Launching Literacy in After-School Programs: Early Lessons from the CORAL Initiative

The James Irvine Foundation launched the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative in 1999 with the goal of improving the academic achievement of children in the lowest-performing schools in five California cities. In 2004, CORAL adopted a more targeted approach toward reaching this goal by integrating a regular schedule of literacy instruction into its after-school programs. This interim report, based on research conducted between Fall 2004 and Summer 2005, documents CORALs progress toward implementing high-quality and consistent literacy programming. The report presents early results in terms of youths positive reading gains and describes the program components that appear to have contributed to these gains. It also identifies challenges CORAL sites faced and successful strategies for addressing those challenges

The Letters of Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake

2009 was the bicentenary of the birth of the English writer, translator, critic and amateur artist Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake (1809-1893). Bringing together a comprehensive collection of her surviving correspondence, the Letters of Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake reveals significant new material about this extraordinary figure in Victorian society. The scope of Lady Eastlake’s writing is wide and interdisciplinary, which recommends her as a significant figure in Victorian culture, giving rise to revelations about the ways in which different cultural activities were linked. Lady Eastlake lived for extended periods of time abroad in Germany and Estonia, and wrote an early work about her impressions of the Baltic, her subsequent writing took the form of reviews for the periodical press, including reviews of Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, Ruskin, Coleridge, and Madame de Stael. She also wrote on women’s subjects, including articles on the education of women. However, the great proportions of her publications are art-related reviews: she wrote one of earliest critical texts on photography and produced several essays on artists. The lively correspondence of Lady Eastlake not only contributes to a more holistic understanding of nineteenth-century culture, it also shows how a well connected woman could play an important role in the Victorian art world

Failure of Passive Transfer in Camel Calves: 4 Cases (2010-2019)

Failure of passive transfer is a management concern for all ruminant species, but is not well described in the literature for camel calves. This case series presents four camel calves (Camelus dromedarius and Camelus bactrianus) referred to a North American veterinary teaching hospital for diagnosis and management of failure of passive transfer. Diagnostics utilized included hematology, serum biochemistry, and immunologic methods as described for crias. Management included antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and plasma transfusion therapies. Three of the four calves survived to discharge, and common diagnostic practices such as evaluation of total solids, total protein, immunoglobulin G, and sodium sulfite appear to be correlate to passive transfer status in these four calves. Xenotransfusion with llama plasma was well tolerated by two calves, and xenotransfusion with bovine plasma was well tolerated by an additional calf in this study. Additional work is necessary to develop validated breakpoints for diagnosis of passive transfer status in camel calves

Objective gait analysis in humboldt penguins (spheniscus humboldti) and domestic ducks (cairina moschata domestica) using a pressure sensitive walkway

Lameness due to osteoarthritis and/or pododermatitis is one of the most common problems encountered with aquatic birds such as ducks and penguins under professional care. Successful treatment and management is variable and often incomplete or transient. There is a lack of a validated objective tool for identification of gait abnormalities and for monitoring progress during or after treatment. This project objectively characterized the gait of Humboldt penguins (Spheniscus humboldti) and domestic ducks (Cairina moschata domestica) using a pressure sensitive walkway (PSW), and developed an experimental lameness induction model in ducks that will facilitate analgesic efficacy studies for lameness therapy in these species. Among normal penguins (n=16), there were no significant differences between feet or sex in any temporospatial gait parameter measured. Abnormal penguins (n=5) with historical right-sided (n=3) or bilateral lameness (n=2) had significantly shorter left step width compared to normal penguins. While the abnormal penguin data set was not controlled or of adequate sample size in this study to stand alone, these preliminary findings indicate that contralateral step width may be a sensitive marker of lameness, that there is partial to adequate pain management in this group, and/or that lesions were not significant enough to cause more statistically significant gait changes at the time of the study. Normal ducks (n=18) also had no difference between right and left feet in any parameter as measured by the PSW. Transient unilateral tarsal arthritis was induced in 6 randomly selected, anesthetized ducks using a monosodium urate solution injection. Serial PSW trials up to 24 hours post injection identified that maximum force and impulse were significantly lower for the affected limb at the 3- and 4-hour time points. This model allowed for repeatable objective assessment of lameness in domestic ducks with maximum force and impulse serving as the most sensitive gait parameters for lameness detection. This method has potential to assess analgesic efficacy for other avian species. Normal values will be used to objectively monitor progression and response to therapy of current and future cases of lameness in penguins and ducks under human care and set the groundwork for investigating this methodology in other species

