Digital Curation Education at the Universities of Ibadan and Liverpool

This article presents the findings of the Ibadan/Liverpool Digital Curation Curriculum Review Project, a research project conducted to formally benchmark the teaching of digital curation in the archival education programmes at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. It provides background to the history and establishment of both universities and the development of their archives curricula. A matrix was developed using the DigCurV Curriculum Framework to assess whether digital curation skills and knowledge outlined in the framework are being taught, practised and tested in the Master’s programmes. These skills and knowledge were assessed according to the four domains outlined in DigCurV: Knowledge and Intellectual Abilities (KIA), Personal Qualities (PQ), Professional Conduct (PC), and Management and Quality Assurance (MQA), to levels appropriate to practitioners and managers. The exercise identified skill and knowledge areas where teaching materials could be shared between the universities, and areas where new materials are needed

Plant communities affect arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity and community composition in grassland microcosms

The diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi was investigated in an unfertilized limestone grassland soil supporting different synthesized vascular plant assemblages that had developed for 3 yr. The experimental treatments comprised: bare soil; monocultures of the nonmycotrophic sedge Carex flacca; monocultures of the mycotrophic grass Festuca ovina; and a species-rich mixture of four forbs, four grasses and four sedges. The diversity of AM fungi was analysed in roots of Plantago lanceolata bioassay seedlings using terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP). The extent of AM colonization, shoot biomass and nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations were also measured. The AM diversity was affected significantly by the floristic composition of the microcosms and shoot phosphorus concentration was positively correlated with AM diversity. The diversity of AM fungi in P. lanceolata decreased in the order: bare soil > C. flacca > 12 species > F. ovina. The unexpectedly high diversity in the bare soil and sedge monoculture likely reflects differences in the modes of colonization and sources of inoculum in these treatments compared with the assemblages containing established AM-compatible plants

Quantifying inequalities in mortality in Australia: the value of linked Census-morality data

Introduction Mortality rates are higher in disadvantaged communities. However, accurate quantification of inequalities in Australia has been limited by data availability. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has recently created a resource linking Death Registrations to Australian Census data, enabling quantification of mortality by whole-of-population individual-level measures. Objectives and Approach We present the first analysis of linked Deaths Registrations to Census data, which quantifies mortality inequality in Australia in relation to individual-level socioeconomic position (SEP), and compares these estimates to those based on area-level-SEP measures. The Deaths Registrations-Census file contains deaths within 13 months of the 2011 Census date, linked probabilistically to 2011 Census data. We used Poisson regression to quantify inequalities according to education, weighted to adjust for relative under- and over-representation of selected subpopulations. We compared these inequality estimates with those based on area-SEP measures. We also examined the effect of missing Census data. Results Mortality rates decreased with education in all age groups (25-44, 45-64, 65-84, 85+ years), for both males and females. Estimates of relative inequality decreased with age, while estimates of absolute inequalities increased. Total excess deaths associated with lower education were highest in those aged 64-84 years. Inequality estimates for education were higher than those for area-SEP in the youngest age groups (25-45 years), but were lower in the 45-64 age group. Socioeconomic gradients in education remained apparent among individuals within each area-SEP quintile, highlighting the socioeconomic variation among individuals within these area-based socioeconomic groups. The proportion of deaths with missing education data increased with age and area-level SEP; however there was little difference in the area-based inequality estimates across subgroups with and without education missing. Conclusion/Implications The newly-created linked Deaths Registrations-Census file, accessible through the virtual ABS Datalab, is a rich resource for generating evidence on mortality. The data show mortality inequalities in education across all age groups and within quintiles of area-level SEP and indicate area-based measures are inadequate for fully capturing inequality

Judicial leadership on the UK Supreme Court

This paper examines judicial leadership on the UK Supreme Court. It does not confine itself to the formal roles of the President and Deputy President. Rather, building on existing categories of judicial leadership, including administrative, jurisprudential and community leadership, it considers the contributions of all 12 Justices. In so doing, it provides a significant compilation of quantitative data on the activities of the Justices of the Supreme Court both on and off the bench from the the Court's inception in 2009 to the end of the 2014-2015 legal year. From this, we suggest that while a number of the Justices engaged in one or two broad forms of leadership-with Lady Hale in particular demonstrating a substantial degree of leadership across all three dimensions- A t the other end of the spectrum, at least on the measures used in this paper, a significant minority did not. In the light of this, and the significant number of recent and forthcoming retirements from the Court, the paper concludes by considering the implications of our findings for the future of the Court. We argue that these retirements will result in gaps in both formal and informal judicial leadership, and it is vital that these gaps are filled by appointees who are capable of, and prepared to step up to, diverse and varied forms of judicial leadership

GenoChemetic strategy for derivatization of the violacein natural product scaffold

H.E.L. was supported by an Imperial College President’s Ph.D. Scholarship. We thank UKRI EPSRC (EP/K038648/1, EP/L011573/1 to P.S.F.) and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013/ERC grant agreement no. 614779 GenoChemetics to R.J.M.G.) for funding. A.M.C.O. receives funding from EPSRC CRITICAT, EP/L016419/1.Natural products and their analogues are often challenging to synthesize due to their complex scaffolds and embedded functional groups. Solely relying on engineering the biosynthesis of natural products may lead to limited compound diversity. Integrating synthetic biology with synthetic chemistry allows rapid access to much more diverse portfolios of xenobiotic compounds, which may accelerate the discovery of new therapeutics. As a proof-of-concept, by supplementing an Escherichia coli strain expressing the violacein biosynthesis pathway with 5-bromo-tryptophan in vitro or tryptophan 7-halogenase RebH in vivo, six halogenated analogues of violacein or deoxyviolacein were generated, demonstrating the promiscuity of the violacein biosynthesis pathway. Furthermore, 20 new derivatives were generated from 5-brominated violacein analogues via the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction directly using the crude extract without prior purification. Herein we demonstrate a flexible and rapid approach to access a diverse chemical space that can be applied to a wide range of natural product scaffolds.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Education inequalities in adult all-cause mortality: first national data for Australia using linked census and mortality data

National linked mortality and census data have not previously been available for Australia. We estimated education-based mortality inequalities from linked census and mortality data that are suitable for international comparisons.This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Partnership Project Grant (grant number 1134707), in conjunction with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the National Heart Foundation of Australia

Small Molecule Inhibitors of the Neuropilin-1 Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A (VEGF-A) Interaction†

We report the molecular design and synthesis of EG00229, 2, the first small molecule ligand for the VEGF-A receptor neuropilin 1 (NRP1) and the structural characterization of NRP1-ligand complexes by NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. Mutagenesis studies localized VEGF-A binding in the NRP1 b1 domain and a peptide fragment of VEGF-A was shown to bind at the same site by NMR, providing the basis for small molecule design. Compound 2 demonstrated inhibition of VEGF-A binding to NRP1 and attenuated VEGFR2 phosphorylation in endothelial cells. Inhibition of migration of endothelial cells was also observed. The viability of A549 lung carcinoma cells was reduced by 2, and it increased the potency of the cytotoxic agents paclitaxel and 5-fluorouracil when given in combination. These studies provide the basis for design of specific small molecule inhibitors of ligand binding to NRP1

Buchwald Hartwig diversification of unprotected halotryptophans, halotryptophan containing tripeptides and the natural product barettin in aqueous conditions

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013/ERC grant agreement no 614779 GenoChemetics (to R.J.M.G) P. Cárdenas received support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program through the SponGES project (grant agreement No. 679849).Blending synthetic chemistry and biology is synthetically powerful. To further enable this, compatible synthetic tools are needed. We report the first Buchwald Hartwig amination reactions with unprotected halotryptophans in aqueous systems and demonstrate this methodology applicable to the modification of unprotected halotryptophans, simple tripeptides and the natural product barettin.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe