Practical Work in the Ordinary National Certificate in Chemistry

This thesis is concerned with an investigation of the situation in practical work within the Ordinary National Certificate in Chemistry as presently offered within the Colleges of Further Education in Scotland. It is one of the very few investigations which have been carried out within this particular sector of Scottish education. The initial chapters consider the overall situation as it exists at the present time and reference is made to the philosophy and organisation of the Ordinary National Certificate course in general and to the practical aspects of the course in particular. The course is seen to be concerned with a pure rather than an applied chemistry approach. The students who pursue the Ordinary Rational Certificate course are in full time employment in industry and attend a college on a day release basis. While the course was not designed to meet specific industrial needs it appeared relevant to consult industry with respect to their view of the content of the Ordinary Rational Certificate course. This was done and the results are included in the text of the thesis. The investigation developed from an initial overall survey of the lecturer's and the students' views of the benefits which both parties considered were to be gained from the exercises carried out in the laboratory. From this point the educational value of a random set of experiments is looked at in more detail in terms of attainment or objectives identified by the students who were given no specific objectives for the experiments concerned. This approach is then developed in relation to the role of prior knowledge of the objectives in relation to the attitude of the students and the sense of purpose which they derive from practical chemistry. As is indicated in the text this part of the investigation was less successful than was hoped. However, in spite of apparent shortcomings in the practical area it is suggested that there is evidence that the students are deriving some benefit from their laboratory work. In conclusion it is suggested that the presentation of practical work could be improved to the educational benefit of the students and possible ways of effecting this improvement are proposed

Pleistocene Mammals of the Clear Creek Local Fauna, Denton County, Texas

Mammalian fossils collected from the second terrace above Clear Creek in Denton County, Texas, are here described as the Clear Creek local fauna. Ecological inferences drawn from current habits and ranges of the extant species, in addition to a radiocarbon date and certain stratigraphic data, suggest that the fauna belongs to the Sangamon interglacial interval (circa 25,000 B.P. to 40,000 B.P.

Ariel - Volume 8 Number 2

Executive Editor James W. Lockard , Jr. Issue Editor Doug Hiller Business Manager Neeraj K. Kanwal University News Richard J. Perry World News Doug Hiller Opinions Elizabeth A. McGuire Features Patrick P. Sokas Sports Desk Shahab S. Minassian Managing Editor Edward H. Jasper Managing Associate Brenda Peterson Photography Editor Robert D. Lehman, Jr. Graphics Christine M. Kuhnl

Current challenges of research on filamentous fungi in relation to human welfare and a sustainable bio-economy: a white paper.

The EUROFUNG network is a virtual centre of multidisciplinary expertise in the field of fungal biotechnology. The first academic-industry Think Tank was hosted by EUROFUNG to summarise the state of the art and future challenges in fungal biology and biotechnology in the coming decade. Currently, fungal cell factories are important for bulk manufacturing of organic acids, proteins, enzymes, secondary metabolites and active pharmaceutical ingredients in white and red biotechnology. In contrast, fungal pathogens of humans kill more people than malaria or tuberculosis. Fungi are significantly impacting on global food security, damaging global crop production, causing disease in domesticated animals, and spoiling an estimated 10 % of harvested crops. A number of challenges now need to be addressed to improve our strategies to control fungal pathogenicity and to optimise the use of fungi as sources for novel compounds and as cell factories for large scale manufacture of bio-based products. This white paper reports on the discussions of the Think Tank meeting and the suggestions made for moving fungal bio(techno)logy forward

Defining Challenges and Proposing Solutions for Control of the Virus Vector Aedes aegypti

If done properly, say the authors,Aedes aegypti suppression is a practical method to control urban dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya viruses

LLM3D: a log-linear modeling-based method to predict functional gene regulatory interactions from genome-wide expression data

All cellular processes are regulated by condition-specific and time-dependent interactions between transcription factors and their target genes. While in simple organisms, e.g. bacteria and yeast, a large amount of experimental data is available to support functional transcription regulatory interactions, in mammalian systems reconstruction of gene regulatory networks still heavily depends on the accurate prediction of transcription factor binding sites. Here, we present a new method, log-linear modeling of 3D contingency tables (LLM3D), to predict functional transcription factor binding sites. LLM3D combines gene expression data, gene ontology annotation and computationally predicted transcription factor binding sites in a single statistical analysis, and offers a methodological improvement over existing enrichment-based methods. We show that LLM3D successfully identifies novel transcriptional regulators of the yeast metabolic cycle, and correctly predicts key regulators of mouse embryonic stem cell self-renewal more accurately than existing enrichment-based methods. Moreover, in a clinically relevant in vivo injury model of mammalian neurons, LLM3D identified peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) as a neuron-intrinsic transcriptional regulator of regenerative axon growth. In conclusion, LLM3D provides a significant improvement over existing methods in predicting functional transcription regulatory interactions in the absence of experimental transcription factor binding data

Genomic structural equation modelling provides insights into the multivariate genetic architecture of complex traits

Genetic correlations estimated from genome-wide association studies (GWASs) reveal pervasive pleiotropy across a wide variety of phenotypes. We introduce genomic structural equation modelling (genomic SEM): a multivariate method for analysing the joint genetic architecture of complex traits. Genomic SEM synthesizes genetic correlations and single-nucleotide polymorphism heritabilities inferred from GWAS summary statistics of individual traits from samples with varying and unknown degrees of overlap. Genomic SEM can be used to model multivariate genetic associations among phenotypes, identify variants with effects on general dimensions of cross-trait liability, calculate more predictive polygenic scores and identify loci that cause divergence between traits. We demonstrate several applications of genomic SEM, including a joint analysis of summary statistics from five psychiatric traits. We identify 27 independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms not previously identified in the contributing univariate GWASs. Polygenic scores from genomic SEM consistently outperform those from univariate GWASs. Genomic SEM is flexible and open ended, and allows for continuous innovation in multivariate genetic analysis

COSMIC (Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium): An international consortium to identify risk and protective factors and biomarkers of cognitive ageing and dementia in diverse ethnic and sociocultural groups

BACKGROUND: A large number of longitudinal studies of population-based ageing cohorts are in progress internationally, but the insights from these studies into the risk and protective factors for cognitive ageing and conditions like mild cognitive impairment and dementia have been inconsistent. Some of the problems confounding this research can be reduced by harmonising and pooling data across studies. COSMIC (Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium) aims to harmonise data from international cohort studies of cognitive ageing, in order to better understand the determinants of cognitive ageing and neurocognitive disorders. METHODS/DESIGN: Longitudinal studies of cognitive ageing and dementia with at least 500 individuals aged 60 years or over are eligible and invited to be members of COSMIC. There are currently 17 member studies, from regions that include Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. A Research Steering Committee has been established, two meetings of study leaders held, and a website developed. The initial attempts at harmonising key variables like neuropsychological test scores are in progress. DISCUSSION: The challenges of international consortia like COSMIC include efficient communication among members, extended use of resources, and data harmonisation. Successful harmonisation will facilitate projects investigating rates of cognitive decline, risk and protective factors for mild cognitive impairment, and biomarkers of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Extended implications of COSMIC could include standardised ways of collecting and reporting data, and a rich cognitive ageing database being made available to other researchers. COSMIC could potentially transform our understanding of the epidemiology of cognitive ageing, and have a world-wide impact on promoting successful ageing