Cross-Age Peer Mentoring to Improve Sixth-Grade Student Reading

In a middle school in the southern United States, administrators and teachers are concerned that approximately 40% of sixth-grade students are reading below grade level despite intervention programs. The purpose of this mixed-methods case study was to inquire whether a cross-age peer mentoring program would improve sixth-graders\u27 reading achievement and motivation to read. The theoretical framework for the study was Vygotsky\u27s constructivist theory, with a focus on scaffolding. Research questions focused on sixth-grade students\u27 perception of their participation in a cross-age peer mentoring program and the effect of the program on reading achievement and motivation. Data were collected through pre- and post administrations of the Standardized Test for the Assessment of Reading (STAR) and the Motivation to Read Profile (MRP), observations during the mentoring sessions, and interviews with the 6 sixth-grade participants. STAR and MRP scores indicated that each sixth-grade participant demonstrated reading growth and an increase in motivation to read. Observations revealed positive interactions between the 6 mentors and mentees, and during the interviews, participants described the mentoring program as beneficial to reading growth. The findings from the study led to the development of a professional development project for teachers. The results of this study related to social change indicated that participation in a cross-age peer mentoring program may increase students\u27 reading achievement and motivation to read. The professional development project for teachers and administrators is designed to assist educators in designing and implementing peer mentoring programs to improve reading achievement

Not All Children with Under-Control Asthma are Controlled

Subclinical lung function alterations can sometimes be discovered in asthmatic patients under clinical control. This study aimed to identify the burden of asthmatic children with subclinical airways abnormalities who may benefit from an adjustment in asthma therapy. 134 6-to-17-year-old asthmatic children were enrolled. Of them, 98 presented apparently under clinical control disease and all performed spirometry before and after bronchodilation: 17 (17.3%) had a positive bronchodilation test, in addition to significantly lower lung function indexes as compared to those with under-control asthma who had a negative bronchodilation test. These patients were randomized and re-evaluated: patients (n=8) receiving an adjustment in their therapy showed an improvement in lung function tests and quality of life indexes as compared to 7 without therapy adjustment. In conclusion, a substantial number of apparently-under-control asthmatic children show airways alterations that can be improved by adjusting their therapy, which also seems to enhance their quality of life

Compact relaxations for polynomial programming problems

Reduced RLT constraints are a special class of Reformulation- Linearization Technique (RLT) constraints. They apply to nonconvex (both continuous and mixed-integer) quadratic programming problems subject to systems of linear equality constraints. We present an extension to the general case of polynomial programming problems and discuss the derived convex relaxation. We then show how to perform rRLT constraint generation so as to reduce the number of inequality constraints in the relaxation, thereby making it more compact and faster to solve. We present some computational results validating our approach

Symmetrical anatomical variant of the anterior belly of the digastric muscle: clinical implicat

The digastric muscle is an important surgical landmark. Several anatomical variants of the digastric muscle are reported in literature and, in particular, the presence of accessory anterior bellies of the muscle is not uncommon. Here, an unreported symmetrical variant of the digastric muscle was found during a dissection of the suprahyoid region. The dissection showed digastric muscles with an accessory anterior belly, which originated from the anterior belly of muscles in proximity and anteriorly to the intermediate tendon. The accessory bellies were fused together on the midline and were attached with a unique tendon to the inner surface of the mental symphysis. These muscles completely filled the submental triangle. This unreported anatomical variant could be considered an additional contribution to description of the anatomical variants of the digastric muscle, with several implications in head and neck pathology, diagnosis and surgery.

Features, risk factors and clinical outcome of {"}very late{"} recurrences after surgery for localized renal carcinoma: A retrospective evaluation of a cohort with a minimum of 10 years of follow up

xx

Luciferase-free Luciferin Electrochemiluminescence

Luciferin is one of Nature's most widespread luminophores, and enzymes that catalyze luciferin luminescence are the basis of successful commercial “glow” assays for gene expression and metabolic ATP formation. Herein we report an electrochemical method to promote firefly's luciferin luminescence in the absence of its natural biocatalyst—luciferase. We have gained experimental and computational insights on the mechanism of the enzyme-free luciferin electrochemiluminescence, demonstrated its spectral tuning from green to red by means of electrolyte engineering, proven that the colour change does not require, as still debated, a keto/enol isomerization of the light emitter, and gained evidence of the electrostatic-assisted stabilization of the charge-transfer excited state by double layer electric fields. Luciferin's electrochemiluminescence, as well as the in situ generation of fluorescent oxyluciferin, are applied towards an optical measurement of diffusion coefficients

Extended Formulations in Mixed-integer Convex Programming

We present a unifying framework for generating extended formulations for the polyhedral outer approximations used in algorithms for mixed-integer convex programming (MICP). Extended formulations lead to fewer iterations of outer approximation algorithms and generally faster solution times. First, we observe that all MICP instances from the MINLPLIB2 benchmark library are conic representable with standard symmetric and nonsymmetric cones. Conic reformulations are shown to be effective extended formulations themselves because they encode separability structure. For mixed-integer conic-representable problems, we provide the first outer approximation algorithm with finite-time convergence guarantees, opening a path for the use of conic solvers for continuous relaxations. We then connect the popular modeling framework of disciplined convex programming (DCP) to the existence of extended formulations independent of conic representability. We present evidence that our approach can yield significant gains in practice, with the solution of a number of open instances from the MINLPLIB2 benchmark library.Comment: To be presented at IPCO 201

Technical note: First spectral measurement of the Earth's upwelling emission using an uncooled wideband Fourier transform spectrometer

The first spectral measurement of Earth's emitted radiation to space in the wideband range from 100 to 1400 cm^−1 with 0.5 cm^−1 spectral resolution is presented. The measurement was performed from a stratospheric balloon in tropical region using a Fourier transform spectrometer, during a field campaign held in Brazil in June 2005. The instrument, which has uncooled components including the detector module, is a prototype developed as part of the study for the REFIR (Radiation Explorer in the Far InfraRed) space mission. This paper shows the results of the field campaign with particular attention to the measurement capabilities of the prototype. The results are compared with measurements taken by IASI-balloon (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer – Balloon version), aboard the same platform, and with forward model estimations. The infrared signature of clouds is observed in the measurements

First spectral measurement of the Earth's upwelling emission using an uncooled wideband Fourier transform spectrometer

International audienceThe first spectral measurement of Earth's emitted radiation to space in the wideband range from 100 to 1400 cm-1 with 0.5 cm-1 spectral resolution is presented. The measurement was performed from a stratospheric balloon in tropical region using a Fourier transform spectrometer, during a field campaign held in Brazil in June 2005. The instrument, which has uncooled components including the detector module, is a prototype developed as part of the study for the REFIR (Radiation Explorer in the Far InfraRed) space mission. This paper shows the results of the field campaign with particular attention to the measurement capabilities of the prototype. The results are compared with measurements taken by IASI-balloon (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer – Balloon version), aboard the same platform, and with forward model estimations. The infrared signature of clouds is observed in the measurements