Language and Literacy Development in Children Learning English as an Additional Language: a Longitudinal Cohort and Vocabulary Intervention Study

Children learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) are a growing but understudied population of learners in English primary schools. As EAL learners vary in their amount of exposure to English, they often begin formal education with relatively lower levels of English language proficiency than their monolingual peers. Little is known about the English language and literacy developmental trajectories of EAL learners in England, and particularly, the extent to which the two groups of learners converge or diverge over time. Additionally, no studies to date have assessed the efficacy of explicit, targeted vocabulary instruction in this group of learners in the run up to the end of primary school. The present study comprised a longitudinal cohort study of 48 EAL learners and 33 monolingual peers who were assessed at three time points between Year 4 (age 8-9) and Year 5 (age 9-10) on a battery of English language and literacy measures. All EAL learners had received English-medium education since at least Year 1 (age 5-6). Relative to their monolingual peers, EAL learners showed strengths in rapid naming, single-word reading efficiency, and spelling, but weaknesses in vocabulary knowledge, expressive syntax, and passage reading accuracy. Where they exhibited weaknesses, EAL learners generally did not make sufficient progress in order to close gaps with their monolingual peers. A subgroup of nine EAL learners with English vocabulary weaknesses also participated in short-term vocabulary intervention. Working one-to-one with speech and language therapy students, children showed significant gains in receptive and productive knowledge of target vocabulary which were maintained six months later. Together, results indicate that regular classroom instruction may be insufficient for EAL learners to close gaps with their monolingual peers in certain domains of oral language, but that targeted vocabulary instruction may be an effective means of achieving this end

The visit by Buffalo Bill's Wild West to Barcelona, December 1889 - January 1890

Previous scholarship suggests that the five weeks that Buffalo Bill's Wild West Exhibition spent in Barcelona in the winter of 1889-1890 was the low point of its various European tours if not indeed of its entire existence. The present study challenges that interpretation on the basis of evidence from a substantial body of contemporary sources in Catalan, English and Spanish, including newspaper and magazine coverage of the tour from Spain and the United States, previously unpublished correspondence and memoires by company members, together with official records. It argues for a re-evaluation of the Wild West's only visit to Spain in the context of recent studies of the life and works of William F. Cody by scholars such as Bonner, Kasson, Kroes and Rydell and Warren which have underlined the importance of Buffalo Bill's Wild West as a hugely successful and influential American cultural product and international intercultural phenomenon that flourished at a period that was crucial for American nation (re)building in the years after the Civil War, and for the development of United States' relations with Europe in the run-up to the First World War. It discusses the reasons why the exhibition did not return to Spain during its more extensive 1905-1906 European tour and concludes that the enduring influence of dominant historiographic trends found in accounts of Spanish-American international relations between the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Spanish American War of 1898 have been crucial contributing factors to the on-going misunderstanding of the time that Buffalo Bill's Wild West spent in Barcelona. A number of the rare or previously unpublished sources which are cited as evidence in the argument are included as appendices to the study.Previous scholarship suggests that the five weeks that Buffalo Bill's Wild West Exhibition spent in Barcelona in the winter of 1889-1890 was the low point of its various European tours if not indeed of its entire existence. The present study challenges that interpretation on the basis of evidence from a substantial body of contemporary sources in Catalan, English and Spanish, including newspaper and magazine coverage of the tour from Spain and the United States, previously unpublished correspondence and memoires by company members, together with official records. It argues for a re-evaluation of the Wild West's only visit to Spain in the context of recent studies of the life and works of William F. Cody by scholars such as Bonner, Kasson, Kroes and Rydell and Warren which have underlined the importance of Buffalo Bill's Wild West as a hugely successful and influential American cultural product and international intercultural phenomenon that flourished at a period that was crucial for American nation (re)building in the years after the Civil War, and for the development of United States' relations with Europe in the run-up to the First World War. It discusses the reasons why the exhibition did not return to Spain during its more extensive 1905-1906 European tour and concludes that the enduring influence of dominant historiographic trends found in accounts of Spanish-American international relations between the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Spanish American War of 1898 have been crucial contributing factors to the on-going misunderstanding of the time that Buffalo Bill's Wild West spent in Barcelona. A number of the rare or previously unpublished sources which are cited as evidence in the argument are included as appendices to the study

The DNA Binding Activity of the Potato NBLRR protein Rx1

Plant NBLRR proteins are immune receptors named for their characteristic domains. Their mode of action is currently undetermined. The potato NBLRR protein Rx1 has been shown to possess a DNA binding activity in vitro. This thesis presents evidence that Rx1 binds DNA in response to its cognate elicitor CP106 in fixed N. benthamiana leaf material using a novel FRET-FLIM assay. The Rx1 CC and NBARC domains were both shown to possess this DNA binding activity. A nucleocytoplasmic distribution of Rx1 was shown to be required for DNA binding. Potential regulators of Rx1 DNA binding activity were identified using a yeast 2-hybrid screen against the CC domain of Rx1 and their effects on Rx1 DNA binding and Rx1 mediated immunity characterised. The transcription factor NbGLK1 was identified and characterised as a promoter of Rx1 DNA binding using FRET-FLIM and a promotor of Rx1 mediated extreme resistance to PVX. However, NbGLK1 was not found to affect Rx1 mediated HR. The protein NbMLHP was also identified in the yeast 2-hybrid screen. This protein was not found to impact Rx1 DNA binding in FRET-FLIM assays. It was, however, identified as a suppressor of Rx1 mediated extreme resistance to PVX (but not HR), and Rx1 did inhibit NbMLHP DNA binding

