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Identifying student strengths is central to transition planning. However, school personnel use few assessments that operationalize behavioral and emotional strengths, and the psychometric functioning of those measures have not been established with transition-age students. In this two-part study, we used a national sample of transition-age students to examine validity evidence for scores from the "Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-3: Teacher Rating Scale" (BERS-3 TRS). Study 1 evaluated the internal structure and test score reliability of the scores for 275 students with exceptionalities. Study II used a sample of 566 students to examine differences in scores between students with and without exceptionalities. Findings from these studies represent evidence for the validity and interpretation of scores for transition-age students with exceptionalities.

This study examined the internal structure of the Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance-3 Rating Scale (RS), a teacher-completed RS developed to measure emotional disturbance (ED). As defined in U.S. law and regulations, ED involves five characteristics or patterns of behavioral and emotional maladaptation. RS data obtained on a sample of students with ED were used to examine validity evidence based on the internal structure of the assessment. Of particular interest was the extent to which multivariate factors derived from the RS data conform to the five characteristics of ED stated in the definition. Results indicate that the RS data fit a 5-factor model reasonably well. A subsequent bifactor analysis identified a considerable proportion of common variance across factors, suggesting the presence of a strong general ED factor, two distinct group factors (Inability to Learn and Inappropriate Behavior), and three weak group factors. The findings provided evidence of the validity of the SAED-3 RS based on internal structure and pointed to support for use of the RS in contributing to the process of determining whether a student qualifies for the ED education disability. Implications for improved research on the nature of ED and how students with ED can be better served are discussed.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) aims to equip multilingual students with the tools to effectively engage in disciplinary academic communication, especially writing. An ongoing challenge is how to transfer students' knowledge of language from the EAP classroom into their current and future disciplines (Monbec, 2018) and how to empower them as independent learners and collaborators in their knowledge development. This paper reports on an EAP curriculum project in which first-year international science students in British Columbia were scaffolded to conduct independent comparative discourse analysis to develop their academic literacy abilities. We demonstrate how students not only improved their understanding of specific language features, but also were empowered with the critical knowledge and skills to become apprentice scholars and active members in the science community. The students were therefore legitimized as academic apprentices, rather than framed as deficient in language or victims of circumstance (Gallagher & Haan, 2017). We therefore present evidence of non-linguist language students successfully conducting independent discourse analysis to further their own language and learning goals.

The present study investigated evidence of the construct validity of scores from the Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance Rating Scale (SAED-3 RS), which is designed to help identify emotional disturbance (ED) as defined by U.S. law and regulations. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the degree to which SAED-3 RS scores differed between students with school-identified ED, students with school-identified learning disabilities (LD), and students without disabilities. The sample consisted of 2,193 K-12 students from throughout the U.S. The findings supported three hypotheses related to evidence of construct validity: (1) students with ED would differ from students without disabilities on all five dimensions of the SAED-3 RS; (2) students with ED would differ from students with LD on all dimensions of the SAED-3 RS except for the Inability to Learn dimensions; and (3) students with LD would differ from students without disabilities on all five dimensions of the SAED-3 RS, but that these differences would be smaller than the differences between students with ED and students without disabilities. Implications for practice and directions for future research are also discussed.

The present study explored the psychometric properties of ratings made using the Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance--Third Edition: Rating Scale (SAED-3 RS), a scale developed for use in identifying school-age students with emotional and behavioral problems. The purposes of the study were to assess differential item functioning (DIF) for SAED-3 RS items between White and Hispanic students and to assess the impact of DIF on SAED-3 RS scale scores. The sample consisted of 979 students without disabilities who were identified as White/Non-Hispanic (71.91%) and Hispanic (28.09%). The data indicated that SAED-3 RS items demonstrated small to negligible levels of DIF and that DIF did not saliently impact scores. The data suggest that items and scores yielded from the SAED-3 RS are consistent in measuring the emotional and behavioral functioning of school-age students from diverse backgrounds. Research limitations, future research directions, and practical use implications for school personnel are discussed.

The present study investigated evidence of the construct validity of scores from the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS-3), which is a multi-informant assessment designed to measure the behavioral and emotional strengths of school-aged youth. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the degree to which BERS-3 scores differed between students with school-identified emotional disturbance and students without disabilities. Two nationally representative samples were used in this study: (a) 1,575 students rated by teachers and (b) 793 youth who provided self-ratings. The results of multivariate multiple regression analyses supported the primary hypothesis that students with emotional disturbance would have lower scores on each of the five BERS-3 subscale scores compared to peers without disabilities. This finding held for both samples; however, differences between students with emotional disturbance and the peers without disabilities were substantially smaller for the youth self-ratings compared to teacher ratings. Implications for practice and directions for future research are also discussed.

