Reconceptualizing the Achieving Success Everyday Group Counseling Model to Focus on the Strengths of Black Male Middle School Youth

Scholarship focused on Black male students in school counseling has been intermittent despite being well documented in the larger field of education and other disciplines. In this article, we conducted a systematic review of the school counseling literature that focused on Black male students. We used critical race theory (CRT) to examine the programs and interventions that have been published with Black male participants in school settings within the school counseling literature and examined the role that school counselors took when supporting Black male students’ academic, social emotional, college and career identity development. We reconceptualize the Achieving Success Everyday (ASE) group model (Steen et al., 2014) and call for others to use the ASE group model to combat racism and foster Black excellence

On the cyclic homology of certain universal differential graded algebras

Let $p$ be an odd prime and $R$ a $p$-torsion-free commutative $\mathbb{Z}_{(p)}$-algebra. We compute the periodic cyclic homology over $R$ of the universal differential graded algebra $R//p$ which is obtained from $R$ by universally killing $p$. We furthermore compute the cyclic and negative cyclic homologies of $R//p$ over $R$ in infinitely many degrees.Comment: 20 page

An In-Depth Case Study of a Prospective Black Male Teacher Candidate with an Undisclosed Disability at a Historically Black College and University

As scholarship of Black male collegians is growing, there is limited research attentive to Black males with disabilities and in teacher education programs. The research focused on pre-service Black male teachers with disabilities attending HBCUs and the federal laws impacting their education and supports is absent. This research study fills the void by examining the individual experiences of a Black male pre-service teacher with a disability attending an HBCU. The research team used Black males with disability theory and single-subject case study methodology to describe Christopher “CJ” Jackson’s journey navigating his program of study as an English education major. Four main themes emerged in the study of CJ that capture his collegiate and teacher education experiences: a) influences to become an English teacher, b) field experience issues, c) inconsistent academic performance, and d) postsecondary academic adjustments. The research team offers recommendations for supporting pre-service Black male teachers in college and in teacher education programs

A Practitioner's Guide to Bayesian Inference in Pharmacometrics using Pumas

This paper provides a comprehensive tutorial for Bayesian practitioners in pharmacometrics using Pumas workflows. We start by giving a brief motivation of Bayesian inference for pharmacometrics highlighting limitations in existing software that Pumas addresses. We then follow by a description of all the steps of a standard Bayesian workflow for pharmacometrics using code snippets and examples. This includes: model definition, prior selection, sampling from the posterior, prior and posterior simulations and predictions, counter-factual simulations and predictions, convergence diagnostics, visual predictive checks, and finally model comparison with cross-validation. Finally, the background and intuition behind many advanced concepts in Bayesian statistics are explained in simple language. This includes many important ideas and precautions that users need to keep in mind when performing Bayesian analysis. Many of the algorithms, codes, and ideas presented in this paper are highly applicable to clinical research and statistical learning at large but we chose to focus our discussions on pharmacometrics in this paper to have a narrower scope in mind and given the nature of Pumas as a software primarily for pharmacometricians

Profile of plasma lipids and degree of derangements among the elderly of Morogoro region, Tanzania

Changes in lifestyles and ageing have been associated with growing rates of modifiable cardiovascular risk factors (CRF). Dyslipidemia is one of the CRF associated with numbers of cardiovascular diseases. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the profile and degree of derangements of plasma lipids among 300 (176 females and 124 males) elderly individuals aged ≥60 years in Morogoro, Tanzania. The calorimetric enzymatic methods and the Friedewal’s equation were used for determination of cholesterols and triglycerides (TG). Social and demographic characteristics were gathered by structured questionnaires. The logistic regression models were used to identify the determinants of abnormal serum lipids level. Mean Total Cholesterols (TC) and Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterols (LDL-C) in females exceeded significantly that of males. Mean TC, LDL-C as well as TG (mg/dL) declined significantly with age while mean High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterols (HDL-C) also declined but only slightly. Elderly females were two times more likely to have elevated TC (OR=2.11; 95% CI: 1.04-4.28: P=0.05) and LDL-C (OR=2.15; 95% CI: 1.17-3.97: P=0.019) and three times to have lowered HDL-C (OR=3; 95% CI: 1.97-5.30: P<0.001) than males. Urban residents were about two times more likely to have elevated LDL-C (OR=1.84; 95% CI: 1.04-3.25: P=0.047) than their rural counterparts. Body Mass Index of ≥30 kg/m2 was also associated with elevated LDL-C (OR=1.89; 95% CI: 1.05-3.42: P=0.045) and lowered HDL-C (OR=2.18; 95% CI: 1.3-3.65: P=0.004), respectively. The present study has established the profile and level of derangements of serum lipids among the elderly of Morogoro region in Tanzania. It appears that, female sex and BMI of ≥ 30kg/m2 are significant factors for elevated TC, LDL-C and lowered HDL-C while urban life is a significant factor for elevated LDL-C

