Portfolio Strategies, Relinquishment, The Urban School System of the Future, and Smart Districts

Today, there are many new proposals about governance of K-12 Education: The portfolio strategy emphasizes a system of continuous improvement for diverse, autonomous schools governed by performance contracts; devolution models include efforts to expand the role of charter management organizations and other nonprofit providers (Andy Smarick's "Urban School System of the Future," Neerav Kingslad's "Relinquishment"); and school transformation models emphasize the role of third-party support organizations that create K-12 feeder patterns of allied schools (Bill Guenther and Justin Cohen's Mass Insight "Smart Districts" proposal).Are these really rival proposals as the authors of some are claiming? This idea is misguided; these are complemetns not alternatives

The Impact of Bully Victimization and Substance Use on Suicidal Behavior in Sexual Minority Youth

Bully victimization has been shown to be associated with a variety of problems in adolescence. Adolescent bully victims endorse higher rates of substance use, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. One possible explanation is that adolescents who are bullied use substances to cope with victimization and turn to suicidal behaviors when this coping mechanism proves ineffective. Sexual orientation is one variable that is believed to moderate these relationships. Non-heterosexual youth are more likely to be victimized by peers, engage in substance use, and experience suicidality. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between bully victimization, substance use, suicidality, and sexual orientation in a national sample of adolescents. I hypothesized that bully victimization will be positively associated with suicidality and substance use will mediate this relationship. I also predicted sexual orientation would moderate all relationships. Data was drawn from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey, a large-scale survey measuring health-risk behaviors contributing to death and disability in youth. The survey contains questions about frequency of bully victimization, engagement in substance use, and prevalence of suicidal behaviors. Participants are also asked about a variety of demographic variables, including sexual orientation. Adolescents in this study completed the survey in 2015. Half of the participants were male, with a mean age of 16. The sample was representative of the U.S. population, with 45.0% identifying as non-Hispanic White, 33.5% as Hispanic, 10.9% as non-Hispanic Black, and 10.7% identifying as Other. A moderated mediation model revealed that the indirect effect of bully victimization through substance use to suicidality was significant for heterosexual (b = .029, SE = .003, CI99 = .022, .038) and sexual minority (b = .040, SE = .009, CI99 = .020, .066) adolescents. Sexual orientation moderated the relationships between bully victimization and substance use and bully victimization and suicidality. It did not moderate the relationship between substance use and suicidality. Results suggest that sexual minority youth are at an increased risk for substance use and suicidality when victimized. Results also highlight the importance of addressing bully victimization when providing mental health and substance use services to adolescents

Effects of low-dose naltrexone on feed intake, growth, endocrine and immune parameters in the recently-weaned pig

Weaning is a stressful event for pigs and causes decreased feed intake, poor growth, and increased susceptibility to disease. Previous studies have shown that syndyphalin-33, a synthetic opioid, was effective in increasing feed intake, abrogating the changes in appetite regulating genes during weaning, and abrogating the effects of a salmonella challenge on immune cells in newly-weaned pigs. However, there are several concerns associated with the administration of an opioid in commercial swine operations. Low-dose naltrexone (an opioid antagonist) has been used to alleviate symptoms from fibromyalgia and Crohn’s disease in humans. As inflammation is a common factor in both auto-immune diseases in humans and weaning stress in pigs, a logical next-step would be to examine the effects of low-dose naltrexone on pigs at weaning. In this study, low-dose naltrexone administration was evaluated for its affects on feed intake, growth, endocrine, and immune parameters in newly weaned pigs. Four treatments of 0 mg/day (d), 1 mg/d, 5 mg/d, 10 mg/d naltrexone were administered orally daily beginning 2 wk prior to weaning to 48 commercial crossbred pigs. Each treatment group included 12 pigs. Body weights and blood samples were collected d 0 and at 1, 4, and 7 post-weaning. All animals treated with naltrexone had increased total gain as compared to the control animals (P \u3c 0.05). A decrease in feed intake was seen in animals treated with 5 mg/d naltrexone as compared to the control animals (P \u3c 0.05). Plasma cortisol concentrations were similar to previously published concentrations and increased 1 d post-weaning in the control animals (P \u3c 0.01). Animals treated with 10 mg/d naltrexone had higher plasma concentrations of cortisol relative to all other treatments (P \u3c 0.01). On 1 d post-weaning, animals treated with 1 mg/d and 5 mg/d naltrexone had lower plasma cortisol concentration than the controls (P \u3c 0.01), and by d 4 post-weaning, all animals treated with naltrexone had lower cortisol concentrations relative to the control animals (P \u3c 0.01). As a non-opioid, oral low-dose naltrexone may be a promising therapy to decrease the growth lag associated with weaning

Cognitive Processing of Person-Referent Words in Depression and Obesity

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in the cognitive processing of person-referent words in depression and obesity and identify a cognitive marker of depression vulnerability in obesity. Three groups of participants (obese, non-depressed (OND) (BMI30); obese, clinically depressed (OD) (BMI30); healthy weight (HW) (BMI 18.5-24.9), non-depressed) viewed positive, negative, and neutral words while event-related potential (ERP) data was collected. The valenced words were person-referent and described either physical characteristics or non-physical characteristics such as personality and intellect. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze attention allocation to salient stimuli as index by P3 difference wave amplitudes. The ANOVA compared attention to word valence and physicality in these three groups. The results indicated three main findings: 1) The P3 oddball paradigm with valenced (rare) and neutral (frequent) words produces a reliable P3 ERP component. 2) The magnitude of the P3 is influenced by word valence, with an attention bias towards negative words across groups. 3) Valence impacts the response to the physicality of the words such that there is a greater attentional bias towards negative physical words than positive physical words and a greater attentional bias towards negative physical words than to negative non-physical words across groups. There was also a trend for the OND group to mirror the HW group for positive words and mirror the OD group for negative words, with heightened attention to negative, physical words. This trend towards heightened attention to negative information in the OD group compared to the HW group and the extent to which obese individuals generalize negative self-referent information suggest potential risks for depression vulnerability in obesity. This knowledge may help guide cognitive therapy for obese individuals who are at risk for depression, emphasizing the importance of reinforcing positive self-attributes and avoiding negative self-focus and ruminative attention

