Schools that Care:The potential benefits and drawbacks of a non-residential alternative educational facility

Effective programs for youth with complex problems are urgently needed given their risk for school drop-out and (residential) out-of-home placement. The main goal of this dissertation was to examine the potential benefits and drawbacks of non-residential alternative educational facilities for adolescents with complex problems, to protect them from these negative outcomes, and work on their future perspective by diminishing problem behavior and strengthening protective factors. Therefore, this dissertation consists of:•A systematic literature review (multilevel meta-analysis) on the outcomes of non-residential alternative educational facilities (chapter 2)•A retrospective longitudinal study on characteristics of adolescents that predict (un)successful completion of School2Care (a Dutch alternative educational facility) (chapter 3)•A cross-sectional study on differences between adolescents allocated to secure residential youth care and School2Care (chapter 4)•A longitudinal study on the development of adolescents after their placement in School2Care, and the prevention of secure residential placement (chapter 5)•A qualitative study on what adolescents, parents and teachers consider to be facilitators and barriers to successful outcomes of School2Care (chapter 6)•A general discussion on the overall findings of the separate studies (chapter 7

Balto-Slavic agricultural terminology

This paper provides an overview of the agricultural lexicon of Balto-Slavic and aims to include all words that can be reconstructed for the Baltic and Slavic proto-languages. In our analysis, we distinguish between the words that can be dated to Proto-Balto-Slavic and those that entered Baltic and/or Slavic independently at a later stage. The paper shows that Baltic and Slavic do not share a large agricultural lexicon, which suggests that the speakers of Balto-Slavic did not practice agriculture in a much more extensive way than the Proto-Indo-European pastoral nomads did. The transition from a pastoral to a more agriculture-based society took place after the parting of Baltic and Slavic.Descriptive and Comparative Linguistic

Pilot Experiments with Electrodialysis and Ozonation for the Production of a Fertilizer from Urine

Pilot tests were performed with a process combination of electrodialysis and ozonation for the removal of micropollutants and the concentration of nutrients in urine. In continuous and batch experiments, maximum concentration factors up to 3.5 and 4.1 were obtained, respectively. The desalination capacity did not decrease significantly during continuous operation periods of several weeks. Membrane cleaning after 195 days resulted in approximately 35% increase in desalination rate. The Yeast Estrogen Screen (YES), a bioassay that selectively detects oestrogenic compounds, confirmed that about 90% of the oestrogenic activity was removed by electrodialysis. HPLC analysis showed that ibuprofen was removed to a high extent, while other micropollutants were below the detection limit. In view of the fact that ibuprofen is among the most rapidly transported micropollutants in electrodialysis processes, this result indicates that electrodialysis provides an effective barrier for micropollutants. Standardised plant growth tests were performed in the field with the salt solution resulting from the treatment by electrodialysis and subsequent ozonation. The results show that the plant height is comparable to synthetic fertilisers, but the crop yield is slightly lower. The latter is probably caused by volatilisation losses during field application, which can be prevented by improved application technologies

Clinical radiography education across Europe

Purpose: To establish a picture of clinical education models within radiography programmes across Europe by surveying higher education institutions registered as affiliate members of the European Federation of Radiography Societies (EFRS). Method: An online survey was developed to ascertain data on: practical training, supervisory arrangements, placement logistics, quality assurance processes, and the assessment of clinical competencies. Responses were identifiable in terms of educational institution and country. All educational institutions who were affiliate members at the time of the study were invited to participate (n=46). Descriptive and thematic analyses are reported. Results: A response rate of 82.6% (n=38) was achieved from educational institutions representing 21 countries. Over half of responding institutions (n=21) allocated in excess of 60 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) credits to practical training. In nearly three-quarters of clinical placements there was a dedicated clinical practice supervisor in place; two-thirds of these were employed directly by the hospital. Clinical practice supervisors were typically state registered radiographers, who had a number of years of clinical experience and had received specific training for the role. Typical responsibilities included monitoring student progress, providing feedback and completing paperwork, this did however vary between respondents. In almost all institutions there were support systems in place for clinical placement supervisors within their roles. Conclusions: Similarities exist in the provision of clinical radiography education across Europe. Clinical placements are a core component of radiography education and are supported by experienced clinical practice supervisors. Mechanisms are in place for the selection, training and support of clinical practice supervisors. Professional societies should work collaboratively to establish guidelines for effective clinical placements

Tackling Exascale Software Challenges in Molecular Dynamics Simulations with GROMACS

GROMACS is a widely used package for biomolecular simulation, and over the last two decades it has evolved from small-scale efficiency to advanced heterogeneous acceleration and multi-level parallelism targeting some of the largest supercomputers in the world. Here, we describe some of the ways we have been able to realize this through the use of parallelization on all levels, combined with a constant focus on absolute performance. Release 4.6 of GROMACS uses SIMD acceleration on a wide range of architectures, GPU offloading acceleration, and both OpenMP and MPI parallelism within and between nodes, respectively. The recent work on acceleration made it necessary to revisit the fundamental algorithms of molecular simulation, including the concept of neighborsearching, and we discuss the present and future challenges we see for exascale simulation - in particular a very fine-grained task parallelism. We also discuss the software management, code peer review and continuous integration testing required for a project of this complexity.Comment: EASC 2014 conference proceedin

Islands of conformational stability for Filopodia

Filopodia are long, thin protrusions formed when bundles of fibers grow outwardly from a cell surface while remaining closed in a membrane tube. We study the subtle issue of the mechanical stability of such filopodia and how this depends on the deformation of the membrane that arises when the fiber bundle adopts a helical configuration. We calculate the ground state conformation of such filopodia, taking into account the steric interaction between the membrane and the enclosed semiflexible fiber bundle. For typical filopodia we find that a minimum number of fibers is required for filopodium stability. Our calculation elucidates how experimentally observed filopodia can obviate the classical Euler buckling condition and remain stable up to several tens of . We briefly discuss how experimental observation of the results obtained in this work for the helical-like deformations of enclosing membrane tubes in filopodia could possibly be observed in the acrosomal reactions of the sea cucumber Thyone, and the horseshoe crab Limulus. Any realistic future theories for filopodium stability are likely to rely on an accurate treatment of such steric effects, as analysed in this work

The Granulin/Epithelin Precursor Abrogates the Requirement for the Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 Receptor for Growth in Vitro

3T3 cells null for the type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor are refractory to stimulation by a variety of purified growth factors that are known to be required for the stimulation of other 3T3 cells. However, these cells, known as R- cells, grow in serum-supplemented medium and also in media conditioned by certain cell lines. We report here the purification of a growth factor that stimulates DNA synthesis (and growth) of R- cells. The growth factor, purified to homogeneity by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, was identified as the granulin/epithelin precursor by an accurate determination of the masses of endoproteinase Lys-C peptides using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry, followed by a data base search. The granulin/epithelin precursor is a little known growth factor, secreted by a variety of epithelial and hemopoietic cells. It is at present the only purified growth factor that can stimulate the growth of mouse embryo fibroblasts null for the type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor