Home-Tutoring Programs with Special Education Students: Four Descriptive Studies

The purpose of this study was to determine the positive and negative effects of home-tutoring on four handicapped students and their families, and to ascertain if a home-tutoring program would be positively accepted by the students and their families. The descriptive studies were conducted using students of different handicaps and age levels. During an interview prior to the involvement program, parents were asked about the amount of time presently spent studying with the child, the family members involved with studying, the familiarity of the parents with the IEP goals, and their feelings about involvement. At the post-treatment interview, the same questions were asked as well as ones about the benefits and problems of the home-tutoring program. A 9-week observation period preceded the 9-week home-tutoring program. Students were pre-tested and post-tested to compare achievement results. Parent-initiated teacher contacts were recorded during both sessions. During the 9-week parent home-tutoring program, the parents were sent a weekly set of lessons and a parent record sheet. The four descriptive studies provided several results . Three of the students showed an improvement in their skills after t he parent-tutoring program. However, half of the students indicated that the lessons were frustrating, and one felt the lessons were boring. The number of parent-initiated contacts showed little or no increase for all of the students. Only one of the parents became more familiar with the goals of the IEP . The involvement persons remained basically the same during the parent-tutoring program as before the study. One half of the subjects reported positive family reactions to the tutoring program. The other half reported sibling jealousy because of excessive parent-involvement time. In conclusion, the studies indicated that an individualized home-tutoring program may be beneficial for some handicapped students and their families. However, the limitations of this descriptive investigation make it premature to draw any firm conclusions . The results do indicate areas of further research

A Pilot Study Investigating Changes in the Human Plasma and Urine NAD+ Metabolome During a 6 Hour Intravenous Infusion of NAD+

Accumulating evidence suggests that active maintenance of optimal levels of the essential pyridine nucleotide, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is beneficial in conditions of either increased NAD+ turnover or inadequate synthesis, including Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders and the aging process. While studies have documented the efficacy of some NAD+ precursors such as nicotinamide riboside (NR) in raising plasma NAD+, no data are currently available on the fate of directly infused NAD+ in a human cohort. This study, therefore, documented changes in plasma and urine levels of NAD+ and its metabolites during and after a 6 h 3 μmol/min NAD+ intravenous (IV) infusion. Surprisingly, no change in plasma (NAD+) or metabolites [nicotinamide, methylnicotinamide, adenosine phosphoribose ribose (ADPR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN)] were observed until after 2 h. Increased urinary excretion of methylnicotinamide and NAD+ were detected at 6 h, however, no significant rise in urinary nicotinamide was observed. This study revealed for the first time that: (i) at an infusion rate of 3 μmol/min NAD+ is rapidly and completely removed from the plasma for at least the first 2 h; (ii) the profile of metabolites is consistent with NAD+ glycohydrolase and NAD+ pyrophosphatase activity; and (iii) urinary excretion products arising from an NAD+ infusion include NAD+ itself and methyl nicotinamide (meNAM) but not NAM

Setting the standard: multidisciplinary hallmarks for structural, equitable and tracked antibiotic policy

There is increasing concern globally about the enormity of the threats posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to human, animal, plant and environmental health. A proliferation of international, national and institutional reports on the problems posed by AMR and the need for antibiotic stewardship have galvanised attention on the global stage. However, the AMR community increasingly laments a lack of action, often identified as an ‘implementation gap’. At a policy level, the design of internationally salient solutions that are able to address AMR’s interconnected biological and social (historical, political, economic and cultural) dimensions is not straightforward. This multidisciplinary paper responds by asking two basic questions: (A) Is a universal approach to AMR policy and antibiotic stewardship possible? (B) If yes, what hallmarks characterise ‘good’ antibiotic policy? Our multistage analysis revealed four central challenges facing current international antibiotic policy: metrics, prioritisation, implementation and inequality. In response to this diagnosis, we propose three hallmarks that can support robust international antibiotic policy. Emerging hallmarks for good antibiotic policies are: Structural, Equitable and Tracked. We describe these hallmarks and propose their consideration should aid the design and evaluation of international antibiotic policies with maximal benefit at both local and international scale

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment

Ophthalmology research in the UK’s National Health Service: the structure and performance of the NIHR’s Ophthalmology research portfolio

Purpose- To report on the composition and performance of the portfolio of Ophthalmology research studies in the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (UK CRN). Methods- Ophthalmology studies open to recruitment between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2018 were classified by: sub-specialty, participant age, gender of Chief Investigator, involvement of genetic investigations, commercial/ non-commercial, interventional/observational design. Frequency distributions for each covariate and temporal variation in recruitment to time and target were analysed. Results- Over 8 years, 137,377 participants were recruited (average of 15,457 participants/year; range: 5485–32,573) with growth by year in proportion of commercial studies and hospital participation in England (76% in 2017/18). Fourteen percent of studies had a genetic component and most studies (82%) included only adults. The majority of studies (41%) enrolled patients with retinal diseases, followed by glaucoma (17%), anterior segment and cataract (13%), and ocular inflammation (6%). Overall, 68% of non-commercial studies and 55% of commercial studies recruited within the anticipated time set by the study and also recruited to or exceeded the target number of participants. Conclusions- High levels of clinical research activity, growth and improved performance have been observed in Ophthalmology in UK over the past 8 years. Some sub-specialties that carry substantial morbidity and a very high burden on NHS services are underrepresented and deserve more patient-centred research. Yet the NIHR and its CRN Ophthalmology National Specialty Group has enabled key steps in achieving the goal of embedding research into every day clinical care