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Previous research has not consulted children regarding their own open–ended opinions and views on the acceptability of Mindfulness. Therefore, we conducted a pilot study determining children's (n=5 girls, n=4 boys; mean age = 10 years and 4 months) feedback of Mindfulness sessions, utilizing the Smiling Mind Application for 10-12-year-old children. Children completed a written questionnaire after each mindfulness session to gauge their perceptions of the quality of class delivery, including a personal evaluation of the content of the Application. The main themes to arise from the qualitative data showed that participants reported feeling heightened calmness, a more relaxed state and greater mental focus. All but one participant would recommend the Mindfulness program to a friend. However, the older children amongst the group did not find Mindfulness to be as acceptable and appealing as the younger participants and questioned the App's suitability and maturity level. Children‟s feedback on the App differed from published reviews of similar products previously conducted by adults. The findings suggest that careful selection of App content for Mindfulness–based classes is recommended to suit children's preferences and maturity, especially for those groups reaching the upper primary levels.

This packet of materials is designed to provide the vocational teacher with everything necessary to train advisory council members to interview in the school community. It also contains complete information on the teacher's role in the project and teacher instructions for using each item. Contents include instructions and lesson plan for advisory council member training (with objectives and plan of action); "Perceptions of Sex Equity in Vocational Education" forms with administration instructions; three reproduced transparencies with instructions for use; three handouts--Interviewing Techniques, Stock Answers to Respondents, and A Sample Introductory Phone Conversation--with instructions for use; materials concerning interviewing, including instructions for interview assignments, master list of interviewees and advisory council members, instructions for assigning alternate interviewees, five questionnaires (for parents, students, employers, teachers, and administrators), and instructions for distributing the questionnaires; progress log and instructions for use; instructions for administering the "Perceptions" form as a posttest; and instructions for returning questionnaires. (YLB)

BACKGROUND: Understanding the genetic architecture of quantitative traits is important for developing genome-based crop improvement methods. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) is a powerful technique for mining novel functional variants. Using a family-based design involving 1,200 apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) seedlings genotyped for an 8K SNP array, we report the first systematic evaluation of the relative contributions of different genomic regions to various traits related to eating quality and susceptibility to some physiological disorders. Single-SNP analyses models that accounted for population structure, or not, were compared with models fitting all markers simultaneously. The patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD) were also investigated. RESULTS: A high degree of LD even at longer distances between markers was observed, and the patterns of LD decay were similar across successive generations. Genomic regions were identified, some of which coincided with known candidate genes, with significant effects on various traits. Phenotypic variation explained by the loci identified through a whole-genome scan ranged from 3% to 25% across different traits, while fitting all markers simultaneously generally provided heritability estimates close to those from pedigree-based analysis. Results from 'Q+K' and 'K' models were very similar, suggesting that the SNP-based kinship matrix captures most of the underlying population structure. Correlations between allele substitution effects obtained from single-marker and all-marker analyses were about 0.90 for all traits. Use of SNP-derived realized relationships in linear mixed models provided a better goodness-of-fit than pedigree-based expected relationships. Genomic regions with probable pleiotropic effects were supported by the corresponding higher linkage group (LG) level estimated genetic correlations. CONCLUSIONS: The accuracy of artificial selection in plants species can be increased by using more precise marker-deri

The genome sequence of apple (Malus×domestica Borkh.) was published more than a year ago, which helped develop an 8K SNP chip to assist in implementing genomic selection (GS). In apple breeding programmes, GS can be used to obtain genomic breeding values (GEBV) for choosing next-generation parents or selections for further testing as potential commercial cultivars at a very early stage. Thus GS has the potential to accelerate breeding efficiency significantly because of decreased generation interval or increased selection intensity. We evaluated the accuracy of GS in a population of 1120 seedlings generated from a factorial mating design of four females and two male parents. All seedlings were genotyped using an Illumina Infinium chip comprising 8,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and were phenotyped for various fruit quality traits. Random-regression best liner unbiased prediction (RR-BLUP) and the Bayesian LASSO method were used to obtain GEBV, and compared using a cross-validation approach for their accuracy to predict unobserved BLUP-BV. Accuracies were very similar for both methods, varying from 0.70 to 0.90 for various fruit quality traits. The selection response per unit time using GS compared with the traditional BLUP-based selection were very high (>100%) especially for low-heritability traits. Genome-wide average estimated linkage disequilibrium (LD) between adjacent SNPs was 0.32, with a relatively slow decay of LD in the long range (r2 = 0.33 and 0.19 at 100 kb and 1,000 kb respectively), contributing to the higher accuracy of GS. Distribution of estimated SNP effects revealed involvement of large effect genes with likely pleiotropic effects. These results demonstrated that genomic selection is a credible alternative to conventional selection for fruit quality traits.