1,149 research outputs found
Capacity and Opportunity: Predicting Engagement for Middle School Students With Behavioral Disorders
This study examined the capacity and opportunity scores of 36 middle school students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) on the student version of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) Self-Determination Scale across three school engagement factors: grade point averages (GPA), school absences, and frequency of school disciplinary encounters. Poor grades, school absences, and frequency of disciplinary actions pose academic problems for middle school students with EBD. Three multiple regression models determined the predictive relationships between self-determination Capacity and Opportunity subscale scores and GPA, Absences, and Discipline. Higher capacity and opportunity scores predicted greater student GPA, fewer student absences, and fewer disciplinary encounters for students at school. Results of this study demonstrate the need for increased opportunities at school and home for students with EBD to learn and practice self-determination skills.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline
The role of macrophages and polymorphs in the levan-induced inhibition of Lewis lung carcinoma in C57BL mice.
High-mol.-wt levan injected locally inhibits the growth of Lewis lung carcinoma in C57BL mice. The inhibition is dependent on the number of tumour cells injected and on the dose of levan. The inhibition decreases tumour incidence and size as well as prolonging survival. The polysaccharide is most effective when injected daily beginning on the day of tumour-cell inoculation. Treatment begun on later dates is less effective. Treatment begun one day before tumour-cell inoculation enhances tumour growth. Histological studies showed that levan induces an intense polymorphonuclear (PMN) reaction followed by accumulation of vacuolated, levan-laden macrophages. Both PMN and activated macrophages seemed to have an inhibitory effect upon the growth of the tumour. The effector role of PMN was not explained by the histological study. Tumour cells in close contact with levan-laden macrophages appeared mostly necrotic. Administration of levan begun one day before tumour-cell inoculation produced a similar reaction, but the infiltrating cells did not appear to approach and damage the tumour cells
A MODEL ACCOUNTING PLAN FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION Current systems for monitoring the enrollments and status of special education programs do not meet current demands for increased account- ability. Project MAP (Model Accounting Plan) attempts to meet this dem
trict. Using existing pupil count data and a follow-up one year later, the MAP describes and predicts the paths special education students follow, taking into account the student's age, handicap, and instructional setting assignment. The MAP provides previously unavailable data to special educators and decision makers at all levels regarding program effectiveness and resource allocation and poses useful questions for further study
FUSE: Lightweight Guaranteed Distributed Failure Notification
FUSE is a lightweight failure notification service for building distributed systems. Distributed systems built with FUSE are guaranteed that failure notifications never fail. Whenever a failure notification is triggered, all live members of the FUSE group will hear a notification within a bounded period of time, irrespective of node or communication failures. In contrast to previous work on failure detection, the responsibility for deciding that afailure has occurred is shared between the FUSE service and the distributed application. This allows applications to implement their own definitions of failure. Our experience building a scalable distributed event delivery system on an overlay network has convinced us of the usefulness of this service. Our results demonstrate that the network costs of each FUSE group can be small; in particular, our overlay network implementation requires no additional liveness-verifying ping traffic beyond that already needed to maintain the overlay, making the steady state network load independent of the number of active FUSE groups
Carbon nanotube-based quantum pump in the presence of superconducting lead
Parametric electron pump through superconductor-carbon-nanotube based
molecular devices was investigated. It is found that a dc current, which is
assisted by resonant Andreev reflection, can be pumped out from such molecular
device by a cyclic variation of two gate voltages near the nanotube. The pumped
current can be either positive or negative under different system parameters.
