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Maize (Zea mays L.) is a crop of major economic and food security importance globally. The fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda, can devastate entire maize crops, especially in countries or markets that do not allow the use of transgenic crops. Host-plant insect resistance is an economical and environmentally benign way to control FAW, and this study sought to identify maize lines, genes, and pathways that contribute to resistance to FAW. Of 289 maize lines phenotyped for FAW damage in artificially infested, replicated field trials over three years, 31 were identified with good levels of resistance that could donate FAW resistance into elite but susceptible hybrid parents. The 289 lines were genotyped by sequencing to provide SNP markers for a genome-wide association study (GWAS), followed by a metabolic pathway analysis using the Pathway Association Study Tool (PAST). GWAS identified 15 SNPs linked to 7 genes, and PAST identified multiple pathways, associated with FAW damage. Top pathways, and thus useful resistance mechanisms for further study, include hormone signaling pathways and the biosynthesis of carotenoids (particularly zeaxanthin), chlorophyll compounds, cuticular wax, known antibiosis agents, and 1,4-dihydroxy-2-naphthoate. Targeted metabolite analysis confirmed that maize genotypes with lower levels of FAW damage tend to have higher levels of chlorophyll a than genotypes with high FAW damage, which also tend to have lower levels of pheophytin, lutein, chlorophyll b and β-carotene. The list of resistant genotypes, and the results from the genetic, pathway, and metabolic study, can all contribute to efficient creation of FAW resistant cultivars.

Conservation has been widely discussed as the best way to combat climate change and environmental degradation. A cornerstone of conservation is Sustainable Development, which involves mitigating the damage of urbanization and urban sprawl, and the resulting loss of agricultural resources. In response, Ontario developed the Greenbelt Act in 2005 to ensure that Ontario’s Agricultural Land base was protected from urbanization and development. This study analyzed land use change within the Greenbelt’s Protected Countryside, to determine if the lands were protected during the implementation of the Greenbelt Plan (2005 -2017), and the ten years prior without Greenbelt policy in effect. Using remote sensing change detection applications, it was determined that residential expansion within settlement areas, and aggregate mining operations within the Protected Countryside contribute to urban expansion and loss of prime agricultural land. Changes in aggregate resource extraction policy are recommended to reduce the use and reliance of virgin aggregate in Ontario.

Background The Resilience Against Depression Disparities (RADD), a community partnered, randomized comparative effectiveness study, aimed to address mental health in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) racial/ethnic populations in New Orleans and Los Angeles. Objectives To describe engagement methods, lessons learned, and recommendations in engaging LGBTQ individuals and agencies throughout the RADD study. Methods RADD used a community partnered participatory research framework to engage LGBTQ community members and agencies. Observational and quantitative data were collected to describe engagement activities and study adaptations from October 2016 to May 2019. Results Our partnered approach resulted in multiple study adaptations. The principles of cultural humility, coleadership, and addressing health determinants were important to successful engagement with LGBTQ community members and study participants. We recommend maintaining cultural humility as the tenant of all research activities. Conclusions This project's engagement plan demonstrates that community-academic partnerships can be forged to create and modify existing study models for LGBTQ communities.

Though recommender systems are defined by personalization, recent work has shown the importance of additional, beyond-accuracy objectives, such as fairness. Because users often expect their recommendations to be purely personalized, these new algorithmic objectives must be communicated transparently in a fairness-aware recommender system. While explanation has a long history in recommender systems research, there has been little work that attempts to explain systems that use a fairness objective. Even though the previous work in other branches of AI has explored the use of explanations as a tool to increase fairness, this work has not been focused on recommendation. Here, we consider user perspectives of fairness-aware recommender systems and techniques for enhancing their transparency. We describe the results of an exploratory interview study that investigates user perceptions of fairness, recommender systems, and fairness-aware objectives. We propose three features -- informed by the needs of our participants -- that could improve user understanding of and trust in fairness-aware recommender systems.

Increasing attention to the role of ethical consideration in computing has led to calls for greater integration of this critical topic into technical classes rather than siloed in standalone computing ethics classes. The motivation for such integration is not only to support in-situ learning, but also to emphasize to students that ethical consideration is inherently part of the technical practice of computing. We propose that the logical place to begin emphasizing ethics is on day one of computing education: in introductory programming classes. This paper presents one approach to ethics integration into such classes: assignments that teach basic programming concepts (e.g., conditionals or iteration) but are contextualized with real-world ethical dilemmas or concepts. We report on experiences with this approach in multiple introductory programming courses, including details about select assignments, insights from instructors and teaching assistants, and results from surveys of a subset of students who took these courses. Based on these experiences we provide preliminary plans for future work, along with a roadmap for instructors to emulate our approach and suggestions for overcoming challenges they might face.

The Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) supports patient-centered clinical comparative effectiveness research (CER) including health disparities and engagement portfolios. In 2013, PCORI launched the Pipeline to Proposal (P2P) mechanism to support development of nov­el patient- and stakeholder-centered part­nerships focused on designing clinical CER funding proposals. By providing a tiered structure of successive small contracts and technical assistance, the P2P mechanism encourages development of new research partnerships among diverse stakeholders. As a comparatively new field, patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) has few well-delineated methods for engaging patients and other non-scientists in effective teams with academics or clinicians to develop and implement rigorous, scientific research pro­posals. Community partnered participatory research (CPPR) provides a useful frame­work for structuring new partnerships.In this article we highlight the origins, de­velopment, and prospects of three current examples of funded P2P initiatives based in New Orleans and Los Angeles. We outline how these projects – Prisoner to Patient, the NOLA Partnership, and Resilience Among African American Men – use CPPR principles. We also describe how they have collaborated with, and contributed to, a two-way learning and knowledge exchange among members of the PCORI-funded Community and Patient Partnered Research Network. Lessons learned may be ap­plicable to other groups planning to create new partnerships focused on implementing PCOR.Ethn Dis. 2018;28(Suppl 2):303- 310; doi:10.18865/ed.28.S2.303.