Nearly $500M a year in Medicare costs goes to 7 services with no net health benefits

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES HEALTH SCIENCES

Research News

 

FINDINGS

A UCLA-led study shows that physicians frequently order preventive medical services for adult Medicare beneficiaries that are considered unnecessary and of "low value" by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force -- at a cost of $478 million per year.

The researchers analyzed national survey data over a 10-year period, looking specifically at seven preventive services given a "D" rating by the task force, and discovered that these services were ordered more than 31 million times annually.

BACKGROUND

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services, makes recommendations on the value of clinical preventive services. Services rated D are considered to have no likely health benefit to specific patients and may even be harmful to them. Overall, the utilization of a variety of services considered unnecessary by the task force drives up health care spending by billions of dollars each year.

METHOD

The researchers examined data covering the years 2007 to 2016 from the annual National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey to determine how often, and at what cost, seven specific grade D services were utilized:

• Asymptomatic bacteriuria screening in non-pregnant women
• Cardiovascular disease screening in low-risk adults (rest or stress ECG)
• Cervical cancer screening in women over age 65 (Papanicolaou or HPV test)
• Colorectal cancer screening in those over age 85 (colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy)
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease screening in asymptomatic patients (peak flow or spirometry)
• Prostate cancer screening in men 75 and older (prostate-specific antigen test)
• Vitamin D supplementation for fracture preventing in postmenopausal women

The researchers note some limitations to the study. For instance, their method of estimating Medicare spending on these services may lack clinical details and therefore might misclassify some instances of appropriate care as low value.

IMPACT

Medicare could save nearly $500 million per year and protect patients against potential harm by no longer providing reimbursements for these services. Under the Affordable Care Act, the secretary of health and human services is authorized to prohibit payment for services rated D by the Preventive Services Task Force. In February 2021, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Federal Employees Health Benefits Program stopped covering (PDF) grade D services.

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AUTHORS

Dr. Carlos Irwin Oronce, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Dr. Catherine Sarkisian and Dr. John Mafi, all of UCLA, and Dr. A. Mark Fendrick of the University of Michigan. Dr. Mafi is also a researcher with Rand Corp.

JOURNAL

The study is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of General Internal Medicine.

FUNDING

The study was funded by the Veterans Affairs Office of Academic Affiliations (through the VA/National Clinician Scholars Program); the National Institute on Drug Abuse; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities; the National Institute on Aging, the UCLA Resource Center for Minority Aging Research/Center for Health Improvement of Minority Elders; the National Center for Advancing Translational Science; the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute; the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases; and the National Institute on Aging's Beeson Emerging Leaders career development award funded this study.

Battling public health misinformation online

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF NURSING

Research News

 

In a novel effort to combat COVID-19 misinformation, a group of women researchers, including nurse scientists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing), launched the Dear Pandemic social media campaign in March 2020. It delivers curated, comprehensive, and timely information about the COVID-19 pandemic in a question-and-answer format. Complex topics such as COVID-19 aerosol transmission, risk reduction strategies to avoid infection, and excess mortality are explained in common language and shared widely.

Now with more than 100,000 followers and accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the campaign has an international and multilingual impact offering important public health insight via social media. An article in the journal Public Health Nursing describes how the campaign is combating misinformation about COVID-19.

"Dear Pandemic has demonstrated that consistently publishing high-quality content outside a peer-reviewed venue can result in incredible impact--personal behavior change, informed nodes of trust to further disseminate factual information, and resources for community providers navigating constantly evolving knowledge," says Penn Nursing's Ashley Z. Ritter, PhD, CRNP, the article's lead author.

Dear Pandemic is an example of necessary low-barrier information exchange with the public and a tool for community providers like nurses to stay informed of breaking news. Increased engagement of nurses in endeavors like Dear Pandemic amplifies the impact of collective interdisciplinary efforts to educate the public, contain misinformation, and motivate individual and systemic action, the article explains.

"Now is the time for nurses to flex their communication and trust muscles in both traditional and innovative ways to advance the health of the public through trusted, actionable messaging in addition to exceptional patient care," says co-author Shoshana Aronowitz, PhD, CRNP, a Fellow of the National Clinician Scholars Program.

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The article "Dear Pandemic: Nurses as Key Partners in Fighting the COVID-19 Infodemic" is available online.

Additional coauthors of the article include Alison Buttenheim, PhD, of Penn Nursing, Lindsey Leininger PhD, of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College; Malia Jones PhD, MPH, of the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Jennifer Beam Dowd PhD, of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford; Sandra Albrecht PhD, MPH, of the Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University; Amanda M. Simanek PhD, MPH, of the Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Lauren Hale PhD, of the Program in Public Health, Department of Family, Population, and Preventative Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University; and Aparna Kumar PhD, MPH, CRNP, of the College of Nursing at Thomas Jefferson University.

About the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is one of the world's leading schools of nursing. For the sixth year in a row, it is ranked the #1 nursing school in the world by QS University and is consistently ranked highly in the U.S. News & World Report annual list of best graduate schools. Penn Nursing is ranked as one of the top schools of nursing in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Penn Nursing prepares nurse scientists and nurse leaders to meet the health needs of a global society through innovation in research, education, and practice. Follow Penn Nursing on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Instagram

COMMUNALISM

Study: Older adults found resilience during pandemic through community, human connection

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Older adults were significantly affected by isolation and stress during Oregon's initial COVID-19 lockdown last spring, but they were also able to find connection and meaning in community, new hobbies and time for themselves, a recent Oregon State University study found.

If resilience is understood as the ability to see positives in the midst of a negative situation, then many of the study's participants demonstrated resilience during that time, the researchers said.

"A lot of times we think about resilience as a personality trait, and it's true that there are some qualities that may help people experience that. But in the end, resilience is something that is shared," said Heidi Igarashi, first author on the study and a recent doctoral graduate of OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences. "One of the things that came out in our study was the degree to which the people-connection was really significant."

The study, published in the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, surveyed 235 adults ages 51 to 95 about their experiences from April 28-May 4, 2020, when Oregon's statewide stay-at-home order had been in place for about a month.

The online survey asked participants about recent and ongoing difficulties in their lives caused by COVID-19, as well as recent positive experiences.

People shared experiences at the personal, interpersonal and societal levels. Personal difficulties included the stress of constant vigilance around ensuring safety in everyday activities, as well as fear of death and uncertainty about the future. Interpersonal challenges included social isolation, lack of physical contact and fear for loved ones' health. Societal stressors were centered on lack of scientific leadership and concerns for the community at large.

While 94% of participants listed difficulties, roughly 63% shared positive experiences. At the personal level, these included things like trying new projects -- gardening, cooking -- and increased gratitude for the simpler, slower pace of life. Interpersonal joys were found in new friendships or reconnecting with old friends, and in people caring for one another. At the societal level, some noted the benefit to the environment from people driving less and the sense of increased community solidarity.

Older adults took comfort in seeing neighbors and friends taking care of each other, while simultaneously adding to community resilience by looking after friends and neighbors themselves and joining group efforts like mask-sewing drives, said co-author Carolyn Aldwin, the Jo Anne Leonard Endowed Director of the Center for Healthy Aging Research at OSU.

"It's a mistake to think of older adults as just being sort of victims during COVID," Aldwin said. "They're a lot more resilient than we think they are, and they're important for the community."

Many of the survey respondents engaged in Zoom calls with family and friends, enjoyed time spent in nature and finally finished projects that had been sitting in the closet or garage.

Retired folks had a harder time than those who are employed because the lockdown was more disruptive to their routine, including closing off regular volunteer opportunities because of older adults' high-risk status. But some respondents reported feeling relief at being able to focus on themselves for a change, with pursuits like meditation and journaling, rather than spending all their time caring for other people.

The study was conducted via internet survey, which affected response rates; the majority of participants were white, female, retired and highly educated, as opposed to the racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups that have been hardest hit by COVID-19 infections and death, the researchers said.

But Aldwin cautions against assumptions about resilience among less-advantaged groups. While they may have experienced more loss and financial distress, a key factor in resilience is being able to find purpose in life, which can occur through helping others.

