A Preliminary Linguistic Analysis of Plant Names in Ikpaná (Logba), an Endangered Ghana Togo Mountain Language

Methodology: I spent 12 days living in three of the towns in the Logba traditional area (Alakpeti, Klikpo, and Tota) during which time I elicited approximately three hours of footage spread over four miniDV tapes of native speakers of Ikpaná describing the names and uses of the plants in the surrounding area in the Ikpaná language. Findings: I analyzed some of the linguistic properties of the plant names as they relate to the endangered language status of the language. Conclusion: Ikpaná is being pressured by Ewe and by globalization. This can be demonstrated through an analysis of the plant names, which in addition to including Ikpaná names also include borrowed names. These names can be shown to be from Ewe and from the influences of agriculture. Further documentation and study is needed

The Resurrectionist

To what degree is love genetically determined? Is it there, some magical golden dust, resting between the coils of strands in every living cell of our bodies? Is it already known by the fates before we’re ever born? Or is it merely a possibility triggered by a series of chaotic dominoes, a roll of the dice made right by only one correct lifetime, never to be replicated? The year is 2163 and Cassius Burke, a genetic engineer leading an elite team of cloning scientists known as the Replicists, has learned his wife Jesica has died. She, and millions of other women, was drafted as a solider in the Chinese-American war and never came home. All Burke has left is her locket—and the hope that his knowledge of cloning can resurrect his beloved Jesica. Cloning, of course, has its drawbacks. First and foremost, the clone arrives as a squalling and vulnerable infant that Burke must not only hide from the prying eyes of everyone in the United Corporate States of America and the enforcer known as the Overseer, but also raise to take the place of lover. This science fiction story in the vein of 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale follows multiple points of view as Burke descends into Lolita-esque madness and baby J. grows into awareness finding a world more like a prison, unable to leave Burke’s apartment for fear of being discovered by hyper-intelligent cameras. How long can Burke keep his biggest secret and just what does the UCSA want to keep people from finding outside the city walls? I wrote The Ressurectionist to address the dual ideas of cloning and corporate personhood, wrestling them into the speculative what-if that asks uncomfortable questions that may not be far in our own future. With recent Supreme Court rulings designating businesses as persons and committees so big they require the word “super,” people already allow corporations to vote with their money. Television shows document people cloning their pets for huge sums of money on the off-chance that DNA can determine love. It isn’t such a farfetched idea that corporations might soon become the government and lovers could wish to clone the dead. As an author, it is my job to be nosy and I couldn’t resist finding out what would happen if someone tried. My characters, it turns out, had a lot to tell me. Science fiction can often seem cold and detached, mirroring faceless overlord governments and the robotic technologies of the day. However, I take the story in an emotional and human direction because it is told from the perspectives of each of the main characters in turn. Each of their experiences—the replicist, the replicate, and the original—are important and so tightly knotted to each other as to be inextricable. Thus, the narrative is organized in sections headed by the name of the character speaking in first person. Often, memories intrude informing setting, character history, and action. This story draws from genres of science fiction, survival, and a twisted sense of romance. Women’s issues and technology tint my story’s world but I want the focus to be on human lives making human choices. The focus of this story is on a microcosm of one man’s obsession and the disastrous results that engineering human lives can have. But aren’t the stories of the war and of the complacent masses important, even if they’re implausible? I would argue that, while interesting, these stories have been told before because they’ve already happened. The collective denial of the German people and governments during and following the Second World War are both an inspiration to my story and proof millions of dehumanized lives could be taken without an outcry. Knowledge of the past is useful, if it saves the future. But Burke did more than study the past; he brought it back to life

Ngala Healthy You, Healthy Baby: a personalized online program to support healthy weight in pregnancy and early life

Perinatal maternal obesity is common and has significant child and maternal health consequences. Online resources have the potential to engage young mothers to adopt healthier lifestyles during pregnancy and postpartum. Intercept interviews with 53 pregnant women at antenatal clinics and focus groups with 67 new mothers at mothers’ groups and playgroups were conducted to determine preferred types and formats of online information and support. The expressed needs of women were matched to behaviour change theory to guide development of the Healthy You Healthy Baby website and Smartphone application. A mix of factual and practical online information, self-assessment, goal-setting and feedback in an interactive format is recommended to motivate and support women to achieve healthy lifestyles in the perinatal period. Referral to online resources by health professionals and quality assurance of content is important to increase the confidence of women to act on it

Rod Library Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Rod Library’s Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon is a concerted effort to improve the representation of women and minoritized individuals in the arts on the free encyclopedia and in the Wikipedia community. Wikipedia is the fifth most used website in the world, but there is systemic bias embedded in its content due to a lack of diversity. This project is an effort to change that. Students in LIB 3159: Creating Wikipedia for the Arts hosted the Edit-a-thon on March 24. The event was free and open to the public. In addition to community participants, students in ARTHIST 4608: Arts of Africa (who worked with the Waterloo Center for the Arts), ARTHIST 4320 , 19th Century Western Art, and ARTED 2500: Foundations of Art Education created more than 30 new articles, edited more than 50, and added more than 34,000 words to Wikipedia. Only two days after the event, those edits had been viewed almost 4,000 times around the world. This information about underrepresented individuals is now free and freely available for all. This poster will introduce the project and provide assessment data and statistics demonstrating the outcomes and world-wide reach of the event

Responding to the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic with innovative data use: The role of data challenges

Innovative, responsible data use is a critical need in the global response to the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Yet potentially impactful data are often unavailable to those who could utilize it, particularly in data-poor settings, posing a serious barrier to effective pandemic mitigation. Data challenges, a public call-to-action for innovative data use projects, can identify and address these specific barriers. To understand gaps and progress relevant to effective data use in this context, this study thematically analyses three sets of qualitative data focused on/based in low/middle-income countries: (a) a survey of innovators responding to a data challenge, (b) a survey of organizers of data challenges, and (c) a focus group discussion with professionals using COVID-19 data for evidence-based decision-making. Data quality and accessibility and human resources/institutional capacity were frequently reported limitations to effective data use among innovators. New fit-for-purpose tools and the expansion of partnerships were the most frequently noted areas of progress. Discussion participants identified building capacity for external/national actors to understand the needs of local communities can address a lack of partnerships while de-siloing information. A synthesis of themes demonstrated that gaps, progress, and needs commonly identified by these groups are relevant beyond COVID-19, highlighting the importance of a healthy data ecosystem to address emerging threats. This is supported by data holders prioritizing the availability and accessibility of their data without causing harm; funders and policymakers committed to integrating innovations with existing physical, data, and policy infrastructure; and innovators designing sustainable, multi-use solutions based on principles of good data governance

Improving fairness in machine learning systems: What do industry practitioners need?

The potential for machine learning (ML) systems to amplify social inequities and unfairness is receiving increasing popular and academic attention. A surge of recent work has focused on the development of algorithmic tools to assess and mitigate such unfairness. If these tools are to have a positive impact on industry practice, however, it is crucial that their design be informed by an understanding of real-world needs. Through 35 semi-structured interviews and an anonymous survey of 267 ML practitioners, we conduct the first systematic investigation of commercial product teams' challenges and needs for support in developing fairer ML systems. We identify areas of alignment and disconnect between the challenges faced by industry practitioners and solutions proposed in the fair ML research literature. Based on these findings, we highlight directions for future ML and HCI research that will better address industry practitioners' needs.Comment: To appear in the 2019 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019

Great expectations: millennial lawyers and the structures of contemporary legal practice

This paper presents the findings of the first empirical study of the experiences of young lawyers who have entered an increasingly uncertain profession following a highly competitive education and recruitment process. These ‘millennial lawyers’ are framed by a narrative of ‘difference’. This ‘difference’ is commonly articulated negatively and as a challenge to organisational and professional norms. However, our findings suggest a more complex reality. In its synthesis of work on structure and agency, with the temporal focus required by generational sociology, this paper advances an original approach to the analysis of organisational and professional change within contemporary legal practice. Drawing on new empirical research, it demonstrates that although our sample shares many field-level expectations, there is also considerable stress, unhappiness and discomfort. This is generated by a complex interaction between the lawyers’ expectations of practice, and the structuring properties of the field. Thus, the capacity for organisational and professional change is more comprehensively understood within a temporal frame. This paper challenges academic and professional paradigms of generational change within the legal field. It concludes with recommendations for legal educators and the profession which foreground the complexity of millennial lawyers’ expectations of practice

Mitotic chromosomes are compacted laterally by KIF4 and condensin and axially by topoisomerase IIα

