An Ethnography of Voice(s) in the School House: Making Sense of Girl World

The life of a gifted adolescent girl both in and out of the schoolhouse is dynamic and complicated. This qualitative study, using the methodology of narrative inquiry and multiple interviews, examines how these young women make sense of their lives as they move quickly towards the socialization of womanhood. This study specifically examines which factors lead to their academic success in the schoolhouse and personal success as happy individuals. Using grounded theory and a critical feminist perspective as my framework for analysis, I found the support of family, teachers, and peers was critical. I also discerned four distinct themes among the research subjects. First, they felt a need to break free as individuals within the confines of their persona and school lives; second, they possessed immense psychological resilience; third, the health of their physical bodies was central; and, finally, anger, both internal and external, was the quintessential emotion of gifted adolescent girls. I conclude with a discussion of four recommendations directly parallel to the aforementioned themes of how the American education system can better meet the unique social, psychological, emotional, and physical needs of the gifted adolescent girl to improve her academic and personal life. This, in turn, supports her role as an outstanding contributor as an intelligent member of American civil society

De Montréal à la région d’Yverdon-les-Bains, comment les influenceurs nous font voyager

Ce travail consiste à étudier théoriquement, puis plus concrètement, comment la collaboration avec des influenceurs peut être intégrée dans une stratégie de marketing d’une destination touristique. L’objectif final est d’élaborer des recommandations et de proposer un plan d’action à la région d’Yverdon-les-Bains qui souhaite initier une telle démarche. Pour ce faire, j’ai procédé en trois étapes. Dans un premier temps, une recherche minutieuse a été menée dans la littérature et sur internet afin de comprendre comment interagir avec ces nouveaux prescripteurs de tendances dans le domaine du tourisme. Il a ensuite été question d’interroger la ville de Montréal pour recueillir un avis concret sur les bonnes pratiques de la collaboration avec ces leaders d’opinion digitaux. Enfin, sur la base des recherches effectuées et des enseignements livrés par l’expérience de Montréal, des recommandations ont été proposées à la région d’Yverdon-les-Bains dans le but d’intégrer les influenceurs dans sa stratégie de marketing. Si la ville de Montréal est très avancée dans ce domaine et attire un public jeune, Yverdon-les-Bains région, au contraire, mise actuellement son offre touristique sur son patrimoine et attire un public plus âgé. La région possède un bon potentiel pour implanter cette nouvelle méthode de communication. Il sera cependant fondamental qu’elle suive rigoureusement les étapes proposées dans ce travail afin de créer les conditions nécessaires à une collaboration avec des influenceurs. Plus généralement, aucune destination ne devrait négliger l’impact potentiel de ce type de collaboration dans sa stratégie marketing

Sex differences: From mental rotation to object location memory, an ERP study

Sex differences in cognition have been largely investigated. The most consistent sex differences favoring females are observed in object location memory involving the left hemisphere whereas the most consistent sex differences favoring males are observed in tasks that require mental rotation involving the right hemisphere. Here we used a task involving these two abilities to see the impact of mental rotation on object location memory. To that end we used a combination of behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) electroencephalography (EEG) measures.A computer screen displayed a square frame of 4 pairs of images (a "teddy" bear, a shoe, an umbrella and a lamp) randomly arranged around a central fixation cross. After a 10-second interval for memorization, images disappeared and were replaced by a test frame with no image but a random pair of two locations marked in black. In addition, this test frame was randomly displayed either in the original orientation (0° rotation) or in the rotated one (90° clockwise - CW - or 90° counterclockwise - CCW). Preceding the test frame, an arrow indicating the presence or the absence of rotation of the frame was displayed on the screen. The task of the participants (15 females and 15 males) was to determine if two marked locations corresponded or not to a pair of identical images. Each response was followed by feedback.Findings showed no significant sex differences in the performance of the original orientation. In comparison with this position, the rotation of the frame produced an equal decrease of male and female performance. In addition, this decrease was significantly higher when the rotation of the frame was in a CCW direction. We further assessed the ERP when the arrow indicated the direction of rotation as stimulus-onset, during four time windows representing major components C1, P1, N1 and N2. Although no sex differences were observed in performance, brain activities differed according to sex. Enhanced amplitudes were found for the CCW compared to CW rotation over the right posterior areas for the P1, N1 and N2 components for men as well as for women. Major topographical differences related to sex were measured for the CW rotation condition as marked lateralized amplitude: left-hemisphere amplitude larger than right one was measured during P1 time range for men. These similar patterns prolonged from P1 to N1 for women. Early distinctions were found in interaction with sex between CCW and CW waveform amplitudes, expressing over anterior electrode sites during C1 time range (0-50 ms post-stimulus).In conclusion (i) women do not outperform men in object location memory in this study (absence of rotation condition); (ii) mental rotation, in particular the direction of rotation, influences performance on object location memory; (iii) CCW rotation is associated with activity in the right parietal hemisphere whereas the CW rotation involves the left parietal hemisphere; (iv) this last effect is less pronounced in males, which could explain why greater involvement of right parietal areas in men and of bilateral posterior areas in women is generally reported in mental rotation tasks; and (v) the early distinctions between both directions of rotation located over anterior sites could be related to sex differences in their respective involvement of control mechanisms

Neural substrate for higher-order learning in an insect: Mushroom bodies are necessary for configural discriminations

International audienc

Agenda Setting During Follow-Up Encounters in a University Primary Care Outpatient Clinic.

At the beginning of the medical encounter, clinicians should elicit patients' agendas several times using open-ended questions. Little is known, however, about how many times physicians really solicit a patient's agenda during follow-up encounters. The objective was to analyze the number of agenda solicitations by physicians, of agendas initiated by physicians, and of patients' spontaneous agendas during the beginning and the entire encounter. We analyzed 68 videotaped follow-up encounters at a university primary care outpatient clinic. The number of different types of agenda setting was searched for and analyzed using negative binomial regression or logistic regression models. Physicians solicited agendas a mean ± SD of 0.8 ± 0.7 times/patient during the first 5 minutes and 1.7 ± 1.2 times/patient during the entire encounter. Physicians in 32.4% of encounters did not solicit the patient agenda, and there were never more than two physician's solicitations during the first 5 minutes. The mean number of physician's solicitations of the patients' agenda was 42% lower among female physicians during the first 5 minutes and 34% lower during the entire encounter. The number of agendas initiated by physicians was 1.2 ± 1.2/patient during the beginning and 3.2 ± 2.3/patient during the entire encounter. In 58.8% of the encounters, patients communicated their agendas spontaneously. There were twice as many patient spontaneous agendas (IRR = 2.12, p = .002) with female physicians than with males. This study showed that agenda solicitation with open-ended questions in follow-up encounters does not occur as often as recommended. There is thus a risk of missing new agendas or agendas that are important to the patient

Honey Bee Allatostatins Target Galanin/Somatostatin-Like Receptors and Modulate Learning: A Conserved Function?

International audienceSequencing of the honeybee genome revealed many neuropeptides and putative neuropeptide receptors, yet functional characterization of these peptidic systems is scarce. In this study, we focus on allatostatins, which were first identified as inhibitors of juvenile hormone synthesis, but whose role in the adult honey bee (Apis mellifera) brain remains to be determined. We characterize the bee allatostatin system, represented by two families: allatostatin A (Apime-ASTA) and its receptor (Apime-ASTA-R); and C-type allatostatins (Apime-ASTC and Apime-ASTCC) and their common receptor (Apime-ASTC-R). Apime-ASTA-R and Apime-ASTC-R are the receptors in bees most closely related to vertebrate galanin and somatostatin receptors, respectively. We examine the functional properties of the two honeybee receptors and show that they are transcriptionally expressed in the adult brain, including in brain centers known to be important for learning and memory processes. Thus we investigated the effects of exogenously applied allatostatins on appetitive olfactory learning in the bee. Our results show that allatostatins modulate learning in this insect, and provide important insights into the evolution of somatostatin/allatostatin signaling

Functional Characterization of a Chimeric Soluble Fas Ligand Polymer with In Vivo Anti-Tumor Activity

Binding of ligand FasL to its receptor Fas triggers apoptosis via the caspase cascade. FasL itself is homotrimeric, and a productive apoptotic signal requires that FasL be oligomerized beyond the homotrimeric state. We generated a series of FasL chimeras by fusing FasL to domains of the Leukemia Inhibitory Factor receptor gp190 which confer homotypic oligomerization, and analyzed the capacity of these soluble chimeras to trigger cell death. We observed that the most efficient FasL chimera, called pFasL, was also the most polymeric, as it reached the size of a dodecamer. Using a cellular model, we investigated the structure-function relationships of the FasL/Fas interactions for our chimeras, and we demonstrated that the Fas-mediated apoptotic signal did not solely rely on ligand-mediated receptor aggregation, but also required a conformational adaptation of the Fas receptor. When injected into mice, pFasL did not trigger liver injury at a dose which displayed anti-tumor activity in a model of human tumor transplanted to immunodeficient animals, suggesting a potential therapeutic use. Therefore, the optimization of the FasL conformation has to be considered for th

Aminoacid sequence alignment of Apime-ASTC-R and its <i>Drosophila</i> and human homologs.

<p>Sequence alignments of the predicted allatostatin C receptor in the honey bee <i>Apis mellifera</i> (<i>Apime-ASTC-R</i>, GenBank: XP_006560939.1) and of its homologs in the fruitfly <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> (<i>Drostar1</i>, GenBank: NP_649040.2 and <i>Drostar2</i>, GenBank: NP_649039.4), and human (SSTR2, NP_001041.1). The amino acid position is indicated on the left. Conserved residues are in red, and conservative changes in blue. Grey bars indicate putative trans-membrane regions (TM1–TM7). Amino acids that are characteristic of class A GPCRs are indicated by *, open diamonds (◊) indicate putative N-linked glycolysation sites, # indicate cysteine residues for disulfide bridge (between TM2—TM3 and TM4 –TM5) or palmitoylation (intracellular domain), and dots (●) indicate conserved putative phosphorylation sites for PKA/C. Sequences are based on transcripts (cDNA).</p

Apime-ASTA-R and Apime-ASTC-R display constitutive inhibitory activity, down-regulating cAMP.

<p>HEK cells transfected with Apime-ASTA-R or Apime-ASTC-R show lower levels of bioluminescence than mock-transfected cells (A). Bars represents mean+/-SD values of 8 transfections in duplicates (mock) or triplicates (Apime-AST-R). Forskolin analog NKH-477 has a reduced ability to increase bioluminescence levels in Apime-ASTA-R and Apime-ASTC-R transfected cells than in mock-transfected cells (B). Bars represent mean +/- SD values of 2 transfections in duplicates or triplicates. Application of increasing doses of Apime-ASTA on Apime-ASTA-R transfected cells induced a dose-dependent increase in bioluminescence (C). Application of increasing doses of Apime-ASTC on Apime-ASTC-R transfected cells did not change bioluminescence levels (D). Application of increasing doses of Apime-ASTCC on Apime-ASTC-R transfected cells increased bioluminescence levels at high concentrations (E). HEK cells transfected with luciferase reporter gene and an empty vector (mock-transfected) show a dose-dependent response to Apime-ASTCC (F). Bars represent mean +/- SD values of 3 transfections in triplicates.</p