Mentoring Future Mathematics Teachers: Lessons Learned from Four Mentoring Partnerships

Mentoring is an important aspect of mathematics teacher education, and in particular, pre-service teacher education. Faculty at a large Midwestern university developed and refined a mentoring program designed to help pre-service secondary mathematics teachers, called Scholars, become future leaders in mathematics education. This paper describes how faculty mentors leveraged challenges in the mentoring program’s early stages based on their reflections and initial mentee outcomes to create a more effective mentoring program. Recommendations based on research and practice are provided for other university programs interested in mentoring future mathematics teachers

Finding their Voice: Support Mechanisms to Engage and Empower Future Mathematics Teachers

The NebraskaMATH Omaha Noyce Partnership Scholarship awards scholarships funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to undergraduate students interested in mathematics education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Scholars, who are dual mathematics and secondary education majors, are engaged and supported by Noyce faculty to not only excel in their college coursework and career preparation, but also to serve the university and community through teaching assistantships and STEM community outreach. The main goal of this program is to strengthen and expand the pipeline for preparing high-quality teachers of mathematics to better meet the responsibilities and demands of local school districts, particularly those serving students with high-need. Cross-campus collaborations between the departments of teacher education and mathematics co-constructed the Noyce infrastructure to emphasize and share the development of future, high-quality secondary mathematics teachers (Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership, 2014). This paper describes our program’s unique design and implementation features aimed to empower, engage, and extend the talents of our undergraduate students. We share lessons learned and recommendations from faculty and participants regarding decisions and facets of the program considered to be most influential in STEM teacher and leadership development

Training University Tutors to Work with Bilingual Students

The purpose of this project was to train university tutors to improve their support of bilingual students (ESL/ELL students). We developed an evidence-based training session that emphasizes university connectedness and cultural inclusion. This one-hour training included background information, tutoring tips, and time for discussion. The majority of tutors (44 out of 47) reported learning something helpful they could use when tutoring. While this intervention was specifically designed to target bilingual students, most evidence-based tips discussed here are applicable to all students. It is crucial to provide tutors with the skills and resources necessary to better connect with their students

A high-speed tunable beam splitter for feed-forward photonic quantum information processing

We realize quantum gates for path qubits with a high-speed, polarization-independent and tunable beam splitter. Two electro-optical modulators act in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer as high-speed phase shifters and rapidly tune its splitting ratio. We test its performance with heralded single photons, observing a polarization-independent interference contrast above 95%. The switching time is about 5.6 ns, and a maximal repetition rate is 2.5 MHz. We demonstrate tunable feed-forward operations of a single-qubit gate of path-encoded qubits and a two-qubit gate via measurement-induced interaction between two photons

Resistance to wheat rusts identified in wheat/Amblyopyrum muticum chromosome introgressions

© 2020 The Authors. Crop Science © 2020 Crop Science Society of America Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) rusts are a worldwide production problem. Plant breeders have used genetic resistance to combat these fungi. However, single-gene resistance is rapidly overcome as a result of frequent occurrence of new virulent fungal strains. Thus, a supply of new resistance sources is continually needed, and new resistance sources are limited within hexaploid wheat genetic stocks. Wild relatives are able to be a resource for new resistance genes but are hindered because of chromosome incapability with domesticated wheats. Twenty-eight double-haploid hexaploid wheat/Amblyopyrum muticum (Boiss.) Eig introgression lines, with introgressions covering the majority of the T genome, were evaluated for resistance to Puccinia triticina Erikss., P. graminis Pers.:Pers. f.sp. tritici Erikss. & E. Henning, and P. striiformis Westend. f.sp. tritici Erikss. At the seedling level, four lines were resistant to races of P. triticina, six lines were resistant to P. graminis, and 15 lines were resistant to P. striiformis. At the adult stage, 16 lines were resistant to P. triticina. Line 355 had resistance to all three rusts and line 161 had resistance to all tested races of P. triticina. Some of these lines will require further work to reduce the size of the introgressed segment; however, lines 92 and 355 have very small fragments and can be used directly as new resistance donors

