Creating Teaching Opportunities for STEM Future Faculty Development

Graduate school is an important time for future faculty to develop teaching skills, but teaching opportunities are limited. Discipline-related course work and research do not provide the pedagogy, strategies, and skills to effectively teach and compete for higher education jobs. As future faculty, graduate students will influence the future of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education through their teaching. The purpose of this case study was to examine future faculty’s (graduate students’) perceived teaching development during a semester-long STEM teaching development course. Findings included STEM future faculty’s teaching confidence and skill development in instructional design, preparation, and facilitation; greater development in skill awareness than student awareness and self-awareness; and a focus on knowledge-centered learning environments for future classroom teaching experiences

An HST/ACS View of the Inhomogeneous Outer Halo of M31

We present a high precision photometric view of the stellar populations in the outer halo of M31, using data taken with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST/ACS). We analyse the field populations adjacent to 11 luminous globular clusters which sample the galactocentric radial range 18 < R < 100 kpc and reach a photometric depth of ~2.5 magnitudes below the horizontal branch (m_F814W ~27 mag). The colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) are well populated out to ~60 kpc and exhibit relatively metal-rich red giant branches, with the densest fields also showing evidence for prominent red clumps. We use the Dartmouth isochrones to construct metallicity distribution functions (MDFs) which confirm the presence of dominant populations with = -0.6 to -1.0 dex and considerable metallicity dispersions of 0.2 to 0.3 dex (assuming a 10 Gyr population and scaled-Solar abundances). The average metallicity over the range 30 - 60 kpc is [Fe/H] = -0.8 +/- 0.14 dex, with no evidence for a significant radial gradient. Metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] <= -1.3) typically account for < 10-20 % of the population in each field, irrespective of radius. Assuming our fields are unbiased probes of the dominant stellar populations in these parts, we find that the M31 outer halo remains considerably more metal-rich than that of the Milky Way out to at least 60 kpc.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 10 pages, 6 figure

Maintenance of complex I and its supercomplexes by NDUF-11 is essential for mitochondrial structure, function and health

Mitochondrial supercomplexes form around a conserved core of monomeric complex I and dimeric complex III; wherein a subunit of the former, NDUFA11, is conspicuously situated at the interface. We identified nduf-11 (B0491.5) as encoding the Caenorhabditis elegans homologue of NDUFA11. Animals homozygous for a CRISPR-Cas9-generated knockout allele of nduf-11 arrested at the second larval (L2) development stage. Reducing (but not eliminating) expression using RNAi allowed development to adulthood, enabling characterisation of the consequences: destabilisation of complex I and its supercomplexes and perturbation of respiratory function. The loss of NADH dehydrogenase activity was compensated by enhanced complex II activity, with the potential for detrimental reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Cryo-electron tomography highlighted aberrant morphology of cristae and widening of both cristae junctions and the intermembrane space. The requirement of NDUF-11 for balanced respiration, mitochondrial morphology and development presumably arises due to its involvement in complex I and supercomplex maintenance. This highlights the importance of respiratory complex integrity for health and the potential for its perturbation to cause mitochondrial disease. This article has an associated First Person interview with Amber Knapp-Wilson, joint first author of the paper

Maintenance of complex I and its supercomplexes by NDUF-11 is essential for mitochondrial structure, function and health

Mitochondrial supercomplexes form around a conserved core of monomeric complex I and dimeric complex III; wherein a subunit of the former, NDUFA11, is conspicuously situated at the interface. We identified nduf-11 (B0491.5) as encoding the Caenorhabditis elegans homologue of NDUFA11. Animals homozygous for a CRISPR-Cas9-generated knockout allele of nduf-11 arrested at the second larval (L2) development stage. Reducing (but not eliminating) expression using RNAi allowed development to adulthood, enabling characterisation of the consequences: destabilisation of complex I and its supercomplexes and perturbation of respiratory function. The loss of NADH dehydrogenase activity was compensated by enhanced complex II activity, with the potential for detrimental reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Cryo-electron tomography highlighted aberrant morphology of cristae and widening of both cristae junctions and the intermembrane space. The requirement of NDUF-11 for balanced respiration, mitochondrial morphology and development presumably arises due to its involvement in complex I and supercomplex maintenance. This highlights the importance of respiratory complex integrity for health and the potential for its perturbation to cause mitochondrial disease. This article has an associated First Person interview with Amber Knapp-Wilson, joint first author of the paper

ORC-13661 protects sensory hair cells from aminoglycoside and cisplatin ototoxicity

Aminoglycoside (AG) antibiotics are widely used to prevent life-threatening infections, and cisplatin is used in the treatment of various cancers, but both are ototoxic and result in loss of sensory hair cells from the inner ear. ORC-13661 is a new drug that was derived from PROTO-1, a compound first identified as protective in a large-scale screen utilizing hair cells in the lateral line organs of zebrafish larvae. Here, we demonstrate, in zebrafish larvae and in mouse cochlear cultures, that ORC-13661 provides robust protection of hair cells against both ototoxins, the AGs and cisplatin. ORC-13661 also prevents both hearing loss in a dose-dependent manner in rats treated with amikacin and the loading of neomycin-Texas Red into lateral line hair cells. In addition, patch-clamp recordings in mouse cochlear cultures reveal that ORC-13661 is a high-affinity permeant blocker of the mechanoelectrical transducer (MET) channel in outer hair cells, suggesting that it may reduce the toxicity of AGs by directly competing for entry at the level of the MET channel and of cisplatin by a MET-dependent mechanism. ORC-13661 is therefore a promising and versatile protectant that reversibly blocks the hair cell MET channel and operates across multiple species and toxins

Deceptive body movements reverse spatial cueing in soccer

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The purpose of the experiments was to analyse the spatial cueing effects of the movements of soccer players executing normal and deceptive (step-over) turns with the ball. Stimuli comprised normal resolution or point-light video clips of soccer players dribbling a football towards the observer then turning right or left with the ball. Clips were curtailed before or on the turn (-160, -80, 0 or +80 ms) to examine the time course of direction prediction and spatial cueing effects. Participants were divided into higher-skilled (HS) and lower-skilled (LS) groups according to soccer experience. In experiment 1, accuracy on full video clips was higher than on point-light but results followed the same overall pattern. Both HS and LS groups correctly identified direction on normal moves at all occlusion levels. For deceptive moves, LS participants were significantly worse than chance and HS participants were somewhat more accurate but nevertheless substantially impaired. In experiment 2, point-light clips were used to cue a lateral target. HS and LS groups showed faster reaction times to targets that were congruent with the direction of normal turns, and to targets incongruent with the direction of deceptive turns. The reversed cueing by deceptive moves coincided with earlier kinematic events than cueing by normal moves. It is concluded that the body kinematics of soccer players generate spatial cueing effects when viewed from an opponent's perspective. This could create a reaction time advantage when anticipating the direction of a normal move. A deceptive move is designed to turn this cueing advantage into a disadvantage. Acting on the basis of advance information, the presence of deceptive moves primes responses in the wrong direction, which may be only partly mitigated by delaying a response until veridical cues emerge

Planetary Transits of the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey- Candidate TrES-1b

The AAVSO compiled 10,560 CCD observations of the suspected exoplanet transit object TrES-1b covering seven complete transit windows, three windows of partial coverage, and coverage of baseline non-transit periods. Visual inspection of the light curves reveals the presence of slight humps at the egress points of some transits. A boot strap Monte Carlo simulation was applied to the data to confirm that the humps exist to a statistically significant degree. However, it does not rule out systemic effects which will be tested with campaigns in the 2005 observing season

Prenatal Phthalate Exposures and Body Mass Index Among 4- to 7-Year-old Children: A Pooled Analysis

Phthalates are hypothesized to cause obesity, but few studies have assessed whether prenatal phthalate exposures are related to childhood body mass index (BMI)

The kinematic identification of a thick stellar disc in M31

We present the first characterization of a thick disc component in the Andromeda galaxy (M31) using kinematic data from the DEIMOS multi-object spectrograph instrument on Keck II. Using 21 fields in the South West of the galaxy, we measure the lag of this component with respect to the thin disc, as well as the dispersion, metallicity and scale length of the component. We find an average lag between the two components of =46.0+/-3.9km/s. The velocity dispersion of the thick disc is sigma_{thick}=50.8+/-1.9km/s, greater than the value of dispersion we determine for the thin disc, sigma_{thin}=35.7+/-1.0km/s. The thick disc is more metal poor than the thin disc, with [Fe/H]_{spec}=-1.0+/-0.1 compared to [Fe/H]_{spec}=-0.7+/-0.05 for the thin disc. We measure a radial scale length of the thin and thick discs of h_r=7.3+/-1.0 kpc and h_r=8.0+/-1.2 kpc. From this, we infer scale heights for both discs of 1.1+/-0.2 kpc and 2.8+/-0.6 kpc, both of which are ~2--3 times larger than those observed in the Milky Way. We estimate a mass range for the thick disc component of 2.4x10^{10}Msun< M_{*,thick} <4.1x10^{10}Msun. This value provides a useful constraint on possible formation mechanisms, as any proposed method for forming a thick disc must be able to heat (or deposit) at least this amount of material.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures. Minor revisions made to text following referee report. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Some physical and mechanical characterization of Tunisian planted Eucalytus loxophleba and Eucalyptus salmonophloia woods

After the independence in 1957 and with the support of the FAO117, Eucalyptus species were planted in Tunisia in different arboreta throughout the country for close observation and adaptation to climate and soil. The objective of this study is to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of two species planted in marginal area in Sousse (arboretum El Hanya) in the east of Tunisia (Eucalytus loxophleba and Eucalyptus salmonophloia). The moisture content, specific gravity and volumetric shrinkage were measured. The Mechanical tests were performed to evaluate the hardness, the static bending and the resistance to compression parallel to fiber direction. Preliminary results showed that Eucalytusloxophleba and Eucalyptus salmonophloia have a low dimensional stability. During the drying period, woods showed signs of collapses. On the other hand, both species were highly resistant to compression strength while they were lower on the static bending. Eucalytus loxophleba and Eucalyptus salmonophloia characteristics established within this study were similar to other Eucalyptus species from Tunisia, Morocco, Australia and Brazil. This wood may be used in furniture, structural material and/or biomass energy. (Résumé d'auteur