Early Interest Research Articles

Fostering Sustainable Female Participation in STEM Through Ecological Systems Theory: A Comparative Study in Three African Countries

This study explores factors influencing female engagement in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields in Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda through Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory. The research collected qualitative data from 81 women across these countries through open-ended surveys. Using content analysis, the results demonstrate the critical role of personal interests nurtured by family, showing how direct interactions with family influence STEM engagement at a microsystem level. The mesosystem level reveals the supportive influence of community and school interactions, emphasizing the importance of relationships between different microsystems, such as family–school collaborations, in fostering female participation in STEM. The exosystem level identifies the impact of positive media portrayals and role models, illustrating how external environments indirectly affect perceptions and aspirations in STEM through media and societal influences. The macrosystem level underscores the persistent cultural norms shaping gender roles, reflecting broader societal and cultural values that influence gender diversity in STEM fields, with 63% of respondents in Mozambique, 57% in Nigeria, and 67% in Uganda indicating that societal views on gender roles discouraged participation. Lastly, the chronosystem level captures the temporal changes and progress in gender diversity in STEM, highlighting the need for targeted interventions and policy reforms to address longstanding gender imbalances. Despite progress, significant gender imbalances remain, necessitating targeted interventions and policy reforms. The study proposes a sustainable, collaborative model to foster early interest and sustained participation of females in STEM, emphasizing the importance of seamless cooperation among families, educational institutions, communities, and government bodies. The findings aid in creating supportive environments for sustaining female STEM participation, promoting economic and social development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Neurosurgical skills conference for medical students: A before and after study.

Undergraduate conferences may improve exposure to neurosurgery among medical students. Hence, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of a neurosurgical skills conference on medical students' comprehension and perceptions of the specialty. A before-and-after (BA) study design was employed to assess the effects of a conference that integrated presentations with hands-on sessions. Practical workshops covered craniotomy, spinal fixation, surface anatomy, intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring, basic surgical skills, and microsurgical simulation. Pre-conference and post-conference surveys, utilizing Likert scales, gauged participants' attitudes, prior neurosurgical exposure, and understanding of neurosurgical skills. Statistical analysis was conducted on dichotomized responses. Thirty-one participants completed both surveys, with the majority being 1st and 2nd-year medical students. Among the participants, 58.1% were female, and 77.4% identified with BAME ethnicities. Following the conference, there was a notable increase in comprehension regarding neurosurgical careers (from 58.1% to 96.8%, P < 0.001) and training criteria (from 22.6% to 93.5%, P < 0.001). The conference enhanced knowledge of indications for craniotomy (P < 0.001), ICP monitoring (P < 0.001), and spinal fixation (P < 0.001). Participants reported improved understanding of the steps involved in craniotomy (P < 0.001), familiarity with basic cranial surgical surface anatomy (P < 0.001), and confidence in performing basic surgical instrument ties (P < 0.001). Although interest in pursuing a career in neurosurgery remained high (from 87.1% to 90.3%, P = 1.000), a majority of participants, both BA the conference, expressed concerns about the impact on personal life (from 58.1% to 64.5%, P = 0.774). This study underscores the role of undergraduate mixed-method conferences in augmenting understanding of neurosurgery and nurturing early interest.

One size does not fit all for URiM applicants: a comparison of NPM program size on URiM applications.

Neonatal-perinatal medicine (NPM) lacks a racially and ethnically diverse physician workforce. Fewer trainees from groups underrepresented in medicine (URiM) are entering NPM due to declining match rates in general pediatrics, financial burdens from delaying workforce entry, and ineffective recruitment into NPM. Annual surveys from the Organization of Neonatology Training Program Directors (ONTPD) were analyzed to assess URiM recruitment trends between 2021 and 2023. Concerningly, the number of URiM candidates applying to NPM fellowship programs remains low, highlighting the need for investment in pathway programming and enhanced recruitment strategies to diversify the NPM workforce. A multifaceted approach, including promoting early interest in pediatrics, minimizing financial disincentives, collecting robust URiM trainee and workforce data, and creating inclusive, diverse educational environments will be critical to increasing URiM representation in NPM and ultimately improving health outcomes for neonates.

Latin American adults who regularly use macrodoses of psychedelics: a cross-sectional study

Psychedelics have a complex history marked by traditional use among indigenous cultures, early scientific interest, and subsequent prohibition. Despite their classification as controlled substances, recent decades have witnessed a resurgence of research into their therapeutic potential for various mental health conditions. However, most studies have focused on controlled clinical settings, leaving a significant gap in understanding how these substances are used in naturalistic contexts, particularly in Latin America. This study investigates the regular use of macrodoses of psychedelics among Latin American adults. We aimed to characterize the sociodemographic profiles, consumption practices, and subjective effects experienced by individuals who use psychedelics regularly. Data were collected via an online survey from 4,270 participants across several Latin American countries. Results indicated a diverse user base with varied motivations, predominantly psychological and spiritual well-being. The most frequently used substance was psilocybin mushrooms, with significant associations found between demographic variables and specific psychedelics used. The study provides new insights into the naturalistic use of psychedelics in Latin America, highlighting the need for informed, safe, and legal use frameworks.

Implementation of a Urologic Surgery Skills Fair for Medical Students

To increase the proportion of applicants to urology residencies, we created a surgical skills fair to introduced urology early in undergraduate medical education. Funded by the Department of Urology, the fair was designed to have student rotations through 12 hands-on practice stations supervised by faculty and an advanced care practitioner or resident physicians. At conclusion, medical students completed a voluntary survey about their experience. Surgical skills fairs were organized at Yale School of Medicine (New Haven, CT) in 2022 and 2023. The fair was designed to encourage interaction between medical students, urology residents, and urology faculty by highlighting common urologic procedures and skills. The fair was well received by medical students at all levels of training. Over 2 years, 155 medical students attended, including 67 (43%) first-year and 60 (39%) second-year medical students. Eighty-two medical students completed the survey. An average of 19 attendings, advanced care practitioners and residents attended each event. Of the survey respondents, 42.7% reported prior interest in a surgical specialty but had not considered urology. Students reported increased interest in urology and greater confidence in urologic skills after the event (p < 0.001). We demonstrate that creating a surgical fair in urology is feasible and enhances early exposure and interest in urology. For students who do not pursue urology, the fair provides knowledge of urological pathologies and valuable skills for all physicians.

Exploring Early Childhood Interests and Talents Through Role-Play Methods

Children's interests and talents are two very important things to develop from an early age. Both can be the foundation for children's future development, both in academic and non-academic fields. One effective method to explore children's interests and talents is through role-playing. This method is not only fun for children, but also full of educational benefits. Exploring children's talents and understanding their potential from an early age is the key to helping them grow and develop optimally. Children have their own world full of curiosity and uniqueness, through observation and deep understanding of their responses and behavior. We can find valuable clues about the interests and talents they are born with. Providing freedom to explore and the opportunity to try various activities is an effective way to help children find their own interests and talents. This process is not only about finding a particular talent but also about building self-confidence and the ability to adapt to various situations. In the role-playing method, the themes that can be given are themes that are close to the child's world, such as family and profession through these themes, role-playing will be more effective because children know and directly play the characters they will play and children will interact with other friends. So that social development can be honed to the maximum.

Pathways to inclusive early childhood computational thinking education: unveiling young students’ strategies with multiple representations

This study investigates the integration of computational thinking (CT) into early elementary literacy, focusing on kindergarten to second grade students, using multiple representations to understand their ideas of CT. Through clinical task-based interviews with 12 students, we found that concrete manipulatives, pictorial/graphical representations, and language-based strategies were key to facilitating CT comprehension. The findings indicate no significant gender differences in CT engagement, and instead we need to emphasize the need for inclusive, multi-representational teaching methods in early education. By using multiple representations, we may be able to nurture early STEM interest and confidence in computer science and related fields.

Role of Lichen Extracts as a Potential Source of Natural Fungicides

Plant pathogens and the diseases they cause are major to humanity. Each year, we lose more than thirty percent of crops worldwide to bacterial and fungal diseases. Lichen is a composite organism made up of two unrelated species: algae and fungi. These two components live together and behave as a single organism. When two organisms live together in this way, they provide mutual benefits to one another. They are referred to as symbionts. Lichens produce many rare secondary products not found in other plants. The uniqueness of many aromatic products sparked early chemical interest in lichen compounds. Lichens are an underutilized source of industrially important as it proven many biological activities, and yet there is much more to study about their efficacy. Lichen bioactive metabolites showed promising use in biopharmaceutical applications and for the preparation of new formulations or innovations to support human life. This review aims to summarize the research and development trends from the past and present in the bioactive fungicides against plant pathogens.

The palimpsests of knowledge

ABSTRACT This paper first re-visits the origins of the concept powerful knowledge and goes on to assess its mixed fortunes as of 2022. It assesses Basil Bernstein’s early interest in knowledge in the curriculum by examining his retrieval of Durkheim’s discussion of the Trivium and Quadrivium, going on to examine how the sciences and the Humanities each specialize knowledge but in different ways. It then discusses the recursive form of theorizing of pedagogy developed by Bernstein in his pedagogic device, distinguishing this form from that to be found in recent discussions of Didaktik and powerful knowledge, drawing out their complementarity.

