Ask a clearer question, get a better answer.

Many undergraduate students struggle to engage with higher order skills such as evaluation and synthesis in written assignments, either because they do not understand that these are the aim of written assessment or because these critical thinking skills require more effort than writing a descriptive essay. Here, we report that students who attended a freely available workshop, in which they were coached to pose a question in the title of their assignment and then use their essay to answer that question, obtained higher marks for their essay than those who did not attend. We demonstrate that this is not a result of latent academic ability amongst students who chose to attend our workshops and suggest this increase in marks was a result of greater engagement with ‘critical thinking’ skills, which are essential for upper 2:1 and 1st class grades. The tutoring method we used holds two particular advantages: First, we allow students to pick their own topics of interest, which increases ownership of learning, which is associated with motivation and engagement in ‘difficult’ tasks. Second, this method integrates the development of ‘inquisitiveness’ and critical thinking into subject specific learning, which is thought to be more productive than trying to develop these skills in isolation

Colour preferences of UK garden birds at supplementary seed feeders

Supplementary feeding of garden birds generally has benefits for both bird populations and human wellbeing. Birds have excellent colour vision, and show preferences for food items of particular colours, but research into colour preferences associated with artificial feeders is limited to hummingbirds. Here, we investigated the colour preferences of common UK garden birds foraging at seed-dispensing artificial feeders containing identical food. We presented birds simultaneously with an array of eight differently coloured feeders, and recorded the number of visits made to each colour over 370 30-minute observation periods in the winter of 2014/15. In addition, we surveyed visitors to a garden centre and science festival to determine the colour preferences of likely purchasers of seed feeders. Our results suggest that silver and green feeders were visited by higher numbers of individuals of several common garden bird species, while red and yellow feeders received fewer visits. In contrast, people preferred red, yellow, blue and green feeders. We suggest that green feeders may be simultaneously marketable and attractive to foraging birds

Simulated X-ray Cluster Temperature Maps

Temperature maps are presented of the 9 largest clusters in the mock catalogues of Muanwong et al. for both the Preheating and Radiative models. The maps show that clusters are not smooth, featureless systems, but contain a variety of substructure which should be observable. The surface brightness contours are generally elliptical and features that are seen include cold clumps, hot spiral features, and cold fronts. Profiles of emission-weighted temperature, surface brightness and emission-weighted pressure across the surface brightness discontinuities seen in one of the bimodal clusters are consistent with the cold front in Abell 2142 observed by Markevitch et al.Comment: Submitted to Monthly Notices Royal Astronomical Societ

Reactions of some chromium-oxygen complexes containing superoxo, hydroperoxo, oxo, and [mu]-peroxo ligands

The chemistry of chromium-oxygen compounds has been investigated. The previously-characterized superoxochromium(III) ion, CrO[superscript]2+, was found to catalyze the autoxidation of the hydroxymethylchromium ion, CrCH[subscript]2OH[superscript]2+ to Cr[superscript]2+ and HCHO. In the absence of O[subscript]2 the reaction is much faster than in its presence, and is autocatalytic. The inorganic product of the aerobic reaction is the novel hydroperoxochromium ion, CrO[subscript]2H[superscript]2+, containing peroxide in the rare end-bound configuration. Reaction of CrO[subscript]2[superscript]2+, CrO[subscript]2Cr[superscript]4+ or TlOH[superscript]2+ with Cr[superscript]2+ yields the aquachromium(IV) ion, CrO[superscript]2+. This species has not previously been observed directly, although it has been invoked as an intermediate in many chromium redox mechanisms. In the presence of O[subscript]2, the CrO[superscript]2+ catalytically converts PPh[subscript]3 to O=PPh[subscript]3 by oxo transfer. The CrO[superscript]2+ oxidizes a variety of organic substrates, such as alcohols, aldehydes, carboxylates and ethers by a two-electron, hydride transfer mechanism. Contrary to literature predictions, alkyl radicals are not produced except in a few unusual cases. The reaction of CrO[superscript]2+ with Cr[superscript]2+ does not yield the species identified in the literature as the CrOCr[superscript]4+ ion. The latter is in fact mischaracterized as an oxo species. Evidence for its true nature as a bimetallic semiquinone radical complex, CrQCr[superscript]5+, is presented

Reflections 1994

The 1994 issue of Reflections was edited by Markell Lynch and Scott Lesley with Brad Southend serving as faculty adviser. Award winners of the student writing contest include: Ensley F. Guffey, Gary T. Mitchem, and Heather Love. Award winners of the student art contest include: Scott Goforth, Yoshi Shinaro, and Sabrina Barnes.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/reflections/1019/thumbnail.jp

Development, initial validation and reliability testing of a web-based, generic feline health-related quality of life instrument

