What Benefits can be Derived from Teaching Knowledge about Language to Preservice Teachers?

This paper evaluates the validity of teaching English grammar to preservice teachers in a teacher education course at a regional university. The course was delivered in blended mode using the grammar component of My Writing Lab Global (MWLG) and face-to-face instruction. The aim of this study was to establish if there are benefits to derive from teaching knowledge about language (KAL) to preservice teachers. Our quasi-experimental study found MWLG was well-received by participants who believed it had improved their KAL; this improvement was confirmed by 10% improvement on a pre and post KAL test (p \u3c .001). MWLG scores and the KAL test also reliably predicted other academic competencies: the students’ accumulated GPA and their final written assessment scores for the course (r= .4 to .54; p \u3c 0.01). Collectively, these findings suggest that explicit KAL is valued and valid knowledge and should be included in teacher education programs

GALEX Observations of CS and OH Emission in Comet 9P/Tempel 1 During Deep Impact

GALEX observations of comet 9P/Tempel 1 using the near ultraviolet (NUV) objective grism were made before, during and after the Deep Impact event that occurred on 2005 July 4 at 05:52:03 UT when a 370 kg NASA spacecraft was maneuvered into the path of the comet. The NUV channel provides usable spectral information in a bandpass covering 2000 - 3400 A with a point source spectral resolving power of approximately 100. The primary spectral features in this range include solar continuum scattered from cometary dust and emissions from OH and CS molecular bands centered near 3085 and 2575 A, respectively. In particular, we report the only cometary CS emission detected during this event. The observations allow the evolution of these spectral features to be tracked over the period of the encounter. In general, the NUV emissions observed from Tempel 1 are much fainter than those that have been observed by GALEX from other comets. However, it is possible to derive production rates for the parent molecules of the species detected by GALEX in Tempel 1 and to determine the number of these molecules liberated by the impact. The derived quiescent production rates are Q(H2O) = 6.4e27 molecules/s and Q(CS2) = 6.7e24 molecules/s, while the impact produced an additional 1.6e32 H2O molecules and 1.3e29 CS2 molecules, a similar ratio as in quiescent outgassing.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Cell Mergers and Their Impact on Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Over the Houston Area

A previous hypothesis advanced from observational studies such as METROMEX suggests that the intensity, frequency, and organization of cumulus convection may be impacted by the forcing of enhanced merger activity downstream of urban zones. A resulting corollary is that cities may exert an indirect anthropogenic forcing of parameters related to convection and associated phenomena such as lightning and precipitation. This paper investigates the urban merger hypothesis by examining the role of convective cell mergers on the existence and persistence of the Houston lightning "anomaly", a local maximum in cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning activity documented to exist over and east of Houston. Using eight summer seasons of peak columnar radar reflectivity, CG lightning data and a cell-tracking algorithm, a two-dimensional cell merger climatology is created for portions of eastern Texas and Louisiana. Results from the tracking and analysis of over 3.8 million cells indicate that merger-driven enhancements in convection induce a positive response (O 46%) in ground-flash densities throughout the domain, with areas of enhanced lightning typically being co-located with areas of enhanced merger activity. However, while mergers over the Houston area (relative to elsewhere in the domain) do result in more vigorous convective cells that produce larger CG flash densities, we find that CG lightning contributions due to mergers are distributed similarly throughout the domain. Hence while we demonstrate that cell mergers do greatly impact the production of lightning, the urban cell merger hypothesis does not uniquely explain the presence of a local lightning maximum near and downstream of Houston

L^2 torsion without the determinant class condition and extended L^2 cohomology

We associate determinant lines to objects of the extended abelian category built out of a von Neumann category with a trace. Using this we suggest constructions of the combinatorial and the analytic L^2 torsions which, unlike the work of the previous authors, requires no additional assumptions; in particular we do not impose the determinant class condition. The resulting torsions are elements of the determinant line of the extended L^2 cohomology. Under the determinant class assumption the L^2 torsions of this paper specialize to the invariants studied in our previous work. Applying a recent theorem of D. Burghelea, L. Friedlander and T. Kappeler we obtain a Cheeger - Muller type theorem stating the equality between the combinatorial and the analytic L^2 torsions.Comment: 39 page

Importance of site of infection and antibiotic selection in the treatment of carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis

ABSTRACT In a retrospective analysis of 215 patients with carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis, we observed a significantly higher risk of mortality associated with respiratory tract infection (risk ratio [RR], 1.20; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04 to 1.39; P = 0.010) and lower risk with urinary tract infection (RR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.71 to 0.90; P = 0.004). Aminoglycoside monotherapy was associated with increased mortality, even after adjusting for confounders (adjusted RR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.03 to 2.85; P = 0.037), consistent across multiple sites of infection. </jats:p

Investigation of linezolid resistance in staphylococci and enterococci

The objective of this study was to investigate an apparent increase in linezolid-nonsusceptible staphylococci and enterococci following a laboratory change in antimicrobial susceptibility testing from disk diffusion to an automated susceptibility testing system. Isolates with nonsusceptible results (n = 27) from Vitek2 were subjected to a battery of confirmatory testing which included disk diffusion, Microscan broth microdilution, Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) reference broth microdilution, gradient diffusion (Etest), 23S rRNA gene sequencing, and cfr PCR. Our results show that there is poor correlation between methods and that only 70 to 75% of isolates were confirmed as linezolid resistant with alternative phenotypic testing methods (disk diffusion, Microscan broth microdilution, CLSI broth microdilution, and Etest). 23S rRNA gene sequencing identified mutations previously associated with linezolid resistance in 16 (59.3%) isolates, and the cfr gene was detected in 3 (11.1%) isolates. Mutations located at positions 2576 and 2534 of the 23S rRNA gene were most common. In addition, two previously undescribed variants (at positions 2083 and 2345 of the 23S rRNA gene) were also identified and may contribute to linezolid resistance

Phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase and Akt effectors mediate insulin‐like growth factor‐I neuroprotection in dorsal root ganglia neurons

Insulin‐like growth factor‐I (IGF‐I) protects neurons of the peripheral nervous system from apoptosis, but the underlying signaling pathways are not well understood. We studied IGF‐I mediated signaling in embryonic dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons. DRG neurons express IGF‐I receptors (IGF‐IR), and IGF‐I activates the phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway. High glucose exposure induces apoptosis, which is inhibited by IGF‐I through the PI3K/Akt pathway. IGF‐I stimulation of the PI3K/Akt pathway phosphorylates three known Akt effectors: the survival transcription factor cyclic AMP response element binding protein (CREB) and the pro‐apoptotic effector proteins glycogen synthase kinase‐3β (GSK‐3β) and forkhead (FKHR). IGF‐I regulates survival at the nuclear level through accumulation of phospho‐Akt in DRG neuronal nuclei, increased CREB‐mediated transcription, and nuclear exclusion of FKHR. High glucose increases expression of the pro‐apoptotic Bcl protein Bim (a transcriptional target of FKHR). However, IGF‐I does not regulate Bim or anti‐apoptotic Bcl‐xL protein expression levels, which suggests that IGF‐I neuroprotection is not through regulation of their expression. High glucose also induces loss of the initiator caspase‐9 and increases caspase‐3 cleavage, effects blocked by IGF‐I. These data suggest that IGF‐I prevents apoptosis in DRG neurons by regulating PI3K/Akt pathway effectors, including GSK‐3β, CREB, and FKHR, and by blocking caspase activation.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154325/1/fsb2fj041581fje.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154325/2/fsb2fj041581fje-sup-0001.pd