Is 'first in family' a good indicator for widening university participation?

Universities use ‘first in family’ or ‘first generation’ as an indicator to increase the diversity of their student intake, but little is known about whether it is a good indicator of disadvantage. We use nationally representative, longitudinal survey data linked to administrative data from England to provide the first comprehensive analysis of this measure. We employ parametric probability (logit) and non-parametric classification (random forest) models to look at its relative predictive power of university participation and graduation. We find that being first in family is an important barrier to university participation and graduation, over and above other sources of disadvantage. This association seems to operate through the channel of early educational attainment. Our findings indicate that the first in family indicator could be key in efforts to widen participation at universities

Association of abdominal muscle composition with prediabetes and diabetes: The CARDIA study

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147762/1/dom13513.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147762/2/dom13513_am.pd

Predicting the location of the hip joint centres, impact of age group and sex

Clinical gait analysis incorporating three-dimensional motion analysis plays a key role in planning surgical treatments in people with gait disability. The position of the Hip Joint Centre (HJC) within the pelvis is thus critical to ensure accurate data interpretation. The position of the HJC is determined from regression equations based on anthropometric measurements derived from relatively small datasets. Current equations do not take sex or age into account, even though pelvis shape is known to differ between sex, and gait analysis is performed in populations with wide range of age. Three dimensional images of 157 deceased individuals (37 children, 120 skeletally matured) were collected with computed tomography. The location of the HJC within the pelvis was determined and regression equations to locate the HJC were developed using various anthropometrics predictors. We determined if accuracy improved when age and sex were introduced as variables. Statistical analysis did not support differentiating the equations according to sex. We found that age only modestly improved accuracy. We propose a range of new regression equations, derived from the largest dataset collected for this purpose to date

Functional circuitry of visual adaptation in the retina

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65522/1/jphysiol.2008.156638.pd

The retinal hypercircuit: a repeating synaptic interactive motif underlying visual function

The vertebrate retina generates a stack of about a dozen different movies that represent the visual world as dynamic neural images or movies. The stack is embodied as separate strata that span the inner plexiform layer (IPL). At each stratum, ganglion cell dendrites reach up to read out inhibitory interactions between three different amacrine cell classes that shape bipolar-to-ganglion cell transmission. The nexus of these five cell classes represents a functional module, a retinal 'hypercircuit', that is repeated across the surface of each of the dozen strata that span the depth of the IPL. Individual differences in the characteristics of each cell class at each stratum lead to the unique processing characteristics of each neural image throughout the stack. This review shows how the interactions between the morphological and physiological characteristics of each cell class generate many of the known retinal visual functions including motion detection, directional selectivity, local edge detection, looming detection, object motion and looming detection

Distinct expressions of contrast gain control in parallel synaptic pathways converging on a retinal ganglion cell

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65990/1/jphysiol.2008.156224.pd

Dopamine D1 receptor expression is bipolar cell typeâ specific in the mouse retina

In the retina, dopamine is a key molecule for daytime vision. Dopamine is released by retinal dopaminergic amacrine cells and transmits signaling either by conventional synaptic or by volume transmission. By means of volume transmission, dopamine modulates all layers of retinal neurons; however, it is not well understood how dopamine modulates visual signaling pathways in bipolar cells. Here we analyzed Drd1aâ tdTomato BAC transgenic mice and found that the dopamine D1 receptor (D1R) is expressed in retinal bipolar cells in a typeâ dependent manner. Strong tdTomato fluorescence was detected in the inner nuclear layer and localized to type 1, 3b, and 4 OFF bipolar cells and type 5â 2, XBC, 6, and 7 ON bipolar cells. In contrast, type 2, 3a, 5â 1, 9, and rod bipolar cells did not express Drd1aâ tdTomato. Other interneurons were also found to express tdTomato including horizontal cells and a subset (25%) of AII amacrine cells. Diverse visual processing pathways, such as color or motionâ coded pathways, are thought to be initiated in retinal bipolar cells. Our results indicate that dopamine sculpts bipolar cell performance in a typeâ dependent manner to facilitate daytime vision. J. Comp. Neurol. 524:2059â 2079, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Using Drd1aâ tdTomato BAC transgenic mice, authors investigated dopamine D1 receptor localization in retinal bipolar cells. Both ON and OFF bipolar cells express D1 receptors in a typeâ dependent manner.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137524/1/cne23932.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137524/2/cne23932_am.pd