From soliciting answers to eliciting reasoning: Questioning our questions in digital math tasks

How can classroom teachers and task designers pose questions to promote students’ reasoning? The authors share a Toy Car task, developed in Desmos, then provide three design principles guiding task questions

To Pre-filter, or Not to Pre-filter, That Is the Query: A Multi-Campus Big Data Study

Library discovery platforms, which provide searchable user interfaces as their front-facing layer, aggregate tremendous amounts of metadata from multiple data streams describing a wide variety of print and electronic resources. Complicating the matter further, resources may differ in availability or delivery time depending not only on their media but also upon the source of the data stream describing them. How should libraries structure end users' options for searching discovery platforms in light of the many options available? This study used a nonexperimental design and quantitative methods to analyze users' revealed preferences for query type in twenty-four academic libraries in a data set containing metadata, sans queries, for over 64 million searches. Libraries studied were all located in California, used the same discovery layer software, and served similar user and faculty constituencies; however, the number of query types and pre-filtering options available differed between institutions. Results show that, when users were presented with the choice between search options, most conducted simple, more broad searches rather than complex and specific searches. When search options were highly constrained by the default choice architecture, but complex searches were possible, few users opted out of the default simple search. Implications for usability of discovery layers and the motivations of librarians in choice architecture are nontrivial and are discussed. The desires of librarians and "power user" faculty must be balanced with the fact that most users are novices and users of all abilities are largely habituated to commercial search products which emphasize post-search results filtering

Novel heterochronic functions of the Caenorhabditis elegans period-related protein LIN-42

AbstractLIN-42, the Caenorhabditis elegans homolog of the Period (Per) family of circadian rhythm proteins, functions as a member of the heterochronic pathway, regulating temporal cell identities. We demonstrate that lin-42 acts broadly, timing developmental events in the gonad, vulva, and sex myoblasts, in addition to its well-established role in timing terminal differentiation of the hypodermis. In the vulva, sex myoblasts, and hypodermis, lin-42 activity prevents stage-specific cell division patterns from occurring too early. This general function of timing stage-appropriate cell division patterns is shared by the majority of heterochronic genes; their mutation temporally alters stage-specific division patterns. In contrast, lin-42 function in timing gonad morphogenesis is unique among the known heterochronic genes: inactivation of lin-42 causes the elongating gonad arms to reflex too early, a phenotype which implicates lin-42 in temporal regulation of cell migration. Three additional isoforms of lin-42 are identified that expand our view of the lin-42 locus and significantly extend the homology between LIN-42 and other PER family members. We show that, similar to PER proteins, LIN-42 has a dynamic expression pattern; its levels oscillate relative to the molts during postembryonic development. Transformation rescue studies indicate lin-42 is bipartite with respect to function. Intriguingly, the hallmark PAS domain is dispensable for LIN-42 function in transgenic animals

Associations of risk factors of e-cigarette and cigarette use and susceptibility to use among baseline PATH study youth participants (2013–2014)

Introduction: Improved understanding of the distribution of traditional risk factors of cigarette smoking among youth who have ever used or are susceptible to e-cigarettes and cigarettes will inform future longitudinal studies examining transitions in use. Methods: Multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted using data from youth (ages 12–17 years) who had ever heard of e-cigarettes at baseline of the PATH Study (n = 12,460) to compare the distribution of risk factors for cigarette smoking among seven mutually exclusive groups based on ever cigarette/e-cigarette use and sus- ceptibility status. Results: Compared to committed never users, youth susceptible to e-cigarettes, cigarettes, or both had increasing odds of risk factors for cigarette smoking, with those susceptible to both products at highest risk, followed by cigarettes and e-cigarettes. Compared to e-cigarette only users, dual users had higher odds of nearly all risk factors (aOR range = 1.6–6.8) and cigarette only smokers had higher odds of other (non-e-cigarette) tobacco use (aOR range=1.5–2.3), marijuana use (aOR=1.9, 95%CI=1.4–2.5), a high GAIN substance use score (aOR = 1.9, 95%CI = 1.1–3.4), low academic achievement (aOR range = 1.6–3.4), and exposure to smoking (aOR range = 1.8–2.1). No differences were observed for externalizing factors (depression, anxiety, etc.), sen- sation seeking, or household use of non-cigarette tobacco. Conclusions: Among ever cigarette and e-cigarette users, dual users had higher odds of reporting traditional risk factors for smoking, followed by single product cigarette smokers and e-cigarette users. Understanding how e- cigarette and cigarette users differ may inform youth tobacco use prevention efforts and advise future studies assessing probability of progression of cigarette and e-cigarette use

