How professionalisation of outreach practitioners could improve the quality of evaluation and evidence:a proposal

Professionalising outreach and evaluation work would enhance the quality and rigour of provision, benefit widening participation students and achieve regulatory requirements (Bowes et al. [2019]. The National Collaborative Outreach Programme End of Phase 1 report for the national formative and impact evaluations. Office for Students; Rainford [2020]. “Working with/in institutions: how policy enactment in widening participation is shaped through practitioners’ experience.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 42 (2): 287–303). This article presents practitioners’ experiences of how social justice can often feel unaligned to the technical expertise required in rigorous project design and evaluation. Professionalising outreach would achieve both improved practice and meet practitioners’ needs for development and a united professional voice. A professional body sharing standard methods of practice, offering CPD and skills would elevate outreach practitioners to a ‘professional’ standing (Eraut [1994]. Developing professional knowledge and competence. Falmer Press)

Enhancing creativity by training metacognitive skills in mental imagery

In a three year longitudinal study, 240 undergraduate dance students were recruited to assess the effectiveness of a series of workshops designed to develop metacognitive skills in use of mental imagery to support choreographic creativity. The workshops were based upon a theoretical model of mental representations and cognition. The students also completed a creativity test before the workshops, and a newly designed test of flexible thinking before and after the workshops, and a year later. Five forms of the flexible thinking test were created to allow for repeated administration over time, and the forms were shown to be equivalent and to correlate with the creativity test. Students who had taken part in the imagery workshops showed a greater improvement in flexible thinking a year after the training, compared to the scores of students who had not received the training. Evaluations of choreographic assessments by the students’ teachers were rated for positive and negative mentions of imagery and creativity, and the imagery group scored worse than the control group on use of imagery immediately after the training, but better than the control group on creativity and use of imagery four months after the workshop. The findings show that domain specific creativity can be enhanced through developing skills in the use of mental imagery to produce novel ideas, and that this also improves domain general flexible thinking

Update on Transplacental Transfer of IgG Subclasses: Impact of Maternal and Fetal Factors.

Transplacental antibody transfer from mother to fetus provides protection from infection in the first weeks of life, and the four different subclasses of IgG (IgG1, IgG2, IgG3, and IgG4) have diverse roles in protection against infection. In this study, we evaluated concentrations and transplacental transfer ratios of the IgG subclasses in a healthy UK-based cohort of mother-cord pairs, and investigated associations with maternal, obstetric, and fetal factors. In agreement with previous studies, we found a strong association between maternal and cord IgG for all subclasses. We report a transfer efficiency hierarchy of IgG1>IgG3>IgG4=IgG2 in our study population, and our review of the literature demonstrates that there is no consensus in the hierarchy of subclass transfer, despite the commonly made statement that the order is IgG1>IgG4>IgG3>IgG2. We report additional data regarding negative associations between elevated maternal IgG concentrations and maternal/cord transfer ratios, finding an effect on IgG1, IgG2, and IgG3 subclasses. Levels of IgG subclasses were the same between venous and arterial blood samples from the umbilical cord, but there was a significantly higher level of total IgG in arterial blood. We found no correlation between placental FcRn protein levels and IgG transfer in our cohort, suggesting that IgG is the main determinant of observed differences in transplacental transfer ratios at term. Neonatal IgG1 and IgG4 levels were increased with later gestation at delivery, independent of any increase in transplacental transfer, indicating that the benefit of later gestation is through accumulation of these subclasses in the fetus. Neonatal IgG2 levels and transfer ratios were reduced in rhesus-negative pregnancies, suggesting that administered anti-D antibodies may compete for transplacental transfer of this subclass. Maternal influenza vaccination resulted in elevated maternal and neonatal levels of IgG4, whereas maternal Tdap vaccination had no impact on neonatal levels of the subclasses, nor transfer. However, within Tdap vaccinated pregnancies, later gestation at Tdap vaccination was associated with higher transplacental transfer. Our study provides information regarding levels and transfer of IgG subclasses in healthy term pregnancies and demonstrates the importance of recording detailed clinical information in studies of antibody transfer, including parity, ethnicity, and timing of maternal vaccine delivery

Glioblastoma cell fate is differentially regulated by the microenvironments of the tumour bulk and infiltrative margin

Glioblastoma recurrence originates from invasive cells at the tumour margin that escape surgical debulking, but their biology remains poorly understood. Here we generated three somatic mouse models recapitulating the main glioblastoma driver mutations to characterise margin cells. We find that, regardless of genetics, tumours converge on a common set of neural- like cellular states. However, bulk and margin display distinct neurogenic patterns and immune microenvironments. The margin is immune-cold and preferentially follows developmental-like trajectories to produce astrocyte-like cells. In contrast, injury-like programmes dominate in the bulk, are associated with immune infiltration and generate lowly-proliferative injured neural progenitor-like (iNPCs) cells. In vivo label-retention approaches further demonstrate that iNPCs account for a significant proportion of dormant glioblastoma cells and are induced by interferon signalling within T-cell niches. These findings indicate that tumour region is a major determinant of glioblastoma cell fate and therapeutic vulnerabilities identified in bulk may not extend to the margin residuum

