Writing is more than just writing: A case study of effective feedback within an intercultural writing center

　The purpose of this study is to examine a ‘popular’ tutor’s beliefs on feedback and her regular tutee’s receptivity toward the feedback in order to investigate factors involved in giving ‘good’ feedback within intercultural settings. The data was gathered by interviewing a pair of L1 tutor and L2 tutee and observing their tutorial sessions. The results revealed the importance of three points: building a ‘safe house’ for both the tutor and the tutee, respecting the tutee’s ‘writer’s identity,’ and using praise in an appropriate way. This research was conducted at a writing center; however, the findings offer important insights into feedback that are applicable to language teachers in multicultural and multilingual settings as well

Group Well Child Care: An Analysis Of Cost

GROUP WELL CHILD CARE: AN ANALYSIS OF COST. Hiromi Yoshida, Ada M. Fenick, Marjorie S. Rosenthal. Section of General Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. Group well child care is an innovative way to conduct health supervision visits that may allow pediatricians to better serve the needs of patients and their families. Outcomes of child development, maternal mental health, and emergency department utilization in group care are similar to those of individual care. Group well child care will be sustainable in practice only if it is cost neutral or cost saving. The objective of this project was to examine the optimal arrangement of a group well child visit (WCV) by varying the combinations of healthcare providers and group size to ensure that the visit was cost neutral or cost saving when compared to an individual WCV. We created economic models using administrative data and Bureau of Labor statistics to evaluate the costs of an individual WCV delivered by an APRN, a resident physician, and an attending physician and 3 different group WCV models. The three group visit models were: 1. APRN model facilitated by an APRN, with a nurse and social worker; 2. Resident physician model facilitated by a resident physician, with assistance from an attending physician, nurse, and child life specialist; and 3. Attending physician model facilitated by an attending physician with a nurse. We varied physician salary and fixed other healthcare provider salaries. Using the respective individual WCV cost as a breakeven point, we performed sensitivity analyses on group size (number of parent-child dyads) and length of time each ancillary healthcare provider could participate in the group visit to determine the ideal combination of factors that would make a group visit model cost neutral with an individual WCV. The cost of an individual WCV conducted by an APRN was $20.51, one by a resident physician was$17.81, one by an attending physician with a low salary was $15.58, and one by an attending physician with a high salary was$20.49. We achieved cost-neutrality in the group model at four parent-child dyads in the APRN model; we achieved cost-neutrality at three, four, five, and six dyads in the resident physician model with, respectively 30, 45, 60 and 90 minutes of attending supervision; and we achieved cost-neutrality at four dyads in the attending model with a low salary, and at five dyads in the attending model with a high salary. In conclusion, group well child care can be delivered by APRNs, resident physicians, and attending physicians in a cost neutral manner by optimizing group size and contributions made by nurses, socials workers, and child life specialists. Future research should further explore the clinical benefits that group well child care offers so that a cost-benefit or cost-effective analysis can be conducted

Regiospecific Profiles of Fatty Acids in Triacylglycerols and Phospholipids from Adzuki Beans (Vigna angularis)

Regiospecific distributions of fatty acids (FA) of triacylglycerols (TAG) and phospholipids (PL) isolated from five cultivars of adzuki beans (Vigna angularis) were investigated. The lipids comprised mainly PL (72.2-73.4 wt-%) and TAG (20.6-21.9 wt-%), whilst other components were detected in minor proportions (0.1-3.4 wt-%). The principal profiles of the FA distribution in the TAG and PL were evident in the beans among the five cultivars: unsaturated FA were predominantly distributed in the sn-2 position, whilst saturated FA primarily occupied the sn-1 or the sn-3 position in the these lipids. The results would be useful information to both producers and consumers for manufacturing traditional adzuki confectionaries such as wagashi in Japan

Structure of l-rhamnose isomerase in complex with l-rhamnopyranose demonstrates the sugar-ring opening mechanism and the role of a substrate sub-binding site

Abstractl-Rhamnose isomerase (l-RhI) catalyzes the reversible isomerization of l-rhamnose to l-rhamnulose. Previously determined X-ray structures of l-RhI showed a hydride-shift mechanism for the isomerization of substrates in a linear form, but the mechanism for opening of the sugar-ring is still unclear. To elucidate this mechanism, we determined X-ray structures of a mutant l-RhI in complex with l-rhamnopyranose and d-allopyranose. Results suggest that a catalytic water molecule, which acts as an acid/base catalyst in the isomerization reaction, is likely to be involved in pyranose-ring opening, and that a newly found substrate sub-binding site in the vicinity of the catalytic site may recognize different anomers of substrates

