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As self-regulation for successful online learning is a relatively new focus in online education, more attention is directed toward initiatives to help students become more cognizant of their learning efforts in online learning environments. Grounded in the idea that self-regulation is feedback dependent, we argue for the necessity of instructor feedback on student performance in online classes. The specific focus is instructor feedback on students' online discussion contributions. To assist instructors in managing their feedback practices in large online classes with numerous discussion entries, we present a feedback pool that includes a range of predetermined comments instructors can choose from while assessing their students' discussion participation.

The growing prevalence of deadly microbes with resistance to previously life-saving drug therapies is a dire threat to human health. Detection of low abundance pathogen sequences remains a challenge for metagenomic Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). We introduce FLASH (Finding Low Abundance Sequences by Hybridization), a next-generation CRISPR/Cas9 diagnostic method that takes advantage of the efficiency, specificity and flexibility of Cas9 to enrich for a programmed set of sequences. FLASH-NGS achieves up to 5 orders of magnitude of enrichment and sub-attomolar gene detection with minimal background. We provide an open-source software tool (FLASHit) for guide RNA design. Here we applied it to detection of antimicrobial resistance genes in respiratory fluid and dried blood spots, but FLASH-NGS is applicable to all areas that rely on multiplex PCR.

The strategic engineering of solar energy technologies—from individual rooftop modules to large solar energy power plants—can confer significant synergistic outcomes across industrial and ecological boundaries. Here, we propose techno–ecological synergy (TES), a framework for engineering mutually beneficial relationships between technological and ecological systems, as an approach to augment the sustainability of solar energy across a diverse suite of recipient environments, including land, food, water, and built-up systems. We provide a conceptual model and framework to describe 16 TESs of solar energy and characterize 20 potential techno–ecological synergistic outcomes of their use. For each solar energy TES, we also introduce metrics and illustrative assessments to demonstrate techno–ecological potential across multiple dimensions. The numerous applications of TES to solar energy technologies are unique among energy systems and represent a powerful frontier in sustainable engineering to minimize unintended consequences on nature associated with a rapid energy transition.

Fusarium wilt of tomato, caused by the soilborne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, is an increasingly important disease of tomato. This paper reports the high-quality draft genome assembly of F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici isolate D11 (race 3), which consists of 39 scaffolds with 57,281,978 bp (GC content, 47.5%), an N50 of 4,408,267 bp, a mean read coverage of 99.8×, and 17,682 predicted genes.

This paper presents a novel Bayesian method for backcalculation of pavement dynamic modulus, stiffness, thickness, and damping using falling weight deflectometer (FWD) data. The backcalculation procedure yields estimates and uncertainties for each pavement property of interest. As a by‐product of the Bayesian procedure, information about measurement error is recovered. The Bayesian method is tested on simulated FWD backcalculations and compared with a state‐of‐the‐art trust‐region optimization algorithm, and it achieves estimation errors that are nearly an order of magnitude lower than the trust‐region solver. Confidence intervals are computed from thousands of simulated backcalculations and are shown to quantify uncertainty in estimated pavement properties. To cope with the computational expense of backcalculation, a fully parallel transitional Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure is developed. The fully parallel algorithm scales well to computation with many processor cores, and it yields up to a 50% reduction in computation time when compared to existing parallel implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mass and energy balance of the snowpack govern its evolution. Direct measurement of these fluxes is essential for modeling the snowpack, yet there are few sites where all the relevant measurements are taken. Mammoth Mountain, CA USA, is home to the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory and University of California – Santa Barbara Energy Site (CUES), one of five energy balance monitoring sites in the western US. There is a ski patrol study site on Mammoth Mountain, called the Sesame Street Snow Study Plot, with automated snow and meteorological instruments where new snow is hand-weighed to measure its water content. There is also a site at Mammoth Pass with automated precipitation instruments. For this dataset, we present a clean and continuous hourly record of selected measurements from the three sites covering the 2011–2017 water years. Then, we model the snow mass balance at CUES and compare model runs to snow pillow measurements. The 2011–2017 period was marked by exceptional variability in precipitation, even for an area that has high year-to-year variability. The driest year on record, and one of the wettest years, occurred during this time period, making it ideal for studying climatic extremes. This dataset complements a previously published dataset from CUES containing a smaller subset of daily measurements. In addition to the hand-weighed SWE, novel measurements include hourly broadband snow albedo corrected for terrain and other measurement biases. This dataset is available with a digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.21424/R4159Q.

* Context.--Molecularly distinct from cutaneous melanomas arising from sun-exposed sites, acral lentiginous melanomas (ALMs) typically lack ultraviolet-signature mutations, such as telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutations. Instead, ALMs show a high degree of copy number alterations, often with multiple amplifications of TERT, which are associated with adverse prognosis. The prognostic value of TERT protein expression in acral melanomas, however, is not established. Objective.--To evaluate the frequency and pattern of TERT immunoreactivity and assess the potential utility of TERT expression as a prognostic indicator in ALMs. Design.--TERT expression by immunohistochemistry was analyzed in a series of 57 acral and nonacral melanocytic lesions, including 24 primary and 6 metastatic ALMs. Clinical outcome in patients with ALMs by TERT expression was assessed. Results.--TERT expression was more frequent in ALMs than in nonlentiginous acral melanomas and nonacral cutaneous melanomas, and was absent in acral nevi (P =.01). When present, TERT expression in ALMs was cytoplasmic and more intense than TERT expression in other melanocytic lesions (P =.05) with a higher H-score (P =.01). There was a trend toward decreased overall survival in patients with ALMs with TERT immunoreactivity, but it did not reach statistical significance. Furthermore, no correlation was found between TERT expression and disease-specific survival in patients with ALMs. Conclusions.--Although TERT protein expression was frequently detected in both primary and metastatic ALMs, TERT immunoreactivity in ALMs did not correlate with survival in our study. Further studies with larger cohorts are needed to elucidate the prognostic value of TERT expression in ALMs. (Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2021;145:842-850; doi: 10.5858/arpa.2020-0330-OA), Telomeres are regions of repetitive nucleotide sequences located at the ends of chromosomes that play a key role in the maintenance of genomic integrity and stability in cells. (1) In [...]

The purpose of this descriptive survey research study conducted with agriculture teachers in North Carolina was to determine their in-service training needs in order to be effective for preparing students with the 21st century skills necessary for students to be successful. This study reaffirms the need for continuation of leadership education as an important skill and integration of reading, writing, and math concepts into all agricultural education curricula for preparing students to be successful in the 21st century. The role of agriculture in global food security; application of problem-based learning; planning and delivering lessons to utilize higher order thinking skills; teaching leadership skills; and development of teamwork and student collaboration were identified as the five most important in-service training needs for preparing agriculture teachers to be effective educators. Findings of this study are limited to North Carolina agriculture teachers. This limitation of applying findings for other states should be addressed by conducting a study with a diverse sample of agriculture teachers across the nation.