Shifting Into Gear: A Comprehensive Guide to Creating a Car Ownership Program

Offers detailed strategies for organizations pursuing car ownership programs to help low-income residents obtain vehicles for employment access and family economic improvement

Talking about Casino Gambling: Community Voices from Boston Chinatown

This pilot study examined the casino gambling practices of residents and workers in Boston Chinatown. The aim was to learn about the trajectory and life context of individual participants’ gambling activity, including how individual participants describe their motivation, nature and frequency of gambling, and its effects on self and family. The research was conducted by a university based research team in partnership with the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, and with the assistance of the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling. The stories told by participants illustrate multiple and overlapping risk factors for problem gambling. Our conceptual approach took into account the dynamic interaction of risk factors from multiple sources: stressors in participants’ daily lives rooted in socio-economic conditions, exposure to targeted marketing aimed at Chinese immigrants inside and outside the casino, casino inducements, family contexts, and individual-level psychological and/or emotional factors. Protective factors include the support of social networks or families

Information on Small Populations with Significant Health Disparities: A Report on Data Collected on the Health of Asian Americans in Massachusetts

An analysis of publicly available sources of data on Asian Americans in Massachusetts with recommendations on ways to improve this collection of data. Our report begins with a discussion of the important issues of data collection and reporting and then discusses the particular challenges of collecting and reporting on data in Massachusetts. Profiles of major datasets based on records for administrative entities are presented such as the Massachusetts Cancer Registry, hospital discharges, MassHealth, and Medicare, and mortality and natality records. This is followed by a description of major datasets based on population surveys such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). We discuss how MassCHIP may be used as an extractive tool for researchers. And we conclude with recommendations for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to better address the health disparities of Asian Americans

Acquisition of third person personal pronouns by L1 Malay speakers

This study investigates the acquisition of English third personal person pronouns (henceforth third person pronouns) by first language (L1) Malay learners. The theoretical framework adopted for the study is the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis (FFFH) (Hawkins & Chan, 1997) which claims that second language (L2) learners who begin the task after a particular period of time will not be able to acquire the L2 property and its associated functional features if these have not been instantiated in the learners’ L1. Specifically the aim of this study is to find out to what extent the learners of three different age groups and matched levels of proficiency are able to acquire the English third person pronouns and their associated features (gender, case and number). One hundred and fifty (50 elementary, 50 intermediate, 50 advanced) L1 Malay speakers participated in the study. Two instruments, the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT), were administered to the respondents. The OPT was used to determine the proficiency level of the respondents. The main task, i.e. the GJT, comprised 72 items (both grammatical and ungrammatical) on third person pronouns, tests the respondents’ knowledge on gender, case and number. The data obtained indicated that the learners in the elementary group had the most difficulty in the acquisition of the items tested, followed by the intermediate and the advanced groups, respectively. This indicates that the learners go through developmental stages of acquisition. Overall, the learners’ performances for the grammatical items were better than the ungrammatical items even at the advanced level, implying that at ultimate attainment, they were not able to reach native-like competence. This could be due to the parametric differences between the two languages for the grammatical property being investigated

Calderwood Writing Initiative at UMass Boston

Founded in 2003, the Calderwood Writing Initiative is dedicated to improving the teaching and practice of expository writing. In the past, the Initiative has sponsored a wide variety of experimental programs & approaches

The ANALA Collaborative: UMass Boston’s Asian American, Native American, Latin@ and African Diaspora Institutes

The ANALA Collaborative is the newly-formed umbrella for the four UMass Boston racial and ethnic institutes. This year, with help from a team from the College of Management’s Emerging Leaders Program, we have come together to form ANALA in recognition of the area’s increasing racial and ethnic diversity and the need for majority-minority communities to work together toward common goals. While each of the four institutes will retain its separate identity and programs, we will also place greater emphasis on collaborative efforts in the service of our common mission and vision

Effect of heavy metal contamination on the DNA Mutation on Nepenthes plant from abandoned mine

Objective: Heavy metal contamination on water, soil, crops and including to the other living organisms, including their effects on DNA mutation in abandoned mine is highlighted in this study Methodology: In this study, 6 toxic metals, Zn, Pb, Fe, Cd, Cr and Mn in Nepenthes plants at an abandoned copper mine site were investigated. A total of 20 Nepenthes plants were collected from different sites of the abandoned mine. Metal concentration was determined using the Inductively Coupled Plasma/Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP/OES) technique and electrophoresis gel and Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) amplification processes for DNA mutation analysis. The total concentration trend of metal concentrations recorded with Cu (up to 88.797 mg kg–1)>Mn (39.018 mg kg–1)>Zn (30.260 mg kg–1)>Pb (8.206 mg kg–1)>Cd (0.168 mg kg–1). Results: The results also showed that concentration of heavy metals in Nepenthes plants collected from the abandoned mine were much higher than in control plants. However, the concentrations were still under the tolerance limit of heavy metals in plants except for Cu concentration. Besides, the concentration of heavy metals generally is higher in the flowers of the plants. For DNA analysis, based on the image obtained the result showed the DNA bands were located at the same location with the control Nepenthes which indicated there is no mutation occurred for the Nepenthes collected from the abandoned mine. Conclusion: From the result it is suggested that pitcher plant such Nepenthes may act as a potential phytoextraction of heavy metal from contaminated soil or water compounds at the abandoned mine

