JOINT FACULTY APPOINTMENTS: AN ADMINISTRATIVE DILEMMA IN CHICANO STUDIES

A comprehensive proposal for an academic program in Chicano Studies for the University of California, Santa Barbara, was submitted to the Executive Committee of the College of Letters and Science on April A, 1969. The program evolved from an extensive investigation of the assessed needs of the local Chicano community, the role of the University toward that community, and the general responsibility of the University to the student community with respect to educational and research endeavors related to the Chicano

Education and Achievement: A Focus on Latino "Immigrant" Children

Describes the Institute for Teaching English Language Learners' comprehensive program to boost English language learners' academic achievement by optimizing the environment, supporting teachers, increasing learning opportunities, and engaging families

Helping America's Dual Language Learners Succeed: A Research-based Agenda for Action

In the fall of 2014, the Heising-Simons and McKnight Foundations provided support for a National Research Summit on the Early Care and Education of Dual Language Learners (DLLs) in Washington, DC. The goal of the two day summit was to engage and extend the established knowledge base accrued by the Center for Early Care and Educational Research Dual Language Learners (CECER-DLL), while simultaneously informing the future potential efforts by the Heising-Simons and McKnight Foundations specific to the early care and education of dual language learners. Day two centered on the presentation of five McKnight-commissioned papers, the topics of which included: Research Based Models and Best Practices for DLLs across PreK - 3rd gradePerspectives on Assessment of DLLs Development & Learning, PreK - 3Human Resource Development and Support for Those Serving DLLsThe Critical Role of Leaderships in Programs Designed for DLLs, PreK - 3Policy Advances & Levers Related to DLLs in PreK - 3rd gradeThe report attempts to provide a short summary and synthesis of the topics covered in these papers and the discussion generated at the National Summit on Early Care and Education of Dual Language Learners. In addition, a set of recommendations are presented for each topic with regard to the implications drawn from these synthesis and of particular relevance to the supporting foundations' future investment considerations related to DLLs

Pre-K and Latinos: The Foundation for America's Future

The Latino population in the United States is growing at a rapid pace, and the proportion of our nation's under-five year olds who are Latino is increasing even faster. Many of these children lack access to the high-quality pre-kindergarten experiences that promote academic achievement and future success. By providing Latino children with culturally and linguistically appropriate services in high-quality, pre-k-for-all programs, educators and policymakers can help close the achievement gap and make a major contribution to realizing this growing population's remarkable potential

Diabetes status and being up-to-date on colorectal cancer screening, 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

INTRODUCTION: Although screening rates for colorectal cancer are increasing, 22 million Americans are not up-to-date with recommendations. People with diabetes are an important and rapidly growing group at increased risk for colorectal cancer. Screening status and predictors of being up-to-date on screening are largely unknown in this population. METHODS: This study used logistic regression modeling and data from the 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to examine the association between diabetes and colorectal cancer screening predictors with being up-to-date on colorectal cancer screening according to criteria of the US Preventive Services Task Force for adults aged 50 or older. State prevalence rates of up-to-date colorectal cancer screening were also calculated and mapped. RESULTS: The prevalence of being up-to-date with colorectal cancer screening for all respondents aged 50 or older was 65.6%; for respondents with diabetes, the rate was 69.2%. Respondents with diabetes were 22% more likely to be up-to-date on colorectal cancer screening than those without diabetes. Among those with diabetes, having a routine checkup within the previous year significantly increased the odds of being up-to-date on colorectal cancer screening (odds ratio, 1.90). Other factors such as age, income, education, race/ethnicity, insurance status, and history of cancer were also associated with up-to-date status. CONCLUSION: Regardless of diabetes status, people who had a routine checkup within the past year were more likely to be up-to-date than people who had not. Among people with diabetes, the duration between routine checkups may be of greater importance than the frequency of diabetes-related doctor visits. Continued efforts should be made to ensure that routine care visits occur regularly to address the preventive health needs of patients with and patients without diabetes

