Early reading strategies in Irish and English: Evidence from error types

For the majority of people in Ireland, Irish is a second language acquired primarily through the schooling system. This study examined the reading strategies children used in response to English and Irish words (presented in isolation), through an analysis of their oral reading errors. Children in their 4th year of schooling attending English-medium schools, immersion schools, and Irish-medium schools in Irish-speaking (Gaeltacht) regions participated. The English-medium school children scored significantly below the other 3 groups on the Irish task; the Gaeltacht school children scored below the other 3 groups on the English task. Overall, the children made significantly more real-word errors on the English task compared with the Irish task and significantly more nonword errors on the Irish task compared with the English task. These findings suggest that children learning to read in English and Irish may adopt different strategies when faced with unfamiliar words from each language

Home practice in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction:A systematic review and meta-analysis of participants' mindfulness practice and its association with outcomes

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) emphasize the importance of mindfulness practice at home as an integral part of the program. However, the extent to which participants complete their assigned practice is not yet clear, nor is it clear whether this practice is associated with positive outcomes. For this systematic review and meta-analysis, searches were performed using Scopus and PubMed for studies published through to the end of 2015, reporting on formal home practice of mindfulness by MBSR or MBCT participants. Across 43 studies (N=1427), the pooled estimate for participants’ home practice was 64% of the assigned amount, equating to about 30 minutes per day, six days per week [95% CI 60 – 69%]. There was substantial heterogeneity associated with this estimate. Across 28 studies (N=898), there was a small but significant association between participants’ self-reported home practice and intervention outcomes (r = 0·26, 95% CI 0·19, – 0·34). MBSR and MBCT participants report completing substantial formal mindfulness practice at home over the eight-week intervention, albeit less than assigned amounts. There is a small but significant association between the extent of formal practice and positive intervention outcomes for a wide range of participants

Sleep quality is associated with emotion experience and adaptive regulation of positive emotion: An experience sampling study

Poor sleep patterns have been strongly linked to disrupted emotional experiences. Emotion regulation, defined as the capacity to manage one's own emotional responses, comprises strategies to increase, maintain, or decrease the intensity, duration, and trajectory of positive and negative emotions. Poor sleep has been identified as a risk factor for emotional dysregulation, but most of the focus has been on negative emotion regulation. We therefore asked whether natural variations in sleep are associated with the experience and regulation of both positive and negative emotion. Young adults, aged between 18–24 years (N = 101), completed 7 days of ecological momentary assessments using a smartphone application. Duration and quality of the previous night's sleep was reported each morning. Levels of positive and negative emotions, and strategies used to regulate emotions, were measured at pseudorandom timepoints four times a day. Multilevel modelling indicated that higher self-reported sleep quality was significantly associated with increased intensity and duration of positive emotion, and decreased intensity of negative emotion. There were no statistically significant associations between sleep duration and emotion intensity or duration. Sleep quality, and not sleep duration, was also associated with the reported use of positive emotion regulation strategies. For negative emotion regulation strategy use, we found no associations with sleep quality or duration. Naturally occurring fluctuations in daily sleep quality may be important for the experience and regulation of positive emotion in young adults. These findings emphasise the need to examine both positive and negative emotion, and emotion regulation to understand the links between sleep and mood

