Traumatic Brain Injury: Informed Accommodation in the Classroom

This paper discusses traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the symptoms that affect a student emotionally, cognitively and socially after experiencing a TBI. Traumatic brain injuries can have a profoundly negative impact on a child’s ability to learn at school and interact with peers in social situations. Recent research shows how TBI affects brain function and the impacts that this can have on education. However, research also suggests effective strategies that teachers can use in their classroom when teaching a student who has experienced a TBI

The Sweetest Words of All : I Love You

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5683/thumbnail.jp

Reserves Protect against Deforestation Fires in the Amazon

BACKGROUND: Reserves are the principal means to conserve forests and biodiversity, but the question of whether reserves work is still debated. In the Amazon, fires are closely linked to deforestation, and thus can be used as a proxy for reserve effectiveness in protecting forest cover. We ask whether reserves in the Brazilian Amazon provide effective protection against deforestation and consequently fires, whether that protection is because of their location or their legal status, and whether some reserve types are more effective than others. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Previous work has shown that most Amazonian fires occur close to roads and are more frequent in El Niño years. We quantified these relationships for reserves and unprotected areas by examining satellite-detected hot pixels regressed against road distance across the entire Brazilian Amazon and for a decade with 2 El Niño-related droughts. Deforestation fires, as measured by hot pixels, declined exponentially with increasing distance from roads in all areas. Fewer deforestation fires occurred within protected areas than outside and the difference between protected and unprotected areas was greatest near roads. Thus, reserves were especially effective at preventing these fires where they are known to be most likely to burn; but they did not provide absolute protection. Even within reserves, at a given distance from roads, there were more deforestation fires in regions with high human impact than in those with low impact. The effect of El Niño on deforestation fires was greatest outside of reserves and near roads. Indigenous reserves, limited-use reserves, and fully protected reserves all had fewer fires than outside areas and did not appear to differ in their effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Taking time, regional factors, and climate into account, our results show that reserves are an effective tool for curbing destructive burning in the Amazon

A survey of services for the speech and hearing handicapped in New England

Thesis (Ed. M.)--Boston University, 195

A survey of services for the speech and hearing handicapped in New England

Thesis (Ed. M.)--Boston University, 195

Data resource profile : the Scottish national prescribing information system (PIS)

Data Resource Basics: The Prescribing Information System (PIS) covers the prescribed,dispensed and reimbursed prescriptions in community pharmacies from the 5.3 million residents in Scotland. Summary information is available from 1993 and at an individual level from 2009 to the present. Data Collected: The raw data are generated by three data sources: ePrescribed -generated by GPs messages, eDispensed –generated by messages from community pharmacies and Reimbursed messages from scanned paper prescriptions dispensed in the community pharmacies. The four main categories of data collected are: (1) Patient-specific, (2) Prescriber, (3) Dispenser and (4) Drug-specific. PIS data can be linked via a unique identifier to other national databases, including hospital records, maternal and neonatal, the Scottish Cancer Registry and mortality records. The catalogue of databases is available in www.ndc.scot.nhs.uk . Subject to approval of the data controllers other external datasets can also be linked. Data Resource Use: PIS has been used to describe the utilisation of several groups of drugs;factors influencing prescribing and evaluation of interventions to improve it; generation of polypharmacy guidelines; risk of side effects; monitoring of antibiotic use and generation of policy recommendations; associations between community prescription of antimicrobials and deprivation or infection; evaluation of prescription fee abolition; clinical effectiveness, safety and health technology assessment of drugs approved in the last decade. Reasons to be cautious: PIS does not capture information about diagnosis or indication for treatment, over the counter medicines, medicines administered during inpatient hospital stays, upon discharge for short term use, outpatient supplies or some specialist drugs for chronic use. Drug data is currently coded according to the British National Formulary. For longitudinal studies, patient level data is available from 2009 and the frequency of data collection from the three sources is different. Collaboration and data access: PIS data are available upon request to the electronic Data Research and Innovation Service ([email protected]) and project approval by the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel. Funding and competing interests: This dataset is funded from the public monies available to the NHS. Current work to develop an improved PIS research ready analysis platform and this study is supported by the Farr Institute @ Scotland and its 10-funder consortium. The authors declare no conflict of interest