Identifying Genetic Differences Among African American And Caucasian Triple Negative Breast Cancer Genotypes

Triple negative breast cancers (TNBC) are closely related to basal-like cancers and classified based on their molecular signatures and their progenitor cell type. TNBCs lack the presence of three common types of receptors known to fuel breast cancer growth: estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptors 2 (HER2neu). TNBC represent 10-20% of all molecular breast cancer subtypes. Even though genomic and transcriptome analyses show that many of the molecular signatures associated with TNBC are not related to ethnicity, clinicians and researchers find that African American (AA) TNBC women have higher mortality rates compared to Caucasian (CA) women. The high mortality rates are linked to socioeconomic factors like access to adequate healthcare, but researchers are exploring the possibility that genetic differences between AA and CA patients may also play a role in racial disparities. Microarray analyses have been instrumental in characterizing TNBC and many other types of breast cancer. Related to TNBC, microarray analyses (a) validate the negative receptor-status of the cancers (b) identify and define the six sub-categories of TNBC validating the heterogeneity of the cancers as defined by Lehmann et al and (c) the microarray gene expression platform is proving to be useful towards determining genes differentially represented in AA and CA TNBC. Our approach is to use the microarray platform (and a cell line model) to further examine the differences between the transcriptomes of CA and AA women. For more accurate transcriptome comparisons, we’ve identified and compared AA Basal-A TNBC to CA Basal-A TNBC, and separately AA Basal-B TNBC compared to CA Basal-B TNBC. Bioinformatic analyses show that TCEAL8 and TCEAL9 genes, both located on X-chromosome are differentially expressed in AA compared to CA TNBC. The EFHD1 gene is identified as differentially expressed in AA Basal-B compared to CA Basal- B TNBC. These data serve as a preliminary study towards further characterizing molecular differences between the transcriptomes of AA compared to CA TNBC patient populations

What is the Value of Home? NOT FOR SALE - West End Interventions

Many Australians today are image consumers. We fail to question the importance of lifestyle imagery created and promoted by Real Estate Agencies whom have no actual part in the physical creation of house, or indeed the intimate making of "home" through our experiences of place. Real Estate Markets dictate how, where, when and what we buy. Re-sale values, profit-making, and value-adding interfere with the crafting of a home over time as a tangible, individual, collaborative, and rich lived experience of dwelling. The "NOT FOR SALE" project is a response and critique of the dominance of real estate forces in West End within the context and unshakable presence of a booming inner-city property market. This proposal originated from an experimental dwelling in Avebury St., West End. This project has been fashioned over a period of several years primarily from recycled local materials, interconnected with the changing needs and spatial requirements of the occupants and project participants. The influence of property markets is of little concern in this home "making". The "NOT FOR SALE" project attempts to question and critique the purely financial value that we as a society place upon our homes. By appropriating and re-coding the Real Estate Signage typologies, we aim to provoke social commentary on the dominance of real estate forces in the West End suburb. There is a strong and rich tradition of anti-consumerist activist graffiti in West End. Activists re-code signs and property with political commentary and critique. The "NOT FOR SALE" project draws upon this tradition through our RRESign (Recodified Real Estate Signs): we aim to redress the dominant commercial forces associated with the single house/property. Collectively, at the scale of the street, these RRESigns will reflect a critique of street scale, amenity, and character. Finally, at the scale of the suburb, the network of RRESigns will reflect a critique of the idea of place making. Collectively, the aim of the "NOT FOR SALE" RRESign interventions is to highlight the idea of making and the material characteristics of dwelling that challenges the cultural value of commodified property, re-defining and prioritising the idea of "home". Conventional Real Estate signs use images and text to sell an idea of home: our proposed interventions sell nothing, and are rather celebrations of the joy of making tactile, handcrafted objects, and by extension, the making and crafting of home. The intimate and experiential understanding of home will be harnessed through the engagement of local residents. Community groups within West End such as Local Push can further disseminate the RRESign interventions. The signs will be constructed West End-specific materials (old signs purchased from inexpensive second-hand material merchant Reverse Garbage in Montague Rd.): turning post-consumer waste into objects of material beauty and social critique. Residents and community groups will be encouraged to place their RRESigns outside their properties and adjacent real estate signs, frustrating and recoding the existing For-Sale signs that currently dominate the West End street scape. The project is dependent on the support of the local residents, extending from a few signs in Avebury St. to a network of RRESigns throughout West End. A commentary on people's responses to the project will be linked to the www.apbv.com.au website. What is the value of home

The evidence paradox – or when is a series not a series?

In their recent briefing paper on breaks and discontinuities in official data series in the UK, Ruth Dixon and Christopher Hood highlighted the tension between the demand for quantitative evidence to drive performance improvement and the tendency to systematically destroy the very evidence by which performance can be evaluated. This paper was discussed, and further examples of data breaks across the public sector were explored, at a seminar at LSE in April 2015 attended by senior civil servants and academics. An ensuing discussion embodied the same tensions, with some participants emphasising the need for indicator continuity, and others stressing that indicators must change as methodologies, purposes, and audiences evolve. Can this tension be resolved? In this article, Ruth Dixon, Tony Travers and Christopher Hood suggest that recommendations arising from the seminar might point to a way to reconcile these demand

Penrose conference report: Kinematics and geodynamics of intraplate dextral shear in eastern California and western Nevada

This conference provided a forum to discuss the range of geological and geophysical datasets from the eastern California shear zone (ECSZ) and Walker Lane belt (WLB) that bear on how intraplate deformation is accommodated and how to integrate the data into a comprehensive, spatially and kinematically coherent view of intraplate deformation through time