Due to the Andreev reflection, the pumped current has the double peak structure
around the resonant point. The ratio of pumped current of N-SWNT-S system to
that of N-SWNT-N system (I^{NS}/I^N) is found to approach four in the weak
pumping regime near the resonance when there is exactly one resonant level at
Fermi energy inside the energy gap. Numerical results confirm that in the weak
pumping regime the pumped current is proportional to the square of the pumping
amplitude V_p, but in the strong pumping regime the pumped current has the
linear relation with V_p. Our numerical results also predict that pumped
current can be obtained more easily by using zigzag tube than by using armchair
tube
Beyond energy efficiency in evaluating sustainable development in planning and the built environment
The EU has set the policy target of reducing energy use by 20% by the year 2020. Therefore, a substantial consumption decrease is needed in the built environment sector. Despite the great energy efficiency improvements in households, recent energy consumption data analyses show that these targets will unlikely be reached. The general aim of this study is to point out the need to define new indicators and evaluation approaches in urban planning and the built environment which are based on the concept of âenergy subsidiarity', focusing on local renewable resources rather than on current approaches based on energy efficiency. This concept correlates energy consumption with the energy supply from local renewable resources and is here proposed as the new urban planning evaluation approach toward a sustainable built environment. In the paper, the âJevons Paradox' concept and the âenergy rebound effect' phenomenon are used to demonstrate how current approaches based on energy efficiency, alone, cannot lead to a remarkable reduction of energy consumption. This is also supported by data on European energy consumption and European energy efficiency in the built environment. Finally, a number of well-known European ecological districts (âeco-districts') are analysed in terms of sustainable energy strategy as well as energy efficiency and energy balance. This study shows that there is a contradiction between the purpose of some of the eco-districts to be low consumption (or low impacts), and the district renewable energy balance. Only a few of the analysed eco-districts are able to cover energy needs by using renewable energy obtained in the surrounding area. In most of the cases, the focus of the districts' activities is on energy efficiency. According to the âJevons Paradox' and âenergy rebound effect' paradigm, energy efficiency alone will unlikely lead to an effective reduction in resources' consumption. These results point out the need for a radical shift toward the development of new approaches in the assessment and management of the built environment for sustainabilit
Modern cities modelled as âsuper-cellsâ rather than multicellular organisms: Implications for industry, goods and services
The structure and âmetabolismâ (movement and conversion of goods and energy) of urban areas has caused cities to be identified as âsuper-organismsâ, placed between ecosystems and the biosphere, in the hierarchy of living systems. Yet most such analogies are weak, and render the super-organism model ineffective for sustainable development of cities. Via a cluster analysis of 15 shared traits of the hierarchical living system, we found that industrialized cities are more similar to eukaryotic cells than to multicellular organisms; enclosed systems, such as factories and greenhouses, paralleling organelles in eukaryotic cells. We further developed a âsuper-cellâ industrialized city model: a âeukarcityâ with citynucleus (urban area) as a regulating centre, and organaras (enclosed systems, which provide the majority of goods and services) as the functional components, and cityplasm (natural ecosystems and farmlands) as the matrix. This model may improve the vitality and sustainability of cities through planning and management
Quantitative cross-species extrapolation between humans and fish: The case of the anti-depressant fluoxetine
This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Fish are an important model for the pharmacological and toxicological characterization of human pharmaceuticals in drug discovery, drug safety assessment and environmental toxicology. However, do fish respond to pharmaceuticals as humans do? To address this question, we provide a novel quantitative cross-species extrapolation approach (qCSE) based on the hypothesis that similar plasma concentrations of pharmaceuticals cause comparable target-mediated effects in both humans and fish at similar level of biological organization (Read-Across Hypothesis). To validate this hypothesis, the behavioural effects of the anti-depressant drug fluoxetine on the fish model fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) were used as test case. Fish were exposed for 28 days to a range of measured water concentrations of fluoxetine (0.1, 1.0, 8.0, 16, 32, 64 ÎŒg/L) to produce plasma concentrations below, equal and above the range of Human Therapeutic Plasma Concentrations (HTPCs). Fluoxetine and its metabolite, norfluoxetine, were quantified in the plasma of individual fish and linked to behavioural anxiety-related endpoints. The minimum drug plasma concentrations that elicited anxiolytic responses in fish were above the upper value of the HTPC range, whereas no effects were observed at plasma concentrations below the HTPCs. In vivo metabolism of fluoxetine in humans and fish was similar, and displayed bi-phasic concentration-dependent kinetics driven by the auto-inhibitory dynamics and saturation of the enzymes that convert fluoxetine into norfluoxetine. The sensitivity of fish to fluoxetine was not so dissimilar from that of patients affected by general anxiety disorders. These results represent the first direct evidence of measured internal dose response effect of a pharmaceutical in fish, hence validating the Read-Across hypothesis applied to fluoxetine. Overall, this study demonstrates that the qCSE approach, anchored to internal drug concentrations, is a powerful tool to guide the assessment of the sensitivity of fish to pharmaceuticals, and strengthens the translational power of the cross-species extrapolation
Peer expectations about outstanding competencies of men and women medical students
Men and women enrolled in a combined premedical-medical school programme were asked as they began their clinical training to rate their anticipated competence on sixteen criteria relevant to medical practice. Competence dimensions tapped scientific/technical skills, dedication/commitment, and interpersonal skills. Students then were asked to nominate one classmate whom they expected might beâthe bestâin each area. Self-ratings revealed few differences among men and women. Peer nominations, however, revealed a preponderance of male nominees in ten competence areas. Women dominated nominations only in the category of sensitivity to patients. Patterns persisted when peer nominations were controlled for studentsâacademic standing and self-ratings on parallel dimensions. The data suggest that medical school peer groups share expectations about competencies of men and women as physicians which are consistent with generalized sex stereotypes and career patterns of men and women physicians.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74843/1/1467-9566.ep11340055.pd
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