Reading Skill Differences in Familiarity with Print Language

This study examined the link between skilled reading and efficient processing of print at the syntactic/phrasal level. College students with differing levels of reading ability were recruited from a large, urban university comprising struggling readers (n = 14) and non-struggling readers (n = 14). Phrases were identified with a high frequency of occurrence in print (e.g., “one of the most”) and in speech (e.g., “more or less”) from previous research. Regular, infrequent counterparts (controls) for each of the frequent phrases were created by changing one word of similar length and frequency: “one of the new” was created for “one of the most” and “three or less” for “more or less”. Response time data were collected during a single trial lasting 5-10 min. Results revealed faster responding to frequent phrases in print than to regular controls by non-struggling readers but not by struggling readers. Reading time data of struggling readers were nearly identical to frequent vs. control phrases. In speech, however, both groups responded to frequent phrases equally faster than the regular controls. Limitations and implications of these findings will be discussed for future research and instructional efforts to provide a framework for facilitating meaningful and efficient comprehension of text

Effects of Wide Reading Vs. Repeated Readings on Struggling College Readers\u27 Comprehension Monitoring Skills

Fluency instruction has had limited effects on reading comprehension relative to reading rate and prosodic reading (Dowhower, 1987; Herman, 1985; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000a). More specific components (i.e., error detection) of comprehension may yield larger effects through exposure to a wider range of materials than repeated readings (Kuhn, 2005b). Thirty-three students reading below college level were randomly assigned to a Repeated Readings (RR), a Wide Reading (WR), or a Vocabulary Study (VS) condition and received training in 9 sessions of 30 minutes in a Southeast community college. RR students read an instructional-level text consecutively four times before answering comprehension questions about it; WR students read four instructional-level texts each once and answered questions while the VS group studied and took a quiz on academic vocabulary. An additional 13 students reading at college level provided comparison data. At pretest, all participants completed the Nelson Denny Reading Test, Test of Word Reading Efficiency, Error Detection task (Albrecht & O\u27Brien, 1993), working memory test, Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI; Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002), a maze test, Author Recognition Test (ART), and reading survey. All pretest measures except for the ART and reading surveys were re-administered at posttest to training groups. Paired-samples t-test analyses revealed (a) significant gains for the WR condition in vocabulary (p = .043), silent reading rate (p \u3c .05), maze (p \u3c .05) and working memory (p \u3c .05) (b) significant gains for the RR students in silent reading rate (p = .05) and maze (p = .006) and (c) significant increases on vocabulary (p \u3c .05), maze (p = .005), and MARSI (p \u3c .005) for the VS group at posttest. Unreliable patterns of error detection were observed for all groups at pretest and post-test. Results suggest that effects of fluency instruction be sought at the local level processes of reading using the maze test, which reliably detected reading improvements from fluency instruction (RR, WR) and vocabulary study (VS) in only 9 sessions. With significant gains on more reading measures, the WR condition appears superior to the RR condition as a fluency program for struggling college readers. Combining the WR condition with vocabulary study may augment students’ gains

Gains in College Students from Reading Fluency Interventions

This pretest, intervention, posttest design with treatment and control conditions examined support structures for the development of reading skills through fluency training interventions on a group of struggling college readers’ component skills of word recognition and vocabulary. Random assignment of participants (n = 30) resulted in 11 students in a Repeated Reading (RR) condition, nine students in the Wide Reading (WR) condition and 10 students in the Vocabulary Study (VS) control condition. RR condition involved reading a grade-level text four times and answering comprehension questions about it while the WR condition entailed reading four different grade-level passages and answering questions during a session. The VS students studied academic vocabulary words and were not exposed to any connected text reading. Individual training was conducted three times a week for three weeks during a summer term. Results indicated significant group-specific gains only in vocabulary knowledge from WR and VS training. There were no gains in word recognition ability or reading comprehension. Vocabulary gains appear to result from broader exposure to words in varied contexts and focused vocabulary study rather than repeated exposure to a smaller amount of text. Implications are discussed which likely will contribute to supporting struggling college readers

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FLEXOR TENDON REPAIR BY MODIFIED KESSLER'S TECHNIQUE WITH OR WITHOUT USING VENOUS GRAFT AS A TENDON SHEATH SUBSTITUTE IN ZONE II

Background: Hands are frequently exposed to injuries during daily working hours which might affect its function. Flexor tendon injuries of the hand result in loss of function. The main goal of surgery is to restore function, and avoid the occurrence of postoperative adhesions. However, a better understanding of the process of tendon healing, and continuous evolution of operative technique helps in improving the result. The use of venous graft as a tendon sheath substitute following tendon repair, reduces the adhesion formation, improves tendon nourishment, decreases the need for intensive physiotherapy, restores the function, and improves the results. Despite this remarkable progress, flexor tendon lesions still continues to present difficulty. Objectives: To observe the effectiveness of using vein graft in tendon sheath reconstruction with the aim of decreasing adhesions and comparing it to the conventional method of tendon repair. Patients and Methods: Forty patients who were injured recently, had flexor tendon injuries of the hand involving zone II. They were divided into test and control groups (20 patients each). Modified Kessler technique for primary repair of acute flexor tendons injuries were used in both groups added by the cephalic vein as a tendon sheath substitute in the test group. Results: T h e evaluation of the results is based on TAM (Total Active Motion) score of the ASSH (American Society for Surgery of the Hand). The final results were 75% excellent, 25% good, with no fair or poor results concerning the test group, while in the control group, there was no excellent results; thus, 55% good, 45% fair, and the results obtained were not poor. Conclusion: Repair of the flexor tendon injuries using modified Kessler technique using a venous graft as a tendon sheath substitute and early active movement are recommended to provide effective results as a replacement for the conventional methods