"The Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance--Third Edition Rating Scale" (SAED-3 RS; Epstein et al.) is a standardized, norm-referenced measure designed to aid in the identification process by providing useful data to professionals determining eligibility of students with an emotional disturbance (ED). Three studies are reported to address the reliability of the SAED-3 RS. Study 1 investigated the internal reliability of the SAED-3 RS using data from a nationally representative sample of 1,430 students and 441 with ED. Study 2 examined interrater reliability between 123 pairs of educators who had worked with the student for at least 2 months. Study 3 assessed the test-retest reliability over a 2-week period to determine stability of the SAED-3 RS. Across all studies, scores collected from the SAED-3 RS were determined to be a reliable, stable for measuring the emotional and behavioral functioning of students. Specifically, the averaged coefficient alpha for internal consistency ranged from 0.79 to 0.92 for each subscale and 0.96 for the composite score; interrater reliability coefficients ranged from 0.77 to 0.89 for each subscale and .89 for the composite score, and test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from 0.79 to 0.92 for each subscale and 0.96 for the composite score. Limitations, future research and implications for use of the SAED-3 RS are discussed.

The present study investigated the psychometric properties of the "Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance -- Third Edition: Rating Scale" (SAED-3 RS), which is designed for use in identifying students with emotional disturbance for special education services. The purposes of this study were to evaluate (a) the measurement invariance of SAED-3 RS scores between White and African American students and (b) the impact of differential item functioning (DIF) on test scores from the SAED-3 RS. The sample consisted of 855 K-12 students from throughout the United States. The findings suggested that SAED-3 RS items exhibited small to negligible levels of DIF and that DIF did not significantly impact scores. The results supported the SAED-3 RS, a teacher-completed rating scale, as relatively consistent in measuring the emotional and behavioral status of school-age students from different racial backgrounds. Researchers and practitioners can have confidence that scores from the SAED-3 RS are not substantially affected by DIF when assessing the emotional and behavioral functioning of African American and White school-age students. Research limitations, future research, and implications for school professionals are discussed.

The purpose of this article is to provide a qualitative review of the published research on the Scales for Assessing Emotional Disturbance-3: Screener noting the psychometric properties and overall findings. Results from 10 studies were reviewed and summarized. Across the studies, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and inter-rater agreement were satisfactory. Unidimensionality of the tests scores was supported, and several studies reported only trivial degrees of bias across racial/ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Diagnostic utility was acceptable as were convergent relations with other measures of psychopathology. Social validity was also satisfactory. This review indicates that the psychometric properties of the scores from the Screener meet acceptable professional standards and supports its use in school-based programs to identify at-risk students.

Music notation is intrinsic in the composition and performance of Western art music and also in its analysis and research. The process of writing about music remains underexplored, in particular how excerpts of music notation are selected and arranged in a written text, and how that text describes and contextualises the excerpts. This article applies 'semantic gravity' from Legitimation Code Theory to characterise notational excerpts and their integration in a written text, by focusing on how closely they are connected to a particular performance or generalised across performances. It illustrates these concepts with case studies of tertiary students' research projects to reveal how different purposes drive different notational usage when writing about music. This provides insight for music educators on how to support writing about music and the use of notational quotes.

This study used the Take Action goal attainment lesson package and assistive technology to teach nine high school students with mild to moderate disabilities to attain annual transition goals. The Take Action lessons increased students' goal attainment knowledge, and this knowledge generalized to improved Plan Organizers, and slightly increased students attaining transition goals. Added weekly teacher check-ins improved adjusting plan components that did not work and goal attainment increased. Students who took action on four or five Plan Organizer components attained the most goals, and on average, students used four weekly Plan Organizers to attain a goal. Stronger interventions need to be developed to enable more students to increase the action taken on Plan Organizer components.

Holistic assessment is an evaluative approach in which assessors work backwards from an overall appraisal of work to determine the criteria relevant to individual student responses. One of the strongest proponents of this approach in higher education is Royce Sadler, whose theoretical contributions over recent decades provide a strong conceptual rationale for holistic assessment. While Sadler’s contributions are well renowned, few explicit accounts are available of Sadlerian theory in practice. The purpose of this reflective paper, as such, is to explain how we have attempted to synthesise and apply a Sadlerian theory of holistic assessment design in one of our own courses. Our intended contribution is to provide a relatively concrete interpretation of holistic assessment design which may serve as a point of reference for assessment design in higher education coursework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In human-dominated landscapes, species with large spatial requirements, such as large carnivores, have to deal with human infrastructure and activities within their home ranges. This is the case for the brown bear (Ursus arctos- L., 1758) in Scandinavia, which is colonizing more human-dominated landscapes, leading inevitably to an overlap between their home ranges and anthropogenic structures. In this study, we investigated fine-scale habitat selection by brown bears to examine how they deal with this potential disturbance. Using Global Positioning System (GPS) data, we studied (/) habitat selection of female brown bears within their home range and (ii) the influence of diurnal variation in human disturbance on fine-scale habitat use. As expected, females selected habitats within their home range that provided abundant food resources and minimized human-caused disturbance. In addition, our temporal analysis of habitat selection revealed an avoidance of disturbed areas and a selection of slopes by bears during periods of highest human activities, i.e., during daylight hours. We clearly demonstrate the importance of considering the fluctuations in human activity when studying habitat selection, especially at fine spatial scales. Failing to do so may considerably reduce the power to detect important fine-scale habitat-selection behaviors. Dans les paysages domines par l'homme. les especes qui requierent de grands espaces, tels que les grands carnivores, doivent gerer la presence d'infrastructures et d'activites humaines dans leurs domaines vitaux. C'est le cas de Tours brun (Ursus arctos L., 1758) en Scandinavie, qui colonise de plus en plus les paysages domines par 1'homme, ce qui conduit inevitablement a un chevauchement des domaines vitaux des ours et des infrastructures humaines. Dans cette etude, nous avons analyse la selection de l'habitat par Tours brun a fine echelle spatiale afin de comprendre comment les ours gerent cette perturbation potentielle. Nous avons utilise des donnees de localisation GPS pour etudier (i) la selection de l'habitat par les femelles dans leur domaine vital et (ii) l'influence des variations journalieres des activites humaines sur la selection de l'habitat a fine echelle. Les femelles selectionnenl dans leur domaines vitaux les habitats riches en ressources alimentaires et minimiseni les perturbations dues a 1'homme. De plus, Tanalyse lemporelle de la selection de l'habitat revele un evitement des zones perturbees et une selection des zones pentues durant les periodes d'activite humaine elevee, c'est-a-dire durant la journee. Nous demontrons clairement Timportance de considerer les fluctuations possibles de l'activite humaine dans les etudes de selection de l'habitat. Ne pas en tenir compte peut reduire considerablement le pouvoir de detection d'importants comportements de selection de l'habitat a fine echelle., Introduction Studies assessing habitat selection often only consider spatial components, though the temporal component also may be important. First, an animal's requirements may vary according to season, reproductive status, time [...]

