Treaties, Truths and Transgressive Pedagogies: Re-Imagining Indigenous Presence in the Classroom

This essay contemplates the context of treaty and the values it offers as a way to imagine anew a just relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples within the particular context of education. It begins with a theoretical meandering of sorts, a ‘thinking it through piece’, and asks, ‘What does the treaty relationship, as envisioned by Indigenous peoples, teach us about critical and respectful pedagogy? What are the tensions and contradictions involved in teaching from and through treaty. The essay then explores the implications of a treaty lens within formal schooling through including both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives. Situating treaty within identity, relationship, and a sacred dialogue, the focus is less on treaty or treaties themselves and but rather explores the spirit and possibility of ‘treaty’, as imagined by Indigenous peoples, in thinking about transgressive pedagogies and practicing transformative dialogue

Climate-Human Health Vulnerability: Identifying Relationships between Maximum Temperature and Heat-Related Illness across North Carolina, USA

Heat kills more people than any other weather-related event in the United States, resulting in hundreds of fatalities each year. In North Carolina, heat-related illness (HRI) accounts for over 2,000 yearly emergency department admissions. In this study, data from the North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collect Tool is used to identify spatiotemporal relationships between temperature and morbidity across six warm seasons (May-September) from 2007 through 2012. Spatiotemporal relationships are explored across different regions (e.g. coastal plain, rural) and demographics (e.g. gender, age) to determine the differential impact of heat stress on populations. Additionally, HRI incidence will be mapped across North Carolina and linked with land cover and socioeconomic data to determine which local characteristics correlate with an increase in a population's risk for HRI. This research reveals that most of these heat-related illnesses occurs on days with climatologically normal temperatures; however, HRI rates increase substantially on days with abnormally high daily maximum temperatures . HRI ED visits decreased on days with extreme heat, suggesting that populations are taking preventative measures during extreme heat, and therefore mitigating heat-related illness. Analyses also reveal the largest number of heat-related illnesses occur in rural locations, particularly in areas of the Coastal Plain where a large percentage of the population lives below the poverty line and engage in outdoor labor.Doctor of Philosoph

Casting a New Light on a Long Shadow: Saskatchewan Aboriginal High School Students Talk About What Helps and Hinders their Learning

What do teachers do (or not do) that makes you want to go to school? A team of Saskatchewan researchers asked Saskatchewan Aboriginal high school students this question about the aspects of instructional practice that helps and hinders their learning. While responses pointed to several aspects, teacher relational instincts and capacities were the most influential in school engagement for this group of Aboriginal students. Students in this study described three relational capacities of effective teachers: a) empathetic responsiveness to the student as whole being, b) the degree to which teacher disposition influenced the relational dynamic with students, and c) teachers’ responsiveness to the full context of the student’s life (including a sensibility of the student’s Indigenous culture). Through a case study process, focus group interviews were conducted in six Saskatchewan schools. The study included 75 Aboriginal high school students from six schools (urban, rural, provincial, and First Nations band schools) in Saskatchewan, Canada. The qualitative case study research design was informed by Indigenous principles, and the theoretical lens employed in the analysis relied predominately upon an Indigenous theoretical perspective, as articulated by Smith and Perkins (as cited in Kovach, 2014). The findings point to the teaching attributes of relationality, responsibility, and understanding of contextuality identified within an Indigenous theoretical framework as influential in fostering engaged learning environments for this group of Aboriginal high school students.Que font, ou ne font pas, les enseignants pour vous donner envie d’aller à l’école? Une équipe de chercheurs de la Saskatchewan ont posé cette question à des élèves autochtones au secondaire pour connaitre les aspects de la pratique pédagogique qui aident ou qui nuisent à leur apprentissage. Les réponses ont dévoilé plusieurs aspects, mais ce groupe d’élèves autochtones a indiqué que les instincts relationnels et les capacités des enseignants étaient les facteurs les plus influents dans leur engagement scolaire. Les élèves qui ont participé à cette étude ont décrit trois capacités relationnelles d’enseignants efficaces : a) leur réceptivité emphatique face aux élèves comme êtres entiers, b) la mesure dans laquelle le caractère de l’enseignant influençait la dynamique relationnelle avec les élèves et c) la réactivité des enseignants devant tout le contexte de la vie des élèves (y compris une sensibilité à la culture autochtone des élèves). Suivant un processus d’étude de cas, des entrevues ont eu lieu auprès de groupes de discussion dans six écoles en Saskatchewan. L’étude a impliqué 75 élèves au secondaire dans des écoles en milieu urbain et rural ainsi que des écoles de bande en Saskatchewan, au Canada. Le plan de recherche de cette étude qualitative de cas tenait compte de principes autochtones et la perspective théorique de l’analyse reposait largement sur une optique autochtone, telle que formulée par Smith et Perkins (citée dans Kovach, 2014). Les résultats indiquent que les caractéristiques de l’enseignement portant sur la relationnalité, la responsabilité et la compréhension de la contextualité telles qu’identifiées dans un cadre théorique autochtone jouent un rôle influent dans la promotion de milieux d’apprentissage actifs pour ce groupe d’élèves autochtones au secondaire

The spatial distribution of meteorological impacts associated with inland-moving tropical cyclones

The southeastern United States is routinely hit by tropical cyclones. As tropical cyclones track inland and dissipate, their inland impacts can be substantial. Typically, these impacts occur due to any combination of the tropical cyclones heavy precipitation, high winds, or tornadoes. This study will examine the meteorological impacts of 31 inland-moving tropical cyclones from 1985 to 2008. The spatial distribution of meteorological impacts is plotted relative to the track (e.g. left vs. right quadrant) and location (forward vs. rear quadrant) of the cyclone center. Various tropical cyclone attributes, including size, strength, and speed of movement are related to the occurrence of different impacts and their location relative to the cyclone track. Results indicate distinct variations in the spatial patterns of tornado, high wind, and flash flood impacts, particularly when comparing tropical cyclones of different sizes

