Helping children to get along: teachers’ strategies for dealing with bullying in primary schools

This brief report describes a small scale qualitative interview study with primary school teachers in England, investigating their perceptions of bullying and strategies to prevent and manage it. Findings showed that much intervention work was situationally dependent, with teachers making subtle judgements about when and how to intervene. Prevention and intervention work centred on empathy development, and teaching children skills to help them nurture effective social relationships. We suggest that this holistic approach to bullying enables teachers to address multiple agendas aligned towards promoting children’s social and emotional learning

General survey of Native American participation in the Vietnam War

Native American participation during the Vietnam War is a subject woefully understudied, as whole, with a majority of the historiography consisting of one man’s work. This general survey of Native American/Indian/Indigenous American participation in the Vietnam War seeks to expand the current understanding of the experiences of Native Americans servicemen and women during the Vietnam era, with special focus paid to Native Servicemen stationed in West Germany and the views of non-Native servicemen towards their Native counterparts. This research shows that some of the more ubiquitous features in prior scholarship on the topic, such as ceremonies meant to send off and welcome back returning warriors, may be less common than previously thought. It also shows that discrimination faced by soldiers varied based on where they were stationed, opening up a new area of study for future research

Characterizing mixed mode oscillations shaped by noise and bifurcation structure

Many neuronal systems and models display a certain class of mixed mode oscillations (MMOs) consisting of periods of small amplitude oscillations interspersed with spikes. Various models with different underlying mechanisms have been proposed to generate this type of behavior. Stochastic versions of these models can produce similarly looking time series, often with noise-driven mechanisms different from those of the deterministic models. We present a suite of measures which, when applied to the time series, serves to distinguish models and classify routes to producing MMOs, such as noise-induced oscillations or delay bifurcation. By focusing on the subthreshold oscillations, we analyze the interspike interval density, trends in the amplitude and a coherence measure. We develop these measures on a biophysical model for stellate cells and a phenomenological FitzHugh-Nagumo-type model and apply them on related models. The analysis highlights the influence of model parameters and reset and return mechanisms in the context of a novel approach using noise level to distinguish model types and MMO mechanisms. Ultimately, we indicate how the suite of measures can be applied to experimental time series to reveal the underlying dynamical structure, while exploiting either the intrinsic noise of the system or tunable extrinsic noise.Comment: 22 page

A Translational Intervention for Reducing Infant Mortality in Mississippi: A Move to Eliminate Health Disparities

Therapeutic, technological, and medical advances have contributed to improve Infant Mortality Rates in the United States over the last 100 years. However, there are still geographical and racial disparities and challenges, and infant mortality remains higher in the Unites States than in many other developed countries. A formal death review process can identify causal, contributory and potentiating factors related to infant deaths. This article describes use of the PDSA Model for Improvement to develop a strategy for change that will result in reducing the Infant Mortality Rate within an organization

Intrinsically S1 3-Linked Graphs and Other Aspects of S1 Embeddings

A graph can be embedded in various spaces. This paper examines S1 embeddings of graphs. Just as links can be defined in spatial embeddings of graphs, links can be defined in S1 embeddings. Because linking properties are preserved under vertex expansion, there exists a finite complete set of minor minimal graphs such that every S1 embedding contains a non-split 3-link. This paper presents a list of minor minimal intrinsically S1 3-linked graphs, along with methods used to find and verify the list, in hopes of obtaining the complete minor minimal set. Other aspects of S1 embeddings are also examined.