Risk-Taking Behaviors and Impulsivity in Emerging Adults Born Prematurely

Recently there has been an increase in research focusing on the role of sleep in psychological disorders in adolescents and young adults due to both increases in risk-taking behaviors and continued brain development during this period. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to extend findings of a master’s thesis suggesting a relationship between subjective and objective measures of sleep and externalizing disorders in young adults in a community setting to a vulnerable population (i.e., emerging adults born prematurely). Measures include sleep behavior (Actigraphy, PSQI), birth status, objective measures of impulsivity and risk-taking (CPT-II, BART, Eye-Tracking), and subjective measures of both internalizing and externalizing disorder traits (TriPM, BIS 11, PAI scales, BPS). A total of 227 participants completed the study, including 71 men (premature n = 32) and 156 women (premature n = 103). Participants in the sample showed high average percentages of sleep (M = 91.91%) and few participants reported clinically elevated scores on the measures (≤ 13.45%), as would be expected. Results extend previous findings that both externalizing (i.e., psychopathy as measured by the TriPM) and internalizing (i.e., depression as measured by the PAI) traits decrease subjective sleep quality (i.e., PSQI scores). Results show that on average women born prematurely report increased internalizing traits compared with full term women and men born preterm or full term; while men born prematurely report lower levels of antisocial traits and behaviors (i.e., more female typical) when compared to full term men but still higher levels compared to women born preterm or full term. Results further suggest that premature birth status is associated with significantly lower rates of antisocial traits, particularly when severity of premature birth increases (i.e., fewer weeks of gestation). The community population and birth status is often not of focus in sleep research with the exception of sleep disordered breathing, and thus findings add to our understanding of this vulnerable population in emerging adults born prematurely who are attending college

Age-at-death Estimation: Accuracy and Reliability of Age-Reporting Strategies

One task of a forensic anthropologist is to assist law enforcement in the identification of unknown human skeletal remains by building a biological profile. Age-at-death estimations are an informative aspect of biological profiles as they help law enforcement narrow down potential victim identifications. However, age-at-death estimation continues to be a challenge within forensic anthropology due to the uncertainty regarding method selection and the production of a final estimate for law enforcement.The purpose of this research is to identify the age-reporting strategies that provide the most accurate and reliable (low inaccuracy and low bias) age-at-death estimations when evaluated by total sample, age-cohort (20-39; 40-59; 60-79), and sex. The age-reporting strategies in this study were derived from six age-at-death estimation methods and tested on 58 adult individuals (31 males and 27 females) from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. An experience-based approach where the observer produced a final estimation using the data collected and their expert judgment was included to assess the appropriateness of experience-based estimations in medico-legal contexts. Two-way repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to determine if there were significant differences in reliability between the age-reporting strategies.The results show that the most accurate and reliable age-reporting strategy varied if the sample was evaluated as a whole, by age, or by sex. The most accurate and reliable strategy for the total sample was the experience-based approach. When the sample was divided by age Suchey-Brooks pubic symphysis performed the best for the 20-39 age-cohort, the experience-based approach for the 40-59 age-cohort, and Buckberry-Chamberlain auricular surface for the 60-79 age-cohort. Finally, when separated by sex, Hartnett pubic symphysis performed the best for males and the experienced-based approach performed the best for females.While none of the age-reporting strategies evaluated in this study were consistently the most accurate and reliable for all of the sample categories, the experience-based approach performed well in each category. This research helps shed light on the performance of different age-reporting strategies and provides further support to the reliance on multiple aging indicators and professional judgment in developing a final age-at-death estimation

The role of professional development and learning in the early adoption of the New Zealand curriculum by schools.

This paper is set in the context of Phase One of the Ministry of Education Curriculum Implementation Exploratory Studies (CIES) project. The schools selected for this study were considered early adopters of the revised New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) (Ministry of Education, 2007). The paper provides theoretical insights and research evidence related to the role of professional development and learning in the early stages of implementation of the revised curriculum. A key finding common to most schools was the progressive development of a professional learning culture led by the principal that focused on pedagogy and student achievement prior to the introduction of the curriculum. The establishment of this culture involved processes that were task-oriented, reflective, consultative and collaborative. While there are strong parallels between the experiences of primary and secondary schools in the study, some important differences have also been noted

Structure and substrate selectivity of the 750-kDa α6β6 holoenzyme of geranyl-CoA carboxylase.

Geranyl-CoA carboxylase (GCC) is essential for the growth of Pseudomonas organisms with geranic acid as the sole carbon source. GCC has the same domain organization and shares strong sequence conservation with the related biotin-dependent carboxylases 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase (MCC) and propionyl-CoA carboxylase (PCC). Here we report the crystal structure of the 750-kDa α6β6 holoenzyme of GCC, which is similar to MCC but strikingly different from PCC. The structures provide evidence in support of two distinct lineages of biotin-dependent acyl-CoA carboxylases, one carboxylating the α carbon of a saturated organic acid and the other carboxylating the γ carbon of an α-β unsaturated acid. Structural differences in the active site region of GCC and MCC explain their distinct substrate preferences. Especially, a glycine residue in GCC is replaced by phenylalanine in MCC, which blocks access by the larger geranyl-CoA substrate. Mutation of this residue in the two enzymes can change their substrate preferences