A synthesis of Martian aqueous mineralogy after 1 Mars year of observations from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Martian aqueous mineral deposits have been examined and characterized using data acquired during Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's (MRO) primary science phase, including Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars hyperspectral images covering the 0.4–3.9 μm wavelength range, coordinated with higher–spatial resolution HiRISE and Context Imager images. MRO's new high-resolution measurements, combined with earlier data from Thermal Emission Spectrometer; Thermal Emission Imaging System; and Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, L'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activitié on Mars Express, indicate that aqueous minerals are both diverse and widespread on the Martian surface. The aqueous minerals occur in 9–10 classes of deposits characterized by distinct mineral assemblages, morphologies, and geologic settings. Phyllosilicates occur in several settings: in compositionally layered blankets hundreds of meters thick, superposed on eroded Noachian terrains; in lower layers of intracrater depositional fans; in layers with potential chlorides in sediments on intercrater plains; and as thousands of deep exposures in craters and escarpments. Carbonate-bearing rocks form a thin unit surrounding the Isidis basin. Hydrated silica occurs with hydrated sulfates in thin stratified deposits surrounding Valles Marineris. Hydrated sulfates also occur together with crystalline ferric minerals in thick, layered deposits in Terra Meridiani and in Valles Marineris and together with kaolinite in deposits that partially infill some highland craters. In this paper we describe each of the classes of deposits, review hypotheses for their origins, identify new questions posed by existing measurements, and consider their implications for ancient habitable environments. On the basis of current data, two to five classes of Noachian-aged deposits containing phyllosilicates and carbonates may have formed in aqueous environments with pH and water activities suitable for life

Improving inpatient postnatal services: midwives views and perspectives of engagement in a quality improvement initiative

Background: despite major policy initiatives in the United Kingdom to enhance women's experiences of maternity care, improving in-patient postnatal care remains a low priority, although it is an aspect of care consistently rated as poor by women. As part of a systems and process approach to improving care at one maternity unit in the South of England, the views and perspectives of midwives responsible for implementing change were sought. Methods: a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) approach was adopted to support a systems and process change to in-patient care and care on transfer home in a large district general hospital with around 6000 births a year. The CQI approach included an initial assessment to identify where revisions to routine systems and processes were required, developing, implementing and evaluating revisions to the content and documentation of care in hospital and on transfer home, and training workshops for midwives and other maternity staff responsible for implementing changes. To assess midwifery views of the quality improvement process and their engagement with this, questionnaires were sent to those who had participated at the outset. Results: questionnaires were received from 68 (46%) of the estimated 149 midwives eligible to complete the questionnaire. All midwives were aware of the revisions introduced, and two-thirds felt these were more appropriate to meet the women's physical and emotional health, information and support needs. Some midwives considered that the introduction of new maternal postnatal records increased their workload, mainly as a consequence of colleagues not completing documentation as required. Conclusions: this was the first UK study to undertake a review of in-patient postnatal services. Involvement of midwives at the outset was essential to the success of the initiative. Midwives play a lead role in the planning and organisation of in-patient postnatal care and it was important to obtain their feedback on whether revisions were pragmatic and achieved anticipated improvements in care quality. Their initial involvement ensured priority areas for change were identified and implemented. Their subsequent feedback highlighted further important areas to address as part of CQI to ensure best quality care continues to be implemented. Our findings could support other maternity service organisations to optimise in-patient postnatal services

Informed Conditioning on Clinical Covariates Increases Power in Case-Control Association Studies

Genetic case-control association studies often include data on clinical covariates, such as body mass index (BMI), smoking status, or age, that may modify the underlying genetic risk of case or control samples. For example, in type 2 diabetes, odds ratios for established variants estimated from low–BMI cases are larger than those estimated from high–BMI cases. An unanswered question is how to use this information to maximize statistical power in case-control studies that ascertain individuals on the basis of phenotype (case-control ascertainment) or phenotype and clinical covariates (case-control-covariate ascertainment). While current approaches improve power in studies with random ascertainment, they often lose power under case-control ascertainment and fail to capture available power increases under case-control-covariate ascertainment. We show that an informed conditioning approach, based on the liability threshold model with parameters informed by external epidemiological information, fully accounts for disease prevalence and non-random ascertainment of phenotype as well as covariates and provides a substantial increase in power while maintaining a properly controlled false-positive rate. Our method outperforms standard case-control association tests with or without covariates, tests of gene x covariate interaction, and previously proposed tests for dealing with covariates in ascertained data, with especially large improvements in the case of case-control-covariate ascertainment. We investigate empirical case-control studies of type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, age-related macular degeneration, and end-stage kidney disease over a total of 89,726 samples. In these datasets, informed conditioning outperforms logistic regression for 115 of the 157 known associated variants investigated (P-value = 1×10−9). The improvement varied across diseases with a 16% median increase in χ2 test statistics and a commensurate increase in power. This suggests that applying our method to existing and future association studies of these diseases may identify novel disease loci

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

HSC Aboriginal studies : strengths, limitations, and impact upon Aboriginal students' self-concepts and educational outcomes