Garden and landscape-scale correlates of moths of differing conservation status: significant effects of urbanization and habitat diversity

Moths are abundant and ubiquitous in vegetated terrestrial environments and are pollinators, important herbivores of wild plants, and food for birds, bats and rodents. In recent years, many once abundant and widespread species have shown sharp declines that have been cited by some as indicative of a widespread insect biodiversity crisis. Likely causes of these declines include agricultural intensification, light pollution, climate change, and urbanization; however, the real underlying cause(s) is still open to conjecture. We used data collected from the citizen science Garden Moth Scheme (GMS) to explore the spatial association between the abundance of 195 widespread British species of moth, and garden habitat and landscape features, to see if spatial habitat and landscape associations varied for species of differing conservation status. We found that associations with habitat and landscape composition were species-specific, but that there were consistent trends in species richness and total moth abundance. Gardens with more diverse and extensive microhabitats were associated with higher species richness and moth abundance; gardens near to the coast were associated with higher richness and moth abundance; and gardens in more urbanized locations were associated with lower species richness and moth abundance. The same trends were also found for species classified as increasing, declining and vulnerable under IUCN (World Conservation Union) criteria

Prevention of child mental health problems through parenting interventions in Southeastern Europe (RISE): study protocol for a multi-site randomised controlled trial

Background: Childhood adversities, such as poor parental practices, exposure to violence, and risk behaviours strongly impact children’s future mental and behavioural problems. Adversities affect families living in disadvantaged environments and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to a greater extent than in high-income countries. Parenting programmes are an effective way to alleviate them, although their outreach and scalability is still limited in LMICs. Methods/design: A multi-site randomised controlled trial will be conducted in North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova and Romania to test the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of an optimised version of the promising Parenting for Lifelong Health Programme for Young Children (PLH-YC, 5 sessions), against a standard lecture on parenting issues (control group, 1 session). At least 864 participants who report having children between 2 and 9 years old who display elevated levels of behavioural difficulties will be randomised on a 1:1 basis to the intervention and control groups. The primary outcome will consist of parent report of child oppositional aggressive behaviour. Post-test (four months) and follow-up (12 months) assessments will provide information on short- and longer-term effects of PLH-YC compared to the parenting lecture in the control group. Discussion: This randomised trial will test the efficacy of PLH-YC in alleviating child behavioural problems and assess the cost-effectiveness, transportability across three different cultural contexts, and potential for scalability of the programme. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov., Registration number: NCT04721730 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04721730). Registered 13.01.202

Advancing a holistic systems approach for sustainable cattle development programmes in South Africa: insights from sustainability assessments

Efforts to exploit the central roles of cattle to drive agriculture and rural development in low-income countries recorded limited success owing to their narrow focus on modernizing and commercializing low-input cattle farming. Most programs failed to take cognizance of the heterogeneous range of complex relationships between the environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges that limit low-input cattle farming. The current qualitative literature review evaluates the environmental, economic and social sustainability delivery impacts of the leading cattle development programs in the low-input farming sector in South Africa using a holistic systems approach. A mixed method procedure involving stratified sampling was used to allocate local and international-based programs while, purposive sampling was used to select programs with a wider scale of operation. The review then draws on the crosscutting key constraints emerging from the case studies to provide a better grounding for subsequent sustainability sensitive recommendations. Local-based cattle development programs advanced more market-led interventions while, their international-based counterparts had more interventions including, soil and rangeland improvement. The narrow focus by both local and international developmental programs is inadequate to address a wide array of environmental, economic, social, technical and institutional challenges faced by low-input cattle producers in South Africa.The Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Food Security [140102].https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjsa212021-01-23hj2020Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS

Mining biological information from 3D short time-series gene expression data: the OPTricluster algorithm

