On the Team: Equal Opportunity for Transgender Student Athletes

This think tank report includes best practice and policy recommendations for high school and collegiate athletic programs about providing transgender student athletes with equal opportunities to participation in school-based sports programs. In addition to specific policy recommendations for both high school and college athletics, the report provides guidance for implementing these policies to ensure the safety, privacy, and dignity of transgender student athletes as well as their teammates. Specific best practice recommendations are provided for athletic administrators, coaches, student athletes, parents, and the media

Palaeoclimate Change

Level 3 (BSc) module with lectures and practical

The Iowa Homemaker vol.14, no.5

It’s Merry Christmas Time… By Marjory Vaughn Even If You Burn the Midnight Oil… By Betty Melcher Needle and Thread, Pot and Pan… By Marjorie Griffin By the Proverbial Calendar… By Helen Clemon

Monitoring Extreme Weather in the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region

Why is monitoring extreme weather events important? The HKH (Hindu Kush Himalaya region experiences many extreme weather events, such as thunderstorms, especially during monsoon season. These events can cause economic hardship and loss of life. Monitoring Extreme Weather in the HKH Region is a service in development through SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya that aims to develop a customized numerical weather prediction toolkit to assess these high impact events in this relatively data-sparse region. The High Impact Weather Assessment Toolkit (HIWAT) consists of an ensemble Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)model, threat assessments based on the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) missions, and impact assessments based on Landsat and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery. In spring 2019, we began validation of forecasted precipitation using station data in Bangladesh and Climate Hazards Group InfraRed with Station data (CHIRPS)

Quality in the e-landscape: a collegial and developmental approach

Since the appearance of e-learning in the tertiary education sector a range of approaches have been used to enhance the quality of online learning environments. Building on these approaches, at the University of Western Sydney our approach is one of developing quality e-learning sites in a collegial and developmental manner, as a central part of overall good teaching practice. Our view is that, in order for the process to be truly collegial and developmental, it needs to be supported across all levels of the academic environment and, importantly, it should be adopted by academics rather than being imposed upon them. A central aspect of the collegial and developmental approach is that academics should be provided with the skills and support to be the drivers of quality in the e-landscape. This paper introduces a project that applies this developmental and collegial philosophy to building quality in our online learning environments in a whole of enterprise context

Investigating the DNA-Binding Site for VirB, a Key Transcriptional Regulator of Shigella Virulence Genes, Using an In Vivo Binding Tool

The transcriptional anti-silencing and DNA-binding protein, VirB, is essential for the virulence of Shigella species and, yet, sequences required for VirB-DNA binding are poorly understood. While a 7-8 bp VirB-binding site has been proposed, it was derived from studies at a single VirB-dependent promoter, icsB. Our previous in vivo studies at a different VirB-dependent promoter, icsP, found that the proposed VirB-binding site was insufficient for regulation. Instead, the required site was found to be organized as a near-perfect inverted repeat separated by a single nucleotide spacer. Thus, the proposed 7-8 bp VirB-binding site needed to be re-evaluated. Here, we engineer and validate a molecular tool to capture protein-DNA binding interactions in vivo. Our data show that a sequence organized as a near-perfect inverted repeat is required for VirB-DNA binding interactions in vivo at both the icsB and icsP promoters. Furthermore, the previously proposed VirB-binding site and multiple sites found as a result of its description (i.e., sites located at the virB, virF, spa15, and virA promoters) are not sufficient for VirB to bind in vivo using this tool. The implications of these findings are discussed