The obstacle problem for subelliptic non-divergence form operators on homogeneous groups

The main result established in this paper is the existence and uniqueness of strong solutions to the obstacle problem for a class of subelliptic operators in non-divergence form. The operators considered are structured on a set of smooth vector fields in R^n; X = \{X_0, X_1, ...,X_q\}, q \le n, satisfying H\"ormanders finite rank condition. In this setting, X_0 is a lower order term while {X1, ...,X_q} are building blocks of the subelliptic part of the operator. In order to prove this, we establish an embedding theorem under the assumption that the set {X_0, X_1, ...,X_q} generates a homogeneous Lie group. Furthermore, we prove that any strong solution belongs to a suitable class of H\"older continuous functions

The Importance of Collaboration Between Parents and School in Special Education: Perceptions From the Field

Each student receiving special education services in the public school system, roughly 6.4 million students, has an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that is mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA). IDEA dictates that a team of people familiar with the student, including the parents, should create the IEP. Unfortunately, research indicates that many parents believe their participation is not welcome. While only a small percentage of parents may actually be dissatisfied with the IEP process, the cost of dissatisfaction is high, further stretching already limited resources that could be better used in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to investigate parents’ and school personnel’s beliefs about and experiences with collaborative activities that took place prior to the annual IEP or 504 plan meeting. Participant perceptions and suggestions about improving the special education process were also explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with an assistant principal, a self-contained ESE teacher, a resource ESE teacher, a regular education inclusion teacher, and three parents whose children were receiving special education services. All participants were involved in the special education process at the elementary school level. The study’s findings indicated that while school personnel perceive that they are providing opportunities for parents to be involved in a collaborative manner, parents do not perceive that a fully open and transparent collaboration exists. The school made an effort to generate a comfortable environment inviting collaboration during formal meetings; however, parents expressed frustration with the more informal aspects of the special education process including initiation of services. Teachers and parents identified similar concerns and frustrations with the IEP process and suggested similar ideas for improvement. Both school personnel and parents identified scarcity of resources within the school, which seemed to create a barrier to open communication and collaboration. Suggestions for improvement included access to outside support and advocacy groups to increase parent understanding of the special education process and facilitate its process. It is concluded that, ultimately, policy makers should become more involved at the classroom level in order to understand the implications of policy change

Pointwise Schauder Estimates of Parabolic Equations in Carnot Groups

Schauder estimates were a historical stepping stone for establishing uniqueness and smoothness of solutions for certain classes of partial differential equations. Since that time, they have remained an essential tool in the field. Roughly speaking, the estimates state that the Holder continuity of the coefficient functions and inhomogeneous term implies the Holder continuity of the solution and its derivatives. This document establishes pointwise Schauder estimates for second order parabolic equations where the traditional role of derivatives are played by vector fields generated by the first layer of the Lie algebra stratification for a Carnot group. The Schauder estimates are shown by means of Campanato spaces. These spaces make the pointwise nature of the estimates possible by comparing solutions to their Taylor polynomials. As a prerequisite device, a version of both the mean value theorem and Taylor inequality are established with the parabolic distance incorporated

Effects of prostaglandin E(2 )on the electrical properties of thermally classified neurons in the ventromedial preoptic area of the rat hypothalamus

BACKGROUND: Physiological and morphological evidence suggests that activation of the ventromedial preoptic area of the hypothalamus (VMPO) is an essential component of an intravenous LPS-dependent fever. In response to the endogenous pyrogen prostaglandin E(2 )(PGE(2)), the majority of temperature insensitive neurons in the VMPO show an increase in firing rate, while warm sensitive neurons are inhibited. We have hypothesized that these PGE(2 )dependent effects on firing rate are due to changes in the inherent electrical properties of VMPO neurons, which are regulated by the activity of specific ionic currents. RESULTS: To characterize the electrical properties of VMPO neurons, whole-cell recordings were made in tissue slices from male Sprague-Dawley rats. Our results indicate that PGE(2 )dependent firing rate responses were not the result of changes in resting membrane potential, action potential amplitude and duration, or local synaptic input. However, PGE(2 )reduced the input resistance of all VMPO neurons, while increasing the excitability of temperature insensitive neurons and decreasing the excitability of warm sensitive neurons. In addition, the majority of temperature insensitive neurons responded to PGE(2 )with an increase in the rate of rise of the depolarizing prepotential that precedes each action potential. This response to PGE(2 )was reversed for warm sensitive neurons, in which the prepotential rate of rise decreased. CONCLUSION: We would therefore suggest that PGE(2 )is having an effect on the ionic currents that regulate firing rate by controlling how fast membrane potential rises to threshold during the prepotential phase of the action potential

Human Papillomaviruses; Epithelial Tropisms, and the Development of Neoplasia.

Papillomaviruses have evolved over many millions of years to propagate themselves at specific epithelial niches in a range of different host species. This has led to the great diversity of papillomaviruses that now exist, and to the appearance of distinct strategies for epithelial persistence. Many papillomaviruses minimise the risk of immune clearance by causing chronic asymptomatic infections, accompanied by long-term virion-production with only limited viral gene expression. Such lesions are typical of those caused by Beta HPV types in the general population, with viral activity being suppressed by host immunity. A second strategy requires the evolution of sophisticated immune evasion mechanisms, and allows some HPV types to cause prominent and persistent papillomas, even in immune competent individuals. Some Alphapapillomavirus types have evolved this strategy, including those that cause genital warts in young adults or common warts in children. These strategies reflect broad differences in virus protein function as well as differences in patterns of viral gene expression, with genotype-specific associations underlying the recent introduction of DNA testing, and also the introduction of vaccines to protect against cervical cancer. Interestingly, it appears that cellular environment and the site of infection affect viral pathogenicity by modulating viral gene expression. With the high-risk HPV gene products, changes in E6 and E7 expression are thought to account for the development of neoplasias at the endocervix, the anal and cervical transformation zones, and the tonsilar crypts and other oropharyngeal sites. A detailed analysis of site-specific patterns of gene expression and gene function is now prompted.The Human Papillomavirus Research Group at the University of Cambridge is funded by the UK Medical Research Council.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from MDPI via http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v707280

