An Overview of Campus Climate: Dimensions of Diversity in Higher Education

Higher education scholars have increasingly studied campus climate, a term used to denote the experiences of diverse students, faculty, and staff. This article inventories the literature on the topic, including definitions of campus climate, approaches to assessing climate, and future directions for climate inquiry.Educatio

Challenges and opportunities of context-aware information access

Ubiquitous computing environments embedding a wide range of pervasive computing technologies provide a challenging and exciting new domain for information access. Individuals working in these environments are increasingly permanently connected to rich information resources. An appealing opportunity of these environments is the potential to deliver useful information to individuals either from their previous information experiences or external sources. This information should enrich their life experiences or make them more effective in their endeavours. Information access in ubiquitous computing environments can be made "context-aware" by exploiting the wide range context data available describing the environment, the searcher and the information itself. Realizing such a vision of reliable, timely and appropriate identification and delivery of information in this way poses numerous challenges. A central theme in achieving context-aware information access is the combination of information retrieval with multiple dimensions of available context data. Potential context data sources, include the user's current task, inputs from environmental and biometric sensors, associated with the user's current context, previous contexts, and document context, which can be exploited using a variety of technologies to create new and exciting possibilities for information access

Erythrocyte's aging in microgravity highlights how environmental stimuli shape metabolism and morphology

The determination of the function of cells in zero-gravity conditions is a subject of interest in many different research fields. Due to their metabolic unicity, the characterization of the behaviour of erythrocytes maintained in prolonged microgravity conditions is of particular importance. Here, we used a 3D-clinostat to assess the microgravity-induced modifications of the structure and function of these cells, by investigating how they translate these peculiar mechanical stimuli into modifications, with potential clinical interest, of the biochemical pathways and the aging processes. We compared the erythrocyte's structural parameters and selected metabolic indicators that are characteristic of the aging in microgravity and standard static incubation conditions. The results suggest that, at first, human erythrocytes react to external stimuli by adapting their metabolic patterns and the rate of consumption of the cell resources. On longer timeframes, the cells translate even small differences in the environment mechanical solicitations into structural and morphologic features, leading to distinctive morphological patterns of agin

Analysing user physiological responses for affective video summarisation

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Displays. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2009 Elsevier B.V.Video summarisation techniques aim to abstract the most significant content from a video stream. This is typically achieved by processing low-level image, audio and text features which are still quite disparate from the high-level semantics that end users identify with (the ‘semantic gap’). Physiological responses are potentially rich indicators of memorable or emotionally engaging video content for a given user. Consequently, we investigate whether they may serve as a suitable basis for a video summarisation technique by analysing a range of user physiological response measures, specifically electro-dermal response (EDR), respiration amplitude (RA), respiration rate (RR), blood volume pulse (BVP) and heart rate (HR), in response to a range of video content in a variety of genres including horror, comedy, drama, sci-fi and action. We present an analysis framework for processing the user responses to specific sub-segments within a video stream based on percent rank value normalisation. The application of the analysis framework reveals that users respond significantly to the most entertaining video sub-segments in a range of content domains. Specifically, horror content seems to elicit significant EDR, RA, RR and BVP responses, and comedy content elicits comparatively lower levels of EDR, but does seem to elicit significant RA, RR, BVP and HR responses. Drama content seems to elicit less significant physiological responses in general, and both sci-fi and action content seem to elicit significant EDR responses. We discuss the implications this may have for future affective video summarisation approaches

Free and esterified carotenoids in ornaments of an avian species: the relationship to color expression and sources of variability

Many animal species show ornaments with yellow-orange-red colors produced by carotenoid pigments. Such traits have evolved as reliable signals of individual quality because of the costs inherent to their production or maintenance. In animal tissues, carotenoids are often found combined with free fatty acids, as carotenoid esters, which may confer more stability to coloration than free carotenoids. Surprisingly, the potential relevance of carotenoid esterification in the expression of animal sexual signals has been virtually ignored. Moreover, the sources of variability of esterified carotenoid levels are barely known, because most studies have not quantified their concentrations. Here, carotenoids in the ornaments (bill, eye rings, and legs) of red-legged partridges Alectoris rufa were quantified in their free and esterified forms. Carotenoid ester levels were the best predictors of leg color, whereas the redness of the other traits was better explained by free carotenoids. Nonetheless, total carotenoid levels (the sum of free and esterified forms) were always significantly correlated to redness. Young partridges had lower levels of free and esterified carotenids in the legs than did older individuals. Also, wild animals had higher ester levels and a higher proportion of carotenoids in esterified forms in all traits than did captive partridges. Probable physiological mechanisms explaining these patterns are discussed.Esther García-de Blas was supported by a predoctoral grant (JAE-PRE program) from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas cofinanced by Fondo Socia Europeo. Lorenzo Pérez-Rodríguez was supported by a “Juan de la Cierva” postdoctoral contract from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (JCI-2008-2059). This study was funded by Consejería de Educación y Ciencia, Junta de Comunidades de Castilla la Mancha (PII1I09-0271-5037), and Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (CGL2009-10883-C02-02) from the Spanish government.Peer reviewe

Covariation in oxidative stress markers in the blood of nestling and adult birds

Interest in the imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species and the state of the antioxidant machinery—that is, oxidative stress—has recently grown among comparative physiologists and evolutionary/behavioral ecologists. The number and types of markers used to estimate oxidative stress is, however, under debate. The study of covariation among these markers is necessary to better interpret the information content of each independent variable. Here, the covariation in levels of 10 blood parameters in a group of zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) as nestlings and adults was analyzed across a large data set. Total glutathione levels in erythrocytes were negatively correlated with plasma carotenoid values in nestlings only, supporting the implication of carotenoids in the antioxidant machinery during a particularly stressful period of life. Plasma lipid levels (triglycerides [TRGs]) as well as plasma antioxidant capacity—the latter tested with and without control for uric acid levels—showed individual consistency with age. Plasma TRG and uric acid levels were strongly correlated with plasma lipid peroxidation and antioxidant capacity, respectively, suggesting an influence of recent intake or mobilization of energy stores on these variables. The meaning of oxidative stress markers, whether corrected or uncorrected for levels of nutritional metabolites, remains to be explored. Experiments manipulating diet composition and oxidative stress are necessary to confirm or reject the hypothesized causalities.A.A.R.-H. was funded by a Formación de Personal de Investigación grant (BES-2010-035013; Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad [MINECO], Spanish government). Financial support was obtained from the projects CGL-2009-10883-C02-02 and CGL2012-40229-C02-01 (MINECO).Peer Reviewe

Oxidative Status and Life History Trade-offs in the Cooperatively Breeding Florida Scrub-Jay

Oxidative damage has been linked to several degenerative diseases and, as such, the oxidative status of an organism has been widely used as a proxy for health state. Organisms able to resist attack by reactive oxygen species, or those with high levels of antioxidants, are typically assumed to be in better condition (i.e., better able to withstand oxidative damage to biomolecules). Little work, however, has focused on whether the oxidative status of an organism (particularly oxidative damage in free-living species) influences life history decisions. My research examined the interplay between oxidative status and life history characteristics in a free-living bird, the Florida Scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens). I addressed the following questions: 1) Does reproductive effort covary with oxidative status? 2) Does supplementation of carotenoids (potentially important antioxidants) alleviate oxidative stress during reproduction? 3) Does supplementation of carotenoids alleviate oxidative stress during development? 4) Is oxidative status predictive of survival during early developmental stages? I found: 1) The oxidative cost of reproduction was sex specific with pre-breeding oxidative damage levels negatively correlated with reproductive effort, however, only in males. Similarly, in males, post-breeding levels of oxidative damage were significantly greater than pre-breeding levels. 2) Supplementation with antioxidants did not significantly change reproductive effort, or affect post-breeding oxidative damage levels. However, there was a relationship between change in oxidative damage levels with reproductive effort and treatment group (i. e., supplemented with antioxidants or not). Interestingly, I found no correlation between two measures of oxidative damage and a third measure of oxidative state (total antioxidant capacity). We emphasize the importance of the assessment of multiple measures of oxidative status in future studies. 3) Supplementation of nestling did not significantly affect growth or oxidative damage measures. 4) Oxidative damage to proteins was significantly lower in older individuals, whereas TAC was significantly higher in older individuals; however, damage to DNA did not significantly differ across ages. Oxidized proteins increased significantly from the nestling to nutritional independence stages (~2 months of age) and then subsequently declines as birds reached ~9 months of age. There were no relationships between oxidized proteins and survival at these early life stages

Embracing Diversity in Higher Education: Teaching a Driven and Determined Approach

Diversity and inclusivity are two must-teach components that the academy needs to incorporate into its curriculum to enrich student experiences. Due to globalization, technological advances, and norms, societies are becoming more homogenous. Institutions of higher learning should prioritize teaching diversity and inclusion with a driven and determined approach to prepare students better personally and professionally