β-d-Altrose

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C6H12O6, [systematic name: (2R,3S,4R,5R,6R)-6-(hydroxy­meth­yl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol] adopts a 4 C 1 chair conformation with the anomeric hydroxyl group in the equatorial position. All hydroxyl groups act as donors and acceptors in hydrogen bonding and the mol­ecule is involved in ten inter­molecular O—H⋯O inter­actions [O⋯O = 2.672 (5)–2.776 (4) Å] with eight neighbouring mol­ecules. Two independent O—H⋯O—H⋯ helices extending along the z axis are found in this structure

Leveraging public health nurses for disaster risk communication in Fukushima City: a qualitative analysis of nurses' written records of parenting counseling and peer discussions

Background: Local public health nurses (PHNs) have been recognized as the main health service providers in communities in Japan. The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 has, however, created a major challenge for them in responding to mothers’ concerns. This was in part due to difficulties in assessing, understanding and communicating health risks on low-dose radiation exposure. In order to guide the development of risk communication plans, this study sought to investigate mothers’ primary concerns and possible solutions perceived by a core healthcare profession like the PHNs. Methods: A total of 150 records from parenting counseling sessions conducted between PHNs and mothers who have attended mandatory 18-month health checkups for their children at the Fukushima City Health and Welfare Center in 2010, 2011 (year of disaster) and 2012 were examined. Discussion notes of three peer discussions among PHNs organized in response to the nuclear disaster in 2012 and 2013 were also analyzed. All transcribed data were first subjected to text mining to list the words according to their frequencies and inter-relationships. The Steps Coding and Theorization method was then undertaken as a framework for qualitative analysis. Results: PHNs noted mothers to have considerable needs for information on radiation risks as they impact on decisions related to relocations, concerns for child safety, and experiences with interpersonal conflicts within the family owing to differing risk perceptions. PHNs identified themselves as the information channels in the community, recommended the building of their risk communication capacities to support residents in making well-informed decisions, and advocated for self-measurement of radiation levels to increase residents’ sense of control. PHNs also suggested a more standardized form of information dissemination and an expansion of community-based counseling services. Conclusions: Inadequate risk communication on radiation in the Fukushima nuclear incident has resulted in multiple repercussions for mothers in the community. Empowerment of local residents to assume more active roles in the understanding of their environment, increasing PHNs’ capacity in communication, and an expansion of health services such as counseling will together better address risk communication challenges in post-disaster recovery efforts

3-O-Methylfunicone, a Selective Inhibitor of Mammalian Y-Family DNA Polymerases from an Australian Sea Salt Fungal Strain

We isolated a pol inhibitor from the cultured mycelia extract of a fungal strain isolated from natural salt from a sea salt pan in Australia, which was identified as 3-O-methylfunicone by spectroscopic analyses. This compound selectively inhibited the activities of mammalian Y-family DNA polymerases (pols) (i.e., pols η, ι and κ). Among these pols, human pol κ activity was most strongly inhibited, with an IC50 value of 12.5 μM. On the other hand, the compound barely influenced the activities of the other families of mammalian pols, such as A-family (i.e., pol γ), B-family (i.e., pols α, δ and ɛ) or X-family (i.e., pols β, λ and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase), and showed no effect on the activities of fish pol δ, plant pols, prokaryotic pols and other DNA metabolic enzymes, such as calf primase of pol α, human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase, human telomerase, T7 RNA polymerase, mouse IMP dehydrogenase (type II), human topoisomerases I and II, T4 polynucleotide kinase or bovine deoxyribonuclease I. This compound also suppressed the growth of two cultured human cancer cell lines, HCT116 (colon carcinoma cells) and HeLa (cervix carcinoma cells), and UV-treated HeLa cells exhibited lower clonogenic survival in the presence of inhibitor

Inhibitory Effects of Glycyrrhetinic Acid on DNA Polymerase and Inflammatory Activities

We investigated the inhibitory effect of three glycyrrhizin derivatives, such as Glycyrrhizin (compound 1), dipotassium glycyrrhizate (compound 2) and glycyrrhetinic acid (compound 3), on the activity of mammalian pols. Among these derivatives, compound 3 was the strongest inhibitor of mammalian pols α, β, κ, and λ, which belong to the B, A, Y, and X families of pols, respectively, whereas compounds 1 and 2 showed moderate inhibition. Among the these derivatives tested, compound 3 displayed strongest suppression of the production of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in a cell-culture system using mouse macrophages RAW264.7 and peritoneal macrophages derived from mice. Moreover, compound 3 was found to inhibit the action of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) in engineered human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells. In addition, compound 3 caused greater reduction of 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate-(TPA-) induced acute inflammation in mouse ear than compounds 1 and 2. In conclusion, this study has identified compound 3, which is the aglycone of compounds 1 and 2, as a promising anti-inflammatory candidate based on mammalian pol inhibition