A Beautiful Story: A Dream Realized through the Power of Natural Supports and Faith in Oneself

At a very young age, Shirley Doneza was diagnosed with developmental delay and a learning disability. Her parents, Ed and Martha, recall the obstetrician telling them in the vaguest of terms: “Something is wrong with her.” However, Ed and Martha knew the person that Shirley was becoming and never doubted her potential to work hard and realize whatever dreams she might hold dear. With their faith and support, Shirley passed through the grade levels in school apace with her peers and ultimately graduated from college with a degree as an Educational Assistant. Today, she has achieved a high quality of life with a competitive, and exceptionally gratifying, employment and a high quality of life. Her story is a model of the power of natural supports—defined as the people surrounding a person, not as professionals but as personal associations, i.e., family and friends who believe in the person (Stodden & Leake, 1994) —to impart self-confidence and self-efficacy, and the success that that belief can bring

Organizational Satisfaction And Participation: Findings from a Study Of ACE Members

Organizations which serve information professionals, such as Agricultural Communicators in Education, must continue to respond to the needs of members through relevant programs and professional opportunities. The study reported here examines satisfaction and participation within the organization. Overall, the study found broad-based member satisfaction. But while there is widespread support, there are segments of the membership which need attention. Findings also identify organizational areas which can be improved, particularly in the conduct of the Critique and Awards Program and in meeting the expectations of members involved in Special Interest Groups (SIG). Specific questions that may have organizational policy implications are raised. The study\u27s finding that member participation positively is related to overall satisfaction with ACE is encouraging. One important goal for ACE, then, would be to encourage increased participation. And, because newer members tend to be the most dissatisfied with ACE, emphasis should be placed on immediately getting them more involved in ACE activities

Investigating the Cost Management Practices of Indigenous Firms in the Ghanaian Construction Industry

Cost management is key to project implementation and an important tool for maximizing profit nonetheless it has been a major challenge for most indigenous construction firms in Ghana. The study seeks to investigate the important factors influencing cost management practices among indigenous construction firms in Ghana and to ascertain whether there is a significant difference between the responses of the categories of the firm (construction and consultancy firms) in Ghana. A total of 82 questionnaires were retrieved from 100 administered questionnaires to professionals with indigenous construction firms representing 82% response rate. Data gathered were analyzed descriptively using Mean Item Score (MIS) via SPSS version 24 to identify the most important factors. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity conducted showed a KMO score of 0.894. Bartlett’s test of sphericity also revealed a significance level of 0.000 (p˂0.05). The ANOVA suggest that there is no significant difference between the responses between the categories of firms. Indigenous firms are encouraged therefore to consider managing disagreement between project team members by ensuring constant project implementation meetings and to understand ground conditions of projects by visiting proposed sites prior to estimation and tendering. Finally, communication and expenditure control measures should be enhanced and introduced respectively. The implication of this study while contributing to the discourse on cost management practices of indigenous constructions firms in Ghana, also outlines the major (highly ranked) factors influencing indigenous firms in the management of project cost, before, during and after project implementation.&nbsp

Yellow Rose of Texas

[Verse 1] There’s a yellow rose in Texas that I am going to see, No other darkey knows her, no darkey only me; She cried so when I left her, it like to broke my heart, And if I ever find her we never more will part. [Chorus] She’s the sweetest rose of color this darkey ever knew, Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew, You may talk about your Dearest May, and sing of Rosa lee, But the yellow rose of Texas beats the belles of Tennessee. [Verse 2] Where the Rio Grande is flowing, and the starry skies are bright, She walks along the river in the quiet summer night; She thinks if I remember, when we parted long ago, I promis’d to come back again, and not to leave her so. [Chorus] [Verse 3] Oh! now I’m going to find her, for my hear is full of woe, And we’ll sing the song together the we sung so long ago; We’ll play the banjo gaily, and we’ll sing the songs of yore, And the yellow rose of Texas shall be mine for evermore. [Chorus

School adaptation among immigrant youth from a Dutch integration program:The influence of acculturative stress and bicultural identity integration on academic motivation

