A Case Study on the Differences in Scores of Undergraduate Students in Traditional, Online, and Hybrid Classes

The primary purpose of this research was to ascertain whether there are variances in academic performance between students taking an educational technology course in traditional, online, and hybrid learning environments. As a secondary goal, the study assessed the differences in academic performance of male and female students in these classes. All students in this study held an undergraduate status of junior or above. They had earned a minimum of 45 hours and had a minimum 2.75 overall GPA. These students also passed the certification test for state educators and had been accepted as teacher candidates of the College of Education in the Teacher Education Department at a state university in the southwestern part of the United States. The state university was designated by the United States Department of Education as a postsecondary minority institution. The students were given identical instructions and rubrics for a WebQuest project. Two different instructors taught each of the three types of classes in the study. The results were analyzed through quantitative investigation of the students’ scores for their individual projects. The WebQuest scores of a total of 1,052 students were collected over 14 semesters (fall 2009 through spring 2016). The scores involved students in 48 one-semester classes (16 traditional, 16 online, and 16 hybrid). Each instructor taught the students in eight of each of the three types of classroom settings, for a total of 24 classes for each instructor. The study was a casual-comparative research (ex post facto). Findings from the study may provide educators and curriculum specialists a resource for building better curricula and instruction for undergraduate classes offered in either traditional, online, or hybrid format; encourage academic institutions and policymakers to invest in learning systems in a variety of forms; and encourage students to access online and hybrid classes without concern about quality implications

Identification of 12 new susceptibility loci for different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer.

To identify common alleles associated with different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), we pooled data from multiple genome-wide genotyping projects totaling 25,509 EOC cases and 40,941 controls. We identified nine new susceptibility loci for different EOC histotypes: six for serous EOC histotypes (3q28, 4q32.3, 8q21.11, 10q24.33, 18q11.2 and 22q12.1), two for mucinous EOC (3q22.3 and 9q31.1) and one for endometrioid EOC (5q12.3). We then performed meta-analysis on the results for high-grade serous ovarian cancer with the results from analysis of 31,448 BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, including 3,887 mutation carriers with EOC. This identified three additional susceptibility loci at 2q13, 8q24.1 and 12q24.31. Integrated analyses of genes and regulatory biofeatures at each locus predicted candidate susceptibility genes, including OBFC1, a new candidate susceptibility gene for low-grade and borderline serous EOC

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

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field

"Gênero" para um dicionário marxista: a política sexual de uma palavra "Gender" for a marxist dictionary: the sexual politics of a word

A autora conta suas desventuras teóricas após aceitar escrever um verbete sobre "gênero" para um dicionário marxista reputado. Em suas próprias palavras: "Além disso, mesmo se Marx e Engels - ou até Gayle Rubin - não se aventuraram pela sexologia, medicina ou biologia em suas discussões sobre sexo/gênero, ou sobre a questão da mulher, eu sabia que teria de fazê-lo. Ao mesmo tempo, estava claro que outras GRANDES correntes dos escritos feministas modernos sobre sexo, sexualidade e gênero se entrelaçavam constantemente mesmo com as mais modestas interpretações de minha encomenda. A maioria delas, talvez especialmente as correntes psicanalítica e literária do feminismo francês e inglês, não aparece em meu verbete sobre Geschlecht. De modo geral, o verbete abaixo focaliza os escritos das feministas norte-americanas. Este não é um escândalo trivial."<br>The misadventures of the Author in writing about a "key-word" for a famous marxist dictionary are recounted here. In her own words: "Also, even if Marx and Engels - or Gayle Rubin, for that matter - had not ventured into sexology, medicine, or biology for their discussions of sex/gender or the woman question, I knew I would have to do so. At the same time, it was clear that other BIG currents of modern feminist writing on sex, sexuality, and gender interlaced constantly with even the most modest interpretation of my assignment. Most of those, perhaps especially the French and British feminist psychoanalytic and literary currents, do not appear in my entry on Geschlecht. In general, the entry below focuses on writing by US feminists. This is not a trivial scandal.