Reflections on a massive open online life cycle assessment course

Purpose

This article summarizes student performance and survey data from a recent massive open online course (MOOC) on life cycle assessment (LCA). Its purpose is to shed light on student learning outcomes, challenges, and success factors, as well as on improvement opportunities for the MOOC and the role of online courses in LCA education in general.

Methods

Student survey data and course performance data were compiled, analyzed, and interpreted for 1257 students who completed a pre-course survey and 262 students who completed a post-course survey. Both surveys were designed to assess student learning outcomes, topical areas of difficulty, changing perceptions on the nature of LCA, and future plans after completing the MOOC.

Results and discussion

Results suggest that online courses can attract and motivate a large number of students and equip them with basic analytical skills to move on to more advanced LCA studies. However, results also highlight how MOOCs are not without structural limitations, especially related to mostly “locked in” content and the impracticality of directly supporting individual students, which can create challenges for teaching difficult topics and conveying important limitations of LCA in practice.

Conclusions

Online courses, and MOOCs in particular, may present an opportunity for the LCA community to efficiently recruit and train its next generations of LCA analysts and, in particular, those students who might not otherwise have an opportunity to take an LCA course. More surveys should be conducted by LCA instructors and researchers moving forward to enable scientific development and sharing of best practice teaching methods and materials.     

A New Online Computational Biology Curriculum

A recent proliferation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other web-based educational resources has greatly increased the potential for effective self-study in many fields. This article introduces a catalog of several hundred free video courses of potential interest to those wishing to expand their knowledge of bioinformatics and computational biology. The courses are organized into eleven subject areas modeled on university departments and are accompanied by commentary and career advice.     

A text mining analysis of the climate change literature in industrial ecology

The literature on climate change research has evolved tremendously since the 1990s. The goal of this study is to use text mining to review the climate change literature and study the evolution of the main trends over time. Specific keywords from articles published in the special issue “ Industrial Ecology for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience” in the Journal of Industrial Ecology are first selected. Details of over 35,000 publications containing these keywords are downloaded from the Web of Science from 1990 to 2018. The number of publications and co‐occurrence of keywords are analyzed. Moreover, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)—a probabilistic approach that can retrieve topics from large and unstructured text documents—is applied on the abstracts to uncover the main topics (consisting of new terms) that naturally emerge from them. The evolution in time of the importance of some emerging topics is then analyzed on the basis of their relative frequency. Overall, a rapid growth in climate change publications is observed. Terms such as “climate change adaptation” appear on the rise, whereas other terms are declining such as “pollution.” Moreover, several terms tend to co‐occur frequently, such as “climate change adaptation” and “resilience.” The database collected and the LiTCoF (Literature Topic Co‐occurrence and Frequency) Python‐based tool developed for this study are also made openly accessible. This article met the requirements for a gold – gold JIE data openness badge described http://jie.click/badges .     

Evolution of insect wings and development – new details from Palaeozoic nymphs

The nymphal stages of Palaeozoic insects differ significantly in morphology from those of their modern counterparts. Morphological details for some previously reported species have recently been called into question. Palaeozoic insect nymphs are important, however – their study could provide key insights into the evolution of wings, and complete metamorphosis. Here we review past work on these topics and juvenile insects in the fossil record, and then present both novel and previously described nymphs, documented using new imaging methods. Our results demonstrate that some Carboniferous nymphs – those of Palaeodictyopteroidea – possessed movable wing pads and appear to have been able to perform simple flapping flight. It remains unclear whether this feature is ancestral for Pterygota or an autapomorphy of Palaeodictyopteroidea. Further characters of nymphal development which were probably in the ground pattern of Pterygota can be reconstructed. Wing development was very gradual (archimetaboly). Wing pads did not protrude from the tergum postero‐laterally as in most modern nymphs, but laterally, and had well‐developed venation. The modern orientation of wing pads and the delay of wing development into later developmental stages (condensation) appears to have evolved several times independently within Pterygota: in Ephemeroptera, Odonatoptera, Eumetabola, and probably several times within Polyneoptera. Selective pressure appears to have favoured a more pronounced metamorphosis between the last nymphal and adult stage, ultimately reducing exploitation competition between the two. We caution, however, that the results presented herein remain preliminary, and the reconstructed evolutionary scenario contains gaps and uncertainties. Additional comparative data need to be collected. The present study is thus seen as a starting point for this enterprise.     

Conceptual and Practical Problems of Moral Enhancement

Recently, the debate on human enhancement has shifted from familiar topics like cognitive enhancement and mood enhancement to a new and – to no one's surprise – controversial subject, namely moral enhancement. Some proponents from the transhumanist camp allude to the ‘urgent need’ of improving the moral conduct of humankind in the face of ever growing technological progress and the substantial dangers entailed in this enterprise. Other thinkers express more sceptical views about this proposal. As the debate has revealed so far, there is no shared opinion among philosophers (or scientists) about the meaning, prospects, and ethical evaluation of moral enhancement. In this article I will address several conceptual and practical problems of this issue, in order to encourage discussion about the prospects of (thinking about) moral enhancement in the future. My assumption is that (i) for the short term, there is little chance of arriving at an agreement on the proper understanding of morality and the appropriateness of one single (meta‐)ethical theory; (ii) apart from this, there are further philosophical puzzles loosely referred to in the debate which add to theoretical confusion; and (iii) even if these conceptual problems could be solved, there are still practical problems to be smoothed out if moral enhancement is ever to gain relevance apart from merely theoretical interest. My tentative conclusion, therefore, will be that moral enhancement is not very likely to be made sense of – let alone realized – in the medium‐term future.     

Reciprocal modulation between TH17 and other helper T cell lineages

T helper 17 (TH17) cells have well‐described roles in autoimmune disease. However, TH17 is not stable in some physiological or pathological courses. Also, TH17 cells can reciprocally modulate and convert into other helper T cell subpopulations. The fully exploring the reciprocal regulatory effects and its immunoregulatory mechanisms are becoming interesting topics in the immunological study. In this review, we summarized reciprocal modulation pattern between TH17 cell and other helper T cell subpopulations in the mouse model of autoimmune diseases and human diseases. J. Cell. Physiol. 226: 8–13, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Revising traditional theory on the link between plant body size and fitness under competition: evidence from old‐field vegetation

The selection consequences of competition in plants have been traditionally interpreted based on a “size‐advantage” hypothesis – that is, under intense crowding/competition from neighbors, natural selection generally favors capacity for a relatively large plant body size. However, this conflicts with abundant data, showing that resident species body size distributions are usually strongly right‐skewed at virtually all scales within vegetation. Using surveys within sample plots and a neighbor‐removal experiment, we tested: (1) whether resident species that have a larger maximum potential body size (MAX) generally have more successful local individual recruitment, and thus greater local abundance/density (as predicted by the traditional size‐advantage hypothesis); and (2) whether there is a general between‐species trade‐off relationship between MAX and capacity to produce offspring when body size is severely suppressed by crowding/competition – that is, whether resident species with a larger MAX generally also need to reach a larger minimum reproductive threshold size (MIN) before they can reproduce at all. The results showed that MIN had a positive relationship with MAX across resident species, and local density – as well as local density of just reproductive individuals – was generally greater for species with smaller MIN (and hence smaller MAX). In addition, the cleared neighborhoods of larger target species (which had relatively large MIN) generally had – in the following growing season – a lower ratio of conspecific recruitment within these neighborhoods relative to recruitment of other (i.e., smaller) species (which had generally smaller MIN). These data are consistent with an alternative hypothesis based on a ‘reproductive‐economy‐advantage’ – that is, superior fitness under competition in plants generally requires not larger potential body size, but rather superior capacity to recruit offspring that are in turn capable of producing grand‐offspring – and hence transmitting genes to future generations – despite intense and persistent (cross‐generational) crowding/competition from near neighbors. Selection for the latter is expected to favor relatively small minimum reproductive threshold size and hence – as a tradeoff – relatively small (not large) potential body size.     

