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Aspects of design and procedures used in the evaluation of a performance contract are discussed, and the project and findings are briefly summarized. The Virginia performance contract in reading was carried out in seven school districts. Evaluation of the project showed that although instructional changes that utilized desirable individualized approaches were used in the experimental program, the experimental group achieved neither less nor more than the control group on ordinary standardized test measures. However, the experimental group had more positive attitudes toward reading than did the control, and in addition mastered the majority of the instructional objectives prescribed. Eleven observations resulting from the evaluation, presented for the guidance of those who contemplate performance contracting, are presented. (DB)

The development of a computerized system of word analysis in order to compare and compile word lists is outlined. It is suggested that a computerized system would be an efficient way of comparing word lists for such elements as content (according to criteria of range, scope, and form of words), obsolescence, levels of difficulty, number of words, length of words, frequency of words appearing in reading materials, and construction of words (for example singular-plural and verb forms). Comparison of word lists can in turn lead to compilation of new lists based on specific requirements for various purposes. The program can also be utilized to research word associations, to score responses to programmed material, and to determine the comprehensibility of textual passages. (The process of computerizing information about words is described, possible uses for the program are suggested. A sample comparison of four word lists is given. Tables of data and references are included. (AL)

Historically, interviewers have been unable to reach high agreement on applicant potential even when they interview the same applicant. However, it has been recently demonstrated that interviewers can do a good job of gathering relevant data and predicting applicant success. This document is a report on research conducted to learn what factors affect accuracy of predictions based on interview data and how the accuracy may be increased. Following a description of procedures, seven chapters contain data and checklists developed for use in subsequent phases of the research studies. These checklists have been developed for jobs such as: (1) management trainee, (2) general management, (3) engineering, (4) secretarial, (5) clerk typist, and (6) general selling. Each list contains the number of respondents, mean, and standard deviation for favorability, frequency, and importance. (GEB)

In 1966, a national survey reported on 8,887 multiply impaired (MI) blind children. About 56% were boys; 85% had been blind since before age 3, and half were totally blind. The principal causes of blindness were retrolental fibroplasia and congenital cataracts. Almost 63% had two or more additional disabilities (86.8% of those under age 6), such as mental retardation (80.2%), speech problems (38.9%), brain damage (35.1%), emotional problems (16.7%), cerebral palsy (14.4%), epilepsy (14.0%), chronic medical problems (7.0%), crippling (4.9%), hearing impairment (10.6%), cosmetic defect (6.1%), orthodontic defect (4.0%), and cleft palate (1.0%). Although half of the sample was 13 or older, only 4.4% functioned at secondary school level; 130 children were reported who had reading vision but used braille; the reported mobility performance data were found unreliable. The estimated number of MI blind children in the United States is 15,000 with 300 more diagnosed each year. Suggestions were made for research and services. (LE)

IN A STUDY TO DETERMINE THE EFFECT OF ATTITUDES ON LEARNING, THE LITERAL AND INTERPRETATIVE COMPREHENSION ABILITIES OF INTERMEDIATE GRADE CHILDREN ON THEMATICALLY BASED READING SELECTIONS WERE COMPARED WITH THEIR ATTITUDES TOWARD THAT MATERIAL. THREE OF THE MOST COMMON READING THEMES INHERENT IN CHILDREN'S STORIES WERE DETERMINED BY A PANEL OF GRADUATE STUDENTS, UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS, AND THE INVESTIGATORS WHICH CONDUCTED A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE. AT EACH GRADE LEVEL, THREE STORIES WERE SELECTED FOR EACH THEME. SUBJECTS WERE 285 CHILDREN IN GRADES 4, 5, AND 6 IN ALBEMARLE COUNTY, VIRGINIA. EACH CHILD READ NINE STORIES. AN ATTITUDE INVENTORY WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR EACH THEME USING PROCEDURES RECOMMENDED BY THURSTONE. FOR EACH STORY, COMPREHENSION TESTS OF 10 LITERAL AND 10 INTERPRETATIVE QUESTIONS WERE ADMINISTERED. AN ANALYSIS OF THE DATA LED TO THE FOLLOWING CONCLUSIONS. THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTITUDES IN IMPROVING COMPREHENSION WAS QUESTIONABLE. WHEN DIFFERENT VARIABLES WERE CONTROLLED, ATTITUDES APPEARED NOT TO FUNCTION APPRECIABLY IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES AND TO FUNCTION DIFFERENTLY FOR LITERAL AND INTERPRETATIVE COMPREHENSION. LITERAL AND INTERPRETATIVE COMPREHENSION WERE DIFFERENTIALLY AFFECTED BY SEX. RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ATTITUDE AND COMPREHENSION WERE UNAFFECTED BY RACE OR SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS. TABLES AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY ARE INCLUDED. (RH)

THIS STUDY ATTEMPTS TO DETERMINE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCED A SELECTED GROUP OF TWO-YEAR COLLEGES TO EXPAND, TO IDENTIFY THE PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN THIS TRANSITION, AND TO DEVELOP A SET OF GUIDING PRINCIPLES AND PROCEDURES WHICH WOULD PROVIDE DIRECTION AND ASSISTANCE TO COLLEGES CONSIDERING EXPANSION TO FOUR-YEAR CURRICULA. CASE STUDIES OF TEN INSTITUTIONS (REGIONALLY ACCREDITED BOTH AS TWO-YEAR AND AS FOUR-YEAR COLLEGES) ARE INCLUDED. DATA FOR THE STUDY CAME FROM INTERVIEWS WITH ADMINISTRATIVE AND TEACHING PERSONNEL, RECORDS, REPORTS, AND OTHER MATERIALS PROVIDED BY THE COLLEGES, STATE OFFICES OF HIGHER EDUCATION, REGIONAL ACCREDITING AGENCIES, AND LOCAL NEWSPAPERS. FACTORS INFLUENCING EXPANSION TO FOUR-YEAR PROGRAMS FELL INTO TWO CATEGORIES--THOSE INTERNAL TO THE INSTITUTION, AND THOSE EXTERNAL TO THE INSTITUTION. THE PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN THE TRANSITION ARE DISCUSSED UNDER EIGHT CATEGORIES--(1) OPPOSITION TO EXPANSION, (2) FINANCES, (3) PHYSICAL PLANT, (4) ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION, (5) CURRICULUM, (6) FACULTY, (7) LIBRARY, AND (8) STUDENT SERVICES. (HW)

THIS WAS A TWO PART INVESTIGATION. THE FIRST PART WAS A MONTE CARLO (STATISTICAL) ANALYSIS, AND THE SECOND WAS A LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF MULTITRAIT-MULTIMETHOD VALIDITY. PART ONE SUCCESSFULLY GENERATED, FOR SMALL SAMPLE SIZES, EMPIRICAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF STANLEY'S F STATISTIC FOR TESTING TRAIT VALIDITY IN MULTITRAIT-MULTIMETHOD MATRICES. ZYZANSKI'S CORRECTION OF STANLEY'S STATISTIC WAS FOUND INAPPROPRIATE FOR SMALL SAMPLE SIZES. PART TWO EMPLOYED THE METHOD OF LOGICAL ANALYSIS TO DETERMINE THE SOUNDNESS OF THE FOUR CRITERIA PROPOSED BY CAMPBELL AND FISKE FOR DETERMINING TRAIT VALIDITY BY MULTITRAIT-MULTIMETHOD MATRICES. IT WAS CONCLUDED THAT ONLY CRITERION ONE, CONVERGENT VALIDITY, COULD BE CONSIDERED A "THEOREM" OF TESTING THEORY. THIS ANALYSIS QUESTIONED WHETHER SPECIFIC TESTS CAN BE VALIDATED OR INVALIDATED WHEN THE CRITERIA OFFERED TO DO THIS ARE NOT THEMSELVES "VALID" OR LOGICALLY NECESSARY. (PS)

THE INCREASED USE OF PROGRAMED MATERIALS CREATE A NEED TO ESTABLISH PROCEDURES FOR DETERMINING THE READING DIFFICULTY OF THE MATERIALS BEFORE EXTENSIVE FIELD TESTING BEGINS. AN EXPERIMENT WAS CARRIED OUT WITH 189 FOURTH GRADE, 271 FIFTH GRADE, AND 140 SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS. THE POPULATION OF MATERIALS FOR THIS STUDY CONSISTED OF NINE FOURTH GRADE PROGRAMED SCIENCE UNITS. THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE WAS DEFINED AS THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF ERRORS THAT EACH STUDENT MADE IN THREE SELECTED PROGRAMED SCIENCE UNITS. SEVENTEEN INDEPENDENT VARIABLES WERE CHOSEN AS TO REPRESENT FUNCTIONAL AND GRAMMATIC ASPECTS OF THE UNITS. REGRESSION ANALYSIS WAS UNDERTAKEN TO DETERMINE THE TOTAL AND RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES ON ERROR COUNT. THE ERROR COUNT WAS FOUND VALID AS A CRITERION FOR DETERMINING READING DIFFICULTY BECAUSE (1) CORRELATIONS WITH THE RESULTS OF THE UNIT TESTS WERE ALL SIGNIFICANT IN PREDICTED DIRECTION, AND (2) BECAUSE THREE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES WERE SIGNIFICANT AS PREDICTORS OF VARIATIONS IN ERROR COUNT. IN FUTURE STUDIES, IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT INDEPENDENT VARIABLES BE GIVEN AMPLE CONSIDERATION, AND THAT SAMPLE BE ENLARGED TO INCLUDE LARGER NUMBER OF UNITS. (OH)

