Reading Success Stories: Case Studies of Somali Elementary Students

A major challenge that elementary ESL teachers face is that of helping students achieve reading competency. There are many factors that play a part in learning to read in a first language. English Learners have additional challenges as they learn to read in a second language. These factors and challenges are investigated and reviewed within this study. The author was curious about a few Somali students in her school who achieve high levels of reading proficiency. The research question for this study was, what factors lead to reading success for Somali elementary students and how do we support these students? This study consisted of interviews with the parents and teachers of three Somali elementary students, as well as classroom observations and review of data, to determine possible factors that promote second language reading success

The democratic lessons learned—How experiences of (un-)equal treatment in school influence satisfaction with democracy in later life

Previous studies have shown that economic and political experiences influence the level of satisfaction with democracy; however, they fail to explain whether these experiences have the same effect for everyone, whether there is interindividual variance and where these differences might be rooted. In this article, we investigate these roots of interindividual variance and base our argument on the observation that early experiences in school are formative and influence the effect of economic and political experiences on satisfaction with democracy. We analyze an original representative dataset on the German population to test how school experiences, more precisely equal treatment in school, interact with economic and political experiences in later life and thereby influence satisfaction with democracy. We find that school experiences play a significant role here. Voting for the governing parties especially increases satisfaction with democracy if respondents were treated equally in school. Similarly, past experiences of unemployment in particular decrease people’s levels of satisfaction with the political system if they were not treated equally in school. The findings highlight that early experiences made in school can have a relevant influence on satisfaction with democracy in later life

Secondary analysis of an RCT on Emergency Department-Initiated Tobacco Control: Repeatedly assessed point-prevalence abstinence up to 12 months and extension of results through a 10-year follow-up.

INTRODUCTION:Emergency departments (EDs) are opportune places for tobacco control interventions. The 'Tobacco Control in an Urban Emergency Department' (TED) study, ISRCTN41527831, originally evaluated the effect of motivational interviewing on-site plus up to four booster telephone calls on 12-month abstinence. This study's aim was to evaluate the effect of the intervention on 7-day point-prevalence abstinence at 10 years follow-up (primary outcome) as well as on repeated point-prevalence abstinence at 1, 3, 6, 12 months and at 10 years (continual smoking abstinence, secondary outcome). METHODS:At the 10 years follow-up and after informed consent, study participants responded to a mailed questionnaire. The primary outcome was analyzed in observed-only and in all-cases analyses. The secondary outcomes were analyzed using a multiple adjusted GLMM for binary outcomes. RESULTS:Out of 1012 TED-study participants, 986 (97.4%) were alive and 231 (23.4% of 986) responded to the follow-up at 10 years. For observed-only and all-cases analyses, the effect of the baseline intervention on 7-day point-prevalence abstinence at the 10 years follow-up was statistically non-significant. However, when taking into account all repeated measures, the intervention significantly influenced continual abstinence with odds ratio 1.32 (95% CI: 1.01-1.73; p=0.042). Baseline motivation, perceived self-efficacy to stop smoking, and nicotine dependency were independently associated with long-term continual smoking abstinence (all p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS:A conventional analysis failed to confirm a significant effect of the ED-initiated tobacco control intervention on the point-prevalence abstinence at 10 years. Results from a more integrative analysis nonetheless indicated an enduring intervention effect on continual abstinence among smokers first encountered in the emergency department setting 10 years earlier

Circadian patterns in postvoid residual and voided percentage among older women with urinary incontinence

Background: Women with urinary incontinence incur an increased risk of elevated postvoid residual (PVR) volume and impaired voiding efficiency (i.e., voided percentage (Void%)), but the clinical significance of these parameters remains poorly described. Further characterization of PVR and voiding efficiency may thus be useful in refining the evaluation and management of urinary incontinence. This study aims to explore possible circadian variations in PVR and Void% in older women with stress (SUI), urge (UUI) and mixed urinary incontinence (MUI). Methods: A single center prospective study which enrolled a convenience sample of 90 older women who consulted a tertiary referral hospital for urinary incontinence. Participants underwent an extensive medical interview and were hospitalized to complete a 24-h frequency-volume chart (FVC) with PVR measurement after each void (FVCPVR). Results: FVCPVR analysis demonstrated no differences in mean PVR and Void% between patients with SUI, UUI and MUI. Likewise, no daytime or nighttime differences were observed in mean PVR or Void% within or between groups. Conclusions: No evidence of circadian variation in PVR or Void% was observed in older women with SUI, UUI or MUI

Biomineral repair of Abalone shell apertures

The shell of the gastropod mollusc, abalone, is comprised of nacre with an outer prismatic layer that is composed of either calcite or aragonite or both, depending on the species. A striking characteristic of the abalone shell is the row of apertures along the dorsal margin. As the organism and shell grow, new apertures are formed and the preceding ones are filled in. Detailed investigations, using electron backscatter diffraction, of the infill in three species of abalone: Haliotis asinina, Haliotis gigantea and Haliotis rufescens reveals that, like the shell, the infill is composed mainly of nacre with an outer prismatic layer. The infill prismatic layer has identical mineralogy as the original shell prismatic layer. In H. asinina and H. gigantea, the prismatic layer of the shell and infill are made of aragonite while in H. rufescens both are composed of calcite. Abalone builds the infill material with the same high level of biological control, replicating the structure, mineralogy and crystallographic orientation as for the shell. The infill of abalone apertures presents us with insight into what is, effectively, shell repair

Molecular characterization of the feline T-cell receptor γ alternate reading frame protein (TARP) ortholog

T-cell receptor γ alternate reading frame protein (TARP) is expressed by human prostate epithelial, prostate cancer, and mammary cancer cells, but is not found in normal mammary tissue. To date, this protein has only been described in humans. Additionally, no animal model has been established to investigate the potential merits of TARP as tumor marker or a target for adoptive tumor immunotherapy. In this study conducted to characterize feline T-cell receptor γ sequences, constructs very similar to human TARP transcripts were obtained by RACE from the spleen and prostate gland of cats. Transcription of TARP in normal, hyperplastic, and neoplastic feline mammary tissues was evaluated by conventional RT-PCR. In felines similarly to the situation reported in humans, a C-region encoding two open reading frames is spliced to a J-region gene. In contrast to humans, the feline J-region gene was found to be a pseudogene containing a deletion within its recombination signal sequence. Our findings demonstrated that the feline TARP ortholog is transcribed in the prostate gland and mammary tumors but not normal mammary tissues as is the case with human TARP