Attempted DNA extraction from a Rancho La Brea Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi): prospects for ancient DNA from asphalt deposits.

Fossil-bearing asphalt deposits are an understudied and potentially significant source of ancient DNA. Previous attempts to extract DNA from skeletons preserved at the Rancho La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, California, have proven unsuccessful, but it is unclear whether this is due to a lack of endogenous DNA, or if the problem is caused by asphalt-mediated inhibition. In an attempt to test these hypotheses, a recently recovered Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) skeleton with an unusual pattern of asphalt impregnation was studied. Ultimately, none of the bone samples tested successfully amplified M. columbi DNA. Our work suggests that reagents typically used to remove asphalt from ancient samples also inhibit DNA extraction. Ultimately, we conclude that the probability of recovering ancient DNA from fossils in asphalt deposits is strongly (perhaps fatally) hindered by the organic compounds that permeate the bones and that at the Rancho La Brea tar pits, environmental conditions might not have been ideal for the general preservation of genetic material

Annotators’ Perspectives: Exploring the Influence of Identity on Interpreting Misogynoir

Social Networking Sites are home to different forms of hate, including "Misogynoir", which specifically targets Black women through a combination of racism and sexism. Detecting misogynoir presents challenges due to its subjective nature and the varied interpretations of hate speech. Using annotator justifications from four distinct demographic groups; including Black women, Black men, White women and White men, we seek to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that influence annotators' reasoning process and labelling decisions for potential cases of Misogynoir and Allyship. Given the unique experiences of Black women who face both racism and sexism, the study sought to understand how their intersectional identities shape their perspectives compared to other groups. The research employed a qualitative analysis of responses from participants to identify key themes and patterns. Three significant themes emerged from our in-depth qualitative analysis of these annotator justifications: prior knowledge and experience, the language of the social media post, and its context. Our results revealed that annotators historically at risk of abuse demonstrated a nuanced understanding of how their intersecting identities inform their interpretations and judgement of tweets, drawing on their personal encounters with misogyny and racism compared to their non-target counterparts of this type of hate. This study underscores the significance of diverse annotator perspectives and content comprehension in understanding and addressing hate speech, particularly when it intersects with multiple forms of discrimination. Our study contributes to the methodological advancements in social network analysis and mining, highlighting the importance of considering annotator characteristics in the development of tools and approaches for detecting and addressing intersectional hate

Understanding Misogynoir: A Study of Annotators’ Perspectives

"Misogynoir" is the anti-Black racist misogyny experienced by Black women, which is characterised by components of both racism and sexism. Misogynoir is challenging to detect due to its inherent subjectivity and its intersectional nature, and people's opinions and interpretations of such hate might vary, which adds to the challenges of understanding it. In this paper, we explored how and some potential why's different annotator characteristics influence how they interpret and annotate a dataset for potential cases of Misogynoir and Allyship. We sampled tweets containing public responses to self-reported misogynoir cases by four prominent Black women in technology, designed an online annotation task study, and recruited annotators of diverse ethnicities and genders from the Prolific crowdsourcing platform. We found that participants' sources of evidence in judging and interpreting content for potential cases of Misogynoir and Allyship, even in circumstances where they all agree on a prospective label, vary across different factors, such as different ethnicity, lived experiences and gender. In addition, we present a variety of plausible interpretations influenced by the various annotators' characteristics. This study demonstrates the relevance of different annotator perspectives and content comprehension in hate speech and the need for further efforts to understand intersectional hate better

Dental Caries in the Fossil Record: A Window to the Evolution of Dietary Plasticity in an Extinct Bear

During the late Pleistocene of North America (≈36,000 to 10,000 years ago), saber-toothed cats, American lions, dire wolves, and coyotes competed for prey resources at Rancho La Brea (RLB). Despite the fact that the giant short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) was the largest land carnivoran present in the fauna, there is no evidence that it competed with these other carnivores for prey at the site. Here, for the first time, we report carious lesions preserved in specimens of A. simus, recovered from RLB. Our results suggest that the population of A. simus from RLB was more omnivorous than the highly carnivorous populations from the Northwest. This dietary variation may be a consequence of different competitive pressures

Children's School Lives: Preschool to Primary School Transition

This report is focused on the transition from preschool to primary school. School transitions are one of six core thematic areas that CSL focuses on . The transition into primary school is a significant event not only in the lives of the children, but also their family. It is embedded in wider dynamics related to the personal, social, and cultural context of their lives, as well as the particular trajectory of children’s own emotional and cognitive development (NCCA, 2018). The focus of this report is to present some of the patterns evident in this key transition point from a range of perspectives. As such, the findings presented in this report draw on data generated with the CSL cohort in Junior Infants, as well as an additional sub-study (the ‘Preschool study’), undertaken in the summer term 2019 to explore the perspectives of parents, children and early years educators on the transition to primary school.National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA

Children's School Lives in Junior Infants

This report is the third in the series from Children’s School Lives, an innovative, longitudinal research study involving almost 4,000 children in 189 primary schools. One of the defining features of the study is the strong emphasis it places on listening to and learning directly from children about their experience of being in primary school in Ireland. This particular report introduces us to the youngest children in the study. The multiple perspectives gathered from the children themselves, their families, teachers and school principals, converge to provide us with a rich, detailed picture of the children’s first year in school. Uniquely, this period incorporates the months just prior to the arrival of the Coronavirus on Irish shores and the weeks immediately after the commencement of the first national lockdown in Spring 2020. Early childhood is a time of being and becoming, a time which provides important foundations for children’s learning and for life itself. We know from research that the first six years of a child’s life, their early childhood years, are particularly important for their holistic development. We also know from research that a positive transition from preschool to primary school is a predictor of children’s future success in terms of social, emotional and educational outcomes. Yet, despite this knowledge, relatively little research exists in the Irish context on children’s initial experiences in primary school. The Children’s School Lives study responds directly to this research gap by capturing, through multiple voices, comprehensive insights into the children’s initial weeks and months in their primary classrooms.National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA

ePortfolio to support professional development during experiential learning placements: Guided by students-as-partners theory, enabled through students-as-partners practice

