The Life Stories of Individuals Who as Adults Were Identified as Experiencing the Effects of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

The teratogenic effects of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can cause irreversible physical and neurological impairments that are present at birth and can have lifelong implications (McGee & Riley, 2007). One’s capacity to interact productively and effectively with one’s surroundings can be influenced further by positive and negative life events and access to appropriate social support services (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2004). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a term used to describe a group of diagnoses and effects related to prenatal alcohol exposure (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2004). Since the effects of alcohol on a fetus were not recognized formally until the mid- twentieth century, it is likely there are generations of people who are affected by this condition but remain unidentified because they were born before the sequelae of gestational alcohol exposure were understood and well documented (Massey, 2011). Few scholarly works exist that accurately represent the subjective experience of adults who have lived with the unidentified characteristics of prenatal alcohol exposure and the social and cultural factors that influence the development of their individual identity. A narrative-style qualitative research methodology was used to explore the identity of adults living with FASD, in particular those who learned about this during adulthood. The researcher interviewed four adults living with the effects of FASD who became aware of their FASD as adults and reviewed several published autobiographical accounts as additional data sources. Upon analysis, themes of identity emerged and parallels between the life stories of the participants and other studies that address the psycho-social effects of FASD were identified. The research results suggest implications for social work practice, bring positive attention to a disenfranchised group, identify areas of needed study and shed insight into how adults living with the effects of FASD conceptualize their identity

Die Auswirkungen verschiedener Experimentiersituationen auf Leistung, Motivation und Kompetenzerwartung der Schülerinnen und Schüler

Untersucht wurde der Einfluss unterschiedlich gestalteter Experimentiersituationen auf den Leistungserwerb von Schülerinnen und Schülern, aber auch auf ihre Motivation und Kompetenzerwartung. Das Studiensetting stellt ein 2x2-Design dar, in dem zum einen nach dem Grad der Offenheit und zum anderen nach der vorliegenden Experimentiersituation differenziert wurde. Die Variation der Offenheit wurde durch einen vorstrukturierten und einen offenen Untersuchungsauftrag realisiert. Das verwendete Material lag für die eine Gruppe in Form von realen Experimentiergeräten vor, während die andere Gruppe mit einer Computersimulation arbeitete. An der Studie nahmen Schülerinnen und Schüler der Klassenstufe 8 teil. Die Ergebnisse der ersten Pilotstudie machten deutlich, dass die offen arbeitenden Gruppen einen höheren Leistungszuwachs erzielten als die gelenkten

Die Auswirkungen verschiedener Experimentiersituationen auf Leistung, Motivation und Kompetenzerwartung der Schülerinnen und Schüler

Untersucht wurde der Einfluss unterschiedlich gestalteter Experimentiersituationen auf den Leistungserwerb von Schülerinnen und Schülern, aber auch auf ihre Motivation und Kompetenzerwartung. Das Studiensetting stellt ein 2x2-Design dar, in dem zum einen nach dem Grad der Offenheit und zum anderen nach der vorliegenden Experimentiersituation differenziert wurde. Die Variation der Offenheit wurde durch einen vorstrukturierten und einen offenen Untersuchungsauftrag realisiert. Das verwendete Material lag für die eine Gruppe in Form von realen Experimentiergeräten vor, während die andere Gruppe mit einer Computersimulation arbeitete. An der Studie nahmen Schülerinnen und Schüler der Klassenstufe 8 teil. Die Ergebnisse der ersten Pilotstudie machten deutlich, dass die offen arbeitenden Gruppen einen höheren Leistungszuwachs erzielten als die gelenkten

A Population of Metal-Poor Galaxies with ~L* Luminosities at Intermediate Redshifts

We present new spectroscopy and metallicity estimates for a sample of 15 star-forming galaxies with redshifts in the range 0.29 - 0.42. These objects were selected in the KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey via their strong emission lines seen in red objective-prism spectra. Originally thought to be intermediate-redshift Seyfert 2 galaxies, our new spectroscopy in the far red has revealed these objects to be metal-poor star-forming galaxies. These galaxies follow a luminosity-metallicity (L-Z) relation that parallels the one defined by low-redshift galaxies, but is offset by a factor of more than ten to lower abundances. The amount of chemical and/or luminosity evolution required to place these galaxies on the local L-Z relation is extreme, suggesting that these galaxies are in a very special stage of their evolution. They may be late-forming massive systems, which would challenge the current paradigm of galaxy formation. Alternatively, they may represent intense starbursts in dwarf-dwarf mergers or a major infall episode of pristine gas into a pre-existing galaxy. In any case, these objects represent an extreme stage of galaxy evolution taking place at relatively low redshift.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; to appear in 10 April 2009 ApJ

A Study of Interstellar Gas and Stars in the Gravitationally Lensed Galaxy `The Cosmic Eye' from Rest-Frame Ultraviolet Spectroscopy

