On the Search for the Synchrotron Cosmic Web

On the very largest of scales, the Universe is predicted to emit a faint radio signature as a result of ongoing structure formation: the so-called synchrotron cosmic web. This radio signature promises to shed light on vast, cluster-scale magnetic fields. In this work, we use both simulations to better understand the nature and distribution of this radio signal, and make several attempts towards practical detection using low frequency radio interferometers

Conceptualising emotional and cognitive dysregulation amongst sports bettors; an exploratory study of ‘tilting’ in a new context

Tilting is a poker-related phenomenon that involves cognitive and emotional dysregulation in response to unfavourable gambling outcomes. Tilting is characterised by an increase in irrational, impulsive and strategically weak betting decisions. This study aimed to adapt and investigate the concept of tilting amongst sport bettors in order to provide preliminary insight regarding previously unexplored instances of maladaptive sports betting. The sample consisted of 225 sports bettors who completed an online questionnaire that investigated their reported tilting episodes, awareness of tilting, impulsivity, perceived skill, gambling severity, gambling frequency, and product preferences. Cluster analyses revealed three distinct groups of sports bettors based on their reported tilting episodes and their awareness of this phenomenon. The first group were labelled ‘Conscious tilters’ due to being cognizant of their own tilting occurrence which was significantly higher than the other two groups. These ‘Conscious tilters’ had the highest mean problem gambling severity that was indicative of the ‘problem gambler’ categorisation. The second group were labelled ‘Unconscious tilters’ due to their underestimation of their own tilting occurrence and were categorised as ‘moderate risk gamblers’. The third group were labelled ‘Non-tilters’ due to a relatively accurate perception of their low to non-existent tilting occurrence and were categorised as ‘low-risk gamblers’. Additionally, there were significant differences between these groups in relation to reported gambling frequency, impulsivity, and product preferences. There is evidence of various classifications of ‘tilters’ within sports betting. Specific sports betting product features may also facilitate tilting and therefore require further research in this context. It is important for this research area to develop in order to mitigate harms associated with the rapidly changing sport betting environment

Teachers' classroom feedback: still trying to get it right

This article examines feedback traditionally given by teachers in schools. Such feedback tends to focus on children's acquisition and retrieval of externally prescribed knowledge which is then assessed against mandated tests. It suggests that, from a sociocultural learning perspective, feedback directed towards such objectives may limit children's social development. In this article, I draw on observation and interview data gathered from a group of 27 9- to 10-year olds in a UK primary school. These data illustrate the children's perceived need to conform to, rather than negotiate, the teacher's feedback comments. They highlight the children's sense that the teacher's feedback relates to school learning but not to their own interests. The article also includes alternative examples of feedback which draw on children's own inquiries and which relate to the social contexts within which, and for whom, they act. It concludes by suggesting that instead of looking for the right answer to the question of what makes teachers' feedback effective in our current classrooms, a more productive question might be how a negotiation can be opened up among teachers and learners themselves, about how teachers' feedback could support children's learning most appropriately

Intellectual Property and Public Health – A White Paper

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions. Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad questions. First, are there alternatives to either the patent system or specific patent doctrines that can provide or help provide sufficient incentives for health-related innovation? Second, is health information being used proprietarily and if so, is this type of protection appropriate? Third, does IP conflict with other non-IP values that are important in health and how does or can IP law help resolve these conflicts? This report addresses each of these questions in turn

Academic drift in vocational qualifications? Explorations through the lens of literacy

Retention, attainment and progression have become key issues in post-compulsory education in the UK, as the policy agenda of increasing and widening participation has taken hold. Keeping students in the system, enabling them to gain qualifications and thereby progress to higher level courses is a key educational goal. Yet alongside increasing progression and attainment have emerged discussion of the nature and extent of academic drift within vocational education. This paper seeks to explore these issues in the context of the vocational curriculum in Further Education colleges in Scotland. Using the lens of literacy practices, we explore the ways in which the expectations upon students of the reading and writing associated with learning their subjects can illuminate the nature and extent of academic drift. We indicate evidence to suggest that there is increasing emphasis given to educational rather than occupational relevance in the vocational curriculu

Genetic by environmental variation but no local adaptation in oysters ( Crassostrea virginica )

Functional trait variation within and across populations can strongly influence population, community, and ecosystem processes, but the relative contributions of genetic vs. environmental factors to this variation are often not clear, potentially complicating conservation and restoration efforts. For example, local adaptation, a particular type of genetic by environmental (G*E) interaction in which the fitness of a population in its own habitat is greater than in other habitats, is often invoked in management practices, even in the absence of supporting evidence. Despite increasing attention to the potential for G*E interactions, few studies have tested multiple populations and environments simultaneously, limiting our understanding of the spatial consistency in patterns of adaptive genetic variation. In addition, few studies explicitly differentiate adaptation in response to predation from other biological and environmental factors. We conducted a reciprocal transplant experiment of first-generation eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) juveniles from six populations across three field sites spanning 1000 km in the southeastern Atlantic Bight in both the presence and absence of predation to test for G*E variation in this economically valuable and ecologically important species. We documented significant G*E variation in survival and growth, yet there was no evidence for local adaptation. Condition varied across oyster cohorts: Offspring of northern populations had better condition than offspring from the center of our region. Oyster populations in the southeastern Atlantic Bight differ in juvenile survival, growth, and condition, yet offspring from local broodstock do not have higher survival or growth than those from farther away. In the absence of population-specific performance information, oyster restoration and aquaculture may benefit from incorporating multiple populations into their practices

The significance of motivation in student-centred learning : a reflective case study

The theoretical underpinnings of student-centred learning suggest motivation to be an integral component. However, lack of clarification of what is involved in motivation in education often results in unchallenged assumptions that fail to recognise that what motivates some students may alienate others. This case study, using socio-cognitive motivational theory to analyse previously collected data, derives three fuzzy propositions which, collectively, suggest that motivation interacts with the whole cycle of episodes in the teachinglearning process. It argues that the development of the higherlevel cognitive competencies that are implied by the term, student-centred learning, must integrate motivational constructs such as goal orientation, volition, interest and attributions into pedagogical practices

caCORRECT2: Improving the accuracy and reliability of microarray data in the presence of artifacts

© 2011 Moffitt et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.DOI: 10.1186/1471-2105-12-383Background. In previous work, we reported the development of caCORRECT, a novel microarray quality control system built to identify and correct spatial artifacts commonly found on Affymetrix arrays. We have made recent improvements to caCORRECT, including the development of a model-based data-replacement strategy and integration with typical microarray workflows via caCORRECT's web portal and caBIG grid services. In this report, we demonstrate that caCORRECT improves the reproducibility and reliability of experimental results across several common Affymetrix microarray platforms. caCORRECT represents an advance over state-of-art quality control methods such as Harshlighting, and acts to improve gene expression calculation techniques such as PLIER, RMA and MAS5.0, because it incorporates spatial information into outlier detection as well as outlier information into probe normalization. The ability of caCORRECT to recover accurate gene expressions from low quality probe intensity data is assessed using a combination of real and synthetic artifacts with PCR follow-up confirmation and the affycomp spike in data. The caCORRECT tool can be accessed at the website: http://cacorrect.bme.gatech.edu webcite. Results. We demonstrate that (1) caCORRECT's artifact-aware normalization avoids the undesirable global data warping that happens when any damaged chips are processed without caCORRECT; (2) When used upstream of RMA, PLIER, or MAS5.0, the data imputation of caCORRECT generally improves the accuracy of microarray gene expression in the presence of artifacts more than using Harshlighting or not using any quality control; (3) Biomarkers selected from artifactual microarray data which have undergone the quality control procedures of caCORRECT are more likely to be reliable, as shown by both spike in and PCR validation experiments. Finally, we present a case study of the use of caCORRECT to reliably identify biomarkers for renal cell carcinoma, yielding two diagnostic biomarkers with potential clinical utility, PRKAB1 and NNMT. Conclusions. caCORRECT is shown to improve the accuracy of gene expression, and the reproducibility of experimental results in clinical application. This study suggests that caCORRECT will be useful to clean up possible artifacts in new as well as archived microarray data