New AMP-forming acid:CoA ligases from Streptomyces lividans, some of which are posttranslationally regulated by reversible lysine acetylation

In nature, organic acids are a commonly used source of carbon and energy. Many bacteria use AMP‐forming acid:CoA ligases to convert organic acids into their corresponding acyl‐CoA derivatives, which can then enter metabolism. The soil environment contains a broad diversity of organic acids, so it is not surprising that bacteria such as Streptomyces lividans can activate many of the available organic acids. Our group has shown that the activity of many acid:CoA ligases is posttranslationally controlled by acylation of an active‐site lysine. In some cases, the modification is reversed by deacylases of different types. We identified eight new acid:CoA ligases in S. lividans TK24. Here, we report the range of organic acids that each of these enzymes can activate, and determined that two of the newly identified CoA ligases were under NAD⁺‐dependent sirtuin deacylase reversible lysine (de)acetylation control, four were not acetylated by two acetyltransferases used in this work, and two were acetylated but not deacetylated by sirtuin. This work provides insights into the broad organic‐acid metabolic capabilities of S. lividans, and sheds light into the control of the activities of CoA ligases involved in the activation of organic acids in this bacterium

Impact of the Siena College Tech Valley Scholars Program on Student Outcomes

The experimental group for this study included 38 students who entered the Tech Valley Scholars (TVS) program over the course of three academic years, from 2009-10 through 2011-12. Two groups of controls were used: a randomly selected sample of STEM students who matriculated in the same time frame; and a matched sample. The TVS students and controls were compared on two primary outcome variables: graduation (or retention to senior year), and final cumulative GPA. The major findings of this study are that (1) the TVS students had better outcomes than both the randomly selected comparison group and the matched control group, (2) unmet financial need is an important risk factor for non-retention, (3) students with moderately high unmet need can be academically successful if retained, and (4) the TVS program is having a positive impact on at-risk students. Recommendations for effective and efficient allocation of scholarship funds are given and future statistical studies are recommended

Arid3b Is Critical for B Lymphocyte Development

Arid3a and Arid3b belong to a subfamily of ARID (AT-rich interaction domain) transcription factors. The Arid family is involved in regulating chromatin accessibility, proliferation, and differentiation. Arid3a and Arid3b are closely related and share a unique REKLES domain that mediates their homo- and hetero-multimerization. Arid3a was originally isolated as a B cell transcription factor binding to the AT rich matrix attachment regions (MARS) of the immunoglobulin heavy chain intronic enhancer. Deletion of Arid3a results in a highly penetrant embryonic lethality with severe defects in erythropoiesis and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). The few surviving Arid3a-/- (<1%) animals have decreased HSCs and early progenitors in the bone marrow, but all mature lineages are normally represented in the bone marrow and periphery except for B cells. Arid3b-/- animals die around E7.5 precluding examination of hematopoietic development. So it is unclear whether the phenotype of Arid3a loss on hematopoiesis is dependent or independent of Arid3b. In this study we circumvented this limitation by also examining hematopoiesis in mice with a conditional allele of Arid3b. Bone marrow lacking Arid3b shows decreased common lymphoid progenitors (CLPs) and downstream B cell populations while the T cell and myeloid lineages are unchanged, reminiscent of the adult hematopoietic defect in Arid3a mice. Unlike Arid3a-/- mice, HSC populations are unperturbed in Arid3b-/- mice. This study demonstrates that HSC development is independent of Arid3b, whereas B cell development requires both Arid3a and Arid3b transcription factors

Capturing convection essential for projections of climate change in African dust emission

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2019-08-07, accepted 2021-07-30, registration 2021-08-31, pub-electronic 2021-09-24, online 2021-09-24, collection 2021-12Publication status: PublishedFunder: RCUK | Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000270; Grant(s): NE/M017176/1, NE/L005352/1, NE/M017176/1, NE/M017176/1Abstract: The summertime Sahara and Sahel are the world’s largest source of airborne mineral dust. Cold-pool outflows from moist convection (‘haboobs’) are a dominant source of summertime uplift but are essentially missing in global models, raising major questions on the reliability of climate projections of dust and dust impacts. Here we use convection-permitting simulations of pan-African climate change, which explicitly capture haboobs, to investigate whether this key limitation of global models affects projections. We show that explicit convection is key to capturing the observed summertime maximum of dust-generating winds, which is missed with parameterised convection. Despite this, future climate changes in dust-generating winds are more sensitive to the effects of explicit convection on the wider meteorology than they are to the haboobs themselves, with model differences in the change in dust-generating winds reaching 60% of current values. The results therefore show the importance of improving convection in climate models for dust projections