A hermeneutic phenomenology study of schooling experiences of Lumbee indian students with high incidence disabilities

Dropout issue among ethnic minority students with disabilities has been a major issue for educational professionals in several decades. Among all student groups, American Indian students with disabilities continue to show a higher disproportionate representation in high school dropouts. Low student engagement has been documented as a major dropout predictor in the education literature. Therefore, this dissertation research was designed to understand the dropout phenomenon among American Indian students with disabilities by exploring school engaging experiences of Lumbee Indian students with disabilities. Because phenomenological research begins in lived experiences, this research adopts this research methodology to advance our understanding of students' engaging experiences. This research found that participants in this study may receive inappropriate education services, particularly those who exhibited behavioral challenges. We have noted that teacher-student relationship was described by all student participants as a major challenge they experienced at school. Their school engaging experiences were strongly influenced by their interactions with school teachers or other professionals. For students' misbehaviors, the disciplinary actions taken by teachers might be too severe. The control-oriented school context plays another factor intensifying students' misbehaviors at school. Family factor was observed as another factor influencing students' engaging experiences

Three essays on corporate debt mix, maturity structure, and inside debt compensation

In Chapter 1, we use a large sample of new debt to examine the determinants of corporate debt mix and to test the substitute/complement effects among debt sources. We find that both firm-level factors and macroeconomic variables are important determinants of debt mix. In addition, the set of determinants varies across time and economic conditions. In general, we find evidence for a substitution effect between public debt and private debt, both at rating downgrades and new issuance events. In Chapter 2, we examine the impacts of product market competition and corporate governance on debt maturity. We find that firms in less competitive industries use more short-term maturity than firms in more competitive industries, while firms with weak corporate governance use less short-term maturity. However, there is mixed evidence on the impact of the interaction between product market competition and corporate governance on maturity. In Chapter 3, we study the relations between inside debt compensation and corporate policies. We find a positive relationship between inside debt and leverage, indicating that CEOs with higher inside debt holdings tend to use higher leverage. We also find strong (weak) evidence on the negative relationship between inside debt and R&D activities (capital expenditures). We provide the first evidence about the relationship between inside debt and debt maturity. In one direction, short-term maturity increases in inside debt. However, in other direction, inside debt decreases in short-term maturity. Additionally, we document new evidence about the determinants of inside debt

A cross-cultural comparison of services for young children with disabilities using the ACEI Global Guidelines Assessment (GGA).

Because young children with special needs frequently experience unequal access to quality education worldwide, understanding characteristics of services currently provided to them is critical to identifying practices that work as well as gaps in services and the reasons behind these trends. Two studies were conducted using the ACEI Global Guidelines Assessment (GGA) to investigate the access to and quality of special education services in early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs across eight countries in the Americas and Asia. Study I included 138 participants in 69 programs across five Latin American countries and Study II included 336 participants in 168 programs across four countries and six sites. Results from both studies indicate that ECCE programs strive to provide equal access to young children regardless of ethnicity, religion, language, gender, and socio-economic status. However, insufficient resources and policies were cited as a barrier to services for children with disabilities. This situation was especially true in rural communities. Therefore, national policies are needed to improve the quality of service and to make funds consistently available for services for young children with special needs. This finding is congruent with international reports

Investigating the psychometric properties of the ACEI global guidelines assessment (GGA) in four countries.

The ACEI Global Guidelines Assessment (GGA) was developed to provide an international assessment tool that can be used by early childhood educators to develop, assess, and improve program quality worldwide. This pilot study was conducted in four countries to investigate the psychometric properties of the GGA within and across different countries. A total of 168 programs and 336 early care and education professionals participated in this study from communities in the People’s Republic of China, Guatemala, Taiwan, and the United States. The results show strong internal consistency for each subscale and the total GGA as well as moderate interrater consistency for the five subscales. A comparison of item ratings and the qualitative evidence suggests moderately acceptable congruence between the ratings and evidence to support the ratings. Patterns of program practices were identified within and across the participating sties and countries that reflected both unique and common practices. These results suggest that the GGA has potential as a useful and effective tool both for understanding early childhood program quality within and across countries and as a means of helping practitioners to establish and/or improve the quality of their services

Nano Chromium Picolinate Improves Gene Expression Associated with Insulin Signaling in Porcine Skeletal Muscle and Adipose Tissue

The aim of this study was to investigate the interactive effects of dietary nano chromium picolinate (nCrPic) and dietary fat on genes involved in insulin signaling in skeletal muscle and subcutaneous adipose tissue of pigs. Forty-eight gilts were stratified on body weight into four blocks of four pens of three pigs and then within each block each pen was randomly allocated to four treatment groups in a 2 × 2 factorial design. The respective factors were dietary fat (22 or 57 g/kg) and dietary nCrPic (0 or 400 ppb nCrPic) fed for six weeks. Skeletal muscle samples were collected from the Longissimus thoracis and subcutaneous adipose tissue collected from above this muscle. Dietary nCrPic increased adiponectin, uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) and serine/threonine protein kinase (AKT) mRNA expression, whereas dietary fat decreased adiponectin and increased leptin, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors γ (PPARγ) and CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α (C/EBPα) mRNA expression in adipose tissue. In skeletal muscle, dietary nCrPic increased phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K), AKT, UCP3 and interleukin-15 (IL-15), as well as decreased suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) mRNA expression. The improvement in insulin signaling and muscle mass and the reduction in carcass fatness by dietary nCrPic may be via decreased SOCS3 and increased UCP3 and IL-15 in skeletal muscle and increased adiponectin in subcutaneous adipose tissue

ZASC1 knockout mice exhibit an early bone marrow-specific defect in murine leukemia virus replication

Abstract Background ZASC1 is a zinc finger-containing transcription factor that was previously shown to bind to specific DNA binding sites in the Moloney murine leukemia virus (Mo-MuLV) promoter and is required for efficient viral mRNA transcription (J. Virol. 84:7473-7483, 2010). Methods To determine whether this cellular factor influences Mo-MuLV replication and viral disease pathogenesis in vivo, we generated a ZASC1 knockout mouse model and completed both early infection and long term disease pathogenesis studies. Results Mice lacking ZASC1 were born at the expected Mendelian ratio and showed no obvious physical or behavioral defects. Analysis of bone marrow samples revealed a specific increase in a common myeloid progenitor cell population in ZASC1-deficient mice, a result that is of considerable interest because osteoclasts derived from the myeloid lineage are among the first bone marrow cells infected by Mo-MuLV (J. Virol. 73: 1617-1623, 1999). Indeed, Mo-MuLV infection of neonatal mice revealed that ZASC1 is required for efficient early virus replication in the bone marrow, but not in the thymus or spleen. However, the absence of ZASC1 did not influence the timing of subsequent tumor progression or the types of tumors resulting from virus infection. Conclusions These studies have revealed that ZASC1 is important for myeloid cell differentiation in the bone marrow compartment and that this cellular factor is required for efficient Mo-MuLV replication in this tissue at an early time point post-infection

Snapshot Provisioning of Cloud Application Stacks to Face Traffic Surges

Traffic surges, like the Slashdot effect, occur when a web application is overloaded by a huge number of requests, potentially leading to unavailability. Unfortunately, such traffic variations are generally totally unplanned, of great amplitude, within a very short period, and a variable delay to return to a normal regime. In this report, we introduce PeakForecast as an elastic middleware solution to detect and absorb a traffic surge. In particular, PeakForecast can, from a trace of queries received in the last seconds, minutes or hours, to detect if the underlying system is facing a traffic surge or not, and then estimate the future traffic using a forecast model with an acceptable precision, thereby calculating the number of resources required to absorb the remaining traffic to come. We validate our solution by experimental results demonstrating that it can provide instantaneous elasticity of resources for traffic surges observed on the Japanese version of Wikipedia during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.Les pics de trafic, tels que l'effet Slashdot, apparaissent lorsqu'une application web doit faire face un nombre important de requêtes qui peut potentiellement entraîner une mise hors service de l'application. Malheureusement, de telles variations de traffic sont en général totalement imprévues et d'une grande amplitude, arrivent pendant une très courte période de temps et le retour à un régime normal prend un délai variable. Dans ce rapport, nous présentons PeakForecast qui est une solution intergicielle élastique pour détecter et absorber les pics de trafic. En particulier, PeakForecast peut, à partir des traces de requêtes reçues dans les dernières secondes, minutes ou heures, détecter si le système sous-jacent fait face ou non à un pic de trafic, estimer le trafic futur en utilisant un modèle de prédiction suffisamment précis, et calculer le nombre de ressources nécessaires à l'absorption du trafic restant à venir. Nous validons notre solution avec des résultats expérimentaux qui démontrent qu'elle fournit une élasticité instantanée des ressources pour des pics de trafic qui ont été observés sur la version japonaise de Wikipedia lors de l'accident nucléaire de Fukushima Daiichi en mars 2011

