Teaching Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills in an Inclusive Preschool Classroom

The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of using the Pyramid Model to teach social/emotional skills to preschoolers in an inclusive classroom. As a result of teaching effective social/emotional skills, the incidents of challenging behaviors would decrease. The researcher used quantitative data by using the pre-intervention and post-intervention scores on the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-Social Emotional. These scores were collected in an intervention classroom and control classroom of similar make-up and design. In addition, the researcher used a teacher questionnaire completed by teachers in the intervention classroom, to obtain qualitative data regarding the perspective of the teacher and how that might influence the effectiveness of the Pyramid Model. The results of this study indicated that a number of variables affected the results of the ASQ-SE scores including the experience of the teaching staff, the teamwork within the teaching team, and the use of intentional and systematic teaching. The greater experience of the teachers in the control classroom resulted in a larger overall improvement of ASQ-SE scores. The intentional teaching and use of the Pyramid Model teaching techniques resulted in a more significant change in those students who were exhibiting challenging behaviors. Further research without the differences in teaching experience is needed to further study the effectiveness of the teaching strategies of the Pyramid Model

Hoffman’s Error Bounds and Uniform Lipschitz Continuity of Best l(p) -Approximations

In a central paper on smoothness of best approximation in 1968 R. Holmes and B. Kripke proved among others that on ℝn, endowed with the lρ-norm, 1\u3c p \u3c ∞, the metric projection onto a given linear subspace is Lipschitz continuous where the Lipschitz constant depended on the parameter p. Using Hoffman’s Error Bounds as a principal tool we prove uniform Lipschitz continuity of best lρ -ap- proximations. As a consequence, we reprove and prove, respectively, Lipschitz. continuity of the strict best approximation (sba, p = ∞ and of the natural best approximation (nba, p = 1

Recent Decisions

Comments on recent decisions by Sidney Baker, Arthur L. Beaudette, Mark Harry Berens, Francis W. Collopy, Patrick F. Coughlin, Benedict R. Danko, Joseph M. Gaydos, William T. Huston, Francis J. Keating, John E. Lindberg, James D. Matthews, Lawrence S. May, Jr., Maurice J. Moriarty, George J. Murphy, Jr., William J. O\u27Connor, Charles James Perrin, Albert R. Ritcher, Henry Martin Shine, Jr., Cyril C. Vidra, and Dale A. Winnie

Allogeneic Astrocytoma In Immune Competent Dogs

AbstractWe have induced in canines long-term immune tolerance to an allogeneic cell line derived from a spontaneous canine astrocytoma. Allogeneic astrocytoma cells were implanted endoscopically into the subcutaneous space of fetal dogs before the onset of immune competency (<40th gestational day). At adulthood, dogs rendered tolerant successfully serve as recipients of intracranial transplants of their growing allogeneic, subcutaneous tumor. Transplanted dogs subsequently develop a solid brain tumor with histological features similar to the original astrocytoma. This model may allow rapid development and evaluation of new therapies for brain tumors, as well as afford tumor biology studies that are untenable in smaller, immune incompetent, or inbred animals harboring less representative tumors

Measuring Differences Among Probability of Detection Curves

Probability of Detection (POD) curves are compared by two statistical methods to quantify system-to-system differences. The first method assesses performance among a group of inspection systems through an adaptation of statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA). The second method uses a chi-squared statistic to test for a difference between two systems. Examples using eddy current data are given for each technique.</p

The Glass Transition Temperature of Water: A Simulation Study

We report a computer simulation study of the glass transition for water. To mimic the difference between standard and hyperquenched glass, we generate glassy configurations with different cooling rates and calculate the $T$ dependence of the specific heat on heating. The absence of crystallization phenomena allows us, for properly annealed samples, to detect in the specific heat the simultaneous presence of a weak pre-peak (``shadow transition''), and an intense glass transition peak at higher temperature. We discuss the implications for the currently debated value of the glass transition temperature of water. We also compare our simulation results with the Tool-Narayanaswamy-Moynihan phenomenological model.Comment: submitted to Phys. Re

Stringent doxycycline-dependent control of gene activities using an episomal one-vector system

Conditional expression systems are of pivotal importance for the dissection of complex biological phenomena. Here, we describe a novel EBV-derived episomally replicating plasmid (pRTS-1) that carries all the elements for conditional expression of a gene of interest via Tet regulation. The vector is characterized by (i) low background activity, (ii) high inducibility in the presence of doxycycline (Dox) and (iii) graded response to increasing concentrations of the inducer. The chicken beta actin promoter and an element of the murine immunoglobin heavy chain intron enhancer drive constitutive expression of a bicistronic expression cassette that encodes the highly Dox-sensitive reverse tetracycline controlled transactivator rtTA2(S)-M2 and a Tet repressor-KRAB fusion protein (tTS(KRAB)) (silencer) placed downstream of an internal ribosomal entry site. The gene of interest is expressed from the bidirectional promoter P(tet)bi-1 that allows simultaneous expression of two genes, of which one may be used as surrogate marker for the expression of the gene of interest. Tight down regulation is achieved through binding of the silencer tTS(KRAB) to P(tet)bi-1 in the absence of Dox. Addition of Dox releases repression and via binding of rtTA2(S)-M2 activates P(tet)bi-1

