From the Prison Track to the College Track: Pathways to Postsecondary Success for Out-of-School Youth

Many young people learn a discouraging set of lessons between the ages of 16 and 24. They come to see secondary school as irrelevant, available jobs as demeaning, and their prospects and choices as diminishing. Some continue to "drop in" to school long enough to get a diploma, but leave lacking the skills or interest to pursue further education. Others drop out of school altogether. Seen in this context, the ambitious promise implied in the federal law to "leave no child behind" will require moving expeditiously beyond the "one-size-fits-all," factory-model high school to a far richer diversity of learning environments. This paper focuses on four types of learning environments that appear to hold particular promise for vulnerable and potentially disconnected youth: reinvented high schools, secondary/postsecondary blends, education/employment blends, and extended learning opportunities beyond the school day, year, and building. The first section paints a statistical portrait of the substantial number of urban youth who could potentially benefit from these new programmatic options. The second section describes the authors' process for identifying and investigating emerging, powerful learning environments, then profiles four programs that show evidence of effectiveness. The report concludes with a discussion of the policy opportunities today for creating multiple avenues for young people to achieve to higher standards, along with four specific policy recommendations to meet this goal

Structurable algebras and groups of type E_6 and E_7

It is well-known that every algebraic group of type F_4 is the automorphism group of an exceptional Jordan algebra, and that up to isogeny all groups of type ^1E_6 with trivial Tits algebras arise as the isometry groups of norm forms of such Jordan algebras. We describe a similar relationship between groups of type E_6 and groups of type E_7 and use it to give explicit descriptions of the homogeneous projective varieties associated to groups of type E_7 with trivial Tits algebras. The underlying algebraic structure for the relationship considered here are a sort of 56-dimensional structurable algebra which are forms of an algebra constructed from an exceptional Jordan algebra.Comment: 35 pages, AMSLaTeX -- error in final section correcte

The relationship between range of motion and injuries in adolescent dancers and sportspersons: A systematic review

Background: The frequent and intensive training and performance of pre-professional ballet dancers and sportspersons is offered at a time when young ballet dancers and young athletes may be vulnerable to injury due to the progress through adolescence and growth spurts. Hypothesis: There are changes in range of motion during the progress through adolescence and growth periods in dancers and sportspersons. These changes in ROM can be linked to the increase of injury. Objectives: The primary aim of this systematic review is to determine whether there are changes in ROM during the progress through adolescence and growth spurts in dancers and sportspersons. The secondary aim is to determine whether these changes can predict the risk of injuries for adolescent dancers and sportspersons. Search strategy: Pubmed, Cochrane Register of Controlled Trails (CENTRAL), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), EBSCO Host databases: CINAHL Plus, MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, Embase were searched using MeSH terms. Manual search in the Journal of Dance Medicine and Science and screening of the reference lists of identified studies and reviews was conducted. Selection criteria: Studies included adolescent dancers and sportspersons, aged 8–18, both sexes, growth spurt related to changes in ROM and injury incidence. Data collection and analysis: Search strategy was performed in the flow diagram of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Two reviewers independently appraised each included study using Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) for methodological quality of the included studies. For data extraction, the following information was systematically extracted: first author and year of publication, study design, participants (sample size of mean age), age, maturation (if assessed), intervention, outcome(s), and some notes of each study. For evaluation of the risk of bias and precision the Research Triangle Institute Item Bank (RTI-IB) is included. Main results: Seven observational studies met the inclusion criteria of this current review. The results of this review suggest that there are changes in ROM during the progress through adolescence and growth spurts in dancers and sportspersons. These changes may lead to an increase in injury incidence. Conclusion: There is evidence linking to changes in ROM during the progress through adolescence and growth spurts in dancers and sportspersons. These changes in ROM may be related to injury incidence

Thermal intravascular photoacoustic imaging

Intravascular photoacoustics (IVPA)—a minimally invasive imaging technique with contrast related to optical absorption properties of tissue, can be used to visualize atherosclerotic plaques. However, the amplitude of photoacoustic signals is also related to a temperature dependent, tissue specific parameter—the Grüneisen parameter. Therefore, photoacoustic signals measured at different temperatures may reveal information about tissue composition. In this study, thermal IVPA (tIVPA) imaging was introduced. The imaging studies were performed using an ex vivo atherosclerotic rabbit aorta. Temperature dependent photoacoustic responses from lipid in plaques and lipid in periadventitial tissue were different, thus allowing tIVPA images to delineate the location of lipid-rich plaques. The results indicate that tIVPA imaging has a potential to characterize tissue composition in atherosclerotic vessels

The Role of Parental and Peer Attachment Relationships and School Connectedness in Predicting Adolescent Mental Health Outcomes