Shyness and Vocabulary: The Roles of Executive Functioning and Home Environmental Stimulation

Although shyness has often been found to be negatively related to vocabulary, few studies have examined the processes that produce or modify this relation. The present study examined executive functioning skills and home environmental stimulation as potential mediating and moderating mechanisms. A sample of 3½-year-old children (N = 254) was administered executive functioning tasks and a vocabulary test during a laboratory visit. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing child shyness and home environmental stimulation. Our primary hypothesis was that executive functioning mediates the association between shyness and vocabulary, and home environmental stimulation moderates the relation between executive functioning and vocabulary. Alternative hypotheses were also tested. Results indicated that children with better executive functioning skills developed stronger vocabularies when reared in more, versus less, stimulating environments. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the role of shyness, executive functioning, and home environmental stimulation in early vocabulary development

Expression of alternatively spliced human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 mRNAs is influenced by mitosis and by a novel cis-acting regulatory sequence

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) expression depends on the concerted action of Tax, which drives transcription of the viral genome, and Rex, which favors expression of incompletely spliced mRNAs and determines a 2-phase temporal pattern of viral expression. In the present study, we investigated the Rex dependence of the complete set of alternatively spliced HTLV-1 mRNAs. Analyses of cells transfected with Rex-wild-type and Rex-knockout HTLV-1 molecular clones using splice site-specific quantitative reverse transcription (qRT)-PCR revealed that mRNAs encoding the p30Tof, p13, and p12/8 proteins were Rex dependent, while the p21rex mRNA was Rex independent. These findings provide a rational explanation for the intermediate-late temporal pattern of expression of the p30tof, p13, and p12/8 mRNAs described in previous studies. All the Rex-dependent mRNAs contained a 75-nucleotide intronic region that increased the nuclear retention and degradation of a reporter mRNA in the absence of other viral sequences. Selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension (SHAPE) analysis revealed that this sequence formed a stable hairpin structure. Cell cycle synchronization experiments indicated that mitosis partially bypasses the requirement for Rex to export Rex-dependent HTLV-1 transcripts. These findings indicate a link between the cycling properties of the host cell and the temporal pattern of viral expression/latency that might influence the ability of the virus to spread and evade the immune system

Impact of regulatory safety notices on valproate prescribing and pregnancy outcome among women of child-bearing potential in Scotland: a population-based cohort study

Objective: To examine the impact of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) safety alerts on valproate prescribing among women aged 14–45 years in Scotland and examine trends in pregnancies exposed to valproate. Design: Population-based cohort study. Participants: 21 983 women of all ages who received valproate between January 2011 and December 2019. Methods: All valproate prescriptions issued to women in Scotland between January 2011 and December 2019 were identified and prevalence/incidence rates per 10 000 population derived. The impact of regulatory safety alerts on prescribing was analysed using Joinpoint models. Linked pregnancy records for January 2011 to September 2019 were identified and annual rates of pregnancy per 1000 valproate-treated women aged 14–45 years were calculated for each pregnancy outcome: live birth, stillbirth, miscarriage and termination. Results: Annual prevalent and incident rates of valproate prescribing declined in women aged 14–45 years between 2011 and 2019 from 40.5 to 18.3 per 10 000 population (54.8% reduction) and 7.9 to 1.3 per 10 000 population (83.5% reduction), respectively. Statistically significant changes occurred around the times of the MHRA safety alerts. The number of valproate-exposed pregnancies conceived each year fell from 70 in 2011 to 20 in 2018, a 71.4% reduction, and the number of live births fell from 52 to 14, a 73.0% reduction. Expressed as a rate this was a 46.4% decrease from 15.3 to 8.2 per 1000 valproate-treated women aged 14–45 years in 2011 and 2018, respectively. Live birth was the most common pregnancy outcome. Conclusion: This study demonstrates, for the first time, the capabilities of national data sets to identify drug exposure and derive pregnancy outcome at scale across Scotland. Building on this as part of an evolving national/UK surveillance capability will continue efforts to minimise in-utero exposure to valproate; enabling ongoing surveillance to understand better long-term outcomes, and to inform better provision of health and wider support services