Teaching The Writing Process As A First And Second Language Revisited: Are They The Same?

Research on the second writing process is not recent. Both first and second writing processes have been in the area of argument among scholars. It is has been confirmed that both first and second writers nearly all practice similar physical activities pre-writing, during, and post writing stages; however, they still differ in the inner extra thinking activities that non-native writers practice to reduce the transfer of first language rules during the writing processes. Therefore, teachers should provide extensive feedback to ELL students to help them improve their writing skills

Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Anxiety in Children and Adolescents with ASD

Children and adolescents with a neurodevelopmental disorder experience vulnerabilities and coping deficits that contribute to the likelihood of developing co-occurring anxiety disorders. The development of anxiety disorders, including social anxiety disorder, is very often reported in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) has strong evidentiary support both in combination with medication and as a stand-alone treatment for anxiety disorders in general and more specifically for phobic-type anxiety in children, adolescents, and adults. Moreover, specific manualized CBT is an evidentiarily sound method for treating anxiety in children and adolescents with ASD

WormBook: the online review of Caenorhabditis elegans biology

WormBook () is an open-access, online collection of original, peer-reviewed chapters on the biology of Caenorhabditis elegans and related nematodes. Since WormBook was launched in June 2005 with 12 chapters, it has grown to over 100 chapters, covering nearly every aspect of C.elegans research, from Cell Biology and Neurobiology to Evolution and Ecology. WormBook also serves as the text companion to WormBase, the C.elegans model organism database. Objects such as genes, proteins and cells are linked to the relevant pages in WormBase, providing easily accessible background information. Additionally, WormBook chapters contain links to other relevant topics in WormBook, and the in-text citations are linked to their abstracts in PubMed and full-text references, if available. Since WormBook is online, its chapters are able to contain movies and complex images that would not be possible in a print version. WormBook is designed to keep up with the rapid pace of discovery in the field of C.elegans research and continues to grow. WormBook represents a generic publishing infrastructure that is easily adaptable to other research communities to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge in the field

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Language Minority Populations Twice Neglected: A Critical Ethnographic Study of Language Education Policy and Practice in Middle America

The bulk of the work in policy and planning for educating language minority children in the US has been done in urban centers, which have had long traditions of educating these populations. Demographics are changing in the US; regions of the US not previously affected are experiencing an influx of language minorities. In addition, the Western and “other” worlds, more and more find themselves living side by side. Therefore, it is important that educators in non-urban settings understand language minority issues, and understand these voices and ways of knowing in regions without a tradition of educating minorities create. Through this knowledge educators can better create and adjust curricula to meet the needs of these newcomers. Using a case study approach to illuminate the findings, the researcher reports through the voices of students, teachers, English as a second language staff in the district, administrators and parents in this community. Hornberger\u27s Continua Model of Biliteracy (1989, 2000) is used to situate the complex relationships between bilingualism and literacy that are uncovered through the findings. The Continua Model is also useful in understanding power relationships and their fluctuations in this unique setting in the mid-South. Findings, conclusions and implications for educational language planning and policymakers are presented

Language Minority Populations Twice Neglected: A Critical Ethnographic Study of Language Education Policy and Practice in Middle America

The bulk of the work in policy and planning for educating language minority children in the US has been done in urban centers, which have had long traditions of educating these populations. Demographics are changing in the US; regions of the US not previously affected are experiencing an influx of language minorities. In addition, the Western and “other” worlds, more and more find themselves living side by side. Therefore, it is important that educators in non-urban settings understand language minority issues, and understand these voices and ways of knowing in regions without a tradition of educating minorities create. Through this knowledge educators can better create and adjust curricula to meet the needs of these newcomers. Using a case study approach to illuminate the findings, the researcher reports through the voices of students, teachers, English as a second language staff in the district, administrators and parents in this community. Hornberger\u27s Continua Model of Biliteracy (1989, 2000) is used to situate the complex relationships between bilingualism and literacy that are uncovered through the findings. The Continua Model is also useful in understanding power relationships and their fluctuations in this unique setting in the mid-South. Findings, conclusions and implications for educational language planning and policymakers are presented

Positioning of ESL Saudi Women and Challenges They Face While Learning English in the United States

Using the positioning theory of Davies and Harre’ (1999), researchers interviewed ESL Arabic speaking women about issues and challenges of studying English in one mid-south US university. Learning about the social and cultural backgrounds of this specific group can positively impact their English language learning and educational experiences. By helping this group of learners succeed, educators can impact not only these women, but the societies they are going to teach upon returning home. The results indicated that participants took multiple positionings; 1) positioning in relation to gender identity, 2) positioning as a factor for change through education