Patterns of Attachment to Spouse in Battered Women: A Comparative Study between Jordanian and Algerian Women

The current study aimed at detecting the level and type of attachment in battered women. The study sample consisted of (290) women divided into two sections (207) Jordanian women and (173) Algerian women. To answer the questions of the study; the arithmetical averages, standard deviations, t-tests for groups, and tests for the two independent groups were used. The results of the study showed that the dominant attachment pattern among battered women was the avoidance pattern followed by the safe mode and the anxiety pattern.  Results also showed that there are significant differences between Jordanians and Algerian women in the pattern of attachment to the benefit of Jordanians. There were no statistically significant differences in the safe pattern between Algerian and Jordanian women. There were no statistically significant differences in the anxiety pattern between Algerian and Jordanian women. Keywords: Attachment patterns, Spouse, Battered women

From Bengali to English: sequential bilingualism of a second-generation British Bangladeshi

The paper discusses sequential language acquisition of the researcher's daughter Safa who transformed from a monolingual Bengali speaker to an almost monolingual English speaker in a few months after moving to the UK. Safa was born in Bangladesh and was a monolingual Bengali speaker until she was three years and nine months when the family moved to the UK. Unlike most research on sequential bilingualism, Safa's transition from Bengali to English went through a period of an invented language, which she developed and used for a few months. Safa then underwent language shift as Bengali became her passive language. Safa's loss of fluency in Bengali was mainly due to the absence of Bengali linguistic environment, because her family lived outside the community. Safa's mother's indifference to Bangladeshi ethnicity and her parents’ positive attitude towards Britishness meant that her decline in Bengali did not cause them much concern. Despite the lack of proficiency in Bengali, Safa still retains a strong ethnic Bangladeshi identity. Tabors and Snow’s four-stage developmental process of sequential second-language acquisition has been applied to find the similarities and differences in Safa's case, while language maintenance and shift theories have contributed to the analysis of the process of her language shift

True Selves: Narrative Distance in Stories of Fiction and Nonfiction

True Selves: Narrative Distance in Stories of Fiction and Nonfiction consists of a scholarly preface and four creative works. The preface discusses narrative distance as used in both fiction and nonfiction, and as compares to other narrative agents such as point of view, especially in contemporary creative writing. The selection of stories examines relationships, especially familial, and themes of isolation, community, and memory. Collection includes two chapters of a novel-in-progress, Fences, short fiction story "Trees and Furniture," and creative nonfiction essays, "Floating" and "On the Sparrow.

Chromosomal-level assembly of the Asian Seabass genome using long sequence reads and multi-layered scaffolding

We report here the ~670 Mb genome assembly of the Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer), a tropical marine teleost. We used long-read sequencing augmented by transcriptomics, optical and genetic mapping along with shared synteny from closely related fish species to derive a chromosome-level assembly with a contig N50 size over 1 Mb and scaffold N50 size over 25 Mb that span ~90% of the genome. The population structure of L. calcarifer species complex was analyzed by re-sequencing 61 individuals representing various regions across the species' native range. SNP analyses identified high levels of genetic diversity and confirmed earlier indications of a population stratification comprising three clades with signs of admixture apparent in the South-East Asian population. The quality of the Asian seabass genome assembly far exceeds that of any other fish species, and will serve as a new standard for fish genomics

ANALISIS KEBUTUHAN PEMBELAJARAN MENGENAL HURUF VOKAL PADA ANAK BERKEBUTUHAN KHUSUS TUNAGRAHITA RINGAN DI SDLB NEGERI PURWOSARI KUDUS

