Editorial: Building Supportive Research Communities

Editoria

Remixing the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT)

The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) is a high-stakes, standardized literacy test that high school students in Ontario must pass before graduating with a high school diploma. However, each year, approximately 35,000 students do not pass the OSSLT, jeopardizing their chances to graduate. Critical literacies encourage readers to act upon what they are reading by responding to, evaluating, and/or rewriting what they are reading. Throughout this paper, I will be applying these theories by proposing an unsettling, a deterritorialization, and a potential hybridization, or remixing of the OSSLT to better meet the needs of the diverse group of students writing the test. Such a remix could also create a generative and open space for reflection and reconsideration of what we are trying to achieve with this literacy test. This paper focuses on issues of equity and social justice in the context of standardized assessments, specifically the OSSLT, because this literacy test has the potential to significantly impact the lives of youth in Ontario

Structural and Metamorphic Controls on Gold Mineralization in the Rochford District: A Comparison to the Homestake Mine, Black Hills, South Dakota

The Rochford District of the Black Hills, South Dakota was heavily prospected for gold in the late 19th Century, and more recent prospecting has identified many areas with anomalous gold values (Great Lakes Exploration, unpublished data; Bayley, 1972), including some samples exceeding 20 ppm Au. The Rochford District is only 30 kilometers south of the Homestake Mine, one of the largest gold producers in North American history. Gold mineralization at the Homestake Mine is intimately related to a complex Proterozoic deformational and metamorphic history that has affected the entire Black Hills Region, and shares many similarities with the Rochford District. Despite the similarities to Homestake, and compelling evidence for gold mineralization, the Rochford District has remained largely unexplored. This study integrates geologic mapping, structural measurements, and petrographic analyses with an extensive new gold assay database in order to identify the major controls on gold mineralization in the Rochford District.Both the Rochford District and Homestake Mine contain early F1 folds and an S1 fabric that has been transposed by a later S2 fabric. This pervasive, NNW-trending, S2 foliation is associated with tight to isoclinal F2 folds. F2 folds display dramatic thickening in the hinge regions, which increases the volume of iron formation available to host mineralization in discrete, predictable locations. A late, S3 crenulation cleavage only observed in the Rochford District is associated with strong pressure solution and is believed to represent a major fluid migration event.The gold is concentrated in the Homestake and Rochford iron formations, which act as chemical traps for gold and sulfides. The greenschist to amphibolite transition seems to represent the most favorable combination of host rock mineralogy and permeability for gold mineralization at the Homestake Mine and within the Rochford District. Gold mineralization in the Rochford District is texturally and chemically similar to that at Homestake, but the relationship between ore-type and gold grade is different, suggesting a similar source for the gold, but different mineralization mechanisms. Textural relationships between sulfides and metamorphic minerals suggest two distinct pulses of mineralization. The first is potentially synchronous with the gold mineralization event at Homestake. The second pulse is potentially associated with the late, S3 crenulation and pressure solution that remobilized and enriched the mineralization in the Rochford Formation. The close similarities between the Homestake Mine and the Rochford District in host rock composition, structural style, metamorphic grade, and gold mineralization suggest that the Rochford District has the potential to contain a world-class gold deposit. Exploration efforts should focus on areas of thickened F2 fold hinges of Rochford Formation within the greenschist to amphibolite transition zone

The peripheral differentiation of human natural killer T cells

The peripheral maturation of human CD1d‐restricted natural killer T (NKT) cells has not been well described. In this study, we identified four major subsets of NKT cells in adults, distinguished by the expression of CD4, CD8 and CCR5. Phenotypic analysis suggested a hierarchical pattern of differentiation, whereby immature CD4+CD8−CCR5− cells progressed to an intermediate CD4+CD8−CCR5+ stage, which remained less differentiated than the CD4−CD8− and CD4−CD8+ subsets, both of which expressed CCR5. This interpretation was supported by functional data, including clonogenic potential and cytokine secretion profiles, as well as T‐cell receptor (TCR) excision circle analysis. Moreover, conventional and high‐throughput sequencing of the corresponding TCR repertoires demonstrated significant clonotypic overlap within individuals, especially between the more differentiated CD4−CD8− and CD4−CD8+ subsets. Collectively, these results mapped a linear differentiation pathway across the post‐thymic landscape of human CD1d‐restricted NKT cells

Stochastic expansions maintain the clonal stability of CD8+ T cell populations undergoing memory inflation driven by murine cytomegalovirus

CMV is an obligate and persistent intracellular pathogen that continually drives the production of highly differentiated virus-specific CD8+ T cells in an Ag-dependent manner, a phenomenon known as memory inflation. Extensive proliferation is required to generate and maintain inflationary CD8+ T cell populations, which are counterintuitively short-lived and typically exposed to limited amounts of Ag during the chronic phase of infection. An apparent discrepancy therefore exists between the magnitude of expansion and the requirement for ongoing immunogenic stimulation. To address this issue, we explored the clonal dynamics of memory inflation. First, we tracked congenically marked OT-I cell populations in recipient mice infected with murine CMV (MCMV) expressing the cognate Ag OVA. Irrespective of numerical dominance, stochastic expansions were observed in each population, such that dominant and subdominant OT-I cells were maintained at stable frequencies over time. Second, we characterized endogenous CD8+ T cell populations specific for two classic inflationary epitopes, M38 and IE3. Multiple clonotypes simultaneously underwent Ag-driven proliferation during latent infection with MCMV. In addition, the corresponding CD8+ T cell repertoires were stable over time and dominated by persistent clonotypes, many of which also occurred in more than one mouse. Collectively, these data suggest that stochastic encounters with Ag occur frequently enough to maintain oligoclonal populations of inflationary CD8+ T cells, despite intrinsic constraints on epitope display at individual sites of infection with MCMV

