Retaining the Returning Adult in a Reading Program

The purpose of this paper is to discuss open entrance/ open-exit programs to prevent attrition in adult reading programs that are designed for the student who has not completed high school. Often these students need to become better readers and to become test wise in order to take high school proficiency tests or some other test necessary for entrance into military service, trade schools, and/or various government supported training programs. Suggestions for encouraging success within such a program are offered

The resilience in illness model, part 1: exploratory evaluation in adolescents and young adults with cancer

BACKGROUND: Resilience is a positive health outcome identified by the Committee on Future Direction for Behavioral and Social Sciences as a research priority for the National Institutes of Health. The Resilience in Illness Model (RIM) was developed from a series of qualitative and quantitative studies, to increase understanding of how positive health protective factors (ie, social integration, family environment, courageous coping, and derived meaning) may influence resilience outcomes. The RIM also includes 2 risk factors: illness-related distress and defensive coping. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this 2-part article was to report on evaluation of the RIM for adolescents/young adults (AYAs) with cancer. Here, in part 1, our purpose was to describe the exploratory RIM evaluation, and in part 2 we describe the confirmatory RIM evaluation. METHODS: An exploratory evaluation of RIM was done using exploratory latent variable structural equation modeling with a combined sample from 2 studies of preadolescents and AYAs with cancer aged 10 to 26 years (n = 202). RESULTS: Results, including goodness-of-fit indices, support the RIM as a theory with a high level of explained variance for outcomes of resilience (67%) and self-transcendence (63%). Variance explained for proximal outcomes ranged from 18% to 76%. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that, following confirmatory testing, the RIM may be a useful guide to developing targeted interventions that are grounded in the experiences of the AYAs. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Understanding of the AYA cancer experience to improve holistic care is increased

Parallel Unsmoothed Aggregation Algebraic Multigrid Algorithms on GPUs

We design and implement a parallel algebraic multigrid method for isotropic graph Laplacian problems on multicore Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). The proposed AMG method is based on the aggregation framework. The setup phase of the algorithm uses a parallel maximal independent set algorithm in forming aggregates and the resulting coarse level hierarchy is then used in a K-cycle iteration solve phase with a $\ell^1$-Jacobi smoother. Numerical tests of a parallel implementation of the method for graphics processors are presented to demonstrate its effectiveness.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

As above, so below: whole transcriptome profiling demonstrates strong molecular similarities between avian dorsal and ventral pallial subdivisions

Over the last two decades, beginning withthe Avian Brain Nomenclature Forum in2000, major revisions have been made to our understanding of the organization andnomenclature of the avian brain. However, there are still unresolved questions on avianpallial organization, particularly whether the cells above the vestigial ventricle representdistinct populations to those below it or similar populations. To test these two hypothe-ses, we profiled the transcriptomes of the major avian pallial subdivisions dorsal and ven-tral to the vestigial ventricle boundary using RNA sequencing and a new zebra finchgenome assembly containing about 22,000annotated, complete genes. We found thatthe transcriptomes of neural populations above and below the ventricle were remarkablysimilar. Each subdivision in dorsal pallium (Wulst) had a corresponding molecular counter-part in the ventral pallium (dorsal ventricularridge). In turn, each corresponding subdivi-sion exhibited shared gene co-expression modules that contained gene sets enriched infunctional specializations, such as anatomical structure development, synaptic transmis-sion, signaling, and neurogenesis. Thesefindings are more in line with the continuumhypothesis of avian brain subdivision organization above and below the vestigial ventriclespace, with the pallium as a whole consisting offour major cell populations (intercalatedpallium, mesopallium, hyper-nidopallium, andarcopallium) instead of seven (hyperpalliumapicale, interstitial hyperpallium apicale, intercalated hyperpallium, hyperpalliumdensocellare, mesopallium, nidopallium, and arcopallium). We suggest adopting a morestreamlined hierarchical naming system thatreflects the robust similarities in geneexpression, neural connectivity motifs, and function. These findings have important impli-cations for our understanding of overall vertebrate brain evolution

