Altered fetal skeletal muscle nutrient metabolism following an adverse in utero environment and the modulation of later life insulin sensitivity

The importance of the in utero environment as a contributor to later life metabolic disease has been demonstrated in both human and animal studies. In this review, we consider how disruption of normal fetal growth may impact skeletal muscle metabolic development, ultimately leading to insulin resistance and decreased insulin sensitivity, a key precursor to later life metabolic disease. In cases of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) associated with hypoxia, where the fetus fails to reach its full growth potential, low birth weight (LBW) is often the outcome, and early in postnatal life, LBW individuals display modifications in the insulin-signaling pathway, a critical precursor to insulin resistance. In this review, we will present literature detailing the classical development of insulin resistance in IUGR, but also discuss how this impaired development, when challenged with a postnatal Western diet, may potentially contribute to the development of later life insulin resistance. Considering the important role of the skeletal muscle in insulin resistance pathogenesis, understanding the in utero programmed origins of skeletal muscle deficiencies in insulin sensitivity and how they may interact with an adverse postnatal environment, is an important step in highlighting potential therapeutic options for LBW offspring born of pregnancies characterized by placental insufficiency

Chikungunya as a cause of acute febrile illness in southern Sri Lanka

10.1371/journal.pone.0082259PLoS ONE812-POLN

The Metonymies of Unhappy Families

The current study explores the use of certain writing devices that appear in the works of Leo Tolstoy and Naguib Mahfouz. The study develops an in-depth comparison of how these two authors implement devices such as original similes; description of characters through the narrator, other characters, and themselves; interior monologue; and metonymy to create real characters in real situations. Though the reality of the two worlds differs because of economic, geographical, social, and religious backgrounds, they both reveal the universal theme of family unhappiness, whether in Russia or in Egypt

Supporting Whole-Class Collaborative Inquiry in a Secondary Mathematics Classroom

Recent mathematics education reform efforts call for the instantiation of mathematics classroom environments where students have opportunities to reason and construct their understandings as part of a community of learners. Despite some successes, traditional models of instruction still dominate the educational landscape. This limited success can be attributed, in part, to an underdeveloped understanding of the roles teachers must enact to successfully organize and participate in collaborative classroom practices. Towards this end, an in-depth longitudinal case study of a collaborative high school mathematics classroom was undertaken guided by the following two questions: What roles do these collaborative practices require of teacher and students? How does the community’s capacity to engage in collaborative practices develop over time? The analyses produced two conceptual models: one of the teacher’s role, along with specific instructional strategies the teacher used to organize a collaborative learning environment, and the second of the process by which the class’s capacity to participate in collaborative inquiry practices developed over time

Supporting Student Justification in Middle School Mathematics Classrooms: Teachers\u27 Work to Create a Context for Justificaiton

Justification is an important disciplinary and learning practice. Despite a growing knowledge base regarding how teachers orchestrate mathematical discussions, few analyses have considered the orchestration of specific disciplinary practices such as justification. Using classroom video data from the JAGUAR project, we analyze two instantiations of extensive student justification in seventh-grade classrooms and document each teacher’s pedagogical approach that supported students’ engagement in this practice. We argue that, although there was overlap in their pedagogical repertoires, the teachers created a context for student justification in two unique ways. We document the similarities and differences in their approaches, including the nature of teachers’ responses to student ideas, nature of the teachers’ press prompts (for reasoning and justification), nature of the classroom culture, and priorities in task design and task implementation. Implications are discussed

Justification as a learning practice: Its purposes in middle grades mathematics classrooms.

Justification is a core mathematics practice. Although its role in the mathematician community has been studied extensively (e.g., Hanna, 2000), we know relatively little about its role in K-12 classrooms. This study was conducted to clarify aspects of justification as a learning practice in middle grades mathematics classrooms. We document the views of 12 middle grades teachers who were working actively to incorporate justification into their classrooms. We further analyze differences between teachers’ purposes and mathematician purposes, and how these differences may reflect the different purposes of the two communities. Implications for mathematics education and teacher development are discussed