Pendidikan haruslah dilakukan keseluruhan oleh siapa saja baik manusia dengan jasmani dan rohani secara normal maupun anak yang memiliki kebutuhan khusus (ABK) seperti Anak tunagrahita. Anak tunagrahita umumnya mengalami gangguan kecerdasan atau bisa kecerdasannya dibawah rata-rata. Pada tahapan observasi awal di sdlb Negeri Purwosari kudus, yakni di kelas 2c dengan anak penyandang Tunagrahita ringan, ditemukan bahwa siswa masih kesulitan dan belum mampu dalam mengenali huruf vokal maupun menulis. Peneliti melakukan penelitian dengan jenis penelitian kualitatif studi kasus, teknik pengumpulan data dalam penelitian ini dilakukan dengan observasi dan wawancara dengan wali kelas untuk menggali informasi lebih dalam mengenai kebutuhan yang diperlukan siswa SLB kategori Tunagrahita ringan untuk mempelajari materi huruf vokal. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui dan menindaklanjuti apa saja kebutuhan yang diperlukan siswa tunagrahita dalam pembelajaran mengenal huruf vokal sehingga pembelajaran menjadi lebih optimal. Dihasilkan, bahwa penelitian ini berhasil menjadikan siswa tunagrahita belajar lebih optimal dalam mengenal dan menulis huruf dengan menggunakan media berupa flashcard dan LKPD yang menarik sehingga siswa termotivasi dan menjadi lebih bersemangat dalam pembelajaran

World Allergy Organization-McMaster University Guidelines for Allergic Disease Prevention (GLAD-P): Probiotics

Background: Prevalence of allergic diseases in infants, whose parents and siblings do not have allergy, is approximately 10% and reaches 20–30% in those with an allergic first-degree relative. Intestinal microbiota may modulate immunologic and inflammatory systemic responses and, thus, influence development of sensitization and allergy. Probiotics have been reported to modulate immune responses and their supplementation has been proposed as a preventive intervention. Objective: The World Allergy Organization (WAO) convened a guideline panel to develop evidence-based recommendations about the use of probiotics in the prevention of allergy. Methods: We identified the most relevant clinical questions and performed a systematic review of randomized controlled trials of probiotics for the prevention of allergy. We followed the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to develop recommendations. We searched for and reviewed the evidence about health effects, patient values and preferences, and resource use (up to November 2014). We followed the GRADE evidence-to-decision framework to develop recommendations. Results: Currently available evidence does not indicate that probiotic supplementation reduces the risk of developing allergy in children. However, considering all critical outcomes in this context, the WAO guideline panel determined that there is a likely net benefit from using probiotics resulting primarily from prevention of eczema. The WAO guideline panel suggests: a) using probiotics in pregnant women at high risk for having an allergic child; b) using probiotics in women who breastfeed infants at high risk of developing allergy; and c) using probiotics in infants at high risk of developing allergy. All recommendations are conditional and supported by very low quality evidence. Conclusions: WAO recommendations about probiotic supplementation for prevention of allergy are intended to support parents, clinicians and other health care professionals in their decisions whether to use probiotics in pregnancy and during breastfeeding, and whether to give them to infants

Developing bilingual learning strategies in mainstream and community contexts

This study set out to enhance theoretical understanding of bilingual learning and devise ways in which it can be built into classroom practice, through action research with children, mainstream teachers and bilingual assistants participating in the Primary National Strategy Pilot for EAL (English as an Additional Language) in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Teachers from the children’s Bengali after-school classes were involved via partnership with Tower Hamlets Community Languages Service, since community classes are sites where children already use both mother tongue and English for language and literacy learning (Robertson, 2002; Martin et al, 2004). Previous studies on bilingual learning have mostly been conducted with first generation children and/or in countries where there is mainstream bilingual education. A unique aspect of this study is that the children involved were second or third generation British Bangladeshi, mostly more fluent in English than in their mother tongue, who would not otherwise have had the opportunity to use their full language repertoire within the mainstream curriculum. Our research examined whether and how the cognitive and cultural benefits of bilingual learning found in other contexts might apply in this particular setting

Large-scale comparative genomic ranking of taxonomically restricted genes (TRGs) in bacterial and archaeal genomes

BACKGROUND: Lineage-specific, or taxonomically restricted genes (TRGs), especially those that are species and strain-specific, are of special interest because they are expected to play a role in defining exclusive ecological adaptations to particular niches. Despite this, they are relatively poorly studied and little understood, in large part because many are still orphans or only have homologues in very closely related isolates. This lack of homology confounds attempts to establish the likelihood that a hypothetical gene is expressed and, if so, to determine the putative function of the protein. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have developed "QIPP" ("Quality Index for Predicted Proteins"), an index that scores the "quality" of a protein based on non-homology-based criteria. QIPP can be used to assign a value between zero and one to any protein based on comparing its features to other proteins in a given genome. We have used QIPP to rank the predicted proteins in the proteomes of Bacteria and Archaea. This ranking reveals that there is a large amount of variation in QIPP scores, and identifies many high-scoring orphans as potentially "authentic" (expressed) orphans. There are significant differences in the distributions of QIPP scores between orphan and non-orphan genes for many genomes and a trend for less well-conserved genes to have lower QIPP scores. CONCLUSIONS: The implication of this work is that QIPP scores can be used to further annotate predicted proteins with information that is independent of homology. Such information can be used to prioritize candidates for further analysis. Data generated for this study can be found in the OrphanMine at http://www.genomics.ceh.ac.uk/orphan_mine

Production of bioactive secondary metabolites by marine Vibrionaceae

Abstract: Bacteria belonging to the Vibrionaceae family are widespread in the marine environment. Today, 128 species of vibrios are known. Several of them are infamous for their pathogenicity or symbiotic relationships. Despite their ability to interact with eukaryotes, the vibrios are greatly underexplored for their ability to produce bioactive secondary metabolites and studies have been limited to only a few species. Most of the compounds isolated from vibrios so far are non-ribosomal peptides or hybrids thereof, with examples of N-containing compounds produced independent of nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS). Though covering a limited chemical space, vibrios produce compounds with attractive biological activities, including antibacterial, anticancer, and antivirulence activities. This review highlights some of the most interesting structures from this group of bacteria. Many compounds found in vibrios have also been isolated from other distantly related bacteria. This cosmopolitan occurrence of metabolites indicates a high incidence of horizontal gene transfer, which raises interesting questions concerning the ecological function of some of these molecules. This account underlines the pending potential for exploring new bacterial sources of bioactive compounds and the challenges related to their investigation

Non-traditional socio-environmental and geospatial determinants of Alzheimer\u27s disease-related dementia mortality

Importance Recent data point to the impact of non-traditional environmental and social factors on Alzheimer\u27s Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) mortality. Our study aimed to determine the extent to which antecedent air pollution, social vulnerability, and geospatial features in the environment associate with ADRD mortality. Design This was a cross-sectional study conducted across the mainland United States. County level Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5) were linked to ADRD mortality. Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM) was used for delineating and characterizing “bumps” or spikes in mortality. SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values were used to rank variables by predictivity and association with directional changes in ADRD mortality. Exposures PM2.5 data was acquired from 1 × 1 km spatial grids using aerosol optical depth from the Atmospheric Analysis Composition Group at Washington University St. Louis. SVI was acquired from the CDC\u27s ATSDR Data, which is a composite index scale that characterizes socio-environmental vulnerability. Google Street View imagery coupled with deep learning computational techniques was used to extract features of neighborhood level environment characteristics from across the United States. Results There was a significant interaction effect between PM2.5 and SVI on ADRD mortality (β = 31.100, p \u3c 0.001). Two clusters of elevated ADRD mortality were identified: counties with high PM2.5 and SVI (HH) and with low PM2.5 and SVI (LL). Analysis of LL subset revealed associations between ADRD mortality and specific SVI subdomains, as well as built environment variables. Geospatial mapping indicated a split in these clusters along northern and southern latitudes, with differences in temperature and sunlight intensity (p \u3c 0.001) rather than urbanization driving the distribution. Conclusions Ambient air pollution interacts with SVI to influence ADRD mortality rates. Our findings support a role for non-traditional factors including elements of the built environment, geographical location, and natural environmental exposures contributing to ADRD mortality