Misalignments: Challenges in Cultivating Science Faculty with Education Specialties in Your Department

Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES) are increasingly being hired across the United States. However, little is known about the motivations for SFES hiring or the potential or actual impact of SFES. In the context of a recent national survey of US SFES, we investigated SFES perceptions about these issues. Strikingly, perceptions about reasons for hiring SFES were poorly aligned with perceptions about potential and actual contributions reported by SFES themselves, and the advice they extended to beginning SFES was varied. While preparation of future teachers and departmental teaching needs were common reasons offered for SFES hiring, the potential and actual contributions of SFES highlighted instead their roles as pedagogical resources and as contributors to curricular reform. Misalignments between SFES perceptions about what motivates SFES hiring and their perceptions of their most valuable contributions present challenges for those interested in maximizing the impact of SFES

Kpc-Scale Neutral Iron Kα\alpha Emission in the Starburst-AGN NGC 4945: a Relic AGN Outflow?

NGC 4945 contains a well-known heavily obscured active galactic nucleus (AGN) at its core, with prior reports of strong nuclear and off-nuclear neutral Fe K$\alpha$ emission due to the AGN activity. We report the discovery of very extended Fe K$\alpha$ emission with the XMM-Newton EPIC pn in a $\sim5$ kpc by $\sim10$ kpc region that is misaligned with the plane of the inclined optical galaxy disk by $\sim60$ degrees in projection. After a careful consideration of the crowded center of the galaxy and numerous unresolved hard X-ray sources present, we estimate that $\sim15$% of the Fe K$\alpha$ is extended on kpc-sized scales. The overall size and misalignment of the region follows an unusual pattern of radio polarization that is not typical of starbursts or normal disk galaxies but has been interpreted as possibly due to AGN activity. We suggest that the extended Fe K$\alpha$ emission arose from a period of AGN eruption several million years ago - a relic of a past AGN ejection episode.Comment: 24 pages including figures and tables, 12 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to ApJ, under revie

Resources for Teaching and Assessing the Vision and Change Biology Core Concepts

The Vision and Change report called for the biology community to mobilize around teaching the core concepts of biology. This essay describes a collection of resources developed by several different groups that can be used to respond to the report’s call to transform undergraduate education at both the individual course and departmental levels. First, we present two frameworks that help articulate the Vision and Change core concepts, the BioCore Guide and the Conceptual Elements (CE) Framework, which can be used in mapping the core concepts onto existing curricula and designing new curricula that teach the biology core concepts. Second, we describe how the BioCore Guide and the CE Framework can be used alongside the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education curricular rubric as a way for departments to self-assess their teaching of the core concepts. Finally, we highlight three sets of instruments that can be used to directly assess student learning of the core concepts: the Biology Card Sorting Task, the Biology Core Concept Instruments, and the Biology—Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science instruments. Approaches to using these resources independently and synergistically are discussed

Research on the Premotor Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease: Clinical and Etiological Implications

Background: The etiology and natural history of Parkinson’s disease (PD) are not well understood. Some non-motor symptoms such as hyposmia, rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, and constipation may develop during the prodromal stage of PD and precede PD diagnosis by years. Objectives: We examined the promise and pitfalls of research on premotor symptoms of PD and developed priorities and strategies to understand their clinical and etiological implications. Methods: This review was based on a workshop, Parkinson’s Disease Premotor Symptom Symposium, held 7–8 June 2012 at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Discussion: Research on premotor symptoms of PD may offer an excellent opportunity to characterize high-risk populations and to better understand PD etiology. Such research may lead to evaluation of novel etiological hypotheses such as the possibility that environmental toxicants or viruses may initiate PD pathogenesis in the gastrointestinal tract or olfactory bulb. At present, our understanding of premotor symptoms of PD is in its infancy and faces many obstacles. These symptoms are often not specific to PD and have low positive predictive value for early PD diagnosis. Further, the pathological bases and biological mechanisms of these premotor symptoms and their relevance to PD pathogenesis are poorly understood. Conclusion: This is an emerging research area with important data gaps to be filled. Future research is needed to understand the prevalence of multiple premotor symptoms and their etiological relevance to PD. Animal experiments and mechanistic studies will further understanding of the biology of these premotor symptoms and test novel etiological hypothesis. Citation: Chen H, Burton EA, Ross GW, Huang X, Savica R, Abbott RD, Ascherio A, Caviness JN, Gao X, Gray KA, Hong JS, Kamel F, Jennings D, Kirshner A, Lawler C, Liu R, Miller GW, Nussbaum R, Peddada SD, Comstock Rick A, Ritz B, Siderowf AD, Tanner CM, Tröster AI, Zhang J. 2013. Research on the premotor symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease: clinical and etiological implications. Environ Health Perspect 121:1245–1252; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.130696

US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report

This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference

Collectively Improving Our Teaching: Attempting Biology Department–wide Professional Development in Scientific Teaching

Many efforts to improve science teaching in higher education focus on a few faculty members at an institution at a time, with limited published evidence on attempts to engage faculty across entire departments. We created a long-term, department-wide collaborative professional development program, Biology Faculty Explorations in Scientific Teaching (Biology FEST). Across 3 years of Biology FEST, 89% of the department's faculty completed a weeklong scientific teaching institute, and 83% of eligible instructors participated in additional semester-long follow-up programs. A semester after institute completion, the majority of Biology FEST alumni reported adding active learning to their courses. These instructor self-reports were corroborated by audio analysis of classroom noise and surveys of students in biology courses on the frequency of active-learning techniques used in classes taught by Biology FEST alumni and nonalumni. Three years after Biology FEST launched, faculty participants overwhelmingly reported that their teaching was positively affected. Unexpectedly, most respondents also believed that they had improved relationships with departmental colleagues and felt a greater sense of belonging to the department. Overall, our results indicate that biology department-wide collaborative efforts to develop scientific teaching skills can indeed attract large numbers of faculty, spark widespread change in teaching practices, and improve departmental relations

The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background

We report multiple lines of evidence for a stochastic signal that is correlated among 67 pulsars from the 15-year pulsar-timing data set collected by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves. The correlations follow the Hellings-Downs pattern expected for a stochastic gravitational-wave background. The presence of such a gravitational-wave background with a power-law-spectrum is favored over a model with only independent pulsar noises with a Bayes factor in excess of $10^{14}$, and this same model is favored over an uncorrelated common power-law-spectrum model with Bayes factors of 200-1000, depending on spectral modeling choices. We have built a statistical background distribution for these latter Bayes factors using a method that removes inter-pulsar correlations from our data set, finding $p = 10^{-3}$ (approx. $3\sigma$) for the observed Bayes factors in the null no-correlation scenario. A frequentist test statistic built directly as a weighted sum of inter-pulsar correlations yields $p = 5 \times 10^{-5} - 1.9 \times 10^{-4}$ (approx. $3.5 - 4\sigma$). Assuming a fiducial $f^{-2/3}$ characteristic-strain spectrum, as appropriate for an ensemble of binary supermassive black-hole inspirals, the strain amplitude is $2.4^{+0.7}_{-0.6} \times 10^{-15}$ (median + 90% credible interval) at a reference frequency of 1/(1 yr). The inferred gravitational-wave background amplitude and spectrum are consistent with astrophysical expectations for a signal from a population of supermassive black-hole binaries, although more exotic cosmological and astrophysical sources cannot be excluded. The observation of Hellings-Downs correlations points to the gravitational-wave origin of this signal.Comment: 30 pages, 18 figures. Published in Astrophysical Journal Letters as part of Focus on NANOGrav's 15-year Data Set and the Gravitational Wave Background. For questions or comments, please email [email protected]

Increased Incidence of Vestibular Disorders in Patients With SARS-CoV-2

OBJECTIVE: Determine the incidence of vestibular disorders in patients with SARS-CoV-2 compared to the control population. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective. SETTING: Clinical data in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative database (N3C). METHODS: Deidentified patient data from the National COVID Cohort Collaborative database (N3C) were queried based on variant peak prevalence (untyped, alpha, delta, omicron 21K, and omicron 23A) from covariants.org to retrospectively analyze the incidence of vestibular disorders in patients with SARS-CoV-2 compared to control population, consisting of patients without documented evidence of COVID infection during the same period. RESULTS: Patients testing positive for COVID-19 were significantly more likely to have a vestibular disorder compared to the control population. Compared to control patients, the odds ratio of vestibular disorders was significantly elevated in patients with untyped (odds ratio [OR], 2.39; confidence intervals [CI], 2.29-2.50; CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of vestibular disorders differed between COVID-19 variants and was significantly elevated in COVID-19-positive patients compared to the control population. These findings have implications for patient counseling and further research is needed to discern the long-term effects of these findings

Factors Associated with Revision Surgery after Internal Fixation of Hip Fractures

Background: Femoral neck fractures are associated with high rates of revision surgery after management with internal fixation. Using data from the Fixation using Alternative Implants for the Treatment of Hip fractures (FAITH) trial evaluating methods of internal fixation in patients with femoral neck fractures, we investigated associations between baseline and surgical factors and the need for revision surgery to promote healing, relieve pain, treat infection or improve function over 24 months postsurgery. Additionally, we investigated factors associated with (1) hardware removal and (2) implant exchange from cancellous screws (CS) or sliding hip screw (SHS) to total hip arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty, or another internal fixation device. Methods: We identified 15 potential factors a priori that may be associated with revision surgery, 7 with hardware removal, and 14 with implant exchange. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses in our investigation. Results: Factors associated with increased risk of revision surgery included: female sex, [hazard ratio (HR) 1.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-2.50; P = 0.001], higher body mass index (fo