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Rural education has a legacy of unique challenges, with highest priority needs in the South. Chief among these challenges are the conditions of poverty associated with many rural districts and the education of students with disabilities. Compared with their urban and suburban counterparts, rural teachers experience higher rates of turnover, and rural schools find it more difficult to recruit teachers from the start. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which a grow your own (GYO) program equitably increased special education teacher capacity in one Southern state's rural and non-rural school districts. The sample included 638 participants who completed special education teacher licensure programs over the 8-year period, 2003-2011. Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference in one demographic variable, licensure area. The rural group had disproportionately fewer program completers in emotional disabilities and more in multi-categorical. Additional analysis showed a significantly higher percentage of program completers in the rural group. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

We developed a rubric for measuring students' ability to reason and write scientifically. The Rubric for Science Writing (Rubric) was tested in a variety of undergraduate biology laboratory courses (total n = 142 laboratory reports) using science graduate students (teaching assistants) as raters. Generalisability analysis indicates that the Rubric provides a reliable measure of students' abilities (g = 0.85) in these conditions. Comparison of student performance in various biology classes indicated that some scientific skills are more challenging for students to develop than others and identified a number of previously unappreciated gaps in the curriculum. Our findings suggest that use of the Rubric provides three major benefits in higher education: (1) to increase substance and consistency of grading within a course, particularly those staffed by multiple instructors or graduate teaching assistants; (2) to assess student achievement of scientific reasoning and writing skills; and (3) when used in multiple courses, to highlight gaps in alignment among course assignments and provide a common metric for assessing to what extent the curriculum is achieving programmatic goals. Lastly, biology graduate students reported that use of the Rubric facilitated their teaching and recommended that training on the Rubric be provided to all teaching assistants. (Contains 2 figures and 10 tables.)

Objectives: Ultrasmall superparamagnetic particles of iron oxide (USPIO)-enhanced MRI can detect tissue-resident macrophage activity and identify cellular inflammation within tissues. We hypothesised that USPIO-enhanced MRI would provide a non-invasive imaging technique that would improve the diagnosis and management of patients with acute myocarditis.Methods: Ten volunteers and 14 patients with suspected acute myocarditis underwent T2, T2* and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) 3T MRI, with further T2* imaging at 24 hours after USPIO (ferumoxytol, 4 mg/kg) infusion, at baseline and 3 months. Myocardial oedema and USPIO enhancement were determined within areas of LGE as well as throughout the myocardium.Results: Myocarditis was confirmed in nine of the 14 suspected cases of myocarditis. There was greater myocardial oedema in regions of LGE in patients with myocarditis when compared with healthy volunteer myocardium (T2 value, 57.1±5.3 vs 46.7±1.6 ms, p<0.0001). There was no demonstrable difference in USPIO enhancement between patients and volunteers even within regions displaying LGE (change in R2*, 35.0±15.0 vs 37.2±9.6 s-1, p>0.05). Imaging after 3 months in patients with myocarditis revealed a reduction in volume of LGE, a reduction in oedema measures within regions displaying LGE and improvement in ejection fraction (mean -19.7 mL, 95% CI (-0.5 to -40.0)), -5.8 ms (-0.9 to -10.7) and +6% (0.5% to 11.5%), respectively, p<0.05 for all).Conclusion: In patients with acute myocarditis, USPIO-enhanced MRI does not provide additional clinically relevant information to LGE and T2 mapping MRI. This suggests that tissue-resident macrophages do not provide a substantial contribution to the myocardial inflammation in this condition.Clinical trial registration NCT02319278; Results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims The contribution of kinins to the beneficial effects of angiotensin I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition in cardiovascular risk reduction remains unclear. The genes for the kinin inducible B1 receptor (B1R) and constitutive B2 receptor (B2R) contain functional variants: the B1R−699C (rather than G) and the B2R(−9) (rather than +9) alleles are associated with greater mRNA expression and the B2R(−9) allele with reduced left ventricular hypertrophic responses. We tested whether these gene variants influenced hypertensive coronary risk in a large prospective study.Methods and results Two thousand, seven hundred and six previously healthy UK men (mean age at recruitment 56 years; median follow-up 10.8 years) were genotyped for the kinin receptor variants. The coronary risk attributable to systolic hypertension (SBP≥160mmHg) was significantly higher only in B1R−699GG homozygotes (HR 2.14 [1.42–3.22]; P<0.0001) and B2R(+9,+9) individuals (HR 3.51 [1.69–7.28]; P=0.001) but not in B1R−699C allele carriers (HR 0.82 [0.28–2.42]; P=0.76) or in B2R(−9,−9) homozygotes (HR 1.25 [0.51-3.04]; P=0.63).Conclusions Common variation in the genes for the kinin B1and B2receptors influences prospective hypertensive coronary risk. These are the first reported human data to suggest a role for the B1R in human coronary vascular disease, and the first prospective study to demonstrate a similar role for the B2R. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism-related differences in ACE concentration do not result in differences in angiotensin levels., Methods and Results: To investigate whether this relates to differences in the contribution of the ACE C-domain and N-domain, we quantified, using the C-domain-selective inhibitors quinaprilat and RXPA380, and the N-domain-selective inhibitor RXP407, the contribution of both domains to the metabolism of angiotensin I, bradykinin, the C-domain-selective substrate Mca-BK(1-8), and the N-domain-selective substrate Mca-Ala in serum of IIs, DDs, and 'hyperACE' subjects (i.e., subjects with increased ACE due to enhanced shedding). During incubation with angiotensin I, the highest angiotensin II levels were observed in sera with the highest ACE activity. This confirms that ACE is rate-limiting with regard to angiotensin II generation. C-domain-selective concentrations of quinaprilat fully blocked angiotensin I-II conversion in DDs, whereas additional N-domain blockade was required to fully block conversion in IIs. Both domains contributed to bradykinin hydrolysis in all subjects, and the inhibition profile of RXP407 when using Mca-Ala was identical in IIs and DDs. In contrast, the RXPA380 concentrations required to block C-domain activity when using Mca-BK (1-8) were three-fold higher in IIs than DDs., Conclusion: The contributions of the C-domain and N-domain differ between DDs and IIs, and RXPA380 is the first inhibitor capable of distinguishing D-allele ACE from I-allele ACE. The lack of angiotensin II accumulation in DDs in vivo is not because of the often quoted concept that ACE is a nonrate-limiting enzyme. It may relate to the fact that in IIs both the N-domain and C- domain generate angiotensin II, whereas in DDs only the C-domain converts angiotensin I.