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Like many faculty, we have organized student innovation competitions and programs (ICPs) and coached many student teams for various competitions; therefore, we have observed first-hand how transformational the experience has been for our students. ICPs allow students to quickly test their skills and knowledge, push them beyond their comfort zones, encourage them to take risks, and provide a safe place to try and fail, as failures can be seen as a critical part of the learning process. Despite their invaluable learning benefits, existing literature lacks a theoretical body of knowledge on the influence of ICPs on the educational experience. Our goal is to explore transformations in students’ mindsets toward innovation through perspectives and data from students who formerly participated in ICPs, mentors who coach students through ICPs, and ICP organizers who create these opportunities for students. This paper will focus on the essential practices of mentors. 

Innovation Competitions and Programs (ICPs), such as design challenges, hackathons, startup incubator competitions, boot camps, customer discovery labs, and accelerator programs, are informal learning experiences that supplement the formal education of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students. As learning dynamics are shifting toward becoming more personalized, location-unbounded, and spontaneous, informal learning is also becoming increasingly important for achieving the broader objectives of STEM education. ICPs are important in educating the next generation of innovators, and they serve as a gateway to innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in many colleges. The current literature provides limited quantitative and qualitative evidence on student learning because of participation in ICPs. This paper summarizes the findings of a study to investigate the learning and experiences of students who participated in ICPs. The results showed that overall, students rated technical and problem-solving skills higher than some innovation mindset skills, such as understanding people’s needs and pains. Furthermore, the results demonstrated relationships among student backgrounds, learning experiences, and ICP types. Findings suggested that incorporating more entrepreneurial elements in ICPs may improve the innovation mindset learning outcomes of ICPs 

Many students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields seek to expand their technical knowledge, develop an innovative mindset, and build teamwork and communication skills. To respond to this need, many higher education institutions and foundations have broadened their co-curricular program offerings to include design challenges, hackathons, startup competitions, customer discovery labs, and pitch competitions that are designed to support and benefit student innovators. Faculty mentors are responsible for being available to students to answer questions, guide student thinking, and advise student teams to facilitate learning. For these students to gain crucial knowledge and at least be educationally successful in these programs, a mentor possessing key traits and using certain strategies is proven to be highly influential. While much research supports the importance and benefit of STEM students’ participation in these programs, literature discussing the effective strategies for mentoring students participating in these programs remains limited. Exploring the best mentoring practices will provide insight into how to support and prepare students for innovation competitions and their upcoming careers as well as catalyze their entrepreneurial minds for future success. Based on a series of interviews with experienced mentors of innovation competitions and programs, this paper presents a set of best practices for mentoring student innovation teams. 

Cancer cells require robust ribosome biogenesis to maintain rapid cell growth during tumorigenesis. Because RNA polymerase I (Pol I) transcription of the ribosomal DNA (rDNA) is the first and rate-limiting step of ribosome biogenesis, it has emerged as a promising anti-cancer target. Over the last decade, novel cancer therapeutics targeting Pol I have progressed to clinical trials. BMH-21 is a first-in-class small molecule that inhibits Pol I transcription and represses cancer cell growth. Several recent studies have uncovered key mechanisms by which BMH-21 inhibits ribosome biosynthesis but the selectivity of BMH-21 for Pol I has not been directly measured. Here, we quantify the effects of BMH-21 on Pol I, RNA polymerase II (Pol II), and RNA polymerase III (Pol III) in vitro using purified components. We found that BMH-21 directly impairs nucleotide addition by Pol I, with no or modest effect on Pols II and III, respectively. Additionally, we found that BMH-21 does not affect the stability of any of the Pols’ elongation complexes. These data demonstrate that BMH-21 directly exploits unique vulnerabilities of Pol I. 

The 21–22 June 2019 eruption of Raikoke volcano, Russia, provided an opportunity to explore how spatial trends in volcanic lightning locations provide insights into pulsatory eruption dynamics. Using satellite-derived plume heights, we examine the development of lightning detected by Vaisala’s Global Lightning Dataset (GLD360) from eleven, closely spaced eruptive pulses. Results from one-dimensional plume modeling show that the eruptive pulses with maximum heights 9–16.5 km above sea level were capable of producing ice in the upper troposphere, which contributed variably to electrification and volcanic lightning. A key finding is that lightning locations not only followed the main dispersal direction of these ash plumes, but also tracked a lower-level cloud derived from pyroclastic density currents. We show a positive relationship between umbrella cloud expansion and the area over which lightning occurs (the ‘lightning footprint’). These observations suggest useful metrics to characterize ongoing eruptive activity in near real-time. 

The relative importance of radiative feedbacks and emissions scenarios in controlling surface warming patterns is challenging to quantify across model generations. We analyze three variants of the Community Earth System Model (CESM) with differing equilibrium climate sensitivities under identical CMIP5 historical and high‐emissions scenarios. CESM1, our base model, exhibits Arctic‐amplified warming with the least warming in the Southern Hemisphere middle latitudes. A variant of CESM1 with enhanced extratropical shortwave cloud feedbacks shows slightly increased late‐21st century warming at all latitudes. In the next‐generation model, CESM2, global‐mean warming is also slightly greater, but the warming is zonally redistributed in a pattern mirroring cloud and surface albedo feedbacks. However, if the nominally equivalent CMIP6 scenario is applied to CESM2, the redistributed warming pattern is preserved, but global‐mean warming is significantly greater. These results demonstrate how model structural differences and scenario differences combine to produce differences in climate projections across model generations.

 

Abstract. Ocean-driven ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is asignificant contributor to sea-level rise. Recent ocean variability in theAmundsen Sea is controlled by near-surface winds. We combine palaeoclimatereconstructions and climate model simulations to understand past and futureinfluences on Amundsen Sea winds from anthropogenic forcing and internalclimate variability. The reconstructions show strong historical wind trends.External forcing from greenhouse gases and stratospheric ozone depletiondrove zonally uniform westerly wind trends centred over the deep SouthernOcean. Internally generated trends resemble a South Pacific Rossby wavetrain and were highly influential over the Amundsen Sea continental shelf.There was strong interannual and interdecadal variability over the AmundsenSea, with periods of anticyclonic wind anomalies in the 1940s and 1990s,when rapid ice-sheet loss was initiated. Similar anticyclonic anomaliesprobably occurred prior to the 20th century but without causing the presentice loss. This suggests that ice loss may have been triggered naturally inthe 1940s but failed to recover subsequently due to the increasingimportance of anthropogenic forcing from greenhouse gases (since the 1960s)and ozone depletion (since the 1980s). Future projections also featurestrong wind trends. Emissions mitigation influences wind trends over thedeep Southern Ocean but has less influence on winds over the Amundsen Seashelf, where internal variability creates a large and irreducibleuncertainty. This suggests that strong emissions mitigation is needed tominimise ice loss this century but that the uncontrollable future influenceof internal climate variability could be equally important.