Outcomes of Program-wide Positive Behavior Supports in Early Childhood Settings

There is growing concern over the high numbers of children who exhibit problem behavior in early childhood settings. Although initial data for a tiered framework of behavioral support, Program Wide Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PWPBIS), has emerged and has shown promise in the early childhood literature, there are still a limited number of investigations on the topic. This study evaluated the effects of one region\u27s PWPBIS implementation in six preschools with 21 teachers on challenging behavior in young children. A quasi-experimental research design evaluated the pre/post assessment results for student outcomes. In addition, the impact of teacher fidelity on student outcomes was evaluated using HLM. Results indicated that both the intervention and control group made gains across time. Fidelity of implementation did not affect student outcomes in this investigation. Rather, the teacher covariate of years of experience was statistically significant indicating that for each additional year of experience a teacher had, the intercept of the student post-test would decrease .186 units

Discussion of Hope in Children

Kelly Drogan ’22Major: PsychologyFaculty Mentor: Dr. Jennifer Van Reet, Psychology This year, with the help of my faculty advisor, Dr. Jennifer Van Reet, and the Providence College Center for Engaged Learning, I conducted a study evaluating hopefulness in children and college students. I chose to study hope because of an internship experience I had at the Department of Children and Families. I was interested in discovering what variables may be able to increase hope in children, while also looking at the developmental progression of hopefulness over time. Hope is both the belief that you can achieve your goals, and the ability to recognize the necessary steps to reach the goal. I chose to compare hopefulness scores with scores of adaptive coping/emotion regulation and perception of social support. I also compared hopefulness levels between children (ages 8-12) and PC undergraduates. After running test, many of my results were statistically significant and provided insight into the fields of positive and developmental psychology. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research, and would definitely recommend the process to other students

Ansia da lingua straniera e comunicazione orale

Il tema della tesi è: “Ansia da lingua straniera e comunicazione orale”. E. K. Horwits, D. Young, P. MacIntyre ed altri nei loro studi hanno scoperto che i risultati nelle unità dei test di conoscenza di una lingua straniera non corrispondono all'effettiva conoscenza della lingua straniera da parte degli studenti, a causa del fatto che il completamento dell’unità richiede anche una resistenza all'ansia da lingua straniera. Lo scopo della ricerca: analizzare l'influenza dell'ansia da lingua straniera sui risultati dell'unità di comunicazione dei test di conoscenza di una lingua straniera. Gli obiettivi della ricerca: 1) scoprire se l’ansia da lingua straniera influisce sulle abilità linguistiche degli studenti come coerenza e complessità del loro discorso, risorse lessicali e pronuncia; 2) studiare il poliglottismo come un fattore che influenza l’apprendimento delle lingue sulla base degli studi di L. Vygotsky, A. Potebnja e A. Leontiev; 3) studiare l’influenza dell’età in cui gli studenti hanno cominciato ad imparare una lingua straniera sulla base dell’ipotesi di W. Penfield e L. Roberts dell’esistenza di un’età critica; 4) studiare la residenza nel paese straniero come un fattore che influisce su ansia da lingua straniera e comunicazione orale in base agli studi di R. Campbell, J. Collentine ed altri. L’oggetto della ricerca è l'influenza dell'ansia da lingua straniera sui risultati dell'unità di comunicazione dei test di conoscenza di una lingua straniera. L'ansia da lingua straniera è la sensazione di disagio, preoccupazione, nervosismo e apprensione sperimentata nell'apprendimento o nell'uso di una seconda lingua o di una lingua straniera. L'ansia linguistica è comune nell'apprendimento di una lingua straniera. La maggior parte degli studenti afferma di avere un blocco mentale nell'apprendimento di una lingua straniera, nonostante una forte motivazione ed un ottimo lavoro in altre situazioni di apprendimento. La consapevolezza delle reazioni emotive degli studenti li aiuta a raggiungere i loro obiettivi nel processo di apprendimento. Anche ricercatori, metodologi e insegnanti dovrebbero avere questa consapevolezza per aiutare meglio gli studenti

Hereditary thrombophilia as cause of recurrent pregnancy loss

Catedra Obstetrică Ginecologie FECMF USMF „Nicolae Testemiţanu”Thrombophilia includes all conditions associated with increased susceptibility to thrombosis (both arterial and venous). During pregnancy a number of hereditary thrombophilia causes recurrent pregnancy loss: antithrombin III deficiency, deficiency of protein C and S, mutation of factor V Leiden, and gene mutations G20210A and МТНFR C677T (Hyperhomocysteinemia). Trombofilia include totalitatea afecţiunilor asociate cu o susceptibilitate crescută la tromboze (atât arteriale, cât si venoase). În timpul sarcinii un șir de trombofilii ereditare condiționează pierderile recurente de sarcină : deficitul antitrombinei III, deficitul proteinei C, deficitul proteinei S, mutația factorului V Leiden şi mutaţia G20210A, mutația genei МТНFR C677T (Hiperhomocisteinemia)

Anticipation in families with <i>MLH1</i>-associated Lynch syndrome

Background: Lynch syndrome (LS) is an autosomal-dominant, hereditary cancer predisposition syndrome caused by pathogenic variants (PVs) in one of the mismatch-repair genes MLH1, MSH2/EPCAM, MSH6, or PMS2. Individuals who have MLH1 PVs have high lifetime risks of colorectal cancer (CRC) and endometrial cancer (EC). There is controversy regarding whether a younger age at diagnosis (or anticipation) occurs in MLH1-associated LS. The objective of this study was to assess anticipation in families with MLH1-associated LS by using statistical models while controlling for potential confounders. Methods: Data from 31 families with MLH1 PVs were obtained from an academic registry. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests on parent-child-pairs as well as parametric Weibull and semiparametric Cox proportional hazards and Cox mixed-effects models were used to calculate hazard ratios or to compare mean ages at CRC/EC diagnosis by generation. Models were also corrected for ascertainment bias and birth-cohort effects. Results: A trend toward younger ages at diagnosis of CRC/EC in successive generations, ranging from 3.2 to 15.7 years, was observed in MLH1 PV carrier families. A greater hazard for cancer in younger generations was not precluded by the inclusion of birth cohorts in the model. Individuals who had MLH1 variants with no Mlh1 activity were at a 78% greater hazard for CRC/EC than those who retained Mlh1 activity. Conclusions: The current results demonstrated evidence in support of anticipation in families with MLH1-associated LS across all statistical models. Mutational effects on Mlh1 activity influenced the hazard for CRC/EC. Screening based on the youngest age of cancer diagnosis in MLH1-LS families is recommended.</p

Prediction of circulating adipokine levels based on body fat compartments and adipose tissue gene expression

BACKGROUND: Adipokines are hormones secreted from adipose tissue (AT), and a number of them have been established as risk factors for chronic diseases. However, it is not clear whether and to what extent adiposity, gene expression, and other factors determine their circulating levels. OBJECTIVES: To assess to what extent adiposity, as measured by the amount of subcutaneous AT (SAT) and visceral AT (VAT) using magnetic resonance imaging, and gene expression levels in SAT determine plasma concentrations of the adipokines adiponectin, leptin, soluble leptin receptor, resistin, interleukin 6, and fatty acid-binding protein 4 (FABP4). METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of 156 participants from the EPIC Potsdam cohort study and analyzed multiple regression models and partial correlation coefficients. RESULTS: For leptin and FABP4 concentrations, 81 and 45% variance were explained by SAT mass, VAT mass, and gene expression in SAT in multivariable regression models. For the remaining adipokines, AT mass and gene expression explained <16% variance of plasma concentrations. Gene expression in SAT was a less important predictor compared to AT mass. SAT mass was a better predictor than VAT mass for leptin (partial correlation r = 0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.75–0.86, vs. r = 0.58, 95% confidence interval 0.46–0.67), while differences between AT compartments were small for the other adipokines. CONLUSIONS: While plasma levels of leptin and FABP4 can be explained in a large and medium part by the amount of AT and SAT gene expression, surprisingly, these predictors explained only little variance for all other investigated adipokines

Reliability of Serum Metabolite Concentrations over a 4-Month Period Using a Targeted Metabolomic Approach

Metabolomics is a promising tool for discovery of novel biomarkers of chronic disease risk in prospective epidemiologic studies. We investigated the between- and within-person variation of the concentrations of 163 serum metabolites over a period of 4 months to evaluate the metabolite reliability expressed by the intraclass-correlation coefficient (ICC: the ratio of between-person variance and total variance). The analyses were performed with the BIOCRATES AbsoluteIDQ™ targeted metabolomics technology, including acylcarnitines, amino acids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids and hexose in 100 healthy individuals from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam study who had provided two fasting blood samples 4 months apart. Overall, serum reliability of metabolites over a 4-month period was good. The median ICC of the 163 metabolites was 0.57. The highest ICC was observed for hydroxysphingomyelin C14:1 (ICC = 0.85) and the lowest was found for acylcarnitine C3:1 (ICC = 0). Reliability was high for hexose (ICC = 0.76), sphingolipids (median ICC = 0.66; range: 0.24–0.85), amino acids (median ICC = 0.58; range: 0.41–0.72) and glycerophospholipids (median ICC = 0.58; range: 0.03–0.81). Among acylcarnitines, reliability of short and medium chain saturated compounds was good to excellent (ICC range: 0.50–0.81). Serum reliability was lower for most hydroxyacylcarnitines and monounsaturated acylcarnitines (ICC range: 0.11–0.45 and 0.00–0.63, respectively). For most of the metabolites a single measurement may be sufficient for risk assessment in epidemiologic studies with healthy subjects

GeantV: Results from the prototype of concurrent vector particle transport simulation in HEP

Full detector simulation was among the largest CPU consumer in all CERN experiment software stacks for the first two runs of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the early 2010's, the projections were that simulation demands would scale linearly with luminosity increase, compensated only partially by an increase of computing resources. The extension of fast simulation approaches to more use cases, covering a larger fraction of the simulation budget, is only part of the solution due to intrinsic precision limitations. The remainder corresponds to speeding-up the simulation software by several factors, which is out of reach using simple optimizations on the current code base. In this context, the GeantV R&D project was launched, aiming to redesign the legacy particle transport codes in order to make them benefit from fine-grained parallelism features such as vectorization, but also from increased code and data locality. This paper presents extensively the results and achievements of this R&D, as well as the conclusions and lessons learnt from the beta prototype.Comment: 34 pages, 26 figures, 24 table

Properties of 42 solar-type Kepler targets from the Asteroseismic Modeling Portal

Publisher's Version/PDFRecently the number of main-sequence and subgiant stars exhibiting solar-like oscillations that are resolved into individual mode frequencies has increased dramatically. While only a few such data sets were available for detailed modeling just a decade ago, the Kepler mission has produced suitable observations for hundreds of new targets. This rapid expansion in observational capacity has been accompanied by a shift in analysis and modeling strategies to yield uniform sets of derived stellar properties more quickly and easily. We use previously published asteroseismic and spectroscopic data sets to provide a uniform analysis of 42 solar-type Kepler targets from the Asteroseismic Modeling Portal. We find that fitting the individual frequencies typically doubles the precision of the asteroseismic radius, mass, and age compared to grid-based modeling of the global oscillation properties, and improves the precision of the radius and mass by about a factor of three over empirical scaling relations. We demonstrate the utility of the derived properties with several applications

Intake estimation of total and individual flavan-3-ols, proanthocyanidins and theaflavins, their food sources and determinants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study

Epidemiological studies suggest health-protective effects of flavan-3-ols and their derived compounds on chronic diseases. The present study aimed to estimate dietary flavan-3-ol, proanthocyanidin (PA) and theaflavin intakes, their food sources and potential determinants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) calibration cohort. Dietary data were collected using a standardised 24 h dietary recall software administered to 36 037 subjects aged 35-74 years. Dietary data were linked with a flavanoid food composition database compiled from the latest US Department of Agriculture and Phenol-Explorer databases and expanded to include recipes, estimations and retention factors. Total flavan-3-ol intake was the highest in UK Health-conscious men (453·6 mg/d) and women of UK General population (377·6 mg/d), while the intake was the lowest in Greece (men: 160·5 mg/d; women: 124·8 mg/d). Monomer intake was the highest in UK General population (men: 213·5 mg/d; women: 178·6 mg/d) and the lowest in Greece (men: 26·6 mg/d in men; women: 20·7 mg/d). Theaflavin intake was the highest in UK General population (men: 29·3 mg/d; women: 25·3 mg/d) and close to zero in Greece and Spain. PA intake was the highest in Asturias (men: 455·2 mg/d) and San Sebastian (women: 253 mg/d), while being the lowest in Greece (men: 134·6 mg/d; women: 101·0 mg/d). Except for the UK, non-citrus fruits (apples/pears) were the highest contributors to the total flavan-3-ol intake. Tea was the main contributor of total flavan-3-ols in the UK. Flavan-3-ol, PA and theaflavin intakes were significantly different among all assessed groups. This study showed heterogeneity in flavan-3-ol, PA and theaflavin intake throughout the EPIC countries