Exploring tablet PC lectures: lecturer experiences and student perceptions in biomedicine

Lecturers using tablet PCs with specialised pens can utilise real-time changes in lecture delivery via digital inking. We investigated student perceptions and lecturer experiences of tablet PC lectures in large-enrolment biomedicine subjects. Lecturers used PowerPoint or Classroom Presenter software for lecture preparation and in-lecture pen-based inking. Using surveys and lecturer interviews, students and lecturers were asked to reflect on their tablet PC lectures in comparison to non-tablet lectures that used prepared images and a laser pointer. Quantitative survey responses suggested that students felt that the tablet lectures were more interesting, that they were more capable of keeping up with the lecturer, and they enhanced their understanding of the lecture content. Qualitative analysis of written comments indicated that students appreciated the real-time writing and drawings, particularly because these were visible on lecture recordings. When reflecting on their non-tablet lectures, most lecturers used the pen-based writing, drawing and highlighting tablet functions and reduced lecture pace and content for their tablet lectures. Long-term tablet use led to lecturers making more use of digital inking, with less use of prepared images. Our results support the idea that tablet PC-supported lectures are conducive to improved management of cognitive load via reduced lecture pace and content

Source air feeding convection within a nocturnal mesoscale convective system during the evolution from surface-based to elevated convection

Although nocturnal convection is frequently observed, the mechanisms that allow nocturnal mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) to persist are still not well understood. On 9 August 2014 at approximately 2000 UTC, a regime of upslope flow owing to a weak shortwave impulse in the lee of the Rocky Mountains spawned a convective complex near the Colorado-Kansas border. Following storm initiation, the system grew upscale into a southeastward-propagating MCS, which became elevated as it continued into the overnight hours, producing severe surface winds and severe hail. This study investigates the elevation above ground level (AGL) from which air parcels with the greatest convective available potential energy (CAPE) originate and support the development and maintenance of elevated convection. The analysis of this system uses WSR-88D composite reflectivity data, a short term forecast from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, and back trajectories produced by the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model. This paper describes the evolution of the boundary layer as well as the spatial and temporal progression of the altitude of the most unstable (MU) CAPE of air parcels associated with the elevated convection and the connection the source air had with the highest reflectivity produced in the MCS. The change in the source of these parcels over time shows that this particular MCS became elevated and sustained itself off parcels with MU CAPE residing between 1.0 and 1.5 km. It was found that these parcels originated in a different air mass than the parcels with MU CAPE feeding the storm from the surface earlier in the system’s evolution

Observations of Colloidal Gold Labelled Platelet Microtubules: High Voltage Electron Microscopy and Low Voltage-High Resolution Scanning Electron Microscopy

18 nm colloidal gold-antitubulin and 4 nm colloidal gold-antitubulin were used to label microtubules in adherent, fully spread platelets. Both sizes of marker effectively labelled microtubules in the partially extracted platelets. However only the 4 nm gold penetrated the dense microfilament matrix of the inner filamentous zone so that portions of microtubules within this cytoskeletal zone could be tracked. The gold marker could be visualized well with 1 MeV high voltage transmission EM and with 5 kV or greater secondary imaging or 20 kV backscattered imaging of carbon only coated samples. 1 kV secondary imaging permitted high resolution imaging of the surface of tubules and the microfilaments with their respective associated material. Individual gold-antibody complexes were difficult to identify by shape alone due to the tendency of the antibody coats to blend together when in very close approximation and due to the presence of other molecules or molecular aggregates similar in size to the gold-antibody labels. Microtubules were seen to wind in and out of the inner and outer filamentous zones as they encircled the granulomere. Some tubules were seen to dead end at the peripheral web. Numerous smaller microtubule loops were present principally in the outer filamentous zone and tubules could be followed as they went from the outer filamentous zone through the inner filamentous zone and into the granulomere

Bats of Kansas

In memory of Curtis J. Schmidt (1977-2022) Invariably, our most feared neighbors on planet earth are the animals that we know the least about. Almost as frequently, when people are exposed to these animals, the fear turns quickly to fascination. Unfortunately, many of these animals are accessible only to the professional scientist. Though science has made great strides in understanding the basic biology and behaviors of many of our least-known animals, this information is generally kept locked away from the general public by the dry, technical language of science. In this publication, it is our hope to open your eyes to the world of perhaps the last great, misunderstood group of animals-the bats. Further, it is our hope, by dispensing (as much as possible) with technical language, to bring across the intense fascination that we share for these animals and to infect you with that same fascination. In order to accomplish our task we have prepared the book in five sections. Because our main goal is to open your eyes to the fascinating world of bats, we have designed the first section to answer the most often asked questions about bats. The second provides a key to the bats of Kansas so that you can identify any bat you discover. In the third section we introduce you to the sixteen species that are known to occur in Kansas. As is the case for human neighbors, there may be bats in Kansas that we haven\u27t met yet. The fourth section describes these species of possible occurrence and tells you where to look for them. Unfortunately, we have only a limited amount of space, so the fifth section tells you how to find additional information

Ecological Effects of Fear: How Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity in Predation Risk Influences Mule Deer Access to Forage in a Sky‐Island System

Forage availability and predation risk interact to affect habitat use of ungulates across many biomes. Within sky‐island habitats of the Mojave Desert, increased availability of diverse forage and cover may provide ungulates with unique opportunities to extend nutrient uptake and/or to mitigate predation risk. We addressed whether habitat use and foraging patterns of female mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) responded to normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), NDVI rate of change (green‐up), or the occurrence of cougars (Puma concolor). Female mule deer used available green‐up primarily in spring, although growing vegetation was available during other seasons. Mule deer and cougar shared similar habitat all year, and our models indicated cougars had a consistent, negative effect on mule deer access to growing vegetation, particularly in summer when cougar occurrence became concentrated at higher elevations. A seemingly late parturition date coincided with diminishing NDVI during the lactation period. Sky‐island populations, rarely studied, provide the opportunity to determine how mule deer respond to growing foliage along steep elevation and vegetation gradients when trapped with their predators and seasonally limited by aridity. Our findings indicate that fear of predation may restrict access to the forage resources found in sky islands

Disparities in access to musculoskeletal care: Narrowing the gap: AOA critical issues symposium

The current health-care system in the United States has numerous barriers to quality, accessible, and affordable musculoskeletal care for multiple subgroups of our population. These hurdles include complex cultural, educational, and socioeconomic factors. Tertiary referral centers provide a disproportionately large amount of the care for the uninsured and underinsured members of our society. These gaps in access to care for certain subgroups lead to inappropriate emergency room usage, lengthy hospitalizations, increased administrative load, lost productivity, and avoidable complications and/or deaths, which all represent a needless burden on our health-care system. Through advocacy, policy changes, workforce diversification, and practice changes, orthopaedic surgeons have a responsibility to seek solutions to improve access to quality and affordable musculoskeletal care for the communities that they serve

Somatic Mutations in NEK9 Cause Nevus Comedonicus

Acne vulgaris (AV) affects most adolescents, and of those affected, moderate to severe disease occurs in 20%. Comedones, follicular plugs consisting of desquamated keratinocytes and sebum, are central to its pathogenesis. Despite high heritability in first-degree relatives, AV genetic determinants remain incompletely understood. We therefore employed whole-exome sequencing (WES) in nevus comedonicus (NC), a rare disorder that features comedones and inflammatory acne cysts in localized, linear configurations. WES identified somatic NEK9 mutations, each affecting highly conserved residues within its kinase or RCC1 domains, in affected tissue of three out of three NC-affected subjects. All mutations are gain of function, resulting in increased phosphorylation at Thr210, a hallmark of NEK9 kinase activation. We found that comedo formation in NC is marked by loss of follicular differentiation markers, expansion of keratin-15-positive cells from localization within the bulge to the entire sub-bulge follicle and cyst, and ectopic expression of keratin 10, a marker of interfollicular differentiation not present in normal follicles. These findings suggest that NEK9 mutations in NC disrupt normal follicular differentiation and identify NEK9 as a potential regulator of follicular homeostasis

Mutations in KDSR Cause Recessive Progressive Symmetric Erythrokeratoderma

Supplemental Data Supplemental Data include five figures and three tables and can be found with this article online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.05.003. Supplemental Data Document S1. Figures S1–S5 and Tables S1–S3 Download Document S2. Article plus Supplemental Data Download Web Resources 1000 Genomes, http://www.internationalgenome.org/ ANNOVAR, http://annovar.openbioinformatics.org/en/latest/ BWA-MEM, http://bio-bwa.sourceforge.net/index.shtml Database of Genomic Variants, http://dgv.tcag.ca/dgv/app/home dbSNP, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/SNP/ Exome Aggregation Consortium (ExAC) Browser, http://exac.broadinstitute.org/ ExonPrimer, https://ihg.helmholtz-muenchen.de/ihg/ExonPrimer.html GenBank, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/ Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK), https://software.broadinstitute.org/gatk/ Integrative Genomics Viewer (IGV), http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/igv/ OMIM, https://www.omim.org/ SNPmasker, http://bioinfo.ebc.ee/snpmasker/ UCSC Genome Browser, https://genome.ucsc.edu/index.html Variant Effect Predictor, http://useast.ensembl.org/info/docs/tools/vep/index.html The discovery of new genetic determinants of inherited skin disorders has been instrumental to the understanding of epidermal function, differentiation, and renewal. Here, we show that mutations in KDSR (3-ketodihydrosphingosine reductase), encoding an enzyme in the ceramide synthesis pathway, lead to a previously undescribed recessive Mendelian disorder in the progressive symmetric erythrokeratoderma spectrum. This disorder is characterized by severe lesions of thick scaly skin on the face and genitals and thickened, red, and scaly skin on the hands and feet. Although exome sequencing revealed several of the KDSR mutations, we employed genome sequencing to discover a pathogenic 346 kb inversion in multiple probands, and cDNA sequencing and a splicing assay established that two mutations, including a recurrent silent third base change, cause exon skipping. Immunohistochemistry and yeast complementation studies demonstrated that the mutations cause defects in KDSR function. Systemic isotretinoin therapy has achieved nearly complete resolution in the two probands in whom it has been applied, consistent with the effects of retinoic acid on alternative pathways for ceramide generation