Pediatric Oncology Nurses’ Perceptions of Prognosis-Related Communication

Background Disclosure of prognosis-related information is an essential aspect of communication with pediatric patients with cancer and their families. The nurse is believed to play an important role in this process, but nurse perceptions and experiences have not been well-described. Purpose Provide an exploration of pediatric oncology nurses’ experiences with prognosis-related communication (PRC). Method Mixed-methods, multiphase design. This paper highlights the qualitative portion of the study. Findings Three themes were identified: Importance of collaboration, impact of PRC, and delivery of prognostic information. Discussion Collaboration is a critical element of PRC. Nurses are often not included in the disclosure process, which limits the ability of nurses to fully function in their roles, compromising patient, family, and nurse outcomes. A paradigm shift is required to empower nurses to be more active participants. More education of physicians and nurses is necessary to consistently engage nurses in PRC and prepare nurses for critical conversations

Ergative Case and the Transitive Subject: A View from Nez Perce

Ergative case, the special case of transitive subjects, raises questions not only for the theory of case but also for theories of subjecthood and transitivity. This paper analyzes the case system of Nez Perce, a ”three-way ergative” language, with an eye towards a formalization of the category of transitive subject. I show that it is object agreement that is determinative of transitivity, and hence of ergative case, in Nez Perce. I further show that the transitivity condition on ergative case must be coupled with a criterion of subjecthood that makes reference to participation in subject agreement, not just to origin in a high argument-structural position. These two results suggest a formalization of the transitive subject as that argument uniquely accessing both high and low agreement information, the former through its (agreement-derived) connection with T and the latter through its origin in the specifier of a head associated with object agreement (v). In view of these findings, I argue that ergative case morphology should be analyzed not as the expression of a syntactic primitive but as the morphological spell-out of subject agreement and object agreement on a nominal.Linguistic

The new nuclear arms control environment : trip report and project conclusions

Includes bibliographical references. "July 2002"This paper reports the results of 9 conference, workshops and private meetings held on the current diplomatic and security problems associated with nuclear arms control, both before and after September 11. Appendixes include participants and questions.unpublishednot peer reviewe

The Origin and Content of Expletives: Evidence from “Selection”

While expletive there has primarily been studied in the context of the existential construction, it has long been known that some but not all lexical verbs are compatible with there-insertion. This paper argues that there-insertion can be used to diagnose vPs with no external argument, ruling out transitives, unergatives, and also inchoatives, which are argued to project an event argument on the edge of vP. Based on the tight link between there-insertion and low functional structure, I build a case for low there-insertion, where the expletive is first merged in the specifier of a verbalizing head v. The low merge position is motivated by a stringently local relation that holds between there and its associate DP; this relation plays a crucial role in the interaction of there with raising verbs, where local agreement rules out cases of “too many theres” such as *There seemed there to be a man in the room. An account of these cases in terms of phase theory is explored, ultimately suggesting that there must be merged in a non-thematic phasal specifier position.Linguistic

The Home Literacy and Numeracy Environment in Preschool: Cross-Domain Relations of Parent Practices and Child Outcomes

There is ample evidence indicating that early literacy and numeracy skills are important to later academic achievement, and that these early skills develop together. There is also evidence that parent-child literacy and numeracy practices are predictive of children’s literacy and numeracy skills within their respective domains. However, there is limited research on the relations between the home literacy environment (HLE) and numeracy outcomes, and the home numeracy environment (HNE) and literacy outcomes. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the relations of the HLE and HNE to children’s literacy and numeracy practices, both within and across domains. Participants were 114 preschoolers and their parents. Preschoolers ranged in age from 3.01 and 5.17 (M = 4.09) and were 54% female and 72% Caucasian. Parents reported the frequency of parent-child literacy and numeracy practices. Children were assessed in the fall and spring of their preschool year on their literacy (definitional vocabulary, phonological awareness, and print knowledge) and numeracy skills. Four hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to predict each of the child outcomes. Results indicate that, although the HLE was not broadly predictive of children’s literacy and numeracy outcomes, the HNE was predictive of numeracy, definitional vocabulary, and phonological awareness outcomes. These findings emphasize the importance of parent-child home numeracy practices to children’s academic outcomes at an early age. Specifically, the relation between the HNE and vocabulary development contributes to the growing body of research indicating the important relations between early numeracy and language development

Variations in carotenoids and retinol in milk and cheese from Jersey cows at an organic dairy compared to a conventional dairy over a pasture season

Carotenoids, widely distributed in nature, are considered to be potentially beneficial in the prevention of a variety of diseases including cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and eye diseases. As humans are unable to synthesize carotenoids, the diet is the only source of these beneficial components. Carotenoid concentration in cow\u27s milk varies greatly as a result of feeding practice and season, but no research thus far has investigated these variations in Jersey cows over an entire pasture season. The objectives of this experiment were to 1) determine the differences in concentrations of carotenoids and retinol in milk from cows consuming different diets, 2) examine the changes that occurred over a pasture season, and 3) assess the relationship of these components between a fresh, mozzarella cheese and the milk from which it was made. Individual milk samples were collected biweekly, beginning in May and ending in November, from 18 Jersey cows, 9 at an organic dairy fed on pasture and supplemented with total mixed ration (TMR) and 9 at a conventional dairy fed exclusively TMR. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to analyze carotenoid concentrations from each individual milk sample. Total carotenes, total xanthophylls, lutein, beta-cryptoxanthin, alpha- and beta-carotene and 13cis beta-carotene were significantly higher in milk from the cows fed on pasture compared to milk from the cows fed TMR. In milk from cows fed on pasture, total carotenes, total xanthophylls, lutein, beta-cryptoxanthin, alpha- and beta-carotene, and 13 cis beta-carotene varied significantly over the pasture season. In milk from cows fed TMR, only total xanthophylls, retinol and lutein changed significantly over time. Bulk milk samples were also collected biweekly at each dairy and made into Mozzarella cheese. HPLC was used to analyze carotenoid concentrations in the raw and pasteurized milk, the whey, and the cheese. Total carotenes in raw milk, pasteurized milk and whey were positively related to total carotenes in cheese, and total xanthophylls in pasteurized milk were positively related to total xanthophylls in cheese. Results indicate that even for Jersey cows, a breed known to have \u27yellow\u27 milk, pasture feeding will increase the carotenoid concentration in milk and its products and the concentration changes over time

Neural Mechanisms for Combinatorial Semantics in Language and Vision: Evidence From FMRI, Patients, and Brain Stimulation

Throughout our daily experience, humans make nearly constant use of semantic knowledge. Over the last 20-30 years, the majority of work on the neural basis of semantic memory has examined the representation of semantic categories (e.g., animate versus inanimate). However, a defining aspect of human cognition is the ability to integrate this stored semantic information to form complex combinations of concepts. For example, humans can comprehend “plaid” and “jacket” as separate concepts, but can also effortlessly integrate this information to create the idea of a “plaid jacket.” This process is essential to human cognition, but little work has examined the neural regions that underlie conceptual combination. Many models of semantic memory have proposed that convergence zones, or neural hubs, help to integrate the semantic features of word meaning to form coherent representations from stored semantic knowledge. However, few studies have specifically examined the integrative semantic functions that these high-level hub regions carry out. This thesis presents three experiments that examine lexical-semantic combinatorial processing (as in the “plaid jacket” example above): 1) a study in healthy adults using fMRI, 2) a study in healthy adults using brain stimulation, and 3) a study examining impairments of lexical-semantic integration in patients with neurodegenerative disease. The fourth and final experiment of this thesis examines semantic aspects of combinatorial codes for visual-object representation. This study identifies neural regions that encode the feature combinations that define an object’s meaning. The findings from these four experiments elucidate specific cortical hubs for semantic-feature integration during language comprehension and visual-object processing, and they advance our understanding of the role of heteromodal brain regions in semantic memory

Toward a Learning Society Revisited: The Rise and Fall of an Educational Ideal?

This study begins a broad historical dialogue on the movement for lifelong learning and the “learning society” and the ways that many of the innovations were adopted, while the adult students continued to be marginalized both institutionally and conceptually within adult higher education