Two Studies of TierII Literacy Development: Throwing Sixth Graders a Lifeline

Two experimental studies at one urban middle school investigated the effects of the combination of Tier I and Tier II evidence-based reading instruction compared to Tier I alone on struggling sixth-grade readers (N = 109). All participants received free or reduced-price lunch, and 95% were considered English learners at some point in their school history. In both studies, Tier II intervention consisted of intensive instruction in word analysis, fluency building, comprehension, and vocabulary for 30 hours across 10 weeks. Results of both studies taken individually and combined indicated significant differences in favor of the intervention groups on oral reading fluency. The second study indicated significantly stronger performances for the intervention group on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised (WRMT-R/NU) passage comprehension subtest. Tier II interventions and Response to Intervention (RTI) for older struggling readers are discussed related to educational implications and future research

Scale Up Isolation of Aaptamine for In Vivo Evaluation Indicates Its Neurobiological Activity is Linked to the Delta Opioid Receptor

Opioid receptors belong to the large superfamily of seven transmembrane-spanning (7TM) G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). As a class, GPCRs are of fundamental physiological importance mediating the actions of the majority of known neurotransmitters and hormones. The Mu, Delta, and Kappa (MOP, DOP, KOP) opioid receptors are particularly intriguing members of this receptor family as they are the targets involved in many neurobiological diseases such as addiction, pain, stress, anxiety, and depression. Recently we discovered that the aaptamine class of marine sponge derived natural products exhibit selective agonist activity in vitro for the DOP versus MOP receptor. Our findings may explain reports by others that aaptamine demonstrates in vivo anti-depressant effects in mouse models using the Porsolt Forced Swim Test. This project involved the extraction of the sponge Aaptos aaptos (a source of 1), establishing a scale up purification procedure to provide sufficient amounts of 1 (30 mg) for a follow up in vivo evaluation and ultimately confirmation of the structure of 1 using LC-MS and 1H NMR. The results our purification scheme, chemical analysis and in vivo evaluation of 1 using the Marble burying test in rodents are reported here in and suggest that the in vivo anti-depressant effects of 1 are linked directly to its agonist effects on the DOP receptor.https://scholar.dominican.edu/ug-student-posters/1008/thumbnail.jp

Scale up isolation of aaptamine for in vivo evaluation indicates its neurobiological activity is linked to the delta opioid receptor

Opioid receptors belong to the large superfamily of seven transmembrane-spanning (7TM) G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). As a class, GPCRs are of fundamental physiological importance mediating the actions of the majority of known neurotransmitters and hormones. The Mu (µ), Delta (δ) and Kappa (MOR, DOR, KOR) opioid receptors are particularly intriguing members of this receptor family as they are the targets involved in many neurobiological diseases such as addiction, pain, stress, anxiety, and depression. To date few marine natural products have been investigated for their neurobiological activities.1 One noteworthy example involves ziconotide (1) from the cone snail Conus magnus.2 Compound 1 was the first marine natural product approved by the FDA and is used for the treatment of pain, marketed under the trade name Prialt® (2004).3 More recently Hamman reported that aaptamine (2) is the first marine natural product to show in vivo anti-depressant activity, however no mechanism of action was proposed.1,4 During a separate collaborative screening project we profiled 96 sponge-derived extracts and discovered that demethyl–aaptamine (3) and demethyl (oxy)–aaptamine (4) were selective DOR agonists using an LC-MS based library of an active methanolic extract coll. no. 92553 FM as shown in Fig. 1. We speculated that the in vivo activity for 2 could thus be linked to the DOR target and to test this hypothesis we conducted the following experiments below.https://scholar.dominican.edu/ug-student-posters/1074/thumbnail.jp

Cost-effectiveness of exercise referral schemes enhanced by self-management strategies to battle sedentary behaviour in older adults: Protocol for an economic evaluation alongside the SITLESS three-armed pragmatic randomised controlled trial

