Reading-related skills of kindergarteners from diverse linguistic backgrounds

This study examined whether measures used to identify children at risk for reading failure are appropriate for children from different language backgrounds. Tasks assessing literacy and phonological and language processing at the beginning and end of kindergarten were administered to 540 native English speakers (NS), 59 bilingual children (BL), and 60 children whose initial exposure to English was when they began school (ESL). Although the BL and ESL children performed more poorly than the NS children on most measures of phonological and linguistic processing, the acquisition of basic literacy skills for children with different language backgrounds developed in a similar manner. Furthermore, planned contrasts between the language groups did not explain the variance in the children’s literacy performance in May. Instead, alphabetic knowledge and phonological processing were important contributors to early reading skill. Therefore, children learning English may acquire literacy skills in English in a similar manner to NS children, although their alphabetic knowledge may precede and facilitate the acquisition of phonological awareness in English

Examining the effectiveness of technology use in classrooms: A tertiary meta-analysis

Identifying effective literacy instruction programs has been a focal point for governments, educators and parents over the last few decades (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2004, 2006; Council of Ontario Directors of Education, 2011). Given the increasing use of computer technologies in the classroom and in the home, a variety of information communication technology (ICT) interventions for learning have been introduced. Meta-analyses comparing the impact of these programs on learning, however, have yielded inconsistent findings (Andrews, Freeman, Hou, McGuinn, Robinson, & Zhu, 2007; Slavin, Cheung, Groff, & Lake, 2008; Slavin, Lake, Chambers, Cheung, & Davis, 2009; Torgerson & Zhu, 2003). The present tertiary meta-analytic review re-assesses outcomes presented in three previous meta-analyses. Four moderator variables assessed the impact of the systematic review from which they were retrieved, training and support, implementation fidelity and who delivered the intervention (teacher versus researcher). Significant results were found when training and support was entered as a moderator variable with the small overall effectiveness of the ICTs (ES = 0.18), similar to those found in previous research, increasing significantly (ES = 0.57). These findings indicate the importance of including implementation factors such as training and support, when considering the relative effectiveness of ICT interventions

Data Exploration, Quality Control and Testing in Single-Cell qPCR-Based Gene Expression Experiments

Cell populations are never truly homogeneous; individual cells exist in biochemical states that define functional differences between them. New technology based on microfluidic arrays combined with multiplexed quantitative polymerase chain reactions (qPCR) now enables high-throughput single-cell gene expression measurement, allowing assessment of cellular heterogeneity. However very little analytic tools have been developed specifically for the statistical and analytical challenges of single-cell qPCR data. We present a statistical framework for the exploration, quality control, and analysis of single-cell gene expression data from microfluidic arrays. We assess accuracy and within-sample heterogeneity of single-cell expression and develop quality control criteria to filter unreliable cell measurements. We propose a statistical model accounting for the fact that genes at the single-cell level can be on (and for which a continuous expression measure is recorded) or dichotomously off (and the recorded expression is zero). Based on this model, we derive a combined likelihood-ratio test for differential expression that incorporates both the discrete and continuous components. Using an experiment that examines treatment-specific changes in expression, we show that this combined test is more powerful than either the continuous or dichotomous component in isolation, or a t-test on the zero-inflated data. While developed for measurements from a specific platform (Fluidigm), these tools are generalizable to other multi-parametric measures over large numbers of events.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Identification and rejection of scattered neutrons in AGATA

Gamma rays and neutrons, emitted following spontaneous fission of 252Cf, were measured in an AGATA experiment performed at INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro in Italy. The setup consisted of four AGATA triple cluster detectors (12 36-fold segmented high-purity germanium crystals), placed at a distance of 50 cm from the source, and 16 HELENA BaF2 detectors. The aim of the experiment was to study the interaction of neutrons in the segmented high-purity germanium detectors of AGATA and to investigate the possibility to discriminate neutrons and gamma rays with the gamma-ray tracking technique. The BaF2 detectors were used for a time-of-flight measurement, which gave an independent discrimination of neutrons and gamma rays and which was used to optimise the gamma-ray tracking-based neutron rejection methods. It was found that standard gamma-ray tracking, without any additional neutron rejection features, eliminates effectively most of the interaction points due to recoiling Ge nuclei after elastic scattering of neutrons. Standard tracking rejects also a significant amount of the events due to inelastic scattering of neutrons in the germanium crystals. Further enhancements of the neutron rejection was obtained by setting conditions on the following quantities, which were evaluated for each event by the tracking algorithm: energy of the first and second interaction point, difference in the calculated incoming direction of the gamma ray, figure-of-merit value. The experimental results of tracking with neutron rejection agree rather well with Geant4 simulations

Clonal kinetics and single-cell transcriptional profiling of CAR-T cells in patients undergoing CD19 CAR-T immunotherapy

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has produced remarkable anti-tumor responses in patients with B-cell malignancies. However, clonal kinetics and transcriptional programs that regulate the fate of CAR-T cells after infusion remain poorly understood. Here we perform TCRB sequencing, integration site analysis, and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to profile CD8+ CAR-T cells from infusion products (IPs) and blood of patients undergoing CD19 CAR-T immunotherapy. TCRB sequencing shows that clonal diversity of CAR-T cells is highest in the IPs and declines following infusion. We observe clones that display distinct patterns of clonal kinetics, making variable contributions to the CAR-T cell pool after infusion. Although integration site does not appear to be a key driver of clonal kinetics, scRNA-seq demonstrates that clones that expand after infusion mainly originate from infused clusters with higher expression of cytotoxicity and proliferation genes. Thus, we uncover transcriptional programs associated with CAR-T cell behavior after infusion.Published versio