Anatomy of STEM Teaching in American Universities: A Snapshot from a Large-Scale Observation Study

National and local initiatives focused on the transformation of STEM teaching in higher education have multiplied over the last decade. These initiatives often focus on measuring change in instructional practices, but it is difficult to monitor such change without a national picture of STEM educational practices, especially as characterized by common observational instruments. We characterized a snapshot of this landscape by conducting the first large scale observation-based study. We found that lecturing was prominent throughout the undergraduate STEM curriculum, even in classrooms with infrastructure designed to support active learning, indicating that further work is required to reform STEM education. Additionally, we established that STEM faculty’s instructional practices can vary substantially within a course, invalidating the commonly-used teaching evaluations based on a one-time observation

Anatomical Modeling of Brain Vasculature in Two-Photon Microscopy by Generalizable Deep Learning

Objective and Impact Statement. Segmentation of blood vessels from two-photon microscopy (2PM) angiograms of brains has important applications in hemodynamic analysis and disease diagnosis. Here, we develop a generalizable deep learning technique for accurate 2PM vascular segmentation of sizable regions in mouse brains acquired from multiple 2PM setups. The technique is computationally efficient, thus ideal for large-scale neurovascular analysis. Introduction. Vascular segmentation from 2PM angiograms is an important first step in hemodynamic modeling of brain vasculature. Existing segmentation methods based on deep learning either lack the ability to generalize to data from different imaging systems or are computationally infeasible for large-scale angiograms. In this work, we overcome both these limitations by a method that is generalizable to various imaging systems and is able to segment large-scale angiograms. Methods. We employ a computationally efficient deep learning framework with a loss function that incorporates a balanced binary-cross-entropy loss and total variation regularization on the network’s output. Its effectiveness is demonstrated on experimentally acquired in vivo angiograms from mouse brains of dimensions up to 808×808×702 μm. Results. To demonstrate the superior generalizability of our framework, we train on data from only one 2PM microscope and demonstrate high-quality segmentation on data from a different microscope without any network tuning. Overall, our method demonstrates 10× faster computation in terms of voxels-segmented-per-second and 3× larger depth compared to the state-of-the-art. Conclusion. Our work provides a generalizable and computationally efficient anatomical modeling framework for brain vasculature, which consists of deep learning-based vascular segmentation followed by graphing. It paves the way for future modeling and analysis of hemodynamic response at much greater scales that were inaccessible before

Anatomy of STEM Teaching in American Universities: A Snapshot from a Large-Scale Observation Study

National and local initiatives focused on the transformation of STEM teaching in higher education have multiplied over the last decade. These initiatives often focus on measuring change in instructional practices, but it is difficult to monitor such change without a national picture of STEM educational practices, especially as characterized by common observational instruments. We characterized a snapshot of this landscape by conducting the first large scale observation-based study. We found that lecturing was prominent throughout the undergraduate STEM curriculum, even in classrooms with infrastructure designed to support active learning, indicating that further work is required to reform STEM education. Additionally, we established that STEM faculty’s instructional practices can vary substantially within a course, invalidating the commonly-used teaching evaluations based on a one-time observation

Examining the Relational Processes of a Highly Successful Teacher of African American Children

Culturally responsive educational practices have arisen as effective means of increasing culturally diverse students\u27 academic achievement and psychological well-being; however, the relational processes involved are not well understood. Using grounded theory, this study examines the relational processes of one culturally responsive teacher and her fifth grade African American students. A dimension that emerged from the data was emotional connectedness. It includes the connective interactions between the teacher and student, the connective interactions between the teacher and the whole class, and teacher transparency and joining. Rich descriptions of each theme are provided as well as implications for teacher practice and preparation. © The Author(s) 2012

Oil palm genome sequence reveals divergence of interfertile species in Old and New worlds

Oil palm is the most productive oil-bearing crop. Although it is planted on only 5% of the total world vegetable oil acreage, palm oil accounts for 33% of vegetable oil and 45% of edible oil worldwide, but increased cultivation competes with dwindling rainforest reserves. We report the 1.8-gigabase (Gb) genome sequence of the African oil palm Elaeis guineensis, the predominant source of worldwide oil production. A total of 1.535 Gb of assembled sequence and transcriptome data from 30 tissue types were used to predict at least 34,802 genes, including oil biosynthesis genes and homologues of WRINKLED1 (WRI1), and other transcriptional regulators, which are highly expressed in the kernel. We also report the draft sequence of the South American oil palm Elaeis oleifera, which has the same number of chromosomes (2n = 32) and produces fertile interspecific hybrids with E. guineensis but seems to have diverged in the New World. Segmental duplications of chromosome arms define the palaeotetraploid origin of palm trees. The oil palm sequence enables the discovery of genes for important traits as well as somaclonal epigenetic alterations that restrict the use of clones in commercial plantings, and should therefore help to achieve sustainability for biofuels and edible oils, reducing the rainforest footprint of this tropical plantation crop