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FLEXOR TENDON REPAIR BY MODIFIED KESSLER'S TECHNIQUE WITH OR WITHOUT USING VENOUS GRAFT AS A TENDON SHEATH SUBSTITUTE IN ZONE II

Background: Hands are frequently exposed to injuries during daily working hours which might affect its function. Flexor tendon injuries of the hand result in loss of function. The main goal of surgery is to restore function, and avoid the occurrence of postoperative adhesions. However, a better understanding of the process of tendon healing, and continuous evolution of operative technique helps in improving the result. The use of venous graft as a tendon sheath substitute following tendon repair, reduces the adhesion formation, improves tendon nourishment, decreases the need for intensive physiotherapy, restores the function, and improves the results. Despite this remarkable progress, flexor tendon lesions still continues to present difficulty. Objectives: To observe the effectiveness of using vein graft in tendon sheath reconstruction with the aim of decreasing adhesions and comparing it to the conventional method of tendon repair. Patients and Methods: Forty patients who were injured recently, had flexor tendon injuries of the hand involving zone II. They were divided into test and control groups (20 patients each). Modified Kessler technique for primary repair of acute flexor tendons injuries were used in both groups added by the cephalic vein as a tendon sheath substitute in the test group. Results: T h e evaluation of the results is based on TAM (Total Active Motion) score of the ASSH (American Society for Surgery of the Hand). The final results were 75% excellent, 25% good, with no fair or poor results concerning the test group, while in the control group, there was no excellent results; thus, 55% good, 45% fair, and the results obtained were not poor. Conclusion: Repair of the flexor tendon injuries using modified Kessler technique using a venous graft as a tendon sheath substitute and early active movement are recommended to provide effective results as a replacement for the conventional methods

Concepts and evolution of research in the field of wireless sensor networks

The field of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is experiencing a resurgence of interest and a continuous evolution in the scientific and industrial community. The use of this particular type of ad hoc network is becoming increasingly important in many contexts, regardless of geographical position and so, according to a set of possible application. WSNs offer interesting low cost and easily deployable solutions to perform a remote real time monitoring, target tracking and recognition of physical phenomenon. The uses of these sensors organized into a network continue to reveal a set of research questions according to particularities target applications. Despite difficulties introduced by sensor resources constraints, research contributions in this field are growing day by day. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of most recent literature of WSNs and outline open research issues in this field

MMEDD: Multithreading Model for an Efficient Data Delivery in wireless sensor networks

Nowadays, the use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is increasingly growing as they allow a large number of applications. In a large scale sensor network, communication among sensors is achieved by using a multihop communication. However, since the sensor is limited by its resources, sensors' operating systems are developed in order to optimize the management of these resources, especially the power consumption. Therefore, the hybrid operating system Contiki uses a low consumption layer called Rime which allows sensors to perform multihop sending with a low energy cost. This is favored by the implementation of lightweight processes called protothreads. These processes have a good efficiency/consumption ratio for monolithic tasks, but the management of several tasks remains a problem. In order to enable multitasking, Contiki provides to users a preemptive multithreading module that allows the management of multiple threads. However, it usually causes greater energy wastage. To improve multithreading in sensor networks, a Multithreading Model for an Efficient Data Delivery (MMEDD) using protothreads is proposed in this paper. Intensive experiments have been conducted on COOJA simulator that is integrated in Contiki. The results show that  MMEDD provides better ratio message reception rate/energy consumption than other architectures

Notum produced by Paneth cells attenuates regeneration of aged intestinal epithelium

A decline in stem cell function impairs tissue regeneration during ageing, but the role of the stem-cell-supporting niche in ageing is not well understood. The small intestine is maintained by actively cycling intestinal stem cells that are regulated by the Paneth cell niche(1,2). Here we show that the regenerative potential of human and mouse intestinal epithelium diminishes with age owing to defects in both stem cells and their niche. The functional decline was caused by a decrease in stemness-maintaining Wnt signalling due to production of Notum, an extracellular Wnt inhibitor, in aged Paneth cells. Mechanistically, high activity of mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) in aged Paneth cells inhibits activity of peroxisome proliferator activated receptor alpha (PPAR-alpha)(3), and lowered PPAR-a activity increased Notum expression. Genetic targeting of Notum or Wnt supplementation restored function of aged intestinal organoids. Moreover, pharmacological inhibition of Notum in mice enhanced the regenerative capacity of aged stem cells and promoted recovery from chemotherapy-induced damage. Our results reveal a role of the stem cell niche in ageing and demonstrate that targeting of Notum can promote regeneration of aged tissues.Peer reviewe

Endovascular Stent Grafting for Aortic Arch Aneurysm in Aortoiliac Occlusive Disease following Aortic Arch Debranching and Aortobifemoral Reconstruction

Treatment of thoracic aortic aneurysms constitutes high mortality and morbidity rates despite improvements in surgery, anesthesia, and technology. Endovascular stent grafting may be an alternative therapy with lower risks when compared with conventional techniques. However, sometimes the branches of the aortic arch may require transport to the proximal segments prior to successful thoracic aortic endovascular stent grafting. Atherosclerosis is accounted among the etiology of both aneurysms and occlusive diseases that can coexist in the same patient. In these situations stent grafting may even be more complicated. In this report, we present the treatment of a 92-year-old patient with aortic arch aneurysm and proximal descending aortic aneurysm. For successful thoracic endovascular stent grafting, the patient needed an alternative route other than the native femoral and iliac arteries for the deployment of the stent graft. In addition, debranching of left carotid and subclavian arteries from the aortic arch was also required for successful exclusion of the thoracic aneurysm