Combining Tinto's classical model of student drop‐out with Kanter's assessment of minorities, this article examines the influence of gender composition in a field of study on drop‐out from higher education. Our empirical analysis is based on a sample of students who left German higher education in 2014. Our results confirm previous findings that women in gender‐atypical subjects show a higher drop‐out risk than their male fellow students. We assess several mechanisms which could contribute to explain this effect. Contrary to our expectations, social integration, in the sense of contact with lecturers, seems to be a protective factor for women and men in gender‐atypical subjects. For women in gender‐atypical fields of study, contact with peers is an additional protective factor against drop‐out. The most important mechanism to explain higher education drop‐out is women's more negative self‐assessment of their suitability for male‐dominated subjects.
While a large body of research addresses both subject choice and student dropout in higher education, much less is known about switching the initially chosen major. Therefore, we ask why students switch their major in higher education and analyse this for the case of Germany, taking the timing and the degree of such switches (within and across subject groups) into account. Based on the extended rational choice framework, we identify three aspects that might explain switching majors: individual achievement in secondary education, a (mis)match between individual occupational interests and the content of studies and parental and peer judgement regarding the initial subject choice. We test the derived hypotheses by applying logistic regression models to representative data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), Starting Cohort 5. Our results indicate that the analysed aspects of individual achievement, person-major fit and social expectations affect switching majors, but their influence varies according to the degree and timing of the switch. While high-achieving students are more likely to switch majors, especially across disciplines and at a later stage in their studies, a mismatch in occupational interests mainly affects switching majors across broad subject groups. Finally, disapproval of the initial subject choice by parents and peers matters most for switches during the first two semesters and across academic disciplines.
Household water treatment (HWT) has the potential to reduce waterborne diseases in developing countries. In this article, factors from social-psychological theories are analyzed in order to design effective interventions that promote HWT. Two treatment behaviors-solar disinfection (SODIS) and boiling-are compared with untreated-water consumption using data from a SODIS campaign in Bolivia. The main drivers of intention are affective beliefs, health beliefs related to untreated water, and descriptive norms. Behavior is primarily influenced by the habit related to each water type. Strong interrelations between beliefs and the habit related to one water type and the intention or consumption related to the others exist. Future campaigns should not only promote the target health behavior, but also investigate predictors of the health-risk behavior in order to prevent it.
Background: Since soluble intercellular adhesion molecules 1 (sICAM-1) retain their ability to bind to their ligand, they can interfere in cell-mediated immunosurveillance. Objective: We studied the impact of various cytokines on ICAM-1 release of several tumor cell lines. Methods: Two melanoma cell lines (M19, M26), 1 B lymphoblastoid cell line (Daudi), 1 erythroleukemia cell line (K562), 1 Sézary-cell-derived cell line (SeAx), 1 cell line derived from a mycosis fungoides lesion (MyLa) and normal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were grown in the presence of interferon γ (IFN-γ), IFN-α, interleukin-2 (IL-2), IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) in various concentrations. ICAM-1 release into the supernatant was measured after 24 and 48 h using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results: PBMC and the B lymphoblastoid cell line did not shed detectable amounts of sICAM-1. In all other cell lines, ICAM-1 shedding was found with and without cytokine stimulation. In all cell cell lines except the CTCL-derived one, ICAM-1 shedding was marginally affected by IFN-α, IL-2 and IL-6. TNF-α and IFN-γ enhanced the shedding in a time- and dose-dependent manner. In the SeAx line, IL-2 and IFN-γ inhibited ICAM-1 release. By contrast, TNF-α and IL-6 enhanced it. The CTCL-derived MyLa responded to IFN-α with a dose-dependent increase in ICAM-1 shedding. All other cytokines had marginal influence. Conclusion: Cytokine-modulated ICAM-1 shedding shows quantitative and qualitative differences in the investigated cell lines. This might have implications for the pathophysiology of cutaneous malignancies and their susceptibility to immunotherapies.
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