Biochemistry Instructors’ Views toward Developing and Assessing Visual Literacy in Their Courses

Biochemistry instructors are inundated with various representations from which to choose to depict biochemical phenomena. Because of the immense amount of visual know-how needed to be an expert biochemist in the 21st century, there have been calls for instructors to develop biochemistry students’ visual literacy. However, visual literacy has multiple aspects, and determining which area to develop can be quite daunting. Therefore, the goals of this study were to determine what visual literacy skills biochemistry instructors deem to be most important and how instructors develop and assess visual literacy skills in their biochemistry courses. In order to address these goals, a needs assessment was administered to a national sample of biochemistry faculty at four-year colleges and universities. Based on the results of the survey, a cluster analysis was conducted to group instructors into categories based on how they intended to develop visual literacy in their courses. A misalignment was found between the visual literacy skills that were most important and how instructors developed visual literacy. In addition, the majority of instructors assumed these skills on assessments rather than explicitly testing them. Implications focus on the need for better measures to assess visual literacy skills directly

No Association between Fish Intake and Depression in over 15,000 Older Adults from Seven Low and Middle Income Countries–The 10/66 Study

Background: Evidence on the association between fish consumption and depression is inconsistent and virtually nonexistent from low-and middle-income countries. Using a standard protocol, we aim to assess the association of fish consumption and late-life depression in seven low-and middle-income countries. Methodology/Findings: We used cross-sectional data from the 10/66 cohort study and applied two diagnostic criteria for late-life depression to assess the association between categories of weekly fish consumption and depression according to ICD-10 and the EURO-D depression symptoms scale scores, adjusting for relevant confounders. All-catchment area surveys were carried out in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, China, and India, and over 15,000 community-dwelling older adults (65+) were sampled. Using Poisson models the adjusted association between categories of fish consumption and ICD-10 depression was positive in India (p for trend = 0.001), inverse in Peru (p = 0.025), and not significant in all other countries. We found a linear inverse association between fish consumption categories and EURO-D scores only in Cuba (p for trend = 0.039) and China (p<0.001); associations were not significant in all other countries. Between-country heterogeneity was marked for both ICD-10 (I-2>61%) and EURO-D criteria (I-2>66%). Conclusions: The associations of fish consumption with depression in large samples of older adults varied markedly across countries and by depression diagnosis and were explained by socio-demographic and lifestyle variables. Experimental studies in these settings are needed to confirm our findings.Multidisciplinary SciencesSCI(E)SSCI0ARTICLE6null

Effects of Residual Stresses on the Fatigue Performance of Welded Steels with Longitudinal Stiffeners

Residual stresses may affect the behavior of welded steels under fatigue loading. However, for design of welded structures the height and distribution of residual stresses from welding are often not known so that tensile residual stresses in the order of the yield strength are conservatively assumed. Here presented results focus on the influence of residual stresses on the fatigue strength of longitudinal stiffeners made from a mild steel S355NL and a high strength steel S960QL. The initial residual stress conditions were measured using X-ray and neutron diffraction. In order to characterize the influence of residual stresses on the fatigue strength, specimens were tested in the as-welded condition and after a stress relieving heat treatment. The fatigue testing was conducted under alternating constant amplitude loading with a stress ratio of R=-1

More than meets the eye : Infrared cameras in open-ended university thermodynamics labs

Educational research has found that students have challenges understanding thermal science. Undergraduate physics students have difficulties differentiating basic thermal concepts, such as heat, temperature, and internal energy. Engineering students have been found to have difficulties grasping surface emissivity as a thermal material property. One potential source of students’ challenges with thermal science is the lack of opportunity to visualize energy transfer in intuitive ways with traditional measurement equipment. Thermodynamics laboratories have typically depended on point measures of temperature by use of thermometers (detecting heat conduction) or pyrometers (detecting heat radiation). In contrast, thermal imaging by means of an infrared (IR) camera provides a real-time, holistic image. Here we provide some background on IR cameras and their uses in education, and summarize five qualitative investigations that we have used in our courses