Crop Updates 2005 - Lupins and Pulses

This session covers sixty five papers from different authors: 1. 2004 LUPIN AND PULSE INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS, Peter White Department of Agriculture 2. BACKGROUND, Peter White Department of Agriculture 2004 REGIONAL ROUNDUP 3. Northern Agricultural Region, Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 4. Central Agricultural Region, Ian Pritchard, Department of Agriculture 5. Great Southern and Lakes, Rodger Beermier, Department of Agriculture 6. Esperance Port Zone, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture, and David Syme, The Grain Pool of WA LUPIN AND PULSE PRODUCTION AGRONOMY AND GENETIC IMPROVEMENT 7. Lupin, Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 8. Narrow-leafed lupin breeding, Bevan Buirchell, Department of Agriculture 9. Yellow lupin breeding in Western Australia, Kedar Adhikari, Mark Sweetingham and Bevan Buirchell, Department of Agriculture 10. WALAB2000 - First Anthracnose resistant albus lupins, Kedar Adhikari, Bevan Buirchell, MarkSweetingham and Geoff Thomas, Department of Agriculture 11. Improving lupin grain quality and yield through genetic manipulation of key physiological traits, Jon Clements1 and Bevan Buirchell2,1CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 2Department of Agriculture 12. Lupin alkaloids in four Australian species, Shao Fang Wang, Chemistry Centre (WA), CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 13. Improving lupin tolerance to herbicides of metribuzin, isoxaflutole and carfentrazone-ethyl, Ping Si1, Mark Sweetingham12, Bevan Buirchell12, David Bowran2 and Huaan Yang12 , 1CLIMA, The University of Western Australia, 2Department of Agriculture 14. Combined cultural and shielded sprayer herbicide application for weed management, Martin Harries and Mike Baker Department of Agriculture 15. Field testing of lupin seed of various sources with and without post maturity, pre harvest rain for field establishment, Martin Harries, Wayne Parker, Mike Baker, Department of Agriculture 16. Lupin seed rate by wide row spacing, Martin Harries, Bob French, Damien Owen D’arcy, Department of Agriculture 17. How environment influences row spacing response in lupins, Bob French, Department of Agriculture 18. The effect of wider row spacing on lupin architecture, growth and nutrient uptake dynamics, Bill Bowden and Craig Scanlan, Department of Agriculture 19. Fertiliser placement and application rate in wide rows, Martin Harries, Damien Owen D’arcy, Department of Agriculture 20. The pros and cons of cowing lupins in ‘wide’ rows, Wayne Parker, Bob French and Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 21. Investigation into the influence of row orientation in lupin crops, Jeff Russell1 and Angie Roe2, 1Department of Agriculture, 2Farm Focus Consultants 22. Making the most of Mandelup, Greg Shea and Chris Matthews, Department of Agriculture 23. The effect of wild radish density and lupin cultivars on their competition at Merredin, Shahab Pathan, Abul Hashem and Bob French, Department of Agriculture 24. The potential of pearl lupin (Lupinus mutabilis) for southern Australia, Jon Clements1, Mark Sweetingham2, Bevan Buirchell2, Sofia Sipsas2, Geoff Thomas2, John Quealy1, Roger Jones2, Clive Francis1, Colin Smith2 and Gordon Francis1, 1CLIMA, University of Western Australia 2Department of Agriculture 25. Field pea, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture 26. Breeding highlights, Tanveer. Khan and Bob French, Department of Agriculture 27. Variety evaluation, Tanveer Khan, Kerry Regan, Jenny Garlinge and Rod Hunter, Department of Agriculture 28. Large scale field pea variety trials, Martin Harries, Department of Agriculture 29. Kaspa demonstrations, Rodger Beermier, Mark Seymour, Ian Pritchard, Graham Mussell, Department of Agriculture 30. Field pea harvesting demonstration at Merredin, Glen Riethmuller, Greg Shea and Bob French, Department of Agriculture 31. Does Kaspa respond differently to disease, fungicides, time of sowing or seed rate, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture 32. Field pea response to foliar Manganese in mallee district, Mark Seymour, Department of Agriculture 33. Kaspa harvesting observations 2004, Mark Seymour, Ian Pritchard, Glen Riethmuller, Department of Agriculture 34. ‘Blackspot Manager’ for understanding blackspot of peas and ascochyta blight management, Moin Salam and Jean Galloway, Department of Agriculture 35. 250,000 ha of field pea in WA – Is it sustainable? Larn McMurray1 and Mark Seymour2, 1South Australian Research and Development Institute, 2Department of Agriculture 36. Desi chickpea, Wayne Parker, Department of Agriculture 37. Breeding highlights, Tanveer Khan1,2 and Kadambot Siddique2,1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 38. Variety evaluation, Tanveer Khan, Kerry Regan, Jenny Garlinge and Rod Hunter, Department of Agriculture 39. Large scale variety testing of desi chickpeas, Martin Harries, Greg Shea, Mike Baker, Dirranie Kirby, Department of Agriculture 40. Desi variety chickpea trial, Martin Harries and Murray Blyth, Department of Agriculture 41. Seeding rates and row spacing of chickpea desi, Martin Harries, MurrayBlyth, Damien Owen D’arcy, Department of Agriculture 42. Molecular characterisation of chickpea wild relatives, Fucheng Shan, Heather Clarke and Kadambot Siddique, CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 43. Plant phosphorus status has a limited influence on the concentration of phosphorus-mobilising carboxylates in the rhizosphere of chickpea, Madeleine Wouterlood, Hans Lambers and Erik Veneklaas, The University of Western Australia 44. Kabuli chickpea, Kerry Regan, Department of Agriculture, and CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 45. ‘Kimberly Large’ A high quality and high yielding new variety for the Ord River Irrigation Area, Kerry Regan1,2, Kadambot Siddique2, Peter White1,2, Peter Smith1 and Gae Plunkett1,1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, University of Western Australia 46. Development of ascochyta resistant and high quality varieties for Australia, Kadambot Siddique1, Kerry Regan1,2, Tim Pope1 and Mike Baker2, 1CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 2Department of Agriculture 47. Towards double haploids in chickpeas and field pea, Janine Croser, Julia Wilson and Kadambot Siddique, CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 48. Crossing chickpea with wild Cicer relatives to introduce resistance to disease and tolerance to environmental stress, Heather Clarke and Kadambot Siddique, CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 49. Faba bean, Peter White, Department of Agriculture 50. Germplasm evaluation, Peter White1,2, Kerry Regan1,2, Tim Pope2, Martin Harries1, Mark Seymour1, Rodger Beermier1 and Leanne Young1, 1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 51. Lentil, Kerry Regan, Department of Agriculture, and CLIMA, The University of Western Australia 52. Variety and germplasm evaluation, Kerry Regan1,2, Tim Pope2, Leanne Young1, Martin Harries1, Murray Blyth1 and Michael Materne3, 1Department of Agriculture, 2CLIMA, University of Western Australia, 3Department of Primary Industries, Victoria 53. Lathyrus species, Kadambot Siddique1, Kerry Regan2, and Colin Hanbury2, 1CLIMA, the University of Western Australia, 2Department of Agricultur

Phenotypic Characterization of EIF2AK4 Mutation Carriers in a Large Cohort of Patients Diagnosed Clinically With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare disease with an emerging genetic basis. Heterozygous mutations in the gene encoding the bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 2 (BMPR2) are the commonest genetic cause of PAH, whereas biallelic mutations in the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 alpha kinase 4 gene (EIF2AK4) are described in pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis. Here, we determine the frequency of these mutations and define the genotype-phenotype characteristics in a large cohort of patients diagnosed clinically with PAH. METHODS: Whole-genome sequencing was performed on DNA from patients with idiopathic and heritable PAH and with pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis recruited to the National Institute of Health Research BioResource-Rare Diseases study. Heterozygous variants in BMPR2 and biallelic EIF2AK4 variants with a minor allele frequency of <1:10 000 in control data sets and predicted to be deleterious (by combined annotation-dependent depletion, PolyPhen-2, and sorting intolerant from tolerant predictions) were identified as potentially causal. Phenotype data from the time of diagnosis were also captured. RESULTS: Eight hundred sixty-four patients with idiopathic or heritable PAH and 16 with pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis were recruited. Mutations in BMPR2 were identified in 130 patients (14.8%). Biallelic mutations in EIF2AK4 were identified in 5 patients with a clinical diagnosis of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis. Furthermore, 9 patients with a clinical diagnosis of PAH carried biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations. These patients had a reduced transfer coefficient for carbon monoxide (Kco; 33% [interquartile range, 30%-35%] predicted) and younger age at diagnosis (29 years; interquartile range, 23-38 years) and more interlobular septal thickening and mediastinal lymphadenopathy on computed tomography of the chest compared with patients with PAH without EIF2AK4 mutations. However, radiological assessment alone could not accurately identify biallelic EIF2AK4 mutation carriers. Patients with PAH with biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations had a shorter survival. CONCLUSIONS: Biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations are found in patients classified clinically as having idiopathic and heritable PAH. These patients cannot be identified reliably by computed tomography, but a low Kco and a young age at diagnosis suggests the underlying molecular diagnosis. Genetic testing can identify these misclassified patients, allowing appropriate management and early referral for lung transplantation

Telomerecat: A ploidy-agnostic method for estimating telomere length from whole genome sequencing data.

Telomere length is a risk factor in disease and the dynamics of telomere length are crucial to our understanding of cell replication and vitality. The proliferation of whole genome sequencing represents an unprecedented opportunity to glean new insights into telomere biology on a previously unimaginable scale. To this end, a number of approaches for estimating telomere length from whole-genome sequencing data have been proposed. Here we present Telomerecat, a novel approach to the estimation of telomere length. Previous methods have been dependent on the number of telomeres present in a cell being known, which may be problematic when analysing aneuploid cancer data and non-human samples. Telomerecat is designed to be agnostic to the number of telomeres present, making it suited for the purpose of estimating telomere length in cancer studies. Telomerecat also accounts for interstitial telomeric reads and presents a novel approach to dealing with sequencing errors. We show that Telomerecat performs well at telomere length estimation when compared to leading experimental and computational methods. Furthermore, we show that it detects expected patterns in longitudinal data, repeated measurements, and cross-species comparisons. We also apply the method to a cancer cell data, uncovering an interesting relationship with the underlying telomerase genotype

