Leadership Matters: Governors' Pre-K Proposals Fiscal Year 2006

Twenty budget-savvy governors recently recommended increased investment in a cost-effective strategy that saves taxpayers money, boosts state economies, and prepares our youngest citizens for future success. That strategy is high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten.This report evaluates all 50 U.S. governors and the mayor of the District of Columbia in terms of their budgetary proposals and State of the State remarks in support of voluntary pre-k for all

Leadership Matters: Governors' Pre-K Proposals Fiscal Year 2007

Across the country, governors are recognizing high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten as a proven school-reform strategy. In 2006, 24 leaders prioritized this effort by proposing increased funding to expand and enhance their states' pre-k programs. These investments promise to improve both K-12 systems and children's opportunities for success in kindergarten and in life. This report reviews the state of the state addresses and proposed budgets of our nation's governors and the mayor of the District of Columbia to assess their individual commitments to high-quality pre-k for all

Votes Count: Legislative Action on Pre-K Fiscal Year 2006

For fiscal year 2006, 26 state legislatures and the DC city council have committed to do the right thing for young children and for their states' financial futures. These forward-thinking leaders made the wise and responsible decision to increase funding for high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten. With five more states projecting increases for FY06, this represents a doubling of the 15 legislatures that increased funding for pre-k just one year ago. These numbers are a clear indicator of strong momentum in the pre-k-for-all movement

Physical and Emotional States as Memory-Relevant Factors: Cognitive Monitoring by Young Children

The Flavell (l981) model of cognitive monitoring and metamnemonic development was tested by four experiments conducted to determine whether preschool children (1) recognize that mood, fatigue, and fear are variables that influence learning; and (2) self-monitor their internal states and adjust their study behavior when they are sad or tired

Dietary Manipulation for Therapeutic Effect in Prostate Cancer

Given that there is a wealth of literature on the potential effect of a wide variety of phytochemicals on the growth of prostate cancer cells, we have limited our discussion to arguably four of the most important: isoflavones, lycopene, resveratrol, and curcumin. The focus of this review is on the clinical pharmacology of these compounds, as there are already an extensive number of reviews in the literature on all of these compounds for various cancers, including our previous review of isoflavones in prostate cancer (de Souza et al., 2009). Here, we use the loose term “phytochemicals” to describe this group of plant–based compounds with biological activity in vitro, for simplicity. Like other phytochemicals, isoflavones, lycopene, resveratrol and curcumin have a wide variety of potential mechanisms of action in many different cancer cell lines. Many of these biological effects involve key components of signal transduction pathways within cancer cells, but in this review, we will be focusing on studies specifically in prostate cancer

Discerning Applicants\u27 Interests in Rural Medicine: A Textual Analysis of Admission Essays

BACKGROUND: Despite efforts to construct targeted medical school admission processes using applicant-level correlates of future practice location, accurately gauging applicants\u27 interests in rural medicine remains an imperfect science. This study explores the usefulness of textual analysis to identify rural-oriented themes and values underlying applicants\u27 open-ended responses to admission essays. METHODS: The study population consisted of 75 applicants to the Rural Physician Leadership Program (RPLP) at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Using WordStat, a proprietary text analysis program, applicants\u27 American Medical College Application Service personal statement and an admission essay written at the time of interview were searched for predefined keywords and phrases reflecting rural medical values. From these text searches, derived scores were then examined relative to interviewers\u27 subjective ratings of applicants\u27 overall acceptability for admission to the RPLP program and likelihood of practicing in a rural area. RESULTS: The two interviewer-assigned ratings of likelihood of rural practice and overall acceptability were significantly related. A statistically significant relationship was also found between the rural medical values scores and estimated likelihood of rural practice. However, there was no association between rural medical values scores and subjective ratings of applicant acceptability. CONCLUSIONS: That applicants\u27 rural values in admission essays were not related to interviewers\u27 overall acceptability ratings indicates that other factors played a role in the interviewers\u27 assessments of applicants\u27 acceptability for admission

Comparative Ultrastructure Of Digestive Diverticulae In Bathymodiolin Mussels: Discovery Of An Unknown Spherical Inclusion (Six) In Digestive Cells Of A Seep Mussel

Mussels in the genus Bathymodiolus host endosymbiotic bacteria in their gills, from which the mussel derives much of its nutrition. Bathymodiolin mussels also have functional digestive systems and, as in shallow-water mytilid mussels, cells of the digestive diverticulae are of two types: basophilic secretory cells and columnar digestive cells. Cellular contents of secretory and digestive cells of Bathymodiolus thermophilus and Bathymodiolus brevior from deep-sea hydrothermal vents are comparable to cellular contents of these cell types observed in shallow-water mytilids. In the seep mussel Bathymodiolus heckerae, cellular contents of columnar cells were anomalous, being dominated by an unknown cellular inclusion herein called spherical inclusion unknown or SIX. SIX was observed in all digestive cells and some basophilic cells of B. heckerae examined with TEM. It is a large (2-10-mu m diameter) and abundant (7 +/- 1.5 inclusions per epithelial cell section) inclusion, with a double external membrane and stacked internal lamellae. No microbial DNA was detected in digestive tubules of B. heckerae using molecular probes, preferential DNA amplification techniques, or DAPI staining, suggesting that SIX is not a unicellular parasite or symbiont. The ubiquity and abundance of SIX within cells of the digestive diverticula suggest that it has an important cellular function (positive or negative), yet to be determined

Cognitive Test Performance among Nondemented Elderly African Americans and Whites

We examined the neuropsychological test performance of a randomly selected community sample of English-speaking non-Hispanic African American and white elders in northern Manhattan. All participants were diagnosed as nondemented by a neurologist, whose assessment was made independent of neuropsychological test scores. African American elders obtained significantly lower scores on measures of verbal and nonverbal learning and memory, abstract reasoning, language, and visuospatial skill than whites. After using a stratified random sampling technique to match groups on years of education, many of the discrepancies became nonsignificant; however, significant ethnic group differences on measures of figure memory, verbal abstraction, category fluency, and visuospatial skill remained. Discrepancies in test performance of education-matched African Americans and whites could not be accounted for by occupational attainment or history of medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. These findings emphasize the importance of using culturally appropriate norms when evaluating ethnically diverse elderly for dementia