Distinct subsets of unmyelinated primary sensory fibers mediate behavioral responses to noxious thermal and mechanical stimuli

Behavioral responses to painful stimuli require peripheral sensory neurons called nociceptors. Electrophysiological studies show that most C-fiber nociceptors are polymodal (i.e., respond to multiple noxious stimulus modalities, such as mechanical and thermal); nevertheless, these stimuli are perceived as distinct. Therefore, it is believed that discrimination among these modalities only occurs at spinal or supraspinal levels of processing. Here, we provide evidence to the contrary. Genetic ablation in adulthood of unmyelinated sensory neurons expressing the G protein-coupled receptor Mrgprd reduces behavioral sensitivity to noxious mechanical stimuli but not to heat or cold stimuli. Conversely, pharmacological ablation of the central branches of TRPV1+ nociceptors, which constitute a nonoverlapping population, selectively abolishes noxious heat pain sensitivity. Combined elimination of both populations yielded an additive phenotype with no additional behavioral deficits, ruling out a redundant contribution of these populations to heat and mechanical pain sensitivity. This double-dissociation suggests that the brain can distinguish different noxious stimulus modalities from the earliest stages of sensory processing

Curvature Invariants for the Alcubierre and Nat\'ario Warp Drives

A process for using curvature invariants is applied to evaluate the metrics for the Alcubierre and the Natario warp drives at a constant velocity.Curvature invariants are independent of coordinate bases, so plotting these invariants will be free of coordinate mapping distortions. As a consequence, they provide a novel perspective into complex spacetimes such as warp drives. Warp drives are the theoretical solutions to Einstein's field equations that allow the possibility for faster-than-light (FTL) travel. While their mathematics is well established, the visualisation of such spacetimes is unexplored. This paper uses the methods of computing and plotting the warp drive curvature invariants to reveal these spacetimes. The warp drive parameters of velocity, skin depth and radius are varied individually and then plotted to see each parameter's unique effect on the surrounding curvature. For each warp drive, this research shows a safe harbor and how the shape function forms the warp bubble. The curvature plots for the constant velocity Natario warp drive do not contain a wake or a constant curvature indicating that these are unique features of the accelerating Natario warp drive.Comment: 41 Pages, 15 figure

Proinsulin Secretion Is a Persistent Feature of Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: Abnormally elevated proinsulin secretion has been reported in type 2 and early type 1 diabetes when significant C-peptide is present. We questioned whether individuals with long-standing type 1 diabetes and low or absent C-peptide secretory capacity retained the ability to make proinsulin. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: C-peptide and proinsulin were measured in fasting and stimulated sera from 319 subjects with long-standing type 1 diabetes (≥3 years) and 12 control subjects without diabetes. We considered three categories of stimulated C-peptide: 1) C-peptide positive, with high stimulated values ≥0.2 nmol/L; 2) C-peptide positive, with low stimulated values ≥0.017 but <0.2 nmol/L; and 3) C-peptide <0.017 nmol/L. Longitudinal samples were analyzed from C-peptide-positive subjects with diabetes after 1, 2, and 4 years. RESULTS: Of individuals with long-standing type 1 diabetes, 95.9% had detectable serum proinsulin (>3.1 pmol/L), while 89.9% of participants with stimulated C-peptide values below the limit of detection (<0.017 nmol/L; n = 99) had measurable proinsulin. Proinsulin levels remained stable over 4 years of follow-up, while C-peptide decreased slowly during longitudinal analysis. Correlations between proinsulin with C-peptide and mixed-meal stimulation of proinsulin were found only in subjects with high stimulated C-peptide values (≥0.2 nmol/L). Specifically, increases in proinsulin with mixed-meal stimulation were present only in the group with high stimulated C-peptide values, with no increases observed among subjects with low or undetectable (<0.017 nmol/L) residual C-peptide. CONCLUSIONS: In individuals with long-duration type 1 diabetes, the ability to secrete proinsulin persists, even in those with undetectable serum C-peptide