A Qualitative Case Study Into the Electronic Correspondence Between Fifth-Grade Students and Their College Mentors

The ability to navigate emerging technologies is necessary for social and economic participation in the world. Research shows that children from privileged households receive the support needed to develop digital literacy skills, while children from families with lower socioeconomic status do not receive this support. It is the responsibility of schools to address this participation gap by bringing digital literacies into classrooms. The affordances of new technologies make it easier than ever for teachers to provide authentic literacy experiences for their students. This qualitative case study examined an authentic, digital literacy experience during a virtual pen pal correspondence between fifth-grade students and a local college women’s basketball team. The written correspondence was analyzed through topic tracking and by applying Rafaeli’s Model of Interactive Communication. The students’ images were also analyzed to gain a deeper understanding of multimodal composition. Analysis found the facilitating teacher motivated her students to participate in the written exchanges by incorporating tenets of authentic literacy pedagogy. The authentic literacy experience motivated the students to participate in the exchanges, but interactive communication was determined by the participants’ interests. The benefits experienced by the students show a need for scaffolded experiences for children to develop the competencies needed to participate using virtual communication tools. Schools need to expand their definition of literacy beyond the targets found on standardized tests to provide meaningful literacy experiences for students with computer-mediated communication. Findings also indicate a need for teacher professional development furthering their understanding of multimodal composition

Claude Debussy’s Children’s Corner – A Pedagogical Guide

A student learning Debussy’s Children’s Corner must be properly trained to handle a wide range of physical and musical demands. An experienced teacher, who is able to analyze and anticipate musical and technical challenges, demonstrate specific musical passages, and develop an organized plan of sequential learning steps, will successfully guide the student-learning process. As a teaching guide, this project addressed each piece individually, highlighting various technical and musical challenges, followed by pedagogical recommendations for addressing these challenges

Heat flow from the Southeast Indian Ridge flanks between 80°E and 140°E: Data review and analysis

International audienceWe analyze available heat flow data from the flanks of the Southeast Indian Ridge adjacent to or within the Australian-Antarctic Discordance (AAD), an area with patchy sediment cover and highly fractured seafloor as dissected by ridge- and fracture-parallel faults. The data set includes 23 new data points collected along a 14-Ma old isochron and 19 existing measurements from the 20- to 24-Ma old crust. Most sites of measurements exhibit low heat flux (from 2 to 50 mW m−2) with near-linear temperature-depth profiles except at a few sites, where recent bottom water temperature change may have caused nonlinearity toward the sediment surface. Because the igneous basement is expected to outcrop a short distance away from any measurement site, we hypothesize that horizontally channelized water circulation within the uppermost crust is the primary process for the widespread low heat flow values. The process may be further influenced by vertical fluid flow along numerous fault zones that crisscross the AAD seafloor. Systematic measurements along and across the fault zones of interest as well as seismic profiling for sediment distribution are required to confirm this possible, suspected effect

Phase variation of gonococcal protein II: Regulation of gene expression by slipped-strand mispairing of a repetitive DNA sequence

Expression of outer membrane protein II (P.II) of Neisseria gonorrhoeae is subject to reversible phase variation at a rate of 10-3-10-4/cell/generation. The signal peptide coding regions of P.II genes contain variable numbers of tandem repeats of the sequence CTCTT. Changes in the number of CTCTT units, leading to frameshifting within the gene, are responsible for changes in P.II expression. Phase variation mediated by the CTCTT repeat also occurred in E. coli, as assayed with a P.II-alkaline phosphatase (phoA) gene fusion. Phase variation in both the gonococcus and E. coli was recA-independent, occurred at similar rates, and involved insertions or deletions of one or more repeat units. The characteristics of the phase variation process were consistent with a model in which expression of P.II genes is regulated by slipped-strand mispairing of the DNA in the CTCTT repeat region.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28047/1/0000486.pd

Geological storage of CO2 within the oceanic crust by gravitational trapping

The rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) principally due to the burning of fossil fuels is a key driver of anthropogenic climate change. Mitigation strategies include improved efficiency, using renewable energy, and capture and long-term sequestration of CO2. Most sequestration research considers CO2 injection into deep saline aquifers or depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs. Unconventional suggestions include CO2 storage in the porous volcanic lavas of uppermost oceanic crust. Here we test the feasibility of injecting CO2 into deep-sea basalts and identify sites where CO2 should be both physically and gravitationally trapped. We use global databases to estimate pressure and temperature, hence density of CO2 and seawater at the sediment-basement interface. At previously suggested sites on the Juan de Fuca Plate and in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, CO2 is gravitationally unstable. However, we identify five sediment-covered regions where CO2 is denser than seawater, each sufficient for several centuries of anthropogenic CO2 emissions

Measuring cis-regulatory energetics in living cells using allelic manifolds

Gene expression in all organisms is controlled by cooperative interactions between DNA-bound transcription factors (TFs), but quantitatively measuring TF-DNA and TF-TF interactions remains difficult. Here we introduce a strategy for precisely measuring the Gibbs free energy of such interactions in living cells. This strategy centers on the measurement and modeling of 'allelic manifolds', a multidimensional generalization of the classical genetics concept of allelic series. Allelic manifolds are measured using reporter assays performed on strategically designed cis-regulatory sequences. Quantitative biophysical models are then fit to the resulting data. We used this strategy to study regulation by two Escherichia coli TFs, CRP and sigma-70 RNA polymerase. Doing so, we consistently obtained energetic measurements precise to ~0.1 kcal/mol. We also obtained multiple results that deviate from the prior literature. Our strategy is compatible with massively parallel reporter assays in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and should therefore be highly scalable and broadly applicable. Editorial note: This article has been through an editorial process in which the authors decide how to respond to the issues raised during peer review. The Reviewing Editor's assessment is that minor issues remain unresolved (see decision letter)