Edith Silverglied Lisansky Gomberg, PhD 1920–2005

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65886/1/j.1530-0277.2006.00043.x.pd

Effects of adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate on serum lipids in patients with partial-onset seizures: Impact of concomitant statins and enzyme-inducing antiepileptic drugs.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effects of eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) on lipid metabolism and to determine whether reduced statin exposure during ESL therapy has clinical consequences. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We conducted a post-hoc analysis of pooled data for serum lipids (laboratory values) from three phase III, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of adjunctive ESL therapy (400, 800, or 1200 mg once daily) in patients with treatment-refractory partial-onset seizures. Changes from baseline in serum lipid levels were analyzed according to use of statins and/or enzyme-inducing antiepileptic drugs (EIAEDs) during the baseline period. KEY FINDINGS: In total, 426 and 1021 placebo- and ESL-treated patients, respectively, were included in the analysis. With regard to the changes from baseline in serum concentrations, there were statistically significant differences between the placebo and ESL 1200 mg QD groups, for both total cholesterol (TC) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), but the effect sizes were small (+4.1 mg/dL and +1.8 mg/dL, respectively). A small but significant difference in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C; -5.0 mg/dL) was observed between the ESL 400 mg QD group and the placebo group. In patients not taking a concomitant EIAED, there were no changes with ESL 400 mg QD, but modest and statistically significant increases in cholesterol fractions (TC, LDL-C and HDL-C) with ESL 800 mg QD (/dL) and ESL 1200 mg QD (/dL). ESL had no consistent effect on lipids in patients taking a concomitant EIAED. In patients taking statins during baseline, there were no clinically relevant changes in serum lipids during use of ESL, although the subgroups were small. SIGNIFICANCE: These results suggest that ESL does not appear to have clinically significant effects on serum lipids, nor does the pharmacokinetic interaction between ESL and statins have an impact on serum lipid concentrations

The Analysis of Two Esl/efl Websites: Englishclub and Activities for Esl Students

This study reviewed two well known ESL/EFL websites namely EnglishClub and Activities for ESL Students using the website evaluation framework proposed by Hasan and Abuelrub (2011). The writers found that Activities for ESL Students met 79.92% of the website evaluation criteria with 211 of the total score; while EnglishClub met 79.54% of the website evaluation criteria with 210 of the total score. Thus there was no significant difference between these two websites. Both EnglishClub and Activities for ESL Students are good for ESL/EFL learner

A comparative study of Chinese ESL learners from Malaysia and the People's Republic of China in their pronunciation of /r/&/l/

The purpose of this study is to investigate if consonants /r/ presented similar problems for Chinese ESL students from Malaysia and Chinese ESL students from the People’s Republic of China. Both groups of students were enrolled in ESL classes in Malaysia at the time of the study, and they were all ethnic Chinese, but they came from different countries, and have had different previous language-learning experiences. Respondents were asked to read four word lists and a poem made up of different percentages of words containing /r/ in initial or medial positions. Interestingly, the results indicated that the ESL students from Malaysia generally have more problems in pronouncing /r/ than students from the People’s Republic of China. This paper elaborated the implications the study has for formulating strategies to better deliver pronunciation skills in order to minimise, if not eliminate this problem among the Chinese ESL students from Malaysia

The Impact of ESL Funding Restrictions on Student Academic Achievement

ESL instruction is an important issue in Canada due to the large number of immigrants and has potentially impacts on both student academic progress and educational expenditures. In 1999, the province of British Columbia limited funding for ESL to five years per student but increased the annual ESL supplement. We explore the educational impact of these reforms using the results of standardized tests of numeracy, reading and writing proficiency for Grade 7 students. We compare differences in test scores, both before and after the policy change, among the following groups of Grade 7 students in the GVA: students with 5 or more years of ESL (those constrained by the new policy); students with one to four years of ESL; non-ESL students with a non-official home language; and non-ESL students with an official home language. No group of students experiences large changes in test scores due to the reform. The changes we do observe are usually increases for ESL students, and the few decreases are very small. Moreover, both before and after the reform, score differences between groups of students with different experiences of ESL, different neighbourhood socio-economic characteristics, and different home languages are modest in size.English Second Language; Educational Funding

