In 2020, Baylor College of Medicine held a datathon to inform potential users of a new data warehouse, allow users to address clinical questions, identify warehouse capabilities and limitations, foster collaborations, and engage trainees. Senior faculty selected proposals based on feasibility and impact. Selectees worked with Information Technology for 2 months and presented findings. A survey of participants showed diverse levels of experience, high perceived value of the datathon, high rates of collaboration, and significant increases in knowledge. A datathon can promote familiarity with a new data warehouse, guide data warehouse improvement, and promote collaboration.

Stress caused by early weed competition is known to delay the rate of maize development which may result in a decrease in kernel number. Kernel number in maize is correlated negatively with the length of the anthesis-silking interval (ASI). A short ASI has been identified as an easily measured, visual trait which may identify enhanced drought tolerance in maize. Field studies were conducted to test whether: (1) delaying weed control would result in a lengthening of ASI in both a drought tolerant and non-drought tolerant maize hybrid and (2) the presence of drought tolerance genetics comes at a physiological cost, resulting in a greater yield reduction under weedy conditions. In this study, the response of a drought tolerant hybrid with its non-drought tolerant near-isoline was compared to seven different timings of weed control using wheat as a surrogate competitor. Results confirmed that there was no treatment by hybrid interaction at any site–yr for any of the parameters evaluated. Delaying weed control reduced plant height, leaf tip number, shifted and reduced biomass accumulation, kernel number and grain yield and lengthened ASI for both hybrids. Although yield losses occurred with the delay in weed control timing, no yield differences were observed between hybrids suggesting that there was no additional physiological cost associated with the drought tolerant traits. The drought tolerant hybrid, however, was found to have a shorter ASI, lower kernel number and higher kernel wt compared to the non-drought tolerant hybrid. This study confirmed that delaying weed control can influence the length of ASI, which is an important drought tolerant trait. The lengthening of ASI by early weed competition resulted in a rate of yield loss of 0.13 T ha−1 growing degree days (GDD)−1 when averaged across both hybrids and all treatments.

This study investigated whether different types of corrective feedback (CF) in second language speech perception training have differential effects on second language speech production. One hundred Korean learners of English were assigned to five different groups and participated in eight computer-assisted perception training sessions focusing on English vowels. While no CF was provided to the control group, participants in the four treatment groups received one of three types of auditory CF or a visual type of CF. A pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest each consisted of a production measurement at a controlled-speech level. Results revealed that the extent to which the participants’ production accuracy benefited from the perception training depended on CF type. In addition, by adopting the perception accuracy data by Lee and Lyster (2016b), the current study found that improvement in perception accuracy was a significant predictor of improvement in production accuracy.

To what extent do second language (L2) learners benefit from instruction that includes corrective feedback (CF) on L2 speech perception? This article addresses this question by reporting the results of a classroom-based experimental study conducted with 32 young adult Korean learners of English. An instruction-only group and an instruction + CF group were exposed to five 1-hr form-focused lessons that drew learners’ attention to the nonnative phonemic contrast /i/-/ɪ/, but only the instruction + CF group was given relevant feedback. Forced-choice identification tasks were completed by participants in a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. The two groups showed similar accuracy on the pretest; however, the instruction + CF group outperformed the instruction-only group on the immediate and delayed posttests as well as on unfamiliar words. The significant predictors for these differences turned out to be perceptual accuracy vis-à-vis /ɪ/-natural and /ɪ/-synthesized sounds. These findings are discussed in terms of the pivotal role played by CF in developing accuracy in L2 speech perception.