Formative Interests and Pathways to Natural Resources Careers Among Racial and Ethnic Minorities

Land use, values, and ethics vary across cultures; however, those making natural resource (NR) management decisions are often not representative of the diversity of people who live on the land. Diversifying the workforce is a step towards ensuring management decisions and policies are inclusive of all peoples; however, few people from minority groups are pursuing degrees related to NR management. The purpose of this study is to assess factors affecting the decisions to pursue careers in NR fields among historically underrepresented groups of people, with an emphasis on the role that youth environmental education (EE) programs play in creating career pathways. A two-pronged methodological approach was used. The first method uses the Social Cognitive Career Theory as a theoretical framework to explore the career motives of minority professionals and students in NR programs through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Second, quantitative data were collected through an online survey of EE program directors to understand the priorities, methods, and challenges related to increasing diversity and inclusion within their organization, as well as any explicit efforts to promote NR career opportunities or continuing interest in the outdoors. Qualitative findings reveal that nearly all participants learned of NR careers late in the career decision-making process. Quantitative data from EE program directors revealed that 66% of organizations have a high priority for increasing diversity, though roughly 40% have no explicit efforts to promote careers in the field. These data are evidence of the lack of awareness about career opportunities in NR and a need to better promote career opportunities among people from underrepresented groups

Madrepora

Exploring materiality and how we’re inextricably entangled with it, this thesis dive into bodily, aqueous, and political engagements for dissolving the human project of separating nature from culture and bodies from environments. This dematerialization practice driven by discursive means has served as an excuse for the industrial exploitation and abuse of the less seen. Infused by the material turn in feminist theory, I propose to think with materiality in all its wet, slimy, and dusty ongoingness as a way to craft from the living and dying processes that we embody as current wanderers among contamination, scarcity, and ruins. Proposing a conceptual move, from the surface to the muddy bottom, I embark a submersion between folds of biological and historical depth. Recalling our common bacterial past, I start with Lynn Margulis\u27s symbiotic theory of cell evolution and the porous dynamics of interaction among bodies, species, and environments through the concept of “transcorporeality” developed by Stacy Alaimo. Descending from the microbial perspective of evolution, I extend my analysis into the vastness of the modern sea and the scattered sources of freshwater of the planet. By casting the ocean as the water’s depth, and freshwater as the commodification of this medium/material, I point out in how ignoring the agency of watery assemblages -and of nonhuman subjects in general- has been a major obstacle for creating a common ecological awareness and sensibility that allows us to coexists in more sustainable and ethical ways. Being drifted by transformative and non-hierarchical flows, I channel my stream of thoughts and pour them into a vessel for microbial, chemical, decorative, and multi-species collaboration. This artificial and biotic environment is an aquarium, my particular aquarium tank located in my studio at Rhode Island School of Design, and which I argue is not just a miniature representation of the sea, but a reflection of our daily interaction as porous beings embedded within an environment that bathes on the impacts of our material actions

Entwicklung der Nährstoff- und Humusgehalte am Standort Gülzow nach langjähriger ökologischer Bewirtschaftung

Die in der vierten Rotation befindliche Fruchtfolge am Standort Gülzow wurde seit 1992 ökologisch bewirtschaftet. Die Fruchtfolge hat sich geringfügig verändert und umfasst derzeit 33 bzw. 50 % Leguminosen und wurde wie ein viehhaltender Betrieb mit 0,6 - 0,8 GV/ha bewirtschaftet. Während des Beobachtungszeitraumes wurden jährlich Grundnährstoffgehalte, pH-Werte und der C- und Nt-Gehalt im Boden bestimmt. Die Effizienz der Nährstoffverwertung liegt zwischen 70 und 90 %. In der Folge bewegen sich die Nährstoffgehalte im Boden auf hohem Niveau im Bereich der Gehaltsklassen C und D. Der pH-Wert nahm in den letzten Jahren kontinuierlich bei zunehmender Differenzierung zwischen den Schlägen ab. Positive Humusbilanzen führten zu steigenden C-Gehalten im Boden. Zwischen dem C- und Nt-Gehalt konnte ein sehr enger Zusammenhang nachgewiesen werden. Die Bewertung der Fruchtfolge bietet eine weitere Grundlage, um den Öko-Landbau bezüglich seiner Langzeiteffekte unter vergleichbaren Bedingungen zu beurteilen

Ökologischer Obstbau - Daten für den ökologischen Obstbau in der Landwirtschaft

In der KTBL- Datensammlung sind neben den allgemeinen produktionstechnischen, betriebs- und arbeitswirtschaftlichen Grunddaten des Obstbaues von der Neuanlage über die Bestandesführung bis zur Vermarktung auch die speziellen Kalkulationsdaten zur Kosten- und Deckungsbeitragsberechnung für die Hauptfruchtarten zusammengestellt. Dazu werden in Beispielen für Kern-, Stein- und Beerenobst die Rechengänge über die Bestandszeit der jeweiligen Kultur dargestellt. In der im Lieferumfang enthaltenen CD können die zugrunde gelegten Kalkulationstabellen nachvollzogen und für individuelle Berechnungen betriebsspezifisch erweitert werden. Darüber hinaus sind Hinweise enthalten, die bei der Umstellungsphase von Obstbaubetrieben zur ökologischen Wirtschaftsweise zu beachten sind. Eine Zusammenstellung von aktuellen Informationsquellen und staatlichen Fördermöglichkeiten sowie Informationen über zugelassene Dünge- und Pflanzenbehandlungsmittel kommen ergänzend hinzu. Mit der Datensammlung wird ökologisch wirtschaftenden oder umstellungswilligen Obstbaubetrieben ein wirkungsvolles Instrument zur betrieblichen Planung an die Hand gegeben. Für die Ausbildung im Obstbau werden zudem wichtige Grundlageninformationen zu Verfügung gestellt

Ertragsentwicklung wichtiger Ackerbaukulturen nach langjähriger ökologischer Bewirtschaftung am Standort Gülzow

Die in der vierten Rotation befindliche Fruchtfolge am Standort Gülzow wird seit 1992 ökologisch bewirtschaftet. Die Fruchtfolge hat sich geringfügig verändert und umfasst derzeit 33 bzw. 50 % Leguminosen und wurde wie ein viehhaltender Betrieb bewirtschaftet: Stalldung wurde aus einem Öko-Betrieb zugekauft und Kleegras und Stroh abgefahren. Während des Beobachtungszeitraumes wurden jährlich von allen Kulturen die Erträge festgestellt und sowohl fruchtartenspezifische als auch Fruchtfolgebetrachtungen durchgeführt. Im Mittel der Rotationen konnten positive Veränderungen der Erträge nur in der Fruchtfolge mit Kartoffeln festgestellt werden. Der Anbau von Körnerleguminosen trug in der Tendenz zu eher abnehmenden Erträgen bei. Bei Sommergerste und Kartoffeln zeigte sich ein positiver Ertragstrend. Der Einfluss der Witterung macht sich bei allen Fruchtarten in stark schwankenden Erträgen bemerkbar

A Love Letter to Decorator Crabs

The ocean is a planetary force consisting of both surface and depth. The imaginary of the ocean is an interconnecting and interconnected force. The ocean, with its hypnotic lack of form, reminds us that who we are does not end at the skin. We bleed into our environments, and our environments bleed into us. The sea is both conceptually and materially entangled with us: we are on a transcorporeal continuum with the ocean. In this love letter, we turn toward the ocean as an ontological space of transformation and extend a dedication to our strange kin: decorator crabs. Decorator crabs are slow nocturnal scavengers. In an attempt to look “less-crab” or “more-than-crab”, they select materials, debris, and other living beings from their environment to adorn their shells, placing them over a velcro-like surface on their carapace: these crustaceans entangle themselves with their environment. In our viewing and interactions with them, we as human researchers similarly entangled ourselves amongst the crabs, all within the potent transformative fluid of the aquarium tank. We present our epistolary dedication to these critters as we conceptualise the aquarium as an alchemist’s pot of entanglements - a metonym for the ocean - to learn and become with the resident crustaceans. The letter is presented in video form here – A love letter to decorator crabs. Trigger warning: Please be advised that this piece contains descriptions of humans confining and eating other animals