Specific Learning Disabilities: Response to Intervention

The content included in the current chapter centers around the screening and identification of students who experience learning challenges in an educational setting in the United States of America. The specific learning challenges discussed will focus on students who may have a specific learning disability (SLD). Legislation that brought about concepts such as response to intervention (RTI) is discussed in detail. The various levels of intensity of interventions, or tiers, provided to students are explained by more than one discipline. The new regulations guiding access to special education services are based on the identification, intervention, and close monitoring of student progress. The overarching goal of RTI is to provide support to students who may be experiencing difficulty, before they experience failure by falling too far behind their peers

Katanning area land resources survey

This report presents results from soil and landform mapping at a scale of 1:150,000 in the Katanning area of Western Australia. It is accompanied by two soil-landscape maps covering 1.45 million hectares in the Kojonup and Darkan area (map 1) and the Katanning and Dumbleyung area (map 2). Most of the Katanning survey occurs within the Blackwood River catchment but also covers the upper catchments of the Pallinup, Frankland-Gordon and Tone-Warren Rivers. The Katanning survey falls within the Narrogin and Katanning advisory districts for Agriculture Western Australia. Twenty one soil-landscape systems have been identified and are represented on the accompanying maps. Most of these systems have been further subdivided into subsystems. The main soils, landforms, geology, land use and native vegetation are described for each system. Within each subsystem, the proportion of main soil series is indicated. One hundred and forty soil series were identified in the survey. Thirty-eight are described in detail including a representative soil profile plus chemical and physical analyses from this profile if available. The main land management characteristics and native vegetation are described. Seventy-three related soil series are also described briefly. Twenty-three minor soil series and six related series that occupy small areas are described in less detail without representative profiles. The report discusses the main properties and land degradation hazards associated with the main soils identified in the survey. This is designed to give a broad overview of the capability of the soils. For specific land capability assessment it is recommended that Agriculture Western Australia’s Map Unit Database be consulted for latest assessments of land qualities and land capabilities for specific land uses. Information on land use history, geology and physiology, climate, native vegetation and previous soil surveys is included. These sections provide additional background material about the land resources within the survey area. This land resource information has been collected to help improve decisions made by planners, researchers and land managers. The information can be used from regional and catchment scales or down to farm level. By improving knowledge of our land resources, more sustainable land uses can be developed within the Katanning region

A Comparative Study of Aerocapture Missions with a Mars Destination

Conventional interplanetary spacecraft use propulsive systems to decelerate into orbit. Aerocapture is an alternative approach for orbit capture, in which the spacecraft makes a single pass through a target destination's atmosphere. Although this technique has never been performed, studies show there are substantial benefits of using aerocapture for reduction of propellant mass, spacecraft size, and mission cost. The In-Space Propulsion (ISP) Program, part of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, has invested in aerocapture technology development since 2002. Aerocapture investments within ISP are largely driven by mission systems analysis studies, The purpose of this NASA-funded report is to identify and document the fundamental parameters of aerocapture within previous human and robotic Mars mission studies which will assist the community in identifying technology research gaps in human and robotic missions, and provide insight for future technology investments. Upon examination of the final data set, some key attributes within the aerocapture disciplines are identified

Role of E6 in Maintaining the Basal Cell Reservoir during Productive Papillomavirus Infection.

Papillomaviruses exclusively infect stratified epithelial tissues and cause chronic infections. To achieve this, infected cells must remain in the epithelial basal layer alongside their uninfected neighbors for years or even decades. To examine how papillomaviruses achieve this, we used the in vivo MmuPV1 (Mus musculus papillomavirus 1) model of lesion formation and persistence. During early lesion formation, an increased cell density in the basal layer, as well as a delay in the infected cells' commitment to differentiation, was apparent in cells expressing MmuPV1 E6/E7 RNA. Using cell culture models, keratinocytes exogenously expressing MmuPV1 E6, but not E7, recapitulated this delay in differentiation postconfluence and also grew to a significantly higher density. Cell competition assays further showed that MmuPV1 E6 expression led to a preferential persistence of the cell in the first layer, with control cells accumulating almost exclusively in the second layer. Interestingly, the disruption of MmuPV1 E6 binding to MAML1 protein abrogated these phenotypes. This suggests that the interaction between MAML1 and E6 is necessary for the lower (basal)-layer persistence of MmuPV1 E6-expressing cells. Our results indicate a role for E6 in lesion establishment by facilitating the persistence of infected cells in the epithelial basal layer, a mechanism that is most likely shared by other papillomavirus types. Interruption of this interaction is predicted to impede persistent papillomavirus infection and consequently provides a novel treatment target. IMPORTANCE Persistent infection with high-risk HPV types can lead to development of HPV-associated cancers, and persistent low-risk HPV infection causes problematic diseases, such as recurrent respiratory papillomatosis. The management and treatment of these conditions pose a considerable economic burden. Maintaining a reservoir of infected cells in the basal layer of the epithelium is critical for the persistence of infection in the host, and our studies using the mouse papillomavirus model suggest that E6 gene expression leads to the preferential persistence of epithelial cells in the lower layers during stratification. The E6 interaction with MAML1, a component of the Notch pathway, is required for this phenotype and is linked to E6 effects on cell density and differentiation. These observations are likely to reflect a common E6 role that is preserved among papillomaviruses and provide us with a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of recalcitrant lesions