Twenty Years of Women\u27s Leadership: Have We Come A Long Way, Baby? *

I\u27d like to share with you some thoughts from my last 20 years of leadership study and what I\u27ve come to understand during this time about women in relationship to leadership. Consider these remarks personal reflections on some of what has been written and discussed about leadership and especially about how women relate to leadership. Let\u27s wonder together if we\u27ve come a long way in our thinking about leadership and how women\u27s unique voices relate to it. 20 years ago we were just beginning to think about leadership in a broader way than simply a series of skills and abilities. We were generally either thinking that leadership and management were the same thing, or thinking that leadership was the opposite of management, and it was good and management was not good. For example, Bennis wrote in 1989 that management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right thing. We hadn\u27t yet figured out that it\u27s possible to do both and to do both well

Comparing high school students' attitudes towards borrowing for higher education in England and the United States: who are the most loan averse?

Student borrowing is a major higher education public policy issue, with students in both England and the United States increasingly relying on loans to finance postsecondary education. Our paper examines prospective higher education students’ attitudes towards debt in England and the United States. It exploits a unique dataset which allows us to compare students’ responses to similar surveys conducted in both countries during the same time period. Our study is the first of its kind to explore how students’ borrowing attitudes differ across the two countries. It confirms widespread loan aversion among prospective higher education students in both countries. But students in the United States are more debt averse than their peers in England. These debt averse attitudes also predict lower intentions to pursue higher education, potentially exacerbating existing inequalities in access. We consider how these attitudes to borrowing are likely shaped by each country’s distinctive student loan system. We conclude that the design of loans matters. England’s income-contingent loan repayments, in contrast to America’s mortgage style repayments, make borrowing less risky and reduce the impact of loan aversion on participation decisions, while borrowing is commoner and the system less complicated in England. Thus, there are lessons for other countries considering introducing student loans or reforming their provision. We contribute to the extant literature on the determinants of, and socioeconomic differences in, higher education participation and the overlooked role of student debt aversion

Auditory Cortex is Important in the Extinction of Two Different Tone-Based Conditioned Fear Memories in Rats

Extensive fear extinction research is guided by the view that there are structures in the brain that develop inhibitory control over the expression of conditioned fear memories. While the medial prefrontal cortex has recently captured attention as the locus of plasticity essential for extinction of conditioned fear, the auditory cortex is another plausible cortical area involved in extinction learning since it is considered a sufficient conditioned stimulus (CS) pathway in tone fear conditioning. We examined the role of auditory cortex in extinction of auditory-based fear memories with a standard tone-on conditioning, wherein a tone CS predicted a footshock unconditioned stimulus (US), or a novel tone-off conditioning, in which the tone was continually present and the offset of the tone was the CS predicting the US. Rats with bilateral auditory cortex lesions were trained in either paradigm and subsequently trained in extinction to the CS. Auditory cortex lesions had no effect on acquisition but impaired extinction to both CSs. These findings indicate that the auditory cortex contributes to extinction of wide-ranging auditory fear memories, as evidenced by deficits in both tone-on CS and tone-off CS extinction training

Scoping the strengths and weaknesses of different auction and PES mechanisms for Countryside Stewardship

This is the final version. Available from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) via the link in this recordThe majority of farmers in England currently receive a fixed fee for managing their land under an agrienvironment scheme (Environmental Stewardship), which is based on an estimate of the typical income forgone by participating. The aim of this research is to explore alternative mechanisms for allocating agri-environment contracts with a view to achieving a more cost-efficient and effective use of funds. The focus is on reverse auctions, whereby farmers opt into a bidding process, offering to manage their land under prescribed management options at a price that more closely reflects their cost of doing so. The researchers have used a combination of laboratory experiments, simulation modelling and farmer workshops to consider the opportunity for efficiency gains, aspects of auction design and farmer responses to auctions. A secondary objective of the work is to explore opportunities for the private sector to engage in agrienvironment actions by leveraging match-funding where there are common goals and mutual benefits for private firms and society. This has entailed a review of the payment for ecosystem services (PES) literature and consultations with a number of relevant private firms. A particular focus for the latter has been the water companies, as they have already established some initiatives on PES around improving water quality

Multi-Regional Adaptation in Human Auditory Association Cortex

In auditory cortex, neural responses decrease with stimulus repetition, known as adaptation. Adaptation is thought to facilitate detection of novel sounds and improve perception in noisy environments. Although it is well established that adaptation occurs in primary auditory cortex, it is not known whether adaptation also occurs in higher auditory areas involved in processing complex sounds, such as speech. Resolving this issue is important for understanding the neural bases of adaptation and to avoid potential post-operative deficits after temporal lobe surgery for treatment of focal epilepsy. Intracranial electrocorticographic recordings were acquired simultaneously from electrodes implanted in primary and association auditory areas of the right (non-dominant) temporal lobe in a patient with complex partial seizures originating from the inferior parietal lobe. Simple and complex sounds were presented in a passive oddball paradigm. We measured changes in single-trial high-gamma power (70–150 Hz) and in regional and inter-regional network-level activity indexed by cross-frequency coupling. Repetitive tones elicited the greatest adaptation and corresponding increases in cross-frequency coupling in primary auditory cortex. Conversely, auditory association cortex showed stronger adaptation for complex sounds, including speech. This first report of multi-regional adaptation in human auditory cortex highlights the role of the non-dominant temporal lobe in suppressing neural responses to repetitive background sounds (noise). These results underscore the clinical utility of functional mapping to avoid potential post-operative deficits including increased listening difficulties in noisy, real-world environments