Objectives: The objective of this study was to develop a valid, reliable web-based, generic feline health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) questionnaire instrument to measure the affective impact of chronic disease. Methods: A large initial item pool, obtained through interviews with cat owners, was reduced using predetermined criteria, survey scores for relevance and clarity, and the ability of individual items to discriminate between healthy and sick cats when owners completed a prototype questionnaire. Using these data, factor analysis was used to derive a scoring algorithm and provide evidence for factorial validity. Validity was demonstrated further in a field trial using a ‘known groups’ approach (sick vs healthy cats will have a different HRQoL profile, and the HRQoL profile of cats will deteriorate as comorbidities increase). Test–retest reliability was assessed using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC). Results: In total, 165 items were reduced to 20 and, on the basis of a factor analysis that explained 72.3% of the variation in scores input by 71 owners of 30 healthy and 41 sick cats using the prototype, these were allocated to three domains (vitality, comfort and emotional wellbeing [EWB]) with a scoring algorithm derived using item loadings. Subsequently, the owners of 36 healthy and 58 sick cats completed one or two (n = 48) assessments. Median scores (healthy vs sick) for all domains were significantly different (P <0.001), 78% of cats were correctly classified as healthy or sick and for comorbidities the correlation coefficients were moderate (vitality 0.64; comfort 0.63; EWB 0.50). Test–retest reliability was good (ICC vitality 0.635; comfort 0.716; EWB 0.853). Conclusions and relevance: This study provides initial evidence for the validity and reliability of a novel HRQoL instrument to aid the assessment and management of chronic diseases of cats

The Mg/Ca–temperature relationship in brachiopod shells: calibrating a potential palaeoseasonality proxy

Brachiopods are long-lived, long-ranging, extant organisms, of which some groups precipitate a relatively diagenetically stable low magnesium calcite shell. Previous work has suggested that the incorporation of Mg into brachiopod calcite may be controlled by temperature (Brand et al., 2013). Here we build upon this work by using laser ablation sampling to define the intra-shell variations in two modern brachiopod species,Terebratulina retusa (Linnaeus, 1758) and Liothyrella neozelanica (Thomson, 1918). We studied three T. retusa shells collected live from the Firth of Lorne, Scotland, which witnessed annual temperature variations on the order of 7 °C, in addition to four L. neozelanica shells, which were dredged from a water depth transect (168–1488 m) off the north coast of New Zealand. The comparison of intra-shell Mg/Ca profiles with shell δ<sup>18</sup>O confirms a temperature control on brachiopod Mg/Ca and supports the use of brachiopod Mg/Ca as a palaeoseasonality indicator. Our preliminary temperature calibrations are Mg/Ca = 1.76 ± 0.27 e<sup>(0.16 ± 0.03)T</sup>, R<sup>2</sup> = 0.75, for T. retusa and Mg/Ca = 0.49 ± 1.27 e<sup>(0.2 ± 0.11)T</sup>, R<sup>2</sup> = 0.32, for L. neozelanica (errors are 95% confidence intervals)

Culture-independent analysis of bacterial diversity in a child-care facility

BACKGROUND: Child-care facilities appear to provide daily opportunities for exposure and transmission of bacteria and viruses. However, almost nothing is known about the diversity of microbial contamination in daycare facilities or its public health implications. Recent culture-independent molecular studies of bacterial diversity in indoor environments have revealed an astonishing diversity of microorganisms, including opportunistic pathogens and many uncultured bacteria. In this study, we used culture and culture-independent methods to determine the viability and diversity of bacteria in a child-care center over a six-month period. RESULTS: We sampled surface contamination on toys and furniture using sterile cotton swabs in four daycare classrooms. Bacteria were isolated on nutrient and blood agar plates, and 16S rRNA gene sequences were obtained from unique (one of a kind) colony morphologies for species identification. We also extracted DNA directly from nine representative swab samples taken over the course of the study from both toy and furniture surfaces, and used "universal" 16S rRNA gene bacterial primers to create PCR-based clone libraries. The rRNA gene clones were sequenced, and the sequences were compared with related sequences in GenBank and subjected to phylogenetic analyses to determine their evolutionary relationships. Culturing methods identified viable bacteria on all toys and furniture surfaces sampled in the study. Bacillus spp. were the most commonly cultured bacteria, followed by Staphylococcus spp., and Microbacterium spp. Culture-independent methods based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing, on the other hand, revealed an entirely new dimension of microbial diversity, including an estimated 190 bacterial species from 15 bacterial divisions. Sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses determined that the clone libraries were dominated by a diverse set of sequences related to Pseudomonas spp., as well as uncultured bacteria originally identified on human vaginal epithelium. Other sequences were related to uncultured bacteria from wastewater sludge, and many human-associated bacteria including a number of pathogens and opportunistic pathogens. Our results suggest that the child-care facility provided an excellent habitat for slime-producing Pseudomonads, and that diaper changing contributed significantly to the bacterial contamination. CONCLUSION: The combination of culture and culture-independent methods provided powerful means for determining both viability and diversity of bacteria in child-care facilities. Our results provided insight into the source of contamination and suggested ways in which sanitation might be improved. Although our study identified a remarkable array of microbial diversity present in a single daycare, it also revealed just how little we comprehend the true extent of microbial diversity in daycare centers or other indoor environments