My reflections on the LSE-SIPA MPA dual degree

In this blog post, Laura Muller explains her motivations for pursuing a dual-degree Master of Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Columbia’s School of International Public Affairs (SIPA), New York, with a concentration at SIPA in International Finance. Laura’s professional background is in Finance, having worked in Goldman Sachs (Wealth Management), J.P. Morgan (Emerging Markets) and Morgan Stanley (2016 Global Sustainable Finance Summer Fellow). She is interested in finance as a force for positive change, whilst unlocking value for investor

HIF-1β Positively Regulates NF-κB Activity via Direct Control of TRAF6

NF-B signalling is crucial for cellular responses to inflammation but has also been associated with the hypoxia response. NF-B and HIF transcription factors possess an intense molecular crosstalk. Although it is known that HIF-1beta modulates NF-kappaB transcriptional response, very little is understood regarding how HIF-1beta contributes to NF-kappaB signalling. Here, we demonstrate that HIF-1beta is required for full NF-kappaB activation in cells following canonical and non-canonical stimuli. We found that HIF-1beta specifically controls TRAF6 expression in human cells but also in Drosophila melanogaster. HIF-1beta binds to the TRAF6 gene and controls its expression independently of HIF-1alpha. Furthermore, exogenous TRAF6 expression is able to rescue all of the cellular phenotypes observed in the absence of HIF-1beta. These results indicate that HIF-1beta is an important regulator of NF-kappaB with consequences for homeostasis and human disease.</jats:p

Struggles and Growth in Mathematics Education: Reflections by Three Generations of Mathematicians On The Creation of the Computer Game E-Brock Bugs

In the Fall of 2013 our team of three different generations of mathematicians launched the free, online E-Brock Bugs© mathematics computer game [5] which we developed from an original probabilistic board game, Brock Bugs, and its digital learning object version. We constructed E-Brock Bugs using Devlin’s [9] mathematics computer game design principles for games that prompt players’ development of mathematical thinking. As we created E-Brock Bugs we found it necessary to go through an evolving cyclic process of design, implementation, and analysis. In this paper we reflect upon the main struggles we faced in this process and the unexpected personal growth that ensued in terms of our views and beliefs as mathematics educators

E-Brock Bugs©: An Epistemic Mathematics Computer Game

Devlin in [7] argues that video games are an ideal medium for the teaching and learning of mathematics, though he points out that very few ’good’ mathematics video games exist. Building on a probabilistic board game developed in the 1980s, we created a mathematics computer game, E-Brock Bugs. The design of the game carefully follows Devlin’s principles of a good mathematics video game, including a well-developed storyline, the selection of an in-game avatar, and an environment where mathematics arises in a natural and meaningful way. As a result, we argue that E-Brock Bugs is an epistemic computer game [1]; it goes beyond teaching basic facts and skills, and may encourage the players’ development of mathematical thinking as ‘working mathematicians’

Disentangling Neuron Representations with Concept Vectors

Mechanistic interpretability aims to understand how models store representations by breaking down neural networks into interpretable units. However, the occurrence of polysemantic neurons, or neurons that respond to multiple unrelated features, makes interpreting individual neurons challenging. This has led to the search for meaningful vectors, known as concept vectors, in activation space instead of individual neurons. The main contribution of this paper is a method to disentangle polysemantic neurons into concept vectors encapsulating distinct features. Our method can search for fine-grained concepts according to the user's desired level of concept separation. The analysis shows that polysemantic neurons can be disentangled into directions consisting of linear combinations of neurons. Our evaluations show that the concept vectors found encode coherent, human-understandable features

Which indicators of early cancer diagnosis from population-based data sources are associated with short-term mortality and survival?

