AN EVALUATION OF PARENT ENGAGEMENT AMONGST CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE FAMILIES OF HAITIAN DESCENT

Empirical research on family-school partnerships highlights family engagement as a motivating force for educational success. However, the concept of family engagement is an obstacle as the notion of family-school partnerships differs amongst stakeholders. Mutual understanding of the beliefs sustaining family engagement is fundamental to building effective partnerships between educators, families, and the community. The quantitative, non-experimental study aimed to evaluate the cultural and linguistic factors that may influence parental engagement among culturally and linguistically diverse families, especially those of Haitian descent. The findings demonstrated that the study’s demographic identifier variables, such as primary language, child birthplace, parent birthplace, relationship to the child, educational setting, participant gender, child gender, and state of the child’s school, did not exert any effect upon the perceptions of family engagement. Perceptions of family efficacy were statistically significantly predictive of perceptions of family engagement. However, perceptions of school fit did not substantially affect perceptions of family engagement. Simple slopes analysis was conducted to explore further the effect of school fit on the relationship between family efficacy and family engagement. The simple slopes analysis indicates that as perceptions of school fit increase, the relationship between perceptions of family efficacy and family engagement strengthens. The interaction between family efficacy and grit was non-statistically significant, indicating that perceptions of grit do not moderate the relationship between perceptions of family efficacy and family engagement. Leveraging the linguistic and cultural capital of families of Haitian descent will lead to positive outcomes rooted in asset-based approaches and the dual capacity-building framework

Edwidge Danticat and Shadows: The Farming of Bones As a Vehicle for Social Activism

The Farming of Bones is Edwidge Danticat’s novel about Amabelle Desir, a Haitian migrant in the Dominican Republic during the 1937 Haitian massacre. The Massacre is a historical fact presented through a fictional text that acts as a testimonial. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate how Danticat, in her role as an activist, urges readers to become social justice seekers and enter the discourse of race. Through an examination of Carl Jung’s and Vodou’s shadow theories in regards to the construction of a racial identity by Haitians and Dominicans, I uncover the racial narratives in place from Haiti’s colonization and independence to our current time. Danticat, through the novel, moves the reigning racial paradigm out of the shadow and thus allows readers to reflect on its effects. Thus it is not only the characters in the novel that must confront the shadow, but the readers themselves

Mucosal immune responses following intestinal nematode infection.

In most natural environments, the large majority of mammals harbour parasitic helminths that often live as adults within the intestine for prolonged periods (1-2 years). Although these organisms have been eradicated to a large extent within westernized human populations, those living within rural areas of developing countries continue to suffer from high infection rates. Indeed, recent estimates indicate that approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide, mainly children, currently suffer from infection with intestinal helminths (also known as geohelminths and soil-transmitted helminths) . Paradoxically, the eradication of helminths is thought to contribute to the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases and allergy observed in developed countries. In this review, we will summarize our current understanding of host-helminth interactions at the mucosal surface that result in parasite expulsion or permit the establishment of chronic infections with luminal dwelling adult worms. We will also provide insight into the adaptive immune mechanisms that provide immune protection against re-infection with helminth larvae, a process that is likely to be key to the future development of successful vaccination strategies. Lastly, the contribution of helminths to immune modulation and particularly to the treatment of allergy and inflammatory bowel disease will be discussed

Association of transcription-coupled repair but not global genome repair with ultraviolet-B-induced Langerhans cell depletion and local immunosuppression.

Exposure to ultraviolet-B radiation impairs cellular immune responses. This immunosuppression seems to be associated with Langerhans cell migration. DNA damage appears to play a key role because enhanced nucleotide excision repair, a pathway essential for elimination of ultraviolet-B-induced DNA lesions, strongly counteracts immunosuppression. To determine the effect of DNA repair on ultraviolet-B-induced local immunosuppression and Langerhans cell disappearance, three mouse strains carrying different defects in nucleotide excision repair were compared. XPC mice, which were defective in global genome repair, were as sensitive to ultraviolet-B-induced local suppression of contact hypersensitivity to picryl chloride as their wild-type littermates. CSB mice, defective in transcription-coupled repair, were far more sensitive for immunosuppression as were XPA mice, defective in both transcription-coupled repair and global genome repair. Only a moderate depletion of Langerhans cells was observed in XPC mice and wild-type littermates. Ultraviolet-B-induced Langerhans cell depletion was enhanced in CSB and XPA mice. Hence, the major conclusion is that local immunosuppression is only affected when transcription-coupled DNA repair is impaired. Furthermore, a defect in transcription-coupled repair was linked to enhanced ultraviolet-B-induced Langerhans cell depletion. In combination with earlier experiments, it can be concluded that Langerhans cell disappearance is related to ultraviolet-B-induced local but not to systemic immunosuppression

