Medical Bill Problems Steady for U.S. Families, 2007-2010

Examines changes in the proportion of people in families having difficulty paying medical bills during the recession by age group, insurance status, income, amount owed, amount paid off, and estimated time to pay off bills. Considers contributing factors

Age and schooling effects on early literacy and phoneme awareness

Previous research on age and schooling effects is largely restricted to studies of children who begin formal schooling from the age of 6 and the measures of phoneme awareness used have typically lacked sensitivity for beginning readers. Our study addresses these issues by testing children aged 4-6 (first two years of formal schooling in the UK) on a sensitive dynamic measure of phoneme awareness and tests of early literacy. There were significant effects of both age and schooling on dynamic and static measures of phoneme awareness, word reading, spelling and letter-name knowledge but no significant age × time interactions. This indicates that older children within this age group generally outperform their younger classmates (although they do not make faster progress), and that this advantage is developed prior to the start of school

Using Culture to Cultivate Conversations: Lessons Learned from Whiteboard Ethnographic Research

This presentation will report on the outcomes of a longitudinal collaboration between the University of Richmond and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville libraries to create, scale, and sustain an ethnographic research project utilizing open-ended questions posted on whiteboards. Presenters will highlight methods of coding and communicating large amounts of data to disparate communities and share lessons learned regarding participatory assessment projects, space usage and the ways in which culture should inform the creation of strategic ethnographic projects

Age and schooling effects on the development of early literacy and related skills

There is evidence to suggest that age (natural maturation and informal experience) and schooling (formal instruction at school) have differing effects on the development of cognitive skills between the ages of 5 and 7. There is also evidence that children who start learning how to read later in childhood make faster progress than those who start earlier in childhood. However, previous studies on reading development have typically confounded age with length of schooling. The current thesis investigates the separate role of each on the development of early literacy and related skills by comparing matched groups of children differing in either exposure to formal reading instruction or chronological age. Two longitudinal studies are presented, with seven key findings. Chapter 2 presents a cross-sectional study (n = 93) comparing a group of later-schooled 7 year olds with two control groups at the beginning of their first year of reading instruction (earlier-schooled ‘reading controls’ and earlier-schooled ‘age controls’). First, it was shown that vocabulary and short-term verbal memory skills developed with age, not schooling. Second, it was found that phoneme awareness can develop in the absence of formal reading instruction, and that this was more likely to happen in older than younger children. Chapter 3 presents a longitudinal study (n = 61) following the progress of the first two groups from chapter 2; a group of Steiner-educated 7 years olds (later-schooled group) and a group of standard-educated 4 year olds (earlier-schooled group) during their first two years of formal literacy instruction. Results showed that the older age and superior reading-related skills of the first group did not lead to faster progress in reading, and in fact this group showed worse progress in spelling. The good progress of the earlier-schooled group was attributed to more consistent and high quality phonics instruction. By comparing the predictors of reading and spelling in the two groups presented in chapter 3, chapter 4 showed that the skills underlying literacy development were similar in older and younger beginning readers, but that instructional emphasis on letter-sound knowledge in the earlier-schooled group reduced its power as a predictor. Chapter 5 used mediation analyses to show that letter-sound knowledge led to phonological awareness, which in turn led to reading in the earlier-schooled children, an effect which was attributed to the method of synthetic phonics instruction administered to these children. No significant mediation was shown in the later-schooled group. Chapter 6 presents a longitudinal study (n = 45) of the first two years of schooling in a standard school using the cut-off design. Results revealed that a dynamic measure was more effective than a static measure for measuring phoneme awareness in young children. Finally, there was an effect of both age and schooling on the development of phoneme awareness and early reading and spelling skills. These studies demonstrate that age-related factors in addition to schooling play a significant role in the development of reading-related skills. However, although there was evidence of an age effect on literacy skills during the first year of standard schooling (chapter 6), there was only limited evidence of such an effect over a larger age range (chapter 3). In conclusion, it is suggested that concerns that age 4-5 is too early to learn to read are unfounded, and that a delay in school entry age will not necessarily lead to benefits in the acquisition of reading

Immune Mediators of Murine Lyme Arthritis

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in both the United States and Europe; however, its pathogenesis is incompletely understood. The studies described in this thesis aid in the elucidation of mechanisms regulating murine Lyme arthritis and may suggest mechanisms by which human Lyme disease is mediated. (1) We found that the chemokine KC is responsible for neutrophil recruitment and subsequent development of Lyme arthritis and carditis. This was the first study to describe an immunological regulatory mechanism mediating disease susceptibility to murine Lyme disease, as resistant mice (B6) produce less KC than susceptible (C3H/HeJ) mice and do not develop disease. (2) We found that metabolites produced via the COX-2 pathway are important for functional resolution and that resolution is likely mediated via the PGE2/EP2 axis. (3) We found that although dietary fish oil substitution leads to a global shift in eicosanoid production (from AA/LA-derived eicosanoids to EPA/DHA-derived eicosanoids) and promotes antiinflammatory prostaglandin production, disease severity is not altered. (4) We found that eicosanoid production throughout the course of autoantibody-drive K/BxN serum-transfer arthritis differs significantly from that seen during Lyme arthritis and that patterns of eicosanoid expression reflect the severity and kinetics of each type of arthritis. These studies aid in understanding the immunological mechanisms regulating the occurrence and severity of murine Lyme arthritis

Ethnography in student-owned spaces: Using whiteboards to explore learning communities and student success

“Student success” and the “user experience” are terms that have gained prominence in conversations around the ways in which academic libraries support and engage with their student populations. Ethnographic methods provide a unique opportunity to incorporate student voices into these conversations. This study reports on a longitudinal ethnographic study conducted at two academic libraries in the United States. Through a semi-structured participatory approach using whiteboards, the researchers garnered more than 2,000 responses. By coding that qualitative data, the researchers were able to examine student usage of library spaces, how students create informal learning communities within these spaces, and how students define success for themselves. The research specifically highlights the importance of using transitional spaces, highly visible communal spaces not specifically set aside for academic purposes within libraries, to gather participatory data. This paper shares key findings to inform both library practice and further research

Early predictors of phonological and morphological awareness and the link with reading : evidence from children with different patterns of early deficit

This study examines the contribution of early phonological processing (PP) and language skills on later phonological awareness (PA) and morphological awareness (MA), as well as the links among PA, MA, and reading. Children 4–6 years of age with poor PP at the start of school showed weaker PA and MA 3 years later (age 7–9), regardless of their language skills. PA and phonological and morphological strategies predict reading accuracy, whereas MA predicts reading comprehension. Our findings suggest that children with poor early PP are more at risk of developing deficits in MA and PA than children with poor language. They also suggest that there is a direct link between PA and reading accuracy and between MA and reading comprehension that cannot be accounted for by strategy use at the word level

Measurements of the Young’s modulus of hydroxide catalysis bonds, and the effect on thermal noise in ground-based gravitational wave detectors

With the outstanding results from the detection and observation of gravitational waves from coalescing black holes and neutron star inspirals, it is essential that pathways to further improve the sensitivities of the LIGO and VIRGO detectors are explored. There are a number of factors that potentially limit the sensitivities of the detectors. One such factor is thermal noise, a component of which results from the mechanical loss in the bond material between the silica fibre suspensions and the test mass mirrors. To calculate its magnitude, the Young’s modulus of the bond material has to be known with reasonable accuracy. In this paper we present a new combination of ultrasonic technology and Bayesian analysis to measure the Young’s modulus of hydroxide catalysis bonds between fused silica substrates. Using this novel technique, we measure the bond Young’s modulus to be 18.5 ± 2.0 2.3     GPa . We show that by applying this value to thermal noise models of bonded test masses with suitable attachment geometries, a reduction in suspension thermal noise consistent with an overall design sensitivity improvement allows a factor of 5 increase in event rate to be achieved