Communication is the result of meaning making based on one’s frames of knowing. For students, those frames of knowing derive heavily from multimedia communication, including social networking sites, ...that allow them to be the makers of content. In this study, I followed an eighth‐grade student who fluidly negotiated a multitude of available social technologies, integrating them in unique and personal ways to help her attain deep and complex literacy levels. Of significance is that her engagement with these literacies was done in ways invisible within school settings and could easily be unseen, overlooked, ignored, or undervalued, failing to reveal an accurate depiction of her literacy knowledge and skills. I used the multiliteracies’ concept of design to frame the study, and I provide suggestions for educators to better identify unobserved literacy practices.
Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, and many patients with metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), poorly differentiated thyroid cancer (PDTC), and anaplastic thyroid ...cancer (ATC) fail to respond to conventional therapies, resulting in morbidity and mortality. Additional therapeutic targets and treatment options are needed for these patients. We recently reported that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is highly expressed in ATC and confers an aggressive phenotype when overexpressed in DTC cells.
Microarray analysis was used to identify downstream targets of PPARγ in ATC cells. Western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry (IHC) were used to assess thioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP) expression in thyroid cancer cell lines and primary tumor specimens. Retroviral transduction was used to generate ATC cell lines that overexpress TXNIP, and assays that assess glucose uptake, viable cell proliferation, and invasion were used to characterize the in vitro properties of these cells. An orthotopic thyroid cancer mouse model was used to assess the effect of TXNIP overexpression in ATC cell lines in vivo.
Using microarray analysis, we show that TXNIP is highly upregulated when PPARγ is depleted from ATC cells. Using Western blot analysis and IHC, we show that DTC and ATC cells exhibit differential TXNIP expression patterns. DTC cell lines and patient tumors have high TXNIP expression in contrast to low or absent expression in ATC cell lines and tumors. Overexpression of TXNIP decreases the growth of HTh74 cells compared to vector controls and inhibits glucose uptake in the ATC cell lines HTh74 and T238. Importantly, TXNIP overexpression in T238 cells results in attenuated tumor growth and decreased metastasis in an orthotopic thyroid cancer mouse model.
Our findings indicate that TXNIP functions as a tumor suppressor in thyroid cells, and its downregulation is likely important in the transition from differentiated to advanced thyroid cancer. These studies underscore the potential of TXNIP as a novel therapeutic target and prognostic indicator in advanced thyroid cancer.
The purpose of this article is to justify the value of Indigenous research paradigms, specifically in the context of research on language acquisition. This argument has implications not only for ...research on language acquisition and the practice of language instruction but also for qualitative research, more broadly. Specifically, depending on the context of a given research project, it may be critical for educational researchers to value and respect Indigenous epistemologies and worldviews; otherwise, educational research endeavors may be adding to knowledge at the expense of devaluing research participants and local communities.
To a science 'outsider', science language often appears unnecessarily technical and dense. However, scientific language is typically used with the goal of being concise and precise, which allows ...those who regularly participate in scientific discourse communities to learn from each other and build upon existing scientific knowledge. One essential component of science language is the academic vocabulary that characterises it. This mixed-methods study investigates middle school students' (N = 59) growth in academic vocabulary as it relates to their teacher's instructional practices that supported academic language development. Students made significant gains in their production of general academic words, t(57) = 2.32, p = .024 and of discipline-specific science words, t(57) = 3.01, p = .004 in science writing. Results from the qualitative strand of this inquiry contextualised the students' learning of academic vocabulary as it relates to their teacher's instructional practices and intentions as well as the students' perceptions of their learning environment. These qualitative findings reveal that both the students and their teacher articulated that the teacher's intentional use of resources supported students' academic vocabulary growth. Implications for research and instruction with science language are shared.
School requests for professional learning on adolescent literacy often stem from low or stagnant reading scores on state standardized assessments and legislative policies that require educators to ...complete literacy coursework. These decisions are often made without teachers' voices, requiring teachers to take coursework they may not need or learn in ways that may not align with their content. To address this issue, we used our researcher‐created and validated survey to ask middle and high school teachers about their self‐efficacy toward adolescent literacy based on various professional characteristics, such as years of experience, teaching grade levels, content area, and taking the state‐required literacy courses. Findings note that certain disciplines are more efficacious toward specific literacy practices, and taking state‐required literacy courses is insignificant. Our implications are written for literacy scholars and teacher educators to revisit the premise and promise of the 2017 ILA Standards for K‐12 literacy professionals, emphasizing the importance of being cognizant of our strengths and highlighting the need for collaborating and learning with and from teachers of all disciplines.
NAA20 is the catalytic subunit of the NatB complex, which is responsible for N‐terminal acetylation of approximately 20% of the human proteome. Recently, pathogenic biallelic variants in NAA20 were ...associated with a novel neurodevelopmental disorder in five individuals with limited clinical information. We report two sisters harboring compound heterozygous variant (c.100C>T (p.Gln34Ter) and c.11T>C p.(Leu4Pro)) in the NAA20 gene, identified by exome sequencing. In vitro studies showed that the missense variant p.Leu4Pro resulted in a reduction of NAA20 catalytic activity due to weak coupling with the NatB auxiliary subunit. In addition, unpublished data of the previous families were reported, outlining the core phenotype of the NAA20‐related disorder mostly characterized by cognitive impairment, microcephaly, ataxia, brain malformations, dysmorphism and variable occurrence of cardiac defect and epilepsy. Remarkably, our two patients featured epilepsy onset in adolescence suggesting this may be a part of syndrome evolution. Functional studies are needed to better understand the complexity of NAA20 variants pathogenesis as well as of other genes linked to N‐terminal acetylation.
