“I was pushed out of school”: Social and Emotional Approaches to a Youth Promotion Program

In this study, we analyze the effects of Project GRIT (Generating Resiliency and Inspiring Transformation), a six-week intervention program that worked with a group of high school pushouts, students who were encouraged to leave school, in a school district in southern California. We interviewed thirty-nine former high school students who “dropped out,” or were pushed out of school, 61.5% males (n=24) and 38.5% females (n=15). The mean age is 18.1 years and the sample consists of 27 Latino and 12 African American/Black youth. Findings indicate that an increase in healthy relationships with peers generates beneficial social and emotional skills, including increased communication, team-oriented thinking, projected self-actualization, trust, and development of self. We argue that storytelling is central to engaging and promoting at-promise students in the education system, providing them opportunities to overcome adversity, excel in academics, and expand their ability to build healthy relationships with others in their community

Reproductive effects of occupational DDT exposure among male malaria control workers.

To assess potential effects of human DDT [1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane] exposure, we evaluated the reproductive history of 2,033 workers in the antimalaria campaign of Mexico. Data on occupational exposure to DDT and reproductive outcomes were gathered through a questionnaire, and workers provided information about 9,187 pregnancies. We estimated paternal exposure to DDT before each pregnancy using three approaches: a) a dichotomous indicator for pregnancies before and after exposure began, b) a qualitative index of four exposure categories, and c) an estimation of the DDT metabolite DDE [1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene] accumulated in fat. To assess associations, we used logistic regression models that accounted for correlated observations and adjusted for parents' age at each child's birth, exposure to other pesticides, exposure to chemical substances in other employment, smoking, and alcohol consumption. The odds ratio for birth defects comparing pregnancies after and before the first exposure was 3.77 [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.19-9.52]. Compared with the lowest quartile of estimated DDE in fat, the ORs were 2.48 (95% CI, 0.75-8.11), 4.15 (95% CI, 1.38-12.46), and 3.76 (95% CI, 1.23-11.44) for quartiles 2, 3, and 4, equivalent to p,p -DDE in fat of 50, 82, and 298 microg/g fat, respectively. No significant association was found for spontaneous abortion or sex ratio. We found an increased risk of birth defects associated with high occupational exposure to DDT in this group of workers. The significance of this association at lower exposure levels found in the general population remains uncertain

A Systematic Review of Data Management Platforms

This paper systematically reviews a set of well-established data management platforms and compares their functionality. We de- rived an initial criteria catalogue from existing research work and ex- tended it based on the input gathered through several expert interviews. Finally, we applied this criteria catalogue to a set of data management platforms. The contribution of this work is (i) an up-to-date criteria catalogue to systematically assess the feature-richness of data management platforms, generalizable to related use-cases (e.g. data markets), and (ii) the systematic review of a selected set of data management platforms along with these criteria. This work lays the foundation for future research in this area, being subject to periodic re-evaluation to also include developments and improvements of the platforms

Tutoría intergeneracional para el desarrollo de habilidades para la vida: perdiendo miedo

El modelo educativo del Instituto de Educación Media Superior del D.F., brinda atención diferenciada a los estudiantes por medio de asesoría académica y tutoría para promover su avance académico y favorecer su permanencia en la escuela. No obstante, la tasa de deserción del bachillerato es de alrededor del 40% y sólo 4 de cada 10 estudiantes cubren el total de sus materias. Uno de los aspectos que no se ha atendido en la tutoría y que guarda una estrecha relación con el desempeño académico y la permanencia de los estudiantes en la escuela es el afectivo: seguridad en sí mismo y reconocimiento y expresión de emociones. Por ello,se diseña un proyecto intergeneracional de tutoría para el desarrollo de Habilidades para la Vida (HpV) para promover en el estudiante el conocimiento de sí mismo como una herramienta para enfrentar situaciones académicas problemáticas y facilitar su integración al Modelo Educativo del Instituto. El proyecto se desarrolla con un enfoque vivencial en 16 sesión dirigidas por profesores de distintas disciplinas y semestres, y se emplean técnicas psicocorporales, de imaginación, sociodrama, hipnosis natural y vocalización pues involucran el movimiento y la actividad corporal para facilitar que los participantes se percaten más fácilmente de sus emociones y situaciones de vida. Participan 36 estudiantes de 57 invitados, la mayoría mujeres (67%). Al finalizar el proyecto los estudiantes (85%) perciben una mejoría de entre 20 y 30% en su avance académico y en su asistencia a tutoría (60%); también valoran que el proyecto apoya mucho su formación académica (60%), principalmente en su seguridad personal (57%) y en sus habilidades de expresión oral (42%). A partir del análisis de los registros de los tutores se concluye que el proyecto contribuye a una mayor integración entre estudiantes y profesores; la expresión de emociones en sesiones de trabajo; trabajo tolerante y respetuoso entre grupos diversos y mayor seguridad al participar y en el uso de espacios del plantel. No obstante, en futuras intervenciones es necesario equilibrar el tiempo de atención personalizada con el de trabajo colectivo; adecuar la carga académica de los estudiantes para evitar su deserción, realizar estimaciones más rigurosas con relación al avance académico de los estudiantes y considerar en mayor medida sus aportaciones en la planeación de las actividades para que se adecuen más a sus necesidades

