Research demonstrates that prospective secondary teachers benefit from connections from their advanced tertiary mathematics courses to secondary teaching practice. Less is known, however, about the instructional factors that prospective secondary teachers themselves see as beneficial to their future teaching. To address this gap, we report prospective secondary teachers’ self-reported benefits—in terms of confidence and value—as well as the features of instructional activity that the teachers attribute to these benefits. We draw on survey responses of 70 prospective secondary teachers enrolled in tertiary mathematics courses for teachers using MODULE(S2) materials in one of four content areas. Participants of this study were part of a larger pool of 192 prospective secondary teachers who completed surveys on their perception of instructional practices used in their tertiary course. Through a cultural-historical activity theory lens, findings suggest that simulations of practice and opportunities for class discussion were key activities and mediating factors reported by participants for the benefits gained from their tertiary courses.
Background Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) is becoming increasingly used in mental healthcare. While these systems offer scalable, human-like interactions, concerns persist regarding safety, clinical validity, and the absence of systematic assessment frameworks. Objectives This study systematically reviews existing research on Gen-AI mental-health applications to synthesize current evaluation practices and identify key methodological steps needed for pre-deployment assessment. Methods A systematic search was conducted across major databases (PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and PsycINFO) following PRISMA guidelines. Studies published between 2017 and 2024 examining Gen-AI tools for mental healthcare were included. The final sample of 72 studies was explored to identify assessment domains. Results Four domains of assessment emerged: technical performance, which focuses on model accuracy and reliability on mental-health tasks; clinical validity, which examines alignment with evidence-based guidelines and clinician judgments; expert perceptions, which assess perceived quality and safety of AI-generated outputs; and user perceptions, which capture how end-users experience, interpret, and trust these responses. Conclusion Findings highlight the need for unified, multilayered frameworks to guide the safe and responsible deployment of patient-facing Gen-AI mental-health tools. The review proposes a high-level pre-deployment assessment framework to support researchers, developers, clinicians, and regulators.
Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) was initially identified as an enzyme that deacetylates histones and suppresses gene activity. Since then, its roles have expanded considerably, and it is now recognized as a multifunctional protein conserved across various organisms. Despite increasing interest, it remains essential to clarify how exercise-induced changes in SIRT1 counteract multiple hallmarks of aging, as well as the full scope of SIRT1’s impact on different physiological systems. This review highlights recent findings on the short- and long-term effects of exercise on SIRT1 signaling in both rodents and humans during aging. We explore the molecular pathways activated in various tissues, providing insight into the specific biological functions of SIRT1 within aging cells. Optimal levels of SIRT1 help maintain homeostasis and a biochemical environment conducive to healthspan, influencing biological processes such as mitochondrial dynamics, metabolic pathways, tissue remodeling, autophagy, inflammatory responses, and redox balance. This indicates that SIRT1, a pleiotropic molecule, orchestrates multiple responses throughout aging. SIRT1 may act as a dynamic sensor for exercise benefits and protect against aging by maintaining genomic integrity. Different exercise protocols (acute and chronic) and modalities (aerobic, resistance, and combined training) can increase mRNA levels, activity, or protein levels of SIRT1 in various vital organs (adipose tissue, hippocampus, heart, liver, bone, and skeletal muscle) of aged animals and older adults, promoting health. Taken together, these observations support the notion that SIRT1 functions as a potential exerkine, and understanding its role in exercise-induced adaptations offers new insights into non-pharmacological strategies to enhance longevity.
As battles over transgender rights play out at the local level, this study offers the first large-scale analysis of religion and U.S. local government officials' views on key transgender rights policies. Drawing on our 2023 national probability sample of U.S. municipal, county, and school district officials, we examine officials' attitudes toward policies related to restroom access and gender markers on driver's licenses. We find that religious affiliation, religiosity, biblical literalism, and Christian nationalism are significantly associated with officials' opposition to transgender rights policies. Other attributes, such as party identification, age, gender, and sexual orientation, are also linked to officials' policy views. Our findings underscore how certain religious affiliations, behaviors, and beliefs are associated with resistance to transgender rights in local communities, offering new insights into the relevance of religion to today's culture wars. The findings also hold implications for street-level bureaucracy theory.
This study examines the association between competitive threats to firms’ major customer relationships and real earnings management (REM). Using the presence of customer-connected peer firms (CCPs) to measure competitive threats, we document a positive association between CCP presence and REM. The CCP/REM association strengthens with poorer external monitoring and financial reporting readability, weakens when firms have major government customers, and is robust to the inclusion of multiple measures of product market competition. Difference-in-differences analysis shows that firms with CCPs decrease their use of REM following CCP bankruptcy filings, which supports our claim that CCP presence motivates REM practices. Additional tests show that REM becomes less responsive to CCP threats when there are higher numbers of CCPs, and REM decreases terminations of major customer relationships involving CCP-shared customers. Our findings are consistent with firms using REM to favorably influence major customer perceptions of their relationship with the firm when customers engage with multiple suppliers.