Moyo Vol. VIII N 1

Durica, Paul Editor\u27s Letter . 4. Thackeray, Alex. Postcard from the sXe . 5. Ward, Luc. Gods & Monsters (Hook-Up at Church) . 6. Anshuman, Karan. The India Nobody Knows (Mysticism and Misconceptions Revealed) . 8. Clements, Nina and Betsy Falconer. God as One of Us: Diverse Faiths Thrive at Denison . 10. Million, Chris. Splendor in the Fall (First Year Love Bittersweet) . 16. Grindstaff, Michelle. Beer by Night, Bed by Morning . 17. Hart, Madeline and Meredith Newman. Smoke Alarm: Reading This may Cause Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and Complicate Pregnancy . 21. Almirall, Sara and Kirsten Werne. 20 Best Spots to Smoke on Campus . 22. Werne, Kirsten. An Interview with Painted Thin . 23. Burt, Kara. All in All, We\u27re Just Paper o the Wall (Dorm Art Clue to Denison Identity) . 25. Levine, Robert. Less Talk, Moore Rock (Thurston\u27 Sound Uplifts Soul) . 30. Almirall, R.R. Turtles . 31. Almirall, RR. The Warthog Feels He Has Much in Common With Paul Newman, Others Don\u27t . 20

Source of phosphine on Venus—An unsolved problem

The tentative detection of ppb levels of phosphine (PH3) in the clouds of Venus was extremely surprising, as this reduced gas was not expected to be a component of Venus’ oxidized atmosphere. Despite potential confirmation in legacy Pioneer Venus mass spectrometry data, the detection remains controversial. Here we review the potential production of phosphine by gas reactions, surface and sub-surface geochemistry, photochemistry, and other nonequilibrium processes. None of these potential phosphine production pathways is sufficient to explain the presence of phosphine in Venus atmosphere at near the observed abundance. The source of atmospheric PH3 could be unknown geo- or photochemistry, which would imply that the consensus on Venus’ chemistry is significantly incomplete. An even more extreme possibility is that a strictly aerial microbial biosphere produces PH3. The detection of phosphine adds to the complexity of chemical processes in the Venusian environment and motivates better quantitation of the gas phase chemistry of phosphorus species and in situ follow-up sampling missions to Venus

Cohort Profile:Health and Wellbeing of People with Intellectual Disability in New South Wales, Australia – A data linkage cohort

Purpose People with intellectual disability (ID) experience high rates of physical and mental health problems, while access to appropriate healthcare is often poor. This cohort was established to develop an epidemiological profile related to the health, health service use, disability services, mortality and corrective services records of people with ID. Participants The cohort contains 92 542 people with ID (40% females) with a median age of 23 years (IQR: 12–43 years) and 2 004 475 people with a neuropsychiatric or developmental disorder diagnosis (50% females) with a median age of 51 years (IQR: 29–73 years) from New South Wales, Australia. The whole sample contains records for 2 097 017 individuals with most data sets spanning financial years 1 July 2001 to 30 June 2016. A wide range of data from linked population data sets are included in the areas of disability, health, corrective services and targeted specialist support services in public schools, Public Guardian and Ombudsman services. Findings to date This study includes one of the largest cohorts of people with ID internationally. Our data have shown that the presence of ID is significantly associated with emergency department presentations and psychiatric readmissions after the first psychiatric admission based on a subcohort of people with a psychiatric admission. Adults with ID experience premature mortality and over-representation of potentially avoidable deaths compared with the general population. Future plans Within the health service system, we will examine different components, that is, inpatient, emergency adult services, children and younger people services and costs associated with healthcare as well as mortality, cause and predictors of death. The neuropsychiatric and developmental disorders comparison cohort allows comparisons of the physical health, mental health and service use profiles of people with ID and those with other neuropsychiatric disorders

The Pliocene marine megafauna extinction and its impact on functional diversity

The end of the Pliocene marked the beginning of a period of great climatic variability and sea-level oscillations. Here, based on a new analysis of the fossil record, we identify a previously unrecognized extinction event among marine megafauna (mammals, seabirds, turtles and sharks) during this time, with extinction rates three times higher than in the rest of the Cenozoic, and with 36% of Pliocene genera failing to survive into the Pleistocene. To gauge the potential consequences of this event for ecosystem functioning, we evaluate its impacts on functional diversity, focusing on the 86% of the megafauna genera that are associated with coastal habitats. Seven (14%) coastal functional entities (unique trait combinations) disappeared, along with 17% of functional richness (volume of the functional space). The origination of new genera during the Pleistocene created new functional entities and contributed to a functional shift of 21%, but minimally compensated for the functional space lost. Reconstructions show that from the late Pliocene onwards, the global area of the neritic zone significantly diminished and exhibited amplified fluctuations. We hypothesize that the abrupt loss of productive coastal habitats, potentially acting alongside oceanographic alterations, was a key extinction driver. The importance of area loss is supported by model analyses showing that animals with high energy requirements (homeotherms) were more susceptible to extinction. The extinction event we uncover here demonstrates that marine megafauna were more vulnerable to global environmental changes in the recent geological past than previously thought