Cellular Self-Making: Octavia E. Butler, "Childfinder," and the Hypno-Psionic Impulse

Abstract: "Cellular Self-Making" connects Octavia E. Butler's first (and last) short story with her early interest and practice of hypnosis. The essay suggests that to understand Butler's narrative endeavors to unsettle conventional representations of the human, one should turn to her archive, which is particularly revealing. "Cellular Self-Making" argues that readers can understand Butler's breakdown of the traditional (and exclusionary) Cartesian subject by attending to her translation of hypnosis into recognizable science fiction concepts like telekinesis and psionics. Presenting Butler's narrative engagements with mind-body connection, "Cellular Self-Making" reveals new readings of humanity and presents new Butlerian methods of survival and self-making for Black women.

Enhancing public entertainment with touch: Possibilities and pitfalls.

There has long been interest in augmenting cinematic and other forms of public entertainment through tactile and/or bodily (i.e., vestibular) stimulation. In this narrative historical review, the early history of touch (or haptics, as it is sometimes called) and other forms of bodily stimulation (e.g., motion platforms) in the context of entertainment is critically reviewed, with a focus on early cinema as well as other early examples of immersive virtual reality travel experiences. Critically, various challenges have limited the introduction of such additional channels of sensory stimulation. These include technological, financial, cognitive, creative, ethical/artistic, and also legal considerations, given the many patents that currently exist covering commercial digital tactile stimulation (e.g., in the gaming context). Taken together, these challenges help to explain why it is that despite the early interest in "the feelies" (e.g., an envisioning of film that includes tactile sensations by Aldous Huxley, in his novel Brave New World), touch-enhanced cinema and storytelling have never really caught on in the mainstream in the way that, say, the talkies so obviously did following the introduction of sound into cinema in the early decades of the 20th century. Nevertheless, identifying the potential successful use cases that have emerged from previous attempts to augment public entertainments with tactile/bodily stimulation will likely provide useful guidelines for the future tactile augmentation of home entertainment.

"When I started, I wasn't really interested in such things" – Catching and Holding an Interest in Computer Science and Technology

Satellite laboratories, designed to ignite interest in technical and computer science topics, employ cross-age peer tutoring and physical computing platforms. Catering to students from 5th grade onwards, these laboratories are led by tutors from 9th grade onwards. Employing a design-based research approach, the project aims to comprehensively understand teaching and learning dynamics and address well-founded problems. This study investigates the impact of satellite laboratories on (situational) interest and subsequent course choices, recognizing the decline in STEM interest as students age, particularly in computer science. To combat this trend, early stimulation of STEM interest is deemed crucial. Thirteen students were interviewed, revealing that many already held STEM interests before participating. The data, analyzed through structured content analysis, demonstrates alignment with the four-phase model of interest genesis, highlighting situational epistemic and emotional interest. Students view satellite laboratories as valuable introductions influencing future course selections. This research underscores the significance of initiatives fostering early STEM interest to sustain engagement and combat declining interest in computer science.

Parent–child math talk and early math interest: comparing the effects of written versus hands-on materials

ABSTRACT This study investigated the impact of written and hands-on teaching materials on parent–child math talk and children’s interest in mathematics. Thirty parents and their preschool children participated in two play sessions, one using written material and the other using hands-on material, each lasting 12 min. At the end of each session, the children’s interest levels were assessed, and the frequency of math-related conversations was analysed. Regardless of the materials used, discussions primarily revolved around fundamental numerical concepts, with little mention of practical measurement units and conventional nominatives or number comparisons involving the application of mental representation. Ordinal and division concepts were only mentioned by parents in the written scenario rather than in the hands-on one. Overall, using written material led to doubling math discourse compared to hands-on material. However, children showed slightly higher interest levels in the hands-on scenario, where parent–child math talk categories also exhibited greater synchrony. The study highlights the complementary nature of written and hands-on teaching materials and provides recommendations for their future application.

A Systematic Review: Post Quantum Cryptography to Secure Data Transmission

A significant topic of contemporary cryptography research and standardization is the development of public key crypto systems that resist attacks from quantum computers. Protocols and applications should start investigating the use of quantum-resistant key exchange and encryption to protect the confidentiality of current communications against future quantum computers utilizing post-quantum cryptography for a particular key exchange. Since they operate harder and need fewer steps compared to conventional computers, quantum algorithms are more secure and robust. Attackers who use quantum computers have powerful computing capabilities, and a quantum allows for simple cryptographic system breaking. Security algorithms that are quantum secure are resistant to attacks from conventional, as well as quantum computers. This work has surveyed, summarized, and analysed previous research to provide readers of this study an integrated understanding of quantum cryptography. It also discusses quantum attacks, which could be used in place of more conventional cryptography techniques, such as quantum key distribution, which takes advantage of quantum mechanics' properties to ensure secure exchanges of the secret keys, and various quantum algorithms. With quantum computation becoming a very real threat, this should motivate more people to show an early interest in the future of cryptography.

Multivocal responses to conservation in Maluku province, Indonesia: Biocultural diversity, protest and management in a zone of ecological transition

The Moluccan islands of eastern Indonesia (Maluku) were amongst the last frontiers to be opened‐up for large‐scale resource extraction and economic development in modern times. The interventions of organized conservation science and local conservation activity are also recent. Yet the area has a complex economic history and historical ecology linked to the spice trade, which itself prompted early scholarly interest in its natural history. Conservation practice since 1980 is shown to be deeply embedded in local political events and cultural contexts, exhibiting a diversity of institutional forms and a 'cacophony' of community voices. We conclude that conservation research and interventions need to pay more attention to historical ecologies, biocultural linkages and distinctively local patterns of conservation activity.

The Impact of Quizizz Learning Media in Increasing Interest and Learning Motivation for Early Childhood Education Students

As technology advances in the education sector, there are many updates in the use of learning media, one example is using the Quizizz application. The Quizizz application really helps teachers in the teaching and learning process. The Quizizz application has many interesting features, and makes learning more fun. The quizizz application is one of the learning media chosen by teachers to carry out the learning process for early childhood. The aim of this research is to find out how big the impact of quizizz learning media is in increasing early childhood interest and motivation in learning. This research uses a qualitative method where data is obtained through introducing the Quizizz application to young children and direct interviews with several parties such as teachers and parents of children. The research results show that the use of the Quizizz application in early childhood is carried out well starting from the planning, implementation and evaluation stages. From this research, it can be concluded that the Quizzizz application is very helpful in the children's learning process so that children understand the lessons taught by the teacher more quickly and the interesting features can also increase children's learning motivation. The limitation of this research is that the researcher only conducted research on the quizizz application for early childhood even though there are still many applications that can be used to provide learning motivation for early childhood. The researcher hopes that future researchers can conduct research related to early childhood learning motivation but by using other learning media. This research recommends that future researchers use the research as a reference in conducting research on the impact of the Quizizz application in increasing learning motivation in young children.

From Early Interest to Career Persistence: Understanding and Supporting STEM Pathways

Knowledge, competencies, and reflective attitudes regarding STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are essential for navigating global and societal changes in the economy and workforce [...]

Applying the starquake model to study the formation of elastic mountains on spinning neutron stars

ABSTRACT When a neutron star is spun-up or spun-down, the changing strains in its solid elastic crust can give rise to sudden fractures known as starquakes. Early interest in starquakes focused on their possible connection to pulsar glitches. While modern glitch models rely on pinned superfluid vorticity rather than crustal fracture, starquakes may nevertheless play a role in the glitch mechanism. Recently, there has been interest in the issue of starquakes resulting in non-axisymmetric shape changes, potentially linking the quake phenomenon to the building of neutron star mountains, which would then produce continuous gravitational waves. Motivated by this issue, we present a simple model that extends the energy minimization-based calculations, originally developed to model axisymmetric glitches, to also include non-axisymmetric shape changes. We show that the creation of a mountain in a quake necessarily requires a change in the axisymmetric shape too. We apply our model to the specific problem of the spin-up of an initially non-rotating star, and estimate the maximum mountain that can be built in such a process, subject only to the constraints of energy and angular momentum conservation.

Role of Libraries in Increasing Early Childhood Interest in Reading in the Tangerang Regency Area

The Pembina State Kindergarten Library plays an important role in developing students' love of reading. The activity that will be developed is library science, with library science. Pembina State Kindergarten can stimulate children's interest in reading. Literacy activities developed by the library include borrowing and returning books, telling stories, and reading to children. Pembina State Kindergarten students take turns observing three activities that help Pembina State Kindergarten students develop a love of reading. Children read books, they need to read. While reading; interested in reading; I always wanted to read and monitor (read monitor).The Pembina State Kindergarten Library plays an important role in developing students' love of reading. The activity that will be developed is library science, with library science. Pembina State Kindergarten can stimulate children's interest in reading. Literacy activities developed by the library include borrowing and returning books, telling stories, and reading to children. Pembina State Kindergarten students take turns observing three activities that help Pembina State Kindergarten students develop a love of reading. Children read books, they need to read. While reading; interested in reading; I always wanted to read and monitor (read monitor).

Pedagogical considerations: Facilitating agency in the vocal recording of early career singer-songwriters

Audio recording is a much anticipated and integral component in the career trajectories of contemporary singers. This article discusses research undertaken through three in-depth case studies, each of which focused on the recording of original songs by early career singer-songwriters. The research examined the ways that recording techniques, associated technologies and studio interactions affect vocal performance during the recording processes. Participants were purposively sampled for their early career interest in songwriting and recording. The findings identified specific educational considerations relevant to those involved in vocal pedagogy, and in artist training and development. The outcomes detail pedagogical parameters and features designed to facilitate agency in the recording of contemporary vocalists.