DEUCE : a test-bed for evaluating ESL competence criteria

This paper describes work in progress to apply a Web-based facility for evaluating differing criteria for English language competence. The proposed system, Discriminated Evaluation of User's Competence with English (DEUCE), addresses the problem of determining the efficacy of individual criteria for competence in English as a Second Language (ESL). We describe the rationale, design and application of DEUCE and outline its potential as a discriminator for ESL competence criteria and as a basis for low cost mass ESL competence testing

Eliminating Language Barriers for LEP Individuals: Promising Practices from the Public Sector

While the focus of this report is on eliminating language barriers for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals, any strategy to improve communications with this population must also include English learning and address the shortage of high-quality English as a Second Language (ESL) courses for adults. State-administered ESL programs currently serve only about a million of the estimated 12.4 million LEP adults in the United States who need language instruction. The underfunding of ESL programs means that large numbers of immigrant adults who wish to learn English are unable to enroll in classes or face overcrowded classrooms. For instance, a 2006 national survey of ESL providers found that 57 percent of these programs maintained waiting lists -- ranging from a few weeks to more than three years -- and could not accommodate the high numbers of immigrants interested in learning English. Policy experts and organizations that work with adult English learners have proposed various strategies to increase the availability of high-quality ESL courses, but lack of political support at the national level -- coupled with the current fiscal crisis -- has weakened efforts to help immigrants improve their English skills

The Troubled Sense of Otherness among Christian and Non-Christian ESL Freshmen at a Christian College in the Midwest

This study was derived from an ethnographic study conducted with five ESL learners and their peers in a Christian college in the Midwest. The theoretical framework of this article was built upon Freire’s (2000) and Kumashiro’s (2001) anti-oppressive education. The study employed various data sources to find out how Christian and non-Christian ESL freshmen experienced a sense of otherness in the local college community. The findings reveal the hidden norms in the faith-based college, which marginalized the non-Christian ESL freshmen from being legitimate participants (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The researcher provides recommendations to educators and administrators in higher education for advising international students and providing services to them. The researcher also highlights the importance of having a deeper understanding of the plights experienced by non-Christian ESL freshmen at Christian colleges in the USA

Reasoning about Knowledge and Strategies: Epistemic Strategy Logic

In this paper we introduce Epistemic Strategy Logic (ESL), an extension of Strategy Logic with modal operators for individual knowledge. This enhanced framework allows us to represent explicitly and to reason about the knowledge agents have of their own and other agents' strategies. We provide a semantics to ESL in terms of epistemic concurrent game models, and consider the corresponding model checking problem. We show that the complexity of model checking ESL is not worse than (non-epistemic) Strategy LogicComment: In Proceedings SR 2014, arXiv:1404.041

How doctoral students and graduates describe facilitating experiences and strategies for their thesis writing learning process: a qualitative approach

This study considered the sources of facilitating experiences and strategies for thesis writing from doctoral students and graduates (N=30). The sample was balanced between Science and Social Science knowledge areas, with equal numbers of English as Second Language (ESL) participants in both groups. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to explore issues around feedback, training, cohort experiences and personal strategies for writing. Four-hundred pages of transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis with the assistance of specialist software (NVivo). A generative model of academic writing development was chosen to frame the analysis. Fifteen themes emerged, three of which are discussed: supervisors’ feedback, personal organisation and ESL learning strategies. Results show the perceived benefits of individually tailored supportive feedback and the importance of the students’ resilience. Original learning strategies from ESL students that may benefit non-ESL students are also considered. The conclusions outline implications for supervisors and students across knowledge areas