A pilot, short-term dietary manipulation of branched chain amino acids has modest influence on fasting levels of branched chain amino acids

Background: Elevated fasting levels of branched chain amino acids (BCAAs: valine, isoleucine, leucine) in venous blood are associated with a variety of metabolic impairments, including increased risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Fasting BCAA levels are influenced by non-dietary factors. However, it is unknown whether fasting BCAAs can be altered through manipulation of dietary intake alone. Objective: To test whether a specific dietary intervention, using differences in BCAA intake, alters fasting BCAA levels independent of other factors. Design: Five healthy male volunteers underwent 4 days of a low and 4 days of a high BCAA content dietary intervention (ClinicalTrials.gov [NCT02110602]). All food and supplements were provided. Fasting BCAAs were measured from venous blood samples by mass spectrometry at baseline and after each intervention. Results: Diets were isocaloric; contained equal percentages of calories from carbohydrate, fats, and protein; and differed from each other in BCAA content (1.5±0.1 vs. 14.0±0.6 g for valine; 4.5±0.9 g vs. 13.8±0.5 g for isoleucine; 2.1±0.2 g vs. 27.1±1.0 g for leucine; p<0.0001 for all). Fasting valine was significantly lower (p=0.02) and fasting isoleucine and leucine were numerically lower following the low BCAA content vs. the high BCAA content diet levels. The inter-individual response to the dietary interventions was variable and not explained by adherence. Conclusion: Short-term dietary manipulation of BCAA intake led to modest changes in fasting levels of BCAAs. The approach from our pilot study can be expanded to test the metabolic implications of dietary BCAA manipulation

Genome-Wide Association Study of the Modified Stumvoll Insulin Sensitivity Index Identifies BCL2 and FAM19A2 as Novel Insulin Sensitivity Loci

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have found few common variants that influence fasting measures of insulin sensitivity. We hypothesized that a GWAS of an integrated assessment of fasting and dynamic measures of insulin sensitivity would detect novel common variants. We performed a GWAS of the modified Stumvoll Insulin Sensitivity Index (ISI) within the Meta-Analyses of Glucose and Insulin-Related Traits Consortium. Discovery for genetic association was performed in 16,753 individuals, and replication was attempted for the 23 most significant novel loci in 13,354 independent individuals. Association with ISI was tested in models adjusted for age, sex, and BMI and in a model analyzing the combined influence of the genotype effect adjusted for BMI and the interaction effect between the genotype and BMI on ISI (model 3). In model 3, three variants reached genome-wide significance: Rs13422522 (NYAP2; P = 8.87 × 10-11), rs12454712 (BCL2; P = 2.7 × 10-8), and rs10506418 (FAM19A2; P = 1.9 × 10-8). The association at NYAP2 was eliminated by conditioning on the known IRS1 insulin sensitivity locus; the BCL2 and FAM19A2 associations were independent of known cardiometabolic loci. In conclusion, we identified two novel loci and replicated known variants associated with insulin sensitivity. Further studies are needed to clarify the causal variant and function at the BCL2 and FAM19A2 loci

Private Schools in England

About seven per cent of children in England are educated in private schools, but the significance of the private sector in policy terms is far greater than this proportion would indicate. While schools such as Eton College and Winchester College are still the best-known, these schools form only as small part of the private sector, which is actually characterised by its diversity. The number of private Muslim schools has increased considerably since the 1970s due largely to immigration. Furthermore, individual profit-orientated schools have established themselves in recent years. Despite the diversity within the sector and the lack of evidence, there is a widely held belief that private sector schools are more educationally effective. Indeed, the belief influences government policy towards both private and state-maintained schooling. (DIPF/Orig.)Ungefähr sieben Prozent der Schulkinder in England besuchen private Schulen, aber die politische Bedeutung des privaten Sektors reicht weit darüber hinaus. Auch heutzutage sind die traditionellen Eliteinternate wie Eton College die bekanntesten englischen Privatschulen, obwohl sie nur einen sehr geringen Anteil des Privatschulsektors ausmachen, der durch seine Vielfalt charakterisiert ist. So ist die Zahl privater muslimischer Schulen seit den 1970er Jahren im Zuge der Zuwanderung stetig angestiegen. Auch privatwirtschaftlich arbeitende Schulen haben sich etablieren können. Trotz der Diversifität und fehlender empirischer Evidenz ist der Glaube weit verbreitet, dass der Privatschulsektor akademisch effektiver ist. Diese Überzeugung beeinflusst auch die Schulpolitik der Regierung in Hinblick auf den privaten wie auch den staatlichen Sektor. (DIPF/Orig.

A science in the service of an art? The use of ‘value added’ analyses of school performance to aid school improvement

The thesis is concerned to explore whether and how ‘value added’ data analyses can contribute to school improvement, and to identify some of the conditions under which this might be so. In the course of conducting the study, the author experienced a tension between the ‘research’ and the ‘development’ dimensions of her work, and this is used to inform the outcomes of the thesis. The thesis is underpinned by three related aims: first, to provide a historical and evaluative overview of how the idea of ‘value added’ came to enter and influence the debate on educational quality in England. The study of the literature demonstrates that the main principles of ‘value added’ were already well developed before the term was in common use; it also reveals that the ambiguities in the term are not merely reflective of disagreements about how best to calculate value added but actually central to how the idea has been made to function within a particular political agenda for education having to do with ‘raising standards’. Because of the relentlessness of that agenda, ‘value added’ measures of attainment have undergone considerable methodological development over the past ten years, to the point where sophisticated statistical data on pupils’ and schools’ performance is being generated and used by government agencies, LEAs and schools themselves to an extent virtually unknown elsewhere. However, this thesis indicates that the technical and conceptual issues involved in putting such data to practical use in schools are likely to test the interpretative and organisational skills of users. The literature search confirms that not much investigation has been done into how data is actually used, but that what there is suggests some important lines of inquiry. The second aim of the thesis is accordingly to explore, through a small-scale empirical study, the use by secondary school staff of value-added data as exemplified by the NFER’s value added service QUASE. The study was conducted in nine schools, with staff at senior and middle management levels, and focused on mathematics, English and science departments. The third aim of the thesis is to assess how far the case-study findings might shed further light on the issues entailed in using such data for school improvement. The evidence suggested that value added data are seen as complex and often ‘high stakes’ and that – at the time of this study – the uses of value added data were rather more limited than expected; furthermore, the meanings of value added would seem to be socially constructed by the political and institutional environment, and to be closely related to individual teachers’ values and attitudes. This in turn suggests that better insights into, and management of, ‘the psychology and sociology’ of how value added data are perceived and used are necessary. Nonetheless, the study concludes that there is potential for value added analyses to contribute to school improvement under certain conditions; crucially, the study indicated that these included a culture which emphasised self-evaluation – rather than external accountability – within the school or subject department, combined with input from a ‘champion’ or facilitator who understood the technicalities and significance of the data. Value added analyses seemed to be used most actively by,staff who were able to use them ‘heuristically’, that is, to pose informed questions about teaching and learning (rather than as literal truths or statistical fictions). The study argues that ‘value added’ measures of performance are accordingly better understood as a technology than a science – that is, a practical application of knowledge which interacts dynamically with its social and cultural environment.To see figure 8.1 please view the MS Word version of Chapter 8

The business of schooling : the school choice processes, markets, and institutions governing low fee private schooling for disadvantaged groups in India

This study is a multi-level analysis of the pervasive phenomenon of what is termed here as low-fee private (LFP) schooling in India focusing on Lucknow District, Uttar Pradesh. The significance of the study is its focus on a private sector uniquely characterised as one targeted to a clientele traditionally excluded from private education. The study follows a single-case embedded case study research design of the type explained by Yin (1994). Its guiding framework comprises theoretical levels of analysis which are the individual, organisational, and institutional, corresponding to the case sub-units of household, school, and state respectively. The research design is structured through a new institutional paradigm which is also used to analyse results at the institutional level. Data were collected through interviews, observations, documents, and field notes. Direct household data sources were 60 parents/close family members at two focus schools (one urban and one rural); school sources were owners/principals of 10 case study schools (five urban and five rural); and state sources were 10 government officials. Analysis of the 100 formal interviews, informal interviews, observation events, and field notes followed a qualitative approach through an inductively derived analytic framework. Structured portions of household and school interviews were analysed through descriptive statistics providing data on household and school background characteristics. Documents were analysed using a modified content analysis approach. Implications of individual-level results lie in highlighting the schooling choices and patterns of a group that is otherwise regarded as homogenous, i.e. children are not sent to school because parents are uninterested in schooling and fail to see its relevance. In fact, results indicate that disadvantaged groups accessing the LFP sector in the study are active choosers who made deeply considered and systematic choices about their children's education. A model to explain their school choice processes is empirically derived. Data suggest that households employed the strategies of staying, fee-bargaining, exit, and fee-jumping to engage with LFP case study schools. Organisational-level results focus on case study school profiles, their organisational structures, and the strategies they employed to operate in the new schooling market. Results also focus on a qualitative understanding of the challenges case study schools faced as LFP schools, both by the institutional context and household demands. Finally, data point to the mechanisms instituted within the schools to deal with household needs and demands and the changing household-school relationship. The implications of institutional-level analysis He in exposing inconsistencies in the application of the formal institutional framework (FIF) for schooling to case study and other LFP schools by institutional actors. Differences in the FIF in principle and in practice are linked to perverse incentives embedded within it. The results strongly indicate the existence of what is termed here as, the shadow institutional framework (SIF), employed by case study schools to mediate the FIF to their institutional advantage. The SIF comprises internal institutions common across the set of case study schools, allowing them to form linkages with other LFP schools and exchange institutional information; and external institutions or higher order institutions governing how case study schools interacted with the FIF for basic and/or secondary education and private schooling. The SIF tied together an otherwise independent set of LFP schools as a de-facto sub-sector of the greater private sector. The study's main contributions are its analysis of an emerging local model of formal private schooling for disadvantaged groups; extending new institutional theory's application to education; and the methodological contribution of mediating the researcher's positionality through currencies.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Peer learning among a group of heroin addicts in India : an ethnographic study

This is an ethnographic account of peer learning among a group of heroin 'addicts' in Delhi, India. This study responds to the limited attention given to 'naturalistic' or 'informal' peer learning patterns in the educational literature, and the lack of explicit exploration of the phenomenon among drug user populations. The study involved seven and a half months of fieldwork with the predominant use of participant observation and semi-structured interviews to generate data. Analysis was inductive and interpretive with the use of situated learning theory to 'tease out' patterns in the data. The participants were using and non-using addicts affiliated to SHARAN, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the religious marketplace of Yamuna Bazaar. The group included approximately 300-500 members, 20 of whom were main informants. Analysis of the group organization revealed community-based and masculinity-based characteristics that enabled the group to manage stigma, promote 'positive' ideals, and co-construct nonhegemonic masculinities. Peer-based outreach was identified as a form of 'institutional' peer learning in which peer educators performed the roles of 'doctor', 'role model', and 'counsellor' during interactions with 'clients' that had the effect of disempowering clients in many cases. The practice of poetry in which peers created couplets in alternating exchanges was identified as one form of naturalistic peer learning that entailed processes of legitimate peripheral participation, meaning negotiation, and reflective learning. Street 'doctory' in which peers provided medical care in the form of procedures, illness discussions, and health consultancy was identified as another naturalistic peer learning pattern involving processes of legitimate peripheral participation, meaning negotiation, and learning through teaching. These findings suggest that naturalistic peer learning involved co-participatory processes that manifested in a diversity of everyday practices. It is recommended that engaging these processes and practices would be useful for interventions, while further research should explore such patterns in other contexts.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The business of schooling

This study is a multi-level analysis of the pervasive phenomenon of what is termed here as low-fee private (LFP) schooling in India focusing on Lucknow District, Uttar Pradesh. The significance of the study is its focus on a private sector uniquely characterised as one targeted to a clientele traditionally excluded from private education.The study follows a single-case embedded case study research design of the type explained by Yin (1994). Its guiding framework comprises theoretical levels of analysis which are the individual, organisational, and institutional, corresponding to the case sub-units of household, school, and state respectively. The research design is structured through a new institutional paradigm which is also used to analyse results at the institutional level.Data were collected through interviews, observations, documents, and field notes. Direct household data sources were 60 parents/close family members at two focus schools (one urban and one rural); school sources were owners/principals of 10 case study schools (five urban and five rural); and state sources were 10 government officials. Analysis of the 100 formal interviews, informal interviews, observation events, and field notes followed a qualitative approach through an inductively derived analytic framework. Structured portions of household and school interviews were analysed through descriptive statistics providing data on household and school background characteristics. Documents were analysed using a modified content analysis approach.Implications of individual-level results lie in highlighting the schooling choices and patterns of a group that is otherwise regarded as homogenous, i.e. children are not sent to school because parents are uninterested in schooling and fail to see its relevance. In fact, results indicate that disadvantaged groups accessing the LFP sector in the study are active choosers who made deeply considered and systematic choices about their children's education. A model to explain their school choice processes is empirically derived. Data suggest that households employed the strategies of staying, fee-bargaining, exit, and fee-jumping to engage with LFP case study schools. Organisational-level results focus on case study school profiles, their organisational structures, and the strategies they employed to operate in the new schooling market. Results also focus on a qualitative understanding of the challenges case study schools faced as LFP schools, both by the institutional context and household demands. Finally, data point to the mechanisms instituted within the schools to deal with household needs and demands and the changing household-school relationship.The implications of institutional-level analysis He in exposing inconsistencies in the application of the formal institutional framework (FIF) for schooling to case study and other LFP schools by institutional actors. Differences in the FIF in principle and in practice are linked to perverse incentives embedded within it. The results strongly indicate the existence of what is termed here as, the shadow institutional framework (SIF), employed by case study schools to mediate the FIF to their institutional advantage. The SIF comprises internal institutions common across the set of case study schools, allowing them to form linkages with other LFP schools and exchange institutional information; and external institutions or higher order institutions governing how case study schools interacted with the FIF for basic and/or secondary education and private schooling. The SIF tied together an otherwise independent set of LFP schools as a de-facto sub-sector of the greater private sector.The study's main contributions are its analysis of an emerging local model of formal private schooling for disadvantaged groups; extending new institutional theory's application to education; and the methodological contribution of mediating the researcher's positionality through currencies.</p