from 6,661 unique facilities. The researchers used these data to then determine whether patient, facility, or kidney transplant waitlisting characteristics were associated with corresponding dialysis center ratings.

By comparing 5-star and 1-star facilities, the team found those higher-rated facilities to be associated with a 47 percent increased likelihood of waitlisting for transplantation. Additionally, the team found Black patients were less likely to be waitlisted than white patients, and they were more likely to be at 1- and 2-star facilities. Furthermore, the team found that both urban facilities and nonprofit facilities boasted higher likelihood of waitlisting, despite facilities in urban settings having higher likelihood of 1- and 2-star ratings.

The authors hope that the integration of waitlisting rates into current DFC ratings will incentivize greater referral rates and, in turn, increase overall nationwide facility quality.        

“At the end of the day, we’re struggling to empower patients to make good, informed decisions about dialysis facilities,” said lead author Joel Adler, MD, MPH, of the Brigham’s CSPH and Division of Transplant Surgery. “For patients experiencing this system and deciding based on these quality metrics, it’s crucial that we integrate variables like waitlisting rates, which can radically change patient outcomes.”

###

Conflict of Interest: Co-author Rachel Patzer, PhD, reported being cochair of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Technical Expert Panel on Practitioner Level Measurement of Effective Access to Transplantation (2021). No other disclosures were reported.

Funding: This work was supported by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (CareDx Enhancing Organ Donation & Transplantation grant to Adler).

Paper cited: Adler, JT. et al. “Association of Public Reporting of Medicare Dialysis Facility Quality Ratings With Access to Kidney Transplant, JAMA Network Open” Journal DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.26719

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.26719 

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of Public Reporting of Medicare Dialysis Facility Quality Ratings With Access to Kidney Transplantation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Sep-2021

THE MOVING FINGER WRITES

Finger tracing enhances learning: Evidence for 100-year-old practice used by Montessori

Tracing makes learning easier, faster, and more motivating

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

 

IMAGE: GLADWYNE MONTESSORI SCHOOL view more 

CREDIT: MONTGOMERY COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION

Finger tracing has been used by teachers to help students learn for more than a century. In the early 1900s, education pioneer Montessori encouraged young children to trace over letters of the alphabet made from sandpaper with their index fingers, based on the intuition that a multi-sensory approach (i.e., visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) to learning would be most effective. In 1912, Montessori noticed that children, after mastering the sequence of tracing a letter with their index finger, “took great pleasure” in closing their eyes and trying to recall it.

Over 100 years later, her method has received some empirical validation. Two new University of Sydney studies show that not only is tracing an effective learning technique; if it is used in conjunction with imagination, its positive effect could be amplified.

Previous Sydney School of Education & Social Work research demonstrated a link between tracing and math performance. Now, tracing in math and science lessons has been specifically found to reduce people’s cognitive load (the demands placed on the conscious mind by a range of cognitive activities), thereby enhancing their ability to learn. It has also been found to potentially increase their learning motivation. Once students have built a foundational understanding of a topic through tracing, asking them to close their eyes and “imagine” the steps while tracing enhances learning more than additional tracing with eyes open.

“Although Australian schools are trending upwards in terms of maths and science performance, there’s still room for improvement,” said Associate Professor Paul Ginns, the academic supervisor and co-author of the papers. “Our research shows that tracing and imagination strategies can help. They are cost-free, simple, and can be easily implemented in classrooms, across a range of lesson topics and media.”

Tracing triangles

In the first study, published in Educational Psychology Review, 93 Year 4 and 5 students from a school in Shanghai, China were being taught about the properties of angles in a triangle. They were randomly assigned to the control condition, the tracing condition, or the tracing/imagination condition, and then given ‘calculate the missing angle’ examples to complete under practice and test conditions.

The control group were instructed to leave their arms by their sides. The tracing group traced the shapes, and the tracing/imagination group were instructed to trace the shape with their eyes open, then close their eyes and imagine the tracing.

Following this, all groups completed a 13-item questionnaire that measured motivation and different types of cognitive load during the learning process. A further experiment investigated whether these findings could be generalised to a new mathematics topic (mental mathematics), a different age group (Chinese tertiary students), and an alternative format (tracing out ellipses in difficult “mental mathematics” worked examples).

A mini meta-analysis combining the results of the two experiments showed that students who traced the shapes solved similar problems more quickly. Students who traced also reported lower levels of cognitive load and higher levels of intrinsic motivation during the lesson, compared to those in the control group. In some instances, tracing then imagining resulted in faster solution times for test questions than tracing alone.

Tracing the stars

Published in Educational Technology Research and Development, the second study involved adult participants. It considered how instructions to point at and trace over elements of a lesson on the lifecycle of a star on a computer screen would help them learn.

44 people were pre-tested on their knowledge of astronomy, then during the lesson they were instructed to either ‘use their hands’ to make links between text and an associated part of the diagram or to keep their hands in their laps. The first group reported lower cognitive load and higher interest and enjoyment of the lesson. Importantly, when tested on what they’d learned, students who used their hands while studying not only remembered more basic facts from the lesson but were also able to transfer that understanding to solve problems not directly covered in the lesson.

Why tracing works

“There are multiple reasons why tracing can help learning,” Associate Professor Ginns said. “It seems that humans are biologically wired so that we pay closer attention to the space near our hands. So, when using an index finger to trace visual stimuli, these elements of a lesson receive processing priority. Tracing can also assist learning because it “chunks” all the important elements of new material into one piece of information, making it easier for us to learn.”

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JOURNAL

Educational Psychology Review

DOI

10.1007/s10648-021-09625-6 

The phrase 'The moving finger writes...' expresses the notion that whatever one does in one's life is one's own responsibility and cannot be changed. What's the origin of the phrase 'The moving finger writes'? This line originates in English in Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the poem The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, 1859:

The saying 'The moving finger writes' - meaning and origin.

www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-moving-finger-writes.html