© 2012 Samejima et al. This article is distributed under the terms of an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike–No Mirror Sites license for the first six months after the publication dateMitotic chromosome formation involves a relatively minor condensation of the chromatin volume coupled with a dramatic reorganization into the characteristic "X" shape. Here we report results of a detailed morphological analysis, which revealed that chromokinesin KIF4 cooperated in a parallel pathway with condensin complexes to promote the lateral compaction of chromatid arms. In this analysis, KIF4 and condensin were mutually dependent for their dynamic localization on the chromatid axes. Depletion of either caused sister chromatids to expand and compromised the "intrinsic structure" of the chromosomes (defined in an in vitro assay), with loss of condensin showing stronger effects. Simultaneous depletion of KIF4 and condensin caused complete loss of chromosome morphology. In these experiments, topoisomerase IIα contributed to shaping mitotic chromosomes by promoting the shortening of the chromatid axes and apparently acting in opposition to the actions of KIF4 and condensins. These three proteins are major determinants in shaping the characteristic mitotic chromosome morphology

Wolffia globosa–Mankai Plant-Based Protein Contains Bioactive Vitamin B12 and Is Well Absorbed in Humans

Background: Rare plants that contain corrinoid compounds mostly comprise cobalamin analogues, which may compete with cobalamin (vitamin B12 (B12)) metabolism. We examined the presence of B12 in a cultivated strain of an aquatic plant: Wolffia globosa (Mankai), and predicted functional pathways using gut-bioreactor, and the effects of long-term Mankai consumption as a partial meat substitute, on serum B12 concentrations. Methods: We used microbiological assay, liquid-chromatography/electrospray-ionization-tandem-mass-spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and anoxic bioreactors for the B12 experiments. We explored the effect of a green Mediterranean/low-meat diet, containing 100 g of frozen Mankai shake/day, on serum B12 levels during the 18-month DIRECT-PLUS (ID:NCT03020186) weight-loss trial, compared with control and Mediterranean diet groups. Results: The B12 content of Mankai was consistent at different seasons (p = 0.76). Several cobalamin congeners (Hydroxocobalamin(OH-B12); 5-deoxyadenosylcobalamin(Ado-B12); methylcobalamin(Me-B12); cyanocobalamin(CN-B12)) were identified in Mankai extracts, whereas no pseudo B12 was detected. A higher abundance of 16S-rRNA gene amplicon sequences associated with a genome containing a KEGG ortholog involved in microbial B12 metabolism were observed, compared with control bioreactors that lacked Mankai. Following the DIRECT-PLUS intervention (n = 294 participants; retention-rate = 89%; baseline B12 = 420.5 ± 187.8 pg/mL), serum B12 increased by 5.2% in control, 9.9% in Mediterranean, and 15.4% in Mankai-containing green Mediterranean/low-meat diets (p = 0.025 between extreme groups). Conclusions: Mankai plant contains bioactive B12 compounds and could serve as a B12 plant-based food source

AT 2021loi: A Bowen Fluorescence Flare with a Rebrightening Episode, Occurring in a Previously-Known AGN

AT 2021loi is an optical-ultraviolet transient located at the center of its host galaxy. Its spectral features identify it as a member of the ``Bowen Fluorescence Flare'' (BFF) class. The first member of this class was considered to be related to a tidal disruption event, but enhanced accretion onto an already active supermassive black hole was suggested as an alternative explanation. AT 2021loi, having occurred in a previously-known unobscured AGN, strengthens the latter interpretation. Its light curve is similar to those of previous BFFs, showing a rebrightening approximately one year after the main peak (which was not explicitly identified, but might be the case, in all previous BFFs). An emission feature around 4680 A, seen in the pre-flare spectrum, strengthens by a factor of $\sim$2 around the optical peak of the flare, and is clearly seen as a double peaked feature then, suggesting a blend of NIII $\lambda 4640$ with HeII $\lambda4686$ as its origin. The appearance of OIII $\lambda$3133 and possible NIII $\lambda\lambda4097,4103$ (blended with H$\delta$) during the flare further support a Bowen Fluorescence classification. Here, we present ZTF, ATLAS, Keck, Las Cumbres Observatory, NEOWISE-R, $Swift$, AMI and VLA observations of AT 2021loi, making it one of the best observed BFFs to date. AT 2021loi thus provides some clarity on the nature of BFFs but also further demonstrates the diversity of nuclear transients.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. This version addresses comments from the refere