Examining the Use of Lecture Capture Technology: Implications for Teaching and Learning

This study sought to provide a better understanding of how lecture capture technology is used by students and how its use is related to student satisfaction, attendance, and academic performance. Using a mixed method design with both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data, instruments included a student questionnaire, interviews and focus groups, lecture capture usage statistics, and grades. Results showed that 63% of students were satisfied with lecture capture and 75% of students indicated that it had facilitated their learning. Students primarily used the recordings to learn what they had missed while in class (79%) or because they were absent (72%). 70% of students reported having watched at least 50% of the recorded material (27% watched all the material), and only 8% of students did not view any recordings. Student satisfaction had a significant positive relationship with the number of lectures viewed. In regards to attendance, the self-reported data from students indicated that 61% of students did not miss classes (none or just one class). Students with the greatest number of missed classes viewed the recordings more frequently. As for student achievement, 68% of students indicated that lecture capture helped them to achieve better grades. Students with lower course marks accessed the recordings more frequently than those with higher marks. Instructor perceptions were that lecture capture predominately helped average to below average students achieve slightly better marks, but had less of an impact on the grades for particularly low and high achieving students. Cette étude avait pour but de fournir une meilleure compréhension de la manière dont la capture de cours en vidéo est utilisée par les étudiants et comment son utilisation est reliée à la satisfaction des étudiants, à leur assiduité et à leurs résultats académiques. Grâce à un concept de méthodes mixtes comprenant des méthodes quantitatives et qualitatives pour recueillir les données, les instruments incluaient un questionnaire à remplir par les étudiants, des entrevues et des groupes de discussion, des statistiques sur l’emploi de la capture de cours, ainsi que des notes. Les résultats ont indiqué que 63 % des étudiants étaient satisfaits de la capture de cours et 75 % d’entre eux ont pensé que cette méthode avait favorisé leur apprentissage. Les étudiants ont principalement utilisé les enregistrements pour apprendre ce qu’ils avaient manqué quand ils étaient en classe (79 %) ou parce qu’ils étaient absents (72 %). Soixante-dix pour cent des étudiants ont indiqué qu’ils avaient regardé au moins 50 % des enregistrements (27 % avaient regardé toutes les vidéos) et seulement 8 % des étudiants n’avaient regardé aucune vidéo. La satisfaction des étudiants a eu une incidence positive importante en fonction du nombre de vidéos visionnées. En ce qui concerne l’assiduité, les données auto-déclarées par les étudiants ont indiqué que 61 % des étudiants n’avaient pas manqué de classes (aucune absence ou seulement une absence). Les étudiants qui avaient le plus grand nombre d’absences avaient regardé les vidéos plus fréquemment. En ce qui concerne les résultats des étudiants, 68 % d’entre eux ont indiqué que la capture de cours les avait aidés à obtenir de meilleures notes. Les étudiants qui avaient obtenu les notes de cours les plus basses avaient regardé les vidéos plus fréquemment que ceux qui avaient obtenu des notes plus élevées. Les instructeurs ont déclaré que la capture de cours en vidéo avait surtout aidé les étudiants de niveau moyen ou inférieur à la moyenne à obtenir des notes un peu meilleures, mais qu’elle avait eu un effet moins important sur les notes des étudiants très peu performants ou sur celles des étudiants très performants

Long peptides induce polyfunctional T cells against conserved regions of HIV-1 with superior breadth to single-gene vaccines in macaques

A novel T-cell vaccine strategy designed to deal with the enormity of HIV-1 variation is described and tested for the first time in macaques to inform and complement approaching clinical trials. T-cell immunogen HIVconsv, which directs vaccine-induced responses to the most conserved regions of the HIV-1, proteome and thus both targets diverse clades in the population and reduces the chance of escape in infected individuals, was delivered using six different vaccine modalities: plasmid DNA (D), attenuated human (A) and chimpanzee (C) adenoviruses, modified vaccinia virus Ankara (M), synthetic long peptides, and Semliki Forest virus replicons. We confirmed that the initial DDDAM regimen, which mimics one of the clinical schedules (DDDCM), is highly immunogenic in macaques. Furthermore, adjuvanted synthetic long peptides divided into sub-pools and delivered into anatomically separate sites induced T-cell responses that were markedly broader than those elicited by traditional single-open-reading-frame genetic vaccines and increased by 30% the overall response magnitude compared with DDDAM. Thus, by improving both the HIV-1-derived immunogen and vector regimen/delivery, this approach could induce stronger, broader, and theoretically more protective T-cell responses than vaccines previously used in humans