Arthur M. Cohen

Experimental model of lead nephropathy. II. Effect of removal from lead exposure and chelation treatment with dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA)

Male Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to high-dose (0.5%) lead acetate for periods ranging from 1 to 9 months; then lead exposure was discontinued, and animals were sacrificed after 12 months. Controls were pair-fed. Two additional groups of low-dose (0.01%) and high-dose (0.5%) rats were exposed to lead for 6 months, then lead was discontinued and the rats were treated with three 5-day courses of 0.5% DMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid) over the next 6 months. Controls were rats exposed to lead for 6 months, then removed from exposure for 6 months without receiving DMSA. Low-dose lead-treated rats showed no significant pathological changes with or without DMSA treatment, but exhibited a significant increase in GFR after DMSA. High-dose lead-treated animals showed no functional or pathological changes when lead exposure was discontinued after 1 month. However, when duration of exposure was 6 or 9 months, GFR was decreased and serum creatinine and urea nitrogen were increased as compared to controls. Tubulointerstitial disease was severe. Administration of DMSA resulted in an improvement in GFR and a decrease in albuminuria, together with a reduction in size and number of nuclear inclusion bodies in proximal tubules. However, tubulointerstitial scarring was only minimally reduced. It may be concluded that, except for brief initial exposure, discontinuation of high-dose lead exposure fails to reverse lead-induced renal damage. Treatment with the chelator, DMSA, improves renal function but has less effect on pathological alterations. As GFR improved after DMSA treatment in both low-dose and high-dose lead-treated rats, irrespective of the degree of pathological alterations, it may be concluded that the DMSA effect is most likely mediated by hemodynamic changes.

The Case for the Community College

The American public community colleges were established to accommodate the twentieth-century drive for more years of education. Located in every state, they enroll 5 million students, two-thirds of whom attend part time. Their occupational programs lead toward both immediate employment, as in clerical work, and higher-status careers, such as those in the health and engineering technologies that may require additional schooling. Their transfer function is indistinct because the data and definitions are not stable and because their students have variant goals. The colleges could be strengthened if the states developed fiscal incentives to be awarded to institutions that increased their proportion of students who gained associate degrees, entered employment in the field for which they were prepared, and/or matriculated at a four-year college or university.

Community College Faculty Job Satisfaction.

The Herzberg two-factor theory separates job satisfaction and dissatisfaction by postulating that satisfaction is related to intrinsic factors or motivators, while dissatisfaction results from extrinsic factors or hygienes. Using the critical incident method, 222 community college instructors from twelve colleges were asked to relate aspects of their work that led them to feel satisfied and aspects that led them toward feelings of dissatisfaction. More than two-thirds of the group indicated that they gained satisfaction from student learning or from interaction with students, and nearly two-thirds related administrative, collegial, and/or organizational difficulties as leading to dissatisfaction. The two-factor theory was supported. Implications for collective bargaining, administrative action, and faculty professionalism are noted.

UCLA Community College Review: Why Practitioners and Researchers Ignore Each Other (Even When They Are The Same Person)

Differences between researchers and practitioners can be found in four areas: the distance from the object of study; the ideological perspective; the purposes of the research; and the political agenda behind the research. Each of these principles dominates the perceptions of the people involved and thus contributes to the phenomenon of mutual indifference. This divide between research and practice can be bridged through providing community college leadership for research on instruction, fostering cooperation between university-based researchers and community college practitioners, and merging university and community college research methods (such as qualitative research and action research). Researchers and practitioners can speak to one another, but only if they employ a common language.

What Do Instructors Want

The question of what instructors want is often obscured in the clamor for collective bargaining and negotiated contracts. The negotiators on the faculty side invariably seek better working conditions and a greater share of institutional governance. For individual instructors, job security and higher salaries are basic. But beyond the fundamentals of tenure and money, what do the instructors want? What distinguishes them from other professional groups? One way of determining what instructors want is to ask them. A few studies have asked instructors about their working conditions, the way they perceive their role, and the relationship between the two. In 1967 Garrison interviewed 650 instructors in 20 colleges asking them how they felt about their work. Some single college and statewide surveys have been conducted, most notably one in Florida by Kurth and Mills (1968). More recently, the Center for the Study of Community Colleges, under grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, conducted three nationwide studies in which two-year college faculty were asked about themselves and their working conditions. The first survey, done in 1975, obtained data from a national sample of 1998 instructors in 156 colleges, most of them in the humanities. Findings were reported in the Two-Year College Instructor Today (Cohen and Brawer, 1977). A study in 1977 surveyed instructional practices among 860 humanities faculty members in 178 colleges. And 1275 instructors of science, social science, humanities, and technologies in 175 colleges were surveyed in 1978. The Center studies show some shifts in faculty perception of their role and working conditions in recent years. Faculty are now more satisfied in general with what they are doing. They see teaching in the community college as a career worthy of attention in its own right.

Student Access and the Collegiate Function in Community Colleges.

An analysis is presented of the position of American community colleges in the nations educational system. First, background is provided on the historical development of the community colleges. This section examines: (1) the forces contributing to the rise of higher education and the emergence of junior colleges; (2) the expansion of the two-year college role to include community services and remedial education, as well as transfer, occupational, and postsecondary terminal programs; and (3) influences on community college growth over the past four decades, including increased educational access, the student consumerism movement, the increasing enrollment of part-time students, and the absorption by community colleges of the educational functions of other agencies. The next section provides information on community college faculty, focusing on their educational background and professional involvement in contrast to that of their four-year college counterparts; the faculty union movement; and factors, such as long working hours and underprepared students, which erode faculty job satisfaction. Curriculum and instruction in the community college are discussed next, with particular focus on transfer, occupational, and community service curricula. The article concludes with an examination of the dilemma faced by college leaders attempting to maintain their institutions place in graded education, while providing a variety of educative services to their constituents on an open-door basis.

Segmental renal hypoplasia and hypertension.

The association of hypertension with congenital renal hypoplasia (Ask-Upmark kidney) has been well established. A case is presented that clearly demonstrates the distinctive clinical, roentgenographic and pathologic features. An abnormal production of renin by the affected kidney suggested that the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone axis was involved in the genesis of the hypertension. Hypertension was cured by unilateral nephrectomy.

Rhabdomyosarcoma of testis and spermatic cord in children

Abstract Two cases are reported of rhabdomyosarcoma of the testis and spermatic cord in whichthe children survived more than five years. An analysis of 47 boys showed that 35 are alive beyond two years. The results in these patients reviewed from the recent literature indicate that prognosis is improved with aggressive therapy, using a combination of surgical procedures (orchiectomy and retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy), chemotherapy, and radiation.

What Next for the Community Colleges? An ERIC Review.

The imminence of a millennial year has stimulated a wealth of studies on the future of community colleges. Statewide commissions in Maryland, Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut, to name only a few, have projected prospects and possibilities for the colleges. This paper summarizes the trends noted in several state reports and, drawing on the numerous documents that flow into the ERIC Clearinghouse for Junior Colleges, reviews the steps that colleges are taking toward furthering enrollments, stabilizing curriculum, and reporting their own effects.

The Community College as College: Should the Liberal Arts Survive in Community Colleges?

to their program? T -M-he -he community colleges contribution to American higher education can be summarized in one word: access. By maintaining open admissions, designing programs for all types of students, and making it easy for anyone to attend, the community colleges have attracted a cohort of people who might not otherwise have participated in education beyond high school. They enroll one-third of all students in higher education, more than 40 percent of the entering fulltime freshmen. For years their enrollments have increased at a rate