Student Expectations and Preferences of Distance Course Delivery Methods

Students in five courses offered with a variety of distance and on-campus delivery methods were surveyed to determine student expectations and post-evaluation of courses; student demographics; and student experiences and preferences with technology and course delivery methods. The response group was primarily degree seeking upperclassmen, taking a required course, equally split by gender and by delivery location. All students preferred a live class delivery method but videotape delivery appeared to have a higher student satisfaction level than satellite. On-campus students found simultaneous satellite delivery distracting but not detrimental to their learning experience. Students consistently misjudged the content and workload of courses.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Occupational complexity and lifetime cognitive abilities

OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between complexity of main lifetime occupation and cognitive performance in later life. METHODS: Occupational complexity ratings for data, people, and things were collected from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles for 1,066 individuals (men = 534, women = 532) in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. IQ data were available from mean age 11 years. Cognitive ability data across the domains of general ability, processing speed, and memory were available at mean age 70 years. RESULTS: General linear model analyses indicated that complexity of work with people and data were associated with better cognitive performance at age 70, after including age 11 IQ, years of education, and social deprivation. CONCLUSIONS: The current findings are supportive of the differential preservation hypotheses that more stimulating environments preserve cognitive ability in later life, although the continued effects into old age are still debated. Studies that have early-life cognitive ability measures are rare, and the current study offers interesting prospects for future research that may further the understanding of successful aging

What is the Experience of Primary Eyecare for Children with an autistic spectrum disorder? A grounded theory investigation

Background Autism spectrum disorder is a group of lifelong neuro-developmental disorders that influence the way people interact, view and communicate with their world. It is thought that people with autism spectrum disorders have a shorter life span because they do not alert people to health problems that might be treatable. Healthcare in the United Kingdom is intended to be accessible equally by all. Planning for services requires the input of service users to ensure that they are accessible. There is limited knowledge about the experience of eye-care from the service user’s perspective. Aim The aim of this research is to investigate the experience of eye-care from the perspective of children with autism spectrum disorders. Methods A grounded theory methodology was used. Eight primary carer and child dyads and five eye-care professionals were interviewed. Data were analysed and the categories that emerged were integrated to develop theory. Findings The overarching category that emerged from the children’s data was feeling in control. There are facilitators and barriers to this which are dependent on the autism spectrum disorder awareness of eye-care practitioners and the eye-care awareness of primary carers. Conclusion The experience of primary eye-care for children with an autism spectrum disorder is dependent on whether they feel in control of the situation. The theory generated indicates that a child can be enabled to feel in control if their primary carer and eye care professional work together to reduce the sensory burden, provide continuity, and adapt the process in a person-centred way. This research shows that strategies that enable the child to feel in control can reduce the challenges of the process of primary eye-care. In order for this to be possible the primary carer and eye care professional need effective communication pathways to plan for each individual’s specific needs and to prepare the child for the experience

Quantitative Analysis of Candida Cell Wall Components by Flow Cytometrywith Triple-Fluorescence Staining

This work was supported by the European Commission within the FP7 Framework Programme [Fungitect-Grant No 602125]. We also thank Thomas Sauer, Vienna Biocenter Campus (VBC), Austria, for technical support at the FACS facility of the MFPL, Karl Kuchler, MFPL-Department of Medical Biochemistry, Medical University of Vienna, Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Campus Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria and Ernst Thuer, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Barcelona, Spain, for advice on statistical approaches. Neil Gow acknowledges the support of the Wellcome Trust and the MRC Centre for Medical MycologyPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Titan cell production in Cryptococcus neoformans reshapes the cell wall and capsule composition during infection

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01AI080275 and R21AI22352), the NIH Fogarty International Center (R25TW009345), the University of Minnesota Center for Translational Science Institute (UL1TR000114), Wellcome Trust (086827, 075470, 097377, 101873 & 200208) and MRC Centre for Medical Mycology (N006364/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A dial-reading translator for digital machine inputs

At the Southern California Co-operative Wind Tunnel, part of the need for rapid and accurate recording of instrument readings on tabular data sheets has been met by the development of a new automatic-translating device. This device has unusually low torque and is especially suitable for use with self-balancing potentiometers. The device picks up the reading as a whole number and electrically transfers it to standard printing and punched-card machines, without lag and without restricting the normal operation of the potentiometer

Contrasting hybridization rates between sympatric three-spined sticklebacks highlight the fragility of reproductive barriers between evolutionarily young species.

Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) are a powerful evolutionary model system due to the rapid and repeated phenotypic divergence of freshwater forms from a marine ancestor throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Many of these recently derived populations are found in overlapping habitats, yet are reproductively isolated from each other. This scenario provides excellent opportunities to investigate the mechanisms driving speciation in natural populations. Genetically distinguishing between such recently derived species, however, can create difficulties in exploring the ecological and genetic factors defining species boundaries, an essential component to our understanding of speciation. We overcame these limitations and increased the power of analyses by selecting highly discriminatory markers from the battery of genetic markers now available. Using species diagnostic molecular profiles, we quantified levels of hybridization and introgression within three sympatric species pairs of three-spined stickleback. Sticklebacks within Priest and Paxton lakes exhibit a low level of natural hybridization and provide support for the role of reinforcement in maintaining distinct species in sympatry. In contrast, our study provides further evidence for a continued breakdown of the Enos Lake species pair into a hybrid swarm, with biased introgression of the 'limnetic' species into that of the 'benthic'; a situation that highlights the delicate balance between persistence and breakdown of reproductive barriers between young species. A similar strategy utilizing the stickleback microsatellite resource can also be applied to answer an array of biological questions in other species' pair systems in this geographically widespread and phenotypically diverse model organism

Internuclear gene silencing in Phytophthora infestans is established through chromatin remodelling

In the plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans, nuclear integration of inf1 transgenic DNA sequences results in internuclear gene silencing of inf1. Although silencing is regulated at the transcriptional level, it also affects transcription from other nuclei within heterokaryotic cells of the mycelium. Here we report experiments exploring the mechanism of internuclear gene silencing in P. infestans. The DNA methylation inhibitor 5-azacytidine induced reversion of the inf1-silenced state. Also, the histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin-A was able to reverse inf1 silencing. inf1-expression levels returned to the silenced state when the inhibitors were removed except in non-transgenic inf1-silenced strains that were generated via internuclear gene silencing, where inf1 expression was restored permanently. Therefore, inf1-transgenic sequences are required to maintain the silenced state. Prolonged culture of non-transgenic inf1-silenced strains resulted in gradual reactivation of inf1 gene expression. Nuclease digestion of inf1-silenced and non-silenced nuclei showed that inf1 sequences in silenced nuclei were less rapidly degraded than non-silenced inf1 sequences. Bisulfite sequencing of the endogenous inf1 locus did not result in detection of any cytosine methylation. Our findings suggest that the inf1-silenced state is based on chromatin remodelling

Ecological selection against hybrids in natural populations of sympatric threespine sticklebacks.

Experimental work has provided evidence for extrinsic post-zygotic isolation, a phenomenon unique to ecological speciation. The role that ecological components to reduced hybrid fitness play in promoting speciation and maintaining species integrity in the wild, however, is not as well understood. We addressed this problem by testing for selection against naturally occurring hybrids in two sympatric species pairs of benthic and limnetic threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). If post-zygotic isolation is a significant reproductive barrier, the relative frequency of hybrids within a population should decline significantly across the life-cycle. Such a trend in a natural population would give independent support to experimental evidence for extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, post-zygotic isolation in this system. Indeed, tracing mean individual hybridity (genetic intermediateness) across three life-history stages spanning four generations revealed just such a decline. This provides compelling evidence that extrinsic selection plays an important role in maintaining species divergence and supports a role for ecological speciation in sticklebacks