Solution NMR studies of membrane-protein-chaperone complexes

The biosynthesis of the bacterial outer membrane depends on molecular chaperones that protect hydrophobic membrane proteins against aggregation while transporting them across the periplasm. In our ongoing research, we use high-resolution NMR spectroscopy in aqueous solution as the main technique to characterize the structures and biological functions of these membrane-protein-chaperone complexes. Here, we describe NMR studies addressing three functional aspects of periplasmic membrane-protein-chaperone complexes. Firstly, the Escherichia coli outer membrane protein OmpX binds to each of the two chaperones, Skp and SurA, in structurally at least partially similar states despite fundamental differences between the three-dimensional structures of the chaperones. Secondly, we show that the Skp-bound state of OmpX is equivalent to a chemically denatured state in terms of its refolding competence into detergent micelles in vitro. Thirdly, we use amino acid mutation analysis to show that the interaction of OmpX to Skp is not dominated by the two most hydrophobic segments of OmpX

Chaperones and chaperone-substrate complexes: dynamic playgrounds for NMR spectroscopists

The majority of proteins depend on a well-defined three-dimensional structure to obtain their functionality. In the cellular environment, the process of protein folding is guided by molecular chaperones to avoid misfolding, aggregation, and the generation of toxic species. To this end, living cells contain complex networks of molecular chaperones, which interact with substrate polypeptides by a multitude of different functionalities: transport them towards a target location, help them fold, unfold misfolded species, resolve aggregates, or deliver them towards a proteolysis machinery. Despite the availability of high-resolution crystal structures of many important chaperones in their substrate-free apo forms, structural information about how substrates are bound by chaperones and how they are protected from misfolding and aggregation is very sparse. This lack of information arises from the highly dynamic nature of chaperone-substrate complexes, which so far has largely hindered their crystallization. This highly dynamic nature makes chaperone-substrate complexes good targets for NMR spectroscopy. Here, we review the results achieved by NMR spectroscopy to understand chaperone function in general and details of chaperone-substrate interactions in particular. We assess the information content and applicability of different NMR techniques for the characterization of chaperones and chaperone-substrate complexes. Finally, we highlight three recent studies, which have provided structural descriptions of chaperone-substrate complexes at atomic resolution

Bispecific Tau Antibodies with Additional Binding to C1q or Alpha-Synuclein

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other tauopathies are neurodegenerative disorders characterized by cellular accumulation of aggregated tau protein. Tau pathology within these disorders is accompanied by chronic neuroinflammation, such as activation of the classical complement pathway by complement initiation factor C1q. Additionally, about half of the AD cases present with inclusions composed of aggregated alpha-synuclein called Lewy bodies. Lewy bodies in disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia also frequently occur together with tau pathology. OBJECTIVE: Immunotherapy is currently the most promising treatment strategy for tauopathies. However, the presence of multiple pathological processes within tauopathies makes it desirable to simultaneously target more than one disease pathway. METHODS: Herein, we have developed three bispecific antibodies based on published antibody binding region sequences. One bispecific antibody binds to tau plus alpha-synuclein and two bispecific antibodies bind to tau plus C1q. RESULTS: Affinity of the bispecific antibodies to their targets compared to their monospecific counterparts ranged from nearly identical to one order of magnitude lower. All bispecific antibodies retained binding to aggregated protein in patient-derived brain sections. The bispecific antibodies also retained their ability to inhibit aggregation of recombinant tau, regardless of whether the tau binding sites were in IgG or scFv format. Mono- and bispecific antibodies inhibited cellular seeding induced by AD-derived pathological tau with similar efficacy. Finally, both Tau-C1q bispecific antibodies completely inhibited the classical complement pathway. CONCLUSIONS: Bispecific antibodies that bind to multiple pathological targets may therefore present a promising approach to treat tauopathies and other neurodegenerative disorders