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Recent advances in next generation sequencing have greatly enhanced the scope and speed of genomic cancer research. Apart from merely listing identified mutations from cancer genomes sequencing, this review will summarize some insights specifically focusing on the biology of allele generating cancer driver mutations and clonal patterns during tumor evolution. Studies using massively parallel sequencing of primary tumor samples and cancer cell lines have identified neomorphic alleles and other recurrent mutations in proteins involved in chromatin modification and in the regulation of transcription and translation. Further studies with deep sequencing of matched primary and metastatic tumors have also started to characterize distinct patterns of tumor clonal evolution. The development of single cell sequencing is expected to help further elucidate tumor clonality and aid the translation of these discoveries into diagnostic and therapeutic applications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Student achievement motivation has become a complex construct in physical education because of the competitive nature of sports and physiological discomfort associated with exercising. With updated national standards, physical education has been undergoing a long-deserved curriculum reform that is expected to enhance student motivation by addressing personal, instructional, and curricular influences on students' intent to continue a physically active lifestyle. In this article, the authors summarized findings from research on 2 major achievement motivation constructs in physical education (rather than sports): achievement goals and interests. The authors also attempted to interpret the findings in relation to students' learning knowledge and skills in physical education. Advances made and issues evolved in the research were conceptualized, critiqued, and interpreted in the dynamics of teaching and learning. During the process, the authors further examined the efficacy of the findings and potential contribution of motivation research to the much-needed curriculum reform in physical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alternative polyadenylation (APA) results in messenger RNA molecules with different 3′ untranslated regions (3’ UTRs), affecting the molecules’ stability, localization, and translation. APA is pervasive and implicated in cancer. Earlier reports on APA focused on 3’ UTR length modifications and commonly characterized APA events as 3’ UTR shortening or lengthening. However, such characterization oversimplifies the processing of 3′ ends of transcripts and fails to adequately describe the various scenarios we observe. Results: We built a cloud-based targeted de novo transcript assembly and analysis pipeline that incorporates our previously developed cleavage site prediction tool, KLEAT. We applied this pipeline to elucidate the APA profiles of 114 genes in 9939 tumor and 729 tissue normal samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The full set of 10,668 RNA-Seq samples from 33 cancer types has not been utilized by previous APA studies. By comparing the frequencies of predicted cleavage sites between normal and tumor sample groups, we identified 77 events (i.e. gene-cancer type pairs) of tumor-specific APA regulation in 13 cancer types; for 15 genes, such regulation is recurrent across multiple cancers. Our results also support a previous report showing the 3’ UTR shortening of FGF2 in multiple cancers. However, over half of the events we identified display complex changes to 3’ UTR length that resist simple classification like shortening or lengthening. Conclusions: Recurrent tumor-specific regulation of APA is widespread in cancer. However, the regulation pattern that we observed in TCGA RNA-seq data cannot be described as straightforward 3’ UTR shortening or lengthening. Continued investigation into this complex, nuanced regulatory landscape will provide further insight into its role in tumor formation and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching fitness-related knowledge has become critical in developing children's healthful living behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a science-based, constructivist physical education curriculum on learning fitness knowledge critical to healthful living in elementary school students. The schools (N = 30) were randomly selected from one of the largest school districts in the United States and randomly assigned to treatment curriculum and control conditions. Students in third, fourth, and fifth grade (N = 5,717) were pre- and post tested on a standardized knowledge test on exercise principles and benefits in cardiorespiratory health, muscular capacity, and healthful nutrition and body flexibility. The results indicated that children in the treatment curriculum condition learned at a faster rate than their counterparts in the control condition. The results suggest that the constructivist curriculum is capable of inducing superior knowledge gain in third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]