Student Perceptions of Teacher-Student Relationships in General and Special Education

Teacher-student relationships (TSRs) have largely been found to significantly impact student performance and achievement (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011). The purpose of this investigation was to identify differences between the TSRs experienced by students in special education (SPED) and their typically developing peers, and analyze how these differences impacted academics (i.e., math achievement). Secondary analysis of data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project indicated no statistical or practical differences between the TSRs reported by SPED students and their peers in general education. Furthermore, teacher caring was found to predict math achievement for non-SPED students. However, student-perceived TSRs were not found to be related to math achievement for SPED students. Implications of these findings are discussed. Keywords: teacher-student relationships, math, special educatio

Contractile properties of fibroblasts derived from primary frozen shoulder and effects of TGF beta 1 stimulation

INTRODUCTION: Primary Frozen Shoulder (PFS) is a debilitating disease of unknown aetiology. There is fibrosis and contracture of the coracohumeral ligament, tissues of the rotator interval and the glenohumeral ligaments, leading to restrictive shoulder movements requiring surgical intervention [1]. Frozen shoulder has been postulated to be dupuytren’s disease of the shoulder with an association inferred since 1936. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that cellular mechanisms of fibroblasts derived from primary frozen shoulder exhibited similar activity in terms of contraction and response to cytokine (transforming growth factor beta1) to fibroblasts derived from dupuytren’s disease. Understanding of cellular responses is critical to developing non surgical treatment strategies

Heterogeneity in thymic emigrants: implications for thymectomy and immunosenescence.

The development of mature, antigen-inexperienced (naive) T cells begins in the thymus and continues after export into the periphery. Post-thymic maturation of naive T cells, in humans, coincides with the progressive loss of markers such as protein tyrosine kinase 7 (PTK7) and platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (CD31). As a consequence, subpopulations of naive T cells can be recognised raising questions about the processes that give rise to the loss of these markers and their exact relationship to recent thymic emigrants (RTE). Here, we combine a mathematical survival analysis approach and data from healthy and thymectomised humans to understand the apparent persistence of populations of 'veteran' PTK7 (+) T cells in thymectomised individuals. We show that a model of heterogeneity in rates of maturation, possibly linked to natural variation in TCR signalling thresholds or affinity for self-antigens, can explain the data. This model of maturation predicts that the average post-thymic age of PTK7 (+) T cells will increase linearly with the age of the host suggesting that, despite the immature phenotype, PTK7 (+) cells do not necessarily represent a population of RTE. Further, the model predicts an accelerated increase in the average post-thymic age of residual PTK7 (+) T cells following thymectomy and may also explain in part the prematurely aged phenotype of the naive T cell pool in individuals thymectomised early in life

Asymmetric thymocyte death underlies the CD4:CD8 T-cell ratio in the adaptive immune system

It has long been recognized that the T-cell compartment has more CD4 helper than CD8 cytotoxic T cells, and this is most evident looking at T-cell development in the thymus. However, it remains unknown how thymocyte development so favors CD4 lineage development. To identify the basis of this asymmetry, we analyzed development of synchronized cohorts of thymocytes in vivo and estimated rates of thymocyte death and differentiation throughout development, inferring lineage-specific efficiencies of selection. Our analysis suggested that roughly equal numbers of cells of each lineage enter selection and found that, overall, a remarkable ∼75% of cells that start selection fail to complete the process. Importantly it revealed that class I-restricted thymocytes are specifically susceptible to apoptosis at the earliest stage of selection. The importance of differential apoptosis was confirmed by placing thymocytes under apoptotic stress, resulting in preferential death of class I-restricted thymocytes. Thus, asymmetric death during selection is the key determinant of the CD4:CD8 ratio in which T cells are generated by thymopoiesis

Citation Styles

 The practice of evidence based medicine and widespread clinical research have rendered literature search,a vital tool .It is practically impossible to write any article without inputs from previous literature,whether from a book,journal or a website. The backbone of any publication is the bibliography or references. This is a compilation of all the sources of data used for the research paper. A reference mentions all the details of the source,namely title,authors,journal name,year,volume and issue number and page numbers. In order to avoid plagiarism,all references should be quoted in proper context after giving due credit to the respective authors. If a manuscript needs to be revised with inclusion of additional references,the authors will have to also modify the list of references appropriately to accommodate the same.

Reporting health news from developing countries- objective journalism or a savior complex?

Polis Intern and LSE MSc student Bani Bains reports on the latest Polis Lunchtime Talk featuring Michelle Imison who discussed her doctoral research on health news from Low-Middle Income Countries