The Big Match - Lexis v Westlaw

Lexis and Westlaw are the biggest names in subscription legal database provision. The author provides a comparative critical examination from his experience is of academic subscriptions to the services - including their American academic contentPreprint of an article by Paul Norman, former Reference and Online Services Librarian at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, published in Legal Information Management, the journal of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarian

Sustainable strategies for school improvement: lessons learnt through national challenge

National Challenge raised the bar with regard to school performance, setting a baseline of expectation that, by 2011, all schools would achieve at least 30 per cent of students gaining 5 A*-C grades including English and maths (National College 2010). Over 600 schools were initially identified in June 2008 and a range of support strategies and funding was put in place (DCSF 2008a). Over the first year a number of schools succeeded in making significant progress, with many moving beyond the baseline measure. This study, at the end of the first full year of National Challenge, aimed to identify, within a small sample of schools that have successfully raised attainment during this period: —— what common factors were present in them on embarking on National Challenge and —— what key leadership strategies have been used in raising attainment A review of literature and interviews with leaders within these schools clarify which issues and approaches had greatest impact and could be considered as sustainable for longer-term improvement

The Effects of Timbering on Plethodon hubrichti over 12 Years

Clearcuts have been shown to adversely affect salamander populations, whereas impacts from milder forms of timbering are more variable. We determined the effects of clearcuts and shelterwood cuts on populations of the Peaks of Otter Salamander (Plethodon hubrichti) using counts of surface active salamanders found during multiple night collections. Sampling was done prior to and then periodically after timbering for 12 yr. Overall, the long-term trends in mean number of P. hubrichti at reference and shelterwood cut sites were not significantly different. In contrast, means at clearcut sites declined 41% during the first year posttimbering and then declined over the next three years to a low of 75% below pretimbering means. The means stabilized at 45% below pre-timbering means for the remainder of the study. Immediately after timbering 41% of the salamanders moved from transects established at the edge of clearcuts to reference transects that were 3–9 m away. Clearcuts had less canopy closure and dead leaf cover than reference and shelterwood cuts which likely degraded habitat for salamanders. Therefore, clearcutting forests is not advisable because of adverse impacts on salamanders, but forms of timbering that retain a portion of the forest canopy may be acceptable if it can be shown that the timbering method does not reduce salamander populations

TET2 inhibits differentiation of embryonic stem cells but does not overcome methylation-induced gene silencing

TET2 is a methylcytosine dioxygenase that is frequently mutated in myeloid malignancies, notably myelodysplasia and acute myeloid leukemia. TET2 catalyses the conversion of 5′-methylcytosine to 5′-hydroxymethylcytosine within DNA and has been implicated in the process of genomic demethylation. However, the mechanism by which TET2 loss of function results in hematopoietic dysplasia and leukemogenesis is poorly understood. Here, we show that TET2 is expressed in undifferentiated embryonic stem cells and that its knockdown results in reduction of 5′-hydroxymethylcytosine in genomic DNA. We also present DNA methylation data from bone marrow samples obtained from patients with TET2-mutated myelodysplasia. Based on these findings, we sought to identify the role of TET2 in regulating pluripotency and differentiation. We show that overexpression of TET2 in a stably integrated transgene leads to increased alkaline phosphatase expression in differentiating ES cells and impaired differentiation in methylcellulose culture. We speculate that this effect is due to TET2-mediated expression of stem cell genes in ES cells via hydroxylation of 5′-methylcytosines at key promoter sequences within genomic DNA. This leads to relative hypomethylation of gene promoters as 5′-hydroxymethylcytosine is not a substrate for DNMT1-mediated maintenance methylation. We sought to test this hypothesis by cotransfecting the TET2 gene with methylated reporter genes. The results of these experiments are presented