This case study applies a students-as-partners focus to the use of ePortfolio concepts during experiential learning placements. In describing our project and as evident here, in referring to ePortfolio in the singular, we cite it as an abstract concept, while the plural reference marks practice, in this study taking the form of studentgenerated instances of ePortfolio use, in particular as detailed in the ePortfolios experiences of two final-year students on experiential placement in a pharmacy programme. These two students used their ePortfolio to document and reflect critically on their experiential placements, showcasing their own studentgenerated ePortfolios at a symposium co-hosted by student partners, their placement preceptor, and other mentors. This student co-developed case study summarises key findings, including how the use of ePortfolio can support learner agency, and outlines recommendations for further incorporating ePortfolio use in experiential learning contexts. While grounded in the context of an undergraduate pharmacy programme, much of the study will resonate with colleagues based in International Journal for Students as Partners Vol. 7, Issue 2. October 2023 Roche, C., Abria, L., Farrell, O., Johnston, J., Penny Light, T., McKibben, A., Reast, A., & Yancey, K. B. (2023). “ePortfolio to support professional development during experiential learning placements: Guided by students-as-partners theory, enabled through students-as-partners practice” International Journal for other disciplines aligned with competency frameworks. The staff-student collaborative approach explored in this case study is likely of interest to students, educators, preceptors, tutors, mentors, and others developing curricula with an ePortfolio component

Dental caries in the fossil record: a window to the evolution of dietary plasticity in an extinct bear

During the late Pleistocene of North America (≈36,000 to 10,000 years ago), saber-toothed cats, American lions, dire wolves, and coyotes competed for prey resources at Rancho La Brea (RLB). Despite the fact that the giant short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) was the largest land carnivoran present in the fauna, there is no evidence that it competed with these other carnivores for prey at the site. Here, for the first time, we report carious lesions preserved in specimens of A. simus, recovered from RLB. Our results suggest that the population of A. simus from RLB was more omnivorous than the highly carnivorous populations from the Northwest. This dietary variation may be a consequence of different competitive pressures.Funding for this project was provided by the ‘Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), grant (CGL2015-58300P) to BF, and a University of Alicante grant n° uausti15–03 to AR. FJS possess postdoctoral grant at Los Angeles County Natural History Museum (Dinosaur Institute, NHM) and the Sierra Elvira Foundation (Spain). APR is a FPI fellow of the Spanish MINECO (BES-2013-065469) associated to the project (CGL2012-37866) of BF

Breathlessness and respiratory disability after kidney transplantation

Background: Dyspnea is a common symptom in patients with end-stage kidney disease being treated with dialysis. This study aimed to ascertain the level of respiratory disability in patients after kidney transplantation through assessing a cohort of kidney allograft recipients for respiratory compromise and thereby identifying a potential target for therapeutic intervention. Methods: Kidney transplant recipients who were under active observation in a single tertiary referral center were invited to take part in this prevalence study at the time of clinic follow-up. All patients agreed to take part in the study, which involved completing a Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnea scale, completing the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire, and performing basic spirometry. An MRC score of ≥2 and/or a forced expiratory volume in 1 second <90% predicted prompted formal clinical assessment by a respiratory physician. Results: This study enrolled 103 patients; 35% of all patients reported breathlessness, and 56% of all patients warranted formal respiratory medicine review. After completion of their investigations, 33 patients were found to have an underlying condition accounting for their symptoms. Conclusion: Our study highlights the issues of respiratory disability and breathlessness in patients who have undergone kidney transplantation. Although extensive cardiologic evaluation is performed routinely and can rule out many causes of dyspnea, respiratory assessment is not a preoperative prerequisite. This study could suggest that a formal pulmonological evaluation and basic spirometry should be part of the pretransplant evaluation of the kidney transplant recipient

Towards a consensus definition of allostatic load: a multi-cohort, multi-system, multi-biomarker individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis.

Background Allostatic load (AL) is a multi-system composite index for quantifying physiological dysregulation caused by life course stressors. For over 30 years, an extensive body of research has drawn on the AL framework but has been hampered by the lack of a consistent definition. Methods This study analyses data for 67,126 individuals aged 40-111 years participating in 13 different cohort studies and 40 biomarkers across 12 physiological systems: hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) axis, parasympathetic nervous system functioning, oxidative stress, immunological/inflammatory, cardiovascular, respiratory, lipidemia, anthropometric, glucose metabolism, kidney, and liver. We use individual-participant-data meta-analysis and exploit natural heterogeneity in the number and type of biomarkers that have been used across studies, but a common set of health outcomes (grip strength, walking speed, and self-rated health), to determine the optimal configuration of parameters to define the concept. Results There was at least one biomarker within 9/12 physiological systems that was reliably and consistently associated in the hypothesised direction with the three health outcomes in the meta-analysis of these cohorts: dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), low frequency-heart rate variability (LF-HRV), C-reactive protein (CRP), resting heart rate (RHR), peak expiratory flow (PEF), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), waist-to-height ratio (WtHR), HbA1c, and cystatin C. An index based on five biomarkers (CRP, RHR, HDL-C, WtHR and HbA1c) available in every study was found to predict an independent outcome - mortality - as well or better than more elaborate sets of biomarkers. Discussion This study has identified a brief 5-item measure of AL that arguably represents a universal and efficient set of biomarkers for capturing physiological 'wear and tear' and a further biomarker (PEF) that could usefully be included in future data collection