Effect of Age and Sex on the Discrimination of Monozygotic Twins using cg18562578 DNA Methylation in Saliva

DNA methylation is a type of epigenetic modification that impacts gene expression without disturbing the genetic nucleotide sequence. DNA methylation has the potential to be included in the daily forensic analysis because among other uses, it has the potential to be applied to discrimination of monozygotic (MZ) twins that currently cannot be differentiated via forensic DNA profiling. In previous research, our group showed that DNA methylation at the cg18562578 site in chromosome 3 could be used to discriminate MZ twins. Because studies have shown that DNA methylation measures can be influenced by demographic factors such as sex and age; here, we investigated whether these demographic factors impacted the MZ discrimination power of this marker. We analyzed data on DNA methylation levels at cg18562578 for a population of 96 MZ and 54 dizygotic twin pairs. We found that age and sex were not associated with DNA methylation at cg18562578. We also found that MZ twin differences remained statistically significant when age and sex were considered. Results from these analyses suggest that sex and age do not impact the MZ discrimination ability of cg18562578 DNA methylation. This provides further support to the use of cg18562578 DNA methylation in the discrimination of MZ twins

Surfaces have (asymptotic) dimension 2

The asymptotic dimension is an invariant of metric spaces introduced by Gromov in the context of geometric group theory. When restricted to graphs and their shortest paths metric, the asymptotic dimension can be seen as a large scale version of weak diameter colorings (also known as weak diameter network decompositions), i.e. colorings in which each monochromatic component has small weak diameter. In this paper, we prove that for any $p$, the class of graphs excluding $K_{3,p}$ as a minor has asymptotic dimension at most 2. This implies that the class of all graphs embeddable on any fixed surface (and in particular the class of planar graphs) has asymptotic dimension 2, which gives a positive answer to a recent question of Fujiwara and Papasoglu. Our result extends from graphs to Riemannian surfaces. We also prove that graphs of bounded pathwidth have asymptotic dimension at most 1 and graphs of bounded layered pathwidth have asymptotic dimension at most 2. We give some applications of our techniques to graph classes defined in a topological or geometrical way, and to graph classes of polynomial growth. Finally we prove that the class of bounded degree graphs from any fixed proper minor-closed class has asymptotic dimension at most 2. This can be seen as a large scale generalization of the result that bounded degree graphs from any fixed proper minor-closed class are 3-colorable with monochromatic components of bounded size. This also implies that (infinite) Cayley graphs avoiding some minor have asymptotic dimension at most 2, which solves a problem raised by Ostrovskii and Rosenthal.Comment: 35 pages, 4 figures - v3: correction of the statements of Theorem 5.2, Corollary 5.3 and Theorem 5.9. Most of the results in this paper have been merged to arXiv:2012.0243

The Education and Integration of Immigrant Children in Ontario: A Content Analysis of Policy Documents Guiding Schools’ Response to the Needs of Immigrant Students

Given the rise and diversification of the immigrant student population within Canadian school systems,the establishment of policies that support immigrant pupils’ transition and integration has become ofpressing concern for policymakers. Following our multi-dimensional support model, this study examinedthe extent to which Ontario’s provincial education policies, guidelines, and strategies respond to the needsof immigrant students within the K-12 public education system. For the most part, the current analysisindicated that the ministry has established the necessary educational support measures to integrate immigrant students. However, our findings also suggest that this group of students warrants a stand-alonepolicy document to comprehensively address all of their unique needs. Moreover, this study underscoresthe importance of greater policy coherence and direction within Ontario, as well as the ongoing role thatevidenced-based research should serve in the development and refinement of existing policies

How Configuration Management Helps Projects Innovate and Communicate

This slide presentation reviews the concept of Configuration Management (CM) and compares it to the standard view of Project management (PM). It presents two PM models: (1) Kepner-Tregoe,, and the Deming models, describes why projects fail, and presents methods of how CM helps projects innovate and communicate

Genome characteristics of facultatively symbiotic Frankia sp. strains reflect host range and host plant biogeography

Soil bacteria that also form mutualistic symbioses in plants encounter two major levels of selection. One occurs during adaptation to and survival in soil, and the other occurs in concert with host plant speciation and adaptation. Actinobacteria from the genus Frankia are facultative symbionts that form N2-fixing root nodules on diverse and globally distributed angiosperms in the “actinorhizal” symbioses. Three closely related clades of Frankia sp. strains are recognized; members of each clade infect a subset of plants from among eight angiosperm families. We sequenced the genomes from three strains; their sizes varied from 5.43 Mbp for a narrow host range strain (Frankia sp. strain HFPCcI3) to 7.50 Mbp for a medium host range strain (Frankia alni strain ACN14a) to 9.04 Mbp for a broad host range strain (Frankia sp. strain EAN1pec.) This size divergence is the largest yet reported for such closely related soil bacteria (97.8%–98.9% identity of 16S rRNA genes). The extent of gene deletion, duplication, and acquisition is in concert with the biogeographic history of the symbioses and host plant speciation. Host plant isolation favored genome contraction, whereas host plant diversification favored genome expansion. The results support the idea that major genome expansions as well as reductions can occur in facultative symbiotic soil bacteria as they respond to new environments in the context of their symbioses

Ruthenium Complex Bearing a Hydroxy Group Functionalised N-Heterocyclic Carbene Ligand – A Universal Platform for Synthesis of Tagged and Immobilised Catalysts for Olefin Metathesis

Six olefin metathesis catalysts, based on a common ruthenium precursor featuring a hydroxy-substituted N-heterocyclic carbene ligand, were successfully prepared and fully characterised. As proof-of-concept, two of them ([Ru]isonico and [Ru]dmab) were directly immobilised on a solid support. These non-covalently heterogenised catalysts are efficient in different metathesis reactions and sufficiently stable to be used for repeated runs under batch and continuous flow conditions. In nonpolar media such as n-hexane, the catalytic character of the metathesis reactions is truly heterogeneous, and the contamination of the products with ruthenium is very low. © 2021 The Authors. European Journal of Organic Chemistry published by Wiley-VCH Gmb

Trajectories in cognitive engagement, fatigue, and school achievement: The role of young adolescents' psychological need satisfaction

The study investigates whether between-person differences in school-based psychological need satisfaction may explain trajectories in cognitive engagement, fatigue, and academic attainment over a school year. A sample of 361 young adolescents in the United Kingdom (mean age = 11.89 years; 55 % male, 45 % female) completed self-report measures of psychological need satisfaction, cognitive engagement, and cognitive fatigue on four occasions. Official school grades for English and Maths were collected. Hierarchical growth modelling revealed that pupils higher in psychological need satisfaction reported stable levels of cognitive engagement and lower fatigue. Pupils lower in psychological need satisfaction displayed declining levels of cognitive engagement and consistently higher fatigue. All pupils showed increases in school grades, yet higher psychological need satisfaction was related to greater gains. These trends existed when controlling for age, sex, ethnicity, and learning needs. The findings offer temporal insights into the role of school-based psychological needs in fostering cognitive engagement at school