Writing and Reading Connections: Giving Value to Both Sides of the Same Literacy Coin

The purpose of this article is to comment on ways that writing-reading connections can take place enhancing reading comprehension and composition. Drawing from a genre-based instructional approach, examples are provided to explain such connections in the process of (a) a rhetorical analysis conducted on writing prompts and prior to reading, (b) examination of writing purposes and genres for writing and reading, (c) read alouds for retelling and monitoring meaning making, and (d) of critical reading for reviewing purposes and determination of clarity of written ideas. The article concludes with guidelines for classroom teachers and recommendations for the implementation of the suggested practices

Presenting video recordings of newborn resuscitations in debriefings for teamwork training

Background: The Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) and similar courses have been used to train clinicians. However, formal teamwork training was not included in these courses, and their effectiveness has been questioned. In adult resuscitation, debriefings using video recordings have improved outcomes, but recordings of neonatal resuscitation have been used primarily for research

Scratch.

Scratch investigated the use of physical space as a site and representation of narrative and dramatic structure. It was commissioned by and collaboratively developed with BBC Radio Drama. Boyd Davis directed the project and devised and undertook the evaluation with 40 trial listeners. It was unprecedented in being location-sensitive without being tied to any particular place, building on research undertaken for Dragons (Boyd Davis REF Output 4). It used pre-recorded audio on GPS-enabled mobile devices allowing sounds to be virtually attached to locations in an outdoor space. As participants moved, they encountered scenes forming a coherent drama; the same place behaved differently if visited more than once. This translocational approach opened novel artistic possibilities that were exploited through team expertise in narrative, sound design and advanced interaction. It was also significant for the economics of broadcast media, a more viable proposition than the many locative experiences that have been site-specific: a factor of great interest to the BBC. The public performance selected for BBC FreeThinking, September 2008 in Liverpool, that year’s European Capital of Culture, was reported in a co-written 2009 conference presentation at ISEA, Belfast (2009) and in a co-written short chapter in Spierling and Szilas (eds.), Interactive Storytelling (2008). Boyd Davis reported the findings to BBC executives (http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/1000/), for whom an additional trial was run in London in 2009. He used mixed methods, open but capable of rigorous analysis, to feed back to the makers of the drama and to guide BBC policy. Abigail le Fleming (Producer BBC Radio Drama) confirms that ‘through this collaboration, the Radio Drama department became the first BBC unit to experiment with GPS technologies’. The work ‘brought us to tackle non-linear narratives in ways that we would not have otherwise done… invaluable in terms of the questions that it raised for radio drama.

Treatment of Right Hemisphere Damaged Patients

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Analysis of epigenetic changes in survivors of preterm birth reveals the effect of gestational age and evidence for a long term legacy

BACKGROUND: Preterm birth confers a high risk of adverse long term health outcomes for survivors, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms are unclear. We hypothesized that effects of preterm birth can be mediated through measurable epigenomic changes throughout development. We therefore used a longitudinal birth cohort to measure the epigenetic mark of DNA methylation at birth and 18 years comparing survivors of extremely preterm birth with infants born at term. METHODS: Using 12 extreme preterm birth cases and 12 matched, term controls, we extracted DNA from archived neonatal blood spots and blood collected in a similar way at 18 years of age. DNA methylation was measured at 347,789 autosomal locations throughout the genome using Infinium HM450 arrays. Representative methylation differences were confirmed by Sequenom MassArray EpiTYPER. RESULTS: At birth we found 1,555 sites with significant differences in methylation between term and preterm babies. At 18 years of age, these differences had largely resolved, suggesting that DNA methylation differences at birth are mainly driven by factors relating to gestational age, such as cell composition and/or maturity. Using matched longitudinal samples, we found evidence for an epigenetic legacy associated with preterm birth, identifying persistent methylation differences at ten genomic loci. Longitudinal comparisons of DNA methylation at birth and 18 years uncovered a significant overlap between sites that were differentially-methylated at birth and those that changed with age. However, we note that overlapping sites may either differ in the same (300/1,555) or opposite (431/1,555) direction during gestation and aging respectively. CONCLUSIONS: We present evidence for widespread methylation differences between extreme preterm and term infants at birth that are largely resolved by 18 years of age. These results are consistent with methylation changes associated with blood cell development, cellular composition, immune induction and age at these time points. Finally, we identified ten probes significantly associated with preterm individuals and with greater than 5% methylation discordance at birth and 18 years that may reflect a long term epigenetic legacy of preterm birth

Impact of ultraviolet radiation on marine crustacean zooplankton and ichthyoplankton: a synthesis of results from the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada

The objectives of the research program reported upon here were (1) to measure ambient levels of UV radiation and determine whichvariables most strongly affected its attenuation in the waters of the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada; and (2) to investigate the potential direct impacts of W radiation on species of crustacean zooplankton and fish whose early life stages are planktonic. In this geographic region, productivity-determining biophysical interactions occur in the upper 0 to 30 m of the water column. Measurements of the diffuse attenuation coefficients for ultraviolet-B radiation (W-B, 280 to 320 nm) at various locations in this region indicated maximum 10% depths (the depth to which 10% of the surface energy penetrates at a given wavelength) of 3 to 4 m at a wavelength of 310 nm. Organisms residing in this layer-including the eggs and larvae of Calanus finmarchicus and Atlantic cod Gadus morhua-are exposed to biologically damaging levels of W radiation. As a result of these physical and biological characteristics, this system offered a relevant opportunity to assess the impacts of UV on subarctic marine ecosystems. Eggs of C. finmarchicus were incubated under the sun, with and without the W-B and/or UV-A (320 to 400 nm) wavebands. W-exposed eggs exhibited low percent hatchmg compared to those protected from W : W radiation had a strong negative impact on C. finmarchicus eggs. Further, percent hatching in W-B-exposed eggs was not significantly lower than that in eggs exposed to UV-A only: under natural sunlight, UV-A radiation appeared to be more detrimental to C. finmarchicus embryos than was UV-B. In analogous experiments with Atlantic cod eggs, exposure to UV-B produced a significant negative effect. However, UV-A had no negative effect on cod eggs. Additional experiments using a solar simulator (SS) revealed high wavelength-dependent mortality in both C. finmarchicus and cod embryos exposed to UV. The strongest effects occurred under exposures to wavelengths below 312 nm. At the shorter wavelengths (<305 nm) UV-B-induced mortality was strongly dose-dependent, but (for both C. finmarchicus and cod) not significantly influenced by dose-rate. Thus, at least within the limits of the exposures under which the biological weighting functions (BWFs) were generated, reciprocity held. The BWFs derived for UV-B-induced mortality in C. finmarchicus and cod eggs were similar in shape to the action spectrum for UV-B effects on naked DNA. Further, the wavelengthdependence of DNA damage was similar to that for the mortality effect. These observations suggest that W-induced mortality in C. finmarchicus and cod eggs is a direct result of DNA damage. There was no evidence of a detrimental effect of UV-A radiation in these SS-derived results. A mathematical model that includes the BWFs, vertical mixing of eggs, meteorological and hydrographic conditions, and ozone depletion, indicates that W-induced mortality in the C. finmarchicus egg population could be as high as 32.5 %, while the impact on the cod egg population was no more than 1.2%. Variability in cloud cover, water transparency (and the variables that affect it), and vertical distribution and displacement of planktonic organisms within the mixed layer can all have a greater effect on the flux of UV-B radiation to which they are exposed than will ozone layer depletion at these latitudes. Our observations indicate that C, finmarchicus and cod eggs present in the first meter of the water column (likely only a small percentage of the total egg populations) are susceptible to W radiation. However, although exposure to UV can negatively impact crustacean zooplankton and ichthyoplankton populations, these direct effects are likely minimal within the context of all the other environmental factors that produce the very high levels of mortality typically observed in their planktonic early life stages. The impact of indnect effects-which may well be of much greater import-has yet to be evaluated

The Relationship Between Physical Activity and Cardiorespiratory Fitness Among People Living With Human Immunodeficiency Virus Throughout The Life Span

BACKGROUND: People living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) are at an increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness in PLHIV are poorly understood. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to describe physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness by sex and age and to examine the association between physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness in PLHIV, controlling for covariates. METHODS: Seven hundred two PLHIV participated in a cross-sectional study and completed validated measures of self-reported physical activity (7-day Physical Activity Recall) and cardiorespiratory fitness (6-minute walk test). Participants were recruited from 7 diverse sites in the United States and Thailand, and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression to examine the relationship between physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness. RESULTS: On average, participants self-reported engaging in 115 minutes of, mostly light (75%), physical activity. Men reported twice the amount of physical activity as women (155 vs 73 minutes, P = .01). Participants\u27 ability to achieve their predicted 6-minute walk test distances was similar between men (68%) and women (69%) (P \u3e .01). For women, vigorous physical activity was associated with a 6.6% increase in cardiorespiratory fitness and being temporarily unemployed was associated with an 18% decline in cardiorespiratory fitness. Cardiorespiratory fitness increased with age (P \u3c .01). CONCLUSIONS: Weekly physical activity of people living with human immunodeficiency virus averaged 85 minutes of mostly light activity, well below the recommended 150 minutes of moderate activity. Vigorous physical activity was associated with improved cardiorespiratory fitness in women, but not men. Although PLHIV would benefit from interventions to increase physical activity, our data suggest a need to develop sex-specific physical activity strategies

Integrating General Practice into the Australian COVID-19 response: A description of the GP Respiratory Clinic program in Australia

Integrating primary care within the health response is key to managing pandemics and other health emergencies. In recognition of this role the Australian Government established a network of General Practitioner (GP) led respiratory clinics (GPRCs) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of a suite of broader measures aimed at sustaining community access to primary care. GPRCs provide holistic face to face assessment and treatment to those with respiratory symptoms in an environment with strict protocols for infection prevention and control; ensuring that this patient cohort is able to access high quality primary care whilst protecting the General Practice workforce and other patients. The GPRC model was rapidly developed and operationalised with the first 2 GPRCs opening on March 21, 10 days after the policy was announced. Subsequently a total of 150 GPRCs have opened with broad geographic coverage that have serviced over 800,000 individuals living in more than 99% of Australia's postcodes. Through use of a standardised data collection tool GPRCs also provide the largest and most complete source of primary care surveillance data of respiratory illness in Australia. The success of the GPRC model has been possible through strong partnerships with Primary Health Networks and individual general practices who rapidly shifted operations to embrace this new approach. The GPRC network offers ongoing infrastructure and workforce capability to manage other health emergencies, and may be able to be adapted to other settings.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166482/1/AFM_105-20_PP.pdfDescription of AFM_105-20_PP.pdf : Main ArticleSEL

Targeted memory reactivation of newly learned words during sleep triggers REM-mediated integration of new memories and existing knowledge

Recent memories are spontaneously reactivated during sleep, leading to their gradual strengthening. Whether reactivation also mediates the integration of new memories with existing knowledge is unknown. We used targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during slow-wave sleep (SWS) to selectively cue reactivation of newly learned spoken words. While integration of new words into their phonological neighbourhood was observed in both cued and uncued words after sleep, TMR-triggered integration was predicted by the time spent in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. These data support complementary roles for SWS and REM in memory consolidation