"There's this meaning that's found in caregiving, a reason for living, where our study group often didn't have these demands on them, and they were feeling a lack of sense of meaning," she said. "If you're the person who's holding the family together during this crisis, that's a source of meaning. Clearly we would have seen more loss and more difficulty, but we also might have seen sources of resilience that we didn't see in the study group."

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Digital mental health interventions for young people are perceived promising, but are they effective

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Research News

 

April 29, 2021 -An increasing number of digital mental health interventions are designed for adolescents and young people with a range of mental health issues, but the evidence on their effectiveness is mixed, according to research by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Spark Street Advisors.

Computerized cognitive behavioral therapy was found effective for anxiety and depression in adolescents and young people holding promise for increasing access to mental health treatment for these conditions. However, the effectiveness of other digital interventions, including therapeutic video games, mobile apps, or social networking sites, and addressing a range of other mental health outcomes remain inconclusive. The findings are published online in the journal JMIR Mental Health.

According to UNICEF, nearly 1 in 5 adolescents experience a mental health disorder each year but because of barriers to accessing and seeking care, most remain undiagnosed and untreated.

"While there is evidence that some interventions can be effective when delivered digitally, it is still somewhat of a wild west when it comes to digital mental health apps," said Nina Schwalbe, adjunct assistant professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia Mailman School.

The researchers conducted an analysis of 18 systematic reviews and meta-analyses of digital health interventions. In addition to the findings on computerized cognitive behavioral therapy, some therapeutic areas of digital interventions improved outcomes relative to controls for those who are on the waitlist for services, suggesting that the interventions can be used for supplementing and supplanting traditional mental health treatment in cases where access to care is limited or wait times to access are long.

The Investigators point out that the vast majority - over 90 percent - of interventions studied are implemented in high-income countries, with very little information about the background of participants. Therefore, the generalizability of the findings to young people from different socioeconomic, cultural, racial, or other communities is weak. ""It is critical to assess the effectiveness among different racial and ethnic groups and across geographies," observed Susanna Lehtimaki of Spark Street Advisors.

"There was also no indication of costs of developing the tools or long-term benefits," noted Susanna Lehtimaki of Spark Street Advisors. "Moving forward with effective digital health interventions, it will be important to understand how they fit within the public health ecosystem and to what extent they are effective across a range of settings with different resources or populations."

According to the research, digital mental health interventions were well accepted by those 10 to 24 years of age, however, dropout was common and adherence weak. Engagement of a health professional, peer, or parent as part of the digital intervention were found to strengthen the effectiveness.

Schwalbe notes, "In the spirit of "do no harm" it is really important that the excitement over the promise of digital mental health interventions does not cloud the need for high quality effectiveness studies in a range of settings and with a diverse group of youth." She also notes, "it should go without saying that adolescents also need to be consulted in every stage of the design process and while it may be assumed that young people prefer digital services, we need to continually challenge whether this is true."

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Co-authors include Jana Martic, Spark Street Advisors; Brian Wahl, Spark Street Advisors and Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Katherine Foster, University of Washington.

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the seventh largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master's and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit http://www.mailman.columbia.edu.

Partnerships between researchers,
policymakers and practitioners improve
early childhood education

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

New York, NY--Research-practice partnerships (RPPs), long-term collaborations between researchers, policy makers and practitioners, represent an especially promising strategy for making sure that all children benefit from early childhood education, according to a journal released today by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution.

The journal, Future of Children, edited by Daphna Bassok of the University of Virginia and Pamela Morris of New York University's Steinhardt School, argues that RPPs are crucial for solving today's most pressing question in early childhood education--how to deliver high-quality prekindergarten programs at scale.

"Too often there is a disconnect between the questions researchers tackle and the ones that are more urgent and salient for policy makers or practitioners," said Bassok. "The findings from rigorous, well-designed research studies may not be particularly useful for addressing the real-life complexity that educators and policymakers face."

"The idea of research practice partnerships is that through close collaborations, researchers can do work that really helps policy makers address the big problems they are tackling and do the work fast enough to actually inform change," continued Morris. "Our hope is that this journal makes that clear."

RPPs are Designed to Improve Educational Outcomes

RPPs are defined by longevity, mutual decision-making and compromise, and the commitment of both parties to large-scale, systems-level problem solving, rather than a single project or research question.

In study after study, early childhood education programs developed by researchers have shown large benefits, holding out the promise of substantially narrowing the achievement gap between disadvantaged children and their better-off peers. But when cities and states establish large-scale prekindergarten programs, Bassok and Morris noted, the results are often far more modest. The important questions today aren't about whether early childhood education "works," but about how to invest limited resources to improve the quality of large-scale prekindergarten programs, support the early childhood workforce, and reach the children who need the most help.

"Delivering effective early childhood education at scale remains elusive," said Bassok. "Findings from promising research studies rarely make their way into early childhood practice; at the same time, policy and practice decisions are often made without research evidence to guide them."

That's partly because policy makers and practitioners have different priorities and work on different timelines than researchers do. Through collaboration, compromise, and long-term commitment, RPPs can help bridge the gap and produce research that's relevant and useful to policy makers and practitioners, while at the same time offering scholars opportunities for broad and innovative research wouldn't be possible in one-off studies of a single program or topic.

The Journal is a User Manual for Partnerships

Each article in the journal describes how a successful early childhood RPP confronted a major challenge or exploited an unexpected opportunity in the process of working together to create a research or funding agenda, develop measurement tools, take innovation to scale, navigate conflicting timelines, find a balance between academic rigor and feasibility, or build research capacity. In this sense, the journal offers both a user manual and a road map for future partnerships to follow.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the benefits of RPPs," Morris said. "Where RPPs were in place, researchers used their familiarity with the local context to help ease the sudden transition to remote learning."

For example, as COVID-19 spread in New York City, researchers in an established RPP there quickly assembled materials about remote learning, including a tool kit for teachers citywide, and offered resources to answer policy makers' most urgent questions.

"The pandemic has created large gaps in the services provided to our youngest learners, and opened the door for new collaborations as policy systems race to meet children's needs," continued Morris. "In this context, RPPs can support efforts to rebuild and reimagine early childhood education systems that can help all of our nation's children acquire strong foundations for kindergarten and beyond."

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Visit http://www.futureofchildren.org to read "Research-Practice Partnerships to Strengthen Early Education" as well as past issues of the Future of Children.

About the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

Located in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village, NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development prepares students for careers in the arts, education, health, media and psychology. Since its founding in 1890, the Steinhardt School's mission has been to expand human capacity through public service, global collaboration, research, scholarship, and practice. To learn more about NYU Steinhardt, visit steinhardt.nyu.edu.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

In-person schooling with inadequate mitigation measures raises household member's COVID-19 risk

Large study suggests that symptom screening, other measures can eliminate most or all excess risk of developing COVID-19-like symptoms or testing positive for COVID-19

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Research News

 

People living with a child who attends school in-person have an increased risk of reporting evidence of COVID-19, but teacher masking, symptom screening, and other mitigation measures in schools may be able to minimize that excess risk, suggests a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For their study, the researchers analyzed nearly 600,000 responses from an ongoing Facebook-based COVID-19 symptom survey in the United States over two periods between November 2020 and February 2021 before vaccines were widely available in the U.S. The researchers found that those living with a child engaged in full-time, in-person pre-K-to-12 schooling were about 38 percent more likely to report COVID-19-like symptoms such as fever, cough, or difficulty breathing, compared to those living with a child schooled exclusively in a home setting.

A key finding was that school-based mitigation measures--the survey asked about 14 mitigation measures--were associated with less risk per mitigation measure. For example, 9 percent less risk of COVID-related illness per measure, and 7 percent less risk of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test per measure. Each additional mitigation measure reduced risk. Teacher masking and daily symptom screening appeared to be the strongest risk reducers.

The study was published online April 29 in Science.

The analysis included three outcomes as reported by survey respondents: COVID-19-like illness, i.e., fever and respiratory symptoms within the last 24 hours; loss of taste or small within the last 24 hours; and a positive COVID-19 test in the last 14 days.

The survey responses indicated that most pre-K-to-12 schools had some mitigation measures in place, such as mask mandates for teachers, daily screening of students and teachers for symptoms, and curtailment of extracurricular activities. The researchers found that when schools used seven or more mitigation measures, the excess risk associated with in-person schooling mostly disappeared--and completely disappeared when 10 or more mitigation measures were reported.

"These findings support the idea that mitigation measures at schools can greatly reduce the excess COVID-19 risk to adults living with children who attend school in-person," says study first author Justin Lessler, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School.

The issue of in-person schooling has been much debated in the United States from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to different school policies across the country. This policy diversity effectively set in motion a "natural experiment" with schooling and COVID-19 risk in the U.S. population. A chief concern has been that children going to school every day, even if they are not very susceptible to COVID-19 themselves, may bring home the virus to parents and other adult family members who are at higher risk of disease.

To examine these issues, Lessler and colleagues used the COVID-19 Symptom Survey, an ongoing Facebook-based survey managed by Carnegie Mellon University's Delphi Group in collaboration with Facebook that garners about 250,000 responses per week. The researchers looked at responses during two recent periods--roughly from Thanksgiving to Christmas last year and mid-January to mid-February this year--from respondents in households where at least one child was enrolled in a school, from pre-kindergarten through high school. Of the 576,051 people in this group, about 49 percent, or 284,789, reported being in a household with a child attending pre-K-to-12 school in-person rather than online or homeschooled.

In their analysis, Lessler and colleagues examined how the in-person school group differed from the online or homeschooled group in terms of reported COVID-19-related symptoms and outcomes. They adjusted the results to account for obvious confounding factors such as differences in local COVID-19 rates.

In addition to the 38 percent increase in the odds of getting a COVID-19-related illness among respondents in households with an in-person-schooled child, the researchers found a 21 percent increase in the odds for the loss of taste or smell--one of the core symptoms of COVID-19--and a 30 percent increase in the odds for testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection in the previous two weeks.

The strength of these associations appeared to increase with grade level. At the K and pre-K level, the association with COVID-19 outcomes was not significant for all outcomes, but the strength of those associations rose steadily, peaking at the grade 9-12 level--where the excess risk of a recent positive SARS-CoV-2 test for household members was over 50 percent. These findings are consistent with past studies suggesting less susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 illness among younger children compared to older ones.

The survey data included responses about COVID-19 mitigation measures in schools attended by children in the respondent's household. These mitigation measures included mask mandates for teachers and students, extra space between desks, suspension of school clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities, and daily symptom screening among teachers and students. Respondents with a child in their household attending school in person reported a mean of 6.7 mitigation measures at school--with significant variations in that figure across the country, from a mean of 4.6 measures in South Dakota schools to 8.9 in Vermont schools.

The analysis also suggested that most of the increased COVID-19-related risk was concentrated in schools with fewer than seven mitigation measures, and that in-person schooling was not associated with increased risk for any COVID-19-related outcomes among respondents living with children in schools with ten or more measures.

"Because the study is based on a self-reported symptom survey and a setting where we can't randomize students to different schooling modes and mitigation measures, it has limitations," Lessler says. "But having hundreds of thousands of respondents and the ability to control for geographic and individual-level characteristics helps make up for those limitations."

He and his colleagues plan to follow up with studies of how in-person schooling and school-based mitigation measures affect community-wide spread of COVID-19.

"Household COVID-19 risk and in-person schooling" was co-authored by Justin Lessler, M. Kate Grabowski, Kyra Grantz, Elena Badillo-Goicoechea, C. Jessica Metcalf, Carly Lupton-Smith, Andrew Azman, and Elizabeth Stuart.

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Support for the research was provided by a Johns Hopkins University Discovery Award, Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Modeling and Policy Hub Award, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Six out of every 10 teachers believe that changing the design of the classroom is key to improving learning

Several studies have already acknowledged the benefits of a suitably designed classroom.

UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA (UOC)

Research News

 

IMAGE: SCIENCE TELLS US THAT WE LEARN BETTER AND MORE BY COLLABORATING, AND THEREFORE THE SPACE MUST FAVOUR THIS view more 

CREDIT: (PHOTO: SMARTCLASSROOMPROJECT.COM)

The image of rows of chairs and desks facing a teacher at a blackboard has been a reality for decades. However, research reveals that this way of organizing the classroom furniture in schools is not the best way for favouring the learning process. Especially if the needs of 21st-century students are taken into account, who, according to the OECD, require a social environment that fosters autonomy, flexibility, decision-making capacity and the connection of knowledge by individual students or through teamwork.

It is also the opinion of 6 out of every 10 teachers that changing the design of the classroom is key to improving learning. This was the result of a recent study conducted by researchers of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Universitat de Vic (UVic) and Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB), in which 847 preschool, primary and secondary school teachers from 40 schools participated. "We assume that's what the spaces should be like without giving it much thought or without connecting what we're innovating in terms of methodology with the place in which we're going to put that into practice," said Guillermo Bautista, member of the Smart Classroom Project research group of the UOC and principal investigator in this study. That's why we need to make the Smart Learning Space a reality: "a space that meets any learning need or proposal, that is flexible and not zoned, in which physical and psychological well-being are prioritized as the foundations upon which the learning activity can take place, in which the pupils play a proactive and autonomous role," said Bautista.

Several studies have already acknowledged the benefits of a suitably-designed classroom. This was one of the reasons why the Consorci d'Educació de Barcelona started replacing the furniture in 487 classrooms a few weeks ago, whilst also reorganizing the spaces to obtain motivating environments that encourage discovery. And, as the authors of the UOC-led study point out, it's that the skills and learning needs of today's pupils not only oblige us to rethink our teaching practices or the inclusion of digital resources, they also require changes in the learning spaces in general.

Guillermo Bautista demonstrates this with an example: as he explains, science tells us that we learn better and more by collaborating, and therefore the space must favour this collaboration and interaction, also taking into account what research tells us about collaborative learning. If we organize the activity with groups of four students based on a challenge or a project, it would be logical that the space should be suitable to enable the group to collaborate and also enable a certain amount of autonomy for using the resources it needs, for moving, looking around, experimenting, and self-organizing, etc. "This means that not all of the groups will be doing the same thing at the same time, and the same resources will not be necessary for everyone. The activity in the classroom is diverse and the space must constantly respond to this organizational diversity of use, resources, movements," he explained.

However, the strong assumption upheld for decades that the classroom is as it is, has resulted in us proposing few changes. And when these are finally being proposed, the direction of these changes is not easy to decide upon, "and that is why our research is necessary, to help establish criteria so that the space is changed with guarantees," he said.

Changes in the design of secondary school classrooms also

Currently, most teachers negatively rate the organization of the environment in their classroom. This is one of the findings of the study, whereby low or moderate scores were obtained regarding the suitability of current classrooms to serve as comprehensive learning spaces. But differences exist between the different levels of education, as the design of preschool and primary education learning spaces is generally more flexible, collaborative and personal, affirm the authors of the study, who point to a possible reason for this scenario. "It is precisely in the infant and primary stages where teaching trends such as those applied since the early 20th century (in which the spaces, their layout, furniture, etc. were already linked to clear educational meanings) have been most present and usually more visible," said Angelina Sánchez-Martí, researcher of the Smart Classroom Project and Serra Húnter professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

On the other hand, the traditional layout of the spaces is much more established among secondary school centres and teachers. That's why the authors of the study positively value the fact that during the study it was confirmed that there are teachers and centres from this stage of education who are aware that their spaces do not correspond with the methodologies that they want to implement. "The Smart Spaces that we have implemented as part of the research are co-designed, applying a thoroughness, rigorousness, and seeking to meet the highest objectives and results for learning proposed by each centre. And these spaces are needed in all of the stages," said Bautista.

Another result to highlight is that the teachers are especially critical when it comes to appraising the integration of technology in the classrooms. But in the opinion of the authors of the study, this data is not surprising as "it is precisely the new technologies that are threatening the traditional times and spaces, and therefore demand great flexibility and a constant adaptation to change, as well as a reformulation of the learning spaces", said Sánchez-Martí. She added that the possibilities that technological integration offers in terms of creating new ways to relate and learn "completely clashes with the very standardized design derived from the idea that schools must be based on classrooms per se, when this does not necessarily have to be the case."

CAPTION

example of a Smart classroom

CREDIT

(Photo: Smartclassroomproject.com

This research by the UOC supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 4, on Quality Education

Reference article:

Bautista Pérez, G., Rubio Hurtado, M.J. & Sánchez-Martí, A. Towards smart learning spaces in Catalan schools: teachers' perceptions of change. Learning Environ Res (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-021-09357-y

This study has been financed by the RecerCaixa Smart Classroom project. Codesign of innovative learning environments. Investigating new classroom models.

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century, by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health. Over 500 researchers and 51 research groups work among the University's seven faculties and two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and open knowledge serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu. #UOC25years

How to level up soft robotics

Mechanical engineer offers perspective on the maturation of the field of soft robotics

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

Research News

 

The field of soft robotics has exploded in the past decade, as ever more researchers seek to make real the potential of these pliant, flexible automata in a variety of realms, including search and rescue, exploration and medicine.

For all the excitement surrounding these new machines, however, UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Elliot Hawkes wants to ensure that soft robotics research is more than just a flash in the pan. "Some new, rapidly growing fields never take root, while others become thriving disciplines," Hawkes said.

To help guarantee the longevity of soft robotics research, Hawkes, whose own robots have garnered interest for their bioinspired and novel locomotion and for the new possibilities they present, offers an approach that moves the field forward. His viewpoint, written with colleagues Carmel Majidi from Carnegie Mellon University and Michael T. Tolley of UC San Diego, is published in the journal Science Robotics.

"We were looking at publication data for soft robotics and noticed a phase of explosive growth over the last decade," Hawkes said. "We became curious about trends like this in new fields, and how new fields take root."

The first decade of widespread soft robotics research, according to the group, "was characterized by defining, inspiring and exploring," as roboticists took to heart what it meant to create a soft robot, from materials systems to novel ways of navigating through and interacting with the environment.

However

Small galaxies likely played important role in evolution of the Universe

Researchers find first-ever galaxy observed in a 'blow-away' state

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Research News

IMAGE: THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA STUDY SHOWS THAT HIGH-ENERGY LIGHT FROM SMALL GALAXIES, LIKE THE POX 186 GALAXY DEPICTED ABOVE, MAY HAVE PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE REIONIZATION AND EVOLUTION... view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: PODEVIN, J.F., 2006

A new study led by University of Minnesota astrophysicists shows that high-energy light from small galaxies may have played a key role in the early evolution of the Universe. The research gives insight into how the Universe became reionized, a problem that astronomers have been trying to solve for years.

The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy.

After the Big Bang, when the Universe was formed billions of years ago, it was in an ionized state. This means that the electrons and protons floated freely throughout space. As the Universe expanded and started cooling down, it changed to a neutral state when the protons and electrons combined into atoms, akin to water vapor condensing into a cloud.

Now however, scientists have observed that the Universe is back in an ionized state. A major endeavor in astronomy is figuring out how this happened. Astronomers have theorized that the energy for reionization must have come from galaxies themselves. But, it's incredibly hard for enough high energy light to escape a galaxy due to hydrogen clouds within it that absorb the light, much like clouds in the Earth's atmosphere absorb sunlight on an overcast day.

Astrophysicists from the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering may have found the answer to that problem. Using data from the Gemini telescope, the researchers have observed the first ever galaxy in a "blow-away" state, meaning that the hydrogen clouds have been removed, allowing the high energy light to escape. The scientists suspect that the blow-away was caused by many supernovas, or dying stars, exploding in a short period of time.