Objective: Out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest is an event with an extremely poor prognosis. There is limited literature on the outcomes for regional Australia, with none specifically addressing remote populations. We aimed to assess out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest outcomes in the aeromedical retrieval population of the Top End Medical Retrieval Service. Design: We retrospectively identified all cardiac arrests, deaths and patients who had cardiopulmonary resuscitation within the aeromedical retrieval database for a 5‐year period from January 2012 to December 2016. Setting: Retrieval patients across the Top End of the Northern Territory, Australia. Participants: All patients within the cohort with a non‐traumatic out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest. Main outcome measures: Data were collected on outcomes as per Utstein definitions, along with patient demographics, retrieval timings and interventions. Results: Seventy‐five patients suffering cardiac arrest were identified, with 58 having a non‐traumatic arrest in an out‐of‐hospital setting. The median age of the cohort was 40 years, and 53% had an initial shockable rhythm. Return of spontaneous circulation was achieved in 55% and 43% survived to hospital. The survival to hospital discharge and 28 days were 31% and 29%, respectively. Conclusions: Although the study has a small sample size and limitations on generalisability due to the restricted nature of the cohort selection, the results suggest a 28‐day survival rate is potentially comparable to other regions of Australia and the rest of the world. Further research needs to be undertaken in out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest in remote regions to establish a true population–based cohort and ascertain where improvements can be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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An intermediate spatiotemporal scale of food procurement by large herbivores is evident within annual or seasonal home ranges. It takes the form of settlement periods spanning several days or weeks during which foraging activity is confined to spatially discrete foraging arenas, separated by roaming interludes. Extended by areas occupied for other activities, these foraging arenas contribute towards generating the home range structure. We delineated and compared the foraging arenas exploited by two African large herbivores, sable antelope (a ruminant) and plains zebra (a non-ruminant), using GPS-derived movement data. We developed a novel approach to specifically delineate foraging arenas based on local change points in distance relative to adjoining clusters of locations, and compared its output with modifications of two published methods developed for home range estimation and residence time estimation respectively. We compared how these herbivore species responded to seasonal variation in food resources and how they differed in their spatial patterns of resource utilization. Sable antelope herds tended to concentrate their space use locally, while zebra herds moved more opportunistically over a wider set of foraging arenas. The amalgamated extent of the foraging arenas exploited by sable herds amounted to 12-30 km2, compared with 22-100 km2 for the zebra herds. Half-day displacement distances differed between settlement periods and roaming interludes, and zebra herds generally shifted further over 12h than sable herds. Foraging arenas of sable herds tended to be smaller than those of zebra, and were occupied for period twice as long, and hence exploited more intensively in days spent per unit area than the foraging arenas of zebra. For sable both the intensity of utilization of foraging arenas and proportion of days spent in foraging arenas relative to roaming interludes declined as food resources diminished seasonally, while zebra showed no seasonal variation in these metrics. Identifying patterns of space use at foraging arena scale helps reveal mechanisms generating the home range extent, and in turn the local population density. Thereby it helps forge links between behavioural ecology, movement ecology and population ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Movement is a key mean for mobile species to cope with heterogeneous environments. While in herbivorous mammals large-scale migration has been widely investigated, fine-scale movement responses to local variations in resources and predation risk remain much less studied, especially in savannah environments. We developed a novel approach based on complementary movement metrics (residence time, frequency of visits and regularity of visits) to relate movement patterns of a savannah grazer, the blue wildebeest Connochaetes taurinus, to fine-scale variations in food availability, predation risk and water availability in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Wildebeests spent more time in grazing lawns where the grass is of higher quality but shorter than in seep zones, where the grass is of lower quality but more abundant. Although the daily distances moved were longer during the wet season compared to the dry season, the daily net displacement was lower, and the residence time higher, indicating a more frequent occurrence of area-concentred searching. In contrast, during the late dry season the foraging sessions were more fragmented and wildebeests moved more frequently between foraging areas. Surprisingly, predation risk appeared to be the second factor, after water availability, influencing movement during the dry season, when resources are limiting and thus expected to influence movement more. Our approach, using complementary analyses of different movement metrics, provided an integrated view of changes in individual movement with varying environmental conditions and predation risk. It makes it possible to highlight the adaptive behavioral decisions made by wildebeest to cope with unpredictable environmental variations and provides insights for population conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music notation is a page-based multisemiotic resource for making meaning. I situate the use of music notation within the broader context of what music performance students are required to do. I briefly describe the various ways in which music notation constructs meaning. I present and describe examples from student texts to demonstrate how music notation and linguistic text work together, drawing on Royce's (1998) framework to demonstrate how meaning relations contribute to the structure and meaning-making of the text. This study draws on research into music discourse through the case studies of Honors Jazz Performance student research projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AIMS: To estimate age- and sex-specific incidence rates and time trends of post-stroke hip fracture (HF) in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and to present projections of future post-stroke HF incidence in Australia until 2051. METHODS: Analysis of annual age- and sex-specific standardized (to 2006 Australian population) post-stroke HF incidence rates in older stroke survivors (aged ⩾60 years) over an 11 year period (between 1999/2000 and 2009/2010). Projections of number of post-stroke HF in 2021 and 2051 are based on demographic predictors obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. RESULTS: Over the study period among 1784 stroke survivors HF was recorded in 61 (3.42%) subjects (40 women and 21 men), indicating a HF incidence rate of 6.31 per 1000 stroke person-years. The standardized annual post-stroke HF incidence rate (per 100,000 person-years) in women was 1.7 times higher than in men (18.9 vs. 11.1 per, p = 0.008), and in the oldest group ( >80 years) compared to aged 60.69 years was 10 times higher for women (47.54 vs. 4.73) and 4 times higher for men (26.65 vs. 6.50). Post-stroke HF occurred on average within the first 2.3 years, about 2 times more often in women aged ⩾75 years (p = 0.033) and in survivors after an ischaemic stroke (p = 0.052), but age per se did not affect the time to HF. During the 11-year period the incidence rates of post-stroke HF decreased annually in total by 17.9%. CONCLUSIONS: Post-stroke HF is relatively common, prevalent in women and occurs on average within 2.3 years after the stroke. The incidence of post-stroke HF in elderly people is decreasing. However, because of population ageing and increasing number of stroke survivors, the absolute number of post-stroke patients sustaining a HF and their proportion among the total HF population could be expected to increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The domestic cat has been introduced on several sub-Antarctic islands such as the Kerguelen archipelago (48°28′-50°S, 68°28′-70°35E), causing a worrying impact on the viability of some seabird populations. A better understanding of the biology of this introduced predator is needed to help design appropriate management actions. To investigate the effectiveness of a GPS study on feral cats living on the Kerguelen main island and to gain preliminary results on cat space use and fine-scale movement patterns, we fitted GPS collars on three young adult males and recorded cat location at a high frequency (every 5 min) for 2-3 weeks, during the austral summer. Home-range sizes varied from 0.30 to 0.73 km², with large overlaps in space but not in time. Cats were active during the warmest hours of the day, with a peak of activity around 2:00 p.m. This preliminary result suggests that trapping for management of the population should therefore yield the highest number of captures in the afternoon and before sunrise, when cats are more active. Our pilot study demonstrated the potential of using GPS to track feral cats in sub-Antarctic islands, opening up opportunities to get deep insights in the spatial ecology of these introduced predators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Habitat selection studies generally assume that animals select habitat and food resources at multiple scales to maximise their fitness. However, animals sometimes prefer habitats of apparently low quality, especially when considering the costs associated with spatially heterogeneous human disturbance. We used spatial variation in human disturbance, and its consequences on lynx survival, a direct fitness component, to test the Hierarchical Habitat Selection hypothesis from a population of Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx in southern Norway. Data from 46 lynx monitored with telemetry indicated that a high proportion of forest strongly reduced the risk of mortality from legal hunting at the home range scale, while increasing road density strongly increased such risk at the finer scale within the home range. We found hierarchical effects of the impact of human disturbance, with a higher road density at a large scale reinforcing its negative impact at a fine scale. Conversely, we demonstrated that lynx shifted their habitat selection to avoid areas with the highest road densities within their home ranges, thus supporting a compensatory mechanism at fine scale enabling lynx to mitigate the impact of large-scale disturbance. Human impact, positively associated with high road accessibility, was thus a stronger driver of lynx space use at a finer scale, with home range characteristics nevertheless constraining habitat selection. Our study demonstrates the truly hierarchical nature of habitat selection, which aims at maximising fitness by selecting against limiting factors at multiple spatial scales, and indicates that scale-specific heterogeneity of the environment is driving individual spatial behaviour, by means of trade-offs across spatial scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phosphatidylinositol glycan class A (PIGA) is involved in the first step of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) biosynthesis. Many proteins, including CD55 and CD59, are anchored to the cell by GPI. Loss of CD55 and CD59 on erythrocytes causes complement-mediated lysis in paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), a disease that manifests after clonal expansion of hematopoietic cells with somatic PIGA mutations. Although somatic PIGA mutations have been identified in many PNH patients, it has been proposed that germline mutations are lethal. We report a family with an X-linked lethal disorder involving cleft palate, neonatal seizures, contractures, central nervous system (CNS) structural malformations, and other anomalies. An X chromosome exome next-generation sequencing screen identified a single nonsense PIGA mutation, c.1234C>T, which predicts p.Arg412∗. This variant segregated with disease and carrier status in the family, is similar to mutations known to cause PNH as a result of PIGA dysfunction, and was absent in 409 controls. PIGA-null mutations are thought to be embryonic lethal, suggesting that p.Arg412∗ PIGA has residual function. Transfection of a mutant p.Arg412∗ PIGA construct into PIGA-null cells showed partial restoration of GPI-anchored proteins. The genetic data show that the c.1234C>T (p.Arg412∗) mutation is present in an affected child, is linked to the affected chromosome in this family, is rare in the population, and results in reduced, but not absent, biosynthesis of GPI anchors. We conclude that c.1234C>T in PIGA results in the lethal X-linked phenotype recognized in the reported family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Pyruvate dehydrogenase complex is a key intramitochondrial multienzyme complex required for the conversion of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA. Most patients with pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency have a defect in the E1 alpha subunit, associated with mutations in the PDHA1 gene. In this report, we submit detailed magnetic resonance images in 4 affected female patients with PDHA1 mutations who had with severe cortical atrophy, dilated ventricles, and an incomplete corpus callosum. In one of these patients, the magnetic resonance imaging pattern prompted molecular diagnostic testing when enzymatic testing was normal. We underscore that this constellation of features, which may be misdiagnosed as periventricular leukomalacia, illustrates a pattern highly suggestive of a deficiency of pyruvate dehydrogenase E1 alpha in female patients and should trigger appropriate diagnostic investigations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]