108 resultados para BON-9-A
Resumo:
Tutoring is commonly employed to prevent early reading failure, and evidence suggests that it can have a positive effect. This article presents findings from a large-scale (n = 734) randomized controlled trial evaluation of the effect of Time to Read—a volunteer tutoring program aimed at children aged 8 to 9 years—on reading comprehension, self-esteem, locus of control, enjoyment of learning, and future aspirations. The study found that the program had only a relatively small effect on children’s aspirations (effect size +0.17, 95% confidence interval [0.015, 0.328]) and no other outcomes. It is suggested that this lack of evidence found may be due to misspecification of the program logic model and outcomes identified and program-related factors, particularly the low dosage of the program.
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Aims: This study assessed the efficacy of a school-based healthy lifestyle intervention (Sport for LIFE) for increasing physical activity, decreasing sedentary behaviour, reducing screen time behaviour, encouraging healthy attitudes and behaviour to nutrition, and reducing body mass index (BMI) in 8–9-year-old primary school children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in Northern Ireland.
Methods: A non-randomised controlled trial of 416 children from 24 schools took part. Schools were randomly assigned to one of two groups, an intervention or control group with 12 schools in each group. The intervention group received a 12-week school-based programme based on social cognitive theory. At baseline and follow-up, groups completed questionnaires assessing physical activity, screen time behaviour and dietary patterns. On each occasion anthropometric assessments of height and weight were taken. Physical activity and sedentary behaviour were measured by accelerometry.
Results Significant effects were observed for vigorous, moderate and light activity for the intervention group at follow-up. Sedentary behaviour was significantly reduced for the intervention group but not for the control group. No significant effects of the intervention on BMI, screen time behaviour or attitudes to nutrition, with the exception of non-core foods, were shown.
Conclusions: The programme was effective in increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour, however no significant changes in screen time behaviour and attitude to nutrition, with the exception of non-core foods, were observed. Future research ideas are offered for tackling low levels of physical activity in children.
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The relationship between parental background and children's educational outcomes has been a dominant theme within the sociology of education. There has been an on-going debate as to the relative merits of explanations which focus on the role of socio-cultural reproduction and those which focus on rational choice. However, many empirical studies within the social stratification tradition fail to allow for children's own agency in shaping the relationship between social background and schooling outcomes. This paper draws on the first wave of a large-scale longitudinal study of over 8,000 nine-year-old children in Ireland, which combines information from parents, school principals, teachers and children themselves. Both social class and parental education are found to have significant effects on reading and mathematics test scores among nine year olds. These effects are partly mediated by home-based educational resources and activities, parents' educational expectations for their child, and parents' formal involvement in the school. More importantly, children's own engagement with, and attitudes to, school significantly influence their academic performance. The influence of children's own attitudes and actions can thus reinforce or mitigate the effect of social background factors. The analysis therefore provides a bridge between the large body of research on the intergenerational transmission of inequality and the emerging research and policy literature on children's rights.
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Galectin-9 expression in endothelial cells can be induced in response to inflammation. However, the mechanism of its expression remains unclear. In this study, we found that interferon-? (IFN-?) induced galectin-9 expression in human endothelial cells in a time-dependent manner, which coincided with the activation of histone deacetylase (HDAC). When endothelial cells were treated with the HDAC3 inhibitor, apicidin, or shRNA-HDAC3 knockdown, IFN-?-induced galectin-9 expression was abolished. Overexpression of HDAC3 induced the interaction between phosphoinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and IFN response factor 3 (IRF3), leading to IRF3 phosphorylation, nuclear translocation, and galectin-9 expression. HDAC3 functioned as a scaffold protein for PI3K/IRF3 interaction. In addition to galectin-9 expression, IFN-? also induced galectin-9 location onto plasma membrane, which was HDAC3-independent. Importantly, HDAC3 was essential for the constitutive transcription of PI3K and IRF3, which might be responsible for the basal level of galectin-9 expression. The phosphorylation of IRF3 was essential for galectin-9 expression. This study provides new evidence that HDAC3 regulates galectin-9 expression in endothelial cells via interaction with PI3K-IRF3 signal pathway.
