Postsecondary Outcomes of Georgia’s Adult Education Students

The Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) oversees Georgia’s public technical colleges, workforce development programs, and adult basic skills education (“adult education”) system. Classes in this system help adult students (“adult learners”) improve literacy, numeracy, communications, and other skills. A goal for some learners is to develop the skills needed to enroll and succeed in a two- or four-year postsecondary institution. This report, by researchers in the Adult Literacy Research Center and the Child & Family Policy Lab, examines the number and characteristics of these learners in Georgia who subsequently enroll in the state’s public technical colleges, colleges, and universities and their postsecondary academic outcomes. It analyzes administrative data from the TCSG adult education system, TCSG technical colleges, and the University System of Georgia (USG). It also compares the characteristics of technical college and USG students who had and had not previously enrolled in this system. A quarter of learners who enter with advanced secondary education skills subsequently enroll in public postsecondary institutions. Enrollments are lower if learners enter with fewer skills. Learners who are younger, attend more hours of classes, earn high school equivalency credentials, take integrated education and training classes, make measurable skill gains, or have more experienced or full-time teachers have higher postsecondary enrollment rates than other learners. Compared to other students in public technical colleges, students with adult education backgrounds are more likely to be women or Asian and slightly less likely to be Black or Hispanic.https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/gpl_reports/1042/thumbnail.jp

A fringe projection profilometry scheme based on embedded speckle patterns and robust principal component analysis

2019 SPIE. Phase unwrapping is one of the key steps for fringe projection profilometry (FPP)-based 3D shape measurements. Conventional spatial phase unwrapping schemes are sensitive to noise and discontinuities, which may suffer from low accuracies. Temporal phase unwrapping is able to improve the reliability but often requires the acquisition of additional patterns, increasing the measurement time or hardware costs. This paper introduces a novel phase unwrapping scheme that utilizes composite patterns consisting of the superposition of standard sinusoidal patterns and randomly generated speckles. The low-rankness of the deformed sinusoidal patterns is studied. This is exploited together with the sparse nature of the speckle patterns and a robust principal component analysis (RPCA) framework is then deployed to separate the deformed fringe and speckle patterns. The cleaned fringe patterns are used for generating the wrapped phase maps using the standard procedures of phase shift profilometry (PSP) or Fourier Transform profilometry (FTP). Phase unwrapping is then achieved by matching the deformed speckle patterns that encode the phase order information. In order to correct the impulsive fringe order errors, a recently proposed postprocessing step is integrated into the proposed scheme to refine the phase unwrapping results. The analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can improve the accuracy of FPP-based 3D shape measurements by effectively separating the fringe and speckle patterns

Forest soils further acidify in core Natura 2000 areas amongst unaware government policy

The intensification of agriculture and livestock husbandry has led to increasing atmospheric deposition of nitrogenous compounds and soil acidification. We field measured extremely acidic soils with pH &lt; 3 (i.e., soils with the acidity of domestic vinegar) over extensive areas of the forested national parks on sandy soils in the Netherlands. These areas show stress from the negative impacts of increased soil acidity on forest health and biodiversity. We demonstrate that soil acidity has worsened from an average pH of approximately 4.5 to the current average pH = 3.2 over the last 22 years for extensive areas of Natura 2000 forest soils in the Netherlands. Current government policy has been guided without knowledge of such extreme acidity because the field data sampling does not cover Natura 2000 areas, and soil acidification was estimated based on poorly calibrated atmospheric nitrogen deposition models. The policy challenge of soil acidification in Natura2000 areas is solvable with the following recommendations: • Implement regulatory action to biennially field sample soil pH across Natura 2000 forest parks, focusing on sandy soils with limited buffering capacity. • To include in models of nitrogen deposition all sources of nitrogen, including for example off-leash dog walking areas in Natura 2000 forest areas. • To use these soil pH field samples to regularly recalibrate estimates of soil pH from atmospheric nitrogen deposition models to better inform government, industry, and the agricultural sector about the ongoing impact of N deposition on already severely acidic soils. • To implement further significant reductions in the deposition of all nitrogen compounds on Natura 2000 areas.</p

How Fragile is Relation Extraction under Entity Replacements?