BACKGROUND: A key component of recent English cancer policy is the monitoring of trends in early diagnosis of cancer. Early diagnosis can be defined by the disease stage at diagnosis or by other indicators derived from electronic health records. We evaluate the association between different early diagnosis indicators and survival, and discuss the implementation of the indicators in surveillance of early diagnosis. METHODS: We searched the PubMed database and grey literature to identify early diagnosis indicators and evaluate their association with survival. We analysed cancer registrations for 355,502 cancer patients diagnosed in England during the period 2009-2013, and quantified the association between each early diagnosis indicator and 30-day mortality and five-year net survival. RESULTS: Each incremental difference in stage (I-IV) predicts lower 5-year survival, so prognostic information is lost in comparisons which use binary stage indicators. Patients without a recorded stage have high risk of death shortly following diagnosis and lower 5-year survival. Emergency presentation is independently associated with lower five-year survival. Shorter intervals between first symptoms and diagnosis are not consistently associated with improved survival, potentially due to confounding from tumour characteristics. INTERPRETATION: Contrary to current practice, we recommend that all the stage information should be used in surveillance. Patients missing stage should also be included to minimise bias. Combined data on stage and emergency presentation could be used to create summary prognostic measures. More work is needed to create statistics based on the diagnostic interval that will be useful for surveillance

Pathologization and school failure : denaturalizing responses

Orientador: Maria Irma Hadler CoudryTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da LinguagemResumo: Esta pesquisa investiga, através dos pressupostos teóricos e metodológicos desenvolvidos pela Neurolinguística Discursiva, as dificuldades escolares de crianças e jovens avaliadas equivocadamente como patológicas e justificadas por um diagnóstico que incide no processo de aquisição e uso da leitura e da escrita, tais como os de dislexia, distúrbio de aprendizagem, déficit do processamento auditivo, transtorno do déficit de atenção. Para isso, a pesquisa acompanhou, entre os anos de 2015 e 2017, a vida escolar de 3 crianças que, em situação de fracasso escolar, receberam um diagnóstico relativo à aprendizagem e frequentam, atualmente, o oitavo ano (12 ou 13 anos de idade) de uma escola regular do interior de São Paulo, em que atuo como professora de Língua Portuguesa. Ao mesmo tempo, a pesquisa acompanhou 2 crianças (da mesma sala) em situação de sucesso escolar para investigar, em contraste, os saberes e práticas que promovem vantagens em sua escolarização. Desse trabalho, são analisados os dados escolares (provas, materiais didáticos, cadernos, relatórios) e de leitura e escrita produzidos pelos sujeitos em acompanhamento longitudinal; os dados médicos que abordaram os problemas de aprendizagem enfrentados (laudos, relatórios) e, por fim, o que falam os pais, as crianças e os professores/gestores sobre os sujeitos e a suas histórias de escolarização. A primeira parte dessa discussão se concentra em caracterizar a história escolar de cada um dos sujeitos em situação de fracasso escolar e analisa os fatores determinantes para o diagnóstico, seus efeitos nocivos e o modo como essas dificuldades escolares, que motivaram o encaminhamento, perpetuam-se. Articulada a essa apresentação dos sujeitos, reflete-se sobre o desenvolvimento da atenção, da memória, dos conceitos científicos e a docilização dos corpos como noções importantes para compreender o diagnóstico e a situação de fracasso escolar vivenciada por esses sujeitos. No segundo momento da pesquisa, a discussão incide, principalmente, na dificuldade que a escola tem demonstrado no trabalho com as diferenças, especialmente em dois âmbitos: o da relação entre família e escola e o da relação entre escola e linguagem. Na primeira, a análise comparativa entre as famílias e os sujeitos em situação de sucesso e fracasso escolar, amparada em referencial teórico da sociologia da educação, mostrou que as famílias que apresentavam maior consonância com os modos de agir e os saberes da escola transmitiam vantagens na escolarização de seus filhos, ao contrário das famílias dos sujeitos em situação de fracasso escolar, o que é determinante para a produção das desigualdades educacionais. Por fim, na segunda parte, analisa-se os equívocos em relação à concepção de linguagem que sustenta as avaliações de dislexia e déficit do processamento auditivo, assim como o desconhecimento da escola em relação tanto ao processo de aquisição da leitura e escrita quanto às variedades linguísticas. Isso resulta na patologização de crianças normais e na pouca intervenção, ao menos eficaz, no processo de aquisição e uso da leitura e escrita desses sujeitos em situação de fracasso escolarAbstract: This research investigates, through the theoretical and methodological assumptions developed by the Discursive Neurolinguistics, the children and young people¿s school difficulties which were mistakenly evaluated as pathological and justified by a diagnosis that affects the acquisition and use of reading and writing skills, such as dyslexia, learning disorder, auditory processing deficit and attention deficit disorder. From 2015 to 2017, the research followed the school life of 3 children who, in a situation of school failure, received a diagnosis related to learning. These students, currently at the eighth grade level (12 or 13 years of age), attend a regular school in the interior of São Paulo where I work as a Portuguese Language teacher. The research also followed two children from the same classroom who were achieving academic success in order to investigate, in contrast, the knowledge and practices that promote advantages in their schooling. From this work we analyze: the school data (tests, didactic material, notebooks, reports); the data of reading and writing produced by the subjects in longitudinal follow-up; the medical data that addresses the learning problems the students face (reports) and, finally, what parents, children and teachers / managers say about the subjects and their history of schooling. The first part of this discussion focuses on characterizing the school history of each of the subjects in a situation of school failure and analyzes the determinants for the diagnosis, its harmful effects and the way in which these school difficulties which motivated the diagnosis are perpetuated. In this presentation of the subjects, we analyze the development of attention, memory, scientific concepts and the docilization of bodies as important notions for understanding the diagnosis and the situation of school failure experienced by these subjects. In the second part of the research, the discussion focuses mainly on the incompetence that the school has shown in working with differences, especially in two scopes: the relationship between the family and the school and the relationship between the school and the language. In the first scope, the comparative analysis between the families and the subjects in the situation of success and school failure, supported by the theoretical approach of the sociology of education, showed that the families that presented greater consonance with the ways of acting and the knowledge of the school transmitted advantages in the schooling of their children, unlike the families of the subjects in situation of school failure. Finally, we analyze the misconceptions regarding the language conception that supports auditory processing deficit and dyslexia, as well as the lack of knowledge of the school in relation both to the acquisition process of reading and writing and the linguistic varieties. This results in the pathologization of normal children and in little effective intervention of the school in the acquisition and the use of reading and writing skills of the subjects in situation of school failureDoutoradoLinguisticaDoutora em Linguístic

