Content Reading: Past. Present! Future?

With the impetus gathered by such ideas as presented by Flesch (1955) in Why Johnny Can\u27t Read and, certainly, by Allen\u27s (1969) proclamation that every child should have the right to read, a large portion of current educational writing has concerned the area of reading and reading education. Within reading education one particular facet of instruction, content area reading, has blossomed within the last few years. Articles, books, and conference sessions have been devoted to this very specific area of reading education (Herber, 1970; Laffey, 1972; Robinson, 1975)

Different W cluster deposition regimes in pulsed laser ablation observed by in situ Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

We report on how different cluster deposition regimes can be obtained and observed by in situ Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) by exploiting deposition parameters in a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process. Tungsten clusters were produced by nanosecond Pulsed Laser Ablation in Ar atmosphere at different pressures and deposited on Au(111) and HOPG surfaces. Deposition regimes including cluster deposition-diffusion-aggregation (DDA), cluster melting and coalescence and cluster implantation were observed, depending on background gas pressure and target-to-substrate distance which influence the kinetic energy of the ablated species. These parameters can thus be easily employed for surface modification by cluster bombardment, deposition of supported clusters and growth of films with different morphologies. The variation in cluster mobility on different substrates and its influence on aggregation and growth mechanisms has also been investigated.Comment: 12 pages (3 figures); Surface Science (accepted

Efficacy and safety of two neutralising monoclonal antibody therapies, sotrovimab and BRII-196 plus BRII-198, for adults hospitalised with COVID-19 (TICO): a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of two neutralising monoclonal antibody therapies (sotrovimab [Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline] and BRII-196 plus BRII-198 [Brii Biosciences]) for adults admitted to hospital for COVID-19 (hereafter referred to as hospitalised) with COVID-19. METHODS: In this multinational, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, clinical trial (Therapeutics for Inpatients with COVID-19 [TICO]), adults (aged ≥18 years) hospitalised with COVID-19 at 43 hospitals in the USA, Denmark, Switzerland, and Poland were recruited. Patients were eligible if they had laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 symptoms for up to 12 days. Using a web-based application, participants were randomly assigned (2:1:2:1), stratified by trial site pharmacy, to sotrovimab 500 mg, matching placebo for sotrovimab, BRII-196 1000 mg plus BRII-198 1000 mg, or matching placebo for BRII-196 plus BRII-198, in addition to standard of care. Each study product was administered as a single dose given intravenously over 60 min. The concurrent placebo groups were pooled for analyses. The primary outcome was time to sustained clinical recovery, defined as discharge from the hospital to home and remaining at home for 14 consecutive days, up to day 90 after randomisation. Interim futility analyses were based on two seven-category ordinal outcome scales on day 5 that measured pulmonary status and extrapulmonary complications of COVID-19. The safety outcome was a composite of death, serious adverse events, incident organ failure, and serious coinfection up to day 90 after randomisation. Efficacy and safety outcomes were assessed in the modified intention-to-treat population, defined as all patients randomly assigned to treatment who started the study infusion. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04501978. FINDINGS: Between Dec 16, 2020, and March 1, 2021, 546 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to sotrovimab (n=184), BRII-196 plus BRII-198 (n=183), or placebo (n=179), of whom 536 received part or all of their assigned study drug (sotrovimab n=182, BRII-196 plus BRII-198 n=176, or placebo n=178; median age of 60 years [IQR 50-72], 228 [43%] patients were female and 308 [57%] were male). At this point, enrolment was halted on the basis of the interim futility analysis. At day 5, neither the sotrovimab group nor the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group had significantly higher odds of more favourable outcomes than the placebo group on either the pulmonary scale (adjusted odds ratio sotrovimab 1·07 [95% CI 0·74-1·56]; BRII-196 plus BRII-198 0·98 [95% CI 0·67-1·43]) or the pulmonary-plus complications scale (sotrovimab 1·08 [0·74-1·58]; BRII-196 plus BRII-198 1·00 [0·68-1·46]). By day 90, sustained clinical recovery was seen in 151 (85%) patients in the placebo group compared with 160 (88%) in the sotrovimab group (adjusted rate ratio 1·12 [95% CI 0·91-1·37]) and 155 (88%) in the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group (1·08 [0·88-1·32]). The composite safety outcome up to day 90 was met by 48 (27%) patients in the placebo group, 42 (23%) in the sotrovimab group, and 45 (26%) in the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group. 13 (7%) patients in the placebo group, 14 (8%) in the sotrovimab group, and 15 (9%) in the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group died up to day 90. INTERPRETATION: Neither sotrovimab nor BRII-196 plus BRII-198 showed efficacy for improving clinical outcomes among adults hospitalised with COVID-19. FUNDING: US National Institutes of Health and Operation Warp Speed

Exchange Reactions between Alkanethiolates and Alkaneselenols on Au{111}

When alkanethiolate self-assembled monolayers on Au{111} are exchanged with alkaneselenols from solution, replacement of thiolates by selenols is rapid and complete, and is well described by perimeter-dependent island growth kinetics. The monolayer structures change as selenolate coverage increases, from being epitaxial and consistent with the initial thiolate structure to being characteristic of selenolate monolayer structures. At room temperature and at positive sample bias in scanning tunneling microscopy, the selenolate-gold attachment is labile, and molecules exchange positions with neighboring thiolates. The scanning tunneling microscope probe can be used to induce these place-exchange reactions

Emergent Properties of Dynamically Bonded Polymers

Dynamically bonded polymers are a class of materials which have garnered significant interest in recent years for their unique properties and potential applications. These polymers contain exchangeable linkages, thereby allowing for the long-range reorganization of polymer architectures within a given material. Extensive work has been done to develop novel strategies for incorporating covalent and non-covalent dynamic linkages into polymeric materials. This dissertation examines both dynamic covalent and non-covalently bound polymers, with a focus on understanding the emergent material properties that arise through dynamic exchange. A general overview of dynamic chemistries and their applications to polymer science is given in Chapter I. Chapter II discusses the design and synthesis of morpholin-2-one functionalized poly(norbornenes) and their application as reactive handles for single and double polymer modification. We provide in-depth kinetics studies to demonstrate the selective reactivity of morpholin-2-one with primary aliphatic amines, and further show that the latent alcohol group can be used as a second reactive site to for double modification of polymer chains. Finally, we present a one-pot approach to synthesize doubly grafted polymer architectures from monomeric starting materials. Chapter III focuses on the use of imidazolium sulfonate zwitterions as a non-covalent binding motif for supramolecular polymer networks. Herein, we report a trifunctional zwitterion, which form low molecular weight supramolecular glasses due to strong dipole-dipole interactions between zwitterionic dipoles. In chapter IV, we present photopolymerizable diketoenamine vitrimers utilizing bis-hydroxyamine crosslinkers as a model system to explore the role of crosslinker choice in controlling the topology- iii freezing temperature of triketone-based vitrimers. Finally, Chapter V provides a concise summary of our work and offers some future directions to pursue

Images of Gender and Ethnicity on Fortune Global 500 Company Websites.

This study examined how images of people of different genders and ethnicities were represented on Fortune Global 500 website front-screens. The front-screens produced 975 images of men and women. The images were analyzed using frequency counts and a six-point Body Index Scale. A major finding was that images of Caucasians dominated Fortune Global 500 front-screens. Caucasians represented 66.3 percent of the total images. Another major finding was that images of men were depicted more frequently than images of women on Fortune Global 500 website front-screens. Images of men comprised 51.9 percent of the total iamges, whereas images of women accounted for 48.1 percent of the images. The face-ism theory, which asserts that images of men and Caucasians are cropped to emphasize their intellect and dominance and images of women and people of minority ethnicities are cropped placing emphasis on their bodies, was not supported in this study