How do Early-career Biology Faculty Develop Pedagogical Content Knowledge? Exploring Variation and Longitudinal Development.

Active-learning instructors are more effective when they use pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to anticipate, interpret, and respond to student thinking. PCK is topic-specific and includes knowledge of student thinking (e.g.

Are Department Heads Ready for Change? Leveraging a Leadership Action Team to Advance Teaching Evaluation Practices.

Teaching evaluation at many institutions is insufficient to support, recognize, and reward effective teaching. We developed a long-term intervention to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) department heads in advancing teaching evaluation practices. We describe the intervention and systematically investigate its impact on departmental practices within a research-intensive university.

Nonopioid vs opioid analgesics after impacted third-molar extractions: The Opioid Analgesic Reduction Study randomized clinical trial.

Background: Opioids are still being prescribed to manage acute postsurgical pain. Unnecessary opioid prescriptions can lead to addiction and death, as unused tablets are easily diverted.

Methods: To determine whether combination nonopioid analgesics are at least as good as opioid analgesics, a multisite, double-blind, randomized, stratified, noninferiority comparative effectiveness trial was conducted, which examined patient-centered outcomes after impacted mandibular third-molar extraction surgery.

Dynamic survival prediction of end-stage kidney disease using random survival forests for competing risk analysis.

Background And Hypothesis: A static predictive model relying solely on baseline clinicopathological data cannot capture the heterogeneity in predictor trajectories observed in the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD). To address this, we developed and validated a dynamic survival prediction model using longitudinal clinicopathological data to predict end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), with death as a competing risk.

Methods: We trained a sequence of random survival forests using a landmarking approach and optimized the model with a pre-specified prediction horizon of 5 years.

Complete genomes of common bacterial hosts of RNA bacteriophage Φ6.

Bacterial plant pathogens pv. , pv. , pv.

View-symmetric representations of faces in human and artificial neural networks.

View symmetry has been suggested to be an important intermediate representation between view-specific and view-invariant representations of faces in the human brain. Here, we compared view-symmetry in humans and a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) trained to recognise faces. First, we compared the output of the DCNN to head rotations in yaw (left-right), pitch (up-down) and roll (in-plane rotation).

A data-driven analysis of the perceptual and neural responses to natural objects reveals organising principles of human visual cognition.

A key challenge in understanding the functional organisation of visual cortex stems from the fact that only a small proportion of the objects experienced during natural viewing can be presented in a typical experiment. This constraint often leads to experimental designs that compare responses to objects from experimenter-defined stimulus conditions, potentially limiting the interpretation of the data. To overcome this issue, we used images from the THINGS initiative, which provides a systematic sampling of natural objects.

Global changes in the pattern of connectivity in developmental prosopagnosia.

Developmental prosopagnosia is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by difficulties in recognizing the identity of a person from their face. While current theories of the neural basis of developmental prosopagnosia focus on the face processing network, successful recognition of face identities requires broader integration of neural signals across the whole brain. Here, we asked whether disruptions in global functional and structural connectivity contribute to the face recognition difficulties observed in developmental prosopagnosia.

Long-term recovery of taste and smell following acute COVID-19 infection in a New Jersey cohort.

Loss of taste and smell is one of the most troubling symptoms of long COVID and may be permanent for some. Correlation between subjectively and objectively assessed olfactory and gustatory impairment is low, leading to uncertainty about how many people are affected, how many recover, and to what extent. We prospectively investigated the effects of COVID-19 on long-term chemosensory function in a university and hospital-based cohort in NJ.

Influence of commercial inactivated or modified-live virus vaccination at time of AI on corpus luteum development and function in beef cattle.

Our objective was to evaluate the effect of vaccination with an inactivated virus vaccine (IVV) or modified-live virus (MLV) vaccine on the corpus luteum (CL). On d0, synchronized beef cows were treated with MLV (n = 70; BoviShield Gold FP5VL5), IVV (n = 16; ViraShield 6VL5HB), or were unvaccinated controls (n = 5). Plasma was collected from treated animals on d0 and every other day through d22.

Interpretable single-cell factor decomposition using sciRED.

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) maps gene expression heterogeneity within a tissue. However, identifying biological signals in this data is challenging due to confounding technical factors, sparsity, and high dimensionality. Data factorization methods address this by separating and identifying signals in the data, such as gene expression programs, but the resulting factors must be manually interpreted.

Interpretable single-cell factor decomposition using sciRED.