Prevalence of infection with human herpesvirus 8/Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus in rural South Africa

Objective. To determine prevalence of infection with human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8)/Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHY) and to gain some insight into possible transmission dynamics of this novel virus in South Africa.Methods. Stored, anonymous serum from 50 patients with a ~ sexually transmitted disease (STD), 50 adult medical ward _. patients (25 male, 25 female), and 36 paediatric ward patients in Hlabisa Hospital, KwaZulu-Natal, was screened by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for antibodies to the small capsid-related protein encoded by HHV-8/KSHY orf65. Antibodies to the latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) were measured by immunofluorescence, and sera that were reactive in the ELISA but negative by immunofluorescence were re-tested by Western blot against the recombinant orf65 protein to exclude nonspecific reactivity.Results. Overall, 47 patients tested positive (34.6%), 76 tested negative (55.9%) and 13 (95%) had indeterminate results. Among those with a definite result, prevalence was similar among males (47.2%) and females (52.8%) and increased in later adulthood « 18 months 375%,19 -120 months 385%, 15 - 34 years 32.1%, 35 - 69 years 62.8%). Prevalence was highest among medical patients (58-1%); among those with an STD it was 31.1% (P = 0-01), and among children it was 22.8% (P = 0.001). When age-adjusted, prevalence among medical patients (23.7%) was similar to that among patients with an STD.Conclusion. Prevalence of HHV-8/KSHY is high in this setting and transmission appears to be occurring in childhood as well as among adults. Larger  population-based studies are required to detail the transmission dynamics of HHSV8/KSHv

THE ROLE OF PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES IN THE AGRICULTURAL NEGOTIATIONS

Marketing, International Relations/Trade,

Криптовалюта: особенности и риски монетарного использования в экономике России

В данной статье рассматриваются ключевые особенности криптовалют, а также реакция со стороны различных участников экономических отношений на их появление и стремительное развитие. Особое внимание уделяются оценке возможности полномасштабного внедрения криптовалют на территории РФ и открывающимся перспективам. Кроме того, рассматриваются риски, как экономического, так и социально- политического характера

Advancing Achievement: Findings from an Independent Evaluation of a Major After-School Initiative

This report presents outcomes from Public/Private Ventures research on CORAL, an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative of The James Irvine Foundation. Findings described in the report demonstrate the relationship between high-quality literacy programming and academic gains and underscore the potential role that quality programs may play in the ongoing drive to improve academic achievement. The report includes a 12-page executive summary

HHV-8 encoded LANA-1 alters the higher organization of the cell nucleus

The latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA-1) of Human Herpes Virus 8 (HHV-8), alternatively called Kaposi Sarcoma Herpes Virus (KSHV) is constitutively expressed in all HHV-8 infected cells. LANA-1 accumulates in well-defined foci that co-localize with the viral episomes. We have previously shown that these foci are tightly associated with the borders of heterochromatin [1]. We have also shown that exogenously expressed LANA-1 causes an extensive re-organization of Hoechst 33248 DNA staining patterns of the nuclei in non-HHV-8 infected cells [2]. Here we show that this effect includes the release of the bulk of DNA from heterochromatic areas, in both human and mouse cells, without affecting the overall levels of heterochromatin associated histone H3 lysine 9 tri-methylation (3MK9H3). The release of DNA from the heterochromatic chromocenters in LANA-1 transfected mouse cells co-incides with the dispersion of the chromocenter associated methylcytosin binding protein 2 (MECP2). The localization of 3MK9H3 to the remnants of the chromocenters remains unaltered. Moreover, exogeneously expressed LANA-1 leads to the relocation of the chromocenters to the nuclear periphery, indicating extensive changes in the positioning of the chromosomal domains in the LANA-1 harboring interphase nucleus. Using a series of deletion mutants we have shown that the chromatin rearranging effects of LANA-1 require the presence of a short (57 amino acid) region that is located immediately upstream of the internal acidic repeats. This sequence lies within the previously mapped binding site to histone methyltransferase SUV39H1. We suggest that the highly concentrated LANA-1, anchored to the host genome in the nuclear foci of latently infected cells and replicated through each cell generation, may function as "epigenetic modifier". The induction of histone modification in adjacent host genes may lead to altered gene expression, thereby contributing to the viral oncogenesis