Academic Dishonesty: Recommendations for the Future of Higher Education

The culture of academic dishonesty has become a common practice among students across numerous college campuses. It is imperative to address the policies designed to clearly define plagiarism and academic integrity, as they are not universally understood. The authors explore how academic dishonesty and academic integrity are defined at varying institutions and compare and contrast how such policy violations are addressed by campus administrators. The authors propose recommendations for campus administrators and policymakers to redefine best practices for faculty and staff to instill a culture of academic integrity on college campuses

Zoning Discrimination Affecting Retarded Persons

The Cleburne Court\u27s opinion leaves readers uninformed as to why it subjected the Cleburne City Council\u27s action to the more searching inquiry that resulted in its being held unconstitutional. Perhaps, as Justice Marshall has been arguing for years, the decision is sensible when one considers and balances the following three factors: the character of the classification in question, the relative importance to the individual of the right affected and the importance of the governmental interest supporting the classification.61 Mentally retarded persons evidence several indicia of a suspect class; the right to housing is very important; and the city\u27s denying CLC a permit only served a limited public purpose. The real problem with the Cleburne decision, though, lies in the fact that the court fails to provide any clear direction as to when, if ever, zoning discrimination against retarded persons is constitutional

An exploration of professional and practice-based perspectives on supporting birth parents towards reunification with their children.

Abstract An exploration of professional and practice-based perspectives on supporting birth parents towards reunification with their children. When children are placed in out-of-home care (e.g. foster care; hereafter ‘care’), it is the State’s duty to work with the children’s birth parents and ensure that systems and supports are in place to enable parents to resume caring for their children (i.e. for reunification to take place), when it is in the best interest of the child to do so. In Ireland, there is a dearth of data, research, policy and practice guidance regarding the process of reunification. There is also limited research on the experiences of birth parents whose children are in care in Ireland. This paper draws on data gathered as part of a study of professional and practice-based perspectives on reunification of children in care in Ireland. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 12 respondents from various professional backgrounds including social workers and social care workers. . In this paper, we examine the perspectives of participants regarding how birth parents might be better supported to work towards reunification. Findings suggest there is limited scope to work with and support parents of children in care in the current system. More focus is required to ensure parents are informed of their rights and empowered to remain present in the lives of their children and to work towards reunification. Suggestions are also made for exploration of a specialised service or team, as in other jurisdictions, to work with parents to promote family reunification

Metabolomic study of the LDL receptor null mouse fed a high-fat diet reveals profound perturbations in choline metabolism that are shared with ApoE null mice

Failure to express or expression of dysfunctional low-density lipoprotein receptors (LDLR) causes familial hypercholesterolemia in humans, a disease characterized by elevated blood cholesterol concentrations, xanthomas, and coronary heart disease, providing compelling evidence that high blood cholesterol concentrations cause atherosclerosis. In this study, we used 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to examine the metabolic profiles of plasma and urine from the LDLR knockout mice. Consistent with previous studies, these mice developed hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis when fed a high-fat/cholesterol/cholate-containing diet. In addition, multivariate statistical analysis of the metabolomic data highlighted significant differences in tricarboxylic acid cycle and fatty acid metabolism, as a result of high-fat/cholesterol diet feeding. Our metabolomic study also demonstrates that the effect of high-fat/cholesterol/cholate diet, LDLR gene deficiency, and the diet-genotype interaction caused a significant perturbation in choline metabolism, notably the choline oxidation pathway. Specifically, the loss in the LDLR caused a marked reduction in the urinary excretion of betaine and dimethylglycine, especially when the mice are fed a high-fat/cholesterol/cholate diet. Furthermore, as we demonstrate that these metabolic changes are comparable with those detected in ApoE knockout mice fed the same high-fat/cholesterol/cholate diet they may be useful for monitoring the onset of atherosclerosis across animal models

Foundations for Literacy: An Early Literacy Intervention for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

The present study evaluated the efficacy of a new preschool early literacy intervention created specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children with functional hearing. Teachers implemented Foundations for Literacy with 25 DHH children in 2 schools (intervention group). One school used only spoken language, and the other used sign with and without spoken language. A “business as usual” comparison group included 33 DHH children who were matched on key characteristics with the intervention children but attended schools that did not implement Foundations for Literacy. Children’s hearing losses ranged from moderate to profound. Approximately half of the children had cochlear implants. All children had sufficient speech perception skills to identify referents of spoken words from closed sets of items. Teachers taught small groups of intervention children an hour a day, 4 days a week for the school year. From fall to spring, intervention children made significantly greater gains on tests of phonological awareness, letter–sound knowledge, and expressive vocabulary than did comparison children. In addition, intervention children showed significant increases in standard scores (based on hearing norms) on phonological awareness and vocabulary tests. This quasi-experimental study suggests that the intervention shows promise for improving early literacy skills of DHH children with functional hearing