Geothermal potential of granitic rocks of the Mourne Mountains

The Palaeogene Mourne Mountains Complex in County Down is a potential geothermal energy resource due to the high levels of radioactivity in its granitic rocks. The regional Tellus geochemical and geophysical surveys mapped the radioelement distribution of the rocks at surface. Follow-up investigations confirmed the heat potential of these, some of the most radioactive rocks in the island of Ireland, and investigated their depth extent by electromagnetic (magnetotelluric, MT) depth sounding. The results suggest that resistive rocks, interpreted as the granitic intrusion, reach depths of 5 to 6 km in the Eastern Magmatic Centre and 4 to 5 km in the Western Magmatic Centre. The MT results are discussed in the context of the different models of granite emplacement proposed for the Mournes. Tellus aeromagnetic data and MT modelling suggest that the granite bodies extend at depth to the south of the outcrop, as predicted for the laccolith emplacement mechanism, although modelled granite thickness is greater than expected. The MT data indicate a high-conductivity zone of unknown origin beneath the granites, extending from depths of 8 to 20 km. The high radiogenic heat production and the modelled thicknesses of granites are favourable factors for the enhanced geothermal system (EGS) potential of the Mournes, although the measured geothermal gradients and calculated heat flows are lower than those in comparable EGS target

Does adult ADHD interact with COMT val 158 met genotype to influence working memory performance?

Peer reviewedPostprin