Preparing Business Students for Participation in God’s Creative and Redemptive Purpose for the World

Institutions of higher education are under an increasing amount of pressure to prove that students can justify tuition payments in terms of monetary gain. Christian liberal arts colleges, however, have a much higher calling to prepare students for service to God’s kingdom. This paper describes recent efforts by one college to combine business education with vocational calling, shaping a curriculum and assessing its effectiveness in order to better prepare students for lives of faithfulness and service

Variation revealed by SNP genotyping and morphology provides insight into the origin of the tomato

Tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, is divided into two widely distributed varieties: the cultivated S. lycopersicum var. lycopersicum, and the weedy S. lycopersicum var. cerasiforme. Solanum pimpinellifolium is the most closely related wild species of tomato. The roles of S. pimpinellifolium and S. l. cerasiforme during the domestication of tomato are still under debate. Some authors consider S. l. cerasiforme to be the ancestor, whereas others think that S. l. cerasiforme is an admixture of S. pimpinellifolium and the cultivated S. l. lycopersicum. It is also not clear whether the domestication occurred in the Andean region or in Mesoamerica. We characterized 272 accessions (63 S. pimpinellifolium, 106 S. l. cerasiforme, 95 S. l. lycopersicum and 8 derived from hybridization processes) were morphologically and genetically using the SolCap platform (7,414 SNPs). The two species were distinguished in a PCA analysis and displayed a rich geographic structure. Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme and S. l. lycopersicum were also differentiated in the PCA and Structure analyses, which supports maintaining them as different varieties. Solanum pimpinellifolium and the Andean S. l. cerasiforme were more diverse than the non-Andean S. lycopersicum. Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme was morphologically and molecularly intermediate between S. pimpinellifolium and tomato. Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, with the exception of several Ecuadorian and Mexican accessions, is composed of the products of admixture processes according to the Structure analysis. The non-admixtured S. l. cerasiforme might be similar to the ancestral cultivars from which the cultivated tomato originated, and presents remarkable morphological diversity, including fruits of up to 6 cm in diameter. The data obtained would fit a model in which a pre-domestication took place in the Andean region, with the domestication being completed in Mesoamerica. Subsequently, the Spaniards took plants from Mesoamerica to Spain and from there they were exported to the rest of the world.Blanca Postigo, JM.; Cañizares Sales, J.; Cordero Romay, L.; Pascual Bañuls, L.; Díez Niclós, MJTDJ.; Nuez Viñals, F. (2012). Variation revealed by SNP genotyping and morphology provides insight into the origin of the tomato. PLoS ONE. 7(10):1-17. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048198S11771

Evolution of cooperation without reciprocity

A long-standing problem in biological and social sciences is to understand the conditions required for the emergence and maintenance of cooperation in evolving populations. For many situations, kin selection(1) is an adequate explanation, although kin-recognition may still be a problem. Explanations of cooperation between non-kin include continuing interactions that provide a shadow of the future (that is, the expectation of an ongoing relationship) that can sustain reciprocity(2-4), possibly supported by mechanisms to bias interactions such as embedding the agents in a two-dimensional space(4-6) or other context-preserving networks(7). Another explanation, indirect reciprocity(8), applies when benevolence to one agent increases the chance of receiving help from others. Here we use computer simulations to show that cooperation can arise when agents donate to others who are sufficiently similar to themselves in some arbitrary characteristic. Such a characteristic, or 'tag', can be a marking, display, or other observable trait. Tag-based donation can lead to the emergence of cooperation among agents who have only rudimentary ability to detect environmental signals and, unlike models of direct(3,4) or indirect reciprocity(9,10), no memory of past encounters is required.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62686/1/414441a0.pd

