WormBase: A modern Model Organism Information Resource

WormBase (https://wormbase.org/) is a mature Model Organism Information Resource supporting researchers using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system for studies across a broad range of basic biological processes. Toward this mission, WormBase efforts are arranged in three primary facets: curation, user interface and architecture. In this update, we describe progress in each of these three areas. In particular, we discuss the status of literature curation and recently added data, detail new features of the web interface and options for users wishing to conduct data mining workflows, and discuss our efforts to build a robust and scalable architecture by leveraging commercial cloud offerings. We conclude with a description of WormBase\u27s role as a founding member of the nascent Alliance of Genome Resources

Book Review: Small Miracles All Around Us

Review of How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson (New York: Riverhead Books, 2014)

Book Review: Women Migrant Workers: Ethical, Political and Legal Problems

Review of Women Migrant Workers: Ethical, Political and Legal Problems, edited by Zahra Meghani. Routledge, 2016

Training preschool teachers to promote reciprocal interactions between children with autism and their typical classmates.

Promising technologies are being developed to increase the levels of reciprocal interactions between typical children and those with autism and other developmental delays. Research in this area, however, has frequently relied on the use of specially trained personnel as behavior change agents. Therefore, the applied significance of this research is in question until effective mediator training strategies are designed and successfully implemented in clinical settings. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher training package on increasing the rates of implementation of a peer-mediated intervention. Participants were three teachers working in an integrated preschool. Each was assigned a child pair, consisting of a child with autism and a typically developing peer, to work with throughout the study. A multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the training package, which included the use of inservice training, verbal and written feedback, goal setting, and self-recording. Teachers were taught to use a cooperative play procedure that had been demonstrated to be an effective tool for increasing reciprocal interactions between children grouped in integrated dyads. This procedure emphasized the use of toys preferred by the child with autism in a turn taking sequence. Typical peers were instructed and reinforced for participating in the turn taking sequence as well as for following the preferences of the child with autism. Results revealed that for one of three teachers, didactic training alone was sufficient to increase implementation rates to desired levels. However, feedback, goal setting, and self-recording was necessary for the implementation rates of the two other teachers to reach acceptable levels. Furthermore, introduction of the training package was associated with increased rates of reciprocal interactions between child pairs during generalization probes collected during free play situations. Follow-up measures indicated that both teacher implementation rates and child interaction rates were maintained

Mutations in synaptojanin disrupt synaptic vesicle recycling

Journal ArticleSynaptojanin is a polyphosphoinositide phosphatase that is found at synapses and binds to proteins implicated in endocytosis. For these reasons, it has been proposed that synaptojanin is involved in the recycling of synaptic vesicles. Here, we demonstrate that the unc-26 gene encodes the Caenorhabditis elegans ortholog of synaptojanin. unc-26 mutants exhibit defects in vesicle trafficking in several tissues, but most defects are found at synaptic termini