Discovery of functionally distinct anti-C7 monoclonal antibodies and stratification of anti-nicotinic AChR positive Myasthenia Gravis patients

Myasthenia Gravis (MG) is mediated by autoantibodies against acetylcholine receptors that cause loss of the receptors in the neuromuscular junction. Eculizumab, a C5-inhibitor, is the only approved treatment for MG that mechanistically addresses complement-mediated loss of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. It is an expensive drug and was approved despite missing the primary efficacy endpoint in the Phase 3 REGAIN study. There are two observations to highlight. Firstly, further C5 inhibitors are in clinical development, but other terminal pathway proteins, such as C7, have been relatively understudied as therapeutic targets, despite the potential for lower and less frequent dosing. Secondly, given the known heterogenous mechanisms of action of autoantibodies in MG, effective patient stratification in the REGAIN trial may have provided more favorable efficacy readouts. We investigated C7 as a target and assessed the in vitro function, binding epitopes and mechanism of action of three mAbs against C7. We found the mAbs were human, cynomolgus monkey and/or rat cross-reactive and each had a distinct, novel mechanism of C7 inhibition. TPP1820 was effective in preventing experimental MG in rats in both prophylactic and therapeutic dosing regimens. To enable identification of MG patients that are likely to respond to C7 inhibition, we developed a patient stratification assay and showed in a small cohort of MG patients (n=19) that 63% had significant complement activation and C7-dependent loss of AChRs in this in vitro set up. This study provides validation of C7 as a target for treatment of MG and provides a means of identifying patients likely to respond to anti-C7 therapy based on complement-activating properties of patient autoantibodies

An Evaluation of a Modified Behavioral Skills Training Procedure for Teaching Poison Prevention Skills to Children with Developmental Disabilities

Although household product, such as pharmaceuticals and cleaning chemicals, are part of a child’s everyday life, accidental poisonings can occur as a result of ingestion. Children diagnosed with developmental disabilities are even more susceptible to being injured when they come into contact with these poisonous agents. Behavioral approaches have been used extensively to teach safety skills to children with disabilities. However, those that targeted poison prevention skills required additional methods that were more intrusive for the child to acquire the skills. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a modified behavioral skills training package that incorporates a system of least prompts. Results showed that BST and system of least prompts increased poison prevention skills for all three participants and the skills maintained at follow-up

Fertility, Mortality and the Macroeconomy in an Altruistic, Overlapping Generations Model

The economic literature has found difficulty linking fertility and mortality rates. Previous versions of the dynastic (parental altruism) model have failed to predict the negative relationship between fertility and infant survival, since it was postulated that parents view children as normal goods and increases in childhood survival would result in a decrease in unit-child costs. In this work, I find that a simple reformulation of the Becker-Barro altruism hypothesis successfully predicts the observed demographic transition in the past century, as well as explaining fertility differences across countries. I contest that fertility decision is dependent on the number of surviving children and not the number of children born. Child bearing is therefore perceived as risk-taking behavior given the stochastic nature of childhood survival. Essentially, higher childhood survival requires fewer children (i.e., less hoarding ) in order to ensure the desired family size. The model predicts that higher childhood survival rates will lead to a decrease in fertility. I calibrate an infinitely-lived overlapping-generations dynastic utility model and compare the fertility predictions of the baseline model with the data for the year 2000. In doing so, I have relaxed the dual normalization of the utility of death and the overall level of utility. This is necessary given that the value of children\u27s lives are important in the parent\u27s fertility decision. Parents jointly care for the number and utility levels of their children. I will calibrate this number and estimate this implied value of life. I find that the consumption level an agent is indifferent between life and death to be less than 1% of current consumption. I also find that parents care for their children future 47% more than that of their own. All in all, this experiment finds that fertility differences cannot be explain by differences in mortality rates alone and that incorporating human capital investment in the household production function will yield desirable results. Simply stated, lower income countries have lower opportunity costs of birthing children and will choose quantity over quality. I find that the steady state analysis of this model can explain over 62% of the cross-country variation, while mortality rates alone can explain 10%-25%. The model generally performs better for low survival, high fertility countries and vice versa. While the model tends to perform well for these economies, more needs to be done to explain fertility in the transition economies

