A New Pathway for the Preparation of Highly Qualified Teachers: The Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)

This article reports on the development and initial implementation of a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree, an accelerated graduate program that encourages and scaffolds individuals with existing disciplinary expertise in entering the teaching profession. First, the context for developing the program is outlined. Next, the unique structure of the 15-month program, which consists of three blocks, is described. Expectations about students are then shared, quality control features of the program are highlighted, and the lessons we learned about program development and implementation are detailed. Finally, thoughts about the future of this program and others of its type are shared based upon our experience

Healthy aims: developing new medical implants and diagnostic equipment

Healthy Aims is a €23-million, four-year project, funded under the EU’s Information Society Technology Sixth Framework program to develop intelligent medical implants and diagnostic systems (www.healthyaims.org). The project has 25 partners from 10 countries, including commercial, clinical, and research groups. This consortium represents a combination of disciplines to design and fabricate new medical devices and components as well as to test them in laboratories and subsequent clinical trials. The project focuses on medical implants for nerve stimulation and diagnostic equipment based on straingauge technology

Identification of Leishmania major UDP-Sugar Pyrophosphorylase Inhibitors Using Biosensor-Based Small Molecule Fragment Library Screening

Leishmaniasis is a neglected disease that is caused by different species of the protozoan parasite Leishmania, and it currently affects 12 million people worldwide. The antileishmanial therapeutic arsenal remains very limited in number and efficacy, and there is no vaccine for this parasitic disease. One pathway that has been genetically validated as an antileishmanial drug target is the biosynthesis of uridine diphosphate-glucose (UDP-Glc), and its direct derivative UDP-galactose (UDP-Gal). De novo biosynthesis of these two nucleotide sugars is controlled by the specific UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGP). Leishmania parasites additionally express a UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylase (USP) responsible for monosaccharides salvage that is able to generate both UDP-Gal and UDP-Glc. The inactivation of the two parasite pyrophosphorylases UGP and USP, results in parasite death. The present study reports on the identification of structurally diverse scaffolds for the development of USP inhibitors by fragment library screening. Based on this screening, we selected a small set of commercially available compounds, and identified molecules that inhibit both Leishmania major USP and UGP, with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration in the 100 µM range. The inhibitors were predicted to bind at allosteric regulation sites, which were validated by mutagenesis studies. This study sets the stage for the development of potent USP inhibitors

Divergent responses of Atlantic coastal and oceanic Synechococcus to iron limitation

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of National Academy of Sciences for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112 (2015): 9944-9949, doi:10.1073/pnas.1509448112.Marine Synechococcus are some of the most diverse and ubiquitous phytoplankton, and iron (Fe) is an essential micronutrient that limits productivity in many parts of the ocean. To investigate how coastal and oceanic Atlantic Synechococcus strains acclimate to Fe availability, we compared the growth, photophysiology, and quantitative proteomics of two Synechococcus strains from different Fe regimes. Synechococcus strain WH8102, from a region in the southern Sargasso Sea that receives substantial dust deposition, showed impaired growth and photophysiology as Fe declined, yet utilized few acclimation responses. Coastal WH8020, from the dynamic, seasonally variable New England shelf, displayed a multi-tiered, hierarchical cascade of acclimation responses with different Fe thresholds. The multi-tiered response included changes in Fe acquisition, storage, and photosynthetic proteins, substitution of flavodoxin for ferredoxin, and modified photophysiology, all while maintaining remarkably stable growth rates over a range of Fe concentrations. Modulation of two distinct ferric uptake regulator (Fur) proteins that coincided with the multi-tiered proteome response was found, implying the coastal strain has different regulatory threshold responses to low Fe availability. Low nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) availability in the open ocean may favor the loss of Fe response genes when Fe availability is consistent over time, whereas these genes are retained in dynamic environments where Fe availability fluctuates and N and P are more abundant.This work was supported by a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology to K.R.M.M. (NSF 1103575), National Science Foundation Oceanography grants OCE-1220484, OCE-0928414, OCE-1233261, OCE- 1155566, OCE-1131387, and OCE-0926092, as well as Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grants 3782 and 3934

Divergent Responses of Atlantic Coastal and Oceanic Synechococcus to Iron Limitation

