The Impact of Accurate Extinction Measurements for X-ray Spectral Models

Interstellar extinction includes both absorption and scattering of photons from interstellar gas and dust grains, and it has the effect of altering a source's spectrum and its total observed intensity. However, while multiple absorption models exist, there are no useful scattering models in standard X-ray spectrum fitting tools, such as XSPEC. Nonetheless, X-ray halos, created by scattering from dust grains, are detected around even moderately absorbed sources and the impact on an observed source spectrum can be significant, if modest, compared to direct absorption. By convolving the scattering cross section with dust models, we have created a spectral model as a function of energy, type of dust, and extraction region that can be used with models of direct absorption. This will ensure the extinction model is consistent and enable direct connections to be made between a source's X-ray spectral fits and its UV/optical extinction.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Can international alliances influence sustainable fashion practices: a UK/Bangladesh experience?

The presentation will outline current work that has been undertaken as part of a three-year British Council funded Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) project that brings together international collaboration between London College of Fashion (LCF), the BGMEA Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) in Dhaka and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). As retailers are increasingly under pressure to ensure that ethical and environmental standards run all the way through the supply chain, there is a need for research projects to explore best practice and ways forward to improve the competitiveness of the Bangladesh manufacturing sector to add value in this area

Effects of Interstellar Dust Scattering on the X-ray Eclipses of the LMXB AX J1745.6-2901 in the Galactic Center

AX J1745.6-2901 is an eclipsing low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) in the Galactic Centre (GC). It shows significant X-ray excess emission during the eclipse phase, and its eclipse light curve shows an asymmetric shape. We use archival XMM-Newton and Chandra observations to study the origin of these peculiar X-ray eclipsing phenomena. We find that the shape of the observed X-ray eclipse light curves depends on both photon energy and the shape of the source extraction region, and also shows differences between the two instruments. By performing detailed simulations for the time-dependent X-ray dust scattering halo, as well as directly modelling the observed eclipse and non-eclipse halo profiles of AX J1745.6-2901, we obtained solid evidence that its peculiar eclipse phenomena are indeed caused by the X-ray dust scattering in multiple foreground dust layers along the line-of-sight (LOS). The apparent dependence on the instruments is caused by different instrumental point-spread-functions. Our results can be used to assess the influence of dust scattering in other eclipsing X-ray sources, and raise the importance of considering the timing effects of dust scattering halo when studying the variability of other X-ray sources in the GC, such as Sgr A*. Moreover, our study of halo eclipse reinforces the existence of a dust layer local to AX J1745.6-2901 as reported by Jin et al. (2017), as well as identifying another dust layer within a few hundred parsecs to Earth, containing up to several tens of percent LOS dust, which is likely to be associated with the molecular clouds in the Solar neighbourhood. The remaining LOS dust is likely to be associated with the molecular clouds located in the Galactic disk in-between.Comment: 25 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables, accepted by MNRA

The relationship between pedagogical content knowledge and mathematics teacher questioning strategies

The purpose of this study was to determine whether an intense two-week professional development program for middle school mathematics teachers, along with follow-up classroom visits, video review of lessons (with feedback), and two six-hour follow-up sessions each semester would improve teacher questioning strategies and promote higher-level questioning based on Bloom\u27s (1956) Taxonomy of cognitive categories. A second purpose of the study was to determine whether, through reflection and instructor feedback, teachers would gain the ability to involve students in high press questioning situations. The third purpose of the study was to investigate whether relevant professional development would result in an increase in teacher content knowledge. The fourth purpose was to determine if there was a relationship between teachers\u27 pedagogical content knowledge, as measured by the CKT-M, and their ability to ask better questions, as determined by Bloom\u27s (1956) Taxonomy of cogitative categories. The researcher used four statistical tests including chi-square test, z-test, t-test, and Spearman correlation. The population for this study was a group of 18 middle school mathematics teachers from southwest Arkansas. The instruments used for the study included several forms created by the instructor team as well as the Content Knowledge for Teaching-Mathematics pre-test and post-test. Prior to gathering data, human use forms and participant consent forms were completed from both Southern Arkansas University and Louisiana Tech University. In addition each teacher was required to have parental consent for each student involved in the video recording. Results showed iv significance in the first three of four hypotheses. Significance was found in the first hypothesis using a chi-square test that compared the number of high-level questions asked in the first video compared to the number of high-level questions asked in the last video. Significance was found in the second hypothesis using a two-proportion z-test that compared the number of high-press exchanges in the first video to the number in the last video. Significance was found in the third hypothesis using a paired t-test that compared the pre-test score to the post-test score on the CKT-M. There was no significant relationship found between teachers\u27 pedagogical content knowledge on the post-test and teachers\u27 use of high-level questions as defined by Bloom\u27s (1956) Taxonomy

An Assessment of the Factors Associated with the Willingness of African Americans to Participate in a Minority Research Recruitment Database

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to determine factors which may affect Health Black Family Project members' participation in the Minority Research Recruitment Database (MRRD), as established through the Center for Minority Health and the Family Health History initiative. METHODS: MRRD enrollment was offered to 799 African American individuals after participation in a Family Health History session. Of the 799 offered enrollment, 599 (75.0%) agreed to enroll in the database and to be contacted regarded clinical research studies for which they may qualify. Factors assessed to determine their influence on willingness to enroll include demographic data, research attitudes, objective and perceived disease risks, weight, physical activity level, student interviewer, and the degree of control which people believe they possess over their personal health as measured by the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control questionnaire. Chi-square analyses and logistic regression were undertaken to compare these factors with willingness to enroll in the database. RESULTS: Analyses indicate that the following factors significantly affect willingness to enroll in the MRRD: being over age 65, health insurance status, research attitudes, previously declining research participation, reaction to incentives of money and free medical care, how much they believe family and friends benefit from research, degree to which they believe diet contributes to disease risk, student interviewer, Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Powerful Others scale, and self-described weight. Logistic regression of selected variables determined that reaction to monetary incentives, student interviewer, and self-described weight are key factors which may influence MRRD enrollment. CONCLUSIONS: The infrastructure of the MRRD has been shown to be an effective method for recruiting African Americans into a research database. Several factors have emerged as important in the determination of willingness to enroll, which represent both replications of the known literature and new findings unique to this research. PUBLIC HEALTH SIGNIFICANCE: African Americans are underrepresented in many areas of medical and public health research. More effective strategies are needed to increase recruitment into research studies by understanding factors presented here which may play a role in an individual's choice to participate in research

Sulforaphane-mediated inhibition of SHP2 as a potential pharmacotherapy for Noonan syndrome

Sulforaphane (SFN) is an electrophilic isothiocyanate which can adduct cysteine thiols within proteins. Protein targets of SFN were immunoprecipitated from cardiac tissue of wildtype (WT) mice following in vivo treatment with the electrophile using a validated polyclonal antibody developed in-house to pan-specifically detect SFN adducted to cysteines. Combined with quantitative proteomics, this confirmed the non-receptor protein-tyrosine phosphatase, SHP2, as a target of SFN. SFN is intrinsically unstable at room temperature, therefore, a chemically stabilised variant developed by Evgen Pharmaceuticals (UK) known as Sulforadex (SFX-01), was used in subsequent experiments. Using a commercially available phosphatase activity assay, SFX-01 was shown to inhibit recombinant SHP2 in vitro, as well as that in cardiac tissue of mice administered SFX-01 in their drinking water for 4 days. We speculated that SFX-01 may be therapeutic in diseases where SHP2 is hyperactive, such as Noonan syndrome (NS). Indeed, using an NS mouse model, Ptpn11D61G/+, a mutation resulting in hyperactivity of the phosphatase, SFX-01 time-dependently inhibited cardiac SHP2 activity. 100 % of homozygous and ~50 % of heterozygous Ptpn11D61G/+ mice die mid-gestation due to severe skeletal or cardiac defects, with the remaining ~50 % surviving to adulthood where they show non-cardiac features of NS. To assess if SFN-induced inhibition of SHP2 in the homozygous or heterozygous foetus could improve embryonic development, breeding pairs consisting of WT only or NS only parents were administered SFX-01 before conception and continued during pregnancy. SFX-01 treatment induced SFN-protein labelling of foetal tissue but also reduced litter sizes born from NS breeding pairs and genotyping showed only WT mice were born. This adverse effect may be due to SFN increasing the phospho-activation of ERK, which is deleterious in embryonic development of NS foeti. However, SFX-01 had no adverse impact on the pregnancies of WT mice. Adult NS mice develop splenomegaly and myeloproliferative disease which can further develop into leukaemia. With this in mind, adult WT or NS mice were administered SFX-01 for 10 weeks to assess if prolonged treatment with the drug would inhibit SHP2 activity and reduce the incidence of myeloproliferative disease in the NS mouse model. Using whole blood cell staining, ultrasound and flow cytometry, lower total white blood cell count, spleen size and myeloid cell count in the blood, bone marrow and spleen of NS mice by SFX-01 was seen compared to water only controls. SHP2 activity was also attenuated in the spleen of both WT and NS mice, strongly suggesting this therapeutic action of SFX-01 was mediated by inhibition of SHP2 phosphatase activity. Unexpectedly, even though phosphatase activity was inhibited following 4-day or 10-week treatment with SFX-01, this occurred without evidence of an SHP2-SFN adduct in the tissue of WT or NS mice. Data from biochemical analyses involving biotinylated iodoacetamide (BIAM) labelling, the polyethylene glycol (PEG)-switch method or phenylarsinic acid (PAA)-binding, showed that SFN induced an inhibitory modification within SHP2 between two vicinal thiols within the active domain of the phosphatase, which to reiterate was not stable SFN adducts. Data from complementary studies using site-directed mutagenesis of cysteines supported the concept that SFN adducts to SHP2 and inhibits it, which is followed by a proximal cysteine thiol mediating its removal or truncation, with the resulting modification maintaining inhibition of the phosphatase. This SFN-induced inhibitory modification may be the formation of an intramolecular disulfide bond or perhaps the chemical modification of the SFN adduct to a dithiolethione. Additional data has also shown that an SFN adduct can transfer from one thiol to another, so-called ‘trans-thiolation’. Using bovine serum albumin with an SFN adduct, which had been purified by large-format gel filtration on a protein chromatograph, transfer of the adduct to other cysteine-containing molecules such as haemoglobin or glutathione was observed. SFX-01, a stabilised SFN variant in phase 2 clinical trials, inhibits WT SHP2 as well as a hyperactive Ptpn11D61G/+ mutant form expressed in many patients with NS. Consistent with this, SFX-01 significantly corrects the myeloproliferative disease found in Ptpn11D61G/+ NS mice. Thus, in conclusion, SFX-01 has potential as a new therapy for the treatment of NS

Attitudes Related To Trauma-Informed Care In The Educational Setting: An Exploratory Case Study

This qualitative, exploratory case study was used to explore the perceptions of public high school faculty and staff towards trauma-informed practices in the school environment. Faculty and staff attitudes toward adverse childhood experiences and their attitudes toward implementation of trauma-informed care (TIC) in the educational setting are not well known. This study applies constructivism as a theoretical framework because the research depends on the participants’ views of the topics under study. Ten faculty and staff from a suburban high school in the northeastern part of the United States participated in this exploratory case study, completed the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care Scale, and participated in a semistructured interview. The data analysis revealed four themes that included relationships, safety, training, and behavior. The most significant finding was building relationships. From the results of this study, this researcher found that, when educators take the time to build relationships with students, the impact of traumatic events might be mitigated. Additional findings of this study were focused on participant attitudes toward TIC, the TIC practices they implemented, and factors that affected TIC implementation, including professional development. The findings of this study could be useful to educators, administrators, and educational support personnel interested in TIC