Navigating the intersection between academic and research integrity for investigations involving research students. practitioner experiences at an Australian University

There is limited research on the intersection between research and academic integrity in scenarios concerning research students. In this commentary the experiences of a practitioner working in research governance, navigating the interstices between research integrity (RI) and academic integrity (AI) investigations, will be examined. With a view to promoting discussion on this aspect of research governance

The Case for Moral Complexity

In this chapter Marc Fellman seeks to situate the tension between judging and understanding, as it is understood in Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, within the context of a discussion on the tension between moral complexity and moral enormity within Holocaust experiences. His claim is that the tension between judging and understanding is best understood as symptomatic of a more generalized tension between complexity and enormity, at least when it comes to understanding the Holocaust. ISBN: 978075465395

HREC members\u27 personal values influence decision making in contentious cases

This article identifies 14 contentious issues faced by Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs). The authors argue that HREC members will respond variably to these issues based on their own fundamental values and worldview. In particular, we propose that personal interpretations of current ethics regulations and HREC members’ attitudes to consequentialism, Kantianism, and utilitarianism in some cases affect their responses to contentious research issues. We seek to promote understanding of how personal and professional back­grounds of HREC reviewers influence their approaches to value-laden issues embedded in ethics applications. Taking the form of a literature review, our con­tribution highlights the need for further exploration of how HREC members make decisions, and what factors influence the outcomes of ethics applications

Moral Complexity and the Holocaust

This book introduces the first sustained analysis of the idea that the Holocaust constitutes a tension between moral complexity and moral enormity. A great deal has been written in regard to the Holocaust as a powerful symbol, perhaps as the quintessential symbol of moral enormity in the modern era. Less has been said about the human experiences and events of the Holocaust as embodying moral complexity. The author examines those tensions, in part by exploring the categories of victims, bystanders and perpetrators, and suggests novel ways for how we may come to better understand the moral landscape of the Holocaust. ISBN: 978076184443

Correlating Working Memory Capacity with Learners´ Study Behavior in a Web-Based Learning Platform

Cognitive pre-requisites should be taken into consideration when providing personalized and adaptive digital content in web-based learning platforms. In order to achieve this it should be possible to extract these cognitive characteristics based on students´ study behavior. Working memory capacity (WMC) is one of the cognitive characteristics that affect students’ performance and their academic achievements. However, traditional approaches to measuring WMC are cognitively demanding and time consuming. In order to simplify these measures, Chang et al. (2015) proposed an approach that can automatically identify students’ WMC based on their study behavior patterns. The intriguing question is then whether there are study behavior characteristics that correspond to the students’ WMC? This work explores to what extent it is possible to map individual WMC data onto individual patterns of learning by correlating working memory capacity with learners´ study behavior in an adaptive web-based learning system. Several machine learning models together with a rich context model have been applied to identify the most relevant study behavior characteristics and to predict students’ WMC. The evaluation was performed based on data collected from 122 students during a period of 2 years using a web-based learning platform. The initial results show that there is no linear correlation with learners´ study behavior and their WMC

Enzymatic assay for UDP-GlcNAc and its application in the parallel assessment of substrate availability and protein O-GlcNAcylation

O-linked N-acetylglucosaminylation (O-GlcNAcylation) is a ubiquitous and dynamic non-canonical glycosylation of intracellular proteins. Several branches of metabolism converge at the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway (HBP) to produce the substrate for protein O-GlcNAcylation, the uridine diphosphate N-acetylglucosamine (UDP-GlcNAc). Availability of UDP-GlcNAc is considered a key regulator of O-GlcNAcylation. Yet UDPGlcNAc concentrations are rarely reported in studies exploring the HBP and O-GlcNAcylation, most likely because the methods to measure it are restricted to specialized chromatographic procedures. Here, we introduce an enzymatic method to quantify cellular and tissue UDP-GlcNAc. The method is based on O-GlcNAcylation of a substrate peptide by O-linked N-acetylglucosamine transferase (OGT) and subsequent immunodetection of the modification. The assay can be performed in dot-blot or microplate format. We apply it to quantify UDP-GlcNAc concentrations in several mouse tissues and cell lines. Furthermore, we show how changes in UDP-GlcNAc levels correlate with O-GlcNAcylation and the expression of OGT and O-GlcNAcase (OGA).Peer reviewe

Quality of life among long-term survivors of advanced stage ovarian cancer: A cross-sectional approach.

PURPOSE:Long-term survival of women with advanced-stage ovarian cancer is relatively rare. Little is known about quality of life (QOL) and survivorship concerns of these women. Here, we describe QOL of women with advanced-stage ovarian cancer surviving for 8.5 years or longer and compare women with 0-1 recurrence to those with multiple recurrences. METHODS:Participants (n=56) recruited from 5 academic medical centers and the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance completed surveys regarding QOL (FACT-O), mood (CESD), social support (SPS), physical activity (IPAQ-SF), diet, and clinical characteristics. Median survival was 14.0 years (range 8.8-33.3). RESULTS:QOL and psychological adjustment of long-term survivors was relatively good, with mean FACT-G scores (multiple recurrences: 80.81±13.95; 0-1 recurrence: 89.05 ±10.80) above norms for healthy community samples (80.1±18.1). Survivors with multiple recurrences reported more compromised QOL in domains of physical and emotional well-being (p <.05), and endorsed a variety of physical and emotional concerns compared to survivors with 0-1 recurrence. Difficulties in sexual functioning were common in both groups. Almost half (43%) of the survivors reported low levels of physical activity. CONCLUSIONS:Overall, women with advanced-stage ovarian cancer who have survived at least 8.5 years report good QOL and psychological adjustment. QOL of survivors with multiple recurrences is somewhat impaired compared to those with 0-1 recurrence. Limitations include a possible bias towards participation by healthier survivors, thus under-representing the level of compromise in long-term survivors. Health care practitioners should be alert to psychosocial issues faced by these long-term survivors to provide interventions that enhance QOL