Background: Adolescent attachment relationships with parents and peers and the sense of connectedness with the schools attended have been established as salient predictors of psychological wellbeing. Few studies, however, have assessed the relative importance of each attachment or connectedness relationship and how they interrelate to influence mental health outcomes. Method: 203 adolescents (11-16 years) completed self-report measures of parental and peer attachment (Inventory of Parental & Peer Attachment – Revised; Gullone & Robinson, 2005); school connectedness (Psychological Sense of School Membership; Goodenow, 1993); conduct problems, emotional symptoms, and prosocial behaviour (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; Goodman, 1997). Results: Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that more insecure parental attachment (although not peer attachment or school connectedness) predicted conduct problems and emotional difficulties. Peer attachment and school connectedness were significant predictors of prosocial behaviour, whereas parental attachment was not. A mediational analysis revealed that peer attachment and school connectedness both mediate the relationship between parental attachment and prosocial behaviour. No significant moderation effects of either peer attachment or school connectedness on the relationship between parental attachment and mental health outcomes were found. Conclusions: Different attachment and connectedness relationships, although related, predict adolescent mental health outcomes in distinct ways. Improving parental attachment may have particular salience in reducing negative behaviours such as conduct problems and emotional difficulties, whereas improving peer attachment and school connectedness could be important for the display of prosocial behaviour

The Grizzly, March 1, 2012

Grasso Hosts Leadership Summit • Board Meets on Diversity Reports • Psychology Major Organizes Autism Discussion • Lt. Gen. Helmick of the US Army to Speak on Campus Tonight at 7 P.M. • Murphy-Stout Interns at South London Hospital • EV Premieres On the Edge • Kelly Herr Competes in Special Olympics in Korea • Opinion: Republicans Need Focus to Win • International Trio Dazzles Students and Faculty • Senior Spotlight: Al Desiderio, Men\u27s Track • Spring Break in Florida for Bears Baseball • Championship Weekend Recaphttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1854/thumbnail.jp

Calcification and growth processes in planktonic foraminifera complicate the use of B/Ca and U/Ca as carbonate chemistry proxies

Although boron and uranium to calcium ratios (B/Ca, U/Ca) in planktonic foraminifera have recently received much attention as potential proxies for ocean carbonate chemistry, the extent of a carbonate chemistry control on these ratios remains contentious. Here, we use bi-weekly sediment trap samples collected from the subtropical North Atlantic in combination with measured oceanographic data from the same location to evaluate the dominant oceanographic controls on B/Ca and U/Ca in three depth-stratified species of planktonic foraminifera. We also test the control of biological, growth-related, processes on planktonic foraminiferal B and U incorporation by using foraminifer test area density (μg/μm2) (a monitor of test thickness) and test size from the same samples. B/Ca and U/Ca show little or no significant correlation with carbonate system parameters both within this study and in comparison with other published works. We provide the first evidence for a strong positive relationship between area density (test thickness) and B/Ca, and reveal that this is consistent in all species studied, suggesting a likely role for calcification in controlling boron partitioning into foraminiferal calcite. This finding is consistent with previous observations of less efficient discrimination against trace element ‘impurities’ (such as B), at higher calcification rates. We observe little or no dependency of B/Ca on test size. In marked contrast, we find that U/Ca displays a strong species-specific dependency on test size in all species, but no relationship with test thickness, implicating some other biological control (possibly related to growth), rather than a calcification control, on U incorporation into foraminiferal calcite. Our results caution against the use of B/Ca and U/Ca in planktonic foraminifera as reliable proxies for the ocean carbonate system and recommend that future work should concentrate on improving the mechanistic understanding of how planktonic foraminifer calcification and growth rates regulate boron and uranium incorporation into the test

Technical validation studies of a dual-wavelength LED-based photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging system.

Recent advances in high power, pulsed, light emitting diodes (LEDs) have shown potential as fast, robust and relatively inexpensive excitation sources for photoacoustic imaging (PAI), yet systematic characterization of performance for biomedical imaging is still lacking. We report here technical and biological validation studies of a commercial dual-wavelength LED-based PAI and ultrasound system. Phantoms and small animals were used to assess temporal precision. In phantom studies, we found high temporal stability of the LED-based PAI system, with no significant drift in performance observed during 6 h of operation or over 30 days of repeated measurements. In vivo dual-wavelength imaging was able to map the dynamics of changes in blood oxygenation during oxygen-enhanced imaging and reveal the kinetics of indocyanine green contrast agent inflow after intravenous administration (Tmax∼6 min). Taken together, these studies indicate that LED-based excitation could be promising for future application in functional and molecular PAI