The Iowa Homemaker vol.37, no.5

One Flight Down to Fantasy, William Smith, page 4 Sophisticate Your Old Favorite, Diane Rasmussen, page 6 Be Letter Perfect, Laura Dailey, page 7 Creating – From-me-to-you messages, Corky Allbee, page 8 They Taught Us to Read, Amelia Caulker, page 11 Color Reactions, Carole Boughton, page 13 Let’s Keep Christmas, Condensed from sermon by Peter Marshall, page 1

Indigenous Awakenings: Facing the challenges of education, culture, and healing in Aboriginal Australia

Using auto-ethnography, this study recounts personal life experiences from an Aboriginal Australian and minority perspective while engaging in reflective critical analysis of learning within mainstream educational institutions. Reconstructing the story of Indigenous culture and spirituality, the study examines personal, social, and political issues with the help of analytical tools including experimental writing, poetry, and story telling. These approaches provide a narrative basis for generative healing work at personal and social levels, creating a dialogical space where aspects of autobiography (personal story) and ethnographic analysis (sociohistorical context) act to challenge dominant ways of knowing. These practices honour the context of more traditional cultural ways of knowing within an Indigenous worldview. The work seeks to reframe challenging life experiences to enable a clear knowledge of how Aboriginal spirituality and culture can be reclaimed and celebrated in today's world

Experiences and Outcomes Among Undergraduate Health Professional Higher Education Students With Protected Characteristics: Disability, Gender, and Ethnicity

YesThe Dean of the School of Health Studies at the University of Bradford, requested a review of the experiences and outcomes amongst undergraduate health professional higher education students with protected characteristics (as defined by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2010). The rational for this work was the University of Bradford’s recognition that all students are entitled to a valuable and rewarding university experience regardless of age, ability, gender or ethnicity. Across the higher education sector nationally, it has been suggested that whilst many students benefit from positive outcomes and experiences, some do not. This literature review was undertaken, as a precursor to a wider project, in order to report on current published research illustrating examples of negative and positive student experiences and outcomes in health higher education. Objectives - To review available literature in order to examine the relationship between undergraduate health professional students with protected characteristics and their experiences and outcomes in health higher education. - To identify and report examples of good practice relating to the review aims Method The literature review was undertaken systematically, using a protocol-based approach between 31.01.14 and 31.07.14. Only primary or secondary research data were included in the review. Databases and search terms were pre-specified and literature published between 2010 and 2014 was retrieved. Data bases searched included CINAHL, Medline, ERIC, BHI ASSIA and the Higher Education Academy. Papers were screened at title and abstract against exclusion criteria and eligible papers were included in the review. Results Thirty seven papers were included in this review. Data were broadly organized and displayed through the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2010) protected characteristics categories. These included the presentation of three categories: disability, gender and ethnicity. No papers relating to age were included. Data describing both negative and positive student experiences and outcomes was presented in the context of medical, nursing and allied health professions. Discussion Findings were presented in a narrative format. Included literature predominantly centred on pre-registration nursing students and ethnicity. There were more examples of negative student experiences and outcomes with fewer positive examples to report. Further empirical and secondary research focusing on age, disability, gender and ethnicity is required. The review also highlights the need to examine each protected characteristic student group independently to enable closer examination of specific issues

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

A monoclonal antibody against kininogen reduces inflammation in the HLA-B27 transgenic rat

The human leukocyte antigen B27 (HLA-B27) transgenic rat is a model of human inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Studies of chronic inflammation in other rat models have demonstrated activation of the kallikrein–kinin system as well as modulation by a plasma kallikrein inhibitor initiated before the onset of clinicopathologic changes or a deficiency in high-molecular-mass kininogen. Here we study the effects of monoclonal antibody C11C1, an antibody against high-molecular-mass kininogen that inhibits the binding of high-molecular-mass kininogen to leukocytes and endothelial cells in the HLA-B27 rat, which was administered after the onset of the inflammatory changes. Thrice-weekly intraperitoneal injections of monoclonal antibody C11C1 or isotype IgG(1 )were given to male 23-week-old rats for 16 days. Stool character as a measure of intestinal inflammation, and the rear limbs for clinical signs of arthritis (tarsal joint swelling and erythema) were scored daily. The animals were killed and the histology sections were assigned a numerical score for colonic inflammation, synovitis, and cartilage damage. Administration of monoclonal C11C1 rapidly decreased the clinical scores of pre-existing inflammatory bowel disease (P < 0.005) and arthritis (P < 0.001). Histological analyses confirmed significant reductions in colonic lesions (P = 0.004) and synovitis (P = 0.009). Decreased concentrations of plasma prekallikrein and high-molecular-mass kininogen were found, providing evidence of activation of the kallikrein–kinin system. The levels of these biomarkers were reversed by monoclonal antibody C11C1, which may have therapeutic potential in human inflammatory bowel disease and arthritis

The Type 2 Diabetes Knowledge Portal: an open access genetic resource dedicated to type 2 diabetes and related traits

Associations between human genetic variation and clinical phenotypes have become a foundation of biomedical research. Most repositories of these data seek to be disease-agnostic and therefore lack disease-focused views. The Type 2 Diabetes Knowledge Portal (T2DKP) is a public resource of genetic datasets and genomic annotations dedicated to type 2 diabetes (T2D) and related traits. Here, we seek to make the T2DKP more accessible to prospective users and more useful to existing users. First, we evaluate the T2DKP's comprehensiveness by comparing its datasets with those of other repositories. Second, we describe how researchers unfamiliar with human genetic data can begin using and correctly interpreting them via the T2DKP. Third, we describe how existing users can extend their current workflows to use the full suite of tools offered by the T2DKP. We finally discuss the lessons offered by the T2DKP toward the goal of democratizing access to complex disease genetic results

Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Barmah Forest Virus Disease in Queensland, Australia

Background Barmah Forest virus (BFV) disease is a common and wide-spread mosquito-borne disease in Australia. This study investigated the spatio-temporal patterns of BFV disease in Queensland, Australia using geographical information system (GIS) tools and geostatistical analysis. Methods/Principal Findings We calculated the incidence rates and standardised incidence rates of BFV disease. Moran's I statistic was used to assess the spatial autocorrelation of BFV incidences. Spatial dynamics of BFV disease was examined using semi-variogram analysis. Interpolation techniques were applied to visualise and display the spatial distribution of BFV disease in statistical local areas (SLAs) throughout Queensland. Mapping of BFV disease by SLAs reveals the presence of substantial spatio-temporal variation over time. Statistically significant differences in BFV incidence rates were identified among age groups (χ2 = 7587, df = 7327,p<0.01). There was a significant positive spatial autocorrelation of BFV incidence for all four periods, with the Moran's I statistic ranging from 0.1506 to 0.2901 (p<0.01). Semi-variogram analysis and smoothed maps created from interpolation techniques indicate that the pattern of spatial autocorrelation was not homogeneous across the state. Conclusions/Significance This is the first study to examine spatial and temporal variation in the incidence rates of BFV disease across Queensland using GIS and geostatistics. The BFV transmission varied with age and gender, which may be due to exposure rates or behavioural risk factors. There are differences in the spatio-temporal patterns of BFV disease which may be related to local socio-ecological and environmental factors. These research findings may have implications in the BFV disease control and prevention programs in Queensland

Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed

Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (≥10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously