Mentoring School-Age Children: A Classification of Programs

The number of mentoring programs providing adult support to youth has increased dramatically in recent years. This report presents information on the characteristics of programs serving school-aged youth (K-12). We found that rather than simply replicating the traditional Big Brothers Big Sisters model, newer programs are emphasizing somewhat more instrumental goals and activities, as well as experimenting with different types of relationships (group, school-based, etc.). Most programs seem to have sufficient infrastructure to screen, train, and supervise their mentors adequately, but many de-emphasize the importance of developing long-term relationships

Thermal conductivity of gaseous and liquid hydrogen

Normal and para-hydrogen conductivity measurements at temperatures from 200 to 17 deg K, at densities up to 2.6 times critical density, and at pressures to 15 MN/sq m are made. Using new calorimeter, data are analyzed as functions of density at fixed temperatures and of temperature at fixed densitie

Transport Properties of the One Dimensional Ferromagnetic Kondo Lattice Model : A Qualitative Approach to Oxide Manganites

The transport properties of the ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model in one dimension are studied via bosonization methods. The antiferromagnetic fluctuations, which normally appear because of the RKKY interactions, are explicitly taken into account as a direct exchange between the ``core'' spins. It is shown that in the paramagnetic regime with the local antiferromagnetic fluctuations, the resistivity decays exponentially as the temperature increases while in the ferromagnetic regime the system is an almost perfect conductor. %A non-perturbative description of localized spin polarons %in the paramagnetic region is obtained. The effect of a weak applied field is discussed to be reduced to the case of the ferromagnetic state leading to band splitting. The qualitative relevance of the results for the problem of the Oxide Manganites is emphasized.Comment: 4 pages, REVTe

Magnetoresistance in Mn pyrochlore: electrical transport in a low carrier density ferromagnet

We discuss magnetotransport in a low density electron gas coupled to spin fluctuations near and above a ferromagnetic transition. Provided the density is low enough ($n \lesssim 1/\xi^{3}(T)$, with $\xi(T)$ the ferromagnetic correlation length), spin polarons form in an intermediate temperature regime above $T_c$. Both in the spin polaron regime, and in the itinerant regime nearer $T_c$, the magnetoresistance is large. We propose that this provides a good model for ``colossal'' magnetoresistance in the pyrochlore Tl$_{2-x}$Sc$_x$Mn$_2$O$_7$, fundamentally different from the mechanism in the perovskite manganites such as La$_{1-x}$Sr$_x$MnO$_3$.Comment: 4 pages, LaTex, + 3 figure

Conformational changes of calmodulin upon Ca2+ binding studied with a microfluidic mixer

A microfluidic mixer is applied to study the kinetics of calmodulin conformational changes upon Ca2+ binding. The device facilitates rapid, uniform mixing by decoupling hydrodynamic focusing from diffusive mixing and accesses time scales of tens of microseconds. The mixer is used in conjunction with multiphoton microscopy to examine the fast Ca2+-induced transitions of acrylodan-labeled calmodulin. We find that the kinetic rates of the conformational changes in two homologous globular domains differ by more than an order of magnitude. The characteristic time constants are ≈490 μs for the transitions in the C-terminal domain and ≈20 ms for those in the N-terminal domain of the protein. We discuss possible mechanisms for the two distinct events and the biological role of the stable intermediate, half-saturated calmodulin

Cancer survival for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: a national study of survival rates and excess mortality

