Association for Behavior Analysis International

This qualitative study aims to explore Kazakh English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ perspectives on teacher feedback on written works, as well as exploring their feedback provision practices, and challenges. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews with teachers from public, specialized, and international schools in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Transcribed collected data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings of the study demonstrate that feedback on written works is crucial in improving students’ writing skills. Participants favored selective feedback or feedback that is provided following the goal of writing assignment. It was also revealed that some teachers favored direct feedback while others prioritized indirect feedback, believing it would encourage students in deep and independent learning. Additionally, insufficient time and a large number of written works to check, confusing handwriting, and cheating acts as plagiarism and overuse of AI tools are reported to be challenges faced by participants.

The type 1 diabetes community is coalescing around the benefits and advantages of early screening for disease risk. To be accepted by healthcare providers, regulatory authorities and payers, screening programmes need to show that the testing variables allow accurate risk prediction and that individualised risk-informed monitoring plans are established, as well as operational feasibility, cost-effectiveness and acceptance at population level. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to contribute to solving these issues, starting with the identification and stratification of at-risk individuals. ASSET (AI for Sustainable Prevention of Autoimmunity in the Society; www.asset.healthcare) is a public/private consortium that was established to contribute to research around screening for type 1 diabetes and particularly to how AI can drive the implementation of a precision medicine approach to disease prevention. ASSET will additionally focus on issues pertaining to operational implementation of screening. The authors of this article, researchers and clinicians active in the field of type 1 diabetes, met in an open forum to independently debate key issues around screening for type 1 diabetes and to advise ASSET. The potential use of AI in the analysis of longitudinal data from observational cohort studies to inform the design of improved, more individualised screening programmes was also discussed. A key issue was whether AI would allow the research community and industry to capitalise on large publicly available data repositories to design screening programmes that allow the early detection of individuals at high risk and enable clinical evaluation of preventive therapies. Overall, AI has the potential to revolutionise type 1 diabetes screening, in particular to help identify individuals who are at increased risk of disease and aid in the design of appropriate follow-up plans. We hope that this initiative will stimulate further research on this very timely topic.Graphical

Throughout history, individuals have changed the world in significant ways, forging new paths; demonstrating remarkable capacity to inspire others to follow; and repeatedly showing independence, resilience, consistency, and commitment to principle. However, significant cultural change is rarely accomplished single-handedly; instead, it results from the complex and dynamic interaction of groups of individuals. To illustrate how leaders participate in cultural phenomena, I describe how a few individuals helped to establish the Cold War. In this analysis, I distinguish two types of cultural phenomena: metacontingencies, involving lineages of interlocking behavioral contingencies, and cultural cusps, involving complicated, unique, and nonreplicable interrelations between individuals and circumstances. I conclude that by analyzing leaders' actions and their results, we can appreciate that cultural and behavioral phenomena are different, and although cultural phenomena are inherently complex and in many cases do not lend themselves to replication, not only should the science of behavior account for them, cultural phenomena should also constitute a major area of behavior analysis study and application.

Palatal fistulas occur most commonly as a complication of cleft palate surgery. Treatment of these fistulas, especially when they are wide and scarred, is a challenge for both patients and plastic surgeons, with a high rate of recurrence. The authors have operated on 22 cases of wide, scarred, recurrent palatal fistula with the use of the facial artery musculomucosal flap, first introduced by Pribaz et al. in 1992. The patients were operated on from March of 2001 to December of 2002 and ranged in age from 2 to 21 years. This flap is axial, centered over the facial artery, and can be raised inferiorly based or superiorly based. All of these patients with cleft palate had been operated on before. In one case, because of a very wide fistula, a bilateral facial artery musculomucosal flap was used. There were two cases of partial necrosis and one case of complete failure, probably caused by twisting of the whole pedicle. The nasal lining was made using turndown flaps of the fistula margin. Because of hanging the base of the flap (inferiorly based) and producing bite block during mastication, the pedicle had to be divided and the flap inset secondarily 1 month later. The facial artery musculomucosal flap is an alternative for closing the scarred, wide, recurrent fistula, and is associated with a high rate of success. The flap should be included among the techniques of any plastic surgeon who performs palatal surgery.