Mexican-American learning styles in a socioliterate approach to writing for English learners

The primary goal of this project is to provide a unit of instruction that addresses the critical English skills of oracy, writing, and intercultural proficiency. The curriculum features the social-construction-of-knowledge approach and the socioliterate approach. In addition, it includes an emphasis on Mexican-American values, learning styles, and intercultural communication, showing how they are interrelated and how they affect oral and written language proficiency and intercultural communication competence

Spreading of virulence regarding spatial distribution resistant cultivars inferred from population modeling coupled with genetics

One of the control strategies of fungal crop diseases is planting highly resistant varieties. However selection pressure on the pathogen, imposed by major resistance genes, leads to the development of new virulent races. In most cases breakdown of resistance has been reported for crop-pathogen systems with a genetically uniform crop distributed over large areas [2]. Des choix stratégiques en matière de construction et de déploiement de génotypes résistants combinant des gènes de résistance se pose aujourd’hui de manière aigüe afin de tendre vers une agriculture à résistance durable. To reach this objective, we start a study that combined population modeling with genetics to (1) identify keys traits of life of the pathogen involved in resistance breakdown (2) simulate virulence spreading regarding spatial host distribution

Gestión en el Área Financiera de la Finca Santa Ana del municipio de Matagalpa, en el I semestre del 2014

El tema del trabajo de Seminario de Graduación corresponde a la Gestión en el Área Financiera de las Empresas de Matagalpa, en el 2014. El propósito de esta investigación es evaluar la incidencia de la Gestión en el Área Financiera de la Finca Santa Ana, municipio de Matagalpa, en el I semestre del 2014. Este tema es muy importante porque permite obtener conocimientos generales con relación la gestión en el área financiera, esto lo afirma Arana (2014) “La Gestión Financiera es un conjunto de procesos dirigidos a planificar, organizar y evaluar los recursos económico-financieros al objeto de lograr la consecución de los objetivos de la empresa de la forma más eficaz y eficiente”. De acuerdo a los resultados obtenidos, se llega a las siguientes conclusiones: En cuanto a Gestión Financiera, en la finca se cumple con la planeación, organización, evaluación, control y seguimiento, pero de forma empírica. En el Área Financiera con relación a la contabilidad, el contador es externo, al ser contratado como servicio profesional, esto es parte de las dificultades encontradas. Como logro se puede mencionar, que la finca cuenta con un sistema de financiamiento conforme a sus necesidades. Como alternativa de solución se propone contratar al contador de manera permanente, para que brinde una mayor seguridad en el registro de las operacione

The impact of melt ponds on summertime microwave brightness temperatures and sea-ice concentrations

Sea-ice concentrations derived from satellite microwave brightness temperatures are less accurate during summer. In the Arctic Ocean the lack of accuracy is primarily caused by melt ponds, but also by changes in the properties of snow and the sea-ice surface itself. We investigate the sensitivity of eight sea-ice concentration retrieval algorithms to melt ponds by comparing sea-ice concentration with the melt-pond fraction. We derive gridded daily sea-ice concentrations from microwave brightness temperatures of summer 2009. We derive the daily fraction of melt ponds, open water between ice floes, and the ice-surface fraction from contemporary Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) reflectance data. We only use grid cells where the MODIS sea ice concentration, which is the melt-pond fraction plus the ice-surface fraction, exceeds 90 %. For one group of algorithms, e.g., Bristol and Comiso bootstrap frequency mode (Bootstrap_f), sea-ice concentrations are linearly related to the MODIS melt-pond fraction quite clearly after June. For other algorithms, e.g., Near9OGHz and Comiso bootstrap polarization mode (Bootstrap_p), this relationship is weaker and develops later in summer. We attribute the variation of the sensitivity to the melt-pond fraction across the algorithms to a different sensitivity of the brightness temperatures to snow-property variations. We find an underestimation of the sea-ice concentration by between 14 % (Bootstrap_f) and 26 % (Bootstrap_p) for 100 % sea ice with a melt-pond fraction of 40 %. The underestimation reduces to 0 % for a melt pond fraction of 20 %. In presence of real open water between ice floes, the sea-ice concentration is overestimated by between 26 % (Bootstrap_f) and 14 % (Bootstrap_p) at 60 % sea-ice concentration and by 20 % across all algorithms at 80 % sea-ice concentration. None of the algorithms investigated performs best based on our investigation of data from summer 2009. We suggest that those algorithms which are more sensitive to melt ponds could be optimized more easily because the influence of unknown snow and sea-ice surface property variations is less pronounced

The clinical implication of drug dependency in children and adults with inflammatory bowel disease: A review

