Why we need more Aboriginal Adults Working with Aboriginal Students

The culturally shaped communicative context of classrooms has been documented to be an important influence on social and educational outcomes for Indigenous students. There is increasing evidence that it may be a critical factor in the outcomes of Indigenous students with conductive hearing loss (CHL) during their school years. This article describes research that explores social and educational disadvantage associated with conductive hearing loss in two remote schools with wholly Indigenous class groups taught in English by non-indigenous teachers

Psychosocial outcomes of children with ear infections and hearing problems:A longitudinal study

Background\ud \ud There is some evidence of a relationship between psychosocial health and the incidence of ear infections and hearing problems in young children. There is however little longitudinal evidence investigating this relationship. This paper used 6-year prospective longitudinal data to examine the impact of ear infection and hearing problems on psychosocial outcomes in two cohorts of children (one cohort recruited at 0/1 years and the other at 4/5 years).\ud \ud Methods\ud \ud Data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) were analysed to address the research aim. The LSAC follows two cohorts of children (infants aged 0/1 years – B cohort, n = 4242; and children aged 4/5 years – K cohort, n = 4169) collecting data in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. In B cohort at baseline 3.7% (n = 189) of the sample were reported by their parent to have had an ear infection (excluding hearing problems) and 0.5% (n = 26) were reported by their parent to have hearing problems (excluding ear infections). 6.7% (n = 323) of the K cohort were identified as having had an ear infection and 2.0% (n = 93) to have hearing problems. Psychosocial outcomes were measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Data were analysed using multivariate analysis of variance and logistic regression, reporting adjusted odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals of the association between reported ear infections (excluding hearing problems)/or hearing problems (excluding ear infections) and psychosocial outcomes.\ud \ud Results\ud \ud Children were more likely to have abnormal/borderline psychosocial outcomes at 10/11 years of age if they had been reported to have ongoing ear infections or hearing problems when they were 4/5 years old. When looking at the younger cohort however, poorer psychosocial outcomes were only documented at 6/7 years for children reported to have hearing problems at 0/1 years, not for those who were reported to have ongoing ear infections.\ud \ud Conclusion\ud \ud This study adds further evidence that a relationship may exist between repeated ear infections or hearing problems and the long-term psychosocial health of children and provides support for a more systematic investigation of these issues

Interface Pattern Engineering in Core-Shell Upconverting Nanocrystals: Shedding Light on Critical Parameters and Consequences for the Photoluminescence Properties

Advances in controlling energy migration pathways in core-shell lanthanide (Ln)-based hetero-nanocrystals (HNCs) have relied heavily on assumptions about how optically active centers are distributed within individual HNCs. In this article, it is demonstrated that different types of interface patterns can be formed depending on shell growth conditions. Such interface patterns are not only identified but also characterized with spatial resolution ranging from the nanometer- to the atomic-scale. In the most favorable cases, atomic-scale resolved maps of individual particles are obtained. It is also demonstrated that, for the same type of core-shell architecture, the interface pattern can be engineered with thicknesses of just 1 nm up to several tens of nanometers. Total alloying between the core and shell domains is also possible when using ultra-small particles as seeds. Finally, with different types of interface patterns (same architecture and chemical composition of the core and shell domains) it is possible to modify the output color (yellow, red, and green-yellow) or change (improvement or degradation) the absolute upconversion quantum yield. The results presented in this article introduce an important paradigm shift and pave the way toward the emergence of a new generation of core-shell Ln-based HNCs with better control over their atomic-scale organization

The Kepler-10 planetary system revisited by HARPS-N: A hot rocky world and a solid Neptune-mass planet

Kepler-10b was the first rocky planet detected by the Kepler satellite and con- firmed with radial velocity follow-up observations from Keck-HIRES. The mass of the planet was measured with a precision of around 30%, which was insufficient to constrain models of its internal structure and composition in detail. In addition to Kepler-10b, a second planet transiting the same star with a period of 45 days was sta- tistically validated, but the radial velocities were only good enough to set an upper limit of 20 Mearth for the mass of Kepler-10c. To improve the precision on the mass for planet b, the HARPS-N Collaboration decided to observe Kepler-10 intensively with the HARPS-N spectrograph on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo on La Palma. In to- tal, 148 high-quality radial-velocity measurements were obtained over two observing seasons. These new data allow us to improve the precision of the mass determina- tion for Kepler-10b to 15%. With a mass of 3.33 +/- 0.49 Mearth and an updated radius of 1.47 +0.03 -0.02 Rearth, Kepler-10b has a density of 5.8 +/- 0.8 g cm-3, very close to the value -0.02 predicted by models with the same internal structure and composition as the Earth. We were also able to determine a mass for the 45-day period planet Kepler-10c, with an even better precision of 11%. With a mass of 17.2 +/- 1.9 Mearth and radius of 2.35 +0.09 -0.04 Rearth, -0.04 Kepler-10c has a density of 7.1 +/- 1.0 g cm-3. Kepler-10c appears to be the first strong evidence of a class of more massive solid planets with longer orbital periods.Comment: 44 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

BRG1-SWI/SNF-dependent regulation of the Wt1 transcriptional landscape mediates epicardial activity during heart development and disease

Epicardium-derived cells (EPDCs) contribute cardiovascular cell types during development and in adulthood respond to Thymosin \u3b24 (T\u3b24) and myocardial infarction (MI) by reactivating a fetal gene programme to promote neovascularization and cardiomyogenesis. The mechanism for epicardial gene (re-)activation remains elusive. Here we reveal that BRG1, the essential ATPase subunit of the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodelling complex, is required for expression of Wilms' tumour 1 (Wt1), fetal EPDC activation and subsequent differentiation into coronary smooth muscle, and restores Wt1 activity upon MI. BRG1 physically interacts with T\u3b24 and is recruited by CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein \u3b2 (C/EBP\u3b2) to discrete regulatory elements in the Wt1 locus. BRG1-T\u3b24 co-operative binding promotes optimal transcription of Wt1 as the master regulator of embryonic EPDCs. Moreover, chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing reveals BRG1 binding at further key loci suggesting SWI/SNF activity across the fetal epicardial gene programme. These findings reveal essential functions for chromatin-remodelling in the activation of EPDCs during cardiovascular development and repair

First radial velocity results from the MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA)

The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a dedicated observatory of four 0.7m robotic telescopes fiber-fed to a KiwiSpec spectrograph. The MINERVA mission is to discover super-Earths in the habitable zones of nearby stars. This can be accomplished with MINERVA's unique combination of high precision and high cadence over long time periods. In this work, we detail changes to the MINERVA facility that have occurred since our previous paper. We then describe MINERVA's robotic control software, the process by which we perform 1D spectral extraction, and our forward modeling Doppler pipeline. In the process of improving our forward modeling procedure, we found that our spectrograph's intrinsic instrumental profile is stable for at least nine months. Because of that, we characterized our instrumental profile with a time-independent, cubic spline function based on the profile in the cross dispersion direction, with which we achieved a radial velocity precision similar to using a conventional "sum-of-Gaussians" instrumental profile: 1.8 m s$^{-1}$ over 1.5 months on the RV standard star HD 122064. Therefore, we conclude that the instrumental profile need not be perfectly accurate as long as it is stable. In addition, we observed 51 Peg and our results are consistent with the literature, confirming our spectrograph and Doppler pipeline are producing accurate and precise radial velocities.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, submitted to PASP, Peer-Reviewed and Accepte

Exploiting Laboratory and Heliophysics Plasma Synergies

Recent advances in space-based heliospheric observations, laboratory experimentation, and plasma simulation codes are creating an exciting new cross-disciplinary opportunity for understanding fast energy release and transport mechanisms in heliophysics and laboratory plasma dynamics, which had not been previously accessible. This article provides an overview of some new observational, experimental, and computational assets, and discusses current and near-term activities towards exploitation of synergies involving those assets. This overview does not claim to be comprehensive, but instead covers mainly activities closely associated with the authors’ interests and reearch. Heliospheric observations reviewed include the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission, the first instrument to provide remote sensing imagery observations with spatial continuity extending from the Sun to the Earth, and the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on the Japanese Hinode spacecraft that is measuring spectroscopically physical parameters of the solar atmosphere towards obtaining plasma temperatures, densities, and mass motions. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the upcoming Solar Orbiter with the Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) on-board will also be discussed. Laboratory plasma experiments surveyed include the line-tied magnetic reconnection experiments at University of Wisconsin (relevant to coronal heating magnetic flux tube observations and simulations), and a dynamo facility under construction there; the Space Plasma Simulation Chamber at the Naval Research Laboratory that currently produces plasmas scalable to ionospheric and magnetospheric conditions and in the future also will be suited to study the physics of the solar corona; the Versatile Toroidal Facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that provides direct experimental observation of reconnection dynamics; and the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment, which provides well-diagnosed data on three-dimensional (3D) null-point magnetic reconnection that is also applicable to solar active regions embedded in pre-existing coronal fields. New computer capabilities highlighted include: HYPERION, a fully compressible 3D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code with radiation transport and thermal conduction; ORBIT-RF, a 4D Monte-Carlo code for the study of wave interactions with fast ions embedded in background MHD plasmas; the 3D implicit multi-fluid MHD spectral element code, HiFi; and, the 3D Hall MHD code VooDoo. Research synergies for these new tools are primarily in the areas of magnetic reconnection, plasma charged particle acceleration, plasma wave propagation and turbulence in a diverging magnetic field, plasma atomic processes, and magnetic dynamo behavior.United States. Office of Naval ResearchNaval Research Laboratory (U.S.