Talking Glossary of Genomics Terminology: A Genomics Education Module for American Indian Communities

This paper describes the development of an audio visual genomics glossary that was designed as an education tool for American Indian communities. This “Talking Glossary of Genomics Terminology” is a multimedia DVD that was modeled on the “Talking Glossary of Genetics,” which was developed by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). The NHGRI Glossary was modified and expanded with content designed to increase awareness among American Indians about cancer, genomics, and personalized medicine. Partners on the project include the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., Phoenix Indian Medical Center, Arizona Cancer Center at the University of Arizona, the Translational Genomics Research Institute, as well as Arizona State University and University of Arizona graduate students

Communication and Perspective-Taking Skills of Pupils Excluded or At Risk of Exclusion from School: An investigation into deficits in communication skill and implications for intervention

The research focuses on young people excluded from school, and those identified as being at risk of exclusion. It assesses their skills in communication, empathy / perspective taking, and incorporates information from staff at their schools relating to their perceptions of the participants’ communication skills and their risk of exclusion. This data, along with interviews with a smaller sample of the young people who have experienced permanent exclusion, is used to discuss implications for policy and intervention with regard to supporting pupils with language difficulties. The research is set out in two papers. Paper One describes the findings from an assessment of communication skill and empathy / perspective taking. Paper Two uses the findings from Paper One to compare the participants’ skills with the perceptions of their teachers regarding their communication ability and risk of exclusion, and also describes the findings from interviews with a selection of the participants. The research demonstrated significant communication difficulties in the sample groups. This has implications for their prospects, as the literature review highlights the difficulties that young people can experience if their language difficulties are not addressed. The questionnaire completed by staff showed that although many staff were aware of the pupils’ language difficulties, they often underestimated the extent of these difficulties

An Examination of Fourth Grade Students’ Perceptions of Writing

This study was designed to examine fourth graders\u27 perceptions of writing. Twenty- six fourth grade students were individually interviewed. The interview consisted of a series of ten questions eliciting the student\u27s thoughts and ideas concerning writing. Each interview was tape recorded, and the responses were analyzed. The researcher found that female students tended to view writing more positively than males. A number of factors, including past experiences, feelings, interests, and previous writing opportunities, influenced the students\u27 perceptions of writing. Environment also contributed to students’ perceptions. Students are more eager to write when they have a sense of personal involvement/investment in the process. Students were also motivated by selecting their own topic, having prior knowledge about topic, having freedom to make choices about their writing, having an adequate to complete the writing, and being able to generate their own ideas. Students also demonstrated an awareness of the purpose and practice of writing. Directions for future research include reproducing this study with a larger subject pool and performing a longitudinal study to examine students’ perceptions over time

Enabling research in care homes : an evaluation of a national network of research ready care homes

© 2014 Davies et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise statedIn the UK care homes are one of the main providers of long term care for older people with dementia. Despite the recent increase in care home research, residents with dementia are often excluded from studies. Care home research networks have been recommended by the Ministerial Advisory Group on Dementia Research (MAGDR) as a way of increasing research opportunities for residents with dementia. This paper reports on an evaluation of the feasibility and early impact of an initiative to increase care home participation in researchPeer reviewe

Evaluating educational initiatives to improve palliative care for people with dementia: A narrative review.

Dementia accounts for one in three deaths among people aged 65 and over, but end-of-life care for people with dementia is often sub-optimal. Palliative care for people with dementia poses particular challenges to those providing services, and current policy initiatives recommend education and training in palliative care for those working with patients with dementia. However, there are few evaluations of the effectiveness of dementia education and training. This paper presents a narrative review undertaken in 2011-2012 of evaluations of palliative care education for those working with people with dementia at the end of life. A total of eight papers were identified that described and evaluated such palliative care education; none reported benefits for people with dementia. There is a clear need to develop and evaluate educational interventions designed to improve palliative and end-of-life care for people with dementia. Some suggestions for educationally sound approaches are discussed

Participation, Commitment, and Loyalty Towards Youth Tennis: Player and Parent Perceptions

Sports, in general and tennis specifically, offer diverse benefits for youth in social, physical, psychological, and mental dimensions. These benefits are known to influence commitment and loyalty towards sports. Nonetheless, the influence of perceived benefits on youth commitments and loyalty to tennis has been a void in the literature. Assuming the parental influence on youth participation in sport in general and in tennis specifically, this study measured and compared the youth tennis players’ and their parents’ perceived benefits of tennis. The study depicted physical well-being, life skills, and fun as the highly-rated perceived benefits by both players and parents/guardians. Life skills also contributed to commitment to tennis while physical well-being contributed to the loyalty towards tennis from players’ perspectives

Monitoring of waterways for evidence of faecal contamination from biosolids using DNA techniques.

