Behavioral and Neurobiological Evidence of Epigenetic Transmission in the Neonatal Quinpirole Rodent Model of Schizophrenia

Quinpirole is a dopamine D2 receptor agonist that if administered to rats from postnatal day (P)1-21 results in increased dopamine D2 receptor sensitivity throughout the animal’s lifetime. This increase in receptor sensitivity is consistent with schizophrenia. This model has additional consistencies with human schizophrenia, including sensorimotor gating deficits, enhanced behavioral and neurobiological responses to nicotine, and protein alterations consistent with the disorder. In this study, a second generation of the neonatal quinpirole (NQ) rodent model was created to investigate if long term changes caused by NQ treatment would be passed to offspring. NQ treated rats were mated and their offspring left untreated. To investigate if dopamine D2 receptor hypersensitivity was transmitted from the first to the second generation of the model, yawning behavior was assayed after acute quinpirole treatment. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) is a test of sensorimotor gating, and PPI testing was performed on adolescent second generation rats. Behavioral sensitization and conditioned place preference to nicotine (0.5 mg/kg and 0.6 mg/kg respectively) were examined in adolescence in both generations of the model. Several neurobiological assays were performed in both nicotine naïve and animals sensitized to nicotine (0.5 mg/kg) in order to investigate consistencies with the NQ model, which has shown enhanced responses to nicotine. These include enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB), as well as quantitative PCR (qPCR) to quantify messenger RNA (mRNA) of regulator of G-protein signaling 9 (rgs9). Results indicated that second generation rats of NQ-treated rats demonstrated increased yawning behavior in response to acute quinpirole treatment. PPI deficits and enhanced behavioral responses to nicotine were also observed. Increased BDNF expression was observed in the nucleus accumbens following nicotine sensitization, consistent with past work in first generation NQ-treated rats. CREB expression was also increased in both generations of the model, an effect linked to alterations in PPI and other schizophrenia-like symptomology. Rgs9 expression was generally unaltered in either generation of the model. This study provides basis for utilization of a second generation of the NQ model to study epigenetic influences in schizophrenia and drug abuse vulnerability

Preparation Issues in Educational Leadership

Educational leaders have chosen to belong to one of the most important and influential professions. Not only do educators have an important impact on others, but there is a need to have a practical understanding of instruction, curriculum, and psychology. Leaders in all disciplines often relate to previous educational relationships in discussions about important moments in their lives. These relationships matter, and they provide foundational experiences for each of us

Preparation Issues in Educational Leadership

Educational leaders have chosen to belong to one of the most important and influential professions. Not only do educators have an important impact on others, but there is a need to have a practical understanding of instruction, curriculum, and psychology. Leaders in all disciplines often relate to previous educational relationships in discussions about important moments in their lives. These relationships matter, and they provide foundational experiences for each of us

Separation of Church and State: Fact or Fiction?

Court cases over the past several decades have been consistent in following the constitutional mandates separating religious issues and public education, thus eroding government sponsored activities associated with faith (Irons, 2007). This has created concern in some segments of society that values religious beliefs, and there are political groups that believe public school decline is due in part to a lack of religious instruction (Bergel, 1988). But how separate is church and state in our public schools? Are the legal precedents followed? The purpose of this paper is to look at the public schools\u27 requirements in separating issues of church and state, and measuring whether this is the reality in schools in one area of the southern United States

Educational computer use in the schools of southern Belize

Developing countries are defined by their lack of wealth (The World Bank, 2011). This means that many of the educational innovations that developed countries take for granted, such as computer availability, may naot be as accessible for educational use in developing countries. This use of technology has become an important educational tool in most nations, as increasing comfort with and knowledge of its use plays an important role in the academic development of students. In the United States, greater access to technology based instruction has increased along with more access to computer-based technology (Russell, Damian, O’Dwyer, & O’Conner, 2003). Although technology can make learning more engaging for students (Ljungdahl, 2001), lack of resources are likely to limit the ability of schools within economically challenged countries to provide these opportunities. This is true in southern Belize due to this region’s economic challenges. What is the state of technology in the schools of this area? The purpose of this study is to report on a technology survey given to the principals of the Toledo district of Belize in a meeting held in October 2010. The survey suggests that the schools lack basic resources to provide an academic foundation in technology to the students of this district

Warblers

18 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.Includes bibliographical references (p. 17-18)."A spectrographic analysis of tape recordings of Blue-winged Warblers at one locality on Long Island, New York, revealed the limits of individual and intrapopulational variation in the song of that species in an area where the closely related Golden-winged Warbler does not breed. Intrapopulational variation consisted of different combinations and sequences of four basic components. Individual variation involved minor alterations in the duration and configuration of these components but did not include changes in their combination or sequence. Each male had a repertoire of only two distinct song patterns. The significance of these findings is discussed with reference to reports that some Blue-winged Warblers have a greater variability in song in areas where the Golden-winged Warbler also occurs"--P. 17

Lexicographically Fair Learning: Algorithms and Generalization

We extend the notion of minimax fairness in supervised learning problems to its natural conclusion: lexicographic minimax fairness (or lexifairness for short). Informally, given a collection of demographic groups of interest, minimax fairness asks that the error of the group with the highest error be minimized. Lexifairness goes further and asks that amongst all minimax fair solutions, the error of the group with the second highest error should be minimized, and amongst all of those solutions, the error of the group with the third highest error should be minimized, and so on. Despite its naturalness, correctly defining lexifairness is considerably more subtle than minimax fairness, because of inherent sensitivity to approximation error. We give a notion of approximate lexifairness that avoids this issue, and then derive oracle-efficient algorithms for finding approximately lexifair solutions in a very general setting. When the underlying empirical risk minimization problem absent fairness constraints is convex (as it is, for example, with linear and logistic regression), our algorithms are provably efficient even in the worst case. Finally, we show generalization bounds - approximate lexifairness on the training sample implies approximate lexifairness on the true distribution with high probability. Our ability to prove generalization bounds depends on our choosing definitions that avoid the instability of naive definitions

Educational computer use in the schools of southern Belize

Developing countries are defined by their lack of wealth (The World Bank, 2011). This means that many of the educational innovations that developed countries take for granted, such as computer availability, may naot be as accessible for educational use in developing countries. This use of technology has become an important educational tool in most nations, as increasing comfort with and knowledge of its use plays an important role in the academic development of students. In the United States, greater access to technology based instruction has increased along with more access to computer-based technology (Russell, Damian, O’Dwyer, & O’Conner, 2003). Although technology can make learning more engaging for students (Ljungdahl, 2001), lack of resources are likely to limit the ability of schools within economically challenged countries to provide these opportunities. This is true in southern Belize due to this region’s economic challenges. What is the state of technology in the schools of this area? The purpose of this study is to report on a technology survey given to the principals of the Toledo district of Belize in a meeting held in October 2010. The survey suggests that the schools lack basic resources to provide an academic foundation in technology to the students of this district

The World Rugby and International Rugby Players Contact Load Guidelines: From conception to implementation and the future

Managing training load in rugby union is crucial for optimising performance and injury prevention. Contact training warrants attention because of higher overall injury and head impact risk, yet players must develop physical, technical, and mental skills to withstand the demands of the game. To help coaches manage contact loads in professional rugby, World Rugby and International Rugby Players convened an expert working group. They conducted a global survey with players to develop contact load guidelines. This commentary aims to describe the contact load guidelines and their implementation, and identify areas where future work is needed to support their evolution.