Marine Synechococcus are some of the most diverse and ubiquitous phytoplankton, and iron (Fe) is an essential micronutrient that limits productivity in many parts of the ocean. To investigate how coastal and oceanic Atlantic Synechococcus strains acclimate to Fe availability, we compared the growth, photophysiology, and quantitative proteomics of two Synechococcus strains from different Fe regimes. Synechococcus strain WH8102, from a region in the southern Sargasso Sea that receives substantial dust deposition, showed impaired growth and photophysiology as Fe declined, yet used few acclimation responses. Coastal WH8020, from the dynamic, seasonally variable New England shelf, displayed a multitiered, hierarchical cascade of acclimation responses with different Fe thresholds. The multitiered response included changes in Fe acquisition, storage, and photosynthetic proteins, substitution of flavodoxin for ferredoxin, and modified photophysiology, all while maintaining remarkably stable growth rates over a range of Fe concentrations. Modulation of two distinct ferric uptake regulator (Fur) proteins that coincided with the multitiered proteome response was found, implying the coastal strain has different regulatory threshold responses to low Fe availability. Low nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) availability in the open ocean may favor the loss of Fe response genes when Fe availability is consistent over time, whereas these genes are retained in dynamic environments where Fe availability fluctuates and N and P are more abundant

Measuring Essential Learning Outcomes for Public Speaking

Basic Course Directors (BCDs) are typically expected to assess course learning outcomes, but few formal guidelines and resources exist for new BCDs. As one part of a larger multi-methodological assessment tool development project, this manuscript maps existing quantitative measures onto the six essential competencies and associated learning outcomes established by the Social Science Research Council Panel on Public Speaking. This manuscript compiles dozens of measurement resources, aligned by outcome, and also identifies areas where future assessment measures development is needed. While there are many measures available for evaluating outcomes related to creating messages, critically analyzing messages, and demonstrating self-efficacy, there are measurement gaps for outcomes related to communication ethics, embracing difference, and influencing public discourse

Stakeholder Theory and Marketing: Moving from a Firm-Centric to a Societal Perspective

This essay is inspired by the ideas and research examined in the special section on “Stakeholder Marketing” of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing in 2010. The authors argue that stakeholder marketing is slowly coalescing with the broader thinking that has occurred in the stakeholder management and ethics literature streams during the past quarter century. However, the predominant view of stakeholders that many marketers advocate is still primarily pragmatic and company centric. The position advanced herein is that stronger forms of stakeholder marketing that reflect more normative, macro/societal, and network-focused orientations are necessary. The authors briefly explain and justify these characteristics in the context of the growing “prosociety” and “proenvironment” perspectives—orientations that are also in keeping with the public policy focus of this journal. Under the “hard form” of stakeholder theory, which the authors endorse, marketing managers must realize that serving stakeholders sometimes requires sacrificing maximum profits to mitigate outcomes that would inflict major damage on other stakeholders, especially society

Microbial rhodopsins on leaf surfaces of terrestrial plants

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Environmental Microbiology 14 (2012): 140-146, doi:10.1111/j.1462-2920.2011.02554.x.The above-ground surfaces of terrestrial plants, the phyllosphere, comprise the main interface between the terrestrial biosphere and solar radiation. It is estimated to host up to 1026 microbial cells that may intercept part of the photon flux impinging on the leaves. Based on 454- pyrosequencing generated metagenome data, we report on the existence of diverse microbial rhodopsins in five distinct phyllospheres from tamarisk (Tamarix nilotica), soybean (Glycine max), Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), clover (Trifolium repens) and rice (Oryza sativa). Our findings, for the first time describing microbial rhodopsins from non-aquatic habitats, point toward the potential coexistence of microbial rhodopsin-based phototrophy and plant chlorophyll-based photosynthesis, with the different pigments absorbing non-overlapping fractions of the light spectrum.This work was supported in part by a grant from Bridging the Rift Foundation (O.B. & S.B.), Israel Science Foundation grant 1203/06 (O.B.), the Gruss-Lipper Family Foundation at MBL (O.M.F., S.B. & A.F.P.), a US-Israel Binational Science Foundation grant 2006324 (S.B.), and DOE National Institutes of Health Grant R37GM27750, Department of Energy Grant DE-FG02-07ER15867, and endowed chair AU-0009 from the Robert A. Welch Foundation (J.L.S.)