Self-Concept Patterns of Inadequate and Adequate Adult Readers

Problem Many of the difficulties which people experience are to a large extent the consequences of faulty perception of themselves. Academic success or failure appears to be deeply rooted in the person’s self-concept. The purpose of the study was to analyze the components of self-concept of inadequate and adequate adult readers to determine what patterns of self-concept emerge in various groups. Inadequate and adequate readers were grouped according to sex, race, age, and type of educational institution. Method The Tennessee Self Concept Scale was selected for the study. Measuring positive self-concept, it is composed of five self-concept components—physical, moral-ethical, personal, family, and social— and three self-concept dimensions\u27—identity, self-satisfaction, and behavior. In addition the Michigan State General Self-Concept of Ability Scale was employed to measure academic self-concept. Nine hypotheses were developed for the study. The first two compared the means of the total sample and ten subgroups to the normal population. This was tested by a z-test to compare a single sample mean to a hypothesized population mean with known variance. Four hypotheses dealt with comparing the centroids of self-concept dimensions and components of inadequate and adequate readers to the centroid of a normal population. These were tested by a one-sample T2 test. Three hypotheses were tested by discriminant analysis to determine which dimensions, components, and subcomponents exerted the greatest relative weights in separating the inadequate from the adequate readers. The 569 subjects for the study were drawn from the universities, community colleges, and continuing-education institutions of southwestern Michigan during the school year 1976-1977. Results The self-concept mean of inadequate readers on the whole sample was significantly lower than that of the normal population. The self-concept mean of adequate readers on the whole sample was also significantly lower than the population mean. Nine out of ten of the subgroups of inadequate readers had mean self-concepts which were significantly lower than that of the normal population. Only the mean self-concept of inadequate black readers was similar to a normal population. Of the adequate-reader subgroups, six out of ten were significantly lower than the normal population. The centroids of the dimensions of self-concept and the centroids of the components of self-concept were significantly lower than the population norm for both the inadequate and the adequate groups. In determining the relative weights of the dimensions, the components, and the subcomponents of self-concept to best separate • inadequate and adequate readers, it was found that the academic self- concept has the greatest weight for readers that were male and female and those who attended universities and community colleges. Conclusions On the basis of the findings the following conclusions emerged 1. Inadequate and adequate adult readers in this study have a lower self-concept than the normal population. 2. All categories of inadequate readers except black inadequate readers show significantly lower self-concepts than the normal population. 3. The centroid of the self-concept dimensions and self- concept components of inadequate and adequate readers were significantly different from the centroid of the normal population of the Tennessee Self Concept Scale. 4. On a linear combination of the components and subcomponents of self-concept, the positive academic self-concept exerts the greatest weight that significantly separates inadequate and adequate adult readers. 5. Fewer variables separate inadequate and adequate university-reading students than community college and continuing- education students. 6. The physical component and subcomponents of self-concept tended to characterize the inadequate readers at universities and continuing-education institutions while the academic self-concept characterized the adequate readers. 7. The moral-ethical self-concept somewhat characterized all adequate male and female, readers but strongly characterized the adequate readers from the continuing-education institutions

De Novo Assembly of the Complete Genome of an Enhanced Electricity-Producing Variant of Geobacter sulfurreducens Using Only Short Reads

State-of-the-art DNA sequencing technologies are transforming the life sciences due to their ability to generate nucleotide sequence information with a speed and quantity that is unapproachable with traditional Sanger sequencing. Genome sequencing is a principal application of this technology, where the ultimate goal is the full and complete sequence of the organism of interest. Due to the nature of the raw data produced by these technologies, a full genomic sequence attained without the aid of Sanger sequencing has yet to be demonstrated

RNA-seq analyses of gene expression in the microsclerotia of Verticillium dahliae

Abstract Background The soilborne fungus, Verticillium dahliae, causes Verticillium wilt disease in plants. Verticillium wilt is difficult to control since V. dahliae is capable of persisting in the soil for 10 to 15 years as melanized microsclerotia, rendering crop rotation strategies for disease control ineffective. Microsclerotia of V. dahliae overwinter and germinate to produce infectious hyphae that give rise to primary infections. Consequently, microsclerotia formation, maintenance, and germination are critically important processes in the disease cycle of V. dahliae. Results To shed additional light on the molecular processes that contribute to microsclerotia biogenesis and melanin synthesis in V. dahliae, three replicate RNA-seq libraries were prepared from 10 day-old microsclerotia (MS)-producing cultures of V. dahliae, strain VdLs.17 (average = 52.23 million reads), and those not producing microsclerotia (NoMS, average = 50.58 million reads). Analyses of these libraries for differential gene expression revealed over 200 differentially expressed genes, including up-regulation of melanogenesis-associated genes tetrahydroxynaphthalene reductase (344-fold increase) and scytalone dehydratase (231-fold increase), and additional genes located in a 48.8 kilobase melanin biosynthetic gene cluster of strain VdLs.17. Nearly 50% of the genes identified as differentially expressed in the MS library encode hypothetical proteins. Additional comparative analyses of gene expression in V. dahliae, under growth conditions that promote or preclude microsclerotial development, were conducted using a microarray approach with RNA derived from V. dahliae strain Dvd-T5, and from the amicrosclerotial vdh1 strain. Differential expression of selected genes observed by RNA-seq or microarray analysis was confirmed using RT-qPCR or Northern hybridizations. Conclusion Collectively, the data acquired from these investigations provide additional insight into gene expression and molecular processes that occur during MS biogenesis and maturation in V. dahliae. The identified gene products could therefore potentially represent new targets for disease control through prevention of survival structure development.The authors acknowledge funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Agreement SCB09023, and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We are thankful for the help of Patrick Chapman for contributions in tabulating microarray data for database submission.Peer Reviewe

Production of Pilus-like Filaments in Geobacter Sulfurreducens in the Absence of the Type IV Pilin Protein PilA

The pili of Geobacter sulfurreducens are of interest because of the apparent importance of the type IV pili in extracellular electron transfer. A strain of G. sulfurreducens, designated strain MA, produced many more pili than the previously studied DL-1 strain even though genome resequencing indicated that the MA and DL-1 genome sequences were identical. Filaments that looked similar to type IV pili in transmission electron micrographs were abundant even after the gene encoding PilA, the structural pilin protein, was deleted. The results of proteinase K treatment indicated that the filaments were proteinaceous. The simultaneous deletion of several genes encoding homologues of type II pseudopilins was required before the filaments were significantly depleted. The pilA-deficient MA strain attached to glass as well as the wild-type MA did, but strains in which three or four pseudopilin genes were deleted in addition to pilA had impaired attachment capabilities. These results demonstrate that there are several proteins that can yield pilin-like filaments in G. sulfurreducens and that some means other than microscopic observation is required before the composition of filaments can be unambiguously specified