The prevalence of developmental delays that make children eligible for Part C services is much higher than previously thought. Moreover, the majority of children who are eligible for Part C services are not receiving services for their developmental problems. Strategies need to be developed to monitor patterns of enrollment in early intervention services and reach out to more minority children, particularly black children.

We have experimentally observed around 2 orders of magnitude circular dichroism (CD) enhancement in the visible region for cysteine molecules located in the hotspots of gold nanosphere clusters. The observed plasmon-induced CD responses show a significant correlation with the chiral nature of molecules at the hotspots. These results provide a concrete experimental demonstration on the predicted chiroptical transfer and amplification effect that arises from hotspot-mediated exciton−plasmon interactions in a strongly coupled metallic nanostructure, even though the exciton−plasmon coupling works at a far off-resonant regime. Our findings suggest here that plasmonic hotspot-based CD amplifier may provide a new strategy for ultrasensitive detection and quantification of molecular chiralitya key aspect for various bioscience and biomedicine applications.

This study used hierarchical linear modeling to predict first grade students' peer acceptance, classroom engagement, and sense of school belonging from measures of normative classroom teacher-student support and individual teacher-student support. Participants were 509 (54.4% male) ethnically diverse, first grade children attending one of three Texas School districts (1 urban, 2 small city) who scored below their school district median on a measure of literacy administered at the beginning of first grade. Peer nominations from 5147 classmates were used to assess both normative and individual levels of teacher support. Normative classroom teacher-student support predicted children's peer acceptance and classroom engagement, above the effects of child gender, ethnic minority status, and individual teacher-student support. Results are discussed in terms of implications for teacher preparation and professional development.

A series of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) nanocomposites containing from 1 up to 6 weight % of montmorillonite layered silicate were prepared by melt compounding followed by compression moulding. The morphology of the nanocomposites was investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and it was confirmed that the nanocomposite structures were intercalated. The average aspect ratio of the compounded nanoclay was found to be 50. Water vapour transmission rates (WVTR) through the films were measured at 38°C and at a relative humidity of 90%. It was found that the measured values of WVTR decreased with increasing nanoclay content up to a value of 5 weight % and the results gave good agreement with predictions from the Nielsen 'tortuous path' model.

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