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Objective: We tested the hypothesis that patients with difficult asthma have an increased frequency of certain genotypes that predispose them to asthma exacerbations and poor asthma control.
Methods: A total of 180 Caucasian children with confirmed asthma diagnosis were selected from two phenotypic groups; difficult (n = 112) versus mild/moderate asthma (n = 68) groups. All patients were screened for 19 polymorphisms in 9 candidate genes to evaluate their association with difficult asthma.
Key Results: The results indicated that LTA4H A-9188.G, TNFa G-308.A and IL-4Ra A1727.G polymorphisms were significantly associated with the development of difficult asthma in paediatric patients (p,0.001, p = 0.019 and p = 0.037, respectively). Haplotype analysis also revealed two haplotypes (ATA haplotype of IL-4Ra A1199.C, IL-4Ra T1570.C and IL- 4Ra A1727.G and CA haplotype of TNFa C-863.A and TNFa G-308.A polymorphisms) which were significantly associated with difficult asthma in children (p = 0.04 and p = 0.018, respectively).
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance: The study revealed multiple SNPs and haplotypes in LTA4H, TNFa and IL4-Ra genes which constitute risk factors for the development of difficult asthma in children. Of particular interest is the LTA4H A- 9188.G polymorphism which has been reported, for the first time, to have strong association with severe asthma in children. Our results suggest that screening for patients with this genetic marker could help characterise the heterogeneity of responses to leukotriene-modifying medications and, hence, facilitate targeting these therapies to the subset of patients who are most likely to gain benefit. ©2013 Almomani et al.
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Yersinia enterocolitica serotype O:9 is a gram-negative enteropathogen that infects animals and humans. The role of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in Y. enterocolitica O:9 pathogenesis, however, remains unclear. The O:9 LPS consists of lipid A to which is linked the inner core oligosaccharide, serving as an attachment site for both the outer core (OC) hexasaccharide and the O-polysaccharide (OPS; a homopolymer of N-formylperosamine). In this work, we cloned the OPS gene cluster of O:9 and identified 12 genes organized into four operons upstream of the gnd gene. Ten genes were predicted to encode glycosyltransferases, the ATP-binding cassette polysaccharide translocators, or enzymes required for the biosynthesis of GDP-N-formylperosamine. The two remaining genes within the OPS gene cluster, galF and galU, were not ascribed a clear function in OPS biosynthesis; however, the latter gene appeared to be essential for O:9. The biological functions of O:9 OPS and OC were studied using isogenic mutants lacking one or both of these LPS parts. We showed that OPS and OC confer resistance to human complement and polymyxin B; the OPS effect on polymyxin B resistance could be observed only in the absence of OC.
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Growing evidence suggests that significant motor problems are associated with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), particularly in catching tasks. Catching is a complex, dynamic skill that involves the ability to synchronise one's own movement to that of a moving target. To successfully complete the task, the participant must pick up and use perceptual information about the moving target to arrive at the catching place at the right time. This study looks at catching ability in children diagnosed with ASD (mean age 10.16 ± 0.9 years) and age-matched non-verbal (9.72 ± 0.79 years) and receptive language (9.51 ± 0.46) control groups. Participants were asked to "catch" a ball as it rolled down a fixed ramp. Two ramp heights provided two levels of task difficulty, whilst the sensory information (audio and visual) specifying ball arrival time was varied. Results showed children with ASD performed significantly worse than both the receptive language (p =.02) and non-verbal (p =.02) control groups in terms of total number of balls caught. A detailed analysis of the movement kinematics showed that difficulties with picking up and using the sensory information to guide the action may be the source of the problem. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.
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French Seminar Series
Belfast, December 2010