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) maps gene expression heterogeneity within a tissue. However, identifying biological signals in this data is challenging due to confounding technical factors, sparsity, and high dimensionality. Data factorization methods address this by separating and identifying signals in the data, such as gene expression programs, but the resulting factors must be manually interpreted.

Human liver sinusoidal endothelial cells support the development of functional human pluripotent stem cell-derived Kupffer cells.

In mice, the first liver-resident macrophages, known as Kupffer cells (KCs), are thought to derive from yolk sac (YS) hematopoietic progenitors that are specified prior to the emergence of the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC). To investigate human KC development, we recapitulated YS-like hematopoiesis from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) and transplanted derivative macrophage progenitors into NSG mice previously humanized with hPSC-liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs). We demonstrate that hPSC-LSECs facilitate stable hPSC-YS-macrophage engraftment for at least 7 weeks.

Elongation factor 1A1 inhibition elicits changes in lipid droplet size, the bulk transcriptome, and cell type-associated gene expression in MASLD mouse liver.

Eukaryotic elongation factor 1A1 (EEF1A1), originally identified for its role in protein synthesis, has additional functions in diverse cellular processes. Of note, we previously discovered a role for EEF1A1 in hepatocyte lipotoxicity. We also demonstrated that a 2-wk intervention with the EEF1A1 inhibitor didemnin B (DB) (50 µg/kg) decreased liver steatosis in a mouse model of obesity and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) [129S6/SvEvTac mice fed Western diet (42% fat) for 26 wk].

A TNIP1-driven systemic autoimmune disorder with elevated IgG4.

Whole-exome sequencing of two unrelated kindreds with systemic autoimmune disease featuring antinuclear antibodies with IgG4 elevation uncovered an identical ultrarare heterozygous TNIP1 variant segregating with disease. Mice with the orthologous Q346P variant developed antinuclear autoantibodies, salivary gland inflammation, elevated IgG2c, spontaneous germinal centers and expansion of age-associated B cells, plasma cells and follicular and extrafollicular helper T cells. B cell phenotypes were cell-autonomous and rescued by ablation of Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) or MyD88.

Evaluation of pregnancy associated glycoproteins assays for on farm determination of pregnancy status in beef cattle.

Transrectal ultrasonography is known as the gold standard for pregnancy detection, but requires costly equipment and technical skills; therefore, access to an inexpensive and more user-friendly method with similar accuracy could benefit cattle producers. Detection of pregnancy-associated glycoproteins can accurately determine pregnancy in ruminants; however, usually requires specialized equipment for the assay. Thus, the objectives of these studies were to 1) validate the IDEXX Alertys OnFarm Pregnancy Test (lateral flow) and compare the accuracy of all three commercial PAG assays to transrectal ultrasonography and 2) to determine the postpartum interval necessary for clearance of pregnancy-associated glycoproteins from the previous pregnancy to avoid false positives.

Relationship between facility type and bulk tank milk bacteriology, udder health, udder hygiene, and milk production on Vermont organic dairy farms.

The primary objective of this cross-sectional observational study was to determine whether bulk tank milk quality, udder health, udder hygiene, and milk production outcomes were associated with facility type on organic dairies. A secondary objective was to identify other management-related risk factors associated with bulk tank milk quality, udder health, udder hygiene, and milk production on organic dairy herds in Vermont. We aimed to enroll 40 farms, to compare herds using the 2 most common systems (freestalls, tiestalls) for housing organic dairy cattle in the state with those using a bedded pack during the nongrazing season (typically November-May).

The importance of conceptual knowledge when becoming familiar with faces during naturalistic viewing.

Although the ability to recognise familiar faces is a critical part of everyday life, the process by which a face becomes familiar in the real world is not fully understood. Previous research has focussed on the importance of perceptual experience. However, in natural viewing, perceptual experience with faces is accompanied by increased knowledge about the person and the context in which they are encountered.

The Mechanics of Building Functional Organs.

Organ morphogenesis is multifaceted, multiscale, and fundamentally a robust process. Despite the complex and dynamic nature of embryonic development, organs are built with reproducible size, shape, and function, allowing them to support organismal growth and life. This striking reproducibility of tissue form exists because morphogenesis is not entirely hardwired.

No evidence for an other-race effect in dominance and trustworthy judgements from faces.

A variety of evidence shows that social categorization of people based on their race can lead to stereotypical judgements and prejudicial behaviour. Here, we explore the extent to which trait judgements of faces are influenced by race. To address this issue, we measured the reliability of first impressions for own-race and other-race faces in Asian and White participants.