Complex selection on 5' splice sites in intron-rich organisms

In contrast to the typically streamlined genomes of prokaryotes, many eukaryotic genomes are riddled with long intergenic regions, spliceosomal introns, and repetitive elements. What explains the persistence of these and other seemingly suboptimal structures? There are three general hypotheses: (1) the structures in question are not actually suboptimal but optimal, being favored by selection, for unknown reasons; (2) the structures are not suboptimal, but of (essentially) equal fitness to 'optimal' ones; or (3) the structures are truly suboptimal, but selection is too weak to systematically eliminate them. The 5' splice sites of introns offer a rare opportunity to directly test these hypotheses. Intron-poor species show a clear consensus splice site; most introns begin with the same six nucleotide sequence (typically GTAAGT or GTATGT), indicating efficient selection for this consensus sequence. In contrast, intron-rich species have much less pronounced boundary consensus sequences, and only small minorities of introns in intron-rich species share the same boundary sequence. We studied rates of evolutionary change of 5' splice sites in three groups of closely related intron-rich species--three primates, five Drosophila species, and four Cryptococcus fungi. Surprisingly, the results indicate that changes from consensus-to-variant nucleotides are generally disfavored by selection, but that changes from variant to consensus are neither favored nor disfavored. This evolutionary pattern is consistent with selective differences across introns, for instance, due to compensatory changes at other sites within the gene, which compensate for the otherwise suboptimal consensus-to-variant changes in splice boundaries

Iron oxide-based nanostructured ceramics with tailored magnetic and mechanical properties: Development of mechanically robust, bulk superparamagnetic materials

Nanostructured iron-oxide based materials with tailored mechanical and magnetic behavior are produced in bulk form. By applying ultra-fast heating routines via spark plasma sintering (SPS) to supercrystalline pellets, materials with an enhanced combination of elastic modulus, hardness and saturation magnetization are achieved. Supercrystallinity-namely the arrangement of the constituent nanoparticles into periodic structures-is achieved through self-assembly of the organically-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles. The optimization of the following SPS regime allows the control of organics' removal, necking, iron oxide phase transformations and nano-grain size retention, and thus the fine-tuning of both mechanical properties and magnetic response, up until the production of bulk mm-size superparamagnetic materials.Deusche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG

Study of Ether-, Alcohol-, or Cyano-Functionalized Ionic Liquids Using Inverse Gas Chromatography

This article discusses the study of ether-, alcohol, or cyano-functionalized ionic liquids using inverse gas chromatography

The influence of mixing on the stratospheric age of air changes in the 21st century

Climate models consistently predict an acceleration of the Brewer–Dobson circulation (BDC) due to climate change in the 21st century. However, the strength of this acceleration varies considerably among individual models, which constitutes a notable source of uncertainty for future climate projections. To shed more light upon the magnitude of this uncertainty and on its causes, we analyse the stratospheric mean age of air (AoA) of 10 climate projection simulations from the Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative phase 1 (CCMI-I), covering the period between 1960 and 2100. In agreement with previous multi-model studies, we find a large model spread in the magnitude of the AoA trend over the simulation period. Differences between future and past AoA are found to be predominantly due to differences in mixing (reduced aging by mixing and recirculation) rather than differences in residual mean transport. We furthermore analyse the mixing efficiency, a measure of the relative strength of mixing for given residual mean transport, which was previously hypothesised to be a model constant. Here, the mixing efficiency is found to vary not only across models, but also over time in all models. Changes in mixing efficiency are shown to be closely related to changes in AoA and quantified to roughly contribute 10 % to the long-term AoA decrease over the 21st century. Additionally, mixing efficiency variations are shown to considerably enhance model spread in AoA changes. To understand these mixing efficiency variations, we also present a consistent dynamical framework based on diffusive closure, which highlights the role of basic state potential vorticity gradients in controlling mixing efficiency and therefore aging by mixing.Helmholtz Association | Ref. VH-NG-1014Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science | Ref. CE110001028Australian Government’s National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme | Ref. FUERZAS 4012Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. CGL2015-71575-PNew Zealand Royal Society Marsden Fund | Ref. 12-NIW-00