How to Be Unfaithful to Eurocentrism: A Spanglish Decolonial Critique to Knowledge Gentrification, Captivity and Storycide in Qualitative Research

From a position of academic activism, we critique the longstanding dominance del production of knowledge that solely implicates fidelity to Eurocentric methodological technologies en qualitative research. Influenced by an Andean decolonial perspective, en Spanglish we problematize métodos of analysis as the dominant research practice, whereby las stories o relatos result en su appropriation, captivity and gentrification, first by researchers’ authorship and later by the publishing industry copyrights. We highlight the racializing and capitalist colonial/modern Eurocentric agenda del current market of knowledge production that displaces to la periphery all knowledge o relatos that do not subscribe to Euro-US American methodological parameters of what counts as knowledge. Therefore, we intend to heighten the readers’ audibility of another possibility of knowing that does not come from Eurocentric methodologically produced stories. At the forefront of our critique, and as an introduction to a decolonial option, we include our written, uttered, and painted stories, with the political intent of social transformation of coloniality. These seek to denounce power structures that have had incarnated effects on our lives y comunidades. We intend to invite researchers to serve as witnesses of our experiences rather than as critics of methodological rigor. We include final commentaries on a decolonial project to rethink the unquestionable fidelity and dependency toward the current research order of things of el center and la periphery. This is so as to render European technologies of knowledge as only one alternative among many other possible means of legitimate knowledge making in qualitative research. We discuss our hope for epistemological coexistence by which fair and reciprocal intercultural translations of knowledge making could take place, not in the name of equality, but difference

Gene Expression Changes in the Motor Cortex Mediating Motor Skill Learning

The primary motor cortex (M1) supports motor skill learning, yet little is known about the genes that contribute to motor cortical plasticity. Such knowledge could identify candidate molecules whose targeting might enable a new understanding of motor cortical functions, and provide new drug targets for the treatment of diseases which impair motor function, such as ischemic stroke. Here, we assess changes in the motor-cortical transcriptome across different stages of motor skill acquisition. Adult rats were trained on a gradually acquired appetitive reach and grasp task that required different strategies for successful pellet retrieval, or a sham version of the task in which the rats received pellet reward without needing to develop the reach and grasp skill. Tissue was harvested from the forelimb motor-cortical area either before training commenced, prior to the initial rise in task performance, or at peak performance. Differential classes of gene expression were observed at the time point immediately preceding motor task improvement. Functional clustering revealed that gene expression changes were related to the synapse, development, intracellular signaling, and the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family, with many modulated genes known to regulate synaptic plasticity, synaptogenesis, and cytoskeletal dynamics. The modulated expression of synaptic genes likely reflects ongoing network reorganization from commencement of training till the point of task improvement, suggesting that motor performance improves only after sufficient modifications in the cortical circuitry have accumulated. The regulated FGF-related genes may together contribute to M1 remodeling through their roles in synaptic growth and maturation.McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MITNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) ((NIH grant 1-RC1-NS068103-01)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH grant R01-MH084966)Roberto Rocca Education Program (Fellowship)Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (Fellowship)Italy. Ministero dell'istruzione, dell'università e della ricerca (MIUR grant RBIN04H5AS)Italy. Ministero dell'istruzione, dell'università e della ricerca (MIUR grant RBLA03FLJC)Italy. Ministero dell'istruzione, dell'università e della ricerca (FIRB n. RBAP10L8TY

Girls and Boys Born before 28 Weeks Gestation: Risks of Cognitive, Behavioral, and Neurologic Outcomes at Age 10 Years

To compare the prevalence of cognitive, neurological, and behavioral outcomes at 10 years of age in 428 girls and 446 boys who were born extremely preterm (EP)

Mammal collections of the Western Hemisphere: A survey and directory of collections

As a periodic assessment of the mammal collection resource, the Systematic Collections Committee (SCC) of the American Society of Mammalogists undertakes decadal surveys of the collections held in the Western Hemisphere. The SCC surveyed 429 collections and compiled a directory of 395 active collections containing 5,275,155 catalogued specimens. Over the past decade, 43 collections have been lost or transferred and 38 new or unsurveyed collections were added. Growth in number of total specimens, expansion of genomic resource collections, and substantial gains in digitization and web accessibility were documented, as well as slight shifts in proportional representation of taxonomic groups owing to increasingly balanced geographic representation of collections relative to previous surveys. While we find the overall health of Western Hemisphere collections to be adequate in some areas, gaps in spatial and temporal coverage and clear threats to long-term growth and vitality of these resources have also been identified. Major expansion of the collective mammal collection resource along with a recommitment to appropriate levels of funding will be required to meet the challenges ahead for mammalogists and other users, and to ensure samples are broad and varied enough that unanticipated future needs can be powerfully addressed. © 2018 The Author(s)

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

The phenomenon of telling stories: A decolonial critique to knowledge production in qualitative research

We critique the dominance of the process of manufacturing legitimate knowledge that implicates Eurocentric methods to convert participant’s storytellings into researcher’s findings. We do so from a decolonial perspective. We highlight briefly the neoliberal, eurocentric agenda of the current world market in the hands of the scientific community and its technologies of knowledge production. We emphasize the consequential displacement of alternative cultural representations of knowledge. We convey our critique in great part by the performance of storytelling of meaningful events in our lives, within our own contexts, and in our own terms

Microarray data were validated using qPCR.

<p><i>A</i>, Gene expression fold changes indicated by microarray and qPCR. Eighteen genes (listed on the figure's left) were selected from the synapse, FGF, and unclustered categories for qPCR validation. Array and qPCR fold change values were calculated for each gene for the comparisons, <i>5-day-Reach</i> versus <i>0-day, 5-day-Reach</i> versus <i>5-day-Sham</i>, and <i>5-day-Reach</i> versus <i>12-day-Reach</i>, resulting into a total of 18×3 = 54 comparisons. The extent of agreement between the direction of fold change values derived from the two methods was assessed by the ratio of qPCR-fold change to the array-fold change. A positive ratio indicates an agreement, and a negative ratio, a disagreement. The heat map on the left shows this ratio of each of the 54 comparisons using a color map with green showing the highest (positive) value, and red, the lowest (negative) value. Four genes (<i>Prkci</i>, <i>Rab11fip4</i>, <i>Ctnnd1</i>, and <i>Cask</i>) showed a disagreement in at least one of the three comparisons. These four genes showing mismatches between the array- and qPCR-fold change directions (*) were also the ones whose qPCR-▵C_T values of the <i>5-day-Reach</i> group were not significantly different from those of the other groups (p>0.05), and whose qPCR-▵C_T values did not correlate well with the microarray expression intensities (p>0.05). To the right of the heat map is a table indicating to which functional categories each gene belonged (S, synapse; D, development; I, intracellular signaling; T, transforming growth factor β receptor activity; F, fibroblast growth factor family; U, unclustered). <i>B</i>, For some of the genes, we observed an excellent correlation between the sample qPCR ▵C_T values and the sample microarray gene expression intensities. They included <i>Fgf2</i> (top panel; <i>r</i> = 0.64. p<0.01) and <i>Adcy1</i> (bottom panel; <i>r</i> = 0.73, p<0.01). In both graphs here, the qPCR C_T values were normalized with respect to those of the <i>Ywhaz</i> gene.</p

Improvement in task goal achievement exhibited a sigmoid time course.

<p><i>A</i>, Eleven rats (rats 1–4 in <i>12-day-Reach</i> group) were trained for 12 days to reach and grasp pellets from six different locations in the workspace, including slots ipsilateral (ipsi) and contralateral (contra) to the rat's preferred side, at the Near, Mid, and Far levels (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0061496#pone-0061496-g001" target="_blank">Fig. 1A</a>), respectively. The first measure of motor learning we used indicates the quality of reaching by quantifying the percentage of successful trials in which the pellet was dropped either to the inside of the slit or to the box's floor. Different rats showed different rates of improvement (blue, low rate of decrease; red, high rate) with 5 of the 11 rats showing a statistically significant decrease (*, Pearson's correlation coefficient<0, p<0.05). The top four rows correspond to data from rats included in the microarray analysis. <i>B,</i> For the 5 rats showing across-day improvement in movement quality, there was a clear decrease in the percentage of successful trials with dropped pellets over time (red, mean±SE). The percentage values of the first five days were greater than those of the last five days for these rats (*, p<0.05, ANOVA) but not for the other rats (blue). <i>C,</i> As a second measure of skill learning, we quantified the degree of task goal achievement across days. We examined whether there was across-day increase in the probability of successful retrieval per reach for each individual slot by linearly regressing the learning curve for each slot against time. Different rats exhibited performance improvement at different rates at different slots (blue, low improvement rate; red, high improvement rate) with different subsets of slots showing a significant increase in the success probability (*, Pearson's correlation coefficient>0, p<0.05; “Learned” slot). The top four rows correspond to data from rats included in the microarray analysis. <i>D,</i> The probability of successful retrieval per reach was calculated over the slots showing significant improvement (Learned Slots; red, mean±SE) and the other remaining slots showing no improvement (Not-Learned Slots; blue), respectively. The learning curve for the Learned Slots exhibited a sigmoid time course with the success probability starting to increase at Day 4.4±1.3 (t_10%-max, black dotted line; mean±SE). For the Learned Slots, the probability values of the first 5 days were also significantly lower than those of the last 5 days (*, p<0.05, ANOVA). <i>E,</i> The learning curve from the Learned Slots of every rat was regressed onto a sigmoid and an exponential function, respectively. When the regression R² values of the sigmoid fit were plotted against those of the exponential fit, all but one data point lay above the identify line (black dotted line) (green triangle, sigmoid>exponential; purple circle, exponential>sigmoid).</p

Annotation clusters of genes up-regulated at Day 5 identified by DAVID.

<p>Annotation clusters of genes up-regulated at Day 5 identified by DAVID.</p