Facilitating Environmental Enrichment in Senior Care Activities with Professional Development

There is little known about the current state of professional development and continuing education practices for empowering activity professionals to better enhance environmental enrichment in long term care. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the activity professional\u27s perceived role and best strategies for professional development to enrich the long-term care environment. The study used social cognitive theory as its theoretical framework to develop research questions focused on the views of activity professionals concerning professional development and continuing education to support care for long-term care residents. Using a narrative approach, 9 activity professionals were recruited through networking at the 2015 NAAP Education Summit in Kentucky, LinkedIn, and snowball sampling. Eligible participants who provided informed consent were interviewed by phone from August 2015 to February 2016. Data were analyzed using both hand coding and NVivo 10.0 software. Results showed the value of relevant certifications and the importance of training in a range of topics, especially dementia care. Connection to others and the environment emerged as key themes. This study is significant because it explores professional development in the long-term care environment, which can facilitate positive social change to provide the elderly, especially those in cognitive decline, with a comforting environment for special needs. This study contributes to the knowledgebase to inform the development of educational and training opportunities for activities professionals, especially those caring for individuals with severe / end-stage dementia

Face-to-face and online collaboration: appreciating rules and adding complexity

This paper reports how 6-8 year-old children build, play and share video-games in an animated programming environment. Children program their games using rules as creative tools in the construction process. While working both face-to-face and remotely on their games, we describe how they can collaboratively come to explain phenomena arising from programmed or 'system' rules. Focusing on one illustrative case study of two children, we propose two conjectures. First, we claim that in face-to-face collaboration, the children centre their attention on narrative, and address the problem of translating the narrative into system rules which can be =programmed‘ into the computer. This allowed the children to debug any conflicts between system rules in order to maintain the flow of the game narrative. A second conjecture is that over the Internet children were encouraged to add complexity and innovative elements to their games, not by the addition of socially-constructed or 'player' rules but rather through additional system rules which elaborate the mini-formalism in which they engaged. This shift of attention to system rules occurred at the same time, and perhaps as a result of, a loosening of the game narrative that was a consequence of the remoteness of the interaction

“How could this happen to us?” French Community and Sault Ste. Marie’s English Resolution

In January, 1990 Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, a northern city with over 200 hundred years of French settlement, passed a resolution declaring its city government would operate in English-only. Accounts of how this language specific resolution came about are often, even inescapably overshadowed by the character and actions of the city’s brash, defiant Mayor, Joe Fratesi. This paper presents an expanded account of events, wherein Mayor Fratesi is one of many actors, albeit one ready to maximize a political opportunity. To existing accounts, this paper adds the voices and experiences of those within the French community, ones largely absent in the published record. While those outside the Sault saw the resolution as threatening to Canada’s linguistic and cultural aspirations, within the Sault it was clearly a local matter

Making Sense of Business Reference

Presentation at the Michigan Library Association's Academic Libraries 2010 Conference, Novi, MI, May 6-7, 2010Do you wish you felt more confident when faced with a business reference question? Come away from this conference session ready to test out some new sources and strategies for tackling questions on companies, industries, the stock market, consumer demographics and more. Face down your business reference fears and/or add to your growing business reference arsenal. Part business reference therapy, part business reference source overview, this session will leave you with a better understanding of the business reference process and provide you with a framework for building your business reference expertise. Discover the business reference skills you didn't even know you possessed and never (or almost never) feel like hiding under the desk when faced with business reference questions again!http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/71388/1/ROSS Making $ense of Business ReferenceMLAAcademic2010.pd

Yes, Even You Can Do Business Reference with More Confidence and on a Limited Budget!

Presentation at the 2010 Michigan Library Association Annual Conference, Traverse City, MI Nov. 9 - 12, 2010Whether you work in an academic or public library setting, business reference questions are coming at us a mile a minute these days with no signs of stopping even while our budgets continue to shrink. Come away from this session with some new (mostly free!) resources to add to your collection and new ideas for improving your business reference skill set.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78287/1/10MLA1111MoonBusinessReference1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78287/2/10MLA1111MoonBusinessReference2 (2).pd

Clean, Green, and Not So Mean: Can Business Save the World?

Link to web version here: http://www.rusq.org/2010/12/29/clean-green-and-not-so-mean-can-business-save-the-world/Full citation: Ross, C., Spackman, A., Stephen, E., et. al. ( 2010) ‘Clean, Green, and Not So Mean: Can Business Save the World?’ Reference & User Services Quarterly. 50 (2): 135-140.This article will provide an overview of the 2010 Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) Program at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. titled “Clean, Green, and Not So Mean: Can Business Help Save the World?” and present a brief orientation to several of the subtopics that fall under the CSR umbrella.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/83157/1/CleanGreenNotSoMean.pd

Clean, green, and not so mean: Can business save the world?

No matter how you define it, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a hot topic. From community investing to business ethics to environmental sustainability and beyond, proponents of CSR view the business landscape through a lens that focuses less on profitability and more on the greater good. “Doing well by doing good” is the business world’s new mantra. Concepts of CSR, green business, social entrepreneurship, and peace through commerce have become a focus of research and are inspiring the next generation of businesspeople. The 2010 BRASS Program gave attendees an expert’s view of certain niches within the broader realm of ethical or socially responsible business practices

Identification of an Archaeal Presenilin-Like Intramembrane Protease

BACKGROUND: The GXGD-type diaspartyl intramembrane protease, presenilin, constitutes the catalytic core of the γ-secretase multi-protein complex responsible for activating critical signaling cascades during development and for the production of β-amyloid peptides (Aβ) implicated in Alzheimer's disease. The only other known GXGD-type diaspartyl intramembrane proteases are the eukaryotic signal peptide peptidases (SPPs). The presence of presenilin-like enzymes outside eukaryots has not been demonstrated. Here we report the existence of presenilin-like GXGD-type diaspartyl intramembrane proteases in archaea. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have employed in vitro activity assays to show that MCMJR1, a polytopic membrane protein from the archaeon Methanoculleus marisnigri JR1, is an intramembrane protease bearing the signature YD and GXGD catalytic motifs of presenilin-like enzymes. Mass spectrometry analysis showed MCMJR1 could cleave model intramembrane protease substrates at several sites within their transmembrane region. Remarkably, MCMJR1 could also cleave substrates derived from the β-amyloid precursor protein (APP) without the need of protein co-factors, as required by presenilin. Two distinct cleavage sites within the transmembrane domain of APP could be identified, one of which coincided with Aβ40, the predominant site processed by γ-secretase. Finally, an established presenilin and SPP transition-state analog inhibitor could inhibit MCMJR1. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings suggest that a primitive GXGD-type diaspartyl intramembrane protease from archaea can recapitulate key biochemical properties of eukaryotic presenilins and SPPs. MCMJR1 promises to be a more tractable, simpler system for in depth structural and mechanistic studies of GXGD-type diaspartyl intramembrane proteases

Chiral polymerization: symmetry breaking and entropy production in closed systems

We solve numerically a kinetic model of chiral polymerization in systems closed to matter and energy flow, paying special emphasis to its ability to amplify the small initial enantiomeric excesses due to the internal and unavoidable statistical fluctuations. The reaction steps are assumed to be reversible, implying a thermodynamic constraint among some of the rate constants. Absolute asymmetric synthesis is achieved in this scheme. The system can persist for long times in quasi- stationary chiral asymmetric states before racemizing. Strong inhibition leads to long-period chiral oscillations in the enantiomeric excesses of the longest homopolymer chains. We also calculate the entropy production {\sigma} per unit volume and show that {\sigma} increases to a peak value either before or in the vicinity of the chiral symmetry breaking transition

T cell epitope engineering: an avian H7N9 influenza vaccine strategy for pandemic preparedness and response

The delayed availability of vaccine during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic created a sense of urgency to better prepare for the next influenza pandemic. Advancements in manufacturing technology, speed and capacity have been achieved but vaccine effectiveness remains a significant challenge. Here, we describe a novel vaccine design strategy called immune engineering in the context of H7N9 influenza vaccine development. The approach combines immunoinformatic and structure modeling methods to promote protective antibody responses against H7N9 hemagglutinin (HA) by engineering whole antigens to carry seasonal influenza HA memory CD4(+) T cell epitopes - without perturbing native antigen structure - by galvanizing HA-specific memory helper T cells that support sustained antibody development against the native target HA. The premise for this vaccine concept rests on (i) the significance of CD4(+) T cell memory to influenza immunity, (ii) the essential role CD4(+) T cells play in development of neutralizing antibodies, (iii) linked specificity of HA-derived CD4(+) T cell epitopes to antibody responses, (iv) the structural plasticity of HA and (v) an illustration of improved antibody response to a prototype engineered recombinant H7-HA vaccine. Immune engineering can be applied to development of vaccines against pandemic concerns, including avian influenza, as well as other difficult targets