Dietary nano chromium picolinate can ameliorate some of the impacts of heat stress in cross-bred sheep

Two studies were conducted to evaluate the effect of nano chromium picolinate (nCrPic) during heat stress (HS) in sheep. In the initial study, 36 Merino × Poll cross-bred sheep were individually penned and allocated to 3 dietary treatments (0, 400 and 800 μg/kg nCrPic) for 8 wk. Body composition was determined at the beginning and end of the experiment using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. The sheep remained in their dietary groups but were then placed in metabolic cages and randomly allocated within the dietary group to differing ambient temperature regimes, i.e., thermo-neutral (TN) (n = 18) and HS (n = 18), for 3 wk. Dietary nCrPic had no effect on growth performance and body composition during the initial study conducted under TN conditions. Heat stress decreased average daily feed intake (ADFI) (P = 0.002) whereas sheep under HS had reduced average daily gain (ADG) and indeed lost weight (P < 0.001). Dietary nCrPic increased both ADFI (P = 0.041) and ADG (P = 0.049) under both TH and HS conditions such that the performance of sheep receiving supplemental nCrPic and exposed to HS was similar to that of control sheep maintained under TN conditions. Heat stress increased rectal temperature (P < 0.001) and respiration rate (P < 0.001), particularly during the hottest parts of the day as indicated by interactions (P < 0.001) between time of day and thermal treatment. Rectal temperature was lower in sheep fed nCrPic (P = 0.050), particularly under peak HS conditions during the afternoon as indicated by the interactions between dietary nCrPic and time of day (P < 0.001) and dietary nCrPic, thermal treatment and time of day (P = 0.010). Similarly, respiration rate was lower in sheep fed nCrPic under peak HS conditions during the afternoon as indicated by the interactions between dietary nCrPic and thermal treatment (P < 0.001) and dietary nCrPic and time of day (P = 0.030). In conclusion, dietary nCrPic can partially ameliorate the negative effects of HS as indicated by the maintenance of ADFI and decreased physiological responses, such as elevations in rectal temperature and respiration rate

Feasibility of Tomotherapy-Based Image-Guided Radiotherapy for Locally Advanced Oropharyngeal Cancer

PURPOSE: The study aims to assess the feasibility of tomotherapy-based image-guided (IGRT) radiotherapy for locally advanced oropharyngeal cancer. A retrospective review of 33 patients undergoing concurrent chemoradiation for locally advanced oropharyngeal cancers was conducted. Radiotherapy planning, treatment toxicity and loco-regional control were assessed. RESULTS: At a median follow-up of 32 months (6-47 months), no patient developed loco-regional recurrence. Two patients (6%) developed distant metastases. Grade 3-4 acute toxicity was respectively 72% and 25% for mucositis and gastrointestinal toxicity. Two patients (6%) had long-term dependence on tube feedings. Dose-volume histogram demonstrated excellent target volume coverage and low radiation dose to the organs at risk for complications. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: IGRT provides excellent loco-regional control but acute toxicity remains significant and needs to be addressed in future prospective trials. The feasibility of Tomotherapy to decrease radiation dose to the normal tissues merits further investigations

Feasibility of image-guided radiotherapy based on helical tomotherapy to reduce contralateral parotid dose in head and neck cancer

Background To evaluate the feasibility of image-guided radiotherapy based on helical Tomotherapy to spare the contralateral parotid gland in head and neck cancer patients with unilateral or no neck node metastases. Methods A retrospective review of 52 patients undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck cancers with image guidance based on daily megavoltage CT imaging with helical tomotherapy was performed. Results Mean contralateral parotid dose and the volume of the contralateral parotid receiving 40 Gy or more were compared between radiotherapy plans with significant constraint (SC) of less than 20 Gy on parotid dose (23 patients) and the conventional constraint (CC) of 26 Gy (29 patients). All patients had PTV coverage of at least 95% to the contralateral elective neck nodes. Mean contralateral parotid dose was, respectively, 14.1 Gy and 24.7 Gy for the SC and CC plans (p < 0.0001). The volume of contralateral parotid receiving 40 Gy or more was respectively 5.3% and 18.2% (p < 0.0001) Conclusion Tomotherapy for head and neck cancer minimized radiotherapy dose to the contralateral parotid gland in patients undergoing elective node irradiation without sacrificing target coverage