What students talk about when they talk about reading: a study of self-concept in reading in a second or foreign language

The self, the self-concept and identity are contested areas in various domains of enquiry. In cognitive psychology, the self is seen as a powerful explanatory construct. Indeed, in the education context, self-concept has been associated with achievement and motivation, though sociocultural approaches have highlighted the failure of certain schools of thought to take account of contextual and relational self processes. Nonetheless, despite the importance of the concept of self for learning, it has only fairly recently become of significant interest in the field of second or foreign language learning (L2). This longitudinal study focuses on the nature of, and changes in, students’ L2 reading self-concepts. In order to navigate the complexity of the theoretical issues surrounding the self construct, the approach of Rom Harré (1998) was adopted in which the self is seen as a frame for the discourse of personal attributes, reflexive self-beliefs and action. This perspective underpinned a mixed methods approach to enquiry with a group of international students taking a nine-month business pre-masters pathway programme. Based on the work of Pollard and Filer (1996), a framework for the narrative description of L2 reading self-concept was devised which provided a broad account of self-views of L2 reading, showing how these are linked in important ways to personal histories and the situational context. It was found that perception of competence was the main area of L2 reading self-concept change. Findings also included the importance of competence perceptions and the role of language knowledge in distinguishing L2 reading self-views. It is hoped that the model of L2 reading self-concept developed will enhance understanding of students’ experience of reading and learning through a second or foreign language. This should enable educators to support students more effectively, especially in international education contexts in which students study through another language. Areas for further research into L2 reading self-views in this type of context are suggested

Using PTE Academic to predict achievement and measure proficiency gains in an intensive EAP foundation programme

This study evaluates how well the Pearson Test of English – Academic (PTE-A) predicts students’ performance in a pre-university EAP programme, how much progress students make on the EAP programme in terms of PTE-A scores, and what individual differences influence their performance. PTE-A is shown to be a relatively good predictor of student performance, with overall correlations of rs = .58 between pre-programme PTE-A scores and performance in end-of-programme assessments. This predictive relationship was shown to be relatively constant across a wide range of student variables. Over the ten-week programme, students improved their PTE-A scores by between 2.5 (for speaking) and 5.5 (for reading) points. This is in line with findings from previous studies which have measured gains in terms of IELTS bands. Important variables influencing gain scores were the age at which students had started learning English (late starters improved the most), the amount of extra-curricular reading done during the programme and attitudes towards the PTE-A test

The Iowa Homemaker vol.37, no.2

They Say it’s Love, Ann Baur, page 4 Marry in a College Chapel, Merna Borror, page 6 Learned by Heart, Beth Cummings Paschal, page 7 I’d Like to Know, Sandy Newman, page 8 Blueprint for Packing, Carolyn McIntyre, page 10 The Honeymoon, Reverie to Reality, Jackie Andre, page 11 Present Picker, Marilyn Jensen Nadler, page 12 An Electric Dinner, Ann Walters, page 14 Say Yes… To Entertaining, Rosemary McBride and Roma Walker, page 15 ABC’s of Money Management, Linda Nelson and Marie Budolfson, page 16 What’s in a Wedding Custom, Janice Furman, page 18 Plain Clothes Man? Ha!, Norma Scholes, page 22 Why All This Fuss Over Sex, Gail A. McClure, page 2

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Integrated Genomic Analysis of the Ubiquitin Pathway across Cancer Types

Protein ubiquitination is a dynamic and reversibleprocess of adding single ubiquitin molecules orvarious ubiquitin chains to target proteins. Here,using multidimensional omic data of 9,125 tumorsamples across 33 cancer types from The CancerGenome Atlas, we perform comprehensive molecu-lar characterization of 929 ubiquitin-related genesand 95 deubiquitinase genes. Among them, we sys-tematically identify top somatic driver candidates,including mutatedFBXW7with cancer-type-specificpatterns and amplifiedMDM2showing a mutuallyexclusive pattern withBRAFmutations. Ubiquitinpathway genes tend to be upregulated in cancermediated by diverse mechanisms. By integratingpan-cancer multiomic data, we identify a group oftumor samples that exhibit worse prognosis. Thesesamples are consistently associated with the upre-gulation of cell-cycle and DNA repair pathways, char-acterized by mutatedTP53,MYC/TERTamplifica-tion, andAPC/PTENdeletion. Our analysishighlights the importance of the ubiquitin pathwayin cancer development and lays a foundation fordeveloping relevant therapeutic strategies