Bioinformatics is recognized as part of the essential knowledge base of numerous career paths in biomedical research and healthcare. However, there is little agreement in the field over what that knowledge entails or how best to provide it. These disagreements are compounded by the wide range of populations in need of bioinformatics training, with divergent prior backgrounds and intended application areas. The Curriculum Task Force of the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB) Education Committee has sought to provide a framework for training needs and curricula in terms of a set of bioinformatics core competencies that cut across many user personas and training programs. The initial competencies developed based on surveys of employers and training programs have since been refined through a multiyear process of community engagement. This report describes the current status of the competencies and presents a series of use cases illustrating how they are being applied in diverse training contexts. These use cases are intended to demonstrate how others can make use of the competencies and engage in the process of their continuing refinement and application. The report concludes with a consideration of remaining challenges and future plans.

Although bioinformatics is becoming increasingly central to research in the life sciences, bioinformatics skills and knowledge are not well integrated into undergraduate biology education. This curricular gap prevents biology students from harnessing the full potential of their education, limiting their career opportunities and slowing research innovation. To advance the integration of bioinformatics into life sciences education, a framework of core bioinformatics competencies is needed. To that end, we here report the results of a survey of biology faculty in the United States about teaching bioinformatics to undergraduate life scientists. Responses were received from 1,260 faculty representing institutions in all fifty states with a combined capacity to educate hundreds of thousands of students every year. Results indicate strong, widespread agreement that bioinformatics knowledge and skills are critical for undergraduate life scientists as well as considerable agreement about which skills are necessary. Perceptions of the importance of some skills varied with the respondent’s degree of training, time since degree earned, and/or the Carnegie Classification of the respondent’s institution. To assess which skills are currently being taught, we analyzed syllabi of courses with bioinformatics content submitted by survey respondents. Finally, we used the survey results, the analysis of the syllabi, and our collective research and teaching expertise to develop a set of bioinformatics core competencies for undergraduate biology students. These core competencies are intended to serve as a guide for institutions as they work to integrate bioinformatics into their life sciences curricula.

The growth and decay processes of the optically induced birefringence in an azobenzene-functionalized polymer, DR19FPOZ (full name given in the text), and in another azobenzene guest/host polymer system have been studied. The temperature dependence of the birefringence signal is studied, and possible mechanisms associated with the growth and decay segments of the signal are analyzed. Rate constants deduced from the optically induced birefringence signal are also investigated as a function of the laser excitation power and film thickness. The rate constants associated with the growth and decay processes and activation energies are obtained for the polymer system below the glass transition temperature.

The behavior of surface and trapped charge that originate during contact electric-field poling of a model guest–host nonlinearly active polymer has been investigated. Charge effects in thin films of para-nitroaniline doped polymethylmethacrylate were studied during and after the poling process by simultaneous measurement of the current through the poling circuit and the second harmonic generation (SHG) signal from the polymer system. The poling current present in a fresh sample was found to differ in both magnitude and temporal dependence to that observed in the sample during subsequent polings. The magnitude of the steady-state current eventually reached during the poling process was found to depend on temperature and is related to the mobility of charge. A sharp drop-off in SHG signal intensity that occurred when the poling electrodes were grounded is shown to result from the removal of surface charge that orients chromophore dipoles near the surface of the film; the decay in the macroscopic polarization that then occurs is prolonged by charges trapped in the polymer matrix. The build-up of trapped charge explains a memory effect in which the SHG signal relaxation time gradually increased as the film was subjected to multiple polings until a steady-state value was reached. Finally, it is demonstrated that the charges trapped in the polymer matrix are released only after the polymer is heated to high above its temperature of glass transition and the SHG signal has completely decayed away.

Bioinformatics, a discipline that combines aspects of biology, statistics, mathematics, and computer science, is becoming increasingly important for biological research. However, bioinformatics instruction is not yet generally integrated into undergraduate life sciences curricula. To understand why we studied how bioinformatics is being included in biology education in the US by conducting a nationwide survey of faculty at two-and four-year institutions. The survey asked several open-ended questions that probed barriers to integration, the answers to which were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach. The barrier most frequently reported by the 1,260 respondents was lack of faculty expertise/training, but other deterrents-lack of student interest, overly-full curricula, and lack of student preparationwere also common. Interestingly, the barriers faculty face depended strongly on whether they are members of an underrepresented group and on the Carnegie Classification of their home institution. We were surprised to discover that the cohort of faculty who were awarded their terminal degree most recently reported the most preparation in bioinformatics but teach it at the lowest rate.

The solvent effect on the molecular first hyperpolarizability, β, of p-nitroaniline (pNA) has been investigated. Using the hyper-Rayleigh scattering technique, we have also determined β of pNA in DMSO using 1064 nm laser radiation. This β value has not been previously reported. With the help of Onsager's theory, we have arrived at a correction factor to account for the solvent dependence of the values of the intrinsic hyperpolarizability β0. The Onsager model significantly removes the strong solvent dependence of β (or β0) on the dielectric constant.

No abstract

No abstract