Linear Toric Fibrations

These notes are based on three lectures given at the 2013 CIME/CIRM summer school. The purpose of this series of lectures is to introduce the notion of a toric fibration and to give its geometrical and combinatorial characterizations. Polarized toric varieties which are birationally equivalent to projective toric bundles are associated to a class of polytopes called Cayley polytopes. Their geometry and combinatorics have a fruitful interplay leading to fundamental insight in both directions. These notes will illustrate geometrical phenomena, in algebraic geometry and neighboring fields, which are characterized by a Cayley structure. Examples are projective duality of toric varieties and polyhedral adjunction theory

Lifecycle-Support in Architectures for Ontology-Based Information Systems

Ontology-based applications play an increasingly important role in the public and corporate Semantic Web. While today there exist a range of tools and technologies to support specific ontology engineering and management activities, architectural design guidelines for building ontology-based applications are missing. In this paper, we present an architecture for ontology-based applications—covering the complete ontology-lifecycle—that is intended to support software engineers in designing and developing ontology based-applications. We illustrate the use of the architecture in a concrete case study using the NeOn toolkit as one implementation of the architecture

Perceptions of communication, family adaptability and cohesion: a comparison of adolescents newly diagnosed with cancer and their parents

PURPOSE: To describe and compare adolescent and parent perspectives on communication, family adaptability and cohesion, as well as relationships among these variables, during the first month of an adolescent's cancer diagnosis. METHODS: Seventy adolescent-parent dyads were enrolled as part of a larger multi-site study. The adolescents ranged in age from 11 to 19, and 61% were males. Parents were predominately mothers (83%). Dyads were predominately non-Hispanic Caucasian (63%). Measures included the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES II). Paired t-tests, Pearson correlations, intra-class correlation coefficients and multiple linear regression analyses were completed. RESULTS: Adolescent scores on communication, family adaptability and cohesion were significantly lower than parent scores. The inter-dyadic agreement between adolescents and parents was low. Communication, family adaptability and cohesion were examined separately for adolescents and for parents, and significant relationships were found. Both adolescent- and parent-perceived communication was significantly associated with family adaptability and cohesion outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Differences were found in adolescent and parent perceptions of communication, family adaptability and cohesion. When both adolescents and parents had better perceived communication, this was associated with better perceived family adaptability and cohesion. Results suggest that the development of interventions to enhance adolescent-parent communication could help foster better family adaptability and cohesion, which may ultimately impact their psychological adjustment. In addition, understanding the degree to which adolescents and parents disagree on their perceptions, including the results that parents generally have more favorable perceptions, may be a useful starting point when developing interventions

Speckle tracking echocardiography: new ways of translational approaches in preeclampsia to detect cardiovascular dysfunction

Several studies have shown that women with a preeclamptic pregnancy exhibit an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are unknown. Animal models are essential to investigate the causes of this increased risk and have the ability to assess possible preventive and therapeutic interventions. Using the latest technologies such as speckle tracking echocardiography (STE), it is feasible to map subclinical changes in cardiac diastolic and systolic function as well as structural changes of the maternal heart. The aim of this work is to compare cardiovascular changes in an established transgenic rat model with preeclampsia-like pregnancies with findings from human preeclamptic pregnancies by STE. The same algorithms were used to evaluate and compare the changes in echos of human and rodents. Parameters of functionality like global longitudinal strain (animal -23.54 ± 1.82 % vs. -13.79 ± 0.57 %, human -20.60 ± 0.47 % vs. -15.45 ± 1.55 %) as well as indications of morphological changes like relative wall thickness (animal 0.20 ± 0.01 vs. 0.25 ± 0.01, human 0.34 ± 0.01 vs. 0.40 ± 0.02) are significantly altered in both species after preeclamptic pregnancies. Thus, the described rat model simulates the human situation quite well and is a valuable tool for future investigations regarding cardiovascular changes. STE is a unique technique which can be applied in animal models and human with a high potential to uncover cardiovascular maladaptation and subtle pathologies