Mathematical pathways for students articulating to Business degrees

Australia needs more qualified professionals in the STEM areas. The national focus on widening participation in higher education (HE) includes strengthening pathways from vocational education and training (VET). VET students often lack the mathematics skills necessary to articulate successfully to their chosen degrees. Maths anxiety has been identified as a barrier to success in Business degrees in particular (Joyce, Hassal, Jose, Donose & Jose, 2006), highlighting the need for maths knowledge and support for students transitioning to these degrees. Of particular concern are those students who might be potentially less prepared for the transition, such as VET students. This project is part of a larger Office for Learning and Teaching grant focusing on developing contextualised pathways for four different disciplines (education, engineering, business and health science). The business pathway mapped mathematics topics covered in VET units associated with business qualifications at Certificate 3, 4 and Diploma level foundation level units to the base level maths knowledge required at the University of Tasmania and the University of Notre Dame Australia for completion of first year quantitative methods units. From this mapping, a set of online modules were developed to support students during their VET qualifications with foundation level skills, and fill the mathematics gap between VET and HE. These modules were also designed to provide support to first year business students, and assist them in completion of the quantitative methods units required in first year Bachelor of Business Degrees. The pathway developed has seven modules; two foundation level modules, three transition level modules and two providing resources for support through HE quantitative methods. For the first five modules, a pre-test determined whether a student needed to complete the module and a post-test (self-assessed) was developed to test the students’ knowledge after completing the module lessons, practice tasks and exercises. The project has recently concluded, and the pathway to business has now been active for 4 months during which it has been offered to first year business students at the University of Tasmania to trial. Successful completion of the module post-tests has been endorsed by the University of Notre Dame Australia’s School of Business for entry into the program for students with tertiary maths. This presentation describes the process of the business pathway development and the opportunities for cross sectoral course support and delivery. References: Joyce, J., Hassall, T., Arquero M., José L., Donoso A., & José A., Communication apprehension and maths anxiety as barriers to communication and numeracy skills development in accounting and business education, Education & Training 48.6 (2006): 454-464. Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education, Curtin University, Sept 30th to Oct 1st, 2015, page X, ISBN Number 978-0-9871834-4-6

Closing the Loop on Centralization of Cleft Care in the United Kingdom

Objective: We highlight a major study that investigated the impact of reconfigured cleft care in the United Kingdom some 15 years after centralization. We argue that centralization as an intervention has a major impact on outcomes. Setting: Audit clinics held in Cleft Centers in the United Kingdom. Patients, Participants: Five-year-olds born between April 1, 2005, and March 31, 2007, with nonsyndromic unilateral cleft lip and palate. Interventions: Centralization of cleft care. Main Outcome Measure(s): We collected routine clinical measures (speech recordings, hearing, photographs, models, oral health, psychosocial factors) in a very similar way to a previous survey. Results: We identified 359 eligible children and recruited 268 (74.7%) to the study. Overall, their outcomes were better post-centralization. There have been marked improvements in dentoalveolar arch relationships and in speech whereas the prevalence of dental caries and hearing loss are unchanged. Conclusions: Centralized cleft care has changed UK outcomes considerably and there is no argument for returning to a dispersed model of treatment. </jats:sec

Concert recording 2022-11-08

[Track 1]. Beau soir / Claude Debussy -- The lass from the Low Countree / John Jacob Niles – [Track 2]. Into the night / Clara Edwards -- [Track 3]. An Silvia / Franz Schubert -- [Track 4]. Se tu m’ami, se sospiri / Alessandro Parisotti -- [Track 5]. Erlafsee / Franz Schubert -- [Track 6]. Vittoria, mio core / Giacomo Carissimi -- [Track 7]. Aufenthalt / Franz Schubert -- [Track 8]. Amarilli, mia bella / Giulio Caccini -- [Track 9]. There’s a Fine, Fine Line, from Avenue Q / Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx -- [Track 10]. Go, lovely rose / Roger Quilter -- [Track 11]. Vagabond / Ralph Vaughan Williams -- [Track 12]. Sebben, crudele / Antonio Caldara -- [Track 13]. Love’s philosophy / Roger Quilter (1877–1953) -- [Track 14]. Perla gloria / Giovanni Bononcini -- [Track 15]. Money, O! / Michael Head -- [Track 16]. Lasciate mi morire / Claudio Monteverdi -- Across the western ocean / Arr. Celius Dougherty -- [Track 17]. Perduta ho la Speranza / Stefano Donaudy -- [Track 18]. Lonley House from Street Scene / Kurt Weill -- [Track 19]. Preghiera / Paolo Tosti -- [Track 20]. Allerseelen / Richard Strauss -- [Track 21]. Im wunderschönen Monat Mai / Robert Schumann -- [Track 22]. Una furtiva lagrima from L’elisir d’amore / Gaetano Donizetti -- [Track 23]. V’adoro, pupille, from Giulio Cesare / George Handel -- [Track 24]. Sympathy / Florence Price -- [Track 25]. The German U-boat captain / Gene Scheer -- [Track 26]. Eri tu che macchiavi, from Un Ballo in Maschera / Giuseppe Verdi