Introduction: Promoting physical activity (PA) and reducing sedentary behaviour (SB) may exert beneficial effects on the older adult population, improving behavioural, functional, health and psychosocial outcomes in addition to reducing health, social care and personal costs. This paper describes the planned economic evaluation of SITLESS, a multicountry three-armed pragmatic randomised controlled trial (RCT) which aims to assess the short-term and long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a complex intervention on SB and PA in community-dwelling older adults, based on exercise referral schemes enhanced by a group intervention providing self-management strategies to encourage lifestyle change. Methods and analysis: A within-trial economic evaluation and long-term model from both a National Health Service/personal social services perspective and a broader societal perspective will be undertaken alongside the SITLESS multinational RCT. Healthcare costs (hospitalisations, accident and emergency visits, appointment with health professionals) and social care costs (eg, community care) will be included in the economic evaluation. For the cost-utility analysis, quality-adjusted life-years will be measured using the EQ-5D-5L and capability well-being measured using the ICEpop CAPability measure for Older people (ICECAP-O) questionnaire. Other effectiveness outcomes (health related, behavioural, functional) will be incorporated into a cost-effectiveness analysis and cost-consequence analysis. The multinational nature of this RCT implies a hierarchical structure of the data and unobserved heterogeneity between clusters that needs to be adequately modelled with appropriate statistical and econometric techniques. In addition, a long-term population health economic model will be developed and will synthesise and extrapolate within-trial data with additional data extracted from the literature linking PA and SB outcomes with longer term health states. Methods guidance for population health economic evaluation will be adopted including the use of a long-time horizon, 1.5% discount rate for costs and benefits, cost consequence analysis framework and a multisector perspective. Ethics and dissemination: The study design was approved by the ethics and research committee of each intervention site: the Ethics and Research Committee of Ramon Llull University (reference number: 1314001P) (Fundació Blanquerna, Spain), the Regional Committees on Health Research Ethics for Southern Denmark (reference number: S-20150186) (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark), Office for Research Ethics Committees in Northern Ireland (ORECNI reference number: 16/NI/0185) (Queen’s University of Belfast) and the Ethical Review Board of Ulm University (reference number: 354/15) (Ulm, Germany). Participation is voluntary and all participants will be asked to sign informed consent before the start of the study. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 634 270. This article reflects only the authors' view and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The findings of the study will be disseminated to different target groups (academia, policymakers, end users) through different means following the national ethical guidelines and the dissemination regulation of the Horizon 2020 funding agency. Use of the EuroQol was registered with the EuroQol Group in 2016. Use of the ICECAP-O was registered with the University of Birmingham in March 2017. Trial registration number: NCT02629666; Pre-results

Evolution of the Color-Magnitude Relation in Galaxy Clusters at z ~1 from the ACS Intermediate Redshift Cluster Survey

We apply detailed observations of the Color-Magnitude Relation (CMR) with the ACS/HST to study galaxy evolution in eight clusters at z~1. The early-type red sequence is well defined and elliptical and lenticular galaxies lie on similar CMRs. We analyze CMR parameters as a function of redshift, galaxy properties and cluster mass. For bright galaxies (M_B < -21mag), the CMR scatter of the elliptical population in cluster cores is smaller than that of the S0 population, although the two become similar at faint magnitudes. While the bright S0 population consistently shows larger scatter than the ellipticals, the scatter of the latter increases in the peripheral cluster regions. If we interpret these results as due to age differences, bright elliptical galaxies in cluster cores are on average older than S0 galaxies and peripheral elliptical galaxies (by about 0.5Gyr). CMR zero point, slope, and scatter in the (U-B)_z=0 rest-frame show no significant evolution out to redshift z~1.3 nor significant dependence on cluster mass. Two of our clusters display CMR zero points that are redder (by ~2sigma) than the average (U-B)_z=0 of our sample. We also analyze the fraction of morphological early-type and late-type galaxies on the red sequence. We find that, while in the majority of the clusters most (80% to 90%) of the CMR population is composed of early-type galaxies, in the highest redshift, low mass cluster of our sample, the CMR late-type/early-type fractions are similar (~50%), with most of the late-type population composed of galaxies classified as S0/a. This trend is not correlated with the cluster's X-ray luminosity, nor with its velocity dispersion, and could be a real evolution with redshift.Comment: ApJ, in press, 27 pages, 22 figure

Improving interprofessional practice and cultural competence with interprofessional education

Challenge/Issue: Interprofessional education (IPE) and cultural competence (CC) training have become a staple in healthcare education programs with the ultimate goal of improving patient care. IPE, where students from two or more professions learn from, about, and with each other to optimize care, resulting in great team building, sharing of knowledge, communication, and collaboration. CC involves an individual’s ability to recognize, assess, appreciate, and respect unique backgrounds such as race, ethnicity, sexual minorities, gender, identity, religion, and age, to make greater informed decisions in healthcare and minimize inequities. Within educational programs, both constructs can occur simultaneously to optimize learning and patient-centered outcomes.Objective: To identify the impact of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion IPE single-day event on the perceptions of interprofessional practice and ability to provide culturally competent care instudents enrolled in Doctor of Osteopathy (DO), Pharmacy, and Athletic Training (AT) education programs.Approach: An experimental design used pre- and post-test measures of IPE and CC knowledge with a one day conference as the intervention. Participants included students (205- pre and 200- post) enrolled in DO, pharmacy, and AT programs at two Midwestern universities. Participants completed the Interprofessional Collaborative Competences Attainments Survey (ICCAS) and three modified components of the Tool for Assessing Cultural Competence Training (mTACCT) before and after the event that included baseline information about the different professions, three CC presentations, and two case studies with small group discussions. Due to uneven sample sizes in the pre- and post-test, and violations of normality and homogeneity of variance, Kruskal Wallis tests were used to assess differences in the intervention.Results: Five items on the ICCAS and all items on the mTACCT demonstrated statistical significance. On the ICCAS, students demonstrated increases in their ability to; “actively list to Interprofessional (IP) team members’ ideas and concerns”, “working effectively with IP members to enhance care", “recognizing how others’ skills and knowledge complement and overlap with their own”, “to develop an effective care plan with IP team members”, and “negotiate responsibilities with overlapping scopes of practice”. This demonstrated that discussing the professions in general and utilizing case studies and small group discussions allowed students to understand the roles, skills, and responsibilities of their peer professionals which will lead to better communication and teamwork resulting in improved patient outcomes and satisfaction for both patients and staff. The results of the mTACCT demonstrated overall improvement in skills but highlighted students are consciously incompetent, where they recognize a deficiency but demonstrate a desire for greater understanding. Students felt that initially they lacked the ability to identify bias and stereotyping in healthcare but after the intervention felt better equipped. It is important to note that while we found improvements within CC, a single event should not be the only point of CC inclusion within curriculums. Our intervention provided students from three different healthcare programs with an educational opportunity to strengthen their skills in both IPE and C

A Mouse to Human Search for Plasma Proteome Changes Associated with Pancreatic Tumor Development

Background: The complexity and heterogeneity of the human plasma proteome have presented significant challenges in the identification of protein changes associated with tumor development. Refined genetically engineered mouse (GEM) models of human cancer have been shown to faithfully recapitulate the molecular, biological, and clinical features of human disease. Here, we sought to exploit the merits of a well-characterized GEM model of pancreatic cancer to determine whether proteomics technologies allow identification of protein changes associated with tumor development and whether such changes are relevant to human pancreatic cancer. Methods and Findings: Plasma was sampled from mice at early and advanced stages of tumor development and from matched controls. Using a proteomic approach based on extensive protein fractionation, we confidently identified 1,442 proteins that were distributed across seven orders of magnitude of abundance in plasma. Analysis of proteins chosen on the basis of increased levels in plasma from tumor-bearing mice and corroborating protein or RNA expression in tissue documented concordance in the blood from 30 newly diagnosed patients with pancreatic cancer relative to 30 control specimens. A panel of five proteins selected on the basis of their increased level at an early stage of tumor development in the mouse was tested in a blinded study in 26 humans from the CARET (Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial) cohort. The panel discriminated pancreatic cancer cases from matched controls in blood specimens obtained between 7 and 13 mo prior to the development of symptoms and clinical diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that GEM models of cancer, in combination with in-depth proteomic analysis, provide a useful strategy to identify candidate markers applicable to human cancer with potential utility for early detection

Use of cancer-specific yeast-secreted in vivo biotinylated recombinant antibodies for serum biomarker discovery

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens