MicroRNAs influence reproductive responses by females to male sex peptide in Drosophila melanogaster

Across taxa, female behavior and physiology changes significantly following the receipt of ejaculate molecules during mating. For example, receipt of sex peptide (SP) in female Drosophila melanogaster significantly alters female receptivity, egg production, lifespan, hormone levels, immunity, sleep and feeding patterns. These changes are underpinned by distinct tissue- and time-specific changes in diverse sets of mRNAs. However, little is yet known about the regulation of these gene expression changes, and hence the potential role of microRNAs (miRNAs), in female post-mating responses. A preliminary screen of genomic responses in females to receipt of SP suggested that there were changes in the expression of several miRNAs. Here we tested directly whether females lacking four of the candidate miRNAs highlighted (miR-279, miR-317, miR-278 and miR-184) showed altered fecundity, receptivity and lifespan responses to receipt of SP, when mated once or continually to SP null or control males. The results showed that miRNA-lacking females mated to SP null males exhibited altered receptivity, but not reproductive output, in comparison to controls. However, these effects interacted significantly with the genetic background of the miRNA-lacking females. No significant survival effects were observed in miRNA-lacking females housed continually with SP null or control males. However, continual exposure to control males that transferred SP resulted in significantly higher variation in miRNA-lacking female lifespan than did continual exposure to SP null males. The results provide the first insight into the effects and importance of miRNAs in regulating post-mating responses in females

Systematic review of the current status of cadaveric simulation for surgical training

Background: There is growing interest in and provision of cadaveric simulation courses for surgical trainees. This is being driven by the need to modernize and improve the efficiency of surgical training within the current challenging training climate. The objective of this systematic review is to describe and evaluate the evidence for cadaveric simulation in postgraduate surgical training. Methods: A PRISMA‐compliant systematic literature review of studies that prospectively evaluated a cadaveric simulation training intervention for surgical trainees was undertaken. All relevant databases and trial registries were searched to January 2019. Methodological rigour was assessed using the widely validated Medical Education Research Quality Index (MERSQI) tool. Results: A total of 51 studies were included, involving 2002 surgical trainees across 69 cadaveric training interventions. Of these, 22 assessed the impact of the cadaveric training intervention using only subjective measures, five measured impact by change in learner knowledge, and 23 used objective tools to assess change in learner behaviour after training. Only one study assessed patient outcome and demonstrated transfer of skill from the simulated environment to the workplace. Of the included studies, 67 per cent had weak methodology (MERSQI score less than 10·7). Conclusion: There is an abundance of relatively low‐quality evidence showing that cadaveric simulation induces short‐term skill acquisition as measured by objective means. There is currently a lack of evidence of skill retention, and of transfer of skills following training into the live operating theatre

Spatialisation accuracy of a Virtual Performance System

A Virtual Performance System (VPS) is a real-time 3D auralisation system which enables a musician to play in simulated acoustic environments. Such systems have been used to investigate the effect of stage acoustics on the performance technique of musicians. This article describes how a VPS can be calibrated using omnidirectional, energy-based quantities. It goes on to describe how the spatialisation accuracy of specific reflections can be assessed using time-frequency analysis. The energy-based calibration has been shown to produce a reasonably accurate simulation of a test space in terms of known acoustic metrics such as T30. However, the time-frequency analysis has shown significant differences in the spatialisation of particular early reflections in the virtual version of a test space

Energy-based calibration of virtual performance systems

A Virtual Performance System (VPS) is a real-time 3D auralisation system which allows a musician to play in simulated acoustic environments. Such systems have been used to investigate the effect of stage acoustics on the performance technique of musicians. This article describes the process of calibrating a VPS using energy-based quantities and goes on to verify this technique by comparing known acoustic quantities measured in a test space with a virtual version of the same space. This work has demonstrated that calibrating a VPS using metrics based on Support will result in an accurate simulation of a test space according to known acoustic metrics such as T30. A comparison of quantities referring to earlier parts of the response, such as Early Decay Time (EDT), show some errors which are thought to be caused by the non-anechoic nature of the reproduction space

Listening to teachers: a qualitative exploration of teaching practices in higher and further education, and the implications for digital

To bring about lasting changes around the use of technology to support teaching and learning in colleges and universities, we need to understand the practices that teaching staff undertake and the challenges they face. Effective, sustained change comes from a place of working in service to pedagogies. This report captures the findings of our recent work to develop a thorough understanding of the practices of teaching in colleges and universities. Our starting point A Jisc co-design project in 2016 was the starting point for a consultation to gain a richer understanding of what next generation digital learning environments might look like. In a wide-ranging and in-depth consultation we asked questions that focused on the potential of technology, the range of activities that staff currently undertake and what activities they would like in the future. The resulting report, next generation [digital] learning environments: present and future focused on many of these areas, providing a baseline of current and emerging technology-based practices. During that consultation many contributors raised questions about how behaviours of staff working in learning and teaching have changed since the first widespread deployment of virtual learning environments (VLEs) and other educational technologies in the 1990s. As it’s our mission to continue to provide solutions, advice and guidance on the use of technology to support learning and teaching we must remain focused on what the sector needs and wants from digital learning environments. This imperative is the driver for the current report. We wanted to develop deeper understanding about practice around learning and teaching with the aim of gaining insights beyond the technology-led. We’ve captured the voices and experiences of teachers in higher and further education, drawing on senior and junior teaching scholars across a broad range of academic disciplines. From more than 22 hours of interviews and several workshops we’ve distilled a series of themes and ideas for future development. The authors have provided indicative quotes from interviewees in the text rather than a comprehensive catalogue. We used a contextual inquiry approach. This is a process whereby individuals are interviewed about their practices in an open-ended format and within a particular frame designed to find out what they do, what their motivations are, what personal history contributes to these practices and how they are impacted by current macro- and micro-contexts. This is standard practice in user experience research, especially at the beginning of design processes, and it is valued in particular for being distinct from ‘lab’ investigations of behaviour that are distanced from the context in which people habitually do their work. In what follows, we describe the motivations for the contextual inquiry project and the themes that have emerged, and then explore the implications of some of those themes for Jisc’s next generation digital