Teaching Relaxation Techniques to Improve Achievement and Alleviate the Anxiety of Students With Learning Disabilities in an Independent School

Many students have to perform well on achievement tests in order to pass grade levels and matriculate into higher levels of education. Previous research suggests that the increased pressure on student performance on achievement tests could have serious implications on students’ anxiety levels and self-efficacy. Students with learning disabilities may have difficulty performing well on tests, but they still have to take achievement tests. Relaxation techniques could have a positive effect on student achievement and lower test anxiety in students with learning disabilities. Study participants included second- through fifth-grade students with learning disabilities and their teachers in a private school. Students in the experimental group learned relaxation techniques, and students in the control group listened to a book on tape. Both groups took achievement tests to determine if there were changes in the levels of test anxiety and achievement before and after the intervention. Students in the experimental and control groups gave their perceptions of what they learned after the intervention phase of the study. In addition, teachers completed a survey to determine whether they observed students in the control and experimental groups using the relaxation techniques in testing situations. Results of the study suggested there were no significant differences between students’ levels of test anxiety and achievement. However, the researcher provided several recommendations for future research studies in this subject area

Revisiting the Benefits of Higher Education

The economic returns of higher education (HE) in terms of enhanced earnings are well established. The wider set of ‘non-economic benefits’ in the areas of health, generic skills and citizenship are less widely recognised. In an earlier report, we presented preliminary findings on the wider benefits, drawing on data collected at age 33 from the National Child Development Study (based on a cohort born in 1958). This report updates the earlier conclusions through new findings from a more extensive analysis involving both the 1958 cohort and the more recent 1970 British Cohort Study cohort (based on a cohort born in 1970). The current analysis incorporates more recent data collected in both cohorts in 2000 and at an older age (1958 cohort). We report findings in five major areas. First, we examine the mobility of graduates. To what extent do some parts of the country gain and lose graduates and graduate types of occupation at the expense of others? We then report findings on the ‘marginal returns’ to higher education in four domains of life: health, labour market, citizenship and values, and parenting

Assessing the importance of Isle of Man waters for the basking shark Cetorhinus maximus

This is the final version. Available on open access from Inter Research via the DOI in this recordSatellite tracking of endangered or threatened animals can facilitate informed conservation by revealing priority areas for their protection. Basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus, n=11) were tagged during the summers of 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 in the Isle of Man (IoM; median tracking duration 378 days (range: 89-804 days); median minimum straight-line distance travelled 541 km (range: 170-10,406 km). Tracking revealed three movement patterns: (i) coastal movements within IoM and Irish waters, (ii) summer northward movements to Scotland and Norway and (iii) international movements to Morocco and Norway. One tagged shark was bycaught and released alive in the Celtic Sea. Basking sharks displayed inter-annual site fidelity to the Irish Sea (n=3), a Marine Nature Reserve (MNR) in IoM waters (n=1), and Moroccan waters (n=1). Core distribution areas (50% kernel density estimation) of five satellite tracked sharks in IoM waters were compared with 3,902 public sightings between 2005 and 2017, highlighting West and South coast hotspots. Location data gathered from satellite tagging broadly corresponds to the current boundaries of MNRs in Manx waters. However, minor modifications of some MNR boundaries would incorporate ~20% more satellite tracking location data from this study, and protective measures for basking sharks in IoM waters could further aid conservation of the species at a local, regional and international scale. We also show the first documented movement of a basking shark from the British Isles to Norway, and the longest ever track for a tagged basking shark (two years and two months, 804 days)

Wage returns to university disciplines in Greece: are Greek Higher Education degrees Trojan Horses?

This paper examines the wage returns to qualifications and academic disciplines in the Greek labour market. Exploring wage responsiveness across various degree subjects in Greece is interesting, as it is characterised by high levels of graduate unemployment, which vary considerably by field of study, and relatively low levels of wage flexibility. Using micro-data from recently available waves (2002-2003) of the Greek Labour Force Survey (LFS), the returns to academic disciplines are estimated by gender and public/private sector. Quantile regressions and cohort interactions are also used to capture the heterogeneity in wage returns across the various disciplines. The results show considerable variation in wage premiums across the fields of study, with lower returns for those that have a marginal role to play in an economy with a rising services/shrinking public sector. Educational reforms that pay closer attention to the future prospects of university disciplines are advocated