Relation extraction (RE) aims to extract the relations between entity names from the textual context. In principle, textual context determines the ground-truth relation and the RE models should be able to correctly identify the relations reflected by the textual context. However, existing work has found that the RE models memorize the entity name patterns to make RE predictions while ignoring the textual context. This motivates us to raise the question: ``are RE models robust to the entity replacements?'' In this work, we operate the random and type-constrained entity replacements over the RE instances in TACRED and evaluate the state-of-the-art RE models under the entity replacements. We observe the 30\% - 50\% F1 score drops on the state-of-the-art RE models under entity replacements. These results suggest that we need more efforts to develop effective RE models robust to entity replacements. We release the source code at https://github.com/wangywUST/RobustRE

Forest top canopy bacterial communities are influenced by elevation and host tree traits

Background: The phyllosphere microbiome is crucial for plant health and ecosystem functioning. While host species play a determining role in shaping the phyllosphere microbiome, host trees of the same species that are subjected to different environmental conditions can still exhibit large degrees of variation in their microbiome diversity and composition. Whether these intra-specific variations in phyllosphere microbiome diversity and composition can be observed over the broader expanse of forest landscapes remains unclear. In this study, we aim to assess the variation in the top canopy phyllosphere bacterial communities between and within host tree species in the temperate European forests, focusing on Fagus sylvatica (European beech) and Picea abies (Norway spruce).Results: We profiled the bacterial diversity, composition, driving factors, and discriminant taxa in the top canopy phyllosphere of 211 trees in two temperate forests, Veluwe National Parks, the Netherlands and Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany. We found the bacterial communities were primarily shaped by host species, and large variation existed within beech and spruce. While we showed that there was a core microbiome in all tree species examined, community composition varied with elevation, tree diameter at breast height, and leaf-specific traits (e.g., chlorophyll and P content). These driving factors of bacterial community composition also correlated with the relative abundance of specific bacterial families.Conclusions: While our results underscored the importance of host species, we demonstrated a substantial range of variation in phyllosphere bacterial diversity and composition within a host species. Drivers of these variations have implications at both the individual host tree level, where the bacterial communities differed based on tree traits, and at the broader forest landscape level, where drivers like certain highly plastic leaf traits can potentially link forest canopy bacterial community variations to forest ecosystem processes. We eventually showed close associations between forest canopy phyllosphere bacterial communities and host trees exist, and the consistent patterns emerging from these associations are critical for host plant functioning

Identification of 3 key genes as novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets for OA and COVID-19

BackgroundCorona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Osteoarthritis (OA) are diseases that seriously affect the physical and mental health and life quality of patients, particularly elderly patients. However, the association between COVID-19 and osteoarthritis at the genetic level has not been investigated. This study is intended to analyze the pathogenesis shared by OA and COVID-19 and to identify drugs that could be used to treat SARS-CoV-2-infected OA patients.MethodsThe four datasets of OA and COVID-19 (GSE114007, GSE55235, GSE147507, and GSE17111) used for the analysis in this paper were obtained from the GEO database. Common genes of OA and COVID-19 were identified through Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) and differential gene expression analysis. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm was used to screen key genes, which were analyzed for expression patterns by single-cell analysis. Finally, drug prediction and molecular docking were carried out using the Drug Signatures Database (DSigDB) and AutoDockToolsResultsFirstly, WGCNA identified a total of 26 genes common between OA and COVID-19, and functional analysis of the common genes revealed the common pathological processes and molecular changes between OA and COVID-19 are mainly related to immune dysfunction. In addition, we screened 3 key genes, DDIT3, MAFF, and PNRC1, and uncovered that key genes are possibly involved in the pathogenesis of OA and COVID-19 through high expression in neutrophils. Finally, we established a regulatory network of common genes between OA and COVID-19, and the free energy of binding estimation was used to identify suitable medicines for the treatment of OA patients infected with SARS-CoV-2.ConclusionIn the present study, we succeeded in identifying 3 key genes, DDIT3, MAFF, and PNRC1, which are possibly involved in the development of both OA and COVID-19 and have high diagnostic value for OA and COVID-19. In addition, niclosamide, ciclopirox, and ticlopidine were found to be potentially useful for the treatment of OA patients infected with SARS-CoV-2