Two primary, interdependent goals of the NSW Higher School Certificate Aboriginal Studies course are enhancing Indigenous students’ self-concepts and educational outcome. It was considered that these would lead to increased Indigenous student participation and retention to Year 12. Yet recently there has been a decline in enrolments. Despite the introduction of Aboriginal Studies over a decade ago, no rigorous research has been undertaken to determine the impact of the course or the extent to which the aims of the course have been achieved. Research in Aboriginal Education has identified that Indigenous students are still not achieving at the same level as their non-Indigenous counterparts. However, the majority of studies to date have been theoretical and descriptive in nature. The primary purpose of the present investigation was to address some of the above issues by elucidating the (a) factors that influence Indigenous students’ decisions to participate in the HSC Aboriginal Studies course; (b) impact of the course on Indigenous students’ self-concepts and educational outcomes; and (c) strengths and limitations of the course. The research was undertaken in three NSW Department of Education and Training secondary schools, located in rural, north coast, and south coast areas. Results indicated that Indigenous students choose Aboriginal Studies based on their need to understand more about their own culture. There were also clear educational benefits in that Aboriginal Studies was considered to be a motivational factor that encouraged attendance at school and enhanced their academic self concept. Both staff and students suggested that the academic rigour of the Aboriginal Studies course contributed to declining enrolments. Overall the findings suggest that whilst the current course has some limitations, there are also many strengths; this implies there is a need to continue to refine the course to meet the needs of Indigenous students

The value of stage 6 Aboriginal studies for indigenous students' self-concepts in NSW secondary schools

Many attempts have been made to implement programs into NSW secondary schools to provide opportunities for Aboriginal students to attain successful completion of Year 12. Despite these initiatives research has found that many Aboriginal students are still more likely to leave school when they reach the legal leaving age. However, there is one initiative that is yet to be evaluated - the implementation of Stage 6 Aboriginal Studies - a Higher School Certificate course introduced into 13 secondary schools across NSW in 1991. This course is postulated to: Provide students with ‘cultural immersion’ where personal knowledge and experience is valued; raise self-concept and confidence to continue onto completion of Year 12; and provide the opportunity to use skills developed in the course to empower Aboriginal students to follow career paths in areas such as law, health and education. In this paper the rationale for evaluating the impact of Stage 6 Aboriginal Studies courses upon the self-concepts and aspirations of Aboriginal students is presented along with a proposed research design to begin to investigate this issue

The impact of the Higher School Certificate Aboriginal Studies course : Aboriginal students' perceptions

The future for New South Wales Aboriginal secondary students and, their attainment of the Higher School Certificate (HSC), could be pivotal to their participation in the HSC Aboriginal Studies course. There are schools in which the Aboriginal Studies HSC Course: is highly valued; meets the needs of Aboriginal students; promotes social justice and Reconciliation; and facilitates school community involvement in the curriculum. Via such courses Aboriginal students have an opportunity to see their people and community as the central positive focus of a school subject; and 'a place' where Aboriginal students are able to receive cultural affirmation. This paper presents the preliminary results of a study examining the impact of the Aboriginal Studies HSC course on the self-concept of Aboriginal students; their perceptions of the strengths and limitations of the course; and the relation between 'belonging as an Aboriginal person' and 'achieving as an Aboriginal student'

Key issues and challenges in Higher School Certificate Aboriginal studies

Higher School Certificate Aboriginal Studies, which was implemented in New South Wales in 1991, fulfilled a vision of teaching Aboriginal culture and history to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students. However, in recent years, total student enrolments have declined, raising concerns about the future success of Aboriginal Studies within the secondary curriculum. At the foreground of these concerns is the intended role of Aboriginal Studies as a principle motivational factor in improving retention rates of Aboriginal secondary students to Year 12, and related issues of student self-concept and motivation with regard to course selection, participation and completion. Of equal concern is how Aboriginal Studies is perceived by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students, and whether a decline in student enrolments in this subject is a result of broader policy direction and impact. This paper examines a number of critical factors in the implementation of the Aboriginal Studies curriculum, specifically the relation between self-concept, motivation and retention of Aboriginal students. It also addresses the function of Aboriginal Studies within secondary curricula and student perceptions of its validity as a subject choice. This paper outlines some of the issues of concern that need to underpin research and concludes with a research design to address the study purposes

Making the grade : the impact of policy on the HSC Aboriginal Studies course

This paper identifies the impact of key secondary school educational policies on the development of the NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) Aboriginal Studies course. We present preliminary results of an investigation that examines the impact of the Aboriginal Studies HSC course on the self-concept of Aboriginal students and includes their perceptions of the strengths and limitations of the course. It has been over 15 years since the launch of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education policy which is an agreement between all states and territories to provide a policy that would cater to the educational needs of all Aboriginal peoples. This paper focuses mostly on the New South Wales context by firstly, identifying links between multiple and often conflicting policies pertaining to Aboriginal Education; secondly, by relating leading research in the field of Aboriginal Education and the development of Aboriginal Studies in NSW schools, and finally, by considering the relevance of research into self-concept of Aboriginal students in Aboriginal Studies classes. Our study shows that the implementation of the Higher School Certificate (HSC) Aboriginal Studies course, provides for Aboriginal students a course that can have a positive impact on self-concept, that is, how students view themselves in relation to other students, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal