The Enrollment Research Team: An Example of Collaborative Strategic Enrollment Management Research

Effective strategic enrollment management (SEM) requires a “data rich environment” (Bontrager 2004)—a significant amount of data, intentional efforts to analyze the data and processes through which the results of the analysis can be implemented. In other words, successful SEM involves research. Although few would disagree that research is a necessary component of SEM, institutions may struggle with finding or aligning their resources (time, money and personnel) to adequately fulfill their research needs

A Simple Fragment of Cyclic Acyldepsipeptides Is Necessary and Sufficient for ClpP Activation and Antibacterial Activity

The development of new antibacterial agents, particularly those with unique biological targets, is essential to keep pace with the inevitable emergence of drug resistance in pathogenic bacteria. We identified the minimal structural component of the cyclic acyldepsipeptide (ADEP) antibiotics that exhibits antibacterial activity. We found that N-acyldifluorophenylalanine fragments function via the same mechanism of action as ADEPs, as evidenced by the requirement of ClpP for the fragments' antibacterial activity, the ability of fragments to activate Bacillus subtilis ClpP in vitro, and the capacity of an N-acyldifluorophenylalanine affinity matrix to capture ClpP from B. subtilis cell lysates. N-acyldifluorophenylalanine fragments are much simpler in structure than the full ADEPs and are also highly amenable to structural diversification. Thus, the stage has been set for the development of non-peptide activators of ClpP that can be used as antibacterial agents.National Science Foundation (U.S.)United States. National Institutes of Health (GM-101988

Rapid assessment methods for small farm storage surveys

Farm surveys are often the first step taken in identifying storage problems. As time and money for such work are generally scarce, it is important to be able to make the best use of them to get the information needed. This paper describes some of the specific techniques and experience developed by the Ghana MoFA/UK ODA Larger Grain Borer Project for rapid storage surveys on small-scale farms. It is argued that the following factors can critically contribute to producing more timely and relevant results: • formulation of specific survey objectives which focus on gathering data needed for decision-making. • use of a range of techniques to meet these objectives, including secondary data and key informants, informal surveys, case studies and participatory meetings. • avoidance of unwitting sampling bias, using rapid techniques such as transect village walks to select farmers, along with careful timing of field visits. • methods of sample analysis which can be used in the field, rather than the lab. Field analysis has many benefits including cost, speed, potential for increased sampling, and most importantly the greater participation of farmers and field staff in the analysis and interpretation of results. • use of rapid and flexible techniques of analysis and presentation, in particular mapping. Practical examples of each of these are given

Telomere dysfunction accurately predicts clinical outcome in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, even in patients with early stage disease

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Defining the prognosis of individual cancer sufferers remains a significant clinical challenge. Here we assessed the ability of high-resolution single telomere length analysis (STELA), combined with an experimentally derived definition of telomere dysfunction, to predict the clinical outcome of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). We defined the upper telomere length threshold at which telomere fusions occur and then used the mean of the telomere 'fusogenic' range as a prognostic tool. Patients with telomeres within the fusogenic range had a significantly shorter overall survival (P  <  0·0001; Hazard ratio [HR] = 13·2, 95% confidence interval [CI]  = 11·6-106·4) and this was preserved in early-stage disease patients (P  <  0·0001, HR=19·3, 95% CI = 17·8-802·5). Indeed, our assay allowed the accurate stratification of Binet stage A patients into those with indolent disease (91% survival at 10 years) and those with poor prognosis (13% survival at 10 years). Furthermore, patients with telomeres above the fusogenic mean showed superior prognosis regardless of their IGHV mutation status or cytogenetic risk group. In keeping with this finding, telomere dysfunction was the dominant variable in multivariate analysis. Taken together, this study provides compelling evidence for the use of high-resolution telomere length analysis coupled with a definition of telomere dysfunction in the prognostic assessment of CLL

Separating the influences of prereading skills on early word and nonword reading

The essential first step for a beginning reader is to learn to match printed forms to phonological representations. For a new word, this is an effortful process where each grapheme must be translated individually (serial decoding). The role of phonological awareness in developing a decoding strategy is well known. We examined whether beginning readers recruit different skills depending on the nature of the words being read (familiar words vs. nonwords). Print knowledge, phoneme and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, auditory skills, and visual attention were measured in 392 prereaders 4 and 5 years of age. Word and nonword reading were measured 9 months later. We used structural equation modeling to examine the skills–reading relationship and modeled correlations between our two reading outcomes and among all prereading skills. We found that a broad range of skills were associated with reading outcomes: early print knowledge, phonological STM, phoneme awareness and RAN. Whereas all of these skills were directly predictive of nonword reading, early print knowledge was the only direct predictor of word reading. Our findings suggest that beginning readers draw most heavily on their existing print knowledge to read familiar words

Cosmic ray transport and anisotropies

We show that the large-scale cosmic ray anisotropy at ~10 TeV can be explained by a modified Compton-Getting effect in the magnetized flow field of old supernova remnants. This approach suggests an optimum energy scale for detecting the anisotropy. Two key assumptions are that propagation is based on turbulence following a Kolmogorov law and that cosmic ray interactions are dominated by transport through stellar winds of the exploding stars. A prediction is that the amplitude is smaller at lower energies due to incomplete sampling of the velocity field and also smaller at larger energies due to smearing.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Commercialisation, women’s empowerment and poverty reduction: APRA outcome indicators papers

Much of the debate about agricultural commercialisation offers simplistic, dichotomous comparisons between, for example, large and small-scale farming, or export-oriented and domestic markets. There is often an assumption that there is one ideal type of commercialisation that can be realised through investment and policy intervention. Yet in practice, there are diverse ways that different people engage with processes of agricultural commercialisation along value chains, from production to processing to marketing. This range of pathways will have both risks and benefits for different groups of people, often differentiated by gender. Our research will examine the consequences of different types of commercialisation, contrasting, for example, smallholder, contract farming and large-estate arrangements, and pathways of commercialisation, examining commercialisation over time and the outcomes for different people. A comparative research design, across six countries and between different cropping/livestock systems, will enable the APRA Programme to draw out wider recommendations that will help inform and guide investment and policy decisions around agricultural commercialisation in Africa into the future. In practical research terms, the agenda described above requires that a range of indicators are specified in relation to our five main outcome areas. This document compiles five separate papers, each one reviewing the established literature on a specific outcome area and then providing a justification for the proposed indicators to be applied in the APRA studies

Nucleosomes protect DNA from DNA methylation in vivo and in vitro

Positioned nucleosomes limit the access of proteins to DNA. However, the impact of nucleosomes on DNA methylation in vitro and in vivo is poorly understood. Here, we performed a detailed analysis of nucleosome binding and nucleosomal DNA methylation by the de novo methyltransferases. We show that compared to linker DNA, nucleosomal DNA is largely devoid of CpG methylation. ATP-dependent chromatin remodelling frees nucleosomal CpG dinucleotides and renders the remodelled nucleosome a 2-fold better substrate for Dnmt3a methyltransferase compared to free DNA. These results reflect the situation in vivo, as quantification of nucleosomal DNA methylation levels in HeLa cells shows a 2-fold decrease of nucleosomal DNA methylation levels compared to linker DNA. Our findings suggest that nucleosomal positions are stably maintained in vivo and nucleosomal occupancy is a major determinant of global DNA methylation patterns in vivo