Acoustic analysis and playback studies have greatly advanced our understanding of between-individual differences in nonverbal communication. Yet, researchers have only recently begun to investigate within-individual variation in the voice, particularly how people modulate key vocal parameters across various social contexts, with most of this research focusing on mating contexts. Here, we investigated whether men and women modulate the frequency components of their voices in a professional context, and how this voice modulation affects listeners' assessments of the speakers' competence and authority. Research assistants engaged scientists working as faculty members at various universities in two types of speech conditions: (1) Control speech, wherein the subjects were asked how to get to the administrative offices on that given campus; and (2) Authority speech, wherein the same subjects were asked to provide commentary for a radio program for young scholars titled, "How to become a scientist, and is it worth it?". Our results show that male (n = 27) and female (n = 24) faculty members lowered their mean voice pitch (measured as fundamental frequency, F 0) and vocal tract resonances (measured as formant position, P f) when asked to provide their expert opinion compared to when giving directions. Notably, women lowered their mean voice pitch more than did men (by 33 Hz vs. 14 Hz) when giving expert advice. The results of a playback experiment further indicated that foreignspeaking listeners judged the voices of faculty members as relatively more competent and more authoritative based on authority speech than control speech, indicating that the observed nonverbal voice modulation effectively altered listeners' perceptions. Our results support the prediction that people modulate their voices in social contexts in ways that are likely to elicit favorable social appraisals.
Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease and occurs preferentially in arterial regions exposed to disturbed blood flow (d-flow) while the stable flow (s-flow) regions are spared. D-flow induces endothelial inflammation and atherosclerosis by regulating endothelial gene expression partly through the flow-sensitive transcription factors (FSTFs). Most FSTFs, including the well-known Kruppel-like factors KLF2 and KLF4, have been identified from in vitro studies using cultured endothelial cells (ECs). Since many flow-sensitive genes and pathways are lost or dysregulated in ECs during culture, we hypothesized that many important FSTFs in ECs in vivo have not been identified. We tested the hypothesis by analyzing our recent gene array and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) and chromatin accessibility sequencing (scATACseq) datasets generated using the mouse partial carotid ligation model. From the analyses, we identified 30 FSTFs, including the expected KLF2/4 and novel FSTFs. They were further validated in mouse arteries in vivo and cultured human aortic ECs (HAECs). These results revealed 8 FSTFs, SOX4, SOX13, SIX2, ZBTB46, CEBPβ, NFIL3, KLF2, and KLF4, that are conserved in mice and humans in vivo and in vitro. We selected SOX13 for further studies because of its robust flow-sensitive regulation, preferential expression in ECs, and unknown flow-dependent function. We found that siRNA-mediated knockdown of SOX13 increased endothelial inflammatory responses even under the unidirectional laminar shear stress (ULS, mimicking s-flow) condition. To understand the underlying mechanisms, we conducted an RNAseq study in HAECs treated with SOX13 siRNA under shear conditions (ULS vs. oscillatory shear mimicking d-flow). We found 94 downregulated and 40 upregulated genes that changed in a shear- and SOX13-dependent manner. Several cytokines, including CXCL10 and CCL5, were the most strongly upregulated genes in HAECs treated with SOX13 siRNA. The robust induction of CXCL10 and CCL5 was further validated by qPCR and ELISA in HAECs. Moreover, the treatment of HAECs with Met-CCL5, a specific CCL5 receptor antagonist, prevented the endothelial inflammation responses induced by siSOX13. In addition, SOX13 overexpression prevented the endothelial inflammation responses. In summary, SOX13 is a novel conserved FSTF, which represses the expression of pro-inflammatory chemokines in ECs under s-flow. Reduction of endothelial SOX13 triggers chemokine expression and inflammatory responses, a major proatherogenic pathway.
Ithaka S+R's Teaching Support Services Program investigates the teaching practices and support needs of collegiate instructors. Our most recent project in this program, "Supporting Teaching with Primary Sources," focused on identifying how to effectively support instructors and their students find, access, and use primary sources in classroom environments.Encounters with primary sources-historical or contemporary artifacts that bear direct witness to a specific period or event-are central to the pedagogy of many disciplines, especially in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Their use in undergraduate instruction aligns with universities' commitments to experiential and inquiry-based learning and library initiatives focused on media and information literacy. Reflecting the importance of the topic within higher education, "Supporting Teaching with Primary Sources" attracted the largest cohort of any Ithaka S+R program to date. Research teams at 26 academic libraries in the United States and United Kingdom joined the program. ProQuest, which sponsored the project, conducted interviews with instructors at an additional 16 universities. Together, the 27 research teams interviewed 335 instructors, asking detailed questions about how instructors design courses and assignments utilizing primary sources, and where and how instructors and their students discover and access primary sources appropriate for classroom use.These transcripts yielded rich data about how stakeholders-including university libraries, faculty, administrators, publishers, and professional organizations-can best support undergraduate instruction using primary sources. Detailed findings and actionable recommendations can be found in the body of this report. Our findings and recommendations are grouped around the following important challenges and emerging best practices: ▪ Identifying appropriate primary sources. While digitization has made a wide variety of primary sources available to instructors, discovery tools are rarely optimized to make it easy for instructors to locate resources appropriate for classroom use.▪ Students' skills at discovering and evaluating primary sources. Students often lack familiarity with relevant search tools and strategies to discover sources and struggle to evaluate the value of the sources they do find. Maximizing student learning requires instruction in both the technical knowledge of discovery and information literacy.▪ Integrating primary sources requires careful course design. Effective pedagogy often involves scaffolding exposure to primary sources both within courses and across curricula, but many instructors default towards proscribing which sources students use, especially in large introductory classes.▪ Students benefit from exposure to both physical and digital sources. Physical encounters with material sources are highly-valued by instructors for inspiring student curiosity, but digital sources expand student access and the depth of library collections.▪ Collaboration pays dividends. Teaching effect...
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