Abundance, condition, and diet of juvenile Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus) in the Aleutian Islands

T he relative value of pelagic habitat for three size classes of juvenile Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus) was investigated by comparing their abundance and condition in two areas of the Aleutian Islands. Diet, zooplankton biomass, and water column temperatures were examined as potential factors affecting observed differences. Juvenile Pacific ocean perch abundance and condition, and zooplankton biomass varied significantly between areas, whereas juvenile Pacific ocean perch diet varied only by size class. Observed differences in fish condition may have been due to the quantity or quality of pelagic prey items consumed. For the delineation of essential demersal fish habitat, important ecological features of the pelagic habitat must therefore be considered

Turning White: Co-Opting a Profession through the Myth of Progress, An Intersectional Historical Perspective of Brown v. Board of Education

The U.S. is currently experiencing a teacher shortage. Many school districts have been impacted by this issue and want to know: how do we recruit more qualified candidates into the profession, and, more importantly, how do we recruit more Teachers of Color? We may be experiencing a shortage of teachers in general, but there has been a paucity of Teachers of Color, particularly Black teachers, for decades. Looking back to the Brown v. Board decision (1954) to integrate public schools, thousands of Black teachers were pushed out of their jobs in various ways. In this article, we examine how this historical and groundbreaking decision had unintended negative consequences for Black teachers at the time of the decision and in the decades to follow. We speculate about the consequences for past, present, and future Students of Color with little to no exposure to and experience with Black teachers. Finally, we theorize intersectional solutions to the teacher shortage in general. Bringing issues of race to the forefront of our conversations about teaching is critical, but rare. According to Douglass Horsford (2019), “race remains not only a difficult and unwelcome topic among educators but also among education researchers, which perhaps leads to its undertheorizing in the field” (p. 262)

Loc’d and Faded, Yoga Pants and Spaghetti Straps: Discrimination in Dress Codes and School Pushout

In this paper, we review the current dress code violations that have made national news. These issues have spotlighted racist and sexist issues embedded within common K-12 dress codes. We also analyze all school dress codes within one county in a mid-western state to examine various racist and sexist issues. We end the paper with an assessment for readers to determine the levels of racism and sexism in their own K-12 district dress codes

Assessing Laws and Legal Authorities for Obesity Prevention and Control

This is the first paper in a two part series on the laws and legal authorities for obesity prevention and control, which resulted from the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control in 2008. In this paper, the authors apply the “laws and legal authorities” component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) legal framework on public health legal preparedness to demonstrate the essential role that law can play in the fight against obesity. Their analysis identified numerous laws and policies in the three vital domains of healthy lifestyles, healthy places, and healthy societies. For example, in terms of healthy lifestyles, governments can impact nutrition through: food subsidies, taxation, and bans; food marketing strategies; and nutritional labeling and education. With regard to healthy places, state and local governments can apply zoning laws and policy decisions to change the environment to encourage healthy eating and physical activity. Governments can promote healthy societies through laws and legal authorities that affect the ability to address obesity from a social perspective (such as antidiscrimination law, health care insurance and benefit design, school and day care for children, and surveillance). This paper describes instances of how current laws and legal authorities affect the public health goal of preventing obesity in both positive and negative ways. It also highlights the progressive use of laws at every level of government (i.e., federal, state, and local) and the interaction of these laws as they relate to obesity prevention and control. In addition, general gaps in the use of law for obesity prevention and control are identified for attention and action. (These gaps serve as the basis for the companion paper, which delineates options for policymakers, practitioners, and other key stakeholders in the improvement of laws and legal authorities for obesity prevention and control.

Next-generation sequencing of prostate cancer: genomic and pathway alterations, potential actionability patterns, and relative rate of use of clinical-grade testing.

Despite being one of the most common cancers, treatment options for prostate cancer are limited. Novel approaches for advanced disease are needed. We evaluated the relative rate of use of clinical-grade next generation sequencing (NGS) in prostate cancer, as well as genomic alterations identified and their potential actionability. Of 4864 patients from multiple institutions for whom NGS was ordered by physicians, only 67 (1.4%) had prostate cancer, representing 1/10 the ordering rate for lung cancer. Prostate cancers harbored 148 unique alterations affecting 63 distinct genes. No two patients had an identical molecular portfolio. The median number of characterized genomic alterations per patient was 3 (range, 1 to 9). Fifty-six of 67 patients (84%) had ≥ 1 potentially actionable alteration. TMPRSS2 fusions affected 28.4% of patients. Genomic aberrations were most frequently detected in TP53 (55.2% of patients), PTEN (29.9%), MYC (17.9%), PIK3CA (13.4%), APC (9.0%), BRCA2 (9.0%), CCND1 (9.0%), and RB1 genes (9.0%). The PI3K (52.2% of patients), WNT (13.5%), DNA repair (17.9%), cell cycle (19.4%), and MAPK (14.9%) machinery were commonly impacted. A minority of patients harbored BRAF, NTRK, ERBB2, or mismatch repair gene abnormalities, which are highly druggable in some cancers. Only ~ 10% of prostate cancer trials (clinicaltrials.gov, year 2017) applied a (non-hormone) biomarker before intervention. In conclusion, though use of clinical-grade NGS is relatively low and only a minority of trials deploy DNA-based biomarkers, many prostate cancer-associated molecular alterations may be pharmacologically tractable with genomcially targeted therapy or, in the case of mismatch repair anomalies, with checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy

Coordination of Foliar and Wood Anatomical Traits Contributes to Tropical Tree Distributions and Productivity along the Malay-Thai Peninsula

Drought is a critical factor in plant species distributions. Much research points to its relevance even in moist tropical regions. Recent studies have begun to elucidate mechanisms underlying the distributions of tropical tree species with respect to drought; however, how such desiccation tolerance mechanisms correspond with the coordination of hydraulic and photosynthetic traits in determining species distributions with respect to rainfall seasonality deserves attention. In the present study, we used a common garden approach to quantify inherent differences in wood anatomical and foliar physiological traits in 21 tropical tree species with either widespread (occupying both seasonal and aseasonal climates) or southern (restricted to aseasonal forests) distributions with respect to rainfall seasonality. Use of congeneric species pairs and phylogenetically independent contrast analyses allowed examination of this question in a phylogenetic framework. Widespread species opted for wood traits that provide biomechanical support and prevent xylem cavitation and showed associated reductions in canopy productivity and consequently growth rates compared with southern species. These data support the hypothesis that species having broader distributions with respect to climatic variability will be characterized by traits conducive to abiotic stress tolerance. This study highlights the importance of the well-established performance vs. stress tolerance trade-off as a contributor to species distributions at larger scales

Less is More in New York: An Examination of the Impact of State Parole Violations on Prison and Jail Populations

As the number of people in New York’s state prisons and local jails, including Rikers Island, has been declining, one population is on the rise – persons incarcerated for state parole violations. This, even as city and state leaders agree that the Rikers Island should close and that more attention should be paid to the parole violation issue. This research brief examines this issue in greater detail, focusing on its impact on New York City’s jail population at this critical time. It concludes with recommendations to reduce unnecessary incarceration of persons on parole as well as to shrink the overall parole population and focus parole supervision and supports on those who need it the most

The Consequential Validity of Student Ratings: What do Instructors Really Think?

This study investigates instructors’ perceptions about strengths and weaknesses of a student ratings instrument employed in their university. The sample consisted of 357 instructors in a major Canadian university where each term students are required to complete an evaluation at the end of every course. Qualitative analyses of their written responses indicate that most instructors held negative views about the ratings instrument, administration procedures, and use of results. They also reported concerns about biasing factors and the negative effect that ratings have on instructors. Few instructors provided positive comments about the validity of the ratings, the utility of ratings for the user groups, accountability, student representation, and cost efficient administration procedures. Moreover, only 25% considered ratings useful for improving teaching effectiveness