[Review of] Charles V. Willie and Ronald R. Edmonds (Eds.). Black Colleges in America: Challenge, Development, Survival

This book is a collection of articles from the Black College Conference held at Harvard University in March and April of 1976. The authors are experienced administrators, teachers, and students of our nation\u27s black colleges and universities. This book attempts, through firsthand recording, through documentation of historical fact, and through analysis of governance, financing, and institutional role, to eradicate the negative images of our nation\u27s black colleges and universities

Bridging the Gap

School districts across the country are increasingly seeking out digital tools to support the work of educators, in the hopes of improving students' academic achievement. With the rapid emergence of this new market, many districts have been challenged by the task of identifying and procuring educational technology (ed-tech) products that match the needs of their educators and students.The NYC Department of Education's "Innovate NYC Schools" division, supported by a U.S. DOE Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, aims to address this problem, in part by promoting "user-centered design," an approach that puts the needs and preferences of products' intended users (in this case, teachers, students, and parents) front and center in the development and procurement of new technology.Bridging the Gap describes the design and implementation of three Innovate NYC Schools initiatives grounded in user-centered design theory:School Choice Design Challenge (SCDC),an effort to develop apps that would help students explore and narrow down their choices of high school.#SharkTankEDU events, during which ed-tech developers present a product to a panel of educators who provide feedback on the tool.Short-Cycle Evaluation Challenges (SCEC), a classroom-based, semester-long pilot of ed-tech tools intended to inform product development, as well as the ultimate procurement decisions of school staff.The report focuses on four phases of work involved in bringing ed-tech companies and the users of their products together: defining a problem; selecting users and ed-tech companies; implementing pilot-based initiatives; and evaluating products. It describes strategies used and challenges faced, and offers practical lessons gleaned from the experiences of the individuals who designed and participated in these efforts.

Endogenous Mortgage Choice, Borrowing Constraints and the Tenure Decision

Earlier research has shown that lender income and wealth constraint ratios discourage homeownership. This empirical research has been based on home purchasers using an 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) fixed-rate conventional loan. Employing the same assumption, we find that the constraints lowered the ownership rate of our 1919 young home purchasers by about 20 percentage points. However, households are not restricted to putting 20 percent down and choosing a fixed- rate loan. When we allow households to select the optimal LTV and mortgage type (adjustable or fixed-rate with Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or conventional insurance), the percentage of our sample that is credit constrained declines from 71 to 49. Moreover, the measured impact on the homeownership rate of the constraints falls to only 4 percentage points. Further, FHA loans are estimated to increase homeownership by only 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points.

Targeted genome modifications in soybean with CRISPR/Cas9

Background: The ability to selectively alter genomic DNA sequences in vivo is a powerful tool for basic and applied research. The CRISPR/Cas9 system precisely mutates DNA sequences in a number of organisms. Here, the CRISPR/Cas9 system is shown to be effective in soybean by knocking-out a green fluorescent protein (GFP) transgene and modifying nine endogenous loci. Results: Targeted DNA mutations were detected in 95% of 88 hairy-root transgenic events analyzed. Bi-allelic mutations were detected in events transformed with eight of the nine targeting vectors. Small deletions were the most common type of mutation produced, although SNPs and short insertions were also observed. Homoeologous genes were successfully targeted singly and together, demonstrating that CRISPR/Cas9 can both selectively, and generally, target members of gene families. Somatic embryo cultures were also modified to enable the production of plants with heritable mutations, with the frequency of DNA modifications increasing with culture time. A novel cloning strategy and vector system based on In-Fusion (R) cloning was developed to simplify the production of CRISPR/Cas9 targeting vectors, which should be applicable for targeting any gene in any organism. Conclusions: The CRISPR/Cas9 is a simple, efficient, and highly specific genome editing tool in soybean. Although some vectors are more efficient than others, it is possible to edit duplicated genes relatively easily. The vectors and methods developed here will be useful for the application of CRISPR/Cas9 to soybean and other plant species

Severo Ochoa Research Seminar Lectures at BSC. Opening session: November 2nd, 2016

The presenters shared their experiences of running the NeCTAR, the largest academic and research cloud deployment in Australia. They also presented an overview of the architecture, use, and the corresponding training programme as well as the recently developed new hybrid HPC and cloud system, which is cost-efficient, flexible, and encourages high-throughput, covering the general and specific elements of the system design, issues that were raised in implementation, and the future of the syste

Noninvasive Urinary Monitoring of Progression in IgA Nephropathy.

Standard methods for detecting and monitoring of IgA nephropathy (IgAN) have conventionally required kidney biopsies or suffer from poor sensitivity and specificity. The Kidney Injury Test (KIT) Assay of urinary biomarkers has previously been shown to distinguish between various kidney pathologies, including chronic kidney disease, nephrolithiasis, and transplant rejection. This validation study uses the KIT Assay to investigate the clinical utility of the non-invasive detection of IgAN and predicting the progression of renal damage over time. The study design benefits from longitudinally collected urine samples from an investigator-initiated, multicenter, prospective study, evaluating the efficacy of corticosteroids versus Rituximab for preventing progressive IgAN. A total of 131 urine samples were processed for this study; 64 urine samples were collected from 34 IgAN patients, and urine samples from 64 demographically matched healthy controls were also collected; multiple urinary biomarkers consisting of cell-free DNA, methylated cell-free DNA, DMAIMO, MAMIMO, total protein, clusterin, creatinine, and CXCL10 were measured by the microwell-based KIT Assay. An IgA risk score (KIT-IgA) was significantly higher in IgAN patients as compared to healthy control (87.76 vs. 14.03, p < 0.0001) and performed better than proteinuria in discriminating between the two groups. The KIT Assay biomarkers, measured on a spot random urine sample at study entry could distinguish patients likely to have progressive renal dysfunction a year later. These data support the pursuit of larger prospective studies to evaluate the predictive performance of the KIT-IgA score in both screening for non-invasive diagnosis of IgAN, and for predicting risk of progressive renal disease from IgA and utilizing the KIT score for potentially evaluating the efficacy of IgAN-targeted therapies

Pot grown woody plants.

Cover title."Third report."Digitized 2007 AES

Using big data for decisions in agricultural supply chain

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54).Agriculture is an industry where historical and current data abound. This paper investigates the numerous data sources available in the agricultural field and analyzes them for usage in supply chain improvement. We identified certain applicable data and investigated methods of using this data to make better supply chain decisions within the agricultural chemical distribution chain. We identified a specific product, AgChem, for this study. AgChem, like many agricultural chemicals, is forecasted and produced months in advance of a very short sales window. With improved demand forecasting based on abundantly-available data, Dow AgroSciences, the manufacturer of AgChem, can make better production and distribution decisions. We analyzed various data to identify factors that influence AgChem sales. Many of these factors relate to corn production since AgChem is generally used with corn crops. Using regression models, we identified leading indicators that assist to forecast future demand of the product. We developed three regressions models to forecast demand on various horizons. The first model identified that the price of corn and price of fertilizer affect the annual, nation-wide demand for the product. The second model explains expected geographic distribution of this annual demand. It shows that the number of retailers in an area is correlated to the total annual demand in that area. The model also quantifies the relationship between the sales in the first few weeks of the season, and the total sales for the season. And the third model serves as a short-term, demand-sensing tool to predict the timing of the demand within certain geographies. We found that weather conditions and the timing of harvest affect when AgChem sales occur. With these models, Dow AgroSciences has a better understanding of how external factors influence the sale of AgChem. With this new understanding, they can make better decisions about the distribution of the product and position inventory in a timely manner at the source of demand.by Derik Lafayette Smith and Satya Prakash Dhavala.M.Eng.in Logistic

An experimental study of the rest period in plants : the winter rest

First report.Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (pages 99-105)