Who is Disabled? Who is Not? Teachers Perceptions of Disability in Lesotho

This paper reports on educational research conducted in Lesotho, Southern Africa. Mixed methods of research were used to elicit and describe teachers’ attitudes toward children they perceived as disabled. The study took place in a country where discussions on ‘the continuum’ of services, specialist diagnoses, and Western notions of assistive technology are largely irrelevant. Over-arching themes are compared to themes that have emerged from special education and Disability Studies literature over the past decade

Educational Leadership in the Era of Accountability

Recent changes in federal legislation, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), have placed greater emphasis on accountability via mandated reporting of performance measures

Global trends in meeting the educational rights of children with disabilities: From international institutions to local responses

The 2006 United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was an important and landmark treaty recognizing the human rights of persons with disabilities. In this article we focus on the educational rights of children with disabilities as directed by the Convention, specifically the right to receive an inclusive education. We view inclusive education as a convergence of education and disability rights initiatives within the UN and explain what this means in practice. In the second half of the paper, inclusive education is discussed in the context of the Global South and we observe the interplay between global and local interpretations of this model. We conclude with the argument that international human rights treaties matter; with the understanding that they must be locally and culturally actualized. International institutions can encourage South-South collaboration and local ownership of pragmatic solutions. Such encouragement may decrease accusations of cultural imperialism and facilitate local innovation in inclusive education

Transcription Is Required to Establish Maternal Imprinting at the Prader-Willi Syndrome and Angelman Syndrome Locus

The Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS [MIM 17620]) and Angelman syndrome (AS [MIM 105830]) locus is controlled by a bipartite imprinting center (IC) consisting of the PWS-IC and the AS-IC. The most widely accepted model of IC function proposes that the PWS-IC activates gene expression from the paternal allele, while the AS-IC acts to epigenetically inactivate the PWS-IC on the maternal allele, thus silencing the paternally expressed genes. Gene order and imprinting patterns at the PWS/AS locus are well conserved from human to mouse; however, a murine AS-IC has yet to be identified. We investigated a potential regulatory role for transcription from the Snrpn alternative upstream exons in silencing the maternal allele using a murine transgene containing Snrpn and three upstream exons. This transgene displayed appropriate imprinted expression and epigenetic marks, demonstrating the presence of a functional AS-IC. Transcription of the upstream exons from the endogenous locus correlates with imprint establishment in oocytes, and this upstream exon expression pattern was conserved on the transgene. A transgene bearing targeted deletions of each of the three upstream exons exhibited loss of imprinting upon maternal transmission. These results support a model in which transcription from the Snrpn upstream exons directs the maternal imprint at the PWS-IC

Meaningful employment opportunities for youth with disabilities in Bhutan: piloting an employment assessment toolkit

This article presents the adaptation of a screening tool to help young persons with disabilities understand what they may need to do in in order to move closer to meaningful work. Using critical capabilities approach, we developed a toolkit to support the transition process from home, school, or other setting to formal or informal employment in Bhutan. Community Inclusion Coordinators were recruited to mentor 40 participants to gain confidence, appropriate work skills to get closer to being work-ready. We also evaluated the efficacy and utility of the toolkit which revealed that some of the participants valued having honest and open conversations about personal and professional issues

of Education or Offices within it. NCEO Core Staff

assessment: Results of a comparative study (Technical Report 64). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educationa

WFPC2 Observations of the Cooling Flow Elliptical in Abell 1795

We present WFPC2 images of the core of the cooling flow cD galaxy in Abell 1795. An irregular, asymmetric dust lane extends 7 \h75 kpc in projection to the north-northwest. The dust shares the morphology observed in the H$\alpha$ and excess UV emission. We see both diffuse and knotty blue emission around the dust lane, especially at the ends. The dust and emission features lie on the edge of the radio lobes, suggesting star formation induced by the radio source or the deflection of the radio jets off of pre-existing dust and gas. We measure an apparent R$_V$ significantly less than 3.1, implying that the extinction law is not Galactic in the dust lane, or the presence of line emission which is proportional to the extinction. The dust mass is at least 2$\times10^{5} h_{75}^{-2}$ M\solar\ and is more likely to be 6.5$\times10^{5} h_{75}^{-2}$ M\solar.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX, Figure 4 included, Postscript Figs. 1-3 available at ftp://astro.nmsu.edu/pub/JASON/A1795/, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Portable gas chromatography–mass spectrometry method for the in‑feld screening of organic pollutants in soil and water at pollution incidents

Environmental pollution incidents generate an emergency response from regulatory agencies to ensure that the impact on the environment is minimised. Knowing what pollutants are present provides important intelligence to assist in determining how to respond to the incident. However, responders are limited in their in-feld capabilities to identify the pollutants present. This research has developed an in-feld, qualitative analytical approach to detect and identify organic pollutants that are commonly detected by regulatory environmental laboratories. A rapid, in-feld extraction method was used for water and soil matrices. A coiled microextraction (CME) device was utilised for the introduction of the extracted samples into a portable gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) for analysis. The total combined extraction and analysis time was approximately 6.5 min per sample. Results demonstrated that the in-feld extraction and analysis methods can screen for ffty-nine target organic contaminants, including polyaromatic hydrocarbons, monoaromatic hydrocarbons, phenols, phthalates, organophosphorus pesticides, and organochlorine pesticides. The method was also capable of tentatively identifying unknown compounds using library searches, signifcantly expanding the scope of the methods for the provision of intelligence at pollution incidents of an unknown nature, although a laboratory-based method was able to provide more information due to the higher sensitivity achievable. The methods were evaluated using authentic casework samples and were found to be ft-for-purpose for providing rapid in-feld intelligence at pollution incidents. The fact that the in-feld methods target the same compounds as the laboratory-based methods provides the added beneft that the in-feld results can assist in sample triaging upon submission to the laboratory for quantitation and confrmatory analysis