Ranking of Tornado Outbreaks across the United States and Their Climatological Characteristics

The calendar year 2011 was an extraordinary year for tornadoes across the United States, as it marked the second highest annual number of tornadoes since 1950 and was the deadliest tornado year since 1936. Most of the fatalities in 2011 occurred in a series of outbreaks, highlighted by a particularly strong outbreak across the southeastern United States in late April and a series of outbreaks over the Great Plains and Midwest regions in late May, which included a tornado rated as a category 5 event on the enhanced Fujita scale (EF5) that devastated the town of Joplin, Missouri. While most tornado-related fatalities often occur in outbreaks, very few studies have examined the climatological characteristics of outbreaks, particularly those of varying strength. In this study a straightforward metric to assess the strength, or physical magnitude, of tornado outbreaks east of the Rocky Mountains from 1973 to 2010 is developed. This measure of outbreak strength, which integrates the intensity of tornadoes [Fujita (F)/EF-scale rating] over their distance traveled (pathlength), is more highly correlated with injuries and fatalities than other commonly used variables, such as the number of significant tornadoes, and is therefore more reflective of the potential threat of outbreaks to human life. All outbreaks are then ranked according to this metric and their climatological characteristics are examined, with comparisons made to all other tornadoes not associated with outbreaks. The results of the ranking scheme are also compared to those of previous studies, while the strongest outbreaks from 2011 are ranked among other outbreaks in the modern record, including the April 1974 Super Outbreak

Estimating cumulative pathway effects on risk for age-related macular degeneration using mixed linear models

BACKGROUND: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible visual loss in the elderly in developed countries and typically affects more than 10 % of individuals over age 80. AMD has a large genetic component, with heritability estimated to be between 45 % and 70 %. Numerous variants have been identified and implicate various molecular mechanisms and pathways for AMD pathogenesis but those variants only explain a portion of AMD’s heritability. The goal of our study was to estimate the cumulative genetic contribution of common variants on AMD risk for multiple pathways related to the etiology of AMD, including angiogenesis, antioxidant activity, apoptotic signaling, complement activation, inflammatory response, response to nicotine, oxidative phosphorylation, and the tricarboxylic acid cycle. While these mechanisms have been associated with AMD in literature, the overall extent of the contribution to AMD risk for each is unknown. METHODS: In a case–control dataset with 1,813 individuals genotyped for over 600,000 SNPs we used Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis (GCTA) to estimate the proportion of AMD risk explained by SNPs in genes associated with each pathway. SNPs within a 50 kb region flanking each gene were also assessed, as well as more distant, putatively regulatory SNPs, based on DNaseI hypersensitivity data from ocular tissue in the ENCODE project. RESULTS: We found that 19 previously associated AMD risk SNPs contributed to 13.3 % of the risk for AMD in our dataset, while the remaining genotyped SNPs contributed to 36.7 % of AMD risk. Adjusting for the 19 risk SNPs, the complement activation and inflammatory response pathways still explained a statistically significant proportion of additional risk for AMD (9.8 % and 17.9 %, respectively), with other pathways showing no significant effects (0.3 % – 4.4 %). DISCUSSION: Our results show that SNPs associated with complement activation and inflammation significantly contribute to AMD risk, separately from the risk explained by the 19 known risk SNPs. We found that SNPs within 50 kb regions flanking genes explained additional risk beyond genic SNPs, suggesting a potential regulatory role, but that more distant SNPs explained less than 0.5 % additional risk for each pathway. CONCLUSIONS: From these analyses we find that the impact of complement SNPs on risk for AMD extends beyond the established genome-wide significant SNPs. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-015-0760-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

A large genome-wide association study of age-related macular degeneration highlights contributions of rare and common variants.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3448Advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly, with limited therapeutic options. Here we report on a study of >12 million variants, including 163,714 directly genotyped, mostly rare, protein-altering variants. Analyzing 16,144 patients and 17,832 controls, we identify 52 independently associated common and rare variants (P < 5 × 10(-8)) distributed across 34 loci. Although wet and dry AMD subtypes exhibit predominantly shared genetics, we identify the first genetic association signal specific to wet AMD, near MMP9 (difference P value = 4.1 × 10(-10)). Very rare coding variants (frequency <0.1%) in CFH, CFI and TIMP3 suggest causal roles for these genes, as does a splice variant in SLC16A8. Our results support the hypothesis that rare coding variants can pinpoint causal genes within known genetic loci and illustrate that applying the approach systematically to detect new loci requires extremely large sample sizes.We thank all participants of all the studies included for enabling this research by their participation in these studies. Computer resources for this project have been provided by the high-performance computing centers of the University of Michigan and the University of Regensburg. Group-specific acknowledgments can be found in the Supplementary Note. The Center for Inherited Diseases Research (CIDR) Program contract number is HHSN268201200008I. This and the main consortium work were predominantly funded by 1X01HG006934-01 to G.R.A. and R01 EY022310 to J.L.H

Conversational Method in Indigenous Research

In reflecting upon two qualitative research projects incorporating an Indigenous methodology, this article focuses on the use of the conversational method as a means for gathering knowledge through story. The article first provides a theoretical discussion which illustrates that for the conversational method to be identified as an Indigenous research method it must flow from an Indigenous paradigm. The article then moves to an exploration of the conversational method in action and offers reflections on the significance of researcher-in-relation and the inter-relationship between this method, ethics, and care