RNA sequencing reveals a key role for the long non-coding RNA MIAT in regulating neuroblastoma and glioblastoma cell fate

Myocardial Infarction Associated Transcript (MIAT) is a subnuclear lncRNA that interferes with alternative splicing and is associated with increased risk of various heart conditions and nervous system tumours. The current study aims to elucidate the role of MIAT in cell survival, apoptosis and migration in neuroblastoma and glioblastoma multiforme. To this end, MIAT was silenced by MIAT-specific siRNAs in neuroblastoma and glioblastoma cell lines, and RNA sequencing together with a series of functional assays were performed. The RNA sequencing has revealed that the expression of an outstanding number of genes is altered, including genes involved in cancer-related processes, such as cell growth and survival, apoptosis, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and migration. Furthermore, the functional studies have confirmed the RNA sequencing leads, with our key findings suggesting that MIAT knockdown eliminates long-term survival and migration and increases basal apoptosis in neuroblastoma and glioblastoma cell lines. Taken together with the recent demonstration of the involvement of MIAT in glioblastoma, our observations suggest that MIAT could possess tumour-promoting properties, thereby acting as an oncogene, and has the potential to be used as a reliable biomarker for neuroblastoma and glioblastoma and be employed for prognostic, predictive and, potentially, therapeutic purposes for these cancers

Types and correlates of school non-attendance in students with autism spectrum disorders

School non-attendance in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has received very little attention to date. The study aimed to provide a comprehensive description of school non-attendance in students with ASD. Through an online survey, parents of 486 children (mean age 11 years) reported on school attendance over one month, and reasons for instances of non-attendance. On average, students missed five days of school of a possible 23 days. Persistent non-attendance (absent on 10%+ of available sessions) occurred among 43% of students. School non-attendance was associated with child older age, not living in a two-parent household, parental unemployment and, especially, attending a mainstream school. School refusal accounted for 43% of non-attendance. School exclusion and school withdrawal each accounted for 9% of absences. Truancy was almost non-existent. Non-problematic absenteeism (mostly related to medical appointments and illness) accounted for 32% of absences. Non-problematic absenteeism was more likely among those with intellectual disability, school refusal was more likely among older students, and school exclusion was more likely among students from single-parent, unemployed, and well educated households. Findings suggest school non-attendance in ASD is a significant issue, and that it is important to capture detail about attendance patterns and reasons for school non-attendance

Analysis of The Town Officer (1791-1815): The earliest American treatise on municipal accounting?

Recent research has produced the earliest known treatise on Accounting written by an American. Samuel Freeman\u27s The Town Officer [1791] is significant in that it recommended double-entry fund accounting for municipalities. The paper analyzes and compares Freeman\u27s objectives of a plain and regular Method to modem municipal accounting concepts as articulated by the GASB. Additionally, the entries and the accounts recommended by Freeman are analyzed and compared to modern municipal accounting evidenced in current textbook material. These analyses show The Town Officer to be a significant contribution to accounting literature not only for its 1791 publication date, but also for the similarity of its content to present day municipal accounting objectives and requirements

Environmental influences on children\u27s physical activity in early childhood education and care

Background: To examine the relationship between attributes of early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings and children\u27s physical activity and sedentary behavior. Methods: Cross-sectional study involving 490 children aged 2-5 years from 11 ECECs. The ECEC routine, size of the outdoor environment, and time spent in the outdoor environment were calculated for each center. Children\u27s physical activity and sedentary time were measured using accelerometers. Multivariate linear regressions were used to examine associations of the attributes of ECEC centers with the outcome variables, adjusting for the effects of center clustering and gender. Results: Children in ECECs that offered free routines (where children can move freely between indoor and outdoor environments) had lower levels of sedentary time (28.27 min/h vs 33.15 min/h; P = .001) and spent more time in total physical activity (7.99 min/h vs 6.57 min/h; P = .008) and moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (9.49 min/h vs 7.31 min/h; P = .008). Children in ECECs with an outdoor environment \u3e400 m2 had less sedentary time (28.94 min/h vs 32.42 min/h; P = .012) than those with areas children

Heartbeat and Temperature Monitoring System for Remote Patients using Arduino

This paper describes the working of a wireless heartbeat and temperature monitoring system based on a microcontroller ATmega328 (arduino uno). Most monitoring systems that are in use in today\u27s world works in offline mode but our system is designed such that a patient can be monitored remotely in real time. The proposed approach consists of sensors which measures heartbeat and body temperature of a patient which is controlled by the microcontroller. Both the readings are displayed in LCD monitor. Wireless system is used to transmit the measured data from the remote location. The heartbeat sensor counts the heartbeat for specific interval of time and estimates Beats per Minute while the temperature sensor measures the temperature and both the data are sent to the microcontroller for transmission to receiving end. Finally, the data are displayed at the receiving end. This system could be made available at a reasonable cost with great effect

Group-Based Parent Training Interventions for Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: a Literature Review

© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders should have access to interventions to help them understand and support their child. This literature review examines the existing evidence for group-based parent training interventions that support parents of children with autism. From the literature, core intervention processes and outcomes are identified and include parenting and parent behaviour, parent health, child behaviour and peer and social support. Results show a positive trend for intervention effectiveness, but findings are limited by low-quality studies and heterogeneity of intervention content, outcomes and outcome measurement. Future research should focus on specifying effective intervention ingredients and modes of delivery, consistent and reliable outcome measurement, and improving methodological rigour to build a more robust evidence base

School Attendance Problems Among Children with Neurodevelopmental Conditions One year Following the Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: The present study investigated school absence among 1,076 5–15 year-old children with neurodevelopmental conditions (intellectual disability and/or autism) approximately one year following the start of COVID-19 in the UK. Methods: Parents completed an online survey indicating whether their child was absent from school during May 2021 and the reason for each absence. Multi-variable regression models investigated child, family and school variables associated with absenteeism and types of absenteeism. Qualitative data were collected on barriers and facilitators of school attendance. Results: During May 2021, 32% of children presented with persistent absence (missing ≥ 10% of school). School refusal and absence due to ill-health were the most frequent types of absence, accounting for 37% and 22% of days missed, respectively. COVID-19 related absence accounted for just 11% of days missed. Child anxiety was associated with overall absenteeism and with days missed because of school refusal. Parent pandemic anxiety and child conduct problems were not associated with school absenteeism. Hyperactivity was associated with lower levels of absenteeism and school refusal but higher levels of school exclusion. A positive parent-teacher relationship was associated with lower levels of absenteeism, school refusal and exclusion. Child unmet need in school was the most frequently reported barrier to attendance while COVID-19 was one of the least frequently reported barriers. Conclusion: COVID-19 had a limited impact on school attendance problems during this period. Findings highlighted the role of child mental health in different types of absence and the likely protective role of a positive parent-teacher relationship

Types and correlates of school absenteeism among students with intellectual disability

Background: It appears that students with intellectual disability (ID) are more frequently absent from school compared with students without ID. The objective of the current study was to estimate the frequency of absence among students with ID and the reasons for absence. Potential reasons included the attendance problems referred to as school refusal, where absence is related to emotional distress; truancy, where absence is concealed from parents; school exclusion, where absence is instigated by the school; and school withdrawal, where absence is initiated by parents. Methods: Study participants were 629 parents (84.6% mothers) of Australian school students (Mage = 11.18 years; 1.8% Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander) with an ID. Participants completed a questionnaire battery that included the School Non-Attendance ChecKlist via which parents indicated the reason their child was absent for each day or half-day absence their child had over the past 20 school days. The absence data presented to parents had been retrieved from school records. Results: Across all students, absence occurred on 7.9% of the past 20 school days. In terms of school attendance problems as defined in existing literature, school withdrawal accounted for 11.1% of absences and school refusal for 5.3% of absences. Students were also absent for other reasons, most commonly illness (32.0%) and appointments (24.2%). Of students with more than one absence (n = 217; 34.5%), about half were absent for more than one reason. Students attending mainstream schools had lower attendance than those attending special schools. Conclusions: Students with ID were absent for a range of reasons and often for multiple reasons. There were elevated rates of school withdrawal and school refusal. Understanding the reasons for absenteeism can inform targeted prevention and intervention supports.</p

Unbounded violation of tripartite Bell inequalities

We prove that there are tripartite quantum states (constructed from random unitaries) that can lead to arbitrarily large violations of Bell inequalities for dichotomic observables. As a consequence these states can withstand an arbitrary amount of white noise before they admit a description within a local hidden variable model. This is in sharp contrast with the bipartite case, where all violations are bounded by Grothendieck's constant. We will discuss the possibility of determining the Hilbert space dimension from the obtained violation and comment on implications for communication complexity theory. Moreover, we show that the violation obtained from generalized GHZ states is always bounded so that, in contrast to many other contexts, GHZ states do in this case not lead to extremal quantum correlations. The results are based on tools from the theories of operator spaces and tensor norms which we exploit to prove the existence of bounded but not completely bounded trilinear forms from commutative C*-algebras.Comment: Substantial changes in the presentation to make the paper more accessible for a non-specialized reade

BASIS: High-performance bioinformatics platform for processing of large-scale mass spectrometry imaging data in chemically augmented histology

Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) holds significant promise in augmenting digital histopathologic analysis by generating highly robust big data about the metabolic, lipidomic and proteomic molecular content of the samples. In the process, a vast quantity of unrefined data, that can amount to several hundred gigabytes per tissue section, is produced. Managing, analysing and interpreting this data is a significant challenge and represents a major barrier to the translational application of MSI. Existing data analysis solutions for MSI rely on a set of heterogeneous bioinformatics packages that are not scalable for the reproducible processing of large-scale (hundreds to thousands) biological sample sets. Here, we present a computational platform (pyBASIS) capable of optimized and scalable processing of MSI data for improved information recovery and comparative analysis across tissue specimens using machine learning and related pattern recognition approaches. The proposed solution also provides a means of seamlessly integrating experimental laboratory data with downstream bioinformatics interpretation/analyses, resulting in a truly integrated system for translational MSI