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The aim of this study was to compare Canadian community colleges with post-secondary vocational schools in Poland. The comparison concentrated upon programs in nursing, tourism and information technology delivered by the following three Polish schools Krakowska Szkola Medyczna, (Cracow, Poland), Policealne Studium Zawodowe, (Cracow, Poland), Cracow School of Information Technology and four Canadian community colleges Red Deer, (Red Deer, Alberta) Centennial (Scarborough, Ontario), Durham (Oshawa, Ontario) and Confederation (Thunder Bay, Ontario). Two research approaches were used in this study: qualitative and quantitative mixed research methodologies. Moreover, the theoretical framework was supplied by the general notion of the school as an organization and social institution. The investigators tried to answer the following research questions. (1) Are post-secondary vocational institutions meeting the requirements of the labor market as well as Canadian community colleges? The predicted answer was "no" because it is easier for colleges to form articulation agreements with schools of higher education than it is for their Polish counterparts. Community colleges in Canada are part of the same post- secondary system of schooling as schools of higher education whereas post-secondary vocational institutions are not--they are part of a secondary school scheme. Articulation agreements allow learners to begin their vocational or academic training in one institution and continue it in another. Labor market requirements are better addressed with comprehensive course transfer agreements. (2) Do Canadian college students have a higher perception of their programs than their Polish post-secondary vocational school counterparts? The predicted answer was "yes" because colleges are higher up in the school structure "pecking order" than post-secondary vocational schools in Poland: post-secondary as opposed to secondary. It was hypothesized that college learners ought to place more value on their programs than their Polish counterparts. The results of our investigation partially supported the predicted answer "no" for question 1--Centennial College's program in tourism has more articulation agreements than their Polish counterpart (Policealne Studium Zawodowe). The predicted answer "yes" was fully confirmed, with regard to question 2. (Contains 12 figures and 8 notes.)

Purpose: The Rapid Assessment of Problem Solving test (RAPS) is a clinical measure of problem solving based on the 20 Questions Test. This article updates clinicians on the RAPS, addresses questions raised about the test in an earlier article (R. C. Marshall, C. M. Karow, C. Morelli, K. Iden, & J. Dixon, 2003a), and discusses the clinical utility of the RAPS. Method: The RAPS was administered to 373 normal adults. Tests were analyzed to assess the impact of demographic, psychometric, and other factors on performance on the RAPS. To determine the effects of strategy selection on test scores, participants were assigned to novel, category-focused, or mixed strategy groups based on the types of first questions asked. Results: Normal participants exhibited a range of performance levels on the RAPS. Participants in the novel strategy group performed significantly better than the participants in 2 other strategy groups. Conclusions: The RAPS is a clinically useful tool to examine problem solving that is easy to administer and to score. Findings suggest clinicians can use the RAPS with greater confidence than was the case 4 years ago. The RAPS is now part of the public domain and may be used by clinicians to assess clients' problem-solving deficits. (Contains 7 tables, 2 figures and 1 footnote.)

Purpose: Semantic feature analysis (SFA) was used to determine whether training contextually related words would improve the discourse of individuals with nonfluent aphasia in preselected contexts. Method: A modified multiple-probes-across-behaviors design was used to train target words using SFA in 3 adults with nonfluent aphasia. Pretreatment, posttreatment, and follow-up sessions obtained language samples for the preselected contexts. Contexts included 4 story retellings and 4 procedure explanations. Results: All participants improved naming ability for treated words. No generalization to untrained items was found. Within discourse samples, participants increased number of target words produced from pretreatment to posttreatment sessions but did not increase lexical diversity across samples. Participants maintained performance on standardized measures from the beginning to the end of the study. Conclusions: Results support and extend previous research by indicating that SFA improves confrontational naming ability and may benefit word retrieval in discourse production of closed-set contexts. (Contains 5 tables and 3 figures.)

Purpose: The Kentucky Aphasia Test (KAT) is an objective measure of language functioning for persons with aphasia. This article describes materials, administration, and scoring of the KAT; presents the rationale for development of test items; reports information from a pilot study; and discusses the role of the KAT in aphasia assessment. Method: The KAT has 3 parallel test batteries, KAT-1, KAT-2, and KAT-3. Each battery contains the same orientation test and 6 subtests, each with 10 items, assessing expressive and receptive language functions. Subtests for KAT-1, KAT-2, and KAT-3 systematically increase in difficulty so that it is possible to assess individuals with severe, moderate, and mild aphasia, respectively. The KAT was administered to 38 participants with aphasia and 31 non-brain-damaged (NBD) participants. Results: Results with the KAT clearly differentiated the language performance of individuals with and without aphasia. NBD participants made few errors, and overall scores on the test for individuals with aphasia were rarely within 1 "SD" of the NBD group. Performance of the participants with aphasia administered KAT-1, KAT-2, and KAT-3 suggested that the 3 versions of the test represent a hierarchy of difficulty. Conclusions: The KAT remains in its early stages of development. However, it does appear to meet the requirements for a "clinician-friendly" aphasia test and, as such, offers a rapid, convenient means of obtaining an objective score to determine changes in language functioning during the early postonset period. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure and 1 footnote.)

Purpose: The personalized cueing method is a novel procedure for treating naming deficits of persons with aphasia that is relatively unfamiliar to most speech-language pathologists. The goal of this article is to introduce the personalized cueing method to clinicians so that it might be expanded and improved upon. It is also hoped that this article will promote further research in the treatment of naming deficits of clients with aphasia. Method: This clinical focus article (a) describes the origins of the personalized cueing method, the steps involved in creating personalized cues, and training and assessment procedures used with the personalized cueing method; (b) summarizes the published research supporting the use of the personalized cueing method; and (c) highlights some of the clinical advantages of this novel naming treatment for clients and clinicians. Results: Research with the personalized cueing method indicates that durability (long-term naming accuracy) for items trained with the personalized cueing method exceeds that for items trained with phonological cueing and other methods. It further shows that as the stimuli used to train naming in the personalized cueing experiments have become more realistic, durability of personalized cueing has increased. Conclusions: Personalized cueing is a parsimonious approach for treatment of naming deficits of persons with aphasia that has shown positive treatment effects in 8-12 training sessions.

Describes a program whereby Illinois Valley Community College faculty offered courses for honors students at Marquette High School that were guaranteed to transfer to four-year colleges in Illinois. Considers the curriculum, course content, grading, student comments and impressions of the college, program institutionalization, and transfer outcomes. (DMM)

Bone is constantly remodeled through the balanced activities of osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Whereas genetic defects of bone-forming osteoblasts typically result in delayed bone development and osteoporosis, mutational inactivation of bone-resorbing [...], Activation of osteoclasts and their acidification-dependent resorption of bone is thought to maintain proper serum calcium levels. Here we show that osteoclast dysfunction alone does not generally affect calcium homeostasis. Indeed, mice deficient in Src, encoding a tyrosine kinase critical for osteoclast activity, show signs of osteopetrosis, but without hypocalcemia or defects in bone mineralization. Mice deficient in Cckbr, encoding a gastrin receptor that affects acid secretion by parietal cells, have the expected defects in gastric acidification but also secondary hyperparathyroidism and osteoporosis and modest hypocalcemia. These results suggest that alterations in calcium homeostasis can be driven by defects in gastric acidification, especially given that calcium gluconate supplementation fully rescues the phenotype of the Cckbr-mutant mice. Finally, mice deficient in Tcirg1, encoding a subunit of the vacuolar proton pump specifically expressed in both osteoclasts and parietal cells, show hypocalcemia and osteopetrorickets. Although neither Src- nor Cckbr-deficient mice have this latter phenotype, the combined deficiency of both genes results in osteopetrorickets. Thus, we find that osteopetrosis and osteopetrorickets are distinct phenotypes, depending on the site or sites of defective acidification.

Human remains from peat bogs, called 'bog bodies,' have yielded valuable insights into human history because of their excellent preservation of soft tissue. On the other hand, the acidic environment of the peat leads to an extensive demineralization of skeletal elements, complicating their analysis. We studied the skeleton of the bog body 'Moora' dated to ~650 B.C. Nondestructive evaluation of the bone was made using contact X-rays, peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) analysis, multislice computed tomography (CT) and high resolution micro computed tomography ([micro]CT) imaging. Two thousand seven hundred years in the acidic environment of the bog led to a loss of 92.7% of bone mineral density. Despite this demineralization and in contrast to other bog bodies, the spatial structure of the bones of 'Moora' is exceptionally well preserved. We found Harris lines and were able to obtain the first three-dimensional data on the trabecular microstructure of the bone of a young woman from the early Iron Age. KEY WORDS bog body; Moora; [micro] CT; pQCT; contact X-ray