Abnormal attentional bias in individuals with suicidal ideation during an emotional Stroop task: an event-related potential study

IntroductionThere is increasing evidence that suicidal individuals exhibit an attentional bias toward negative or suicide-related stimuli, but the underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism of attentional bias toward emotional stimuli using a modified emotional Stroop task (EST) and to further explore the influencing factor of abnormal attention processing by identifying whether mental disorders or suicidal ideation contributes to attention processing disruptions.MethodsFourteen students with suicidal ideation and mental disorders (SIMDs), sixteen students with suicidal ideation but no mental disorders (SINMDs), and fourteen sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. Moreover, 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG) data and behavioral responses were recorded simultaneously during the EST. Participants were instructed to respond to the ink color for various types of words (positive, neutral, negative, and suicide) while ignoring their meanings. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed to evaluate attention to the stimuli. Spearman correlations between clinical psychological assessment scales and ERP signatures were analyzed to determine the risk factors for suicide.ResultsThe results showed that the SIMD group exhibited longer early posterior negativity (EPN) latency compared to the SINMD and HC groups, indicating that early attention processing was affected during the EST, and the automatic and rapid processing of emotional information decreased. Furthermore, P300 latency for positive words was positively correlated with current suicidal ideation in the SINMD group, suggesting that delayed responses or additional processing to positive information may lead individuals with suicidal ideation to an incorrect interpretation of external events.ConclusionsGenerally, our findings suggest that the neural characteristics of the SIMD group differed from those of the SINMD and HC groups. EPN latency and P300 latency during the EST may be suicide-related neurophysiological indicators. These results provide neurophysiological signatures of suicidal behavior

Physical activity modifies the association of the composite dietary antioxidant index with all-cause mortality in the US osteoarthritis population

BackgroundIt remains unclear how antioxidant intake affects all-cause mortality in osteoarthritis (OA) patients. In this prospective cohort study, we aim to explore the association of the Composite Dietary Antioxidant Index (CDAI) with all-cause mortality and investigate the interaction of physical activity (PA) and CDAI on all-cause mortality in OA populations.MethodsA total of 3,197 adults with OA in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2001 to 2018 were included in this study. Death outcomes were obtained from National Death Index (NDI) records. Multivariable Cox regression analyses with cubic spines were applied to estimate the association of CDAI with all-cause mortality. The interaction between CDAI and PA on all-cause mortality was further assessed in stratified analysis and interaction tests.ResultsThe hazard ratios for all-cause mortality were 0.95 (0.77–1.17) for Q2, 0.75 (0.59–0.97) for Q3, and 0.71 (0.55–0.92) for Q4 (P for trend &lt;0.001), compared with the lowest quartile of CDAI. A negative linear association was found between CDAI and all-cause mortality. In the stratified analyses, CDAI was negatively associated with all-cause mortality in the insufficient PA group. While in the low and sufficient PA group, there were nonlinear relationships of CDAI with all-cause mortality.ConclusionA negative linear relationship was observed between CDAI and all-cause mortality in OA patients, and this association was significantly modified by PA. Higher intake of dietary antioxidants might be the interventional objective to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality in the US OA population

Targeting the BRD4/FOXO3a/CDK6 Axis Sensitizes AKT Inhibition in Luminal Breast Cancer

BRD4 assembles transcriptional machinery at gene super-enhancer regions and governs the expression of genes that are critical for cancer progression. However, it remains unclear whether BRD4-mediated gene transcription is required for tumor cells to develop drug resistance. Our data show that prolonged treatment of luminal breast cancer cells with AKT inhibitors induces FOXO3a dephosphorylation, nuclear translocation, and disrupts its association with SirT6, eventually leading to FOXO3a acetylation as well as BRD4 recognition. Acetylated FOXO3a recognizes the BD2 domain of BRD4, recruits the BRD4/RNAPII complex to the CDK6 gene promoter, and induces its transcription. Pharmacological inhibition of either BRD4/FOXO3a association or CDK6 significantly overcomes the resistance of luminal breast cancer cells to AKT inhibitors in vitro and in vivo. Our study reports the involvement of BRD4/FOXO3a/CDK6 axis in AKTi resistance and provides potential therapeutic strategies for treating resistant breast cancer