Parallel screening of FDA-approved antineoplastic drugs for identifying sensitizers of TRAIL-induced apoptosis in cancer cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Related Apoptosis Inducing Ligand (TRAIL) and agonistic antibodies to death receptor 4 and 5 are promising candidates for cancer therapy due to their ability to induce apoptosis selectively in a variety of human cancer cells, while demonstrating little cytotoxicity in normal cells. Although TRAIL and agonistic antibodies to DR4 and DR5 are considered safe and promising candidates in cancer therapy, many malignant cells are resistant to DR-mediated, TRAIL-induced apoptosis. In the current work, we screened a small library of fifty-five FDA and foreign-approved anti-neoplastic drugs in order to identify candidates that sensitized resistant prostate and pancreatic cancer cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>FDA-approved drugs were screened for their ability to sensitize TRAIL resistant prostate cancer cells to TRAIL using an MTT assay for cell viability. Analysis of variance was used to identify drugs that exhibited synergy with TRAIL. Drugs demonstrating the highest synergy were selected as leads and tested in different prostate and pancreatic cancer cell lines, and one immortalized human pancreatic epithelial cell line. Sequential and simultaneous dosing modalities were investigated and the annexin V/propidium iodide assay, in concert with fluorescence microscopy, was employed to visualize cells undergoing apoptosis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fourteen drugs were identified as having synergy with TRAIL, including those whose TRAIL sensitization activities were previously unknown in either prostate or pancreatic cancer cells or both. Five leads were tested in additional cancer cell lines of which, doxorubicin, mitoxantrone, and mithramycin demonstrated synergy in all lines. In particular, mitoxantrone and mithramycin demonstrated significant synergy with TRAIL and led to reduction of cancer cell viability at concentrations lower than 1 μM. At these low concentrations, mitoxantrone demonstrated selectivity toward malignant cells over normal pancreatic epithelial cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The identification of a number of FDA-approved drugs as TRAIL sensitizers can expand chemotherapeutic options for combination treatments in prostate and pancreatic cancer diseases.</p

The effect of cleft lip on adults' responses to faces: cross-species findings

Cleft lip and palate is the most common of the congenital conditions affecting the face and cranial bones and is associated with a raised risk of difficulties in infant-caregiver interaction; the reasons for such difficulties are not fully understood. Here, we report two experiments designed to explore how adults respond to infant faces with and without cleft lip, using behavioural measures of attractiveness appraisal (‘liking’) and willingness to work to view or remove the images (‘wanting’). We found that infants with cleft lip were rated as less attractive and were viewed for shorter durations than healthy infants, an effect that was particularly apparent where the cleft lip was severe. Women rated the infant faces as more attractive than men did, but there were no differences in men and women's viewing times of these faces. In a second experiment, we found that the presence of a cleft lip in domestic animals affected adults' ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ responses in a comparable way to that seen for human infants. Adults' responses were also remarkably similar for images of infants and animals with cleft lip, although no gender difference in attractiveness ratings or viewing times emerged for animals. We suggest that the presence of a cleft lip can substantially change the way in which adults respond to human and animal faces. Furthermore, women may respond in different ways to men when asked to appraise infant attractiveness, despite the fact that men and women ‘want’ to view images of infants for similar durations

Designing technology tools to support engagement in mindfulness-based interventions: an analysis of teacher and student experiences

Standard mindfulness-based interventions have significant at-home assignments of formal mindfulness practice as a key component. Engagement with formal home practice has been correlated with treatment outcomes, but participants often complete less than the assigned amounts. Here, we explore the requirements for technology tools that can support and encourage home practice, in a way that is appropriate and consistent with the core principles of mindfulness-based interventions. Interviews were held with a group of five highly experienced mindfulness teachers and a group of five participants who had previously completed an eight-week course. Data was subjected to thematic analysis. A key finding was that providing teachers with information on how students practice could support communication around difficulties with home practice. We also identified questions around the appropriateness of adapting the course in response to participant difficulties and participant preferences. Both teachers and students made numerous suggestions for ways to augment their training using technology, such as via practice reminders and provision of teacher-specific content. Finally, a major design issue for technology developers is how to support participants in reflecting on their experiences of mindfulness practice, and subsequent learning, but not to critically evaluate their practice

High-pressure polymorphism in L-threonine between ambient pressure and 22 GPa

The crystal structure of l-threonine has been studied to a maximum pressure of 22.3 GPa using single-crystal X-ray and neutron powder diffraction. The data have been interpreted in the light of previous Raman spectroscopic data by Holanda et al. (J. Mol. Struct. (2015), 1092, 160-165) in which it is suggested that three phase transitions occur at ca. 2 GPa, between 8.2 and 9.2 GPa and between 14.0 and 15.5 GPa. In the first two of these transitions the crystal retains its P212121 symmetry, in the third, although the unit cell dimensions are similar either side of the transition, the space group symmetry drops to P21. The ambient pressure form is labelled phase I, with the successive high-pressure forms designated I′, II and III, respectively. Phases I and I′ are very similar, the transition being manifested by a slight rotation of the carboxylate group. Phase II, which was found to form between 8.5 and 9.2 GPa, follows the gradual transformation of a long-range electrostatic contact becoming a hydrogen bond between 2.0 and 8.5 GPa, so that the transformation reflects a change in the way the structure accommodates compression rather than a gross change of structure. Phase III, which was found to form above 18.2 GPa in this work, is characterised by the bifurcation of a hydroxyl group in half of the molecules in the unit cell. Density functional theory (DFT) geometry optimisations were used to validate high-pressure structural models and PIXEL crystal lattice and intermolecular interaction energies are used to explain phase stabilities in terms of the intermolecular interactions

High-pressure polymorphism in pyridine

Single crystals of the high-pressure phases II and III of pyridine have been obtained by in situ crystallization at 1.09 and 1.69 GPa, revealing the crystal structure of phase III for the first time using X-ray diffraction. Phase II crystallizes in P212121 with Z' = 1 and phase III in P41212 with Z' = ½. Neutron powder diffraction experiments using pyridine-d5 establish approximate equations of state of both phases. The space group and unit-cell dimensions of phase III are similar to the structures of other simple compounds with C 2v molecular symmetry, and the phase becomes stable at high pressure because it is topologically close-packed, resulting in a lower molar volume than the topologically body-centred cubic phase II. Phases II and III have been observed previously by Raman spectroscopy, but have been mis-identified or inconsistently named. Raman spectra collected on the same samples as used in the X-ray experiments establish the vibrational characteristics of both phases unambiguously. The pyridine molecules interact in both phases through CH⋯π and CH⋯N interactions. The nature of individual contacts is preserved through the phase transition between phases III and II, which occurs on decompression. A combination of rigid-body symmetry mode analysis and density functional theory calculations enables the soft vibrational lattice mode which governs the transformation to be identified

Dysregulated protocadherin-pathway activity as an intrinsic defect in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cortical interneurons from subjects with schizophrenia.

We generated cortical interneurons (cINs) from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from 14 healthy controls and 14 subjects with schizophrenia. Both healthy control cINs and schizophrenia cINs were authentic, fired spontaneously, received functional excitatory inputs from host neurons, and induced GABA-mediated inhibition in host neurons in vivo. However, schizophrenia cINs had dysregulated expression of protocadherin genes, which lie within documented schizophrenia loci. Mice lacking protocadherin-α showed defective arborization and synaptic density of prefrontal cortex cINs and behavioral abnormalities. Schizophrenia cINs similarly showed defects in synaptic density and arborization that were reversed by inhibitors of protein kinase C, a downstream kinase in the protocadherin pathway. These findings reveal an intrinsic abnormality in schizophrenia cINs in the absence of any circuit-driven pathology. They also demonstrate the utility of homogenous and functional populations of a relevant neuronal subtype for probing pathogenesis mechanisms during development

Smartphone monitoring of participants' engagement with home practice during mindfulness-based stress reduction: Observational study

Background: Standardized mindfulness training courses involve significant at-home assignments of meditation practice. Participants’ self-reported completion of these assignments has been correlated with treatment outcomes, but self-reported data are often incomplete and potentially biased. In addition, mindfulness teachers typically suggest that participants set aside a regular practice time, preferably in the morning, but the extent to which participants do this has not been empirically examined. Objective: This study aimed to analyze patterns of participant engagement with home practice in a mindfulness-based stress reduction course. Methods: We used a novel smartphone app to provide 25 participants with access to their daily practice assignments during the 8-week course. We analyzed data collected through our smartphone app to determine usage and listening patterns and performed analyses of the regularity and frequency of participant behavior. Results: We found that participants listened to a median of 3 of the 6 practice sessions per week, and they did not typically set aside a regular daily practice time. Across weekdays, participants practiced most frequently in the morning, but there was considerable variation in participants’ practice start times. On weekends, the peak practice time was in the evening. Conclusions: We suggest that it is feasible to integrate a smartphone-monitoring approach into existing mindfulness interventions. High-frequency smartphone monitoring can provide insights into how and when participants complete their homework, information that is important in supporting treatment engagement