A Secondary Student Instructional Support Team (ASSIST): Teachers Face the Challenge of Student Diversity

The writers discuss the challenges related to instructing a diverse secondary-level student population. Many elementary and middle school teachers are benefiting from working collaboratively toward common instructional goals. Through collaboration, general and special education teachers can better address the content area needs of the individual students, foster a greater sense of shared responsibility for educating a heterogeneous population of students, increase communication across professional disciplines, enlarge the knowledge base and teaching repertoire of participants, and establish rewarding and long-lasting professional relationships. The concept of A Secondary Student Instructional Support Team (ASSIST) provides a realistic means for implementing the “class within a class” model that can better serve a heterogeneous student population. ASSIST is generally made up of teachers of various subject areas as well as one or more specialists. Placement of special needs students happens within and across team-taught classes. This is consistent with block scheduling options and facilitates the establishment of a positive attachment to team-mediated instruction. In addition, ASSIST can give students a mix of direct and indirect instructional support

Rat lungworm (Angiostrongylus cantonensis) active larval emergence from deceased bubble pond snails (Bullastra lessoni) into water

Angiostrongylus cantonensis (the rat lungworm) is a zoonotic parasite of non-permissive accidental (dogs, humans, horses, marsupials, birds) hosts. The 3rd stage larvae (L3s) in the intermediate host (molluscs) act as the source of infection for accidental hosts through ingestion. Larvae can spontaneously emerge from dead gastropods (slugs and snails) in water, which are experimentally infective to rats. We sought to identify the time when infective A. cantonensis larvae can autonomously leave dead experimentally infected Bullastra lessoni snails. The proportion of A. cantonensis larvae that emerge from crushed and submerged B. lessoni is higher in snails 62 days post-infection (DPI) (30.3%). The total larval burden of snails increases at 91 DPI, indicating that emerged larvae subsequently get recycled by the population. There appears to be a window of opportunity between 1 and 3 months for infective larvae to autonomously escape dead snails. From a human and veterinary medicine viewpoint, the mode of infection needs to be considered; whether that be through ingestion of an infected gastropod, or via drinking water contaminated with escaped larvae

Plasmodium knowlesi in Human, Indonesian Borneo

Plasmodium knowlesi is now established as the fifth Plasmodium species to cause malaria in humans. We describe a case of P. knowlesi infection acquired in Indonesian Borneo that was imported into Australia. Clinicians need to consider this diagnosis in a patient who has acquired malaria in forest areas of Southeast Asia

Two nonrecombining sympatric forms of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium ovale occur globally.

BACKGROUND: Malaria in humans is caused by apicomplexan parasites belonging to 5 species of the genus Plasmodium. Infections with Plasmodium ovale are widely distributed but rarely investigated, and the resulting burden of disease is not known. Dimorphism in defined genes has led to P. ovale parasites being divided into classic and variant types. We hypothesized that these dimorphs represent distinct parasite species. METHODS: Multilocus sequence analysis of 6 genetic characters was carried out among 55 isolates from 12 African and 3 Asia-Pacific countries. RESULTS: Each genetic character displayed complete dimorphism and segregated perfectly between the 2 types. Both types were identified in samples from Ghana, Nigeria, São Tomé, Sierra Leone, and Uganda and have been described previously in Myanmar. Splitting of the 2 lineages is estimated to have occurred between 1.0 and 3.5 million years ago in hominid hosts. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that P. ovale comprises 2 nonrecombining species that are sympatric in Africa and Asia. We speculate on possible scenarios that could have led to this speciation. Furthermore, the relatively high frequency of imported cases of symptomatic P. ovale infection in the United Kingdom suggests that the morbidity caused by ovale malaria has been underestimated

Coherent quasiparticle weight and its connection to high-T_c superconductivity from angle-resolved photoemission

In conventional superconductors, the pairing energy gap (\Delta) and superconducting phase coherence go hand-in-hand. As the temperature is lowered, both the energy gap and phase coherence appear at the transition temperature T_c. In contrast, in underdoped high-T_c superconductors (HTSCs), a pseudogap appears at a much higher temperature T^*, smoothly evolving into the superconducting gap at T_c. Phase coherence on the other hand is only established at T_c, signaled by the appearance of a sharp quasiparticle (QP) peak in the excitation spectrum. Another important difference between the two types of superconductors is in the ratio of 2\Delta / T_c=R. In BCS theory, R~3.5, is constant. In the HTSCs this ratio varies widely, continuing to increase in the underdoped region, where the gap increases while T_c decreases. Here we report that in HTSCs it is the ratio z_A\Delta_m/T_c which is approximately constant, where \Delta_m is the maximum value of the d-wave gap, and z_A is the weight of the coherent excitations in the spectral function. This is highly unusual, since in nearly all phase transitions, T_c is determined by an energy scale alone. We further show that in the low-temperature limit, z_{\it A} increases monotonically with increasing doping x. The growth is linear, i.e. z_A(x)\propto x, in the underdoped to optimally doped regimes, and slows down in overdoped samples. The reduction of z_A with increasing temperature resembles that of the c-axis superfluid density.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, revised versio

Measurement of the Neutron Radius of 208Pb Through Parity-Violation in Electron Scattering

We report the first measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry A_PV in the elastic scattering of polarized electrons from 208Pb. A_PV is sensitive to the radius of the neutron distribution (Rn). The result A_PV = 0.656 \pm 0.060 (stat) \pm 0.014 (syst) ppm corresponds to a difference between the radii of the neutron and proton distributions Rn - Rp = 0.33 +0.16 -0.18 fm and provides the first electroweak observation of the neutron skin which is expected in a heavy, neutron-rich nucleus.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Lmo4 in the Basolateral Complex of the Amygdala Modulates Fear Learning

Pavlovian fear conditioning is an associative learning paradigm in which mice learn to associate a neutral conditioned stimulus with an aversive unconditioned stimulus. In this study, we demonstrate a novel role for the transcriptional regulator Lmo4 in fear learning. LMO4 is predominantly expressed in pyramidal projection neurons of the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLC). Mice heterozygous for a genetrap insertion in the Lmo4 locus (Lmo4gt/+), which express 50% less Lmo4 than their wild type (WT) counterparts display enhanced freezing to both the context and the cue in which they received the aversive stimulus. Small-hairpin RNA-mediated knockdown of Lmo4 in the BLC, but not the dentate gyrus region of the hippocampus recapitulated this enhanced conditioning phenotype, suggesting an adult- and brain region-specific role for Lmo4 in fear learning. Immunohistochemical analyses revealed an increase in the number of c-Fos positive puncta in the BLC of Lmo4gt/+ mice in comparison to their WT counterparts after fear conditioning. Lastly, we measured anxiety-like behavior in Lmo4gt/+ mice and in mice with BLC-specific downregulation of Lmo4 using the elevated plus maze, open field, and light/dark box tests. Global or BLC-specific knockdown of Lmo4 did not significantly affect anxiety-like behavior. These results suggest a selective role for LMO4 in the BLC in modulating learned but not unlearned fear