Perceptions of Consulting in Inclusive Preschool Classrooms

Consulting is a method of delivering special education services in inclusive preschool classrooms (consisting of both students with disabilities and typically developing peers) where special education teachers and related service providers (consultants) visit the classroom and support general education preschool teachers (consultees) in implementing special education services and accommodations. This thesis examined the results of a survey gathering perspectives of both consultants and consultees on the definition of the consulting role and factors in building positive consulting relationships. Providers from both groups who responded to this survey defined the consultant role as working with both students and consultees, but primarily with students. Consultants gave responses calling for additional training and understanding of the consultant role, and consultees emphasized a preference for consultants to be actively involved in the classroom. While consultants and consultees agreed that they have a positive consulting relationship and that consultants are effective in supporting students and consultees, both groups also frequently mentioned a need for establishing a respectful relationship between consultants and consultees

HMDB: the Human Metabolome Database

The Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) is currently the most complete and comprehensive curated collection of human metabolite and human metabolism data in the world. It contains records for more than 2180 endogenous metabolites with information gathered from thousands of books, journal articles and electronic databases. In addition to its comprehensive literature-derived data, the HMDB also contains an extensive collection of experimental metabolite concentration data compiled from hundreds of mass spectra (MS) and Nuclear Magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomic analyses performed on urine, blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples. This is further supplemented with thousands of NMR and MS spectra collected on purified, reference metabolites. Each metabolite entry in the HMDB contains an average of 90 separate data fields including a comprehensive compound description, names and synonyms, structural information, physico-chemical data, reference NMR and MS spectra, biofluid concentrations, disease associations, pathway information, enzyme data, gene sequence data, SNP and mutation data as well as extensive links to images, references and other public databases. Extensive searching, relational querying and data browsing tools are also provided. The HMDB is designed to address the broad needs of biochemists, clinical chemists, physicians, medical geneticists, nutritionists and members of the metabolomics community. The HMDB is available at

Significant benefits of AIP testing and clinical screening in familial isolated and young-onset pituitary tumors

Context Germline mutations in the aryl hydrocarbon receptor-interacting protein (AIP) gene are responsible for a subset of familial isolated pituitary adenoma (FIPA) cases and sporadic pituitary neuroendocrine tumors (PitNETs). Objective To compare prospectively diagnosed AIP mutation-positive (AIPmut) PitNET patients with clinically presenting patients and to compare the clinical characteristics of AIPmut and AIPneg PitNET patients. Design 12-year prospective, observational study. Participants & Setting We studied probands and family members of FIPA kindreds and sporadic patients with disease onset ≤18 years or macroadenomas with onset ≤30 years (n = 1477). This was a collaborative study conducted at referral centers for pituitary diseases. Interventions & Outcome AIP testing and clinical screening for pituitary disease. Comparison of characteristics of prospectively diagnosed (n = 22) vs clinically presenting AIPmut PitNET patients (n = 145), and AIPmut (n = 167) vs AIPneg PitNET patients (n = 1310). Results Prospectively diagnosed AIPmut PitNET patients had smaller lesions with less suprasellar extension or cavernous sinus invasion and required fewer treatments with fewer operations and no radiotherapy compared with clinically presenting cases; there were fewer cases with active disease and hypopituitarism at last follow-up. When comparing AIPmut and AIPneg cases, AIPmut patients were more often males, younger, more often had GH excess, pituitary apoplexy, suprasellar extension, and more patients required multimodal therapy, including radiotherapy. AIPmut patients (n = 136) with GH excess were taller than AIPneg counterparts (n = 650). Conclusions Prospectively diagnosed AIPmut patients show better outcomes than clinically presenting cases, demonstrating the benefits of genetic and clinical screening. AIP-related pituitary disease has a wide spectrum ranging from aggressively growing lesions to stable or indolent disease course

A screenshot montage of the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) showing several of HMDB's search and data display tools describing the metabolite 1-Methylhistidine

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "HMDB: the Human Metabolome Database"</p><p>Nucleic Acids Research 2007;35(Database issue):D521-D526.</p><p>Published online Jan 2007</p><p>PMCID:PMC1899095.</p><p>© 2006 The Author(s)</p> Not all fields are shown