Elementary school teachers’ perceptions of the role of physical activity in schools

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine and describe elementary school teachers’ perceptions of physical activity among children in an urban, Title I, school in Tennessee. Twelve elementary teachers in Second and Third grade were interviewed using a semi-structured interview. The interview protocol was developed to guide participants from broader concepts regarding physical activity to more focused discussions on the use of physical activity during the school day. Data presented examines the perceptions of teachers’ overall view of physical activity among children during school hours, the amount of physical activity children engaged in during school hours, the impact of physical activity on children’s overall wellbeing and academic performance, and ways physical activity is used as a behavior modifier. Findings suggest that the majority of teachers believed that physical activity was important to the wellbeing of children. Obstacles to increasing physical activity among children while at school included a strict focus on academic instructional requirements that do not afford time for additional activities, the perception that physical activity is not an end-of-year test requirement for children, pressure on teachers to increase standardized test scores as a measure of their performance evaluation, and the perception that physical activity is met simply through time allocated to PE and recess. Perceptions of social and mental benefits of physical activity, as well as, perceived benefits of physical activity for increasing academic performance are discussed

Is Your Research Reproducible?

Slides from a presentation, Is Your Research Reproducible? , offered at the University of Rhode Island Libraries on December 1 and December 5, 2017. Learn more about the reproducibility crisis, how tools like the Open Science Framework can help you contribute to solutions, and about how proper management of your code and data helps you and other researchers. Part of the University Libraries\u27 Search Savvy Seminar series. Main file is a PDF file of speaker slides as presented. Supplementary file is a PDF file of speaker slides with notes, including extra slides that were not used for presentation

Failure to Reproduce: The Replication Crisis in Research — Can Librarians Help?

“It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.” Those are the words of John Ioannidis in a highly-cited article from 2005. Ioannidis is referring to the “reproducibility crisis,” a phenomenon whereby researchers are not able to replicate published results in later experiments. A recent survey by Nature found that more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist’s experiments and more than half have failed to reproduce their own. In this presentation, we will introduce attendees to the replication crisis and provide real-life examples of reproducibility problems in the fields of psychology, economics, animal research, and biomedical research. We will outline the primary causes of the problem (the “file-drawer” problem, publication bias, poor experimental design, and the incentive structure for researchers) and will also note the unfortunate failure of peer review to weed out many false findings. From there, we will discuss how librarians are assisting researchers in designing reproducible workflows that can help prevent research replication failure. These workflows include proper experimental design, proper management and documentation of research data and code, and the use of open-science tools for registering experiments, collaborating with colleagues, and sharing research outputs. We will conclude with a demonstration of one important tool in this area, the Open Science Framework from the Center for Open Science. We will cover how it works, how to use it to connect to outside services, and its support for versioning, collaboration, and sharing preprints. Attendees will come away with a better understanding of the reproducibility crisis, the role librarians are playing in assisting researchers with reproducible workflows, and a popular tool they can use for doing so

Regulation of the Shigella flexneri icsP gene and H-NS dependent repression

The gram negative bacterium Shigella flexneri is known to cause dysentery in humans and primates. In order to help prevent the spread of shigellosis, gene regulation must be understood. Studies show that the virulence genes in S .flexneri are thermo regulated. At 30°C histone-like nucleoid structuring protein (H-NS) represses transcription of virulence genes and at 37°C VirB derepresses virulence genes. One of the genes that contribute to the virulence of S. flexneri is icsP. My project focuses on the regulation of the S. flexneri icsP gene and has two main goals. The first is to identify the sequence of H-NS dependent repression. Previous studies suggest that the DNA sequence necessary for the H-NS dependent repression is located between -1058 and -523 upstream of the icsP promoter. We are going to create a series of promoter truncations to positions -637, -601,-550, and -436 relative to the icsP promoter. We anticipate this will pin-point which sequences are required for H-NS dependent repression. My second goal is to further characterize the PicsP-lacZ reporter plasmid. Specifically we want to know if icsP promoter activity is being affected by an upstream chloramphenicol cassette. Our hypothesis is that the chloramphenicol cassette is not affecting icsP promoter activity. To test this we will insert a transcription terminator after the chloramphenicol cassette stopping all transcription before the icsP promoter. Promoter activity will be measured by beta-galactosidase assays. These studies will improve our understanding of the regulation of the icsP promoter, and this knowledge may be helpful when studying the regulation of other virulence genes in S. flexneri

Dusty Miller Cut Foliage Production in Utah

Dusty miller is a foliage known for its lace-like, velvety texture and silvery pale, sage-green leaves. While an annual foliage, dusty miller is an easy-to-grow, productive crop that can tolerate a light frost and make use of small spaces and edges on a cut flower farm. Harvests begin as early as June in high tunnels and late July in the field. Dusty miller serves as a traditional filler as well as base foliage for centerpieces. It is often used in small-scale floral design such as corsages, boutonnieres, and flower crowns. Though useful in diverse designs, dusty miller is also relatively inexpensive to import, a notable market consideration for local growers

Structures of falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 bound to small molecule inhibitors: implications for substrate specificity.

Falcipain-2 and falcipain-3 are critical hemoglobinases of Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent human malaria parasite. We have determined the 2.9 A crystal structure of falcipain-2 in complex with the epoxysuccinate E64 and the 2.5 A crystal structure of falcipain-3 in complex with the aldehyde leupeptin. These complexes represent the first crystal structures of plasmodial cysteine proteases with small molecule inhibitors and the first reported crystal structure of falcipain-3. Our structural analyses indicate that the relative shape and flexibility of the S2 pocket are affected by a number of discrete amino acid substitutions. The cumulative effect of subtle differences, including those at "gatekeeper" positions, may explain the observed kinetic differences between these two closely related enzymes