The effectiveness of extended orientation first year seminars : a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Previous research has shown that while nearly 40% of all students who enter postsecondary institutions leave without ever obtaining a degree, nearly two-thirds of students who persist to their second year eventually obtain a degree. Given the impact of the first year, a multitude of initiatives designed to promote first-to-second year persistence developed. The most popular initiative has been the first year seminar and particularly the extended orientation model of first year seminar. Given its prominence in the undergraduate curriculum, a large body of research has developed in recent decades investigating the first year seminar. However, the predominance of this literature has been conducted as single institution studies thus limiting the generalizability of previous findings. Therefore, in this study I used a systematic review and meta-analysis to move beyond information provided by single institution studies and gain a broader understanding of the overall effectiveness of extended orientation first year seminars. The results indicated that voluntary participation in an extended orientation first year seminar had a statistically significant, positive effect on first term GPA, first year GPA, and first-to-second year retention. For each of these three outcomes, a significant degree of heterogeneity was observed between study effect size estimates. Moderator tests did not identify patterns in this heterogeneity but did indicate that, for the first term GPA outcome, courses taught by faculty as opposed to teams of faculty and staff or staff alone were associated with larger effect sizes. Also, for the retention outcome, samples comprised of less than 75% White students yielded larger effects than did samples with greater than 75% white students. The implications of these findings for university administrators are also discussed along with suggestions for future research

Magnetically levitated mesenchymal stem cell spheroids cultured with a collagen gel maintain phenotype and quiescence

Multicellular spheroids are an established system for three-dimensional cell culture. Spheroids are typically generated using hanging drop or non-adherent culture; however, an emerging technique is to use magnetic levitation. Herein, mesenchymal stem cell spheroids were generated using magnetic nanoparticles and subsequently cultured within a type I collagen gel, with a view towards developing a bone marrow niche environment. Cells were loaded with magnetic nanoparticles, and suspended beneath an external magnet, inducing self-assembly of multicellular spheroids. Cells in spheroids were viable and compared to corresponding monolayer controls, maintained stem cell phenotype and were quiescent. Interestingly, core spheroid necrosis was not observed, even with increasing spheroid size, in contrast to other commonly used spheroid systems. This mesenchymal stem cell spheroid culture presents a potential platform for modelling in vitro bone marrow stem cell niches, elucidating interactions between cells, as well as a useful model for drug delivery studies

Institutional Merit-Based Aid and Student Departure: A Longitudinal Analysis

The use of merit criteria in awarding institutional aid has grown considerably and, some argue, is supplanting need as the central factor in awarding aid. Concurrently, the accountability movement in higher education has placed greater emphasis on retention and graduation as indicators of institutional success and quality. In this context, this study explores the relationship between institutional merit aid and student departure from a statewide system of higher education. We found that, once we account for self-selection to the extent possible, there was no significant relationship. By contrast, need-based aid was consistently related to decreased odds of departure

Leveraging Large Language Models to Build and Execute Computational Workflows

The recent development of large language models (LLMs) with multi-billion parameters, coupled with the creation of user-friendly application programming interfaces (APIs), has paved the way for automatically generating and executing code in response to straightforward human queries. This paper explores how these emerging capabilities can be harnessed to facilitate complex scientific workflows, eliminating the need for traditional coding methods. We present initial findings from our attempt to integrate Phyloflow with OpenAI's function-calling API, and outline a strategy for developing a comprehensive workflow management system based on these concepts

Conformational control of structure and guest uptake by a tripeptide-based porous material

Chemical processes often rely on the selective sorting and transformation of molecules according to their size, shape and chemical functionality. For example, porous materials such as zeolites achieve the required selectivity through the constrained pore dimensions of a single structure.1 In contrast, proteins function by navigating between multiple metastable structures using bond rotations of the polypeptide,2,3 where each structure lies in one of the minima of a conformational energy landscape and can be selected according to the chemistry of the molecules interacting with the protein.3 Here we show that rotation about covalent bonds in a peptide linker can change a flexible metal-organic framework (MOF) to afford nine distinct crystal structures, revealing a conformational energy landscape characterised by multiple structural minima. The uptake of small molecule guests by the MOF can be chemically triggered by inducing peptide conformational change. This change transforms the material from a minimum on the landscape that is inactive for guest sorption to an active one. Chemical control of the conformation of a flexible organic linker offers a route to modify the pore geometry and internal surface chemistry and thus the function of open-framework materials

Characterization of Cre recombinase models for the study of adipose tissue

The study of adipose tissue in vivo has been significantly advanced through the use of genetic mouse models. While the aP2-CreBI and aP2-CreSalk lines have been widely used to target adipose tissue, the specificity of these lines for adipocytes has recently been questioned. Here we characterize Cre recombinase activity in multiple cell populations of the major adipose tissue depots of these and other Cre lines using the membrane-Tomato/membrane-GFP (mT/mG) dual fluorescent reporter. We find that the aP2-CreBI and aP2-CreSalk lines lack specificity for adipocytes within adipose tissue, and that the aP2-CreBI line does not efficiently target adipocytes in white adipose depots. Alternatively, the Adiponectin-CreERT line shows high efficiency and specificity for adipocytes, while the PdgfRα-CreERUCL and PdgfRα-CreERJHU lines do not efficiently target adipocyte precursor cells in the major adipose depots. Instead, we show that the PdgfRα-Cre line is preferable for studies targeting adipocyte precursor cells in vivo