AbstractDrug dependency in adult and paediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is described and the significance of this response pattern in clinical practice discussed in this review. Dependent patients maintain remission while on the treatment, but they relapse shortly after drug cessation or dose decrease. However, a quick restoration of remission and sustained response is achieved when the therapy is re-introduced or dose increased.Population-based studies have demonstrated that 22–36% of adults and 14–50% of children become corticosteroid dependent. Approximately 1/4–1/3 of treated patients undergo surgery ≤1 year after treatment start, although newer paediatric studies reported lower risk of surgery (5–11%), including dependent patients. The frequent use of immunosuppressants (68–80% of children) might explain this favourable outcome and thus reduce importance of the term corticosteroid dependency.Infliximab dependency was described in 42–66% of children and 29% of adults with Crohn's disease. The risk of surgery 50 and 40 months after treatment start was 10% and 23% in infliximab dependent children and adults, respectively. Maintenance of infliximab in dependent patients was suggested to postpone if not avoid the need of surgery.Lastly, mesalazine dependency was identified in 23% of adults with Crohn's disease. These patients were characterized by mild disease course and lower surgical risk compared to non-responders to mesalazine (32 vs. 61%).Identification of drug dependency is useful for prediction of a certain disease course and surgery. An adjustment of medical therapy may alter the prognosis and disease course

Spatially explicit modeling of pathogen adaptation to hosts with multiple resistance genes

One of the control strategies of fungal crop diseases is planting highly resistant varieties. However selection pressure on the pathogen, imposed by major resistance genes, leads to the development of new virulent races. In most cases breakdown of resistance has been reported for crop-pathogen systems with a genetically uniform crop distributed over large areas[2]. To derive strategies leading to durable resistance we focus on studying the role of recombination of pathogen genotypes and their spread in the process of succes-sive breakdowns of resistant hosts carrying different major resistance genes and their pyramids

Streptokinase Treatment Reverses Biofilm-Associated Antibiotic Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus

Biofilms formed by Staphylococcus aureus is a serious complication to the use of medical implants. A central part of the pathogenesis relies on S. aureus’ ability to adhere to host extracellular matrix proteins, which adsorb to medical implants and stimulate biofilm formation. Being coagulase positive, S. aureus furthermore induces formation of fibrin fibers from fibrinogen in the blood. Consequently, we hypothesized that fibrin is a key component of the extracellular matrix of S. aureus biofilms under in vivo conditions, and that the recalcitrance of biofilm infections can be overcome by combining antibiotic treatment with a fibrinolytic drug. We quantified S. aureus USA300 biofilms grown on peg-lids in brain heart infusion (BHI) broth with 0%–50% human plasma. Young (2 h) and mature (24 h) biofilms were then treated with streptokinase to determine if this lead to dispersal. Then, the minimal biofilm eradication concentration (MBEC) of 24 h old biofilms was measured for vancomycin and daptomycin alone or in combination with 10 µg/mL rifampicin in the presence or absence of streptokinase in the antibiotic treatment step. Finally, biofilms were visualized by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Addition of human plasma stimulated biofilm formation in BHI in a dose-dependent manner, and biofilms could be partially dispersed by streptokinase. The biofilms could be eradicated with physiologically relevant concentrations of streptokinase in combination with rifampicin and vancomycin or daptomycin, which are commonly used antibiotics for treatment of S. aureus infections. Fibronolytic drugs have been used to treat thromboembolic events for decades, and our findings suggest that their use against biofilm infections has the potential to improve the efficacy of antibiotics in treatment of S. aureus biofilm infections

Ingestion of broccoli sprouts does not improve endothelial function in humans with hypertension

Ingestion of glucosinolates has previously been reported to improve endothelial function in spontaneously hypertensive rats, possibly because of an increase in NO availability in the endothelium due to an attenuation of oxidative stress; in our study we tried to see if this also would be the case in humans suffering from essential hypertension. METHODS: 40 hypertensive individuals without diabetes and with normal levels of cholesterol were examined. The participants were randomized either to ingest 10 g dried broccoli sprouts, a natural donor of glucosinolates with high in vitro antioxidative potential, for a 4 week period or to continue their ordinary diet and act as controls. Blood pressure, endothelial function measured by flow mediated dilation (FMD) and blood samples were obtained from the participants every other week and the content of glucosinolates was measured before and after the study. Measurements were blinded to treatment allocation. RESULTS: In the interventional group overall FMD increased from 4% to 5.8% in the interventional group whereas in the control group FMD was stable (4% at baseline and 3.9% at the end of the study). The change in FMD in the interventional group was mainly due to a marked change in FMD in two participants while the other participants did not have marked changes in FMD. The observed differences were not statistically significant. Likewise significant changes in blood pressure or blood samples were not detected between or within groups. Diastolic blood pressure stayed essentially unchanged in both groups, while the systolic blood pressure showed a small non significant decrease (9 mm Hg) in the interventional group from a value of 153 mm Hg at start. CONCLUSION: Daily ingestion of 10 g dried broccoli sprouts does not improve endothelial function in the presence of hypertension in humans. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT0025201