Academic motivation represents a psychoeducational construct that is associated with the academic success of youth. For some immigrant youth, however, their academic motivation may be affected by the various challenges that they face during their settlement in a culturally diverse school that promotes different self-construal values and practices. The main goal of this study is to investigate the cultural match or mismatch between non-Western immigrant youth and the self-construal orientation typically promoted in Western schools, as well as how specific challenges associated with migration contribute to the development of different levels of academic motivation during their recent settlement. We hypothesize that non-Western immigrant youth experience cultural mismatch in a Western school, and that greater reports of migration challenges are associated with increases in levels of external motivation and decreases in levels of intrinsic motivation. To test these hypotheses, the present study was conducted among non-Western immigrant youth between 12 and 19 years old in their first year of attending a Dutch academic integration program in The Netherlands. Our findings highlight that non-Western immigrant youth are mismatched with the self-construal orientations typically promoted in Dutch schools, and that there is specificity in the way that migration challenges relate to different levels of academic motivation. These findings should be considered by Western educational stakeholders who aim to foster academic success for immigrant youth early on in their resettlement.</p

The effect of childhood bilectalism and multilingualism on executive control.

Several investigations report a positive effect of childhood bilingualism on executive control (EC). An issue that has remained largely unexamined is the role of the typological distance between the languages spoken by bilinguals. In the present study we focus on children who grow up with Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek, two closely related varieties that differ from each other on all levels of language analysis (vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar). We compare the EC performance of such bilectal children to that of English-Greek multilingual children in Cyprus and Standard Modern Greek-speaking monolingual children in Greece. A principal component analysis on six indicators of EC revealed two distinct factors, which we interpreted as representing working memory and inhibition. Multilingual and bilectal children exhibited an advantage over monolinguals that was evident across EC factors and emerged only after statistically controlling for their lower language proficiency. These results demonstrate that similar EC advantages as previously reported for 'true' bilingual speakers can be found in bilectal children, which suggests that minimal typological distance between the varieties spoken by a child suffices to give rise to advantages in EC. They further indicate that the effect of speaking more than one language or dialect on EC performance is located across the EC system without a particular component being selectively affected. This has implications for models of the locus of the bilingual advantage in EC performance. Finally, they show that the emergence of EC advantages in bilinguals is moderated by the level of their language proficiency.arts of this research have been funded by an ESF Experimental Pragmatics Network (Euro-XPrag) collaborative grant to all authors, an ESRC Experimental Pragmatics Network in the UK (XPrag-UK; RES-810-21-0069), a Cambridge Humanities Grant, and an Isaac Newton Trust Research Grant to the first and fourth authors, and an Alexander Onassis Foundation scholarship for graduate studies to the first author

Geochemistry and weathering history of the Balfour sandstone formation, Karoo basin, South Africa: Insight to provenance and tectonic setting

Geochemical analysis on sandstones from clastic sediments was carried out to understand the tectonic setting and subsequent post-depositional change in the Karoo basinal fill of the fluvial deposits of the Balfour Formation during the Late Permian to Early Triassic period. The major and trace element analysis reveal a relatively homogeneous provenance for the sandstones. The geochemical analysis shows that these rocks are first order mature sediments, derived from igneous and/or meta-igneous rocks of a felsic composition. The results show that the sandstone consists of SiO2 (71.58 wt. %), followed by Al2O3 (14.48 wt. %), but with low contents of Fe2O3+MgO (4.09 wt. %) and TiO2 (0.47 wt. %). These sandstones are classified as litharenites and arkoses based on the elements constituent ratio of various schemed adopted. The sandstone in the provenance discrimination diagram plots in the dissected and transitional arc fields suggesting an active margin and continental island arc provenance, preserving the signature of a recycled provenance. The Chemical Index of Alteration (CIA) ranging from 63.56 to 67.10% suggests recycling processes, and that the source area has undergone a moderate degree of chemical weathering. The geochemical characteristics of the sediment suggest the source area of uplifted terrane of folded and faulted strata with detritus of sedimentary and metasedimentary origin

The cytohesin paralog Sec7 of Dictyostelium discoideum is required for phagocytosis and cell motility

Background: Dictyostelium harbors several paralogous Sec7 genes that encode members of three subfamilies of the Sec7 superfamily of guanine nucleotide exchange factors. One of them is the cytohesin family represented by three members in D. discoideum, SecG, Sec7 and a further protein distinguished by several transmembrane domains. Cytohesins are characterized by a Sec7-PH tandem domain and have roles in cell adhesion and migration. Results: We study here Sec7. In vitro its PH domain bound preferentially to phosphatidylinositol 3,4-bisphosphate (PI(3,4) P-2), phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P-2) and phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PI(3,4,5)P-3). When following the distribution of GFP-Sec7 in vivo we observed the protein in the cytosol and at the plasma membrane. Strikingly, when cells formed pseudopods, macropinosomes or phagosomes, GFP-Sec7 was conspicuously absent from areas of the plasma membrane which were involved in these processes. Mutant cells lacking Sec7 exhibited an impaired phagocytosis and showed significantly reduced speed and less persistence during migration. Cellular properties associated with mammalian cytohesins like cell-cell and cell-substratum adhesion were not altered. Proteins with roles in membrane trafficking and signal transduction have been identified as putative interaction partners consistent with the data obtained from mutant analysis. Conclusions: Sec7 is a cytosolic component and is associated with the plasma membrane in a pattern distinctly different from the accumulation of PI(3,4,5)P-3. Mutant analysis reveals that loss of the protein affects cellular processes that involve membrane flow and the actin cytoskeleton

Serous cystic neoplasm of the pancreas: A multinational study of 2622 patients under the auspices of the International Association of Pancreatology and European Pancreatic Club (European Study Group on Cystic Tumors of the Pancreas)

OBJECTIVES: Serous cystic neoplasm (SCN) is a cystic neoplasm of the pancreas whose natural history is poorly known. The purpose of the study was to attempt to describe the natural history of SCN, including the specific mortality. DESIGN: Retrospective multinational study including SCN diagnosed between 1990 and 2014. RESULTS: 2622 patients were included. Seventy-four per cent were women, and median age at diagnosis was 58\u2005years (16-99). Patients presented with non-specific abdominal pain (27%), pancreaticobiliary symptoms (9%), diabetes mellitus (5%), other symptoms (4%) and/or were asymptomatic (61%). Fifty-two per cent of patients were operated on during the first year after diagnosis (median size: 40\u2005mm (2-200)), 9% had resection beyond 1\u2005year of follow-up (3\u2005years (1-20), size at diagnosis: 25\u2005mm (4-140)) and 39% had no surgery (3.6\u2005years (1-23), 25.5\u2005mm (1-200)). Surgical indications were (not exclusive) uncertain diagnosis (60%), symptoms (23%), size increase (12%), large size (6%) and adjacent organ compression (5%). In patients followed beyond 1\u2005year (n=1271), size increased in 37% (growth rate: 4\u2005mm/year), was stable in 57% and decreased in 6%. Three serous cystadenocarcinomas were recorded. Postoperative mortality was 0.6% (n=10), and SCN's related mortality was 0.1% (n=1). CONCLUSIONS: After a 3-year follow-up, clinical relevant symptoms occurred in a very small proportion of patients and size slowly increased in less than half. Surgical treatment should be proposed only for diagnosis remaining uncertain after complete workup, significant and related symptoms or exceptionally when exists concern with malignancy. This study supports an initial conservative management in the majority of patients with SCN

A Comparison of Clustering Techniques for Meteorological Analysis

Present work proposes the application of several clustering techniques (k-means, SOM k-means, k-medoids, and agglomerative hierarchical) to analyze the climatological conditions in different places. To do so, real-life data from data acquisition stations in Spain are analyzed, provided by AEMET (Spanish Meteorological Agency). Some of the main meteorological variables daily acquired by these stations are studied in order to analyse the variability of the environmental conditions in the selected places. Additionally, it is intended to characterize the stations according to their location, which could be applied for any other station. A comprehensive analysis of four different clustering techniques is performed, giving interesting results for a meteorological analysis