A Writer, an Editor, an Instructor, and an Alumna Walk into the Writing Center

As the writing center director, I believe our professional tutors provide valuable expert perspectives to student writers. They also help me mentor the peer tutors and push me to reevaluate our practices. They add staffing stability to the center (whose peer tutors never stay for more than three years). Finally, these trusted writing experts professionalize the writing center’s status among administration, faculty, and students. In the following paragraphs, Amy, Ellen, Chris, and Lindsey illustrate the rich variety of skills and perspectives professional writing tutors can contribute to a writing centerUniversity Writing Cente

Job Club: A program to assist occupational therapy students\u27 transition to practice

Transition to practice can be identified as the change from the role of student to the role of practitioner. This period of transition is a time of intense professional and personal development. Typically, it can take anywhere between six months to two years before an entry-level therapist feels competent in the workplace. A number of factors affect the transition process, including role uncertainty, inadequate supervision, and an overall lack of confidence in clinical skills. This paper discusses a case example of a Job Club, provided by a Western Australian Occupational Therapy university program. The concept was initially set up to support students through the process of seeking and gaining employment. Over time, the club developed a broader scope based on the needs of attendees. This example illustrates the needs of students for greater support in this important transition, and lays the groundwork for formal research in future

Developmental control of convergent floral pigmentation across evolutionary timescales

Convergent phenotypic evolution has been widely documented across timescales, from populations, to species, to major lineages. The extent to which convergent phenotypes arise from convergent genetic and developmental mechanisms remains an open question, although studies to-date reveal examples of both similar and different underlying mechanisms. This variation likely relates to a range of factors, including the genetic architecture of the trait and selective filtering of mutations over time. Here we focus on floral pigmentation, and examine the degree of developmental convergence between white-flowered lineages and white morphs within pigmented species. Using the model clade Iochrominae, we find that white morphs and white-flowered species are biochemically convergent, sharing an absence of colorful anthocyanin pigments. Regression analyses suggest that the expression levels of upstream genes are the strongest drivers of total pigmentation across species, although white species also show sharp down-regulation of the downstream genes. The white morphs do not share this pattern and present overall expression profiles more similar to the pigmented species. These results suggest that the mechanisms underlying variation within populations differ from those which give rise to fixed differences between species. Future work will aim to uncover the genetic changes responsible for this developmental non-convergence.</p

New Scientific-teaching Staff

Additional file 1: Table S1. Demographic and clinical data summary of d-lactic acidosis episodes (n = 59) included in the qualitative synthesis. All episodes simultaneously reported at least one high d-lactate level (from blood or urine analysis) and documented neurological symptoms. Episodes were screened for information about patient demographics, neurological symptoms, non-neurological symptoms, d-lactate levels, l-lactate levels, anion gap, pH levels, microbial composition, proposed triggers, medical history/comorbid conditions and treatment. Numbers in brackets (1) and (2) indicate separate episodes for the same patient. The letters a and b identify different patient cases reported in the same reference. Episodes from non-SBS patients are marked with an asterisk

Lipid levels and major adverse cardiovascular events in patients initiated on statins for primary prevention: an international population-based cohort study protocol

Background Clinical guidelines recommend specific targets for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C) for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Furthermore, individual variability in lipid response to statin therapy requires assessment of the association in diverse populations.Aim To assess whether lower concentrations of LDL-C and non-HDL-C are associated with a reduced risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in primary prevention of CVD.Design & setting An international, new-user, cohort study will be undertaken. It will use data from three electronic health record databases from three global regions: Clinical Practice Research Datalink, UK; PREDICT-CVD, New Zealand (NZ); and the Clinical Data and Analysis Reporting System, Hong Kong (HK).Method New statin users without a history of atherosclerotic CVD, heart failure, or chronic kidney disease, with baseline and follow-up lipid levels will be eligible for inclusion. Patients will be classified according to LDL-C ([less than]1.4, 1.4–1.7, 1.8–2.5, and ≥2.6 mmol/l) and non-HDL-C ([less than] 2.2, 2.2–2.5, 2.6–3.3, and ≥3.4 mmol/l) concentrations 24 months after initiating statin therapy. The primary outcome of interest is MACE, defined as the first occurrence of coronary heart disease, stroke, or cardiovascular death. Secondary outcomes include all-cause mortality and the individual components of MACE. Sensitivity analyses will be conducted using lipid levels at 3 and 12 months after starting statin therapy.Conclusion Results will inform clinicians about the benefits of achieving guideline recommended concentrations of LDL-C for primary prevention of CVD

Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence.

Gorillas are humans' closest living relatives after chimpanzees, and are of comparable importance for the study of human origins and evolution. Here we present the assembly and analysis of a genome sequence for the western lowland gorilla, and compare the whole genomes of all extant great ape genera. We propose a synthesis of genetic and fossil evidence consistent with placing the human-chimpanzee and human-chimpanzee-gorilla speciation events at approximately 6 and 10 million years ago. In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression. A comparison of protein coding genes reveals approximately 500 genes showing accelerated evolution on each of the gorilla, human and chimpanzee lineages, and evidence for parallel acceleration, particularly of genes involved in hearing. We also compare the western and eastern gorilla species, estimating an average sequence divergence time 1.75 million years ago, but with evidence for more recent genetic exchange and a population bottleneck in the eastern species. The use of the genome sequence in these and future analyses will promote a deeper understanding of great ape biology and evolution

Maternal diabetes and risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in offspring in a multinational cohort of 3.6 million mother-child pairs

Previous studies report an association between maternal diabetes mellitus (MDM) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), often overlooking unmeasured confounders such as shared genetics and environmental factors. We therefore conducted a multinational cohort study with linked mother-child pairs data in Hong Kong, New Zealand, Taiwan, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden to evaluate associations between different MDM (any MDM, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and pregestational diabetes mellitus (PGDM)) and ADHD using Cox proportional hazards regression. We included over 3.6 million mother-child pairs between 2001 and 2014 with follow-up until 2020. Children who were born to mothers with any type of diabetes during pregnancy had a higher risk of ADHD than unexposed children (pooled hazard ratio (HR) = 1.16, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.08-1.24). Higher risks of ADHD were also observed for both GDM (pooled HR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.04-1.17) and PGDM (pooled HR = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.25-1.55). However, siblings with discordant exposure to GDM in pregnancy had similar risks of ADHD (pooled HR = 1.05, 95% CI = 0.94-1.17), suggesting potential confounding by unmeasured, shared familial factors. Our findings indicate that there is a small-to-moderate association between MDM and ADHD, whereas the association between GDM and ADHD is unlikely to be causal. This finding contrast with previous studies, which reported substantially higher risk estimates, and underscores the need to reevaluate the precise roles of hyperglycemia and genetic factors in the relationship between MDM and ADHD