Land Development - Tree 4 Hope

The Land Development Team has partnered with Tree 4 Hope and Hope Academy in Santa Lucía Milpas Altas, Guatemala to improve the outdoor facilities of the school. Jenn and David Hope-Tringali are the client/partner representatives of the school for this project. The goal of the project is to provide design and construction drawings for three main elements of the proposed land development: (1) a parking lot for buses and school vehicles that enter the site, (2) a single sports court that can accommodate basketball and soccer, and (3) a playground that is directed towards themes associated with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math). The team has completed project drawings to allow construction by local personnel, or by student or church mission teams when travel is allowed to resume post-pandemic.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2021/1007/thumbnail.jp

Microbial biodiversity of Great Salt Lake, Utah

Microbial biodiversity is difficult to measure in extreme environments due to the inability to culture many of the species, especially from hypersaline environments. Great Salt Lake (GSL), Utah, USA offers a unique ecology to study microbial diversity across a salt gradient. GSL has increasing salt from South to North that varies from marine salt concentrations to saturation, respectively. We used three methods to examine the biodiversity of the GSL-traditional cultivation on solid media, 16s rRNA gene sequencing, multiplexed 16s rRNA gene hybridization to the phylochip, and DNA hybridization to the Geochip for metabolic diversity estimates. Over 40 isolates from the North Arm were obtained, while six were selected for identification. Isolates included gammaproteobacteria, bacilli, and actinobacteria. Sequencing the 16S rRNA genes for identification yielded 350 clones. Refraction curves indicated that this did not represent the bacterial diversity of the GSL, while estimation of the diversity with the Affymetrix phylochip produced over 1000 different genera in 31 different families. Estimation of the metabolic diversity found that genes for each activity were present in all three locations. The gene abundance was similar in all locations, except for metal use where the gene abundance declined as the salt gradient declined. This study provides the first evidence of the large microbial diversity supported by GSL to provide a large metabolic potential independent of the salt concentration

The Youngest Victims: Children and Youth Affected by War

In 1989, the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child declared, “[state parties] shall take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict.” In addition to attempting to secure the welfare of children in armed conflict, the Convention went on to ban the recruitment and deployment of children during armed conflict. Despite the vast majority of sovereign nations signing and ratifying this agreement, this treaty, unfortunately, has not prevented children and youth from witnessing, becoming victims of, or participating in political, ethnic, religious, and cultural violence across the past three decades. This chapter offers an “ecological perspective” on the psychosocial consequences of exposure to the trauma of war-related violence and social disruption

Protective Mechanisms for Depression among Racial/Ethnic Minority Youth: Empirical Findings, Issues, and Recommendations

We (1) review empirical studies that report findings regarding putative protective mechanisms when exposed to risk of depression in African American and Hispanic adolescents; (2) identify key protective mechanisms for different risk contexts that garner empirical support; (3) synthesize the mechanisms identified as protective against depression among racial/ethnic minority adolescents; and (4) discuss improved methods for advancing understanding of resilience against depression in minority youth. The studies were selected from PsycINFO searches that met the following inclusion criteria: participants between 12 and 21 years of age, inclusions of racial/ethnic minority members, examining protection through an interaction with a risk factor, and outcome measures of depression, depressed mood, or depressive symptomatology. We found 39 eligible studies; 13 of which included multiple racial/ethnic groups. The following were supported as protective mechanisms, at least preliminarily, for at least one racial/ethnic group and in at least one risk context: employment, extracurricular activities, father–adolescent closeness, familism, maternal support, attending predominately minority schools, neighborhood composition, non-parent support, parental inductive reasoning, religiosity, self-esteem, social activities, and positive early teacher relationships. To investigate protective mechanisms more comprehensively and accurately across individual, social, and community levels of influence, we recommend incorporating multilevel modeling or multilevel growth curve analyses and large diverse samples

Leucogaster rubescens

Fung

Leucogaster rubescens

Fung

The phylogeny and phylogeography of two false-truffles, Leucophleps spinispora and Hymenogaster sublilacinus, in the Great Basin, United States.

The Great Basin, USA, stretches from the Sierra Nevadas of California to the mountains of Utah, and from the plains of Idaho to Mexico. The fluctuating environmental history of the Great Basin makes it a superb laboratory for testing phylogeographic hypotheses. The multiple cycles of glaciation led to dramatic changes in the environment affecting the organisms present. I used population genetics and Bayesian phylogenetic inference to evaluate the phylogeny and intraspecific population history of two false truffles, Leucophleps spinispora and Hymenogaster sublilacinus. Leucophleps spinispora is found throughout the western United States in the subalpine forests and Hymenogaster sublilacinus is found throughout the world in the lower montane forests. Both species of fungi are common to the Great Basin and have been collected in all mountains with both subalpine and lower montane forests. These two false truffles form a symbiotic association with the coniferous trees found in the Great Basin. The morphology of Leucophleps spinispora was used to develop a phylogeny. The morphological evidence suggested that the Leucogastrales were sister to the Albatrellaceae. The phylogeny inferred from the internal transcribed spacer 1, 5.8S, and internal transcribed spacer 2 sequences supported the morphological phylogenetic hypothesis. In the molecular phylogeny, Leucophleps spinispora was placed sister to Polyporoletus sublividus. The phylogenetic relationships of Hymenogaster sublilacinus have been resolved to the generic level within Cortinarius. The specific relationships of Hymenogaster sublilacinus remained ambiguous, because the full range of character variability within the genus. The fine scale relationships of Hymenogaster sublilacinus were inferred using morphological and molecular data. The extent of morphological and molecular character variation was estimated using data from multiple populations of Hymenogaster sublilacinus and synonyms. The phylogeography of Leucophleps spinispora and Hymenogaster sublilacinus, was inferred using the internal transcribed spacer 1, 5.8S, internal transcribed spacer 2, the intergenic spacer 1, and the intergenic spacer 2 from the nuclear ribosomal repeat. The phylogeography of these two fungi shows two routes of migration into the Great Basin within the last one million years for both fungi. This result suggests that the lifezones may become mixed during times of glaciation.Ph.D.Biological SciencesBotanyEcologyMolecular biologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125286/2/3192568.pd

Crystallization Paths of Leucite-Bearing Lavas: Examples from Italy

The salic phases found in leucite-basanites, -trachytes, and -phonolites may be used to portray crystallization in the system NaAlSiO_4-KAlSiO_4-CaAl_2Si_2O_8-SiO_2, the phonolite pentahedron. Only two lavas have been found that contain the assemblage leucite-nepheline-plagioclase-sanidine and liquid, a natural pseudo-invariant assemblage (at 900° C±100) equivalent to the isobaric invariant point of the four component system. The diversity of phases in this group of lavas illustrates the role of halogens in controlling their crystallization paths. Thus the presence of F in the leucite-basanites has stabilized magnesian biotite and suppressed sanidine, as has been found in other basanitic lavas (Brown and Carmichael 1969). The presence of Cl in these same lavas has induced the crystallization of sodalite, which takes the place of nepheline in the groundmass. However in the leucite-trachytes, biotite has suppressed olivine and coexists with sanidine and leucite. The presence of S may produce haüyne at the expense of nepheline, and in general sulphate minerals, which include apatite, have the role in lavas of low silica activity that pyrrhotite plays in liquids of high silica activity. Both pyroxenes and titaniferous magnetites in this suite of lavas are very aluminous. Groundmass crystals of pyroxene may have one-fifth of Si replaced by Al. Other phases which occur occasionally are melanite garnet and a potassium-rich hastingsite, but neither ilmenite nor a sulphide mineral has been found. Phenocryst equilibration temperatures, derived from olivine and Sr-rich plagioclase, are generally in the range from 1,050° C to 1,150° C. The high content of incompatible elements (e.g., K, Ba, Rb, F, Sr, P) in these lavas suggests that they represent a small liquid fraction from a mantle source which possibly contains phlogopite