Estimating Farmers’ Internal Value of Crop Residues in Smallholder Crop-Livestock Systems: A South Asia case study

Crop residues (CR) are an important, internally produced resource with several uses on smallholder, mixed crop-livestock farms, including livestock feed, mulch, fuel and construction material. This study sets out to develop a method to estimate the internal shadow value of CR as feed and as mulch for smallholder households. The study uses a South Asia case study as illustration using data from a set of village and household surveys in three different sites. The estimated shadow prices were higher for CR as mulch than for CR as feed at all three sites. These results reject the null hypothesis that the estimated shadow price for CR as feed is greater than the shadow price for CR as mulch. Since the null hypothesis was formed based on observing household behavior, the rejection of the null hypothesis implies that there are other reasons to explain why more households use CR as feed versus as mulch

Study related factors associated with study engagement and student burnout among German university students

IntroductionStudent burnout has become a health concern in higher education systems. Its prevalence rates are high due to specific demands in this life situation. It leads not only to increased academic dropout rates but is also associated with negative health outcomes both physically and mentally. Its counterpart is study engagement, which is a positive, fulfilling, study-related attitude characterized by energy, dedication, and absorption. There has not been a systematical approach covering the demands directly posed by the academic environment itself. Additionally, academic subject fields apart from medicine and nursing sciences have been mostly neglected in regards to this research field. The aim of the study is therefore to identify contributing factors for both burnout and engagement within the academic environment in a sample of different subject fields at a German university.MethodsIn a cross-sectional study, a sample of 3,451 students of all academic subjects at a technical university in Germany has been analyzed using an online survey. Sociodemographic data, study engagement, student burnout, study satisfaction, academic workload, number of semesters and occupational liabilities have been analyzed. Binary logistic regression was used to determine the associations of burnout symptoms and study engagement.ResultsAlmost a third of the students showed frequent burnout symptoms, while 42.5% showed a high degree of study engagement with no differences in gender. Age was identified as a risk factor for frequent signs of cynicism (OR = 1.073). Study satisfaction (OR between 0.459 and 0.702), semester progression (OR = 0.959) and working moderately (OR between 0.605 and 0.637) was associated with fewer symptoms in different burnout-dimensions. Study satisfaction is positively associated with study engagement (OR = 2.676). Academic workload is positively related to both burnout (OR between 1.014 and 1.021) and study engagement (OR = 1.014).DiscussionA substantial number of students show frequent symptoms of burnout and the majority is not highly engaged. The included factors contribute to the model to various degrees and show that university-bound factors play a major role. Fostering a supportive environment is key for study engagement, health and well-being. The inclusion of further, individual factors should be a future concern in order to find and promote strategies for a healthy education system

Political institutions and debt crises

This paper shows that political institutions matter in explaining defaults on external and domestic debt obligations. We explore a large number of political and macroeconomic variables using a non-parametric technique to predict safety from default. The advantage of this technique is that it is able to identify patterns in the data that are not captured in standard probit analysis. We find that political factors matter, and do so in different ways for democratic and non-democratic regimes, and for domestic and external debt. In democracies, a parliamentary system or sufficient checks and balances almost guarantee the absence of default on external debt when economic fundamentals or liquidity are sufficiently strong. In dictatorships, high stability and tenure play a similar role for default on domestic debt

Mitochondrial dysfunction in adult midbrain dopamine neurons triggers an early immune response

Dopamine (DA) neurons of the midbrain are at risk to become affected by mitochondrial damage over time and mitochondrial defects have been frequently reported in Parkinson\u27s disease (PD) patients. However, the causal contribution of adult-onset mitochondrial dysfunction to PD remains uncertain. Here, we developed a mouse model lacking Mitofusin 2 (MFN2), a key regulator of mitochondrial network homeostasis, in adult midbrain DA neurons. The knockout mice develop severe and progressive DA neuron-specific mitochondrial dysfunction resulting in neurodegeneration and parkinsonism. To gain further insights into pathophysiological events, we performed transcriptomic analyses of isolated DA neurons and found that mitochondrial dysfunction triggers an early onset immune response, which precedes mitochondrial swelling, mtDNA depletion, respiratory chain deficiency and cell death. Our experiments show that the immune response is an early pathological event when mitochondrial dysfunction is induced in adult midbrain DA neurons and that neuronal death may be promoted non-cell autonomously by the cross-talk and activation of surrounding glial cells

