The Growing Imbalance: Recent Trends in U.S. Postsecondary Education Finance

Compares trends at public, private, and research institutions in enrollment, revenues, and spending as well as their effect on bottom lines; analyzes widening disparities; and considers implications for improving the affordability of higher education

How to Create a Pollinator Garden [Extension Circular]

Includes information on: What Is a pollinator? What is pollination and why is it important? What habitat do pollinators like? How do I create pollinator habitat? Plants to plant in eastern Nebraska April-May blooming flowers June-July blooming flowers August-October blooming flowers Native plants and their visitors Websites for more information and plant options Works cite

Learning and Earning in Vacationland: Promoting Education and Economic Opportunity in Maine

Technological innovation, globalization and other economic forces together shape the structure of jobs and the way we work. Such forces have gained momentum over the last 40 years with the advent of a new economy that is increasingly reliant on skilled workers with a postsecondary education. This trend is evident in all sectors of Maine’s economy. In this article, Carnevale and Desrochers show where the jobs are in Maine and how the education attainment of those who hold such jobs has changed over the last 40 years. They look at where jobs will be in the future and the skills that employers want. They project that the forces fueling the demand for college-educated workers today will continue to grow, along with the income divide between those who have some postsecondary education and those who do not

Habit Learning by Naive Macaques Is Marked by Response Sharpening of Striatal Neurons Representing the Cost and Outcome of Acquired Action Sequences

Over a century of scientific work has focused on defining the factors motivating behavioral learning. Observations in animals and humans trained on a wide range of tasks support reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms as accounting for the learning. Still unknown, however, are the signals that drive learning in naive, untrained subjects. Here, we capitalized on a sequential saccade task in which macaque monkeys acquired repetitive scanning sequences without instruction. We found that spike activity in the caudate nucleus after each trial corresponded to an integrated cost-benefit signal that was highly correlated with the degree of naturalistic untutored learning by the monkeys. Across learning, neurons encoding both cost and outcome gradually acquired increasingly sharp phasic trial-end responses that paralleled the development of the habit-like, repetitive saccade sequences. Our findings demonstrate an integrated cost-benefit signal by which RL and its neural correlates could drive naturalistic behaviors in freely behaving primates. Video Abstract: Feedback about the costs and benefits of our actions is an essential part of how we learn. Desrochers et al. show that neurons in the striatum of monkeys develop combined cost-benefit signals marking movement sequences that they acquire without explicit training.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01 EY012848)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01 NS025529)United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Grant NBCHC070105)United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-07-1-0903

Habit Learning by Naive Macaques Is Marked by Response Sharpening of Striatal Neurons Representing the Cost and Outcome of Acquired Action Sequences

SummaryOver a century of scientific work has focused on defining the factors motivating behavioral learning. Observations in animals and humans trained on a wide range of tasks support reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms as accounting for the learning. Still unknown, however, are the signals that drive learning in naive, untrained subjects. Here, we capitalized on a sequential saccade task in which macaque monkeys acquired repetitive scanning sequences without instruction. We found that spike activity in the caudate nucleus after each trial corresponded to an integrated cost-benefit signal that was highly correlated with the degree of naturalistic untutored learning by the monkeys. Across learning, neurons encoding both cost and outcome gradually acquired increasingly sharp phasic trial-end responses that paralleled the development of the habit-like, repetitive saccade sequences. Our findings demonstrate an integrated cost-benefit signal by which RL and its neural correlates could drive naturalistic behaviors in freely behaving primates.Video Abstrac

Characterization of Respiratory Phenotype in Very Long-chain Acyl-CoA Dehydrogenase Deficient Mice.

Rationale: Very Long-chain Acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (VLCAD) deficiency the most common inherited long-chain fatty acid disorder. The VLCAD enzyme catalyzes the first step of mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation and loss of the enzyme results in energy deficiency as well as accumulation of long chain fatty acids. Recently, a related enzyme, Long-chain Acyl-CoA dehydrogensase (LCAD), which unlike VLCAD is not highly expressed in metabolic tissues like liver, heart and skeletal muscle, was found to be expressed in the lung and surfactant and lung dysfunction were observed in LCAD deficient mice. Respiratory distress syndrome has been described in other fatty acid oxidation disorders. VLCAD is expressed in lung, and likely plays an important role in lung compliance. Methods: VLCAD deficient mice and litter-mate controls were fasted for 18 hours, then exercised on a treadmill for 2 hours. Breathing was immediately assessed using whole body plethysmography in unanaesthetized spontaneously breathing mice. After a stable baseline was achieved, mice were given a “respiratory” challenge with 7% hypercapnia. In a subgroup of animals, pulmonary mechanics were assessed using Flexivent (Scireq). Results: Following exercise, VLCAD deficient mice had a decreased tidal volume and minute ventilation compared to their wild type controls. However, post-exercise VLCAD deficient mice were able to stabilize to similar levels as wild-type during baseline. The VLCAD deficient mice had a decreased response to a respiratory challenge with 7% hypercapnia. Early preliminary results suggest that VLCAD deficient animals have lower airway resistance. Conclusions: Respiratory insufficiency was demonstrated in a fasted and exercise challenged VLCAD deficient mice