Productive osseous changes about the wrist in rheumatoid arthritis

Radiographs of 225 consecutive patients with adult-form rheumatoid arthritis were examined for evidence of productive osseous changes about the wrist. The prevalence of new bone on the ulnar styloid was 10%. This form of new bone is probably due to overlying chronic tenosynovitis. A collar of new bone around the ulnar head is a result of degenerative change in the distal radioulnar joint. In general, productive osseous changes in rheumatoid arthritis may represent inflammatory periosteal bone formation, osteophytosis, or contact remodeling. We found no evidence of an association between diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis and extensive productive osseous changes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46784/1/256_2004_Article_BF00350967.pd

Melanoma cells break down LPA to establish local gradients that drive chemotactic dispersal.

The high mortality of melanoma is caused by rapid spread of cancer cells, which occurs unusually early in tumour evolution. Unlike most solid tumours, thickness rather than cytological markers or differentiation is the best guide to metastatic potential. Multiple stimuli that drive melanoma cell migration have been described, but it is not clear which are responsible for invasion, nor if chemotactic gradients exist in real tumours. In a chamber-based assay for melanoma dispersal, we find that cells migrate efficiently away from one another, even in initially homogeneous medium. This dispersal is driven by positive chemotaxis rather than chemorepulsion or contact inhibition. The principal chemoattractant, unexpectedly active across all tumour stages, is the lipid agonist lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) acting through the LPA receptor LPAR1. LPA induces chemotaxis of remarkable accuracy, and is both necessary and sufficient for chemotaxis and invasion in 2-D and 3-D assays. Growth factors, often described as tumour attractants, cause negligible chemotaxis themselves, but potentiate chemotaxis to LPA. Cells rapidly break down LPA present at substantial levels in culture medium and normal skin to generate outward-facing gradients. We measure LPA gradients across the margins of melanomas in vivo, confirming the physiological importance of our results. We conclude that LPA chemotaxis provides a strong drive for melanoma cells to invade outwards. Cells create their own gradients by acting as a sink, breaking down locally present LPA, and thus forming a gradient that is low in the tumour and high in the surrounding areas. The key step is not acquisition of sensitivity to the chemoattractant, but rather the tumour growing to break down enough LPA to form a gradient. Thus the stimulus that drives cell dispersal is not the presence of LPA itself, but the self-generated, outward-directed gradient

miRNA Expression Profiling in Migrating Glioblastoma Cells: Regulation of Cell Migration and Invasion by miR-23b via Targeting of Pyk2

Glioblastoma (GB) is the most common and lethal type of primary brain tumor. Clinical outcome remains poor and is essentially palliative due to the highly invasive nature of the disease. A more thorough understanding of the molecular mechanisms that drive glioma invasion is required to limit dispersion of malignant glioma cells.We investigated the potential role of differential expression of microRNAs (miRNA) in glioma invasion by comparing the matched large-scale, genome-wide miRNA expression profiles of migrating and migration-restricted human glioma cells. Migratory and migration-restricted cell populations from seven glioma cell lines were isolated and profiled for miRNA expression. Statistical analyses revealed a set of miRNAs common to all seven glioma cell lines that were significantly down regulated in the migrating cell population relative to cells in the migration-restricted population. Among the down-regulated miRNAs, miR-23b has been reported to target potential drivers of cell migration and invasion in other cell types. Over-expression of miR-23b significantly inhibited glioma cell migration and invasion. A bioinformatics search revealed a conserved target site within the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of Pyk2, a non-receptor tyrosine kinase previously implicated in the regulation of glioma cell migration and invasion. Increased expression of miR-23b reduced the protein expression level of Pyk2 in glioma cells but did not significantly alter the protein expression level of the related focal adhesion kinase FAK. Expression of Pyk2 via a transcript variant missing the 3'UTR in miR-23b-expressing cells partially rescued cell migration, whereas expression of Pyk2 via a transcript containing an intact 3'UTR failed to rescue cell migration.Reduced expression of miR-23b enhances glioma cell migration in vitro and invasion ex vivo via modulation of Pyk2 protein expression. The data suggest that specific miRNAs may regulate glioma migration and invasion to influence the progression of this disease