Case Study of Assessment in a High School Classroom: The Impact of Changes in Assessment on Curriculum, Instruction, Teachers, and Students

This study examined the impact of changes in assessment on curriculum, instruction, teachers, and students. The study describes the complex, developmental process by which a particular course, teachers, and a class evolved, articulated goals and standards, and assessed their learning. My co-teacher and I used a variety of assessments: conferences, peer review, reflections, portfolios, group projects, and presentations in addition to traditional tests and quizzes. The methodology was a qualitative study by a teacher/researcher in a high school Humanities class

High temperature radiator materials for applications in the low Earth orbital environment

Radiators must be constructed of materials which have high emittance in order to efficiently radiate heat from high temperature space power systems. In addition, if these radiators are to be used for applications in the low Earth orbital environment, they must not be detrimentally affected by exposure to atomic oxygen. Four materials selected as candidate radiator materials (304 stainless steel, copper, titanium-6% aluminum-4% vanadium (Ti-6%Al-4%V), and niobium-1% zirconium (Nb-1%Zr)) were surface modified by acid etching, heat treating, abrading, sputter texturing, electrochemical etching, and combinations of the above in order to improve their emittance. Combination treatment techniques with heat treating as the second treatment provided about a factor of two improvement in emittance for 304 stainless steel, Ti-6%Al-4%V, and Nb-1%Zr. A factor of three improvement in emittance occurred for discharge chamber sputter textured copper. Exposure to atomic oxygen in an RF plasma asher did not significantly change the emittance of those samples that had been heat treated as part of their texturing process. An evaluation of oxygen penetration is needed to understand how oxidation affects the mechanical properties of these materials when heat treated

Meeting report : 1st international functional metagenomics workshop May 7–8, 2012, St. Jacobs, Ontario, Canada

This report summarizes the events of the 1st International Functional Metagenomics Workshop. The workshop was held on May 7 and 8 in St. Jacobs, Ontario, Canada and was focused on building a core international functional metagenomics community, exploring strategic research areas, and identifying opportunities for future collaboration and funding. The workshop was initiated by researchers at the University of Waterloo with support from the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the University of Waterloo

Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness against Hospitalisation with Confirmed Influenza in the 2010-11 Seasons: A Test-negative Observational Study

Immunisation programs are designed to reduce serious morbidity and mortality from influenza, but most evidence supporting the effectiveness of this intervention has focused on disease in the community or in primary care settings. We aimed to examine the effectiveness of influenza vaccination against hospitalisation with confirmed influenza. We compared influenza vaccination status in patients hospitalised with PCR-confirmed influenza with patients hospitalised with influenza-negative respiratory infections in an Australian sentinel surveillance system. Vaccine effectiveness was estimated from the odds ratio of vaccination in cases and controls. We performed both simple multivariate regression and a stratified analysis based on propensity score of vaccination. Vaccination status was ascertained in 333 of 598 patients with confirmed influenza and 785 of 1384 test-negative patients. Overall estimated crude vaccine effectiveness was 57% (41%, 68%). After adjusting for age, chronic comorbidities and pregnancy status, the estimated vaccine effectiveness was 37% (95% CI: 12%, 55%). In an analysis accounting for a propensity score for vaccination, the estimated vaccine effectiveness was 48.3% (95% CI: 30.0, 61.8%). Influenza vaccination was moderately protective against hospitalisation with influenza in the 2010 and 2011 seasons

Vegetation type, not the legacy of warming, modifies the response of microbial functional genes and greenhouse gas fluxes to drought in oro-arctic and alpine regions

Climate warming and summer droughts alter soil microbial activity, affecting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in arctic and alpine regions. However, the long-term effects of warming, and implications for future microbial resilience, are poorly understood. Using one alpine and three arctic soils subjected to in situ long-term experimental warming, we simulated drought in laboratory incubations to test how microbial functional-gene abundance affects fluxes in three GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. We found that responses of functional gene abundances to drought and warming are strongly associated with vegetation type and soil carbon. Our sites ranged from a wet, forb dominated, soil carbon-rich systems to a drier, soil carbon-poor alpine site. Resilience of functional gene abundances, and in turn methane and carbon dioxide fluxes, was lower in the wetter, carbon-rich systems. However, we did not detect an effect of drought or warming on nitrous oxide fluxes. All gene-GHG relationships were modified by vegetation type, with stronger effects being observed in wetter, forb-rich soils. These results suggest that impacts of warming and drought on GHG emissions are linked to a complex set of microbial gene abundances and may be habitat-specific

Dental profile of patients with Gaucher disease

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted to determine whether patients with Gaucher disease had significant dental pathology because of abnormal bone structure, pancytopenia, and coagulation abnormalities. METHODS: Each patient received a complete oral and periodontal examination in addition to a routine hematological evaluation. RESULTS: Gaucher patients had significantly fewer carious lesions than otherwise healthy carriers. Despite prevalence of anemia, there was no increase in gingival disease; despite the high incidence of thrombocytopenia, gingival bleeding was not noted; and despite radiological evidence of bone involvement, there was no greater incidence loss of teeth or clinical tooth mobility. CONCLUSIONS: These data represent the first survey of the oral health of a large cohort of patients with Gaucher disease. It is a pilot study of a unique population and the results of the investigation are indications for further research. Based on our findings, we recommend regular oral examinations with appropriate dental treatment for patients with Gaucher disease as for other individuals. Consultation between the dentist and physician, preferably one with experience with Gaucher disease, should be considered when surgical procedures are planned

A Hypermorphic Missense Mutation in PLCG2, Encoding Phospholipase Cγ2, Causes a Dominantly Inherited Autoinflammatory Disease with Immunodeficiency

Whole-exome sequencing was performed in a family affected by dominantly inherited inflammatory disease characterized by recurrent blistering skin lesions, bronchiolitis, arthralgia, ocular inflammation, enterocolitis, absence of autoantibodies, and mild immunodeficiency. Exome data from three samples, including the affected father and daughter and unaffected mother, were filtered for the exclusion of reported variants, along with benign variants, as determined by PolyPhen-2. A total of eight transcripts were identified as possible candidate genes. We confirmed a variant, c.2120C>A (p.Ser707Tyr), within PLCG2 as the only de novo variant that was present in two affected family members and not present in four unaffected members. PLCG2 encodes phospholipase Cγ2 (PLCγ2), an enzyme with a critical regulatory role in various immune and inflammatory pathways. The p.Ser707Tyr substitution is located in an autoinhibitory SH2 domain that is crucial for PLCγ2 activation. Overexpression of the altered p.Ser707Tyr protein and ex vivo experiments using affected individuals’ leukocytes showed clearly enhanced PLCγ2 activity, suggesting increased intracellular signaling in the PLCγ2-mediated pathway. Recently, our laboratory identified in individuals with cold-induced urticaria and immune dysregulation PLCG2 exon-skipping mutations resulting in protein products with constitutive phospholipase activity but with reduced intracellular signaling at physiological temperatures. In contrast, the p.Ser707Tyr substitution in PLCγ2 causes a distinct inflammatory phenotype that is not provoked by cold temperatures and that has different end-organ involvement and increased intracellular signaling at physiological temperatures. Our results highlight the utility of exome-sequencing technology in finding causal mutations in nuclear families with dominantly inherited traits otherwise intractable by linkage analysis

Somatic mutations and progressive monosomy modify SAMD9-related phenotypes in humans

