Should supervisors be training PhD students to achieve impact?

In addition to thesis writing, PhD candidates in SHAPE subjects are expected to be able to communicate their research to diverse audiences and also be prepared for careers outside of Higher Education. Should PhD supervision cover these areas, or does impact training sit more naturally elsewhere in the university ecosystem? In this post, Katherine Parker-Hay, outlines the perspectives of practicing supervisors. Based on interview data, she argues that supervisor training should address widespread ambivalence about the “corporate language” which often gets associated with Impact

Queer’s late style: shifting mood in the late and minor texts

This thesis tracks the development and mood of queer studies, side-stepping landmark works to consider minor texts such as prefaces, anecdotes, memorial special issues, belated introductions, memoirs and autotheory. Simply put, these genres afford autobiographical narration. However, more specifically I argue that they enact a decompression from the project and event; sinking into alternate lived temporalities such as the everyday, generational time and longer durations. Though these temporalities tend to be obscured in major academic outputs, which are organised around interventions and original contributions to knowledge, they are nevertheless crucial in mediating the transmission and dissemination of knowledge production. Therefore, building on recent work which reckons with the heritage, lineage and current status of identity knowledges, this thesis reads minor texts as temporal switchpoints which capture how the project gets reabsorbed into the existing-state-of-affairs. It ultimately finds that these easily overlooked genres can provide insights into the challenges of institutionalising identity knowledges and the practicalities of sustaining their activist energy over time

Recherche au service de l'autonomisation des femmes

Version anglaise disponible dans la Bibliothèque numérique du CRDI: Women's empowerment : research and programmin

Trading pollution for water quality : assessing the effects of market-based instruments in three basins

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-90).Since its passage in 1972, the majority of pollution reduction under the federal Clean Water Act has resulted from technology-based limits imposed on point source dischargers. However, most U.S. water bodies are unmonitored and of those that are, between 40 and 50 percent remain impaired. Given this limited progress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, multiple state agencies, and non-governmental organizations have proposed water quality trading as a cost-effective means to achieve pollution reductions from point and nonpoint sources. To determine whether these programs actually achieve cost-effective pollution reduction in practice that they promise in theory, I evaluate direct and indirect outcomes associated with three water quality trading cases: the Grassland Area Farmers Tradable Loads Program in California's San Joaquin Valley; the Tar-Pamlico River Basin Nutrient Offset Program in North Carolina; and the Long Island Sound Nitrogen Credit Exchange in Connecticut. Although reallocating reduction efforts through trades to achieve cost-effective solutions is supposedly the major benefit of market-based instruments, only dischargers in the Long Island Sound Nitrogen Credit Exchange actively traded.(cont.) The Grassland Area Farmers abandoned trading in favor of a more affordable and heavily subsidized management strategy, and members of the Tar-Pamlico Basin Association removed pollution onsite because reductions were less costly than expected and uncertainty over Offset Program parameters impeded planning around trades. Dischargers in the two cases also hesitated to trade because political transaction costs that trading imposed on relationships among entities did not outweigh perceived savings. Connecticut mitigated these costs and uncertainty by administering the Nitrogen Credit Exchange. The major contributions of market-based instruments across cases were facilitating dischargers' willingness to accept more stringent regulations and increasing the institutional capacity for watershed management by encouraging formation of organizations along hydrologic boundaries and information collection and dissemination. These benefits are attributable to the decentralized governance structure in general rather than economic incentives specifically, suggesting that policymakers should consider other decentralized approaches to watershed management.(cont.) If policymakers want dischargers to actively trade, they should design parameters that mitigate uncertainty, market distortions, and political transaction costs. Even if trades never occur, however, indirect outcomes associated with market-based instruments are significant given the ongoing challenges to water quality improvement under the Clean Water Act.by Katherine Hay Wallace.M.C.P

High-temperature stress during drying improves subsequent rice (Oryza sativa L.) seed longevity

