Two prospective longitudinal studies of nationally representative samples of students with disabilities-the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study and the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2-are used to provide a broad look at the participation of parents of 11-through 19-year-old students with disabilities in Individualized Education Plan/transition planning meetings and their satisfaction with their involvement in them. Students' attendance and the roles played in their transition planning meetings are also examined. Logistic regression analyses identify disability characteristics; demographics; aspects of parents' involvement, expectations, and perceptions; experiences in students' educational histories; and features of their instructional programs that help explain variations in parent and student participation, parent satisfaction, and student roles.

The ferric uptake regulator (Fur) is a global transcription factor that regulates intracellular iron homeostasis in bacteria. The current hypothesis states that when the intracellular “free” iron concentration is elevated, Fur binds ferrous iron and the iron-bound Fur represses the genes encoding for iron uptake systems and stimulates the genes encoding for iron storage proteins. However, the “iron-bound” Fur has never been isolated from any bacteria. Here we report that the Escherichia coli Fur has a bright red color when expressed in E. coli mutant cells containing an elevated intracellular “free” iron content due to deletion of the iron-sulfur cluster assembly proteins IscA and SufA. The acid-labile iron and sulfide content analyses in conjunction with the electron paramagnetic resonance and Mössbauer spectroscopy measurements and the site-directed mutagenesis studies show that the red Fur protein binds a [2Fe-2S] cluster via conserved cysteine residues.  The occupancy of the [2Fe-2S] cluster in Fur protein is about 31% in the E. coli iscA/sufA mutant cells and is decreased to about 4% in wild-type E. coli cells. Depletion of the intracellular “free” iron content using the membrane-permeable iron chelator 2,2’-dipyridyl effectively removes the [2Fe-2S] cluster from Fur in E. coli cells, suggesting that Fur senses the intracellular “free” iron content via reversible binding of a [2Fe-2S] cluster. The binding of the [2Fe-2S] cluster in Fur appears to be highly conserved, as the Fur homolog from Haemophilus influenzae expressed in E. coli cells also reversibly binds a [2Fe-2S] cluster to sense intracellular iron homeostasis.

This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study–2 to examine the rates at which youth with emotional disturbances received services during and up to 8 years after high school. Parents’ efforts to obtain services, information sources accessed, problems encountered, and the perceived sufficiency of services to meet youths’ needs are described. Findings show a drop in receipt rates for several services in the first 2 years post high school, relative to those received during high school, and a continued decrease thereafter. An increase in the reported effort to obtain services accompanied this decline in receipt rates. Implications for transition planning to build a better bridge from high school to the adult service systems are discussed and aspects of a research agenda are outlined.