Developing Cross-System Communication to Promote Educational Well-Being in Foster Care Youth: Recommendations for a National Research, Practice, and Policy Agenda

This study captures the voices of school-based behavioral specialists who are employed across the state of Michigan to share how well schools and child welfare agencies communicate and collaborate to address the educational well-being of foster care children on their caseloads. This includes knowledge of federal policies and how they support and hinder communication across systems. Participants included a total of 249 K-12 employed school psychologists, counselors, and social workers. Survey methodology was used and both inferential and narrative analyses revealed that these school practitioners were highly unaware of how to identify the foster care children in their schools, and what supports they need. The three groups of school-based professionals were similarly unaware, minimal communication is occurring with outside agencies, and they largely do not take initiative in reaching out to communicate and collaborate with community-based agencies outside the school. Despite that, collectively, the work of child welfare and education professionals could have a substantial impact on retention and the overall student performance of children who are living in out of home care. Implications of this lack communication and awareness are discussed. Recommendations to guide a national research agenda for advocacy and policy efforts are also identified

An Open-Label, Multicenter, Phase I, Dose Escalation Study with Phase II Expansion Cohort to Determine the Safety, Pharmacokinetics, and Preliminary Antitumor Activity of Intravenous TKM-080301 in Subjects with Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Lessons learnedTKM-080301 showed a favorable toxicity profile at the studied dose.TKM-080301 targeting PLK1 through small interfering RNA mechanism did not demonstrate improved overall survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma compared with historical control. Preliminary antitumor activity as shown in this early-phase study does not support further evaluation as a single agent.BackgroundPolo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Knockdown of PLK1 expression by PLK1 small interfering RNA (siRNA) in an HCC cell line showed reduced expression in RNA-induced silencing complex and a reduction in cell proliferation.MethodsA 3 + 3 dose escalation plus expansion cohort at the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) was implemented. Patients with HCC, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status ≤2, and Child-Pugh score A received TKM-080301 as an intravenous infusion once every week for 3 consecutive weeks, repeated every 28 days.ResultsThe study enrolled 43 patients. The starting dose of TKM-080301 was 0.3 mg/kg, and MTD was declared at 0.75 mg/kg. Following the development of grade 4 thrombocytopenia in two subjects on the expansion cohort, the MTD was redefined at 0.6 mg/kg. Four patients did not have any evaluable postbaseline scan. Of the other 39 subjects who had received at least 0.3 mg/kg, 18 subjects (46.2%) had stable disease (SD) by independent RECIST 1.1 criteria. By Choi criteria, eight subjects (23.1%) had a partial response (PR). For 37 assessable subjects, with 2 subjects censored, median progression-free survival (PFS) was 2.04 months. Median survival for the whole study population was 7.5 months.ConclusionTKM-080301 was generally well tolerated. In this early-phase study, antitumor effect for TKM 080301 was limited. Further evaluation as a single agent in large randomized trials is not warranted

CT and 18F-FDG PET abnormalities in contacts with recent tuberculosis infections but negative chest X-ray

Close contacts of individuals with pulmonary tuberculosis are at risk for tuberculosis infection and the development of active tuberculosis. In current contact investigations, immunologic tests (the tuberculin skin test and interferon-gamma release assay) and chest X-ray examinations are used to dichotomize contacts with Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections into those with active (X-ray abnormalities) versus latent tuberculosis (normal radiographs). This article is a critical review of computed tomographic (CT) and 18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomographic (PET) findings of incipient tuberculosis without X-ray abnormalities based on a systematic literature review of twenty-five publications. The CT and 18-fluorodeoxyglucose PET studies revealed minimal pauci-nodular infiltrations in the lung parenchyma and mediastinal lymph nodes abnormalities with metabolic uptake in approximately one-third of asymptomatic close contacts with negative chest radiographic and bacteriological/molecular results for active tuberculosis. Tuberculosis with minimal changes challenge the validity of simply dichotomizing cases of recent M. tuberculosis infections in contacts depending on the presence of X-ray abnormalities as the recent infections may spontaneously regress, remain stagnant, or progress to active tuberculosis in human and nonhuman primate studies. Whether contacts with tuberculosis with minimal changes are interpreted as having active tuberculosis or latent tuberculosis has clinical implications in terms of specific benefits and harms under the current contact management. Advanced imaging tools may help further stratify contacts intensely exposed to M. tuberculosis on a continuous spectrum from latent tuberculosis to incipient, subclinical and active tuberculosis. Identifying incipient tuberculosis would provide an opportunity for earlier and tailored treatment before active tuberculosis is established

