Meso-Scale Hydrologic Modeling for Climate Impact Assessments: A Conceptual and A Regresssion Approach

The paper presents two different approaches to hydrologic modeling for Climate Impact Assessments: A conceptual water balance model and a non-parametric regression model. They both are designed for modeling large-scale river basins (Meso-Scale) at a monthly time step and to accept GCM-based climate scenarios defined as changes in monthly precipitation and temperature. The data requirements for the models are historical, multi-annual series of mean monthly temperature, precipitation, and runoff. These data are used to calibrate the models. GCM data or user-defined sensitivity of climatic variable must be provided for the assessment analyses. The paper describes the theoretical bases of both approaches and presents the results of a comparison of the application of the models to the Vistula River Basin in Poland

Comparison of two ancient DNA extraction protocols for skeletal remains from tropical environments

Objectives The tropics harbor a large part of the world\u27s biodiversity and have a long history of human habitation. However, paleogenomics research in these climates has been constrained so far by poor ancient DNA yields. Here we compare the performance of two DNA extraction methods on ancient samples of teeth and petrous portions excavated from tropical and semi‐tropical sites in Tanzania, Mexico, and Puerto Rico (N = 12). Materials and Methods All samples were extracted twice, built into double‐stranded sequencing libraries, and shotgun sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq 2500. The first extraction protocol, Method D, was previously designed for recovery of ultrashort DNA fragments from skeletal remains. The second, Method H, modifies the first by adding an initial EDTA wash and an extended digestion and decalcification step. Results No significant difference was found in overall ancient DNA yields or post‐mortem damage patterns recovered from samples extracted with either method, irrespective of tissue type. However, Method H samples had higher endogenous content and more mapped reads after quality‐filtering, but also higher clonality. In contrast, samples extracted with Method D had shorter average DNA fragments. Discussion Both methods successfully recovered endogenous ancient DNA. But, since surviving DNA in ancient or historic remains from tropical contexts is extremely fragmented, our results suggest that Method D is the optimal choice for working with samples from warm and humid environments. Additional optimization of extraction conditions and further testing of Method H with different types of samples may allow for improvement of this protocol in the future

The Obliteration of Truth by Management: Badiou, St. Paul and the Question of Economic Managerialism in Education

This paper considers the questions that Badiou’s theory of the subject poses to cultures of economic managerialism within education. His argument that radical change is possible, for people and the situations they inhabit, provides a stark challenge to the stifling nature of much current educational climate. In 'Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism', Badiou describes the current universalism of capitalism, monetary homogeneity and the rule of the count. Badiou argues that the politics of identity are all too easily subsumed by the prerogatives of the marketplace and unable to present, therefore, a critique of the status quo. These processes are, he argues, without the potential for truth. What are the implications of Badiou’s claim that education is the arranging of ‘the forms of knowledge in such a way that truth may come to pierce a hole in them’ (Badiou, 2005, p. 9)? In this paper, I argue that Badiou’s theory opens up space for a kind of thinking about education that resists its colonisation by cultures of management and marketisation and leads educationalists to consider the emancipatory potential of education in a new light

The micropolitics of quality

This paper discusses how the audit culture has impacted on UK academics in terms of professional identities, priorities and social relations. Micropolitics, performativity, psychic economy and the changing political economy of higher education are some of the theoretical tools used to offer some explanatory power for the range of engagements with quality assurance. Questions are raised about the polysemic discourse of quality and how it has been subjected to multiple interpretations. For example, there are those members of the academy who see it as a major form of modernisation and student empowerment, while others see it as a form of symbolic violence. Specific attention is paid to peer review, impact studies, gendered power relations, productivity measures and whether quality intersects with equality in the academy. The paper concludes with calls to consider what the gestalt is of higher education

The efficacy of whole human genome capture on ancient dental calculus and dentin

Objectives: Dental calculus is among the richest known sources of ancient DNA in the archaeological record. Although most DNA within calculus is microbial, it has been shown to contain sufficient human DNA for the targeted retrieval of whole mitochondrial genomes. Here, we explore whether calculus is also a viable substrate for whole human genome recovery using targeted enrichment techniques. Materials and methods: Total DNA extracted from 24 paired archaeological human dentin and calculus samples was subjected to whole human genome enrichment using in-solution hybridization capture and high-throughput sequencing. Results: Total DNA from calculus exceeded that of dentin in all cases, and although the proportion of human DNA was generally lower in calculus, the absolute human DNA content of calculus and dentin was not significantly different. Whole genome enrichment resulted in up to fourfold enrichment of the human endogenous DNA content for both dentin and dental calculus libraries, albeit with some loss in complexity. Recovering more on-target reads for the same sequencing effort generally improved the quality of downstream analyses, such as sex and ancestry estimation. For nonhuman DNA, comparison of phylum-level microbial community structure revealed few differences between precapture and postcapture libraries, indicating that off-target sequences in human genome-enriched calculus libraries may still be useful for oral microbiome reconstruction. Discussion: While ancient human dental calculus does contain endogenous human DNA sequences, their relative proportion is low when compared with other skeletal tissues. Whole genome enrichment can help increase the proportion of recovered human reads, but in this instance enrichment efficiency was relatively low when compared with other forms of capture. We conclude that further optimization is necessary before the method can be routinely applied to archaeological samples

The dead shall be raised : Multidisciplinary analysis of human skeletons reveals complexity in 19th century immigrant socioeconomic history and identity in New Haven, Connecticut

In July 2011, renovations to Yale-New Haven Hospital inadvertently exposed the cemetery of Christ Church, New Haven, Connecticut’s first Catholic cemetery. While this cemetery was active between 1833 and 1851, both the church and its cemetery disappeared from public records, making the discovery serendipitous. Four relatively well-preserved adult skeletons were recovered with few artifacts. All four individuals show indicators of manual labor, health and disease stressors, and dental health issues. Two show indicators of trauma, with the possibility of judicial hanging in one individual. Musculoskeletal markings are consistent with physical stress, and two individuals have arthritic indicators of repetitive movement/specialized activities. Radiographic analyses show osteopenia, healed trauma, and other pathologies in several individuals. Dental calculus analysis did not identify any tuberculosis indicators, despite osteological markers. Isotopic analyses of teeth indicate that all four were likely recent immigrants to the Northeastern United States. Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA were recovered from three individuals, and these analyses identified ancestry, hair/eye color, and relatedness. Genetic and isotopic results upended our initial ancestry assessment based on burial context alone. These individuals provide biocultural evidence of New Haven’s Industrial Revolution and the plasticity of ethnic and religious identity in the immigrant experience. Their recovery and the multifaceted analyses described here illuminate a previously undescribed part of the city’s rich history. The collective expertise of biological, geochemical, archaeological, and historical researchers interprets socioeconomic and cultural identity better than any one could alone. Our combined efforts changed our initial assumptions of a poor urban Catholic cemetery’s membership, and provide a template for future discoveries and analyses

Intrinsic challenges in ancient microbiome reconstruction using 16S rRNA gene amplification.

To date, characterization of ancient oral (dental calculus) and gut (coprolite) microbiota has been primarily accomplished through a metataxonomic approach involving targeted amplification of one or more variable regions in the 16S rRNA gene. Specifically, the V3 region (E. coli 341-534) of this gene has been suggested as an excellent candidate for ancient DNA amplification and microbial community reconstruction. However, in practice this metataxonomic approach often produces highly skewed taxonomic frequency data. In this study, we use non-targeted (shotgun metagenomics) sequencing methods to better understand skewed microbial profiles observed in four ancient dental calculus specimens previously analyzed by amplicon sequencing. Through comparisons of microbial taxonomic counts from paired amplicon (V3 U341F/534R) and shotgun sequencing datasets, we demonstrate that extensive length polymorphisms in the V3 region are a consistent and major cause of differential amplification leading to taxonomic bias in ancient microbiome reconstructions based on amplicon sequencing. We conclude that systematic amplification bias confounds attempts to accurately reconstruct microbiome taxonomic profiles from 16S rRNA V3 amplicon data generated using universal primers. Because in silico analysis indicates that alternative 16S rRNA hypervariable regions will present similar challenges, we advocate for the use of a shotgun metagenomics approach in ancient microbiome reconstructions

Looking for the women in Baron and Taylor's (1969) Educational administration and the social sciences

A search for women in Baron and Taylor's (1969) Educational administration and the social sciences [London: The Athlone Press] using feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA) has revealed a changing discourse about gendered educational administration over the course of 50 years. Whilst few women are featured in the text itself, citations of women's writing surface the historical contributions of women as headmistresses and public servants. Women who have cited the text since its publication have challenged gendered theory and academic writing conventions. FPDA is used to explore the gendered educational administration discourse through the intertextuality of academic writing. Fluctuations between powerfulness and powerlessness are revealed depending on the socio-political context and women's circumstances

QuantCrit: education, policy, ‘Big Data’ and principles for a critical race theory of statistics

Quantitative research enjoys heightened esteem among policy-makers, media and the general public. Whereas qualitative research is frequently dismissed as subjective and impressionistic, statistics are often assumed to be objective and factual. We argue that these distinctions are wholly false; quantitative data is no less socially constructed than any other form of research material. The first part of the paper presents a conceptual critique of the field with empirical examples that expose and challenge hidden assumptions that frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the façade of supposed quantitative objectivity. The second part of the paper draws on the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to set out some principles to guide the future use and analysis of quantitative data. These ‘QuantCrit’ ideas concern (1) the centrality of racism as a complex and deeply-rooted aspect of society that is not readily amenable to quantification; (2) numbers are not neutral and should be interrogated for their role in promoting deficit analyses that serve White racial interests; (3) categories are neither ‘natural’ nor given and so the units and forms of analysis must be critically evaluated; (4) voice and insight are vital: data cannot ‘speak for itself’ and critical analyses should be informed by the experiential knowledge of marginalized groups; (5) statistical analyses have no inherent value but can play a role in struggles for social justice