Using Reality Therapy in Schools: Its Potential Impact on the Effectiveness of the ASCA National Model

The primary purpose of this manuscript is to examine the application of Reality Therapy in schools. The basic components of the American School Counseling Association\u27s National Model and also the core tenets of Reality Therapy are reviewed in terms of pertinent literature. This is followed by a focus on the delivery system national model. Lastly, specific emphasis will be placedon the potential impact Reality Therapy can have on student academic achievement, personal/social development, and career decision-making skills when applied to each program component

Biomass burning emisison inventory with daily resolution: Application to aircraft observations of Asian outflow

We develop a daily-resolved global emission inventory for biomass burning using AVHRR satellite observations of fire activity corrected for data gaps and scan angle biases. We implemented this inventory in a global three-dimensional model (GEOSCHEM) to simulate aircraft CO observations during the TRACE-P mission over the NW Pacific in February-April 2001. Seasonal biomass burning in SE Asia was a major contributor to the outflow of Asian pollution observed in TRACE-P and shows large day-to-day fluctuations that vary depending on location. Three simulations were conducted with the same 3-month total (February-April) emissions but different temporal distributions: 2001 daily resolved, 2001 monthly resolved, and climatological monthly resolved. The effect of daily resolved versus monthly resolved 2001 emissions in the simulation of CO is less than 8 ppbv in Asian outflow over the NW Pacific but can exceed 100 ppbv over source regions. The relatively small effect in Asian outflow reflects spatial and temporal averaging of emissions during ageing in the continental boundary layer. Significant improvement in the simulation of TRACE-P observations (as diagnosed by the resolved variance) is found when using 2001 monthly versus climatological monthly emissions, but using 2001 daily emissions does not offer further improvement. Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union

Radiation- and water-use associated with growth and yields of wheat and chickpea in sole and mixed crops

A renewed interest in mixed cropping for its potential to boost yields through increased capture and use of solar radiation and soil-water by the component species. This led to the present study, in which we assessed the performance of wheat and chickpea, grown as sole crops or mixed at half their sole crop populations for their capacity to capture and use solar radiation and soil-water. Trials were conducted in the drought season of 1994 and with or without supplementary irrigation in an average rainfall season of 1995. For the rainfed crops in both years, there was no advantage of mixed crops over wheat grown as a sole crop (wheat-s) either in terms of green area index (GAI), fraction of photosynthetically active radiation intercepted by the canopy (iPAR), dry matter (DM) or grain yield produced. The lack of a yield advantage of mixed cropping was associated with poor canopy development and low yielding capacity of chickpea; it was unable to compensate for its reduced population density in the mixture. Grain yield for chickpea in the mixed crop (chickpea-m) averaged just 29% that of its sole crop (chickpea-s), whereas wheat grown in mixture (wheat-m) produced 72% the yield for wheat-s. Supplementary irrigation from early spring onwards in 1995 increased yield for chickpea-m by 44% over that of chickpea-s, while yield for wheat-m fell to 65% that for wheat-s. Every millimetre of irrigation water increased yield by 10.0, 3.8 and 12.5 kg ha-1 for wheat-s, mixed crop and chickpea-s, respectively. Mixed cropping did not affect the time taken by either wheat or chickpea to attain maximum growth rate, flowering or maturity. The land equivalent ratio (LER) based on grain yields for wheat-chickpea intercropping were 1.01 in 1994, 1.02 without irrigation in 1995, and 1.10 with irrigation in 1995. Neither radiation-use-efficiency nor water-use-efficiency was improved by mixed cropping compared with wheat-s. The poor performance of the mixed crop was ascribed to its poor canopy development early in the season, especially by the chickpea that resulted in low iPAR and transpiration. It is concluded that there was no advantage of growing wheat and chickpea in mixed crops in southern cereal belts of Australia if total biomass or grain yield is the primary purpose. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Constraints on Asian and European sources of methane from Ch 4-C2H6-CO correlations in Asian outflow

Aircraft observations of Asian outflow from the Transport and Chemical Evolution Over the Pacific (TRACE-P) aircraft mission over the NW Pacific (March and April 2001) show large CH4 enhancements relative to background, as well as strong CH4-C2H 6-CO correlations that provide signatures of regional sources. We apply a global chemical transport model simulation of the CH4-C2H6-CO system for the TRACE-P period to interpret these observations in terms of CH4 sources and to explore in particular the unique constraints from the CH 4-C2H6-CO correlations. We use as a priori a global CH4 source inventory constrained with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) surface observations [Wang et al., 2004]. We find that the observed CH4 concentration enhancements and CH4-C2H6-CO correlations in Asian outflow in TRACE-P are deterinined mainly by anthropogenic emissions from China and Eurasia (defined here as Europe and eastern Russia), with only little contribution from tropical sources (wetlands and biomass burning). The a priori inventory overestimates the observed CH4 enhancements and shows regionally variable biases for the CH4/C2H6 slope. The CH 4/CO slopes are simulated without significant bias. Matching both the observed CH4 enhancements and the CH 4-C2H6-CO slopes in Asian outflow requires increasing the east Asian anthropogenic source of CH 4, and decreasing the Eurasian anthropogenic source, by at least 30% for both. The need to increase the east Asian source is driven by the underestimate of the CH4/C2H 6 slope in boundary layer Chinese outflow. The Streets et al. [2003] anthropogenic emission inventory for east Asia fits this constraint by increasing CH4 emissions from that region by 40% relative to the a priori, largely because of higher livestock and landfill source estimates. Eurasian sources (mostly European) then need to be reduced by 30-50% from the a priori value of 68 Tg yr -1. The decrease of European sources could result in part from recent mitigation of emissions from coal mining and landfills. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union

Young neutron stars with soft gamma ray emission and anomalous X-ray pulsar

The observational properties of Soft Gamma Repeaters and Ano\-malous X-ray Pulsars (SGR/AXP) indicate to necessity of the energy source different from a rotational energy of a neutron star. The model, where the source of the energy is connected with a magnetic field dissipation in a highly magnetized neutron star (magnetar) is analyzed. Some observational inconsistencies are indicated for this interpretation. The alternative energy source, connected with the nuclear energy of superheavy nuclei stored in the nonequilibrium layer of low mass neutron star is discussed.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 A.W. Alsabti, P. Murdin (eds.), Handbook of Supernova

Clinical-pathological study on β-APP, IL-1β, GFAP, NFL, Spectrin II, 8OHdG, TUNEL, miR-21, miR-16, miR-92 expressions to verify DAI-diagnosis, grade and prognosis

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most important death and disability cause, involving substantial costs, also in economic terms, when considering the young age of the involved subject. Aim of this paper is to report a series of patients treated at our institutions, to verify neurological results at six months or survival; in fatal cases we searched for βAPP, GFAP, IL-1β, NFL, Spectrin II, TUNEL and miR-21, miR-16, and miR-92 expressions in brain samples, to verify DAI diagnosis and grade as strong predictor of survival and inflammatory response. Concentrations of 8OHdG as measurement of oxidative stress was performed. Immunoreaction of β-APP, IL-1β, GFAP, NFL, Spectrin II and 8OHdG were significantly increased in the TBI group with respect to control group subjects. Cell apoptosis, measured by TUNEL assay, were significantly higher in the study group than control cases. Results indicated that miR-21, miR-92 and miR-16 have a high predictive power in discriminating trauma brain cases from controls and could represent promising biomarkers as strong predictor of survival, and for the diagnosis of postmortem traumatic brain injury

Should Research Ethics Encourage the Production of Cost-Effective Interventions?

This project considers whether and how research ethics can contribute to the provision of cost-effective medical interventions. Clinical research ethics represents an underexplored context for the promotion of cost-effectiveness. In particular, although scholars have recently argued that research on less-expensive, less-effective interventions can be ethical, there has been little or no discussion of whether ethical considerations justify curtailing research on more expensive, more effective interventions. Yet considering cost-effectiveness at the research stage can help ensure that scarce resources such as tissue samples or limited subject popula- tions are employed where they do the most good; can support parallel efforts by providers and insurers to promote cost-effectiveness; and can ensure that research has social value and benefits subjects. I discuss and rebut potential objections to the consideration of cost-effectiveness in research, including the difficulty of predicting effectiveness and cost at the research stage, concerns about limitations in cost-effectiveness analysis, and worries about overly limiting researchers’ freedom. I then consider the advantages and disadvantages of having certain participants in the research enterprise, including IRBs, advisory committees, sponsors, investigators, and subjects, consider cost-effectiveness. The project concludes by qualifiedly endorsing the consideration of cost-effectiveness at the research stage. While incorporating cost-effectiveness considerations into the ethical evaluation of human subjects research will not on its own ensure that the health care system realizes cost-effectiveness goals, doing so nonetheless represents an important part of a broader effort to control rising medical costs

Cross-species gene expression analysis of species specific differences in the preclinical assessment of pharmaceutical compounds

Animals are frequently used as model systems for determination of safety and efficacy in pharmaceutical research and development. However, significant quantitative and qualitative differences exist between humans and the animal models used in research. This is as a result of genetic variation between human and the laboratory animal. Therefore the development of a system that would allow the assessment of all molecular differences between species after drug exposure would have a significant impact on drug evaluation for toxicity and efficacy. Here we describe a cross-species microarray methodology that identifies and selects orthologous probes after cross-species sequence comparison to develop an orthologous cross-species gene expression analysis tool. The assumptions made by the use of this orthologous gene expression strategy for cross-species extrapolation is that; conserved changes in gene expression equate to conserved pharmacodynamic endpoints. This assumption is supported by the fact that evolution and selection have maintained the structure and function of many biochemical pathways over time, resulting in the conservation of many important processes. We demonstrate this cross-species methodology by investigating species specific differences of the peroxisome proliferatoractivator receptor (PPAR) a response in rat and human

The Effects of Removal of Juniperus virginiana L. Trees and Litter from a Central Oklahoma Grassland

We studied species composition after Juniperus virginiana tree and litter removal in a central Oklahoma grassland. Tree removal had the most significant effect on stems per quadrat and vegetation cover. Litter removal effects were not as strong. However, stems per quadrat and vegetation cover in litter removal treatments were higher than in litter intact treatments. Species richness increased for all treatments in the first year post-treatment, after which species richness declined at every sampling period and in every treatment for the duration of the study. Absolute cover of typical prairie species increased in the cut with no litter treatment hereas cover of woody forest species increased in the no cut with no litter treatment. We suggest that even without prescribed fire, redcedar tree removal may result in a return of prairie vegetation. However, additional efforts besides tree removal may be required to restore some invaded grasslands