Fostering Agentic Engagement: Working toward Empowerment and Equity through Pedagogical Partnership

An established body of research details the faculty role in promoting student engagement. Newer scholarship on agentic engagement foregrounds student-initiated engagement in classroom learning. Our SoTL project explored how participating in student-faculty pedagogical partnerships supported two undergraduate students in expanding agentic engagement to encompass student empowerment and equity both within and beyond the classroom. We draw on the students’ autoethnographic accounts of three interrelated experiences: (1) joining a pedagogical partnership program as pedagogical consultants and developing confidence in, capacity for, and commitment to supporting student and faculty learning; (2) carrying that confidence, capacity, and commitment into the courses in which those students were enrolled to enact agentic engagement in their own and in support of others’ learning; and (3) expanding the agentic engagement they developed in the first two instances beyond classroom learning. This study has implications for classroom instruction, faculty professional development, and student advising and retention

Relationships of frequencies of extreme low temperatures with grain yield of some Australian commercial chickpea cultivars

In this study, we examined the relationships between extremes of low temperatures and chickpea yield in 12 field experiments conducted at six sites in the subtropical environment of southeast Queensland (SEQ) from 2014 to 2019. Three commercial chickpea cultivars, PBA-Boundary, PBA-HatTrick and PBA-Seamer, were grown in all the experiments. Cultivars PBA-Pistol, PBA-Monarch and Kyabra were also included in three of these experiments conducted in 2015. In these experiments, the crop experienced a total of 8 to 41 frosts (minimum temperature <  = 0 °C), 2 to 41 pre-flowering frosts, 2 to 19 frosts during the critical period, 0 to 13 frosts and 2 to 71 low-temperature days (< = 15 °C) after flowering. The mean yield, which varied from 1 to 3 t/ha, was negatively related to post-flowering frosts (r =  − 0.74, p < 0.01) and low-temperature days (r =  − 0.76, p < 0.01), and positively related to pre-flowering frosts (r = 0.67, p < 0.05). Each post-flowering frost was associated with a 5% decrease and a low-temperature day with a 1% decrease in yield. The cultivar × site interaction was significant only in the three experiments with six commercial cultivars. This interaction was most likely due to an increase in the sensitivity range with additional cultivars, as indicated by frost damage scores and their relationships with yield. The results imply that extreme low-temperature events after flowering could negatively impact chickpea yield in SEQ and similar subtropical environments. Overcoming these effects through management and breeding should increase and stabilise chickpea yield

Phylogenomic Analysis of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica Serovar Bovismorbificans from Clinical and Food Samples Using Whole Genome Wide Core Genes and kmer Binning Methods to Identify Two Distinct Polyphyletic Genome Pathotypes

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Bovismorbificans has caused multiple outbreaks involving the consumption of produce, hummus, and processed meat products worldwide. To elucidate the intra-serovar genomic structure of S. Bovismorbificans, a core-genome analysis with 2690 loci (based on 150 complete genomes representing Salmonella enterica serovars developed as part of this study) and a k-mer-binning based strategy were carried out on 95 whole genome sequencing (WGS) assemblies from Swiss, Canadian, and USA collections of S. Bovismorbificans strains from foodborne infections. Data mining of a digital DNA tiling array of legacy SARA and SARB strains was conducted to identify near-neighbors of S. Bovismorbificans. The core genome analysis and the k-mer-binning methods identified two polyphyletic clusters, each with emerging evolutionary properties. Four STs (2640, 142, 1499, and 377), which constituted the majority of the publicly available WGS datasets from >260 strains analyzed by k-mer-binning based strategy, contained a conserved core genome backbone with a different evolutionary lineage as compared to strains comprising the other cluster (ST150). In addition, the assortment of genotypic features contributing to pathogenesis and persistence, such as antimicrobial resistance, prophage, plasmid, and virulence factor genes, were assessed to understand the emerging characteristics of this serovar that are relevant clinically and for food safety concerns. The phylogenomic profiling of polyphyletic S. Bovismorbificans in this study corresponds to intra-serovar variations observed in S. Napoli and S. Newport serovars using similar high-resolution genomic profiling approaches and contributes to the understanding of the evolution and sequence divergence of foodborne Salmonellae. These intra-serovar differences may have to be thoroughly understood for the accurate classification of foodborne Salmonella strains needed for the uniform development of future food safety mitigation strategies

CB1 and GLP-1 Receptors Cross Talk Provides New Therapies for Obesity

Bordeaux Region Aquitaine Initiative for NeuroscienceInnovations instrumentales et procédurales en psychopathologie expérimentale chez le rongeurLa signalisation des acides biliaires dans le cerveau et son rôle dans le contrôle métaboliqueRôle du récepteur aux cannabinoïdes de type 1 mitochondriale dans les circuits hypothalamiques et son interaction avec la voie mTORC1 dans l'obésité

Meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies in neonates reveals widespread differential DNA methylation associated with birthweight

Birthweight is associated with health outcomes across the life course, DNA methylation may be an underlying mechanism. In this meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies of 8,825 neonates from 24 birth cohorts in the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics Consortium, we find that DNA methylation in neonatal blood is associated with birthweight at 914 sites, with a difference in birthweight ranging from -183 to 178 grams per 10% increase in methylation (P-Bonferroni <1.06 x 10(-7)). In additional analyses in 7,278 participants,Peer reviewe

Sharing and community curation of mass spectrometry data with Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking

The potential of the diverse chemistries present in natural products (NP) for biotechnology and medicine remains untapped because NP databases are not searchable with raw data and the NP community has no way to share data other than in published papers. Although mass spectrometry techniques are well-suited to high-throughput characterization of natural products, there is a pressing need for an infrastructure to enable sharing and curation of data. We present Global Natural Products Social molecular networking (GNPS, http://gnps.ucsd.edu), an open-access knowledge base for community wide organization and sharing of raw, processed or identified tandem mass (MS/MS) spectrometry data. In GNPS crowdsourced curation of freely available community-wide reference MS libraries will underpin improved annotations. Data-driven social-networking should facilitate identification of spectra and foster collaborations. We also introduce the concept of ‘living data’ through continuous reanalysis of deposited data

Introducing the African Peace Processes (APP) dataset: Negotiations and mediation in interstate, intrastate and non-state conflicts in Africa

This data feature introduces a new dataset to study peace processes to end organized armed violence in Africa: the African Peace Processes (APP) dataset. The APP dataset includes observations on both mediated and unmediated rounds of negotiations in state-based and non-state conflicts in Africa between 1989 and 2019 and builds on conflict data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The APP dataset covers peacemaking efforts in both active and inactive conflicts. Moreover, the start and end month and year of each observation are specified, giving researchers some flexibility with regard to the temporal unit of analysis they use. In addition to discussing the rationale behind the creation of the APP dataset, we explain the data collection process and show some patterns based on the data. We also illustrate how the data could be used by looking at the association between the no. of peacekeepers deployed and the onset of mediated negotiations in intrastate and non-state conflicts. We find that high no. of peacekeepers are associated with a higher likelihood of negotiations in non-state conflicts, but not in intrastate conflicts. A plausible explanation for this finding is that security concerns play a more important role in the decision to initiate negotiations in non-state conflicts than in intrastate conflicts. Our short analysis thus illustrates the value of having data on both intrastate and non-state conflicts.ISSN:0022-3433ISSN:1460-357