Phenotypic Characterization of <i>EIF2AK4</i> Mutation Carriers in a Large Cohort of Patients Diagnosed Clinically With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare disease with an emerging genetic basis. Heterozygous mutations in the gene encoding the bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 2 ( BMPR2 ) are the commonest genetic cause of PAH, whereas biallelic mutations in the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 alpha kinase 4 gene ( EIF2AK4 ) are described in pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis. Here, we determine the frequency of these mutations and define the genotype-phenotype characteristics in a large cohort of patients diagnosed clinically with PAH. Methods: Whole-genome sequencing was performed on DNA from patients with idiopathic and heritable PAH and with pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis recruited to the National Institute of Health Research BioResource–Rare Diseases study. Heterozygous variants in BMPR2 and biallelic EIF2AK4 variants with a minor allele frequency of &lt;1:10 000 in control data sets and predicted to be deleterious (by combined annotation-dependent depletion, PolyPhen-2, and sorting intolerant from tolerant predictions) were identified as potentially causal. Phenotype data from the time of diagnosis were also captured. Results: Eight hundred sixty-four patients with idiopathic or heritable PAH and 16 with pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis were recruited. Mutations in BMPR2 were identified in 130 patients (14.8%). Biallelic mutations in EIF2AK4 were identified in 5 patients with a clinical diagnosis of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease/pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis. Furthermore, 9 patients with a clinical diagnosis of PAH carried biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations. These patients had a reduced transfer coefficient for carbon monoxide (K co ; 33% [interquartile range, 30%–35%] predicted) and younger age at diagnosis (29 years; interquartile range, 23–38 years) and more interlobular septal thickening and mediastinal lymphadenopathy on computed tomography of the chest compared with patients with PAH without EIF2AK4 mutations. However, radiological assessment alone could not accurately identify biallelic EIF2AK4 mutation carriers. Patients with PAH with biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations had a shorter survival. Conclusions: Biallelic EIF2AK4 mutations are found in patients classified clinically as having idiopathic and heritable PAH. These patients cannot be identified reliably by computed tomography, but a low K co and a young age at diagnosis suggests the underlying molecular diagnosis. Genetic testing can identify these misclassified patients, allowing appropriate management and early referral for lung transplantation. </jats:sec

Comprehensive Cancer-Predisposition Gene Testing in an Adult Multiple Primary Tumor Series Shows a Broad Range of Deleterious Variants and Atypical Tumor Phenotypes.

Multiple primary tumors (MPTs) affect a substantial proportion of cancer survivors and can result from various causes, including inherited predisposition. Currently, germline genetic testing of MPT-affected individuals for variants in cancer-predisposition genes (CPGs) is mostly targeted by tumor type. We ascertained pre-assessed MPT individuals (with at least two primary tumors by age 60 years or at least three by 70 years) from genetics centers and performed whole-genome sequencing (WGS) on 460 individuals from 440 families. Despite previous negative genetic assessment and molecular investigations, pathogenic variants in moderate- and high-risk CPGs were detected in 67/440 (15.2%) probands. WGS detected variants that would not be (or were not) detected by targeted resequencing strategies, including low-frequency structural variants (6/440 [1.4%] probands). In most individuals with a germline variant assessed as pathogenic or likely pathogenic (P/LP), at least one of their tumor types was characteristic of variants in the relevant CPG. However, in 29 probands (42.2% of those with a P/LP variant), the tumor phenotype appeared discordant. The frequency of individuals with truncating or splice-site CPG variants and at least one discordant tumor type was significantly higher than in a control population (χ2 = 43.642; p ≤ 0.0001). 2/67 (3%) probands with P/LP variants had evidence of multiple inherited neoplasia allele syndrome (MINAS) with deleterious variants in two CPGs. Together with variant detection rates from a previous series of similarly ascertained MPT-affected individuals, the present results suggest that first-line comprehensive CPG analysis in an MPT cohort referred to clinical genetics services would detect a deleterious variant in about a third of individuals.JW is supported by a Cancer Research UK Cambridge Cancer Centre Clinical Research Training Fellowship. Funding for the NIHR BioResource – Rare diseases project was provided by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR, grant number RG65966). ERM acknowledges support from the European Research Council (Advanced Researcher Award), NIHR (Senior Investigator Award and Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre), Cancer Research UK Cambridge Cancer Centre and Medical Research Council Infrastructure Award. The University of Cambridge has received salary support in respect of EM from the NHS in the East of England through the Clinical Academic Reserve. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS or Department of Health. DGE is an NIHR Senior Investigator and is supported by the all Manchester NIHR Biomedical Research Centre