We report the results of a study of the rest-frame UV spectrum of the Cosmic Eye, a luminous Lyman break galaxy at z=3.07331 gravitationally lensed by a factor of 25. The spectrum, recorded with the ESI spectrograph on the Keck II telescope, is rich in absorption features from the gas and massive stars in this galaxy. The interstellar absorption lines are resolved into two components of approximately equal strength and each spanning several hundred km/s in velocity. One component has a net blueshift of -70 km/s relative to the stars and H II regions and presumably arises in a galaxy-scale outflow similar to those seen in most star-forming galaxies at z = 2-3. The other is more unusual in showing a mean redshift of +350 km/s relative to the systemic redshift; possible interpretations include a merging clump, or material ejected by a previous star formation episode and now falling back onto the galaxy, or more simply a chance alignment with a foreground galaxy. In the metal absorption lines, both components only partially cover the OB stars against which they are being viewed. We tentatively associate the redshifted component with the strong damped Lyman alpha line, indicative of a column density N(H I) = (3.0 +/- 0.8) x 10(21) atoms/cm2, and propose that it provides the dust `foreground screen' responsible for the low ratio of far-infrared to UV luminosities of the Cosmic Eye. Compared to other well-studied examples of strongly lensed galaxies, we find that the young stellar population of the Cosmic Eye is essentially indistinguishable from those of the Cosmic Horseshoe and MS 1512-cB58, while the interstellar spectra of all three galaxies are markedly different, attesting to the real complexity of the interplay between starbursts and ambient interstellar matter in young galaxies (abridged).Comment: 14 pages, 6 Figures, Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society after minor revision

3D-HST: A wide-field grism spectroscopic survey with the Hubble Space Telescope

We present 3D-HST, a near-infrared spectroscopic Treasury program with the Hubble Space Telescope for studying the processes that shape galaxies in the distant Universe. 3D-HST provides rest-frame optical spectra for a sample of ~7000 galaxies at 1<z<3.5, the epoch when 60% of all star formation took place, the number density of quasars peaked, the first galaxies stopped forming stars, and the structural regularity that we see in galaxies today must have emerged. 3D-HST will cover 3/4 (625 sq.arcmin) of the CANDELS survey area with two orbits of primary WFC3/G141 grism coverage and two to four parallel orbits with the ACS/G800L grism. In the IR these exposure times yield a continuum signal-to-noise of ~5 per resolution element at H~23.1 and a 5sigma emission line sensitivity of 5x10-17 erg/s/cm2 for typical objects, improving by a factor of ~2 for compact sources in images with low sky background levels. The WFC3/G141 spectra provide continuous wavelength coverage from 1.1-1.6 um at a spatial resolution of ~0."13, which, combined with their depth, makes them a unique resource for studying galaxy evolution. We present the preliminary reduction and analysis of the grism observations, including emission line and redshift measurements from combined fits to the extracted grism spectra and photometry from ancillary multi-wavelength catalogs. The present analysis yields redshift estimates with a precision of sigma(z)=0.0034(1+z), or sigma(v)~1000 km/s. We illustrate how the generalized nature of the survey yields near-infrared spectra of remarkable quality for many different types of objects, including a quasar at z=4.7, quiescent galaxies at z~2, and the most distant T-type brown dwarf star known. The CANDELS and 3D-HST surveys combined will provide the definitive imaging and spectroscopic dataset for studies of the 1<z<3.5 Universe until the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.Comment: Replacement reflects version now accepted by ApJS. A preliminary data release intended to provide a general illustration of the WFC3 grism data is available at http://3dhst.research.yale.edu

A census of metals and baryons in stars in the local Universe

We combine stellar metallicity and stellar mass estimates for a large sample of galaxies drawn from the SDSS DR2 spanning wide ranges in physical properties, in order to derive an inventory of the total mass of metals and baryons locked up in stars today. Physical parameter estimates are derived from galaxy spectra with high S/N (>20). Coadded spectra of galaxies with similar velocity dispersions, absolute r-band magnitudes and 4000\AA-break values are used for those regions of parameter space where individual spectra have lower S/N. We estimate the total density of metals and of baryons in stars and, from these two quantities, we obtain a mass- and volume-averaged stellar metallicity of =1.04+-0.14 Z_sun, i.e. consistent with solar. We also study how metals are distributed in galaxies according to their mass, morphology and age, and we then compare these distributions with the corresponding distributions of stellar mass. We find that the bulk of metals locked up in stars in the local Universe reside in massive, bulge-dominated galaxies, with red colours and high 4000\AA-break values corresponding to old stellar populations. Bulge-dominated and disc-dominated galaxies contribute similar amounts to the total stellar mass density, but have different fractional contributions to the mass density of metals in stars, in agreement with the mass-metallicity relation. Bulge-dominated galaxies contain roughly 40% of the total amount of metals in stars, while disc-dominated galaxies less than 25%. Finally, at a given galaxy stellar mass, we define two characteristic ages as the median of the distributions of mass and metals as a function of age. These characteristic ages decrease progressively from high-mass to low-mass galaxies, consistent with the high formation epochs of stars in massive galaxies.Comment: replaced with accepted version, minor changes, references adde

Abscisic Acid Insensitive 4 transcription factor is an important player in the response of Arabidopsis thaliana to two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) feeding.

Plants growing in constantly changeable environmental conditions are compelled to evolve regulatory mechanisms to cope with biotic and abiotic stresses. Effective defence to invaders is largely connected with phytohormone regulation, resulting in the production of numerous defensive proteins and specialized metabolites. In our work, we elucidated the role of the Abscisic Acid Insensitive 4 (ABI4) transcription factor in the plant response to the two-spotted spider mite (TSSM). This polyphagous mite is one of the most destructive herbivores, which sucks mesophyll cells of numerous crop and wild plants. Compared to the wild-type (Col-0) Arabidopsis thaliana plants, the abi4 mutant demonstrated increased susceptibility to TSSM, reflected as enhanced female fecundity and greater frequency of mite leaf damage after trypan blue staining. Because ABI4 is regarded as an important player in the plastid-to-nucleus retrograde signalling process, we investigated the plastid envelope membrane dynamics using stroma-associated fluorescent marker. Our results indicated a clear increase in the number of stroma-filled tubular structures deriving from the plastid membrane (stromules) in the close proximity of the site of mite leaf damage, highlighting the importance of chloroplast-derived signals in the response to TSSM feeding activity