"The star-formation can be thought of as blowing up the balloon," explained Nathan Eggen, the paper's lead author who recently received his master's degree in astrophysics from the University of Minnesota. "If, however, the star-formation was more intense, then there would be a rupture or hole made in the surface of the balloon to let out some of that energy. In the case of this galaxy, the star-formation was so powerful that the balloon was torn to pieces, completely blown-away."

The galaxy, named Pox 186, is so small that it could fit inside the Milky Way. The researchers suspect that its compact size, coupled with its large population of stars--which amount to a hundred thousand times the mass of the sun--made the blow-away possible.

The findings confirm that a blow-away is possible, furthering the idea that small galaxies were primarily responsible for the reionization of the Universe and giving more insight into how the Universe became what it is today.

"There are a lot of scenarios in science where you theorize that something should be the case, and you don't actually find it," Eggen said. "So, getting the observational confirmation that this sort of thing can happen is really important. If this one scenario is possible, then that means that there are other galaxies that also existed in blow-away states in the past. Understanding the consequences of this blow-away gives direct insight into the impacts similar blow-aways would have had during the process of reionization."

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In addition to Eggen, the research team included Claudia Scarlata and Evan Skillman, both professors in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, and Anne Jaskot, an assistant professor of astronomy at Williams College.

The research was funded by grants from the University of Minnesota and NASA. Researchers made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) and NASA's Astrophysical Data System.

Read the full paper entitled, "Blow-Away in the Extreme Low-Mass Starburst Galaxy Pox 186" on The Astrophysical Journal website.

Plankton have a genome like no other

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KAUST)

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH TEAM DISCOVERED THAT THE GENOME OF DINOFLAGELLATES IS ORGANIZED IN A UNIQUE WAY COMPARED TO OTHER EUKARYOTIC GENOMES. view more 

CREDIT: © 2021 KAUST

The genome of single-celled plankton, known as dinoflagellates, is organized in an incredibly strange and unusual way, according to new research. The findings lay the groundwork for further investigation into these important marine organisms and dramatically expand our picture of what a eukaryotic genome can look like.

Researchers from KAUST, the U.S. and Germany have investigated the genomic organization of the coral-symbiont dinoflagellate Symbiodinium microadriaticum. The S. microadriaticum genome had already been sequenced and assembled into segments known as scaffolds but lacked a chromosome-level assembly.

The team used a technique known as Hi-C to detect interactions in the dinoflagellate's chromatin, the combination of DNA and protein that makes up a chromosome. By analyzing these interactions, they could figure out how the scaffolds were connected together into chromosomes, giving them a view into the spatial and structural organization of the genome.

A striking finding was that the genes in the genome tended to be organized in alternating unidirectional blocks. "That's really, really different to what you see in other organisms," says Octavio Salazar, a Ph.D. student in Manuel Aranda's group at KAUST and one of the lead authors of the study. The orientation of genes on a chromosome is usually random. In this case, however, genes were consistently oriented one way and then the other, with the boundaries between blocks showing up clearly in the chromatin interaction data.

"Nature can work in a completely different way than we thought."

This organization is also reflected in the three-dimensional structure of the genome, which the team inferred comprises rod-shaped chromosomes that fold into structural domains at the boundaries where gene blocks converge. Even more intriguingly, this structure appears to be dependent on transcriptional activity. When the researchers treated cells with a chemical that blocks gene transcription, the structural domains disappeared.

This unusual link is consistent with another strange fact about dinoflagellates -- they have very few transcription factors in their genome and do not seem to respond to environmental changes by altering gene expression. They may use gene dosage to control expression and adapt to the environment by losing or gaining chromosomes or perhaps via epigenetic structural modifications. The researchers plan to explore all of these questions.

Another open question is the origin of this exceptional genome structure. Dinoflagellates produce very few histones, the proteins used by other eukaryotes to structure their DNA, instead using viral proteins incorporated into their genome long ago. The extraordinary genome structure and genetic regulation may be a consequence of how these viral proteins work, but that remains to be confirmed.

The dinoflagellate genome defies the expectation and dogmas built from studying other eukaryotes. "It shows that nature can work in a completely different way than we thought," says Salazar. "There are so many possibilities for what could have happened as life evolved."