Concert recording 2022-11-08

[Track 1]. Beau soir / Claude Debussy -- The lass from the Low Countree / John Jacob Niles – [Track 2]. Into the night / Clara Edwards -- [Track 3]. An Silvia / Franz Schubert -- [Track 4]. Se tu m’ami, se sospiri / Alessandro Parisotti -- [Track 5]. Erlafsee / Franz Schubert -- [Track 6]. Vittoria, mio core / Giacomo Carissimi -- [Track 7]. Aufenthalt / Franz Schubert -- [Track 8]. Amarilli, mia bella / Giulio Caccini -- [Track 9]. There’s a Fine, Fine Line, from Avenue Q / Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx -- [Track 10]. Go, lovely rose / Roger Quilter -- [Track 11]. Vagabond / Ralph Vaughan Williams -- [Track 12]. Sebben, crudele / Antonio Caldara -- [Track 13]. Love’s philosophy / Roger Quilter (1877–1953) -- [Track 14]. Perla gloria / Giovanni Bononcini -- [Track 15]. Money, O! / Michael Head -- [Track 16]. Lasciate mi morire / Claudio Monteverdi -- Across the western ocean / Arr. Celius Dougherty -- [Track 17]. Perduta ho la Speranza / Stefano Donaudy -- [Track 18]. Lonley House from Street Scene / Kurt Weill -- [Track 19]. Preghiera / Paolo Tosti -- [Track 20]. Allerseelen / Richard Strauss -- [Track 21]. Im wunderschönen Monat Mai / Robert Schumann -- [Track 22]. Una furtiva lagrima from L’elisir d’amore / Gaetano Donizetti -- [Track 23]. V’adoro, pupille, from Giulio Cesare / George Handel -- [Track 24]. Sympathy / Florence Price -- [Track 25]. The German U-boat captain / Gene Scheer -- [Track 26]. Eri tu che macchiavi, from Un Ballo in Maschera / Giuseppe Verdi

Early life patterns of common infection: a latent class analysis

Early life infection has been implicated in the aetiology of many chronic diseases, most often through proxy measures. Data on ten infectious symptoms were collected by parental questionnaire when children were 6 months old as part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, United Kingdom. A latent class analysis was used to identify patterns of infection and their relationship to five factors commonly used as proxies: sex, other children in the home, maternal smoking, breastfeeding and maternal education. A total of 10,032 singleton children were included in the analysis. Five classes were identified with differing infectious disease patterns and children were assigned to the class for which they had a highest probability of membership based on their infectious symptom profile: ‘general infection’ (n = 1,252, 12.5%), ‘gastrointestinal’ (n = 1,902, 19.0%), ‘mild respiratory’ (n = 3,560, 35.5%), ‘colds/ear ache’ (n = 462, 4.6%) and ‘healthy’ (n = 2,856, 28.5%). Females had a reduced risk of being in all infectious classes, other children in the home were associated with an increased risk of being in the ‘general infection’, ‘mild respiratory’ or ‘colds/ear ache’ class. Breastfeeding reduced the risk of being in the ‘general infection’ and ‘gastrointestinal’ classes whereas maternal smoking increased the risk of membership. Higher maternal education was associated with an increased risk of being in the ‘mild respiratory’ group. Other children in the home had the greatest association with infectious class membership. Latent class analysis provided a flexible method of investigating the relationship between multiple symptoms and demographic and lifestyle factors

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Age-related immune response heterogeneity to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine BNT162b2

Abstract: Although two-dose mRNA vaccination provides excellent protection against SARS-CoV-2, there is little information about vaccine efficacy against variants of concern (VOC) in individuals above eighty years of age1. Here we analysed immune responses following vaccination with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine2 in elderly participants and younger healthcare workers. Serum neutralization and levels of binding IgG or IgA after the first vaccine dose were lower in older individuals, with a marked drop in participants over eighty years old. Sera from participants above eighty showed lower neutralization potency against the B.1.1.7 (Alpha), B.1.351 (Beta) and P.1. (Gamma) VOC than against the wild-type virus and were more likely to lack any neutralization against VOC following the first dose. However, following the second dose, neutralization against VOC was detectable regardless of age. The frequency of SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific memory B cells was higher in elderly responders (whose serum showed neutralization activity) than in non-responders after the first dose. Elderly participants showed a clear reduction in somatic hypermutation of class-switched cells. The production of interferon-γ and interleukin-2 by SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific T cells was lower in older participants, and both cytokines were secreted primarily by CD4 T cells. We conclude that the elderly are a high-risk population and that specific measures to boost vaccine responses in this population are warranted, particularly where variants of concern are circulating