BackgroundNational cancer survival statistics are available for the total Australian population but not Indigenous Australians, although their cancer mortality rates are known to be higher than those of other Australians. We aimed to validate analysis methods and report cancer survival rates for Indigenous Australians as the basis for regular national reporting.MethodsWe used national cancer registrations data to calculate all-cancer and site-specific relative survival for Indigenous Australians (compared with non-Indigenous Australians) diagnosed in 2001-2005. Because of limited availability of Indigenous life tables, we validated and used cause-specific survival (rather than relative survival) for proportional hazards regression to analyze time trends and regional variation in all-cancer survival between 1991 and 2005.ResultsSurvival was lower for Indigenous than non-Indigenous Australians for all cancers combined and for many cancer sites. The excess mortality of Indigenous people with cancer was restricted to the first three years after diagnosis, and greatest in the first year. Survival was lower for rural and remote than urban residents; this disparity was much greater for Indigenous people. Survival improved between 1991 and 2005 for non-Indigenous people (mortality decreased by 28%), but to a much lesser extent for Indigenous people (11%) and only for those in remote areas; cancer survival did not improve for urban Indigenous residents.ConclusionsCancer survival is lower for Indigenous than other Australians, for all cancers combined and many individual cancer sites, although more accurate recording of Indigenous status by cancer registers is required before the extent of this disadvantage can be known with certainty. Cancer care for Indigenous Australians needs to be considerably improved; cancer diagnosis, treatment, and support services need to be redesigned specifically to be accessible and acceptable to Indigenous people

An appraisal of analytical tools used in predicting clinical outcomes following radiation therapy treatment of men with prostate cancer: a systematic review

Background: Prostate cancer can be treated with several different modalities, including radiation treatment. Various prognostic tools have been developed to aid decision making by providing estimates of the probability of different outcomes. Such tools have been demonstrated to have better prognostic accuracy than clinical judgment alone. Methods: A systematic review was undertaken to identify papers relating to the prediction of clinical outcomes (biochemical failure, metastasis, survival) in patients with prostate cancer who received radiation treatment, with the particular aim of identifying whether published tools are adequately developed, validated, and provide accurate predictions. PubMed and EMBASE were searched from July 2007. Title and abstract screening, full text review, and critical appraisal were conducted by two reviewers. A review protocol was published in advance of commencing literature searches. Results: The search strategy resulted in 165 potential articles, of which 72 were selected for full text review and 47 ultimately included. These papers described 66 models which were newly developed and 31 which were external validations of already published predictive tools. The included studies represented a total of 60,457 patients, recruited between 1984 and 2009. Sixty five percent of models were not externally validated, 57% did not report accuracy and 31% included variables which are not readily accessible in existing datasets. Most models (72, 74%) related to external beam radiation therapy with the remainder relating to brachytherapy (alone or in combination with external beam radiation therapy). Conclusions: A large number of prognostic models (97) have been described in the recent literature, representing a rapid increase since previous reviews (17 papers, 1966–2007). Most models described were not validated and a third utilised variables which are not readily accessible in existing data collections. Where validation had occurred, it was often limited to data taken from single institutes in the US. While validated and accurate models are available to predict prostate cancer specific mortality following external beam radiation therapy, there is a scarcity of such tools relating to brachytherapy. This review provides an accessible catalogue of predictive tools for current use and which should be prioritised for future validation.Elspeth Raymond, Michael E. O’Callaghan, Jared Campbell, Andrew D. Vincent, Kerri Beckmann, David Roder, Sue Evans, John McNeil, Jeremy Millar, John Zalcberg, Martin Borg and Kim Morett

On the Fermi Liquid to Polaron Crossover II: Double Exchange and the Physics of "Colossal" Magnetoresistance

We use the dynamical mean field method to study a model of electrons Jahn-Teller coupled to localized classical oscillators and ferromagnetically coupled to ``core spins'', which, we argue, contains the essential physics of the ``colossal magnetoresistance'' manganites $Re_{1-x} A_x MnO_3$. We determine the different regimes of the model and present results for the temperature and frequency dependence of the conductivity, the electron spectral function and the root mean square lattice parameter fluctuations. We compare our results to data, and give a qualitative discussion of important physics not included in the calculation. Extensive use is made of results from a companion paper titled: ``On the Fermi Liquid to Polaron Crossover I: General Results''.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures. Depends on previous paper titled "On the Fermi Liquid to Poalron Crossover I: General Result