Opportunities and Barriers Related to Income (NVP 2013, Report 4)

With support and collaboration from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation through the America Healing initiative, researchers at the University of Michigan are leading the National Voices Project (NVP) from 2011-2016. The central goals of the NVP are to examine the sources of racial/ethnic inequity and other disparities for children in the United States today and identify interventions that address disparities effectively.The NVP offers an unprecedented perspective on community-level opportunities for children throughout the country, in the domains of health and nutrition, education and learning, and economic security – through the eyes of adults whoseoccupations and volunteer work affect such opportunities. In other words, the NVP reflects the perceptions of individuals throughout the United States who are in a position to improve children's opportunities in the future. We generally use the word "children" throughout the report to describe young children from age 0-8 years, and "teens" for children ages 13-18 years old.Report #4 for NVP 2013 focuses chiefly on findings on children's and teens' health, education and learning, andeconomic opportunities related to income

Education and Learning Opportunities (NVP 2013, Report 3)

With support and collaboration from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation through the America Healing initiative,  researchers at the University of Michigan are leading the National Voices Project (NVP) from 2011-2016. The central goals of the NVP are to examine the sources of racial/ethnic inequity and other disparities for children in the United States today and identify interventions that address disparities effectively.The NVP offers an unprecedented perspective on community-level opportunities for children throughout the country, in the domains of health and nutrition, education and learning, and economic security – through the eyes of adults whose occupations and volunteer work affect such opportunities. In other words, the NVP reflects the perceptions of individuals throughout the United States who are in a position to improve children's opportunities in the future. We generally use the word ?children? throughout the report to describe children from age 0-18 years, unless otherwise noted.Report #3 for NVP 2013 focuses on findings related to children's education and learning

\u3ci\u3eDrosophila\u3c/i\u3e Muller F Elements Maintain a Distinct Set of Genomic Properties Over 40 Million Years of Evolution

The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D. erecta, D. mojavensis, and D. grimshawi F elements and euchromatic domains from the Muller D element. We find that F elements have greater transposon density (25–50%) than euchromatic reference regions (3–11%). Among the F elements, D. grimshawi has the lowest transposon density (particularly DINE-1: 2% vs. 11–27%). F element genes have larger coding spans, more coding exons, larger introns, and lower codon bias. Comparison of the Effective Number of Codons with the Codon Adaptation Index shows that, in contrast to the other species, codon bias in D. grimshawi F element genes can be attributed primarily to selection instead of mutational biases, suggesting that density and types of transposons affect the degree of local heterochromatin formation. F element genes have lower estimated DNA melting temperatures than D element genes, potentially facilitating transcription through heterochromatin. Most F element genes (~90%) have remained on that element, but the F element has smaller syntenic blocks than genome averages (3.4–3.6 vs. 8.4–8.8 genes per block), indicating greater rates of inversion despite lower rates of recombination. Overall, the F element has maintained characteristics that are distinct from other autosomes in the Drosophila lineage, illuminating the constraints imposed by a heterochromatic milieu