A blast fungus zinc-finger fold effector binds to a hydrophobic pocket in host Exo70 proteins to modulate immune recognition in rice

イネがいもち病菌を見つける「目印」の構造を解明. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-10-21.Exocytosis plays an important role in plant–microbe interactions, in both pathogenesis and symbiosis. Exo70 proteins are integral components of the exocyst, an octameric complex that mediates tethering of vesicles to membranes in eukaryotes. Although plant Exo70s are known to be targeted by pathogen effectors, the underpinning molecular mechanisms and the impact of this interaction on infection are poorly understood. Here, we show the molecular basis of the association between the effector AVR-Pii of the blast fungus Maganaporthe oryzae and rice Exo70 alleles OsExo70F2 and OsExo70F3, which is sensed by the immune receptor pair Pii via an integrated RIN4/NOI domain. The crystal structure of AVR-Pii in complex with OsExo70F2 reveals that the effector binds to a conserved hydrophobic pocket in Exo70, defining an effector/target binding interface. Structure-guided and random mutagenesis validates the importance of AVR-Pii residues at the Exo70 binding interface to sustain protein association and disease resistance in rice when challenged with fungal strains expressing effector mutants. Furthermore, the structure of AVR-Pii defines a zinc-finger effector fold (ZiF) distinct from the MAX (Magnaporthe Avrs and ToxB-like) fold previously described for a majority of characterized M. oryzae effectors. Our data suggest that blast fungus ZiF effectors bind a conserved Exo70 interface to manipulate plant exocytosis and that these effectors are also baited by plant immune receptors, pointing to new opportunities for engineering disease resistance

Brazilian Consensus on Photoprotection

Brazil is a country of continental dimensions with a large heterogeneity of climates and massive mixing of the population. Almost the entire national territory is located between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, and the Earth axial tilt to the south certainly makes Brazil one of the countries of the world with greater extent of land in proximity to the sun. The Brazilian coastline, where most of its population lives, is more than 8,500 km long. Due to geographic characteristics and cultural trends, Brazilians are among the peoples with the highest annual exposure to the sun. Epidemiological data show a continuing increase in the incidence of nonmelanoma and melanoma skin cancers. Photoprotection can be understood as a set of measures aimed at reducing sun exposure and at preventing the development of acute and chronic actinic damage. Due to the peculiarities of Brazilian territory and culture, it would not be advisable to replicate the concepts of photoprotection from other developed countries, places with completely different climates and populations. Thus the Brazilian Society of Dermatology has developed the Brazilian Consensus on Photoprotection, the first official document on photoprotection developed in Brazil for Brazilians, with recommendations on matters involving photoprotection

TOI-257b (HD 19916b): a warm sub-saturn orbiting an evolved F-type star

ABSTRACT We report the discovery of a warm sub-Saturn, TOI-257b (HD 19916b), based on data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The transit signal was detected by TESS and confirmed to be of planetary origin based on radial velocity observations. An analysis of the TESS photometry, the Minerva-Australis, FEROS, and HARPS radial velocities, and the asteroseismic data of the stellar oscillations reveals that TOI-257b has a mass of MP = 0.138 ± 0.023 $\rm {M_J}$ (43.9 ± 7.3 $\, M_{\rm \oplus}$), a radius of RP = 0.639 ± 0.013 $\rm {R_J}$ (7.16 ± 0.15 $\, \mathrm{ R}_{\rm \oplus}$), bulk density of $0.65^{+0.12}_{-0.11}$ (cgs), and period $18.38818^{+0.00085}_{-0.00084}$ $\rm {days}$. TOI-257b orbits a bright (V = 7.612 mag) somewhat evolved late F-type star with M* = 1.390 ± 0.046 $\rm {M_{sun}}$, R* = 1.888 ± 0.033 $\rm {R_{sun}}$, Teff = 6075 ± 90 $\rm {K}$, and vsin i = 11.3 ± 0.5 km s−1. Additionally, we find hints for a second non-transiting sub-Saturn mass planet on a ∼71 day orbit using the radial velocity data. This system joins the ranks of a small number of exoplanet host stars (∼100) that have been characterized with asteroseismology. Warm sub-Saturns are rare in the known sample of exoplanets, and thus the discovery of TOI-257b is important in the context of future work studying the formation and migration history of similar planetary systems

Finding Reusable Modules Using Sparse Matrix Decompositions

Biological systems are often described as being composed of a set of semi-independent modules, each of which can be ascribed its own function, evolutionary history, developmental origin, or a combination thereof. One commonly accepted property of such modules is that they are redeployed across different conditions, so that sets of elements that have been jointly subject to evolutionary processes are re-purposed. This property of being composed of reusable modules has been suggested as a hallmark of biological systems, and its significance, both in an evolutionary setting and from a purely epistemic point of view, has been long debated in literature. In this work, a formalization of the notion of module reusability is provided, along with an algorithm and a series of measurements that can be used to study it. The final objective is to provide a concise and mathematically-expressible vocabulary with which to express statements about reusability, along with the mathematical and computational tools to assert their validity. For this purpose, references in literature to the reusable nature of biological modules are organized, and a common minimum description is proposed. In brief, systems are represented by a presence-absence matrix, whose columns represent conditions and whose rows represent elements. This matrix is then decomposed into a product of two matrices, using a stochastic gradient descent algorithm, one of which represents the compositions of modules, and the other one representing the usage of this modules across different conditions. This decomposition is such that the resulting modules are maximally reusable, and so upper bounds can be estimated for many properties related to reusability. Analytical results are provided that help describe the space of decompositions of a system, and which relate the problem at hand with other, related, problems studied with the use of matrices. Example applications of this framework are provided in this work, both for synthetic and real biological data. The conclusion of these experiments is that the amount of module reusability observed in a system is dependant on the reusability of individual elements. Furthermore, it is suggested that biological systems exhibit modules which are not particularly reusable when compared to randomly-generated systems. Finally, the results presented here suggest that a feature specific of biological systems is the distribution of such reusabilities, with a large amount of condition specific and constitutive modules being present.Biologische Systeme werden oft so beschrieben, dass sie aus einer Reihe von halb-unabhängigen Modulen bestehen, denen jeweils eine eigene Funktion, eine eigene Evolutionsgeschichte, ein eigener Entwicklungsursprung oder eine Kombination davon zugeschrieben werden kann. Eine allgemein akzeptierte Eigenschaft solcher Module ist, dass sie unter verschiedenen Bedingungen wiederverwendet werden, so dass Sätze von Elementen, die gemeinsam evolutionären Prozessen unterworfen waren, wiederverwendet werden. Diese Eigenschaft, aus wiederverwendbaren Modulen zu bestehen, wurde als Kennzeichen biologischer Systeme vorgeschlagen, und ihre Bedeutung, sowohl in einer evolutionären Umgebung als auch aus rein epistemischer Sicht, wird in der Fachliteratur schon lange diskutiert. In dieser Arbeit wird eine Formalisierung des Begriffs der Wiederverwendbarkeit von Modulen vorgelegt, zusammen mit einem Algorithmus und einer Reihe von Messungen, die zu seiner Untersuchung verwendet werden können. Das endgültige Ziel ist es, ein prägnantes und mathematisch ausdrückbares Vokabular bereitzustellen, mit dem Aussagen über die Wiederverwendbarkeit gemacht werden können, zusammen mit den mathematischen und rechnerischen Werkzeugen, um ihre Gültigkeit zu bestätigen. Zu diesem Zweck werden Verweise in der Literatur auf die Wiederverwendbarkeit von biologischen Modulen geordnet und eine gemeinsame Mindestbeschreibung vorgeschlagen. Kurz gesagt, Systeme werden durch eine Präsenz-Absenz-Matrix dargestellt, deren Spalten Bedingungen und deren Zeilen Elemente repräsentieren. Diese Matrix wird dann mit Hilfe eines stochastischen Gradientenabstiegsalgorithmus in ein Produkt aus zwei Matrizen zerlegt, von denen die eine die Zusammensetzungen von Modulen und die andere die Verwendung dieser Module über verschiedene Bedingungen hinweg darstellt. Diese Dekomposition ist so beschaffen, dass die resultierenden Module maximal wiederverwendbar sind, und so können obere Grenzen für viele Eigenschaften, die mit der Wiederverwendbarkeit zusammenhängen, geschätzt werden. Es werden analytische Ergebnisse bereitgestellt, die helfen, den Raum der Dekompositionen eines Systems zu beschreiben, und die das vorliegende Problem mit anderen, verwandten Problemen in Beziehung setzen, die mit der Verwendung von Matrizen untersucht wurden. Beispielanwendungen dieses konzeptionellen Rahmens werden in dieser Arbeit sowohl für synthetische als auch für reale biologische Daten bereitgestellt. Die Schlussfolgerung aus diesen Experimenten ist, dass das Ausmaß der Wiederverwendbarkeit von Modulen in einem System von der Wiederverwendbarkeit der einzelnen Elemente abhängt. Außerdem wird vorgeschlagen, dass biologische Systeme Module aufweisen, die im Vergleich zu zufällig generierten Systemen nicht besonders wiederverwendbar sind. Schließlich legen die hier vorgestellten Ergebnisse nahe, dass ein spezifisches Merkmal biologischer Systeme die Verteilung solcher Wiederverwendbarkeiten ist, wobei eine große Menge an zustandsspezifischen und konstitutiven Modulen vorhanden ist

Minimum-overlap clusterings and the sparsity of overcomplete decompositions of binary matrices

Given a set of n binary data points, a widely used technique is to group its features into k clusters. In the case where n < k, the question of how overlapping are the clusters becomes of interest. In this paper we approach the question through matrix decomposition, and relate the degree of overlap with the sparsity of one of the resulting matrices. We present analytical results regarding bounds on this sparsity, and a heuristic to estimate the minimum amount of overlap that an exact grouping of features into k clusters must have. As shown below, adding new data will not alter this minimum amount of overlap