Fast-timing measurements in the ground-state band of 114Pd

Using a hybrid Gammasphere array coupled to 25 LaBr3(Ce) detectors, the lifetimes of the first three levels of the yrast band in 114Pd, populated via 252Cf decay, have been measured. The measured lifetimes are τ2+ = 103(10) ps, τ4+ = 22(13) ps, and τ6+ 10 ps for the 2+ 1 , 4+ 1 , and 6+ 1 levels, respectively. Palladium-114 was predicted to be the most deformed isotope of its isotopic chain, and spectroscopic studies have suggested it might also be a candidate nucleus for low-spin stable triaxiality. From the lifetimes measured in this work, reduced transition probabilities B(E2; J → J − 2) are calculated and compared with interacting boson model, projected shell model, and collective model calculations from the literature. The experimental ratio RB(E2) = B(E2; 4+ 1 → 2+ 1 )/B(E2; 2+ 1 → 0+ 1 ) = 0.80(42) is measured for the first time in 114Pd and compared with the known values RB(E2) in the palladium isotopic chain: the systematics suggest that, for N = 68, a transition from γ -unstable to a more rigid γ -deformed nuclear shape occurs.This work was financially supported by the Science and Technology Facility Council (STFC) Grants No. ST/L005840/1, No. ST/L005743/1, and No. ST/G000751/1. This work has also been partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 (ANL). E.R.G. would like to acknowledge the STFC for funding via his Ph.D. studentship. D.J.H. acknowledges the National Science Foundation, Grant No. PHY-1502092. E.A.S. and O.Y. would like to acknowledge the project DFNI-E02/6

Interactive effects of locus coeruleus structure and catecholamine synthesis capacity on cognitive function

BackgroundThe locus coeruleus (LC) produces catecholamines (norepinephrine and dopamine) and is implicated in a broad range of cognitive functions including attention and executive function. Recent advancements in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approaches allow for the visualization and quantification of LC structure. Human research focused on the LC has since exploded given the LC’s role in cognition and relevance to current models of psychopathology and neurodegenerative disease. However, it is unclear to what extent LC structure reflects underlying catecholamine function, and how LC structure and neurochemical function are collectively associated with cognitive performance.MethodsA partial least squares correlation (PLSC) analysis was applied to 19 participants’ LC structural MRI measures and catecholamine synthesis capacity measures assessed using [18F]Fluoro-m-tyrosine ([18F]FMT) positron emission tomography (PET).ResultsWe found no direct association between LC-MRI and LC-[18F]FMT measures for rostral, middle, or caudal portions of the LC. We found significant associations between LC neuroimaging measures and neuropsychological performance that were driven by rostral and middle portions of the LC, which is in line with LC cortical projection patterns. Specifically, associations with executive function and processing speed arose from contributions of both LC structure and interactions between LC structure and catecholamine synthesis capacity.ConclusionThese findings leave open the possibility that LC MRI and PET measures contribute unique information and suggest that their conjoint use may increase sensitivity to brain-behavior associations in small samples

Mer Tyrosine Kinase Regulates Disseminated Prostate Cancer Cellular Dormancy

Many prostate cancer (PCa) recurrences are thought to be due to reactivation of disseminated tumor cells (DTCs). We previously found a role of the TAM family of receptor tyrosine kinases TYRO3, AXL, and MERTK in PCa dormancy regulation. However, the mechanism and contributions of the individual TAM receptors is largely unknown. Knockdown of MERTK, but not AXL or TYRO3 by shRNA in PCa cells induced a decreased ratio of Pâ Erk1/2 to Pâ p38, increased expression of p27, NR2F1, SOX2, and NANOG, induced higher levels of histone H3K9me3 and H3K27me3, and induced a G1/G0 arrest, all of which are associated with dormancy. Similar effects were also observed with siRNA. Most importantly, knockdown of MERTK in PCa cells increased metastasis free survival in an intraâ cardiac injection mouse xenograft model. MERTK knockdown also failed to inhibit PCa growth in vitro and subcutaneous growth in vivo, which suggests that MERTK has specificity for dormancy regulation or requires a signal from the PCa microenvironment. The effects of MERTK on the cell cycle and histone methylation were reversed by p38 inhibitor SB203580, which indicates the importance of MAP kinases for MERTK dormancy regulation. Overall, this study shows that MERTK stimulates PCa dormancy escape through a MAP kinase dependent mechanism, also involving p27, pluripotency transcription factors, and histone methylation. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 891â 902, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Escape from cellular dormancy is the process where previously dormant single disseminated tumor cells reactivate to form cancer microâ metastases, which continue to grow and ultimately make the disease incurable. Here, were show that Mer tyrosine kinase is important for prostate cancer dormancy escape through a mechanism involving MAP kinases, cell cycle inhibitors, epigenetics, and transcription factors associated with pluripotent cells.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136285/1/jcb25768_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136285/2/jcb25768.pd