Many people in the general population battle intense chronic pain daily and it disrupts their quality of life. Current OTC therapies provide mixed results and have profound limitations. However, the Hydroglide Body and Facial Lotion is a patent-pending product that delivers consistently positive outcomes. It’s a dual-fighting agent for dermatological issues and is useful for general body aches as well as for debilitating and excruciating pain.

A reabilitação imediata com implantes está imersa em diversas nuances que se torna um verdadeiro desafio clínico ao cirurgião-dentista, exigindo soluções simplificadas. O Plasma Rico em Fibrina (PRF) emerge como uma técnica avançada de enxerto que oferece ao paciente uma cicatrização mais célere e um pós-operatório melhor, uma alternativa natural e satisfatória, com resultados favoráveis e redução de riscos. O objetivo desse estudo é analisar, a partir de uma revisão de literatura, o uso do PRF com implante imediato. Como metodologia, buscou-se estudos da base de dados cientificos como Scielo, Lilacs e Medline, datados de 2014 a 2019. Foram utilizados os termos: Plasma Rico em Fibrina, Odontologia e Implantes dentários. O estudo do funcionamento dos implantes, bem como suas opções de instalação nos pacientes, mostra-se necessário visando os meios atuais que são facilitadores da reabilitação oral, a exemplo do uso do Plasma Rico em Fibrina como aliado na perda óssea.

This study tested the hypotheses that 1) changes in mid-treatment fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET) parameters are predictive of overall survival (OS) and 2) mid-treatment FDG-PET-adapted treatment has the potential to improve survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).Patients with stage I-III NSCLC requiring daily fractionated radiation were eligible. FDG-PET-CT scans were obtained prior to and mid-treatment with radiotherapy at 40-50 Gy. The normalized maximum standardized uptake value (NSUVmax), normalized mean SUV (NSUVmean), PET-metabolic tumor volume (MTV), total lesion glycolysis (TLG), and computed tomography-based gross tumor volume (CT-GTV) were consistently measured for all patients. The primary study endpoint was OS.The study is comprised of 102 patients who received 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy, among whom 30 patients who received mid-treatment PET-adapted dose escalation radiotherapy. All PET-CT parameters decreased significantly (P 0.001) mid-treatment, with greater reductions in FDG-volumetric parameters compared to FDG-activity factors. Mid-treatment changes in MTV (P = 0.053) and TLG (P = 0.021) were associated with OS, while changes in NSUVmax, NSUVmean, and CT-GTV were not (all Ps0.1). Patients receiving conventional radiation (60-70 Gy) with MTV reductions greater than the mean had a median survival of 14 months, compared to those with MTV reductions less than the mean who had a median survival of 22 months. By contrast, patients receiving mid-treatment PET-adapted radiation with MTV reductions greater than the mean had a median survival of 33 months, compared to those with MTV reductions less than the mean who had a median survival of 19 months. Overall, PET-adapted treatment resulted in a 19% better 5-year survival than conventional radiation.Changes in mid-treatment PET-volumetric parameters were significantly associated with survival in NSCLC. A greater reduction in the mid-treatment MTV was associated with worse survival in patients treated with standard radiation, but with better survival in patients who received mid-treatment PET-adapted treatment.

Sarcoidosis and chronic beryllium disease (CBD) are phenocopies, however the latter one has a clear trigger factor that is beryllium exposure. This study analyses single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a large cohort for beryllium-exposed persons. SNPs were chosen for their relevance in sarcoidosis. Even though one of largest cohorts of beryllium-exposed persons was analysed, no statistically relevant association between any SNP and CBD could be verified. Notably, some SNPs exhibit inverse OR for beryllium sensitization and CBD with nominally statistical significance, which allows hypothesizing about pathophysiological role of genes for the disease triggering and development.