Students as co-creators of teaching approaches, course design and curricula: implications for academic developers

Within higher education, students’ voices are frequently overlooked in the design of teaching approaches, courses and curricula. In this paper we outline the theoretical background to arguments for including students as partners in pedagogical planning processes. We present examples where students have worked collaboratively in design processes along with the beneficial outcomes of these examples. Finally we focus on some of the implications and opportunities for academic developers of proposing collaborative approaches to pedagogical planning

Manipulating glucocorticoids in wild animals: Basic and applied perspectives

One of the most comprehensively studied responses to stressors in vertebrates is the endogenous production and regulation of glucocorticoids (GCs). Extensive laboratory research using experimental elevation of GCs in model species is instrumental in learning about stressor-induced physiological and behavioural mechanisms; however, such studies fail to inform our understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes in the wild. We reviewed emerging research that has used GC manipulations in wild vertebrates to assess GC-mediated effects on survival, physiology, behaviour, reproduction and offspring quality. Within and across taxa, exogenous manipulation of GCs increased, decreased or had no effect on traits examined in the reviewed studies. The notable diversity in r

Using meta-analytic path analysis to test theoretical predictions in health behavior: An illustration based on meta-analyses of the theory of planned behavior

Objective: Synthesizing research on social cognitive theories applied to health behavior is an important step in the development of an evidence base of psychological factors as targets for effective behavioral interventions. However, few meta-analyses of research on social cognitive theories in health contexts have conducted simultaneous tests of theoretically-stipulated pattern effects using path analysis. We argue that conducting path analyses of meta-analytic effects among constructs from social cognitive theories is important to test nomological validity, account for mediation effects, and evaluate unique effects of theory constructs independent of past behavior. We illustrate our points by conducting new analyses of two meta-analyses of a popular theory applied to health behaviors, the theory of planned behavior. Method: We conducted meta-analytic path analyses of the theory in two behavioral contexts (alcohol and dietary behaviors) using data from the primary studies included in the original meta-analyses augmented to include intercorrelations among constructs and relations with past behavior missing from the original analysis. Results: Findings supported the nomological validity of the theory and its hypotheses for both behaviors, confirmed important model processes through mediation analysis, demonstrated the attenuating effect of past behavior on theory relations, and provided estimates of the unique effects of theory constructs independent of past behavior. Conclusions: Our analysis illustrates the importance of conducting a simultaneous test of theory-stipulated effects in meta-analyses of social cognitive theories applied to health behavior. We recommend researchers adopt this analytic procedure when synthesizing evidence across primary tests of social cognitive theories in health

A deep learning system accurately classifies primary and metastatic cancers using passenger mutation patterns.

In cancer, the primary tumour's organ of origin and histopathology are the strongest determinants of its clinical behaviour, but in 3% of cases a patient presents with a metastatic tumour and no obvious primary. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, we train a deep learning classifier to predict cancer type based on patterns of somatic passenger mutations detected in whole genome sequencing (WGS) of 2606 tumours representing 24 common cancer types produced by the PCAWG Consortium. Our classifier achieves an accuracy of 91% on held-out tumor samples and 88% and 83% respectively on independent primary and metastatic samples, roughly double the accuracy of trained pathologists when presented with a metastatic tumour without knowledge of the primary. Surprisingly, adding information on driver mutations reduced accuracy. Our results have clinical applicability, underscore how patterns of somatic passenger mutations encode the state of the cell of origin, and can inform future strategies to detect the source of circulating tumour DNA

The nature and distribution of flowing features in a weakly karstified porous limestone aquifer

The nature and distribution of flowing features in boreholes in an area of approximately 400 km2 in a weakly karstic porous limestone aquifer (the Chalk) was investigated using single borehole dilution tests (SBDTs) and borehole imaging. One-hundred and twenty flowing features identified from SBDTs in 24 boreholes have densities which decrease from ∼0.3 m−1 near the water table to ∼0.07 m−1 at depths of more than 40 m below the water table; the average density is 0.20 m−1. There is some evidence of regional lithological control and borehole imaging of three boreholes indicated that most flowing features are associated with marls, hardgrounds and flints that may be developed at a more local scale. Borehole imaging also demonstrated that many flowing features are solutionally enlarged fractures, suggesting that even in carbonate aquifers where surface karst is developed on only a small scale, groundwater flow is still strongly influenced by dissolution. Fully connected solutional pathways can occur over 100s, sometimes 1000s of metres. However, conduits, tubules and fissures may not always be individually persistent along a flowpath, instead being connected together and also connected to unmodified fractures to create a relatively dense network of voids with variable apertures (15 cm). Groundwater therefore moves along flowpaths made up of voids with varying shape and character. Local solutional development of fractures at significant depths below the surface suggests that mixing corrosion and in situ sources of acidity may contribute to solutional enhancement of fractures. The study demonstrates that single borehole dilution testing is a useful method of obtaining a large dataset of flowing features at catchment-regional scales. The Chalk is a carbonate aquifer with small-scale surface karst development and this study raises the question of whether other carbonate aquifers with small-scale surface karst have similar characteristics, and what hydrological role small-scale dissolutional features play in highly karstic aquifers

TOI-222: A single-transit TESS candidate revealed to be a 34-d eclipsing binary with CORALIE, EulerCam, and NGTS

We report the period, eccentricity, and mass determination for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) single-transit event candidate TOI-222, which displayed a single 3000 ppm transit in the TESS 2-min cadence data from Sector 2. We determine the orbital period via radial velocity measurements (P = 33.9 d), which allowed for ground-based photometric detection of two subsequent transits. Our data show that the companion to TOI-222 is a low-mass star, with a radius of 0.18+−003910 R☉ and a mass of 0.23 ± 0.01 M☉. This discovery showcases the ability to efficiently discover long-period systems from TESS single-transit events using a combination of radial velocity monitoring coupled with high-precision ground-based photometry

HD 213885b: A transiting 1-d-period super-Earth with an Earth-like composition around a bright (V = 7.9) star unveiled by TESS

We report the discovery of the 1.008-d, ultrashort period (USP) super-Earth HD 213885b (TOI-141b) orbiting the bright (V= 7.9) star HD 213885 (TOI-141, TIC 403224672), detected using photometry from the recently launched TESS mission. Using FEROS, HARPS, and CORALIE radial velocities, we measure a precise mass of 8.8 ±0.6M⊙ for this 1.74±0.05R⊙ exoplanet, which provides enough information to constrain its bulk composition - similar to Earth's but enriched in iron. The radius, mass, and stellar irradiation of HD 213885b are, given our data, very similar to 55 Cancri e, making this exoplanet a good target to perform comparative exoplanetology of short period, highly irradiated super-Earths. Our precise radial velocities reveal an additional 4.78-d signal which we interpret as arising from a second, non-transiting planet in the system, HD 213885c, whose minimum mass of 19.9 ± 1.4 M⊙ makes it consistent with being a Neptune-mass exoplanet. The HD 213885 system is very interesting from the perspective of future atmospheric characterization, being the second brightest star to host an USP transiting super-Earth (with the brightest star being, in fact, 55 Cancri). Prospects for characterization with present and future observatories are discussed