Improving Reading Comprehension Skills of Middle School Learners Using the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction

Background: Reading instruction begins at the primary level with reading comprehension issues manifesting themselves by the 3rd-grade and becoming more pronounced by fourth-grade. While primary teachers often teach narrative comprehension skills, middle school teachers have the responsibility to teach both narrative and expository comprehension skills. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the viability of the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction for middle school teachers to use with students. This study posed the following research questions: 1) What are the perceptions of middle school teachers on the use of the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction? and 2) What is the impact of the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction on the performance of students who repeated the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) Grade 8 Reading Assessment? Methods: This study used a mixed methods approach to answer the research questions. The qualitative data included observation notes and teacher survey responses. The quantitative data included students’ pre-test and post-test scores on the STAAR Grade 8 Reading Assessment. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the impact of selected literacy strategies on the reading comprehension of middle school students. Constant comparative analysis was used to identify the emergent themes related to teacher perceptions about the use of the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction. Results: The results of this study identified three emergent themes: 1) implementation fidelity, 2) viability of the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction to other content areas, and 3) impact of the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction on students who repeated an administration of the STAAR Grade 8 Reading Assessment. Conclusion: Results suggested that the Secondary Explicit Comprehension Model of Instruction is a viable instructional framework that could be used in classroom settings to support middle school educators in effectively teaching reading comprehension skills..Curriculum and Instruction, Department o

Enhancement of HIV-1 neutralisation by modulation of the virus envelope

Despite over 25 years of research, the goal of producing an HIV-1 vaccine able to prevent infection has not been realised. Due to the limited immunogenicity of HIV-1 glycoproteins in vivo, this thesis explores the use of cholesterol depletion in increasing the antigenicity and immunogenicity of an whole-inactivated HIV-1 immunogen. The primary aim was to demonstrate that cholesterol depletion of HIV-1 could enhance antibody binding and viral neutralisation. The laboratory-adapted strain, HIV-1MN, was utilised to demonstrate effective cholesterol depletion of virus using the compound methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MBCD). A range of MBCD concentrations were explored to assess the effect of removing cholesterol on viral infectivity, morphology and protein composition of the virus. A 1mM MBCD concentration, which effected a 50% reduction in viral envelope cholesterol with little impact on viral structure and protein composition whilst retaining viral infectivity, was chosen to explore the effect of cholesterol depletion on virus antibody binding and neutralisation. Removal of cholesterol from the viral envelope increased antibody binding and neutralisation using a number of monoclonal antibodies, soluble CD4 (sCD4) and HIV-1 positive patient antisera. This concept was then extended to a pseudotyped primary isolate of HIV-1. Cholesterol depletion of this isolate demonstrated a more restricted enhancement of antibody binding and neutralisation of virus by monoclonal antibodies, sCD4 and homologous and heterologous HIV-1 infected patient antisera. A number of inactivating agents were then explored in the aim of creating a cholesteroldepleted, whole inactivated HIV-1MN immunogen that retained key conformational gp160 epitopes. This immunogen was then tested in a mouse model to investigate whether cholesterol depletion could enhance the immunogenicity of whole-inactivated HIV-1MN. Although measurement of antibody responses from pooled mouse sera indicated significant enhancement of humoral responses to cholesterol-depleted, wholeinactivated HIV-1MN, analysis of individual mouse responses to immunisation yielded more variable results

Depth perception not found in human observers for static or dynamic anti-correlated random dot stereograms

One of the greatest challenges in visual neuroscience is that of linking neural activity with perceptual experience. In the case of binocular depth perception, important insights have been achieved through comparing neural responses and the perception of depth, for carefully selected stimuli. One of the most important types of stimulus that has been used here is the anti-correlated random dot stereogram (ACRDS). In these stimuli, the contrast polarity of one half of a stereoscopic image is reversed. While neurons in cortical area V1 respond reliably to the binocular disparities in ACRDS, they do not create a sensation of depth. This discrepancy has been used to argue that depth perception must rely on neural activity elsewhere in the brain. Currently, the psychophysical results on which this argument rests are not clear-cut. While it is generally assumed that ACRDS do not support the perception of depth, some studies have reported that some people, some of the time, perceive depth in some types of these stimuli. Given the importance of these results for understanding the neural correlates of stereopsis, we studied depth perception in ACRDS using a large number of observers, in order to provide an unambiguous conclusion about the extent to which these stimuli support the perception of depth. We presented observers with random dot stereograms in which correlated dots were presented in a surrounding annulus and correlated or anti-correlated dots were presented in a central circular region. While observers could reliably report the depth of the central region for correlated stimuli, we found no evidence for depth perception in static or dynamic anti-correlated stimuli. Confidence ratings for stereoscopic perception were uniformly low for anti-correlated stimuli, but showed normal variation with disparity for correlated stimuli. These results establish that the inability of observers to perceive depth in ACRDS is a robust phenomenon

HBsAg-vectored DNA vaccines elicit concomitant protective responses to multiple CTL epitopes relevant in human disease.

Vaccines capable of controlling neoplastic and infectious diseases which depend on the cellular immune response for their resolution, have proven difficult to develop. We, and others, have previously demonstrated that the potent immunogenicity of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), the already- licensed human vaccine for hepatitis B infection, may be exploited to deliver foreign antigens for cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) induction. In this study we demonstrate that recombinant (r) HBsAg DNA delivering a CTL polyepitope appended at the C' terminus elicits concomitant responses to multiple epitopes restricted through a diversity of MHC class I haplotypes, which are relevant in a number of human diseases. We show that the rHBsAg DNA vaccine elicits concomitant protection against neoplastic and infectious disease. These studies vindicate the use of HBsAg as a powerful vector to deliver CTL responses to foreign antigens, and have implications for a multi-disease vaccine applicable to the HLA-polymorphic human population

Educating and advocating: A professional responsibility for school leaders and school counselors

While educators are tasked with many competing professional responsibilities, it is necessary that the focus of advocacy for student well-being stay at the forefront. In particular, for school counselors and school leaders, advocating has never been more important. This article will highlight the role of advocacy found within the professional standards for school counselors and school leaders, and shine light on the need to advocate for social-emotional learning

Digital Three-Dimensional Atlas of Quail Development Using High-Resolution MRI

We present an archetypal set of three-dimensional digital atlases of the quail embryo based on microscopic magnetic resonance imaging (µMRI). The atlases are composed of three modules: (1) images of fixed ex ovo quail, ranging in age from embryonic day 5 to 10 (e05 to e10); (2) a coarsely delineated anatomical atlas of the µMRI data; and (3) an organ system–based hierarchical graph linked to the anatomical delineations. The atlas is designed to be accessed using SHIVA, a free Java application. The atlas is extensible and can contain other types of information including anatomical, physiological, and functional descriptors. It can also be linked to online resources and references. This digital atlas provides a framework to place various data types, such as gene expression and cell migration data, within the normal three-dimensional anatomy of the developing quail embryo. This provides a method for the analysis and examination of the spatial relationships among the different types of information within the context of the entire embryo

Video summarization by group scoring

In this paper a new model for user-centered video summarization is presented. Involvement of more than one expert in generating the final video summary should be regarded as the main use case for this algorithm. This approach consists of three major steps. First, the video frames are scored by a group of operators. Next, these assigned scores are averaged to produce a singular value for each frame and lastly, the highest scored video frames alongside the corresponding audio and textual contents are extracted to be inserted into the summary. The effectiveness of this approach has been evaluated by comparing the video summaries generated by this system against the results from a number of automatic summarization tools that use different modalities for abstraction