Post-harvest drying prolongs seed survival in air-dry storage; previous research showed benefit from drying moist rice seeds at temperatures greater than recommended for genebanks (5-20°C). The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a temperature limit for safely drying rice seeds, and to explore whether the benefit to longevity is caused by high-temperature stress or continued seed development. Seeds of two rice varieties were harvested at different stages of development and dried initially either over silica gel, or intermittently (8 h d-1) or continuously (24 h d-1) over MgCl2 at temperatures between 15 and 60°C for up to 3 d. Seeds dried more rapidly the warmer the temperature. Subsequent seed longevity in hermetic storage (45°C with 60% equilibrium RH) was substantially improved by increase in drying temperature up to 45°C in both cultivars, and also with further increase from 45 to 60°C in cv. ‘Macassane’. The benefit of high-temperature drying to subsequent longevity tended to diminish the later the stage of development at seed harvest. Intermittent or continuous drying at high temperatures provided broadly similar improvements to longevity, but with the greatest improvements detected in a few treatment combinations with continuous drying. Heated-air drying of rice seeds harvested before maturity improved their subsequent storage longevity by more than that which occurred during subsequent development in planta, which may have resulted from the triggering of protection mechanisms in response to high-temperature stress

Defined and Scalable Generation of Hepatocyte-like Cells from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) possess great value for biomedical research. hPSCs can be scaled and differentiated to all cell types found in the human body. The differentiation of hPSCs to human hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) has been extensively studied, and efficient differentiation protocols have been established. The combination of extracellular matrix and biological stimuli, including growth factors, cytokines, and small molecules, have made it possible to generate HLCs that resemble primary human hepatocytes. However, the majority of procedures still employ undefined components, giving rise to batch-to-batch variation. This serves as a significant barrier to the application of the technology. To tackle this issue, we developed a defined system for hepatocyte differentiation using human recombinant laminins as extracellular matrices in combination with a serum-free differentiation process. Highly efficient hepatocyte specification was achieved, with demonstrated improvements in both HLC function and phenotype. Importantly, this system is easy to scale up using research and GMP-grade hPSC lines promising advances in cell-based modelling and therapies

Associations between recent intimate partner violence and receipt and quality of perinatal health services in Uttar Pradesh

Background India suffers some of the highest maternal and neonatal mortality rates in the world. Intimate partner violence (IPV) can be a barrier to utilization of perinatal care, and has been associated with poor maternal and neonatal health outcomes. However, studies that assess the relationship between IPV and perinatal health care often focus solely on receipt of services, and not the quality of the services received. Methods and findings Data were collected in 2016–2017 from a representative sample of women (15-49yrs) in Uttar Pradesh, India who had given birth within the previous 12 months (N = 5020), including use of perinatal health services and past 12 months experiences of physical and sexual IPV. Multivariate logistic regression models assessed whether physical or sexual IPV were associated with perinatal health service utilization and quality. Reports of IPV were not associated with odds of receiving antenatal care or a health worker home visit during the third trimester, but physical IPV was associated with fewer diagnostic tests during antenatal visits (beta = -0.30), and fewer health topics covered during home visits (beta = -0.44). Recent physical and recent sexual IPV were both associated with decreased odds of institutional delivery (physical IPV AOR 0.65; sexual IPV AOR 0.61), and recent sexual IPV was associated with leaving a delivery facility earlier than recommended (AOR = 1.87). Neither form of IPV was associated with receipt of a postnatal home visit, but recent physical IPV was associated with fewer health topics discussed during such visits (beta = -0.26). Conclusions In this study, reduced quantity and quality of perinatal health care were associated with recent IPV experiences. In cases where IPV was not related to care receipt, IPV remained associated with diminished care quality. Additional study to understand the mechanisms underlying associations between IPV and care qualities is required to inform health services

Developing defined substrates for stem cell culture and differentiation

Over the past few decades, a variety of different reagents for stem cell maintenance and differentiation have been commercialized. These reagents share a common goal in facilitating the manufacture of products suitable for cell therapy while reducing the amount of non-defined components. Lessons from developmental biology have identified signalling molecules that can guide the differentiation process in vitro, but less attention has been paid to the extracellular matrix used. With the introduction of more biologically relevant and defined matrices, that better mimic specific cell niches, researchers now have powerful resources to fine-tune their in vitro differentiation systems, which may allow the manufacture of therapeutically relevant cell types. In this review article, we revisit the basics of the extracellular matrix, and explore the important role of the cell –matrix interaction. We focus on laminin proteins because they help to maintain pluripotency and drive cell fate specification. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Designer human tissue: coming to a lab near you’