Influence of Morphine on Pericyte-Endothelial Interaction: Implications for Antiangiogenic Therapy

Morphine stimulates tumor angiogenesis and cancer progression in mice. We examined if morphine influences endothelial-pericyte interaction via platelet-derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB) and PDGF receptor-β (PDGFR-β). Clinically relevant doses of morphine stimulated PDGF-BB secretion from human umbilical vein endothelial cells and activated PDGFR-β and mitogen-activated protein kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MAPK/ERK) phosphorylation in human pericytes. These in vitro effects of morphine were translated into promotion of tumor angiogenesis in a transgenic mice model of breast cancer when treated with clinically used dose of morphine. Increased vessel-associated immunoreactivity of desmin and PDGFR-β was observed on pericytes in tumors of morphine-treated mice. These data suggest that morphine potentiates endothelial-pericyte interaction via PDGF-BB/PDGFR-β signaling and promotes tumor angiogenesis, pericyte recruitment, and coverage of tumor vessels. We speculate that morphine may impair the effectiveness of antiangiogenic therapy by influencing vascular pericyte coverage

A novel membrane inlet-infrared gas analysis (MI-IRGA) system for monitoring of seawater carbonate system

Increased atmospheric CO 2 concentrations are driving changes in ocean chemistry at unprecedented rates resulting in ocean acidification, which is predicted to impact the functioning of marine biota, in particular of marine calcifiers. However, the precise understanding of such impacts relies on an analytical system that determines the mechanisms and impact of elevated pCO 2 on the physiology of organisms at scales from species to entire communities. Recent work has highlighted the need within experiments to control all aspects of the carbonate system to resolve the role of different inorganic carbon species on the physiological responses observed across taxa in real-time. Presently however, there are limited options available for continuous quantification of physiological responses, coupled with real-time calculation of the seawater carbonate chemistry system within microcosm environments. Here, we describe and characterise the performance of a novel pCO 2 membrane equilibrium system (the Membrane Inlet Infra-Red Gas Analyser, MI-IRGA) integrated with a continuous pH and oxygen monitoring platform. The system can detect changes in the seawater carbonate chemistry and determine organism physiological responses, while providing the user with real-time control over the microcosm system. We evaluate the systems control, response time and associated error, and demonstrate the flexibility of the system to operate under field conditions and within a laboratory. We use the system to measure physiological parameters (photosynthesis and respiration) for the corals Pocillipora damicornis and Porites cylindrica; in doing so we present a novel dataset examining the interactive role of temperature, light and pCO 2 on the physiology of P. cylindrica

Homeoviscous response of Clostridium pasteurianum to butanol toxicity during glycerol fermentation

Clostridium pasteurianum ATCC 6013 achieves high n-butanol production when glycerol is used as the sole carbon source. In this study, the homeoviscous membrane response of C. pasteurianum ATCC 6013 has been examined through n-butanol challenge experiments. Homeoviscous response is a critical aspect of n-butanol tolerance and has not been examined in detail for C. pasteurianum. Lipid membrane compositions were examined for glycerol fermentations with n-butanol production, and during cell growth in the absence of n-butanol production, using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR). Membrane stabilization due to homeoviscous response was further examined by surface pressure–area (π–A) analysis of membrane extract monolayers. C. pasteurianum was found to exert a homeoviscous response that was comprised of an increase lipid tail length and a decrease in the percentage of unsaturated fatty acids with increasing n-butanol challenge. This led to a more rigid or stable membrane that counteracted n-butanol fluidization. This is the first report on the changes in the membrane lipid composition during n-butanol production by C. pasteurianum ATCC 6013, which is a versatile microorganism that has the potential to be engineered as an industrial n-butanol producer using crude glycerol

How much do we really lose?—Yield losses in the proximity of natural landscape elements in agricultural landscapes

Natural landscape elements (NLEs) in agricultural landscapes contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem services, but are also regarded as an obstacle for large‐scale agricultural production. However, the effects of NLEs on crop yield have rarely been measured. Here, we investigated how different bordering structures, such as agricultural roads, field‐to‐field borders, forests, hedgerows, and kettle holes, influence agricultural yields. We hypothesized that (a) yield values at field borders differ from mid‐field yields and that (b) the extent of this change in yields depends on the bordering structure. We measured winter wheat yields along transects with log‐scaled distances from the border into the agricultural field within two intensively managed agricultural landscapes in Germany (2014 near Göttingen, and 2015–2017 in the Uckermark). We observed a yield loss adjacent to every investigated bordering structure of 11%–38% in comparison with mid‐field yields. However, depending on the bordering structure, this yield loss disappeared at different distances. While the proximity of kettle holes did not affect yields more than neighboring agricultural fields, woody landscape elements had strong effects on winter wheat yields. Notably, 95% of mid‐field yields could already be reached at a distance of 11.3 m from a kettle hole and at a distance of 17.8 m from hedgerows as well as forest borders. Our findings suggest that yield losses are especially relevant directly adjacent to woody landscape elements, but not adjacent to in‐field water bodies. This highlights the potential to simultaneously counteract yield losses close to the field border and enhance biodiversity by combining different NLEs in agricultural landscapes such as creating strips of extensive grassland vegetation between woody landscape elements and agricultural fields. In conclusion, our results can be used to quantify ecocompensations to find optimal solutions for the delivery of productive and regulative ecosystem services in heterogeneous agricultural landscapes