This resource contains one lab activity plan and two lecture notes on three different agronomy related topics. 

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Metastasis is the leading cause of breast cancer-related death, but traditional Chinese medicines such as Aiduqing (ADQ) can help prevent it. ADQ is known to target caveolin-1, CXCL1-mediated autophagy, and matrix metalloproteinase-related epithelial-mesenchymal transition, but it remains unclear whether it also modulates tumor-associated macrophage (TAM)/CXCL1 activity to remodel the tumor microenvironment. To find out, researchers recently examined the effects of ADQ in mice and cultured cells. In mice, ADQ significantly reduced xenograft tumor growth and lung metastasis without causing toxicity. ADQ also remodeled the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Mechanistic studies revealed that ADQ reduced CXCL1 expression and secretion from TAMs to suppress CD4+ T cell chemotaxis and Treg differentiation, thus increasing CD8+ T cell cytotoxicity..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This assignment was designed for students in the pathways introductory chemistry class and the first year seminar and aligns with the Inquiry and Problem Solving core competency. In this context, there is a focus on framing the issues (identifies and/or addresses questions and problems), evidence gathering (assembles, reviews and synthesizes evidence from several diverse sources), evidence (analyze the data to address the questions posed) and conclusions (critical thinking, reflect on the outcomes, draw conclusions and generate new knowledge). There is also a Global Learning component based on comparing data collected locally with corresponding data from other locations or countries. The assignment includes the written communication ability with a focus on "Content Development and Organization," as well as the clarity of the communication and its purpose. The overall aim of this assignment is to enhance students' conceptual learning and understanding of key issues related to society as well as their course. This assignment was developed as part of a LaGuardia Global Learning mini-grant and CUNY Experiential Learning and Research in the Classroom mini-grants.
The assignment will be scaffolded over about 3 weeks and is worth about 10% of the final grade.
To further increase the success of this assignment, instructors might want to consider the following: Use class discussions to focus on the relevance and importance of conceptual learning. In order to improve the data analysis aspect, incorporating class demonstrations of how to conduct the analysis and guide discussions about what the data means. Giving students more detailed rubrics with formal expectations of the requirements of the assignments, particularly in the written format Find ways to increase student participation in class discussions.
When this assignment has been utilized in previous semesters, students clearly displayed the capability to relate the co-curricular experiences in the data collection and its analysis to concepts and ideas covered during class. Evidence for this came from very dynamic and interactive class discussions based on air pollution as well as from the output of the written assignment, in which students were able to relate the nature, sources and chemical properties of the pollutants to their impact on the environment, health and society in general.
LaGuardia's Core Competencies and Communication Abilities
List the Program Goal(s) that this assignment targets
Global Learning based on comparing pollutant levels around the LaGuardia campus with those in other locations or countries. It is also an IPS assignment, incorporating scientific literacy and thinking, as students need to analyze the data, interpret it and reflect on the outcomes.
List the Student Learning Objective(s) that this assignment targets
Identify and apply fundamental chemical concepts and methods. Gather, analyze, and interpret data.
List the Course Objectives(s) that this assignment targets
Explore the complex connections between chemistry and society. Apply chemical principles to real world issues, including ethical aspects. Gather, analyze, and interpret data.
Write a short description of the pedagogy involved in executing this assignment
Students collect and analyze the data, interpret the results in terms of pollution levels, safety and ethics and compare with EPA standard levels and with levels in other countries.
Outside the classroom events will be organized for data collection. There will be class and group-based discussions focused on the data, its analysis and the connections to society.

This course is offered to undergraduates and addresses several algorithmic challenges in computational biology. The principles of algorithmic design for biological datasets are studied and existing algorithms analyzed for application to real datasets. Topics covered include: biological sequence analysis, gene identification, regulatory motif discovery, genome assembly, genome duplication and rearrangements, evolutionary theory, clustering algorithms, and scale-free networks.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Individuals with metabolic syndrome have a 2-fold increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but few strategies provide adequate cardiovascular risk reduction for this group. One option to lower this risk is to reduce atherogenic lipids, particularly low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Statins are a recommended first-line therapy for this purpose, but this approach doesn’t always provide sufficient LDL-C lowering to optimally reduce cardiovascular risk. Now, researchers have shown that alirocumab, a proprotein converstase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitor, or PCSK9 inhibitor, approved for LDL-C reduction, may address this need. Pooled clinical trial data from ten phase 3 clinical trials from the ODYSSEY clinical development program showed alirocumab significantly lowered LDL-C in individuals both with and without metabolic syndrome..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Alirocumab, a drug that inhibits PCSK9 and helps clear the blood of atherogenic lipids, may be of benefit for individuals with type 2 diabetes who are most at risk of cardiovascular disease. According to the International Diabetes Federation, heart disease is the leading cause of death among people with type 2 diabetes. One factor that might contribute to that grim statistic is the high mixed dyslipidemia prevalence in this population. Mixed dyslipidemia is characterized by elevated triglycerides, and hence high triglyceride-rich lipoprotein, or remnant cholesterol, and high cholesterol levels; and low serum levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or HDL-C. Despite treatment with statins and other lipid-lowering therapies targeting atherogenic lipoproteins, management of mixed dyslipidemia remains challenging, especially among individuals with diabetes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Allele frequencies in populations and how they differ from genotype frequencies. Created by Sal Khan.

This activity follows a discussion in lecture about how to recognize various types of glacial landforms created through both erosional and depositional processes. It gives students practive in reading maps, interpreting landforms and synthesizing various types of landscapes.
Designed for a geomorphology course
Has minimal/no quantitative component

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This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Certain gut microbes and their metabolites contribute to the progression of benign colorectal adenoma (CRA) into colorectal cancer (CRC), but the specific microbes, metabolites, and mechanisms involved are unclear. To learn more, researchers recently analyzed stool samples from patients with CRA or CRC and normal control (NC) subjects. The levels of certain stool metabolites significantly differed among the groups. For example, myristic acid and norvaline became more abundant with progression from health to CRC. The CRC-associated metabolites were largely branched- chain amino acids and aromatic amino acids and were involved in aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis pathways. A metabolite “signature” distinguished CRC samples from NC samples and CRC samples from CRA samples and the relationships among CRC-related metabolites and gut bacteria differed in the different sample types..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Autophagy is an important cellular recycling process that degrades misfolded proteins and damaged organelles. In typical (“canonical”) autophagy, membranes derived from the endoplasmic reticulum surround damaged materials that need to be degraded, and the proteins Atg5 and Atg7 help form specialized digestion compartments (autophagosomes), but another type of autophagy, called alternative autophagy, was recently discovered. In alternative autophagy, the membranes that envelop the damaged materials are derived from the trans-Golgi membrane, and Atg5 and Atg7 do not participate in autophagosome formation. Alternative autophagy seems to be activated primarily under conditions of cell stress, and it plays roles in many diseases, such as heart disease, neurodegenerative disease, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, and bacterial infection..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Alternative futures studies are a valuable yet resource-intensive way in which environmental scientists try to conduct informed debates about policies for specific geographic regions. These studies require modeling what the future would look like if different stakeholder groups had their way. The modeling is carried out by applying historical trend data to future projections that are rooted in the preferences of the different groups. Alternative future studies can be controversial due to the limitations of modeling and to the extent to which the models represent fully the different possible scenarios. Yet, they can be especially valuable for decision making about which areas in the region would be most appropriate and most acceptable for the applications of different policies such as development and restoration. Through a series of hands-on classroom activities that are the culmination of a variety of field trips, case studies, and analyses of GIS data about river systems and river restoration options, the students build deep understanding about what alternative futures studies entail and what are the applications of such studies to specific rivers in the Puget Sound area.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The gut microbiome interacts intimately with its human host, both in health and in disease. A recent study examined how different states of the gut microbiome might be linked to varying degrees of disease in rats. Researchers exposed rats to different concentrations of dextran sodium sulfate (DSS), a polysaccharide known to induce human-like colitis. The effects on the intestinal microbiome over time were tracked by gene profiling. The results provide some of the first experimental evidence of “alternative states” in the rat intestinal ecosystem. These are distinct microbial profiles related to markers of disease. Importantly, these alternative states were found to be tied to both the host and microbiome, rather than one or the other. That led to a conceptual model of how host inflammatory status and microbiome status interact and how the whole ecosystem may slip into and out of different states of disease..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Since its appearance in late 2019, COVID-19 has caused well over one million deaths worldwide. Large-scale testing and contact tracing remain critical for controlling viral spread. Complying with the US CDC and WHO protocols for sample collection requires a ready supply of inexpensive swabs and collection reagents. Unfortunately, CDC-approved clinical-grade sampling supplies are expensive, and additionally, current methods prevent further analysis of the microbiome due to the presence of antibiotics in viral transport media. Researchers sought out new testing supplies in a recent study comparing five consumer-grade swabs and one clinical-grade swab. They found that using 95% ethanol instead of viral transfer media reduced RNase activity, preserving samples for microbiome analysis, and extracting directly from the swab head instead of the surrounding liquid resulted in 2-4x higher RNA recovery than the clinical standard..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Glioma is the most common and lethal form of brain cancer. Among patients with the highest grade of glioma, fewer than 6% survive up to 5 years after diagnosis. Interestingly, glioma is extremely rare in one large population of patients patients with Alzheimer’s disease. That suggests that an anti-glioma molecule could play a critical role in the development of Alzheimer’s. In a recent study, researchers assessed one possible candidate: presenilin-1. Presenilin-1 is a protein that assists the formation of amyloid beta, the main component of the hallmark plaques found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s. Experiments showed that high presenilin-1 levels in glioma tissue from patients correlated with low tumor proliferation. Closer examination revealed that presenilin-1 kept cancer from spreading by preventing tumor cells from replicating their DNA. This mechanism could explain the poor prognosis of glioma patients with low levels of presenilin-1..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This video provides a detailed description of the habitat of the American Pika and how this organism may serve as a climate indicator species because they have a relatively narrow ecological niche and specialized habitat.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Many patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer develop a serious side effect called chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). CIPN involves pain, tingling, burning, or numbness in the hands and feet and is caused by neuroinflammation triggered by the protein HMGB1, but the exact mechanisms aren’t clear. To learn more and help find a treatment, researchers recently examined the plasma of human patients and mice with oxaliplatin-induced CIPN. They found that the levels of HMGB1 and its target enzyme MMP-9 (a pain marker) were elevated in CIPN plasma and that a higher dose of oxaliplatin was associated with higher HMGB1 levels and worse pain. In cell experiments, HMGB1 was degraded—and inflammatory molecule expression was suppressed—when the enzyme AMPK was activated suggesting that AMPK activation might be beneficial for CIPN. These effects were dependent on the protein SR-A1..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

3-part lecture series given at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology about infections with Gram-negative obligate anaerobes

This problem illustrates how numerical theories are developed, how we might test this theory with an analog model, and how numerical models are constructed and the limitations of numerical modeling.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)