The Role of Functional Skills Instruction

Functional skills, according to Cronin (1996), are the tasks that help individuals become successful and independent adults. Vandercook (1991) stated, “a true functional skill is one that is initiated, used, and maintained under typical circumstances” (p. 320). Functional skills are often taught in conjunction with functional academics. Bouck and Joshi (2012) defined functional academics as an approach to teach “students the skills to help them be productive members of society and support post school outcomes” (p. 140). Functional academics may include “core subject content, vocational education, community access, daily living, personal finance, independent living, transportation, social skills and relationships, and selfdetermination” (Bouck & Joshi, 2012, p. 140). This article will discuss functional academics as it relates to successful transitions into adulthood through literacy, social skills, selfdetermination, and community involvement instruction

Genome-wide association analysis of more than 120,000 individuals identifies 15 new susceptibility loci for breast cancer

International audienceGenome-wide association studies (GWAS) and large-scale replication studies have identified common variants in 79 loci associated with breast cancer, explaining ∼14% of the familial risk of the disease. To identify new susceptibility loci, we performed a meta-analysis of 11 GWAS, comprising 15,748 breast cancer cases and 18,084 controls together with 46,785 cases and 42,892 controls from 41 studies genotyped on a 211,155-marker custom array (iCOGS). Analyses were restricted to women of European ancestry. We generated genotypes for more than 11 million SNPs by imputation using the 1000 Genomes Project reference panel, and we identified 15 new loci associated with breast cancer at P < 5 × 10(-8). Combining association analysis with ChIP-seq chromatin binding data in mammary cell lines and ChIA-PET chromatin interaction data from ENCODE, we identified likely target genes in two regions: SETBP1 at 18q12.3 and RNF115 and PDZK1 at 1q21.1. One association appears to be driven by an amino acid substitution encoded in EXO1