Dietary Uncoupling of Gut Microbiota and Energy Harvesting from Obesity and Glucose Tolerance in Mice

The authors gratefully acknowledge Doctoral Training Partnership funding from the BBSRC (M.J.D.) and funding from the Scottish Government (P.J.M., A.W.R., and A.W.W.). We also thank the Centre for Genome-Enabled Biology and Medicine for help with next-generation sequencing and Karen Garden and the Rowett’s Analytical Services for SCFA analysis. SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION Supplemental Information includes four figures and two tables and can be found with this article online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2017.10.056.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The discrimination of geoforensic trace material from close proximity locations by organic profiling using HPLC and plant wax marker analysis by GC

There is a need to develop a wider empirical research base to expand the scope for utilising the organic fraction of soil in forensic geoscience, and to demonstrate the capability of the analytical techniques used in forensic geoscience to discriminate samples at close proximity locations. The determination of wax markers from soil samples by GC analysis has been used extensively in court and is known to be effective in discriminating samples from different land use types. A new HPLC method for the analysis of the organic fraction of forensic sediment samples has also been shown recently to add value in conjunction with existing inorganic techniques for the discrimination of samples derived from close proximity locations. This study compares the ability of these two organic techniques to discriminate samples derived from close proximity locations and finds the GC technique to provide good discrimination at this scale, providing quantification of known compounds, whilst the HPLC technique offered a shorter and simpler sample preparation method and provided very good discrimination between groups of samples of different provenance in most cases. The use of both data sets together gave further improved accuracy rates in some cases, suggesting that a combined organic approach can provide added benefits in certain case scenarios and crime reconstruction contexts

Understanding the Latinx Student Experience in a First-Year, Non-Remedial, Terminal College Math Course: A Convergent Mixed Methods Study

Working with Latinx students, a semester long study was conducted in the Spring of 2021 to better understand student’s perception of Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices (CRTP) at Mountain State University (MSU). The course sections selected are a part of a larger first year, non-remedial, terminal mathematics courses designed to provide students with smaller teacher to student ratios as well as opportunities to earn credit towards graduation. Instructors in two of the sections received special training around CRTP, while instructors in the other two sections did not receive this training. Findings demonstrate that simple adjustments to instructional practices had a statistically significant effect on student’s perceptions of mathematics in two domains of CRTP. These adjustments include providing students an opportunity to apply the math they learn to their chosen pathways through article reviews and mathematical application to relevant problems. Additionally, sharing a diverse representation of current mathematicians in practice as well as sharing their trials and tribulations provides students a more realistic view of who can do mathematics. There are also opportunities for larger, systemic changes. Most notably, this includes restructuring these specialized sections to focus on students’ understanding and application of the content, versus a lecture style instructional approach currently utilized. To achieve this change, the university must focus on three changes: (a) build a pipeline between the undergraduate and graduate programs to train and hire more diverse mathematics instructors; (b) develop opportunities to train instructors in Culturally Responsive Teaching; and (c) enable greater autonomy for these four sections and the larger group of classes that share the same course title. While MSU has tentatively rolled out some opportunities to better support students, there continue to be opportunities to expand the utilization of CRTP within these terminal, non-remedial mathematics courses

Effects of Interventions on Violence Against Nurses

Violence against nurses is a problem in the healthcare system that is becoming more prevalent. The purpose of this systematic review is to critically appraise the evidence about the effectiveness of interventions to outcomes indicating that nurses are better prepared to handle violent situations and possibly prevent them all together in acute care settings. The following PICOT question, a question that addresses patient problem, intervention, comparison, outcome, and time, will be answered: What effect does preventative and educational interventions have on violence against nurses in the hospital setting and influence nurses’ perceptions regarding their ability to handle episodes of violence? Relevant publications were identified in CINAHL, PubMed, and Academic Search Complete with key search words of: violence, nurses, prevention, and intervention. Interventions across twenty studies were reviewed. The research showed that educational interventions increased nurses’ perceived level of preparedness to respond to a violent event. However, further research needs to be conducted and strict policies put in place

A mixed methods exploratory study of women’s relationships with and uses of fertility tracking apps

This work was conducted as a BSc (Hons) research project at the University of Aberdeen. No external funding was received.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Voice Morphing: Two Identities in One Voice

In a biometric system, each biometric sample or template is typically associated with a single identity. However, recent research has demonstrated the possibility of generating "morph" biometric samples that can successfully match more than a single identity. Morph attacks are now recognized as a potential security threat to biometric systems. However, most morph attacks have been studied on biometric modalities operating in the image domain, such as face, fingerprint, and iris. In this preliminary work, we introduce Voice Identity Morphing (VIM) - a voice-based morph attack that can synthesize speech samples that impersonate the voice characteristics of a pair of individuals. Our experiments evaluate the vulnerabilities of two popular speaker recognition systems, ECAPA-TDNN and x-vector, to VIM, with a success rate (MMPMR) of over 80% at a false match rate of 1% on the Librispeech dataset.Comment: Accepted oral paper at BIOSIG 202

The outcomes and effectiveness of two self-disclosure techniques

It has been shown that there is a dyadic effect in regard to self-disclosure. This dyadic effect refers to the fact that the more one says about one's self the more another person is likely to say about their self. Two different techniques for creating this dyadic effect have been demonstrated. These techniques are modelling and using self-disclosure as reinforcement. The present study compared the effectiveness of these two techniques in eliciting self-disclosure

Nutrients, chlorophyll, and emergent harmful algal bloom species of concern in coastal waters of Assateague Island National Seashore

The Atlantic Ocean coastal zone of Maryland is important both ecologically and economically. Due to water quality issues, the coastal lagoons of Maryland have received considerable research attention, but little corresponding research in the coastal waters that exchange with the coastal lagoons. To better understand the linkages between the coastal ocean and the potential impacts of human activity on Maryland’s coastal zone, 5 research cruises (2018-2019) were completed to investigate concentrations of nutrients and emergent harmful algal bloom (HAB) species of concern (Dinophysis, Karenia, Pseudo-nitzschia). Nutrient and HAB species had high intra-annual variability, as well as geographic variability with relation to the inlets, coastal lagoons, and offshore discharge sites. The most significant determinants across all sampling locations, depths, and times were nitrate and ammonium. Continued eutrophication and climate change, as well as the impact of connected waterways, presents challenges for managing regional water quality issues in the coastal ocean

Evidence of a Warm Absorber that Varies with QPO Phase in the AGN RE J1034+396

A recent observation of the nearby (z=0.042) narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy RE J1034+396 on 2007 May 31 showed strong quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the 0.3-10 keV X-ray flux. We present phase-resolved spectroscopy of this observation, using data obtained by the EPIC PN detector onboard XMM. The "low" phase spectrum, associated with the troughs in the light curve, shows (at >4 sigma confidence level) an absorption edge at 0.86+/-0.05 keV with an absorption depth of 0.3+/-0.1. Ionized oxygen edges are hallmarks of X-ray warm absorbers in Seyfert active galactic nuclei (AGN); the observed edge is consistent with H-like O VIII and implies a column density of N_{OVIII}~3x10^{18} cm^{-2}. The edge is not seen in the "high" phase spectrum associated with the crests in the light curve, suggesting the presence of a warm absorber in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole which periodically obscures the continuum emission. If the QPO arises due to Keplerian orbital motion around the central black hole, the periodic appearance of the O VIII edge would imply a radius of ~9.4(M/[4x10^6 Msun])^{-2/3}(P/[1 hr])^{2/3} r_g for the size of the warm absorber.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (tentatively scheduled for the July 2010 v717 issue). 5 figures and 19 pages (in aastex preprint format