Effects of Condensed Tannins on the Toxicity of Fireweed (\u3ci\u3eSenecio madagascariensis\u3c/i\u3e) to Cattle

Fireweed (Senecio madagascariensis) is a noxious and invasive weed affecting pastures in Hawaii, Australia, and South America. Fireweed contains compounds called pyrrolizidine alkaloids that are toxic to most grazing mammals. Toxic effects to cattle include irreversible damage to liver cells, hardening of the liver, and loss of liver function, which may lead to jaundice, swelling, and the accumulation of fluids in the stomach and other physiological malfunctions. External effects include rough appearance, diarrhea, low energy and dullness, photosensitization, and abnormal behavior, many of which can lead to death. Fireweed also can reduce pasture productivity by as much as 30-40%, particularly in Hawaii. As a result of these adverse effects on cattle and pasture production, people are seeking ways to manage fireweed and cattle. Condensed tannins, which are common in many forage legumes, bind with other molecules such as protein and alkaloids. Complementarities among secondary compounds such as condensed tannins and alkaloids can allow animals to consume more of plant material they would otherwise avoid due to toxicity; however, there is very little information on whether tannins actually protect animals from the toxic effect of alkaloids like the ones found in fireweed. The effects of condensed tannins on the toxicity of fireweed to cattle were examined in two stages of a research project that included studies in the lab (in vitro) and in live animals (in vivo). The in vitro studies showed that tannins bound pyrrolizidine alkaloids in cattle rumen fluid and binding was highest when mixed with tannins at 8%, with some effect at 12% as well, by weight of fireweed. The in vivo studies were inconclusive as animals from both the Fireweed and Fireweed-Tannin group demonstrated ill-effects brought on by the fireweed. The data gathered in the form of blood tests and liver tests did not identify a clear protective effect provided by having tannin in the diet, but the results likely were affected by the way we conducted the research, which involved dosing animals daily with large amounts of plant material. The findings also illustrate how strongly cattle avoid eating fireweed while grazing on pasture. In summary, management to reduce fireweed effects on cattle should focus on improving pasture diversity and resiliency, on multi-species grazing to take advantage of the innate resistance of sheep and goats to fireweed’s toxicity, and on ways to enable cattle to utilize fireweed

Targeting tauopathy with engineered tau-degrading intrabodies

BACKGROUND: The accumulation of pathological tau is the main component of neurofibrillary tangles and other tau aggregates in several neurodegenerative diseases, referred to as tauopathies. Recently, immunotherapeutic approaches targeting tau have been demonstrated to be beneficial in decreasing tauopathy in animal models. We previously found that passive immunotherapy with anti-tau antibody to human tau or expression of an anti-tau secreted single-chain variable fragment (scFv) in the central nervous system of a mouse model of tauopathy decreased but did not remove all tau-associated pathology. Although these and other studies demonstrate that conventional immunotherapeutic approaches targeting tau can influence tau pathogenesis, the majority of pathological tau remains in the cytosol of cells, not typically accessible to an extracellular antibody. Therefore, we reasoned targeting intracellular tau might be more efficacious in preventing or decreasing tauopathy. METHODS: By utilizing our anti-tau scFv, we generated anti-tau intrabodies for the expression in the cytosol of neurons. To enhance the degradation capacity of conventional intrabodies, we engineered chimeric anti-tau intrabodies fused to ubiquitin harboring distinct mutations that shuttle intracellular tau for either the proteasome or lysosomal mediated degradation. To evaluate the efficacy in delaying or eliminating tauopathy, we expressed our tau degrading intrabodies or controls in human tau transgenic mice by adeno-associated virus prior to overt tau pathology and after tau deposition. RESULTS: Our results demonstrate, the expression of chimeric anti-tau intrabodies significantly reduce tau protein levels in primary neuronal cultures expression human tau relative to a non-modified anti-tau intrabody. We found the expression of engineered tau-degrading intrabodies destined for proteasomal-mediated degradation are more effective in delaying or eliminating tauopathy than a conventional intrabody in aged human tau transgenic mice. CONCLUSION: This study, harnesses the strength of intrabodies that are amendable for targeting specific domains or modifications with the cell-intrinsic mechanisms that regulate protein degradation providing a new immunotherapeutic approach with potentially improved efficacy