Norm-Referenced Effects of a Campus-Based Therapeutic Mentoring Program

The purpose of this study was to explore potential effects of a 12-week therapeutic mentoring program targeting social, emotional, and behavioral concerns in 52 children and adolescents between 11 and 17 years of age. Self-reported scores on a norm-referenced behavioral questionnaire were tracked across the span of a mentoring program, and then analyzed using multilevel modeling. Results showed that participant scores changed in a healthy direction across all domains measured (i.e., conduct, negative affect, cognitive/attention, and academic functioning). Predictors in the multilevel model included caregiver-reported sex assigned at birth, the semester that the intervention took place, and whether a participant had repeated the program. Findings lend further support to research-based mentoring programs as effective community interventions to address behavioral, emotional, social, and academic concerns in youth

Origin of agricultural plant pathogens: Diversity and pathogenicity of \u3ci\u3eRhizoctonia\u3c/i\u3e fungi associated with native prairie grasses in the Sandhills of Nebraska

The Sandhills of Nebraska is a complex ecosystem, covering 50,000 km2 in central and western Nebraska and predominantly of virgin grassland. Grasslands are the most widespread vegetation in the U.S. and once dominated regions are currently cultivated croplands, so it stands to reason that some of the current plant pathogens of cultivated crops originated from grasslands, particularly soilborne plant pathogens. The anamorphic genus Rhizoctonia includes genetically diverse organisms that are known to be necrotrophic fungal pathogens, saprophytes, mycorrhiza of orchids, and biocontrol agents. This study aimed to evaluate the diversity of Rhizoctonia spp. on four native grasses in the Sandhills of Nebraska and determine pathogenicity to native grasses and soybean. In 2016 and 2017, a total of 84 samples were collected from 11 sites in the Sandhills, located in eight counties of Nebraska. The samples included soil and symptomatic roots from the four dominant native grasses: sand bluestem, little bluestem, prairie sandreed, and needle-and-thread. Obtained were 17 Rhizoctonia-like isolates identified, including five isolates of binucleate Rhizoctonia AG-F; two isolates each from binucleate Rhizoctonia AG-B, AG-C, and AG-K, Rhizoctonia solani AGs: AG-3, and AG-4; one isolate of binucleate Rhizoctonia AG-L, and one isolate of R. zeae. Disease severity was assessed for representative isolates of each AG in a greenhouse assay using sand bluestem, needle-and-thread, and soybean; prairie sandreed and little bluestem were unable to germinate under artificial conditions. On native grasses, all but two isolates were either mildly aggressive (causing 5–21% disease severity) or aggressive (21–35% disease severity). Among those, three isolates were cross-pathogenic on soybean, with R. solani AG-4 shown to be highly aggressive (86% disease severity). Thus, it is presumed that Rhizoctonia spp. are native to the sandhills grasslands and an emerging pathogen of crops cultivated may have survived in the soil and originate from grasslands

Consumer Spirituality and Marketing

Consumer Spirituality and Marketing Sudhir Kale, Bond University, Australia Over the last ten years, the topic of spirituality has inspired scores of studies in management and related disciplines. Marketing scholars, it seems, have shied away from discussing spirituality for far too long. This paper draws attention to the rising salience of consumers' spiritual needs. A working definition of spirituality and preliminary guidelines for researchers are provided to kickstart research and dialogue in this important area. It is argued that spiritual utility urgently needs to be incorporated along with other utilities when considering product benefits. [to cite]

Values and Self-Esteem

This exploratory study examines the relationships between values, using the List of Values http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/12979/volumes/ap07/AP-07 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. 14 VALUES AND SELF-ESTEE

Nonparametric Analysis of Household Labor Supply:Goodness-of-Fit and Power of the Unitary and the Collective Model

We compare the empirical performance of unitary and collective labor supply models, using representative data from the Dutch DNB Household Survey.We conduct a nonparametric analysis that avoids the distortive impact of an erroneously speci.ed functional form for the prefer-ences and/or the intrahousehold bargaining process.Our analysis focuses on the goodness-of-.t of the two behavioral models.To guarantee a fair comparison, we complement this goodness-of-.t analysis with a power analysis.Our results strongly favor the collective approach to modeling the behavior of multi-person households

The Structure of Episodic Memory: Ganeri's ‘Mental Time Travel and Attention’

We offer a framework for assessing what the structure of episodic memory might be, if one accepts the Buddhist denial of persisting selves. This paper is a response to Jonardon Ganeri's paper "Mental time travel and attention", which explores Buddhaghosa's ideas about memory. (It will eventually be published with a reply by Ganeri)

TU Tau B: The Peculiar 'Eclipse' of a possible proto-Barium Giant

TU Tau (= HD 38218 = HIP 27135) is a binary system consisting of a C-N carbon star primary and an A-type secondary. We report on new photometry and spectroscopy which tracked the recent disappearance of the A-star secondary. The dimming of the A-star was gradual and irregular, with one or more brief brightenings, implying the presence of nonhomogeneities in the carbon star outflow. We also present evidence that the A-star is actively accreting s-process enriched material from the carbon star and suggest that it will therefore eventually evolve into a Barium giant. This is an important system as well because the A-type star can serve as a probe of the outer atmosphere of the carbon star.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables, a number of amateur observatories made significant contributions to this research. Paper accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Early and Late Direct Costs in a Southern African Antiretroviral Treatment Programme: A Retrospective Cohort Analysis

Gary Maartens and colleagues describe the direct heath care costs and identify the drivers of cost over time in an HIV managed care program in Southern Africa

The molecular basis of breast cancer pathological phenotypes

The histopathological evaluation of morphological features in breast tumours provides prognostic information to guide therapy. Adjunct molecular analyses provide further diagnostic, prognostic and predictive information. However, there is limited knowledge of the molecular basis of morphological phenotypes in invasive breast cancer. This study integrated genomic, transcriptomic and protein data to provide a comprehensive molecular profiling of morphological features in breast cancer. Fifteen pathologists assessed 850 invasive breast cancer cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Morphological features were significantly associated with genomic alteration, DNA methylation subtype, PAM50 and microRNA subtypes, proliferation scores, gene expression and/or RPPA subtype. Marked nuclear pleomorphism, necrosis, inflammation and high mitotic count were associated with Basal-like subtype and have similar molecular basis. Omics-based signatures were constructed to predict morphological features. The association of morphology transcriptome signatures with overall survival in oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive and ER-negative breast cancer was first assessed using the METABRIC dataset; signatures that remained prognostic in the METABRIC multivariate analysis were further evaluated in five additional datasets. The transcriptomic signature of epithelial tubule formation was prognostic in ER-positive breast cancer. No signature was prognostic in ER-negative. This study provided new insights into the molecular basis of breast cancer morphological phenotypes. The integration of morphological with molecular data has potential to refine breast cancer classification, predict response to therapy, enhance our understanding of breast cancer biology and improve clinical management. This work is publicly accessible at www.dx.ai/tcga_breast