It is well established that somatic genomic changes can influence phenotypes in cancer, but the role of adaptive changes in developmental disorders is less well understood. Here we have used next-generation sequencing approaches to identify de novo heterozygous mutations in sterile α motif domain–containing protein 9 (SAMD9, located on chromosome 7q21.2) in 8 children with a multisystem disorder termed MIRAGE syndrome that is characterized by intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) with gonadal, adrenal, and bone marrow failure, predisposition to infections, and high mortality. These mutations result in gain of function of the growth repressor product SAMD9. Progressive loss of mutated SAMD9 through the development of monosomy 7 (–7), deletions of 7q (7q–), and secondary somatic loss-of-function (nonsense and frameshift) mutations in SAMD9 rescued the growth-restricting effects of mutant SAMD9 proteins in bone marrow and was associated with increased length of survival. However, 2 patients with –7 and 7q– developed myelodysplastic syndrome, most likely due to haploinsufficiency of related 7q21.2 genes. Taken together, these findings provide strong evidence that progressive somatic changes can occur in specific tissues and can subsequently modify disease phenotype and influence survival. Such tissue-specific adaptability may be a more common mechanism modifying the expression of human genetic conditions than is currently recognized

Staphylococcus aureus Manganese Transport Protein C Is a Highly Conserved Cell Surface Protein That Elicits Protective Immunity Against S. aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis

Staphylococcus aureus and other staphylococci cause severe human disease, and there are currently no vaccines available. We evaluated whether manganese transport protein C (MntC), which is conserved across the staphylococcal species group, could confer protection against S. aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis. In vivo analysis of S. aureus MntC expression revealed that expression occurs very early during the infectious cycle. Active immunization with MntC was effective at reducing the bacterial load associated with S. aureus and S. epidermidis infection in an acute murine bacteremia model. Anti-MntC monoclonal antibodies have been identified that can bind S. aureus and S. epidermidis cells and are protective in an infant rat passive protection model and induce neutrophil respiratory burst activity. This is the first description of a protein that has the potential to provide protection across the staphylococcal species group

Is adjuvant chemotherapy indicated in ovarian immature teratomas? A combined data analysis from the Malignant Germ Cell Tumor International Collaborative.

BACKGROUND: There is a debate regarding the management of ovarian immature teratomas (ITs). In adult women, postoperative chemotherapy is standard except for stage I, grade 1 disease, whereas surgery alone is standard in pediatric patients. To determine the role of chemotherapy, a pooled analysis of pediatric and adult clinical trials was conducted. METHODS: Data from 7 pediatric trials and 2 adult trials were merged in the Malignant Germ Cell International Collaborative data set. Four trials included patients with newly diagnosed pure ovarian ITs and were selected (Pediatric Oncology Group/Children's Cancer Group Intergroup Study (INT 0106), Second UKCCSG Germ Cell Tumor Study (GC2), Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG 0078 and GOG 0090). Adult and pediatric trials were analyzed separately. The primary outcome measures were event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS). RESULTS: One hundred seventy-nine patients were included (98 pediatric patients and 81 adult patients). Ninety pediatric patients were treated with surgery alone, whereas all adult patients received chemotherapy. The 5-year EFS and OS were 91% and 99%, respectively, for the pediatric cohort and 87% and 93%, respectively, for the adults. There were no relapses in grade 1 patients, regardless of the stage or age. Only 1 adult patient with a grade 2 IT relapsed. Among grade 3 patients, the 5-year EFS was 0.92 (0.72-0.98) for stage I/II and 0.52 (0.22-0.75) for stage III in the pediatric cohort (P = .005) and 0.91 (0.69-0.98) for stage I/II and 0.65 (0.39-0.83) for stage III/IV in the adult cohort (P = .01). Postoperative chemotherapy did not decrease relapses in the pediatric cohort. CONCLUSIONS: The grade was the most important risk factor for relapse in ovarian ITs. Among grade 3 patients, the stage was significantly associated with relapse. Adjuvant chemotherapy did not decrease relapses in the pediatric cohort; its role in adults remains unresolved. Cancer 2016;122:230-237. © 2015 American Cancer Society.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cncr.29732