There are numerous examples of translational science innovations addressing challenges in the translational process, accelerating progress along the translational spectrum, and generating solutions relevant to a wide range of human health needs. Examining these successes through an education lens can identify core principles and effective practices that lead to successful translational outcomes. The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is identifying and teaching these core principles and practices to a broad audience via online courses in translational science which teach from case studies of NCATS-led or supported research initiatives. In this paper, we share our approach to the design of these courses and offer a detailed description of our initial course, which focused on a preclinical drug discovery and development project spanning academic and government settings. Course participants were from a variety of career stages and institutions. Participants rated the course high in overall value to them and in providing a unique window into the translational science process. We share our model for course development as well as initial findings from the course evaluation with the goal of continuing to stimulate development of novel education activities teaching foundational principles in translational science to a broad audience.

This article presents a conceptual clarification of asymmetric hypotheses and a discussion of methodologies available to test them. Despite the existence of a litany of theories that posit asymmetric hypotheses, most empirical studies fail to capture their core insight: boundaries separating zones of data from areas that lack data are substantively interesting. We discuss existing set-theoretic and large-N approaches to the study of asymmetric hypotheses, introduce new ones from the literatures on stochastic frontier and data envelopment analysis, evaluate their relative merits, and give three examples of how asymmetric hypotheses can be studied with this suite of tools.

The Glacier Bay region of southeast Alaska, USA, and British Columbia, Canada, has undergone major glacier retreat since the Little Ice Age (LIA). We used airborne laser altimetry elevation data acquired between 1995 and 2011 to estimate the mass loss of the Glacier Bay region over four time periods (1995–2000, 2000–05, 2005–09, 2009–11). For each glacier, we extrapolated from center-line profiles to the entire glacier to estimate glacier-wide mass balance, and then averaged these results over the entire region using three difference methods (normalized elevation, area-weighted method and simple average). We found that there was large interannual variability of the mass loss since 1995 compared with the long-term (post-LIA) average. For the full period (1995–2011) the average mass loss was 3.93 ± 0.89 Gt a−1 (0.6 ± 0.1 m w.e. a−1), compared with 17.8 Gt a−1 for the post-LIA (1770–1948) rate. Our mass loss rate is consistent with GRACE gravity signal changes for the 2003–10 period. Our results also show that there is a lower bias due to center-line profiling than was previously found by a digital elevation model difference method.

Prediction of the future retreat of Columbia Glacier, Alaska, required a calving law for the boundary condition at the terminus. Qualitative observations on the variations of all major iceberg-calving glaciers of Alaska suggest that calving is high whenever glaciers terminate in deep water, and greatly reduced whenever they terminate in shallow water. Calving relations were investigated based on calculations of calving speed, defined as the volume rate of iceberg discharge from the terminus divided by the cross-sectional area of the terminus. The calving speed was determined for 12 glaciers for which measurements of glacier speed, advance and retreat rates, and other variables were obtained. To extend the range of data, four additional periods of rapid retreat were examined. Values for the terminus characteristics of water depth, cliff height, and thickness of the terminus, averaged over the width of the glacier and over a year, were then examined in relation to the calculated speeds of calving. A statistical analysis to determine the form and coefficients of an empirical calving relation that approximates the data shows that calving speed is best fitted by a simple proportionality to average water depth at the terminus: 1 where vc is the calving speed and hw the water depth, both averaged over the width and over a year, and c a constant of proportionality. This gives a variance reduction fraction (similar to the coefficient of determination r2) of 0.90.

To investigate seasonal changes in calving, data based on shorter time intervals were obtained at the head of embayments from Columbia Glacier. At intervals of approximately two months, the following expression fits intra-yearly calving at Columbia Glacier: 2 where D is the meltwater discharge from the glacier, hj is the height of the ice column unsupported by water buoyancy, a, b, c are constants, and vc and hu are evaluated at the embayment head. D was determined by correlation with a nearby glacial stream, and hu = h _ hw PW/PJ, where h is glacier thickness and pi and pw the densities of ice and water. Best-fit values of b and c are approximately 0.5 and -2, respectively. This yields a variance reduction fraction r2 of 0.83.

Equation (2) does not fit data averaged over a year and over the width of the glacier and Equation (1) does not fit data obtained over shorter periods at the head of the embayment. Although the two equations are different in form, for similar or average values of D and h - hw (ice-cliff height), they give approximately similar results over the present range of the geometry of the terminus of Columbia Glacier. Whether this will be true after rapid retreat begins remains to be seen.

Different treatment options for pulmonary hypertension have emerged in recent years, and evidence-based management strategies have improved quality of life and survival in adults. In children with pulmonary vascular disease, therapeutic algorithms are not so clearly defined; this study determined current treatment initiation in children with pulmonary hypertension in participating centres of a registry.

Through the multinational Tracking Outcomes and Practice in Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension registry, patient demographics, diagnosis, and treatment as judged and executed by the local physician were collected. Inclusion criteria were >3 months and <18 years of age and diagnostic cardiac catheterisation consistent with pulmonary hypertension (mean pulmonary arterial pressure ⩾25 mmHg, pulmonary vascular resistance index ⩾3 Wood units×m2, and mean pulmonary capillary wedge pressure ⩽12 mmHg).

At diagnostic catheterisation, 217/244 patients (88.9%) were treatment naïve for pulmonary hypertension-targeted therapy. Targeted therapy was initiated after catheterisation in 170 (78.3%) treatment-naïve patients. A total of 19 patients received supportive therapy, 28 patients were not started on therapy, and 26 patients (10.7%) were on targeted treatment before catheterisation. Among treatment-naïve subjects, treatment was initiated with one targeted drug (n=112, 51.6%), dual therapy (n=39, 18%) or triple-therapy (n=5, 2.3%), and calcium channel blockers with one targeted medication in one patient (0.5%). Phosphodiesterase inhibitors type 5 were used frequently; some patients with pulmonary hypertension related to lung disease received targeted therapy.

There is a diverse therapeutic approach for children with pulmonary hypertension with a need of better-defined treatment algorithms based on paediatric consensus for different aetiologies including the best possible diagnostic workup.