Constraints on the Progenitor System of the Type Ia Supernova SN 2011fe/PTF11kly

Type Ia supernovae (SNe) serve as a fundamental pillar of modern cosmology, owing to their large luminosity and a well-defined relationship between light-curve shape and peak brightness. The precision distance measurements enabled by SNe Ia first revealed the accelerating expansion of the universe, now widely believed (though hardly understood) to require the presence of a mysterious "dark" energy. General consensus holds that Type Ia SNe result from thermonuclear explosions of a white dwarf (WD) in a binary system; however, little is known of the precise nature of the companion star and the physical properties of the progenitor system. Here we make use of extensive historical imaging obtained at the location of SN 2011fe/PTF11kly, the closest SN Ia discovered in the digital imaging era, to constrain the visible-light luminosity of the progenitor to be 10-100 times fainter than previous limits on other SN Ia progenitors. This directly rules out luminous red giants and the vast majority of helium stars as the mass-donating companion to the exploding white dwarf. Any evolved red companion must have been born with mass less than 3.5 times the mass of the Sun. These observations favour a scenario where the exploding WD of SN 2011fe/PTF11kly, accreted matter either from another WD, or by Roche-lobe overflow from a subgiant or main-sequence companion star.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, submitte

The powers in PowerPoint: Embedded authorities, documentary tastes, and institutional (second) orders in corporate Korea

Microsoft PowerPoint is both the bane and banality of contemporary South Korean office work. Corporate workers spend countless hours refining and crafting plans, proposals, and reports in PowerPoint that often lead to conflicts with coworkers and overtime work. This article theorizes the excessive attention to documents in modern office contexts. Where scholars have been under the impression that institutional documents align with institutional purposes, I describe a context in which making documents for individual purposes and making them for work exist under a basic tension. Based on fieldwork in corporate Korea between 2013 and 2015, I describe how Korean office workers calibrate documents to the tastes of superiors who populate the managerial chain. These practices leave little trace of real "work" on paper, but they are productive for navigating complex internal labor markets and demonstrating a higher order value of attention toward others. These findings suggest that institutional and individual authorities are not competing projects inside organizations but become entangled in increasingly complex participatory encounters, even as they are channeled through a seemingly simple software like PowerPoint. [documents, expertise, authority, technology, South Korea

Dark sectors 2016 Workshop: community report

This report, based on the Dark Sectors workshop at SLAC in April 2016, summarizes the scientific importance of searches for dark sector dark matter and forces at masses beneath the weak-scale, the status of this broad international field, the important milestones motivating future exploration, and promising experimental opportunities to reach these milestones over the next 5-10 years

Vaccine Effectiveness Estimates, 2004–2005 Mumps Outbreak, England

As vaccinated children approach adolescence, immunity wanes, which may contribute to outbreaks

Using next-generation sequencing for high resolution multiplex analysis of copy number variation from nanogram quantities of DNA from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens

The use of next-generation sequencing technologies to produce genomic copy number data has recently been described. Most approaches, however, reply on optimal starting DNA, and are therefore unsuitable for the analysis of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples, which largely precludes the analysis of many tumour series. We have sought to challenge the limits of this technique with regards to quality and quantity of starting material and the depth of sequencing required. We confirm that the technique can be used to interrogate DNA from cell lines, fresh frozen material and FFPE samples to assess copy number variation. We show that as little as 5 ng of DNA is needed to generate a copy number karyogram, and follow this up with data from a series of FFPE biopsies and surgical samples. We have used various levels of sample multiplexing to demonstrate the adjustable resolution of the methodology, depending on the number of samples and available resources. We also demonstrate reproducibility by use of replicate samples and comparison with microarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) and digital PCR. This technique can be valuable in both the analysis of routine diagnostic samples and in examining large repositories of fixed archival material