Increased nutrient levels in inland waterways have led to algal blooms and eutrophication in many agricultural regions. To ensure fertiliser inputs are managed more effectively, the source of contamination needs to be tracked and identified. Point sources could include inorganic fertilisers, livestock excreta, or more recently biosolids. The presence of faecal indicator microorganisms has been widely used to identify the presence of faeces, however, these methods cannot distinguish between human and animals samples. This study investigated PCR amplification as a molecular method to distinguish biosolids from livestock faeces of biosolids, cattle, sheep, poultry and kangaroo. This was achieved using published priming sequences and restriction site profiling of amplified DNA across the 16S rRNA gene of anaerobic gastrointestinal bacteria Bacteroides spp and Bifidobacteria spp. Preliminary investigation showed that of the three Bacteroides spp primer pairs investigated, two were useful for cow faecal material; though at lower annealing temperatures were also applicable to biosolids and sheep faecal material. The third primer pair was specific only for biosolids. All three primer pairs were unable to PCR-amplify Bacteroides spp sequences in faecal material of kangaroo. Of the three Bifidobacteria spp primer pairs, one was useful for sheep faecal material; though at lower annealing temperature was also applicable to biosolids and cow and kangaroo faecal material. The Bifidobacterium angulatum specific primer pair enabled the PCR detection of anaerobes only in biosolids and faecal material of kangaroo. The third, a Bifidobacterium catenulatum specific primer pair was suitable for faecal material of cow and at lower annealing temperatures was also applicable to the sample from sheep. Varying degrees of success were observed in faecal material from other animals. Generally, biosolids tested positive for Bacteroides and Bfidobacteria with all primers except for those specific for B. angulatum. For some primer sets, PCR amplification alone could not differentiate biosolids from other faecal samples. The serial dilution of water contaminated by a range of livestock excreta and biosolids is being examined further to enable the sensitivity of this method to be applied in the field

Strategies to address the complex challenge of improving regional and remote children’s fruit and vegetable consumption

Fruit and vegetables (F&V) are imperative for good health, yet less than one per cent of Australian children consume these food groups in sufficient quantities. As guided by Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), this paper aimed to: (i) understand key informant perspectives of the amount, types and quality of F&V consumed by rural and remote Western Australian (WA) children; and, (ii) determine strategies that could increase F&V consumption among rural and remote WA children. This qualitative study included 20 semi-structured interviews with health, school/youth and food supply workers, focusing on topics including: quantity and type of F&V consumed and strategies to increase children’s consumption. A thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo qualitative data analysis software (Version 10, 2014. QSR International Pty Ltd., Doncaster, Victoria, Australia). Key informants reported children consumed energy-dense nutrient-poor foods in place of F&V. Strategy themes included: using relevant motivators for children to increase their preference for F&V (i.e., gaming approach, SCT construct of ‘expectations’); empowering community-driven initiatives (i.e., kitchen gardens, SCT construct of ‘environment’); increasing food literacy across settings (i.e., food literacy skills, SCT construct of ‘behavioural capacity’); developing salient messages and cooking tips that resonate with parents (i.e., parent newsletters, SCT construct of ‘self-control’); increasing F&V availability, safety, and convenience (i.e., school provision); and, considering the impact of role models that extend beyond the family (i.e., relatable role models, SCT construct of ‘observational learning’). Overall, a comprehensive strategy that incorporates relevant motivators for children and families, supports local initiatives, reinforces the range of role models that are involved with children and creates healthier environments, is required to increase F&V consumption among children

Mineralogy and Malignant Mesothelioma: The South African Experience

South Africa is a uniquely mineral rich country. Of the six types of asbestiform minerals found in the country, three, namely crocidolite, amosite and chrysotile were mined and milled on a large commercial scale. Asbestos was used locally in South Africa, but the majority of its production was exported worldwide. In the 1970s, South Africa was the world’s third largest producer of asbestos, behind Canada and the USSR. About 97% of the world’s production of crocidolite and virtually all of the amosite came from South Africa. The output from the South African asbestos mining industry peaked at 380,000 tonnes in 1977 and declined thereafter as export markets declined due to restrictive legislation in countries that imported asbestos (Virta, 2006; Kielkowski et al., 2011). Legislation in South Africa banning the use of all types of asbestos came into effect in 2008, well after the last asbestos mine ceased production in 2001 and closed in 2002. Although South Africa benefitted financially from the exploitation of its asbestos mineral reserves, the revenue from asbestos never accounted for more than 3% of the value of its total minerals output (McCulloch, 2003). There is however a high price to pay in terms of a legacy of disease and environmental contamination through mining activities and the transport of asbestos and asbestos containing products