Problem-based learning biotechnology courses in chemical engineering

We have developed a series of upper undergraduate/graduate lecture and laboratory courses on biotechnological topics to supplement existing biochemical engineering, bioseparations, and biomedical engineering lecture courses. The laboratory courses are based on problem-based learning techniques, featuring two- and three-person teams, journaling, and performance rubrics for guidance and assessment. Participants initially have found them to be difficult, since they had little experience with problem-based learning. To increase enrollment, we are combining the laboratory courses into 2-credit groupings and allowing students to substitute one of them for the second of our 2-credit chemical engineering unit operations laboratory courses.     

Science ohne Fiction

Science without fiction Almost every newspaper and magazine, many TV stations and internet sites report on scientific topics. But what of it is trustworthy – and what is just sensationalism (a sensation message to create) to increase circulation? This article identifies criteria for good science journalism and shows why so many reports do not contribute to a good public information even in so‐called quality media.     

Using a newly introduced framework to measure ecological stressor interactions

Understanding how stressors combine to affect population abundances and trajectories is a fundamental ecological problem with increasingly important implications worldwide. Generalisations about interactions among stressors are challenging due to different categorisation methods and how stressors vary across species and systems. Here, we propose using a newly introduced framework to analyse data from the last 25 years on ecological stressor interactions, for example combined effects of temperature, salinity and nutrients on population survival and growth. We contrast our results with the most commonly used existing method – analysis of variance (ANOVA) – and show that ANOVA assumptions are often violated and have inherent limitations for detecting interactions. Moreover, we argue that rescaling – examining relative rather than absolute responses – is critical for ensuring that any interaction measure is independent of the strength of single‐stressor effects. In contrast, non‐rescaled measures – like ANOVA – find fewer interactions when single‐stressor effects are weak. After re‐examining 840 two‐stressor combinations, we conclude that antagonism and additivity are the most frequent interaction types, in strong contrast to previous reports that synergy dominates yet supportive of more recent studies that find more antagonism. Consequently, measuring and re‐assessing the frequency of stressor interaction types is imperative for a better understanding of how stressors affect populations.     

The grand challenges of migration ecology that radar aeroecology can help answer

Many migratory species have experienced substantial declines that resulted from rapid and massive expansions of human structures and activities, habitat alterations and climate change. Migrants are also recognized as an integral component of biodiversity and provide a multitude of services and disservices that are relevant to human agriculture, economy and health. The plethora of recently published studies reflects the need for better fundamental knowledge on migrations and for better management of their ecological and human‐relevant effects. Yet, where are we in providing answers to fundamental questions and societal challenges? Engaging a broad network of researchers worldwide, we used a horizon‐scan approach to identify the most important challenges which need to be overcome in order to gain a fuller understanding of migration ecology, and which could be addressed using radar aeroecological and macroecological approaches. The top challenges include both long‐standing and novel topics, ranging from fundamental information on migration routes and phenology, orientation and navigation strategies, and the multitude of effects migrants may have on resident communities, to societal challenges, such as protecting or preventing migrant services and disservices, and the conservation of migrants in the face of environmental changes. We outline these challenges, identify the urgency of addressing them and the primary stakeholders – researchers, policy makers and practitioners, or funders of research.     

Biodiversity monitoring,earth observations and the ecology of scale

Human activity and land‐use change are dramatically altering the sizes, geographical distributions and functioning of biological populations worldwide, with tremendous consequences for human well‐being. Yet our ability to measure, monitor and forecast biodiversity change – crucial to addressing it – remains limited. Biodiversity monitoring systems are being developed to improve this capacity by deriving metrics of change from an array of in situ data (e.g. field plots or species occurrence records) and Earth observations (EO; e.g. satellite or airborne imagery). However, there are few ecologically based frameworks for integrating these data into meaningful metrics of biodiversity change. Here, I describe how concepts of pattern and scale in ecology could be used to design such a framework. I review three core topics: the role of scale in measuring and modelling biodiversity patterns with EO, scale‐dependent challenges linking in situ and EO data and opportunities to apply concepts of pattern and scale to EO to improve biodiversity mapping. From this analysis emerges an actionable approach for measuring, monitoring and forecasting biodiversity change, highlighting key opportunities to establish EO as the backbone of global‐scale, science‐driven conservation.     

Does extreme flooding drive vegetation and faunal composition across the Gulf Plains of north‐eastern Australia?

High levels of sub‐speciation in Australian mesic zone taxa have been attributed to the creation of biogeographic barriers by Pleistocene expansion of the arid zone. However, several of these barriers also align with major floodplains. The Carpentarian Barrier in the Gulf Plains (GUP) – one of Australia's most significant biogeographic barriers – experiences extreme floods on a sub‐decadal timescale. These floods rise suddenly, cover thousands of square kilometres to a depth of several metres and can take weeks to subside. We investigated whether these floods have shaped community composition. If this is the case, species that are particularly vulnerable to extreme flooding – understorey animals and woody plants, particularly shrubs – should be under‐represented, and grasslands should be over‐represented on GUP floodplains. We used Akaike selection of logistic models to assess influence of floodplains and other potential drivers on grassland distribution and shrub abundance, and on representation of understorey fauna. We also compared post‐flood faunal records with the bioregional data set to assess influence of the 2009 flood on representation of understorey reptiles. Grasslands and shrub‐free vegetation were significantly over‐represented and understorey fauna significantly under‐represented on floodplains, even when the influences of other factors were taken into account. Understorey Gekkota were absent from – and understorey skinks under‐represented in – recently flooded areas. Hence, floods appear to have shaped community composition on GUP floodplains by selectively displacing and/or destroying woody plants – particularly shrubs – and understorey animals. Our findings demonstrate association rather than causality, but show that further examination of the ecological and biogeographic impacts of extreme flooding is warranted. Influence of floods on the Australian biota should be considered an ongoing ecological and evolutionary driver, and one that is likely to intensify as extreme floods are expected to become more frequent under climate change.     

Intention and Moral Enhancement

Recently philosophers have proposed a wide variety of interventions referred to as ‘moral enhancements’. Some of these interventions are concerned with helping individuals make more informed decisions; others, however, are designed to compel people to act as the intervener sees fit. Somewhere between these two extremes lie interventions designed to direct an agent's attention either towards morally relevant issues – hat‐hanging – or away from temptations to do wrong – hat‐hiding. I argue that these interventions fail to constitute genuine moral enhancement because, although they may result in more desirable outcomes – more altruism, more law‐following, and/or less self‐destructive behavior, they ignore a person's intentions, and often what makes an action right or wrong is the intent behind it.     

On Cloning: Advocating History of Biology in the Public Interest

Cloning – the process of creating a cell, tissue line or even a complete organism from a single cell – or the strands that led to the cloning of a mammal, Dolly, are not new. Yet the media coverage of Dolly's inception raised a range of reactions from fear or moral repulsion, to cautious optimism. The implications for controlling human reproduction were clearly in the forefront, though many issues about animals emerged as well. On topics of public interest such as cloning, historians of biology have the opportunity to make a unique contribution. Such debates are often aired as if they have no precedents, either in biology or in the ethical, moral, and social concerns arising in the public arena. The technology leading to Dolly draws on strands of research going back to the 1890s, and the cycle of public response has been repeated often in the past century. What can we learn from examining these events historically, and how can we – or should we even try – to inform public opinion? I think we should try and will outline briefly some of the ways that can work.     

Replacing lectures by textbased flexible learning: students' performance and perceptions

This paper presents the results of an extended evaluation programme designed to test the effectiveness of text-based flexible learning as a replacement to 30 – 50% of the lectures in certain modules in conventional undergraduate courses within the School of Life Sciences at Napier University. For examinations in which students answered both types of question, marks for questions based on topics taught by flexible learning were equivalent to marks for questions based on topics taught by conventional teaching methods. Marks for examinations in which at least 50% of the answers were based on topics taught by flexible learning were equivalent to marks for examinations in which questions were based on topics taught by conventional teaching methods. Rates of achievement of a mark of 40% or more at first attempt for examinations in which at least 50% of the answers were based on topics taught by flexible learning were significantly better than rates of achievement of a mark of 40% or more at first attempt for questions based on topics taught by conventional teaching methods. Students gave positive feedback on flexible learning, both verbally and by questionnaire, and showed highly significant bias in favour of topics taught by flexible learning in their choice of questions in examinations. The flexible learning programme studied here has satisfied the various quality assurance criteria in place within the University throughout the time that it has been in operation. The evaluation has demonstrated that the textbased flexible learning programme studied here was an effective alternative to lectures.     