Biallelic pathogenic variants in the NAA20 gene have been described in 7 individuals belonging to 3 separate families. These variants functionally results in a reduced cellular N‐acetylation, leading to a phenotypic spectrum that includes developmental delay, cognitive impairment, microcephaly, ataxia, epilepsy, brain malformations, congenital heart defects, and craniofacial dysmorphisms.
Through juxtaposing images and text, picturebooks have the unique power to facilitate critical reading and critical literacy. This article presents three analytical approaches to develop critical ...reading and critical literacy skills through picturebooks: (1) critically analyzing broad representation, (2) critical visual analysis, and (3) analyzing voices and perspectives in picturebooks. Through approaches like these, teachers can use picturebooks to craft critical classrooms.
Purpose:
We examine considerations regarding the positive contributions of evidence accountability and challenges that frustrate educators in gaining access to the needed product information.
...Design/Approach/Methods:
We review the research literature on the multiple characteristics of evidence relative to consumer (practitioner) interests. We then examine, through a “case illustration” of an initiative in a large school district, a second challenge for evidence usage—conducting viable studies and interpreting outcomes from comprehensive interventions in complex educational systems.
Findings:
Despite attention being given to rigorous evidence, consumers report preferring peer recommendations and local pilot studies as sources. In our case illustration, we found that the availability of evidence from comprehensive formative evaluation studies was viewed by stakeholders as positively contributing to program implementation quality and sustainability over time.
Originality/Value:
We use a real-world “case illustration” of a complex initiative in a large, diverse school district to illustrate how current policies and expectations regarding evidence support for educational programs is filtered through multiple agendas and personal needs of key stakeholders. Consequently, evaluators acquire nontraditional roles that go beyond routine execution of rigorous studies. Given these factors, we offer recommendations for fostering more meaningful and objective interpretations and usage of evidence by local stakeholders.
School districts are adopting educational technology products at an increasing rate over the years. As more and more products become available, school districts face the challenge of identifying and ...evaluating programs to meet students' needs, while ed-tech providers compete for access to decision makers. The present mixed methods study sought to document the process by which school districts discover, evaluate, and acquire ed-tech products and how vendors market and work through this process with districts. Participants included district stakeholders representing 54 school districts and vendors from 47 ed-tech companies. Results indicated that, in contrast to best practices, needs assessments were rarely, if at all conducted, districts and vendors lack a central source of information for product information and evidence of effectiveness, and decisions are often made on small-scale pilot tryouts, peer references, and less often by examining rigorous evaluation evidence. Based on these findings, we offer recommendations for both district and vendor stakeholders to encourage successful procurement of ed-tech products.
Massive corals provide a useful archive of environmental variability, but careful testing of geochemical proxies in corals is necessary to validate the relationship between each proxy and ...environmental parameter throughout the full range of conditions experienced by the recording organisms. Here we use samples from a coral‐growth study to test the hypothesis that Sr/Ca in the coral Siderastrea siderea accurately records sea‐surface temperature (SST) in the subtropics (Florida, USA) along 350 km of reef tract. We test calcification rate, measured via buoyant weight, and linear extension (LE) rate, estimated with Alizarin Red‐S staining, as predictors of variance in the Sr/Ca records of 39 individual S. siderea corals grown at four outer‐reef locations next to in‐situ temperature loggers during two, year‐long periods. We found that corals with calcification rates < 1.7 mg cm−2 d−1 or < 1.7 mm yr−1 LE returned spuriously high Sr/Ca values, leading to a cold‐bias in Sr/Ca‐based SST estimates. The threshold‐type response curves suggest that extension rate can be used as a quality‐control indicator during sample and drill‐path selection when using long cores for SST paleoreconstruction. For our corals that passed this quality control step, the Sr/Ca‐SST proxy performed well in estimating mean annual temperature across three sites spanning 350 km of the Florida reef tract. However, there was some evidence that extreme temperature stress in 2010 (cold snap) and 2011 (SST above coral‐bleaching threshold) may have caused the corals not to record the temperature extremes. Known stress events could be avoided during modern calibrations of paleoproxies.
Plain Language Summary
Coral skeletons are used to decipher past environmental conditions in the ocean because they live for centuries and produce annual growth bands much like tree rings. Along with measuring coral growth rates in the past, coral skeletons can be chemically sampled to get even more detailed information, like past seawater temperatures. In this study we tested the validity of the strontium‐to‐calcium (Sr/Ca) temperature proxy in the Massive Starlet Coral (Siderastrea siderea) by sampling 39 corals that were grown in the ocean right next to instruments recording underwater temperature. We found that, as long as corals with very slow growth rates are avoided, the proxy performed well across an extensive region in the western Atlantic.
Key Points
The skeletal Sr/Ca ratio may not accurately reflect sea‐surface temperature when coral extension is < 1.7 mm per yr in Siderastrea siderea
The skeletal Sr/Ca ratio is validated as a temperature proxy for S. siderea at three sites across 340 km of the Florida Keys reef tract
Known coral‐stress events, possibly linked to reduced growth rates, should be avoided during modern calibrations of coral paleoproxies
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