Paternity of Subordinates Raises Cooperative Effort in Cichlids

Background In cooperative breeders, subordinates generally help a dominant breeding pair to raise offspring. Parentage studies have shown that in several species subordinates can participate in reproduction. This suggests an important role of direct fitness benefits for cooperation, particularly where groups contain unrelated subordinates. In this situation parentage should influence levels of cooperation. Here we combine parentage analyses and detailed behavioural observations in the field to study whether in the highly social cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher subordinates participate in reproduction and if so, whether and how this affects their cooperative care, controlling for the effect of kinship. Methodology/Principal Findings We show that: (i) male subordinates gained paternity in 27.8% of all clutches and (ii) if they participated in reproduction, they sired on average 11.8% of young. Subordinate males sharing in reproduction showed more defence against experimentally presented egg predators compared to subordinates not participating in reproduction, and they tended to stay closer to the breeding shelter. No effects of relatedness between subordinates and dominants (to mid-parent, dominant female or dominant male) were detected on parentage and on helping behaviour. Conclusions/Significance This is the first evidence in a cooperatively breeding fish species that the helping effort of male subordinates may depend on obtained paternity, which stresses the need to consider direct fitness benefits in evolutionary studies of helping behaviour

Students’ Perceptions of Learning Processes as Co-Authors of Digital Tabletop Activities

We conducted a small-scale study in order to explore students’ perceptions of the learning processes when engaged as co-authors of content for collaborative higher order thinking skills learning tasks. We specifically designed the process to allow for self-critique – where authors can observe their creations being solved and therefore understand where they may improve their design. We collected data over a three-day period from a sample of twelve thirteen year olds, working in teams, authoring content for Digital Mysteries (a higher order thinking skills collaborative learning application based on the digital tabletop). The study was structured to follow Bloom’s taxonomy, a continuum of cognitive skills that develop during a learning process. We found that 1) rather than follow this continuum, skills developed in a non-linear manner due to the abstract nature of the authoring activity, and 2) the students’ demonstrated good metacognitive insights into the authoring task, technology and collaborative learning as a whole

Why Does Exercise “Triggerâ€? Adaptive Protective Responses in the Heart?

Numerous epidemiological studies suggest that individuals who exercise have decreased cardiac morbidity and mortality. Pre-clinical studies in animal models also find clear cardioprotective phenotypes in animals that exercise, specifically characterized by lower myocardial infarction and arrhythmia. Despite the clear benefits, the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms that are responsible for exercise preconditioning are not fully understood. In particular, the adaptive signaling events that occur during exercise to “trigger� cardioprotection represent emerging paradigms. In this review, we discuss recent studies that have identified several different factors that appear to initiate exercise preconditioning. We summarize the evidence for and against specific cellular factors in triggering exercise adaptations and identify areas for future study

Genomic variation in tomato, from wild ancestors to contemporary breeding accessions

[EN] Background: Domestication modifies the genomic variation of species. Quantifying this variation provides insights into the domestication process, facilitates the management of resources used by breeders and germplasm centers, and enables the design of experiments to associate traits with genes. We described and analyzed the genetic diversity of 1,008 tomato accessions including Solanum lycopersicum var. lycopersicum (SLL), S. lycopersicum var. cerasiforme (SLC), and S. pimpinellifolium (SP) that were genotyped using 7,720 SNPs. Additionally, we explored the allelic frequency of six loci affecting fruit weight and shape to infer patterns of selection. Results: Our results revealed a pattern of variation that strongly supported a two-step domestication process, occasional hybridization in the wild, and differentiation through human selection. These interpretations were consistent with the observed allele frequencies for the six loci affecting fruit weight and shape. Fruit weight was strongly selected in SLC in the Andean region of Ecuador and Northern Peru prior to the domestication of tomato in Mesoamerica. Alleles affecting fruit shape were differentially selected among SLL genetic subgroups. Our results also clarified the biological status of SLC. True SLC was phylogenetically positioned between SP and SLL and its fruit morphology was diverse. SLC and “cherry tomato” are not synonymous terms. The morphologically-based term “cherry tomato” included some SLC, contemporary varieties, as well as many admixtures between SP and SLL. Contemporary SLL showed a moderate increase in nucleotide diversity, when compared with vintage groups. Conclusions: This study presents a broad and detailed representation of the genomic variation in tomato. Tomato domestication seems to have followed a two step-process; a first domestication in South America and a second step in Mesoamerica. The distribution of fruit weight and shape alleles supports that domestication of SLC occurred in the Andean region. Our results also clarify the biological status of SLC as true phylogenetic group within tomato. We detect Ecuadorian and Peruvian accessions that may represent a pool of unexplored variation that could be of interest for crop improvement.We are grateful to the gene banks for their collections that made this study possible. We thank Syngenta Seeds for providing genotyping data for 42 accessions. We would like to thank the Supercomputing and Bioinnovation Center (Universidad de Malaga, Spain) for providing computational resources to process the SNAPP phylogenetic tree. This research was supported in part by the USDA/NIFA funded SolCAP project under contract number to DF and USDA AFRI 2013-67013-21229 to EvdK and DF.Blanca Postigo, JM.; Montero Pau, J.; Sauvage, C.; Bauchet, G.; Illa, E.; Díez Niclós, MJTDJ.; Francis, D.... (2015). 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Evaluating Approaches for Constructing Polygenic Risk Scores for Prostate Cancer in Men of African and European Ancestry

Genome-wide polygenic risk scores (GW-PRSs) have been reported to have better predictive ability than PRSs based on genome-wide significance thresholds across numerous traits. We compared the predictive ability of several GW-PRS approaches to a recently developed PRS of 269 established prostate cancer-risk variants from multi-ancestry GWASs and fine-mapping studies (PRS269). GW-PRS models were trained with a large and diverse prostate cancer GWAS of 107,247 cases and 127,006 controls that we previously used to develop the multi-ancestry PRS269. Resulting models were independently tested in 1,586 cases and 1,047 controls of African ancestry from the California Uganda Study and 8,046 cases and 191,825 controls of European ancestry from the UK Biobank and further validated in 13,643 cases and 210,214 controls of European ancestry and 6,353 cases and 53,362 controls of African ancestry from the Million Veteran Program. In the testing data, the best performing GW-PRS approach had AUCs of 0.656 (95% CI = 0.635-0.677) in African and 0.844 (95% CI = 0.840-0.848) in European ancestry men and corresponding prostate cancer ORs of 1.83 (95% CI = 1.67-2.00) and 2.19 (95% CI = 2.14-2.25), respectively, for each SD unit increase in the GW-PRS. Compared to the GW-PRS, in African and European ancestry men, the PRS269 had larger or similar AUCs (AUC = 0.679, 95% CI = 0.659-0.700 and AUC = 0.845, 95% CI = 0.841-0.849, respectively) and comparable prostate cancer ORs (OR = 2.05, 95% CI = 1.87-2.26 and OR = 2.21, 95% CI = 2.16-2.26, respectively). Findings were similar in the validation studies. This investigation suggests that current GW-PRS approaches may not improve the ability to predict prostate cancer risk compared to the PRS269 developed from multi-ancestry GWASs and fine-mapping

Heritability and Artificial Selection on Ambulatory Dispersal Distance in Tetranychus urticae: Effects of Density and Maternal Effects

Dispersal distance is understudied although the evolution of dispersal distance affects the distribution of genetic diversity through space. Using the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, we tested the conditions under which dispersal distance could evolve. To this aim, we performed artificial selection based on dispersal distance by choosing 40 individuals (out of 150) that settled furthest from the home patch (high dispersal, HDIS) and 40 individuals that remained close to the home patch (low dispersal, LDIS) with three replicates per treatment. We did not observe a response to selection nor a difference between treatments in life-history traits (fecundity, survival, longevity, and sex-ratio) after ten generations of selection. However, we show that heritability for dispersal distance depends on density. Heritability for dispersal distance was low and non-significant when using the same density as the artificial selection experiments while heritability becomes significant at a lower density. Furthermore, we show that maternal effects may have influenced the dispersal behaviour of the mites. Our results suggest primarily that selection did not work because high density and maternal effects induced phenotypic plasticity for dispersal distance. Density and maternal effects may affect the evolution of dispersal distance and should be incorporated into future theoretical and empirical studies