Managing alterity from within: the ontological turn in anthropology and indigenous efforts to shape shamanism

The ontological turn is gaining momentum among many anthropologists today, evidenced by multiple debates and symposia in recent years addressing the role of ontological approaches within the discipline. Equal to the force of the ontological turn are the growing number of passionate critiques that question everything from the ethnographic and historical integrity of this body of work to its intellectual motivations and political effects. This article commends ontologists for bringing greater attention to the crucial role of spirits in many people's lives and for their efforts to gain deeper understandings of different realities. Yet we also agree with critics in their identification of various troubling tendencies in prominent ontologists’ analyses. We highlight how many of these disturbing inclinations emerge through ontologists’ attempts to connect their ethnographic analyses to Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's theory of multinaturalist perspectivism. Finally, we analyse one of the favourite research topics of those associated with the ontological turn – shamanism – in one of the regions most often heralded as an oasis of radical alterity – the Amazon – in a way that specifically aims to avoid the problematic orientations we identify. Specifically, we describe a series of historical changes in the relationships between shamans and indigenous leaders to draw attention to how relationships to shamanic power/knowledge are unevenly distributed, actively debated, and co‐constructed through changing historical and political contexts.     

The Vulnerability of Study Participants in the Context of Transnational Biomedical Research: From Conceptual Considerations to Practical Implications

Outsourcing clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies from industrialized countries to low‐ (middle)‐income countries – summarized as transnational biomedical research (TBR) – has lead to many concerns about ethical standards. Whether study participants are particularly vulnerable is one of those concerns. However, the concept of vulnerability is still vague and varies in its definition. Despite the fact that important international ethical guidelines such as the Declaration of Helsinki by the World Medical Association or the Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects by the Council of International Organizations of Medical Sciences refer to vulnerability as ethical principle, each of their approaches are different. To overcome these shortcomings, we analyze and unite different approaches of vulnerability and develop practical criteria in order to operationalize the concept especially for the context of TBR. These criteria refer to the context of a study as well as the characteristics and the current living situation of study participants. Based on a case study of an HIV‐vaccine‐trial conducted in India we demonstrate how those criteria can be applied in a retrospective way to identify potential ethical conflicts. The criteria can also indicate a prospective function for ethical pre‐assessment. For this, we provide an outlook for three major topics: 1. Vulnerability as a normative concept: Different ways of protection; 2. The relevance of transparency and 3. Vulnerability as an instrument to increase decision participation of human subjects.     

COST Action CM1201 “Biomimetic Radical Chemistry”: free radical chemistry successfully meets many disciplines

Abstract

The COST Action CM1201 “Biomimetic Radical Chemistry” has been active since December 2012 for 4 years, developing research topics organized into four working groups: WG1 – Radical Enzymes, WG2 – Models of DNA damage and consequences, WG3 – Membrane stress, signalling and defenses, and WG4 – Bio-inspired synthetic strategies. International collaborations have been established among the participating 80 research groups with brilliant interdisciplinary achievements. Free radical research with a biomimetic approach has been realized in the COST Action and are summarized in this overview by the four WG leaders.     

Interpreting ‘shelly’ fossils preserved as organic films: the case of hyolithids

Most studies of Burgess Shale‐type preservation have focussed on soft‐bodied organisms, but ‘shelly’ fossils are also preserved as carbonaceous films. These films are usually interpreted as coherent organic layers – often external sheaths or periostracal layers – that were present in the original mineralized elements. The example of hyolithids shows that the organic films of skeletal parts do not represent original ‘layers’, but a composite resulting from the coalescence, into a single carbonaceous film, of all the preservable organic matter present in the skeletal element. The diagenetic processes that led to Burgess Shale‐type preservation, which involve the polymerization of organic matter and the loss of original internal structure and chemical integrity of the original tissues, are entirely compatible with – and could account for – the characteristics observed in the fossil films of hyolithid skeletal elements. These observations have general implications for the interpretation of other organisms preserved as carbonaceous films, such as the diverse and often problematic Cambrian sponges.