Barriers for highly qualified A8 immigrants in the UK labour market

The number of migrants arriving in the UK from the EU accession countries has been higher than projected. The evidence indicates that they have been over-represented in low-paid and low-skilled jobs. This is arguably transitory and there should be good prospects of upward mobility. Over-qualification among A8 migrants, measured using the Annual Population Survey data, is examined in this article. The findings show that A8 migrants have been subject to migration penalties at the high end of the UK labour market. There are persistent labour market disadvantages for A8 migrants in the UK and their over-qualification may be a long-term concern

Circulating beta cell-specific CD8(+) T cells restricted by high-risk HLA class I molecules show antigen experience in children with and at risk of type 1 diabetes

In type 1 diabetes (T1D), autoreactive cytotoxic CD8(+) T cells are implicated in the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells. The HLA-B*3906 and HLA-A*2402 class I genes confer increased risk and promote early disease onset, suggesting that CD8(+) T cells that recognize peptides presented by these class I molecules on pancreatic beta cells play a pivotal role in the autoimmune response. We examined the frequency and phenotype of circulating preproinsulin (PPI)-specific and insulin B (InsB)-specific CD8(+) T cells in HLA-B*3906(+) children newly diagnosed with T1D and in high-risk HLA-A*2402(+) children before the appearance of disease-specific autoantibodies and before diagnosis of T1D. Antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells were detected using human leucocyte antigen (HLA) class I tetramers and flow cytometry was used to assess memory status. In HLA-B*3906(+) children with T1D, we observed an increase in PPI5-12-specific transitional memory CD8(+) T cells compared to non-diabetic, age- and HLA-matched subjects. Furthermore, PPI5-12-specific CD8(+) T cells in HLA-B*3906(+) children with T1D showed a significantly more antigen-experienced phenotype compared to polyclonal CD8(+) T cells. In longitudinal samples from high-risk HLA-A*2402(+) children, the percentage of terminal effector cells within the InsB(15-24)-specific CD8(+) T cells was increased before diagnosis relative to samples taken before the appearance of autoantibodies. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to report HLA-B*3906-restricted autoreactive CD8(+) T cells in T1D. Collectively, our results provide evidence that beta cell-reactive CD8(+) T cells restricted by disease-associated HLA class I molecules display an antigen-experienced phenotype and acquire enhanced effector function during the period leading to clinical diagnosis, implicating these cells in driving disease.Peer reviewe

The impact of research on policy: a case of qualifications reform

The relationship between research and policymaking has been discussed repeatedly. However, the debate tends to be in general, abstract terms or from a macro-economic perspective with any examples described in a fairly cursory way. Despite the inherent complexity of the research-policy interface, analyses tend to homogenize ‘research’ and ‘policy’ as coherent entities with discussions often focusing on products (research and policies) rather than on the relationships between producers (researchers and policy makers). Here we take one piece of research on qualifications that has influenced policy rhetoric over the last 5 years. We trace the career of the research from its production in the late 1990s in order to understand the conditions of its dormancy, reemergence and use over the ensuing years. The paper serves to document the case, which is important in its own right, but also proposes a typology of ways in which research gets adopted and adapted into policy

Functional role of T-cell receptor nanoclusters in signal initiation and antigen discrimination

Antigen recognition by the T-cell receptor (TCR) is a hallmark of the adaptive immune system. When the TCR engages a peptide bound to the restricting major histocompatibility complex molecule (pMHC), it transmits a signal via the associated CD3 complex. How the extracellular antigen recognition event leads to intracellular phosphorylation remains unclear. Here, we used single-molecule localization microscopy to quantify the organization of TCR–CD3 complexes into nanoscale clusters and to distinguish between triggered and nontriggered TCR–CD3 complexes. We found that only TCR–CD3 complexes in dense clusters were phosphorylated and associated with downstream signaling proteins, demonstrating that the molecular density within clusters dictates signal initiation. Moreover, both pMHC dose and TCR–pMHC affinity determined the density of TCR–CD3 clusters, which scaled with overall phosphorylation levels. Thus, TCR–CD3 clustering translates antigen recognition by the TCR into signal initiation by the CD3 complex, and the formation of dense signaling-competent clusters is a process of antigen discrimination