Working With a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Individual With Specific Learning Disability

With the constantly rising multilingualism in the United States, cultural and linguistic diversity is gradually becoming more and more present at schools throughout the country. Therefore, there is a critical need for resources to support speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to work with culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) clients. This case study examines a CLD client with a diagnosis of specific learning disability (SLD). SLD is a disorder characterized by one or more significant impairments in reading, spelling, writing, or arithmetical skills, which are not the direct result of other disorders or inadequate schooling. This chapter discusses approaches to appropriately assess the client's language skills and provides intervention suggestions to account for the CLD nature of the client and her SLD.

Individual Stability of Pain- and Touch-Related Neuronal Gamma Oscillations

Background: The processing of brief pain and touch stimuli has been associated with an increase of neuronal oscillations in the gamma range (40-90 Hz). However, some studies report divergent gamma effects across single participants. Methods: In two repeated sessions we recorded gamma responses to pain and touch stimuli using EEG. Individual gamma responses were extracted from EEG channels and from ICA components that contain a strong gamma amplitude. Results: We observed gamma responses in the majority of the participants. If present, gamma synchronisation was always bound to a component that contained a laser-evoked response. We found a broad variety of individual cortical processing: some participants showed a clear gamma effect, others did not exhibit any gamma. For both modalities, the effect was reproducible between sessions. In addition, participants with a strong gamma response showed a similar time-frequency pattern across sessions. Conclusions: Our results indicate that current measures of reproducibility of research results do not reflect the complex reality of the diverse individual processing pattern of applied pain and touch. The present findings raise the question of whether we would find similar quantitatively different processing patterns in other domains in neuroscience: group results would be replicable but the overall effect is driven by a subgroup of the participants.

Universal patterns of long-distance commuting and social assortativity in cities

Millions commute to work every day in cities and interact with colleagues, partners, friends, and strangers. Commuting facilitates the mixing of people from distant and diverse neighborhoods, but whether this has an imprint on social inclusion or instead, connections remain assortative is less explored. In this paper, we aim to better understand income sorting in social networks inside cities and investigate how commuting distance conditions the online social ties of Twitter users in the 50 largest metropolitan areas of the United States. An above-median commuting distance in cities is linked to more diverse individual networks, moreover, we find that longer commutes are associated with a nearly uniform, moderate reduction of overall social tie assortativity across all cities. This suggests a universal relation between long-distance commutes and the integration of social networks. Our results inform policy that facilitating access across distant neighborhoods can advance the social inclusion of low-income groups.

Relationship between FDM 3D Printing Parameters Study: Parameter Optimization for Lower Defects

Technology evolution and wide research attention on 3D printing efficiency and processes have given the prompt need to reach an understanding about each technique’s prowess to deliver superior quality levels whilst showing an economical and process viability to become mainstream. Studies in the field have struggled to predict the singularities that arise during most Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) practices; therefore, diverse individual description of the parameters have been performed, but a relationship study between them has not yet assessed. The proposed study lays the main defects caused by a selection of printing parameters which might vary layer slicing, then influencing the defect rate. Subsequently, the chosen technique for optimization is presented, with evidence of its application viability that suggests that a quality advance would be gathered with such. The results would help in making the FDM process become a reliable process that could also be used for industry manufacturing besides prototyping purposes.

Parent engagement in co-design of clinical trials: the PARENT trial

Evidence generated from partnering with parents to design and conduct research together may be used to refine, adjust, and modify future research approaches. This study aimed to describe the initial approaches to parent engagement in the design of the PARENT trial as well as understand parent perspectives on the acceptability and relevance of the PARENT trial and potential barriers and facilitators to participation.Parents participating in the TARGet Kids! cohort were invited to participate in a focus group, called the PARENT panel, to co-design the PARENT trial. This focus group was conducted to capture diverse individual and collective parents’ experiences. Overall methodological approaches for the PARENT panel were informed by the CIHR Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) guiding principles (mutual respect, co-building, inclusiveness, and support) for patient engagement in research, and facilitated through the Knowledge Translation Program in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at Unity Health Toronto. Using a Nominal Group Technique, the PARENT panel provided feedback on the feasibility, relevance, and acceptability of the proposed intervention. Findings from this work will be used to further refine, adjust, and modify the next iteration of the PARENT trial, which will also serve as an opportunity to discuss the efforts made by researchers to incorporate parent suggestions and what additional steps are required for improved patient engagement.

Broad individual immersion-scattering of respiratory compliance likely substantiates dissimilar breathing mechanics

Head-out water immersion alters respiratory compliance which underpins defining pressure at a “Lung centroid” and the breathing “Static Lung Load”. In diving medicine as in designing dive-breathing devices a single value of lung centroid pressure is presumed as everyone’s standard. On the contrary, we considered that immersed respiratory compliance is disparate among a homogenous adult group (young, healthy, sporty). We wanted to substantiate this ample scattering for two reasons: (i) it may question the European standard used in designing dive-breathing devices; (ii) it may contribute to understand the diverse individual figures of immersed work of breathing. Resting spirometric measurements of lung volumes and the pressure–volume curve of the respiratory system were assessed for 18 subjects in two body positions (upright Up, and supine Sup). Measurements were taken in air (Air) and with subjects immersed up to the sternal notch (Imm). Compliance of the respiratory system (Crs) was calculated from pressure–volume curves for each condition. A median 60.45% reduction in Crs was recorded between Up-Air and Up-Imm (1.68 vs 0.66 L/kPa), with individual reductions ranging from 16.8 to 82.7%. We hypothesize that the previously disregarded scattering of immersion-reduced respiratory compliance might participate to substantial differences in immersed work of breathing.

Practice Multiplicity in the Implementation of Private Regulation Programs

This chapter discusses practice multiplicity in the implementation of private regulation programs. As private regulation unfolded through the 1990s and early 2000s, the number of codes of conduct also proliferated — and there are now likely numerous different codes across different companies, each with some degree of variation. While codes relating to labor standards were initially quite diverse, individual company codes have gradually coalesced into multi stakeholder institution (MSI) codes or industrywide codes. Nevertheless, wide variations remain. All this variation is a problem: it “complicates the work that industry players have to do to implement policies” and “contributes to a sense of confusion among an external audience of consumers, governments, and activists groups.” This confusion and debate is the result of practice multiplicity and is a fundamental cause of the decoupling between private regulation policies and positive outcomes for workers. For a more detailed view of practice multiplicity in action, the chapter turns to an empirical investigation regarding multiplicity in the implementation of private regulation approaches by different companies sourcing from the same supplier.

Public Baseline and shared response structures support the theory of antibody repertoire functional commonality

The naïve antibody/B-cell receptor (BCR) repertoires of different individuals ought to exhibit significant functional commonality, given that most pathogens trigger an effective antibody response to immunodominant epitopes. Sequence-based repertoire analysis has so far offered little evidence for this phenomenon. For example, a recent study estimated the number of shared (‘public’) antibody clonotypes in circulating baseline repertoires to be around 0.02% across ten unrelated individuals. However, to engage the same epitope, antibodies only require a similar binding site structure and the presence of key paratope interactions, which can occur even when their sequences are dissimilar. Here, we search for evidence of geometric similarity/convergence across human antibody repertoires. We first structurally profile naïve (‘baseline’) antibody diversity using snapshots from 41 unrelated individuals, predicting all modellable distinct structures within each repertoire. This analysis uncovers a high (much greater than random) degree of structural commonality. For instance, around 3% of distinct structures are common to the ten most diverse individual samples (‘Public Baseline’ structures). Our approach is the first computational method to find levels of BCR commonality commensurate with epitope immunodominance and could therefore be harnessed to find more genetically distant antibodies with same-epitope complementarity. We then apply the same structural profiling approach to repertoire snapshots from three individuals before and after flu vaccination, detecting a convergent structural drift indicative of recognising similar epitopes (‘Public Response’ structures). We show that Antibody Model Libraries derived from Public Baseline and Public Response structures represent a powerful geometric basis set of low-immunogenicity candidates exploitable for general or target-focused therapeutic antibody screening.

Discursive Features of Nigerian Online Ponzi Schemes’ Narratives

Although Ponzi schemes have existed since the 1800s, contemporary financial challenges have rejuvenated them while the Internet has enhanced their proliferation, particularly in developing countries. The present study analyses select discursive features for digital deception in Nigerian online Ponzi schemes. We identify the use of stance and linguistic engagement, formulaic expressions and politeness strategies, narrativity, naming, and lexical range as techniques used by scheme creators. These linguistic and discursive choices are wielded as tools to attract customers and, ultimately, to deceive. The overt propagation of financial gains has underlying ideological implications, as it projects a sense of communality and encourages financial leverage which are in turn exploited to con unsuspecting – often greedy – subscribers. We conclude that language use in Ponzi schemes is intentionally crafted to appeal to diverse individual sentiments, particularly within developing economies where poverty is widespread and people seek to make money through any means in order to survive.

In silico studies suggest T-cell cross-reactivity between SARS-CoV-2 and less dangerous coronaviruses

So far, it is impossible to explain the diverse individual and population responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Many factors may be involved, including genetics, diet, vaccinations, the innate immune response, viral load, and other phenomena. Further, immune responses raised against pathogens other than SARS-CoV-2 (cross-reactivity) may also be involved. In this work, we analyzed the potential for T-cell cross-reactivity between less contagious coronaviruses (HCoV-OC43, HCoV-HKU1, HCoV-229E, and HCoV-NL63) and SARS-CoV-2. In silico research suggests that SARS-CoV-2 and less dangerous coronaviruses share identical peptides, which can be presented on MHC class I molecules. Those T-cells epitopes belong to several coronavirus proteins localized inside the viral envelope, including helicase, RNA polymerase, proofreading exoribonuclease, and 2'-O-methyltransferase. Our data suggest that a milder course of COVID-19, in some populations, may be related to the cross-reactivity of T cells.