Participatory varietal selection of potato using the mother & baby trial design: A gender-responsive trainer’s guide.

This guide aims to provide step-by-step guidance on facilitating and documenting the PVS dynamics using the MBT design to select, and eventually release, potato varieties preferred by end-users that suit male and female farmers ’different needs, diverse agro-systems, and management practices, as well as traders ’and consumers’ preferences

Roots, tubers and bananas: Planning and research for climate resilience

The CGIAR Research Program (CRP) on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) includes vegetatively propagated staple crops linked by common breeding, seed, and postharvest issues, and by the frequency with which women are involved in their production and use. RTB crops are the backbone of food security across the humid tropics in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and in more localized areas of Asia and Latin America. Around 300 million poor people in developing countries currently depend on RTB value chains for food security, nutrition and income. Climate change poses challenges which could undo progress in poverty reduction and markedly increase food insecurity. This article examines planning and research for climate resilience across RTB crops, with a particular focus on the contrasting potato and sweet potato cases in SSA. A six-step framework for climatesmart breeding is proposed: (1) downscaling climate change models and crop modeling; (2) identifying and understanding key climate change responsive traits; (3) breeding and varietal selection; (4) phenotyping and genomic research to accelerate gains; (5) developing management options for climate-smart varieties; and (6) deployment (seed systems). In summary, climate-smart breeding means we need to do what we already do but faster, better, and smarter. (Résumé d'auteur

Alpha B-crystallin protects retinal tissue during Staphylococcus aureus-induced endophthalmitis

Bacterial infections of the eye highlight a dilemma that is central to all immune-privileged sites. On the one hand, immune privilege limits inflammation to prevent bystander destruction of normal tissue and loss of vision. On the other hand, bacterial infections require a robust inflammatory response for rapid clearance of the pathogen. We demonstrate that the retina handles this dilemma, in part, by activation of a protective heat shock protein. During Staphylococcus aureus-induced endophthalmitis, the small heat shock protein αB-crystallin is upregulated in the retina and prevents apoptosis during immune clearance of the bacteria. In the absence of αB-crystallin, mice display increased retinal apoptosis and retinal damage. We found that S. aureus produces a protease capable of cleaving αB-crystallin to a form that coincides with increased retinal apoptosis and tissue destruction. We conclude that αB-crystallin is important in protecting sensitive retinal tissue during destructive inflammation that occurs during bacterial endophthalmitis

Ethical Frames: A Qualitative Study of Networked Device Use in Two High School ELA Classrooms

This dissertation addresses a gap in empirical research on the way reading and writing on networked devices intervene in the social dynamics of secondary classrooms. Though many studies have investigated how networked devices shape the literacy practices and social norms of online writing spaces, few have investigated the impact of networked devices on the social norms of the classroom. At the same time, the scholarly discourse on the role of networked devices in classrooms is highly polarized, with some scholars suggesting that literacy curriculum must change to meet the demands of the 21st century (Prensky, 2001; Gee, 2017; Jenkins et al., 2009), while others argue that schools have gone too far in accommodating technology, losing something vital to the project of education in the process (Carr, 2010; Bauerlein, 2010; Turkle, 2011). Researchers who attempt a more balanced interpretation have located their studies in extra-curricular spaces (boyd, 2014; Itō, 2010) which are not subject to the peculiar social demands of the classroom (Jackson, 1968; Cuban, 1986). Drawing on interviews with 24 students and 3 teachers in two small, suburban, public high schools, this qualitative study asks how networked devices matter to students and teachers who use them daily in both personal and academic spaces. The study investigates the ways in which public and policy discourses contribute to the practices and perspectives of students and teachers as they negotiate the role of networked devices in English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms, developing personal norms for what constitutes acceptable uses of cell phones, tablets, and laptops and making decisions about what aspects of digital literacies belong to the ELA curriculum. Two findings arose from analysis of the data: 1) Students make deliberate choices in deciding when to read and write on networked devices during class for non-class purposes and 2) The various policy documents meant to guide technology integration and digital literacy instruction represent multiple overlapping activity systems whose goals don’t always align. The findings of this study suggest that the current body of research and policies would benefit from attending more closely to important relational dimensions of device use, including how students and use networked devices to maintain their ethical commitments through reading and writing and how policy documents implicitly position students and teachers in relation to different goals for containing or connecting the classroom network. Building on a recent turn to an examination of the ethical relations implicit in writing and programming (Duffy, 2017; Brown: 2015), this study proposes ethical frames as a conceptual vocabulary for how students decide to engage with various audience types: the self, known others, school, and society. Guided by ethical frames, students manage and maintain relationships in the coextensive visible and virtual networks in the classroom and teachers implement, reject, or adapt policies that reflect the ethical frames they believe most suited to their local contexts.PHDEnglish & EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145849/1/scriba_1.pd

Giving Support and Mental Health in Older Adults at Risk for Vision Impairment

Physical disability and visual impairment place older adults at a doubled risk for depression and a seven-fold increased risk for death by suicide. Social interaction is one of the factors that may aid adaptation to vision impairment. Preliminary research suggests that giving support to others has a significant relation with fewer depressive symptoms, greater life satisfaction, and greater satisfaction with support received in older adults. There has been no study to date addressing the role of giving support to others in protecting against suicidal behaviors, or other factors related to suicide risk, such as reasons for living. Using a sample of older adults with vision related diagnoses (N = 101), this study investigated the direct, moderating, and mediating roles of informal and formal support giving behaviors and satisfaction with support received from others on depressive symptoms, suicide risk, reasons for living, and life satisfaction. Higher scores on a measure of informal support giving were related to lower likelihood of reported suicide ideation, OR = .82, CI [.68, .99]. Higher scores on measures of volunteer activity were directly related to higher levels of reasons for living (Number of hours volunteered during the past year: b = .07, SE = .02, p = .05; Volunteered during past year: b = .23, SE = .09, p = .04). Volunteer activity was an intervening variable in the indirect relation between lower levels of disability and higher levels of reasons for living (Number of hours volunteer: b = .07, SE = .04; Number of volunteer organizations: b = .06, SE = .03). Satisfaction with support received from others was related to lower levels of depressive symptoms, beta = -.21, p = .03, suicide ideation, OR = .02, CI [\u3c.001, .52], and higher levels of reasons for living, b = .51, SE = .19, p = .005. Satisfaction with support buffered the relation between disability and life satisfaction. Perceived satisfaction with support was also an intervening variable in the indirect relation between higher levels of visual functioning and lower levels of depressive symptoms, b = -.002, SE = .001, as well as higher levels of reasons for living, b = .001, SE = .0005. This study provides several important insights into the relation between visual functioning, support giving behaviors, and mental health in older adults with vision related diagnoses. Informal and formal support giving may be two targets for decreasing suicide risk and increasing protective factors. Satisfaction with support received from others is an important construct in understanding both positive and negative aspects of mental health in older adults. These results shed light on the role giving support and perceived satisfaction with support have on mental health outcomes within the context of visual disability

Mindfulness and Parental Stress Among Parents of Children with Development Delays: The Role of the Marital Relationship

Background: Studies have found that marital satisfaction and parenting stress are important risk factors for negative child outcomes. However, parenting stress and broader family factors like the marital relationship are rarely addressed in interventions targeting childhood problems. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) appears to be the stress-based intervention that has the most empirical support with over 50 studies demonstrating its effectiveness; however, to date no peer-reviewed article has been published examining whether this intervention can help reduce parenting stress (Chiesa, & Serretti, 2009; Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004). Similarly, research has shown that marital satisfaction significantly impacts parental stress and parent-child relationships, yet research has not examined how this relationship plays out in an intervention aimed at reducing parenting stress and child behavior problems. Method: Parents of children ages 2.5 to 5 with developmental delays or autism spectrum disorders (n=46) participated in an 8 week mindfulness-based stress reduction program and reported their initial level of marital satisfaction and levels of parenting stress and child behavior problems before and after treatment to determine if marital satisfaction significantly moderated parents’ reported reductions in parenting stress and child behavior problems. Results: Marital quality significantly moderated changes in child behavior problems throughout the study. Parents with lower marital satisfaction reported higher levels of child behavior problems at the beginning of the study and showed significant reductions in child behavior problems at the completion of the study. In contrast, parents with high levels of marital satisfaction at the beginning of the study reported significantly fewer child behavior problems, and therefore the reduction of child behavior problems was much smaller. Marital satisfaction did not significantly moderate changes in parenting stress over the course of the study, which may be due to small sample size of lack of a moderating relationship because of the high levels of parenting stress with parents of children with developmental delays. Conclusion: When examining child behavior problems and outcomes, parental marital satisfaction and adjustment are an important variable to consider, especially in the context of children with developmental disabilities. Marital quality significantly moderated changes in child behavior problems over the course of the MBSR program, indicating that parental martial adjustment and satisfaction should be a key target for intervention

College student perceptions of system-culpability in the frequency of wrongful convictions: gauging the importance of respondent characteristics

Prior literature has highlighted several factors that contribute to wrongful convictions and described the frequency in which these factors influence wrongful convictions; they include mistaken eyewitness identification, mishandling of forensic evidence, and misconduct among criminal justice professionals. The literature concerning perceptions of the influence of these factors on wrongful convictions is limited, however, by its failure to consider the impact of respondent characteristics on their perceptions. In this study, I extend this line of research by examining the influence of respondent characteristics on perceptions of the culpability of criminal justice actors, contamination of forensic evidence, and mistaken eyewitness identification in the frequency of wrongful convictions. Results of Pearson’s correlation suggest that perceptions are shaped by sex, political affiliation, college major, having a friend or close friend or family member employed in criminal justice, perceptions of race-based sentencing disparities, and perceptions of the frequency of wrongful convictions