Impact of California's Transitional Kindergarten Program, 2013-14

Transitional kindergarten (TK)—the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for California children who turn 5 between September 2 and December 2—is intended to better prepare young five-year-olds for kindergarten and ensure a strong start to their educational career. To determine whether this goal is being achieved, American Institutes for Research (AIR) is conducting an evaluation of the impact of TK in California. The goal of this study is to measure the success of the program by determining the impact of TK on students' readiness for kindergarten in several areas. Using a rigorous regression discontinuity (RD) research design,1 we compared language, literacy, mathematics, executive function, and social-emotional skills at kindergarten entry for students who attended TK and for students who did not attend TK. Overall, we found that TK had a positive impact on students' kindergarten readiness in several domains, controlling for students' age differences. These effects are over and above the experiences children in the comparison group had the year before kindergarten, which for more than 80 percent was some type of preschool program

Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy, volume 20, 2009/2010

Contents include: Recognizing Toward a Dramaturgical Sensibility, Geoff Proehl, recipient of the 2009 ATHE Outstanding Book Award; Geoff Proehl\u27s Acceptance Speech, Association for Theatre in Higher Education Awards Ceremony August 10, 2009; Millennial Dramaturgy, A conversation about the new book Dramaturgy and Performance; Creating Sub/Text, Dramaturging the ReStaged Festival; Dramaturgy and Interdisciplinary Learning, A Case Study of Russian Theatre and Politics; Thinking about Theatre Photography; Theatre / Photography. Issue editors: D.J. Hopkins, Sydney Cheek O\u27Donnell, Lauren Beckhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1040/thumbnail.jp

“Have a little less, feel a lot better”: Mixed-method evaluation of an alcohol intervention

The aim of the mixed-methods study reported here was to evaluate the impact of a “gain-framed”, multimedia campaign to encourage heavier drinking men aged 45–64 years to drink less. Quantitative analyses were based on pre-intervention panel surveys of 3057 men in intervention regions and 500 in the control region, and post-intervention panel surveys of 1508 men in intervention regions and 219 in the control region. Qualitative analyses entailed thematic analysis of interviews with 14 men: five who had reduced their drinking after seeing the campaign, four who had considered reducing but did not, and five who did not consider changing. Interviews focused on men’s responses to the campaign, and their ideas for how to improve it. In quantitative analyses, the campaign was associated with significant changes in alcohol consumption, and significant increases in readiness to change and likelihood of using moderate drinking strategies. In qualitative analyses, men appreciated the friendly, non-threatening tone and that the message was straightforward, meaningful, achievable, and was gain-framed - i.e., emphasised the benefits of drinking less rather than the harms of drinking too much. However, the men who did not change their behaviour also identified several barriers to responding in ways encouraged by the message. It would be important to address their views of their drinking as not problematic, as pleasurable, and as socially expected, and also their sense of not feeling empowered to initiate or maintain behaviour change

Sensory determinants of stated liking for vegetable names and actual liking for canned vegetables: A cross-country study among European adolescents.

Sensory properties are reported as one of the main factors hindering an appropriate vegetable intake by the young. In the present work the sensory determinants of likings for vegetables were explored in adolescents of four European countries (Denmark, n = 88; France, n = 206; Italy, n = 110 and United Kingdom, n = 93). A questionnaire was designed to study cross country differences in stated liking for and familiarity with a list of vegetables popular among European markets (between-vegetable approach). A within-vegetable comparison approach with actual tasting was used to analyze differences and similarities in liking for canned pea and sweet corn samples across the countries. A close positive relationship between stated liking and familiarity was found. Irrespective of the country, one group of highly liked vegetables (carrots, tomatoes, green salad) was identified, characterized by innately liked tastes (sweet, umami), delicate flavour and bright appealing colour. A second group of highly disliked vegetables consists of cauliflowers and broccoli, characterized by disliked sensations such as bitter taste and objectionable flavour. Internal Preference Maps from actual liking scores indicate that the generally disliked tastes (bitter, sour), are clearly correlated with a negative hedonic response for both peas and sweet corn. The hedonic valence of a generally well accepted taste such as salty and texture descriptors depends on the type of vegetable. Internal preference maps from actual liking data indicate that flavour and appearance descriptors of the distinct sensory properties of each type of vegetable positively affect liking, while the intensity of unusual flavours is related to sample disliking

New Frontiers-class Uranus Orbiter: Exploring the feasibility of achieving multidisciplinary science with a mid-scale mission

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31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12: 2002 Report

This ongoing evaluation, conducted by WestEd and the American Institutes for Research, is the largest and most comprehensive study of Proposition 227