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Nowadays, it is possible to collect expression levels of a set of genes from a set of biological samples during a series of time points. Such data have three dimensions: gene-sample-time (GST). Thus they are called 3D microarray gene expression data. To take advantage of the 3D data collected, and to fully understand the biological knowledge hidden in the GST data, novel subspace clustering algorithms have to be developed to effectively address the biological problem in the corresponding space.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed a subspace clustering algorithm called Order Preserving Triclustering (OPTricluster), for 3D short time-series data mining. OPTricluster is able to identify 3D clusters with coherent evolution from a given 3D dataset using a combinatorial approach on the sample dimension, and the order preserving (OP) concept on the time dimension. The fusion of the two methodologies allows one to study similarities and differences between samples in terms of their temporal expression profile. OPTricluster has been successfully applied to four case studies: immune response in mice infected by malaria (<it>Plasmodium chabaudi</it>), systemic acquired resistance in <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>, similarities and differences between inner and outer cotyledon in <it>Brassica napus </it>during seed development, and to <it>Brassica napus </it>whole seed development. These studies showed that OPTricluster is robust to noise and is able to detect the similarities and differences between biological samples.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our analysis showed that OPTricluster generally outperforms other well known clustering algorithms such as the TRICLUSTER, gTRICLUSTER and K-means; it is robust to noise and can effectively mine the biological knowledge hidden in the 3D short time-series gene expression data.</p

Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences

Building trust in science and evidence-based decision-making depends heavily on the credibility of studies and their findings. Researchers employ many different study designs that vary in their risk of bias to evaluate the true effect of interventions or impacts. Here, we empirically quantify, on a large scale, the prevalence of different study designs and the magnitude of bias in their estimates. Randomised designs and controlled observational designs with pre-intervention sampling were used by just 23% of intervention studies in biodiversity conservation, and 36% of intervention studies in social science. We demonstrate, through pairwise within-study comparisons across 49 environmental datasets, that these types of designs usually give less biased estimates than simpler observational designs. We propose a model-based approach to combine study estimates that may suffer from different levels of study design bias, discuss the implications for evidence synthesis, and how to facilitate the use of more credible study designs.Fil: Christie, Alec P.. University of Cambridge; Reino UnidoFil: Abecasis, David. Universidad de Algarve. Centro de Ciencias del Mar; PortugalFil: Adjeroud, Mehdi. Université de Perpignan; Francia. Institut de Recherche Pour Le Developpement; FranciaFil: Alonso, Juan Carlos. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales; EspañaFil: Amano, Tatsuya. University of Queensland; AustraliaFil: Anton, Alvaro. Universidad del País Vasco. Facultad de Educación de Bilbao; EspañaFil: Baldigo, Barry P.. United States Geological Survey; Estados UnidosFil: Barrientos, Rafael. Universidad Complutense de Madrid; EspañaFil: Bicknell, Jake E.. University of Kent; Reino UnidoFil: Buhl, Deborah A.. United States Geological Survey; Estados UnidosFil: Cebrian, Just. Mississippi State University; Estados UnidosFil: Ceia, Ricardo S.. Universidad de Coimbra; PortugalFil: Cibils Martina, Luciana. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Clarke, Sarah. Marine Institute; IrlandaFil: Claudet, Joachim. Universite de Paris; Francia. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; FranciaFil: Craig, Michael D.. University of Western Australia; Australia. Murdoch University; AustraliaFil: Davoult, Dominique. Sorbonne University; FranciaFil: De Backer, Annelies. Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; BélgicaFil: Donovan, Mary K.. University of California; Estados Unidos. University of Hawaii at Manoa; Estados UnidosFil: Eddy, Tyler D.. University of South Carolina; Estados Unidos. Memorial University of Newfoundland; Canadá. Victoria University of Wellington; Nueva ZelandaFil: França, Filipe M.. Lancaster University; Reino UnidoFil: Gardner, Jonathan P. A.. Victoria University of Wellington; Nueva ZelandaFil: Harris, Bradley P.. Alaska Pacific University; Estados UnidosFil: Huusko, Ari. Natural Resources Institute Finland; FinlandiaFil: Jones, Ian L.. Memorial University of Newfoundland; CanadáFil: Kelaher, Brendan P.. Southern Cross University; AustraliaFil: Kotiaho, Janne S.. Universidad de Jyvaskyla; FinlandiaFil: López Baucells, Adrià. Universidad de Lisboa; Portugal. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; Panamá. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Instituto de Investigaciones Amazonicas; Colombia. Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Granollers; EspañaFil: Major, Heather L.. University of New Brunswick; CanadáFil: Mäki Petäys, Aki. Voimalohi Oy; Finlandia. University of Oulu; Finlandi