Vertebrate fossils and their context : contributions in honor of Richard H. Tedford. Bulletin of the AMNH ; no. 279

vii, 659 p. : ill. (2 col.), maps ; 26 cm.Includes bibliographical references.Foreword / Michael J. Novacek -- 1. Richard H. Tedford : field man, systematist, professor, and mentor / Michael O. Woodburne, Robert M. Hunt, Jr., Gina C. Gould, Eugene S. Gaffney and Lawrence J. Flynn -- 2. Dispersals of Neogene carnivorans between Asia and North America / Qiu Zhanxiang -- 3. Pinnipedimorph evolutionary biogeography / Thomas A. Deméré, Annalisa Berta and Peter J. Adam -- 4. Intercontinental migration of large mammalian carnivores : earliest occurrence of the Old World beardog Amphicyon (Carnivora, Amphicyonidae) in North America / Robert M. Hunt, Jr. -- 5. Notes on early Oligocene ursids (Carnivora, Mammalia) from Saint Jacques, Nei Mongol, China / Wang Banyue and Qiu Zhanxiang -- 6. New procyonines from the Hemingfordian and Barstovian of the Gulf Coast and Nevada, including the first fossil record of the Potosini / Jon A. Baskin -- 7. Pack hunting in Miocene borophagine dogs : evidence from craniodental morphology and body size / Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Tyson Sacco, and Xiaoming Wang -- 8. New material of Osbornodon from the early Hemingfordian of Nebraska and Florida / Xiaoming Wang -- 9. Carnivora (Mammalia, Felidae, Canidae, and Mustelidae) from the earliest Hemphillian screw bean local fauna, Big Bend National Park, Brewster County, Texas / Margaret Skeels Stevens and James Bowie Stevens -- 10. Chronostratigraphy, biochronology, datum events, land mammal ages, stage of evolution, and appearance event ordination / Everett Lindsay -- 11. New late Uintan to early Hemingfordian land mammal assemblages from the undifferentiated Sespe and Vaqueros formations, Orange County, and from the Sespe and equivalent marine formations in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties, southern California / David P. Whistler and E. Bruce Lander -- 12. Mammalian biochronology of Blancan and Irvingtonian (Pliocene and early Pleistocene) faunas from New Mexico / Gary S. Morgan and Spencer G. Lucas -- 13. Mexico's Middle Miocene mammalian assemblages : an overview / Ismael Ferrusquía-Villafranca -- 14. New evidence of Miocene Protoceratidae including a new species from Chiapas, Mexico / S. David Webb, Brian Lee Beatty and George Poinar, Jr. -- 15. New oreodont (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) from the late Oligocene (early Arikareean) of Florida / Bruce J. MacFadden and Gary S. Morgan -- 16. Craniodental analysis of Merychippus insignis and Cormohipparion goorisi (Mammalia, Equidae), Barstovian, North America / Michael O. Woodburne -- 17. Mimomys in North America / Charles A. Repenning -- 18. Dasyurids, perameloids, phalangeroids, and vombatoids from the early Pliocene Hamilton fauna, Victoria, Australia / William D. Turnbull, Ernest L. Lundelius, Jr. and Michael Archer -- 19. A new species of Muramura Pledge (Wynyardiidae: Marsupialia) from the Middle Tertiary of the Callabonna Basin, northeastern South Australia / Neville S. Pledge -- 20. The strange case of the wandering fossil / Thomas H. Rich, Thomas A. Darragh and Patricia Vickers-Rich -- 21. Oligocene/Miocene beds and faunas from Tieersihabahe in the northern Junggar Basin of Xinjiang / Ye Jie, Meng Jin and Wu Wenyu -- 22. Rodents from the Chinese Neogene : biogeographic relationships with Europe and North America / Qiu Zhuding and Li Chuankuei -- 23. Tedford's gerbils from Afghanistan / Lawrence J. Flynn, Alisa J. Winkler, Louis L. Jacobs and Will Downs, III -- 24. Another molar of the Miocene hominid Griphopithecus suessi from the type locality at Sandberg, Slovakia / Peter Holec and Robert J. Emry -- 25. Mimotricentes tedfordi, a new arctocyonid from the late Paleocene of California / Malcolm C. McKenna and Donald L. Lofgren -- 26. Phosphatochelys, a new side-necked turtle (Pelomedusoides: Bothremydidae) from the Paleocene of Morocco / Eugene S. Gaffney and Haiyan Tong