Does initial postgraduate career intention and social demographics predict perceived career behaviour?:A national cross-sectional survey of UK postgraduate doctors

Acknowledgements: Our thanks to all those FP2 doctors who participated in the survey. Our thanks also to the Foundation Programme Directors across the UK for allowing permission to conduct research on this data set. No patients or any members of the public were involved in this study. Funding: Our thanks go to NHS Education for Scotland for funding Gillian Scanlan’s programme of work through the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC). Data sharing statement: The data reported is from the UKFPO dataset, and any data shared would need the permission of the UK Foundation Programme directorsPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Information literacy: conceptions, context and the formation of a discipline

In this article the authors argue that progress in the development of information literacy (IL) has been hindered by tendencies such as: denying that information literacy is even a subject, paying exclusive attention to forces outside the discipline and forming information literacy silos. The authors start by reflecting on formative developments in information literacy outside North America in the late 1990s-early 2000s, and noting that IL has not evolved from that period as much as one might expect. They identify hindrances to information literacy’s formation as a discipline, and relate their discussion to changing notions of disciplinarity. The authors present ‘Information Literacy in the lifecourse’ as an example focus which could stimulate engagement from researchers and practitioners who are currently situated in different information literacy silos. They conclude that taking a disciplinary and lifecourse approach to information literacy would open up opportunities for working in a collegiate way, both within the information literacy community and with those outside it, and provide a more robust foundation for influencing policy

PPAR-gamma fun(gi) with prostaglandin

In our recent publication, we show for the first time that the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans is able to manipulate host cells by producing eicosanoids that mimic those found in the host. Using complementary in vivo zebrafish and in vitro macrophage cell culture models of Cryptococcus infection, we found that these eicosanoids manipulate host innate immune cells by activating the host receptor PPAR-gamma which is an important regulator of macrophage inflammatory phenotypes. We initially identified PGE2 as the eicosanoid species responsible for this effect; however, we later found that a derivative of PGE2—15-keto-PGE2—was ultimately responsible and that this eicosanoid acted as a partial agonist to PPAR-gamma. In this commentary, we will discuss some of the concepts and conclusions in our original publication and expand on their implications and future directions

Cryptococcus neoformans Thermotolerance to Avian Body Temperature Is Sufficient For Extracellular Growth But Not Intracellular Survival In Macrophages

Cryptococcus neoformans is a fatal fungal pathogen of humans that efficiently parasitises macrophages. Birds can be colonised by cryptococci and can transmit cryptococcosis to humans via inhalation of inoculated bird excreta. However, colonisation of birds appears to occur in the absence of symptomatic infection. Here, using a pure population of primary bird macrophages, we demonstrate a mechanism for this relationship. We find that bird macrophages are able to suppress the growth of cryptococci seen in mammalian cells despite C. neoformans being able to grow at bird body temperature, and are able to escape from bird macrophages by vomocytosis. A small subset of cryptococci are able to adapt to the inhibitory intracellular environment of bird macrophages, exhibiting a large cell phenotype that rescues growth suppression. Thus, restriction of intracellular growth combined with survival at bird body temperature explains the ability of birds to efficiently spread C. neoformans in the environment whilst avoiding systemic disease

Real-time diffuse optical tomography using reduced-order light propagation models based on a priori anatomical and functional information

This paper proposes a new fast 3D image reconstruction algorithm for Diffuse Optical Tomography using reduced order polynomial mappings from the space of optical tissue parameters into the space of flux measurements at the detector locations. The polynomial mappings are constructed through an iterative estimation process involving structure detection, parameter estimation and cross-validation using data generated by simulating a diffusion approximation of the radiative transfer equation incorporating a priori anatomical and functional information provided by MR scans and prior psychological evidence. Numerical simulation studies demonstrate that reconstructed images are remarkably similar in quality as those obtained using the standard approach, but obtained at a fraction of the time

Designing for Ballet Classes: Identifying and Mitigating Communication Challenges Between Dancers and Teachers

Dancer-teacher communication in a ballet class can be challenging: ballet is one of the most complex forms of movements, and learning happens through multi-faceted interactions with studio tools (mirror, barre, and floor) and the teacher. We conducted an interview-based qualitative study with seven ballet teachers and six dancers followed by an open-coded analysis to explore the communication challenges that arise while teaching and learning in the ballet studio. We identified key communication issues, including adapting to multi-level dancer expertise, transmitting and realigning development goals, providing personalized corrections and feedback, maintaining the state of flow, and communicating how to properly use tools in the environment. We discuss design implications for crafting technological interventions aimed at mitigating these communication challenges

Multi-class Image Segmentation in Fluorescence Microscopy Using Polytrees

Multi-class segmentation is a crucial step in cell image analysis. This process becomes challenging when little information is available for recognising cells from the background, due to their poor discriminative features. To alleviate this, directed acyclic graphs such as trees have been proposed to model top-down statistical dependencies as a prior for improved image segmentation. However, using trees, modelling the relations between labels of multiple classes becomes difficult. To overcome this limitation, we propose a polytree graphical model that captures label proximity relations more naturally compared to tree based approaches. A novel recursive mechanism based on two-pass message passing is developed to efficiently calculate closed form posteriors of graph nodes on the polytree. The algorithm is evaluated using simulated data, synthetic images and real fluorescence microscopy images. Our method achieves Dice scores of 94.5% and 98% on macrophage and seed classes, respectively, outperforming GMM based classifiers

Nitrogen response and nitrogen use efficiency of high yielding canola cultivars

Non-Peer ReviewedSeveral new canola varieties have much higher yield potential than those grown in the past. For example, the yield potential of highest yielding varieties listed in the Varieties of Grain Crops booklet for 2001, published by Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food are as much as 35% greater than for the check variety AC Excel. One question that arises is whether such varieties require greater inputs of fertilizer nutrients, particularly nitrogen (N), to realize optimum economic returns

Management for optimum yield of open pollinated and hybrid canola

Non-Peer ReviewedNewer open pollinated (O.P.) and hybrid canola varieties provide higher yield potential but the management strategies necessary to achieve optimum yield are not well understood. To better understand the levels of inputs required to optimize yield and to enhance producers ability to optimize return on their investment a three year study was conducted at Melfort, Indian Head, and Scott during 1999, 2000 and 2001 with the following objective. Objective: To evaluate the effect of seeding rate, fertilizer addition and fungicides on the optimum yield potential of hybrid and open pollinated canola in the Thick Black, Thin Black and Dark Brown Soil Zones

Phylogenetic diversity of insecticolous fusaria inferred from multilocus DNA sequence data and their molecular identification via FUSARIUM-ID and Fusarium MLST

We constructed several multilocus DNA sequence datasets to assess the phylogenetic diversity of insecticolous fusaria, especially focusing on those housed at the Agricultural Research Service Collection of Entomopathogenic Fungi (ARSEF), and to aid molecular identifications of unknowns via the FUSARIUM-ID and Fusarium MLST online databases and analysis packages. Analyses of a 190-taxon, two-locus dataset, which included 159 isolates from insects, indicated that: (i) insect-associated fusaria were nested within 10 species complexes spanning the phylogenetic breadth of Fusarium, (ii) novel, putatively unnamed insecticolous species were nested within 8/10 species complexes and (iii) Latin binomials could be applied with confidence to only 18/58 phylogenetically distinct fusaria associated with pest insects. Phylogenetic analyses of an 82-taxon, three-locus dataset nearly fully resolved evolutionary relationships among the 10 clades containing insecticolous fusaria. Multilocus typing of isolates within four species complexes identified surprisingly high genetic diversity in that 63/65 of the fusaria typed represented newly discovered haplotypes. The DNA sequence data, together with corrected ABI sequence chromatograms and alignments, have been uploaded to the following websites dedicated to identifying fusaria: FUSARIUM-ID (http://isolate.fusariumdb.org) a