Home visits : building a team approach with families with children with special needs

This paper is a review of the literature concerning home visits as a means of team building with families with children who have special needs. The primary focus is to consider the needs, problems, and guidelines for conducting home visits. Home visits have a lengthy history in early childhood education. They offer some unique insights and opportunities for educators and families. Careful planning and follow-up is necessary for a successful program. Criticisms of home visits concern primarily the issues of limited financial resources and time constraints. Planning, scheduling, and conducting the visit are discussed in this paper; also, a discussion of and the need for additional resource information are given. Evaluation of the process is an ongoing procedure. The intent of the paper is to offer a balanced view of the criticism and support concerning home visits with families with children having special needs. It delineates the real problems evaluators face in preparing and implementing a home visit program. In addition, the study offers recommendations for providing adequate resources for program implementation, recognizing the importance of the family strength-based model, and understanding family and teacher roles in the process

Implied Warranty of Habitability in Pennsylvania

Following the trend of other states, Pennsylvania is on the verge of adopting the implied warranty of habitability. The comment examines the current status of the warranty, and suggests that the warranty might become counter-productive. It concludes that legislative action is most appropriate, and that a synthesis of two bills pending in the Pennsylvania legislature would be desirable

Determination of the glycoforms of human chorionic gonadotropin b-core fragment by matrix-assisted laser desoption/ionisation time of flight mass spectrometry

Background: Metabolism of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the serum and kidney yields the terminal urinary product hCG ß-core fragment (hCGßcf), comprising two disulfide-linked peptides (ß6-ß40 and ß55-ß92) of which one (ß6-ß40) retains truncated N-linked sugars. Hyperglycosylated hCGßcf may indicate choriocarcinoma or Down syndrome, but the glycosylation profile of hCGßcf has not been thoroughly evaluated. Methods: hCGßcf, purified from pregnancy urine, was reduced by "on-target" dithiothreitol (DTT) reduction and analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). The mass ([M+H]+) of the primary sequence of the glycosylated peptide ß6-ß40 was subtracted from the m/z values of the discrete peaks observed to give the masses of the carbohydrate moieties. Carbohydrate structure was predicted by sequentially subtracting the masses of the monosaccharide residues corresponding to N-linked carbohydrates of the hCG ß-subunit reported in the literature. Results: Mass spectra of hCGßcf revealed a broad triple peak at m/z 8700–11300. After reduction, the triple peak was replaced by a discrete set of peaks between m/z 4156 and 6354. A peak at m/z 4156.8 corresponded to the nonglycosylated peptide (ß55-ß92). The remaining nine peaks indicated that urinary hCGßcf comprises a set of glycoforms smaller and larger than the trimannosyl core. Conclusions: hCGßcf comprises a wider set of glycoforms than reported previously. Peaks of highest mass indicate evidence of hyperglycosylated carbohydrate moieties. The data support previous reports that hCGßcf oligosaccharides lack sialic acid and galactose residues. No indication was found of a ß6-ß40 peptide that was entirely devoid of carbohydrate

Magnetic shielding and vacuum test for passive hydrogen masers

Vibration tests on high permeability magnetic shields used in the SAO-NRL Advanced Development Model (ADM) hydrogen maser were made. Magnetic shielding factors were measured before and after vibration. Preliminary results indicate considerable (25%) degradation. Test results on the NRL designed vacuum pumping station for the ADM hydrogen maser are also discussed. This system employs sintered zirconium carbon getter pumps to pump hydrogen plus small ion pumps to pump the inert gases. In situ activation tests and pumping characteristics indicate that the system can meet design specifications

Implicit Bias Predicts Liking of Ingroup Members Who Are Comfortable With Intergroup Interaction.

We test a novel framework for how ingroup members are perceived during intergroup interaction. Across three experiments, we found that, above and beyond egalitarian attitudes and motivations, White observers' automatic responses to Blacks (i.e., their implicit anti-Black bias) shaped their affiliation toward ingroup targets who appeared comfortable engaging in interracial versus same-race interaction. White observers' implicit anti-Black bias negatively correlated with liking of White targets who were comfortable with Blacks (Experiments 1-3). The relationship between implicit bias and liking varied as a function of targets' nonverbal comfort in interracial interactions (Experiment 1). Specifically, implicit bias negatively correlated with liking of targets when targets' nonverbal behaviors revealed observers felt comfortable with interracial contact, irrespective of the nature of those behaviors (Experiment 2). Finally, the relationship between implicit bias and target liking was mediated by perceived similarity (Experiment 3). Theoretical implications for stigma-by-association, social network homogeneity, and extended contact are discussed

The Rapidly Fading Afterglow from the Gamma-Ray Burst of 1999 May 6

We report on the discovery of the radio afterglow from the gamma-ray burst (GRB) of 1999 May 6 (GRB 990506) using the Very Large Array (VLA). The radio afterglow was detected at early times (1.5 days), but began to fade rapidly sometime between 1 and 5 days after the burst. If we attribute the radio emission to the forward shock from an expanding fireball, then this rapid onset of the decay in the radio predicts that the corresponding optical transient began to decay between 1 and 5 minutes after the burst. This could explain why no optical transient for GRB 990506 was detected in spite of numerous searches. The cause of the unusually rapid onset of the decay for the afterglow is probably the result of an isotropically energetic fireball expanding into a low density circumburst environment. At the location of the radio afterglow we find a faint (R ~ 24 mag) host galaxy with a double morphology.Comment: in press at ApJ Letters, 13 page LaTeX document includes 2 postscript figure

Letter from Ludwig S. Jacoby to James B. Finley

Ludwig S. Jacoby, MEC missionary to Germany (Bremen), sends a letter of support to Finley. Jacoby tells Finley -- We are still going on in the good war against the world and the Devil. Abstract Number - 499https://digitalcommons.owu.edu/finley-letters/1697/thumbnail.jp

Evaluation and Management of Sleep Disorders in the Hand Surgery Patient.

Despite posing a significant public health threat, sleep disorders remain poorly understood and often underdiagnosed and mismanaged. Although sleep disorders are seemingly unrelated, hand surgeons should be mindful of these because numerous conditions of the upper extremity have known associations with sleep disturbances that can adversely affect patient function and satisfaction. In addition, patients with sleep disorders are at significantly higher risk for severe, even life-threatening medical comorbidities, further amplifying the role of hand surgeons in the recognition of this condition