Identités non-figées, révolte, similitudes : le soi et l'autre dans Thérèse en mille morceaux de Lyonel Trouiillot

International audienceIf at its beginning, during the second half of the 19th century, the Haitian novel staged historical facts to subsequently focus on a rather exotic reality that of the 20th and 21st centuries was rather confined to an x-ray of the company. Many contemporary novelists have therefore taken part in this dynamic with a view to creating a novel that is closer to the other and to the real societal. In addition to being the expression of the political and social realities of its time, the romantic work of Lyonel Trouillot, for example, wants to be at the same time a dialogue of oneself with the other, a journey towards the other and the rebirth of self. Thus, the question of the relations of the Ego and the Other is closely linked to that of identity which always postulates the participation of the Other as an imperative. Our purpose is to analyze the weight of the Other in the construction of oneself through the figure of Thérèse in Thérèse en mille morceaux by Lyonel Trouillot.Si à sa naissance, au cours de la seconde moitié du 19e siècle, le roman haïtien a mis en scène les faits historiques pour s'intéresser par la suite à un réel plutôt exotique, celui des 20e et 21e siècles s'est plutôt cantonné dans une radiographie de la société. Nombre de romanciers contemporains se sont donc inscrits dans cette dynamique en vue de créer un roman plus proche de l'autre et du réel sociétal. En plus d'être l'expression des réalités politiques et sociales de son époque, l'oeuvre romanesque de Lyonel Trouillot, par exemple, se veut être à la fois dialogue de soi à l'autre, voyage vers l'autre et renaissance de soi. Ainsi, la question des rapports du Moi et de l'Autre est étroitement liée à celle de l'identité qui postule toujours la participation de l'Autre comme un impératif. Notre propos entend analyser le poids de l'Autre dans la construction de soi à travers la figure de Thérèse dans Thérèse en mille morceaux de Lyonel Trouillot

Identités non-figées, révolte, similitudes : le soi et l'autre dans Thérèse en mille morceaux de Lyonel Trouiillot

International audienceIf at its beginning, during the second half of the 19th century, the Haitian novel staged historical facts to subsequently focus on a rather exotic reality that of the 20th and 21st centuries was rather confined to an x-ray of the company. Many contemporary novelists have therefore taken part in this dynamic with a view to creating a novel that is closer to the other and to the real societal. In addition to being the expression of the political and social realities of its time, the romantic work of Lyonel Trouillot, for example, wants to be at the same time a dialogue of oneself with the other, a journey towards the other and the rebirth of self. Thus, the question of the relations of the Ego and the Other is closely linked to that of identity which always postulates the participation of the Other as an imperative. Our purpose is to analyze the weight of the Other in the construction of oneself through the figure of Thérèse in Thérèse en mille morceaux by Lyonel Trouillot.Si à sa naissance, au cours de la seconde moitié du 19e siècle, le roman haïtien a mis en scène les faits historiques pour s'intéresser par la suite à un réel plutôt exotique, celui des 20e et 21e siècles s'est plutôt cantonné dans une radiographie de la société. Nombre de romanciers contemporains se sont donc inscrits dans cette dynamique en vue de créer un roman plus proche de l'autre et du réel sociétal. En plus d'être l'expression des réalités politiques et sociales de son époque, l'oeuvre romanesque de Lyonel Trouillot, par exemple, se veut être à la fois dialogue de soi à l'autre, voyage vers l'autre et renaissance de soi. Ainsi, la question des rapports du Moi et de l'Autre est étroitement liée à celle de l'identité qui postule toujours la participation de l'Autre comme un impératif. Notre propos entend analyser le poids de l'Autre dans la construction de soi à travers la figure de Thérèse dans Thérèse en mille morceaux de Lyonel Trouillot