Making the Case for a Null Effects Framework in Environmental Education and K-12 Academic Outcomes: When “Just as Good” Is a Great Thing

As K-12 audiences represent a major proportion of environmental education (EE) audiences, academics should be an outcome of interest in EE research and evaluation. However, research around links between EE and academic outcomes (e.g., grades, test scores) is scant. Reasons for limited research on EE and academic outcomes may include disinterest in academic outcomes, assertion that academic outcomes are poor measures of learning, and normative biases against publishing null or negative effects within academia. We argue for adoption of a null effects framework for linking EE and academic outcomes. We begin by outlining what we mean by a null effects framework and then suggest reasons why the EE community should adopt it. Specifically, a null effects framework embraces and celebrates research demonstrating no difference in traditional academic outcomes associated with EE curricula and more traditional classroom instruction. We describe key aspects of operationalizing a null effects framework, including use of key statistical procedures (e.g., measuring power), and changes in peer review associated with emphasizing measures of evidence beyond hypotheses testing and p-values. We conclude by describing how this approach matches EE objectives, strengthens links to academic outcomes without being bound by them, avoids setting unrealistic expectations for EE, and highlights the myriad of non-academic co-benefits offered by EE. As including EE in schools is the best opportunity for reaching the most learners in terms of numbers and diversity, we offer a null effects framework as an approach that can boost adoption of EE where it is arguably needed most

Indirect readout: detection of optimized subsequences and calculation of relative binding affinities using different DNA elastic potentials

Essential biological processes require that proteins bind to a set of specific DNA sites with tuned relative affinities. We focus on the indirect readout mechanism and discuss its theoretical description in relation to the present understanding of DNA elasticity on the rigid base pair level. Combining existing parametrizations of elastic potentials for DNA, we derive elastic free energies directly related to competitive binding experiments, and propose a computationally inexpensive local marker for elastically optimized subsequences in protein–DNA co-crystals. We test our approach in an application to the bacteriophage 434 repressor. In agreement with known results we find that indirect readout dominates at the central, non-contacted bases of the binding site. Elastic optimization involves all deformation modes and is mainly due to the adapted equilibrium structure of the operator, while sequence-dependent elasticity plays a minor role. These qualitative observations are robust with respect to current parametrization uncertainties. Predictions for relative affinities mediated by indirect readout depend sensitively on the chosen parametrization. Their quantitative comparison with experimental data allows for a critical evaluation of DNA elastic potentials and of the correspondence between crystal and solution structures. The software written for the presented analysis is included as Supplementary Data

ENIGMA and global neuroscience: A decade of large-scale studies of the brain in health and disease across more than 40 countries.

This review summarizes the last decade of work by the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium, a global alliance of over 1400 scientists across 43 countries, studying the human brain in health and disease. Building on large-scale genetic studies that discovered the first robustly replicated genetic loci associated with brain metrics, ENIGMA has diversified into over 50 working groups (WGs), pooling worldwide data and expertise to answer fundamental questions in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and genetics. Most ENIGMA WGs focus on specific psychiatric and neurological conditions, other WGs study normal variation due to sex and gender differences, or development and aging; still other WGs develop methodological pipelines and tools to facilitate harmonized analyses of "big data" (i.e., genetic and epigenetic data, multimodal MRI, and electroencephalography data). These international efforts have yielded the largest neuroimaging studies to date in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. More recent ENIGMA WGs have formed to study anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behavior, sleep and insomnia, eating disorders, irritability, brain injury, antisocial personality and conduct disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Here, we summarize the first decade of ENIGMA's activities and ongoing projects, and describe the successes and challenges encountered along the way. We highlight the advantages of collaborative large-scale coordinated data analyses for testing reproducibility and robustness of findings, offering the opportunity to identify brain systems involved in clinical syndromes across diverse samples and associated genetic, environmental, demographic, cognitive, and psychosocial factors

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN