Beyond resilience: Moving from self-care to collective care

During the 2020-2021 academic year, which occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, library and information science (LIS) faculty, scholars, practitioners, and students were all forced into new ways of being, learning, and working with communities who were also unsure and at risk. The abruptness and uncertainties of the global crisis, compounded by racial unrest and economic decline, shone the harshest of lights on many pre-existing societal inequities and conditions in libraries (e.g., racism, the digital divide, and staffing hierarchies), and sharply exacerbated them. This new reality produced inordinate amounts of stress and introduced new mental health challenges for many in the LIS profession. There are countless stories and anecdotes of LIS professionals being encouraged to practice self-care in an effort to cope with these challenging circumstances and times; do yoga, take a bubble bath, take a nap, etc. These practices are not inherently bad; however, they have become commodified, they place the onus on the individuals who are suffering, and they do nothing to address or rectify the systemic professional barriers and inequities that are part and parcel of the stressors being experienced. Instead of expecting individuals to “buck up,” demonstrate “grit,” and correct the larger systemic environmental issues themselves, the onus should be on the profession and its organizations to engage in collective care. “Collective care refers to seeing members’ well-being – particularly their emotional health – as a shared responsibility of the group rather than the lone task of an individual” (Mehreen & Gray-Donald, 2018). LIS and its entities should be focused on healing and improving themselves holistically and rectifying the issues that symptomatically affect its constituents. The solution is not to demand that people be resilient; the solution is to create healthy environments and demonstrate empathy and compassion towards the people who keep the organizations running. To this end, The Skillset Podcast (a production of The University of South Carolina and Publishers Weekly) dedicated its Spring 2021 episodes to the topic of Collective Care (as opposed to self-care). Collective care references the idea of caring for each other in addition to the self-care that we need to engage in for ourselves. Guests were asked: How, if at all, does collective care show up in the work that you do in your libraries and organizations? What became clear in all of the episodes is that self-care is not enough; in fact, relying solely on self-care can be damaging because it doesn’t fully address individuals’ stressors and because it does not address underlying issues, the problems remain. And when the problems remain, individuals banking on the wonders of self-care are left disappointed, frustrated, and feeling as though they continue to fail themselves and their organizations. Additionally, many are unaware of collective care and therefore don’t know to expect it from their organizations or how to ask for, or work towards, this kind of environment. Collective care can be expressed in a variety of community specific ways, and its beneficial effects extend to the larger communities being served by said organizations and staff. This panel session will feature the podcast host and three of the season’s guests who will discuss their opinions of self-care and collective care and share their thoughts about how they believe the LIS profession can improve in this regard and take better care of its most important assets - the people in the profession. Panelists: Nicole Cooke is the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina. Her research and teaching interests include human information behavior, critical cultural information studies, and diversity and social justice in librarianship. She was the 2019 ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award recipient, and she is a cohost of The Skillset Podcast. Abigail Phillips is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where her research interests include cyberbullying, youth, social media, empathy, librarianship, libraries, making, critical librarianship, neurodiversity, and mental health advocacy. Abigail is a member of the #LISMentalHealth team. The #LISMentalHealth initiative aims to raise awareness of mental health among library and archives workers through online discussions, blog posts, resource-sharing, and the “Reserve and Renew Zine” series. Cory Eckert is a private school librarian in Houston, TX. She received her MLIS from the University of Arizona and has worked in college, public, and public school libraries over the course of her career. She founded Storytime Underground. Kaetrena Davis Kendrick is Dean of Ida Jane Dacus Library and Louise Pettus Archives & Special Collections at Winthrop University (SC). Her research interests include professionalism, ethics, racial and ethnic diversity in the LIS field, and the role of communities of practice in practical academic librarianship. In 2019 she was named the Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Academic/Research Librarian of the Year for her research into the phenomenon of low morale which quantifies the experiences of many academic librarians who are not getting the support that they need for success in the field. Taking a deeper dive into the subject, Kendrick has now documented behavior and cultures that specifically enable the low morale experiences of racial and ethnic minority academic librarians. Mehreen, R., & Gray-Donald, D. (2018, August 18). Be careful with each other. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/be-careful-with-each-othe

Mini-Hand Extension

Lam Research supplies equipment for manufacturing silicon wafers used in semiconductor manufacturing. Their equipment is highly sophisticated and therefore costly, both in time and money, to repair. Much of the time and money spent to service those machines when they require maintenance or repair is spent on disassembly, so Lam seeks a faster way to service their equipment. Al Schoepp, a Senior Technical Director at Lam Research, came to Cal Poly seeking a team of students to design and build a device that could emulate the human hand well enough to handle hardware and thread nuts and bolts but also be usable inside one of the manufacturing machines at Lam. Team R.E.A.C.H., consisting of Aulivia Bounchaleun, Haden Cory, Scott Onsum, and Zack Phillips, have designed a device called the R.E.A.C.H. device, which stands for Reach Extender And Component Handler, to help Lam Research save both time and money when servicing their equipment. The device is operable with one hand, has an integrated vision and lighting system with a wireless monitor, can extend the user’s reach up to almost 24 inches, and can fit through a two inch diameter hole while carrying a ½-13 nut. This report details the design process that Team R.E.A.C.H. used to develop the R.E.A.C.H. device starting from the initial background research and problem definition all the way up through the detailed analysis and technical drawings of the prototype

Smarter Cycling

With the current trend of urbanization, the populations of major cities such as Portland are steadily increasing. This is causing a variety of problems, both within the city and in rural areas. In regards to the city, the major challenges facing city planners are the need for the expansion of residential neighborhoods and a rise in traffic throughout the city. One way to tackle the issue of an abundance of traffic, is to make alternate means of transportation more appealing to residents. We chose to focus on bicycling because of the bike‐friendly culture already in place in Portland. An increase on the biking population would reduce the number of cars on the road, decreasing pollution, and cause drivers to be more aware of the bikes that ride beside them. The potential of our project to track bike theft throughout the city allows the bikers to feel more confident about their ability to avoid dangerous parking locations

Oxidative cyclization of tertiary pentenol derivatives forming 2,5,5-trisubstituted THF rings and the total synthesis of cyclocapitelline

The synthesis of 2,5,5-trisubstituted tetrahydrofuran rings was accomplished via the Mukaiyama aerobic oxidative cyclization of tertiary 5-pentenols employing the Co(nmp)2catalyst. A variety of THFs were formed in moderate to good yield and diastereoselectivity. The method developed herein was successfully applied to an enantioselective total synthesis of cyclocapitelline

Molybdenum carbide catalysts for water–gas shift

Molybdenum carbide (Mo 2 C) was demonstrated to be highly active for the water–gas shift of a synthetic steam reformer exhaust stream. This catalyst was more active than a commercial Cu–Zn–Al shift catalyst under the conditions employed (220–295°C and atmospheric pressure). In addition, Mo 2 C did not catalyze the methanation reaction. There was no apparent deactivation or modification of the structure during 48 h on‐stream. The results suggest that high surface area carbides are promising candidates for development as commercial water–gas shift catalysts.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44257/1/10562_2004_Article_327161.pd

Neisseria gonorrhoeae Coinfection during Chlamydia muridarum Genital Latency Does Not Modulate Murine Vaginal Bacterial Shedding

Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae are the most frequently reported agents of bacterial sexually transmitted disease worldwide. Nonetheless, C. trachomatis/N. gonorrhoeae coinfection remains understudied. C. trachomatis/N. gonorrhoeae coinfections are more common than expected by chance, suggesting C. trachomatis/N. gonorrhoeae interaction, and N. gonorrhoeae infection may reactivate genital chlamydial shedding in women with latent (quiescent) chlamydial infection. We hypothesized that N. gonorrhoeae would reactivate latent genital Chlamydia muridarum infection in mice. Two groups of C. muridarum-infected mice were allowed to transition into genital latency. One group was then vaginally inoculated with N. gonorrhoeae; a third group received N. gonorrhoeae alone. C. muridarum and N. gonorrhoeae vaginal shedding was measured over time in the coinfected and singly infected groups. Viable C. muridarum was absent from vaginal swabs but detected in rectal swabs, confirming C. muridarum genital latency and consistent with the intestinal tract as a C. muridarum reservoir. C. muridarum inclusions were observed in large intestinal, but not genital, tissues during latency. Oviduct dilation was associated with C. muridarum infection, as expected. Contradicting our hypothesis, N. gonorrhoeae coinfection did not reactivate latent C. muridarum vaginal shedding. In addition, latent C. muridarum infection did not modulate recovery of vaginal viable N. gonorrhoeae. Evidence for N. gonorrhoeae-dependent increased C. muridarum infectivity has thus not been demonstrated in murine coinfection, and the ability of C. muridarum coinfection to potentiate N. gonorrhoeae infectivity may depend on actively replicating vaginal C. muridarum. The proportion of mice with increased vaginal neutrophils (PMNs) was higher in N. gonorrhoeae-infected than in C. muridarum-infected mice, as expected, while that of C. muridarum/N. gonorrhoeae-coinfected mice was intermediate to the singly infected groups, suggesting latent C. muridarum murine infection may limit PMN response to subsequent N. gonorrhoeae infection. IMPORTANCE Our work builds upon the limited understanding of C. muridarum/N. gonorrhoeae coinfection. Previously, N. gonorrhoeae infection of mice with acute (actively replicating) vaginal C. muridarum infection was shown to increase recovery of viable vaginal N. gonorrhoeae and vaginal PMNs, with no effect on C. muridarum vaginal shedding (R. A. Vonck et al., Infect Immun 79:1566-1577, 2011). It has also been shown that chlamydial infection of human and murine PMNs prevents normal PMN responses, including the response to N. gonorrhoeae (K. Rajeeve et al., Nat Microbiol 3:824-835, 2018). Our findings show no effect of latent genital C. muridarum infection on the recovery of viable N. gonorrhoeae, in contrast to the previously reported effect of acute C. muridarum infection, and suggesting that acute versus latent C. muridarum infection may have distinct effects on PMN function in mice. Together, these studies to date provide evidence that Chlamydia/N. gonorrhoeae synergistic interactions may depend on the presence of replicating Chlamydia in the genital tract, while chlamydial effects on vaginal PMNs may extend beyond acute infection

A Knowledge Brokering Framework for Integrated Landscape Management

Sustainable land management is at the heart of some of the most intractable challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. It is critical for tackling biodiversity loss, land degradation, climate change and the decline of ecosystem services. It underpins food production, livelihoods, dietary health, social equity, climate change adaptation, and many other outcomes. However, interdependencies, trade-offs, time lags, and non-linear responses make it difficult to predict the combined effects of land management decisions. Policy decisions also have to be made in the context of conflicting interests, values and power dynamics of those living on the land and those affected by the consequences of land use decisions. This makes designing and coordinating effective land management policies and programmes highly challenging. The difficulty is exacerbated by the scarcity of reliable data on the impacts of land management on the environment and livelihoods. This poses a challenge for policymakers and practitioners in governments, development banks, non-governmental organisations, and other institutions. It also sets demands for researchers, who are under ever increasing pressure from funders to demonstrate uptake and impact of their work. Relatively few research methods exist that can address such questions in a holistic way. Decision makers and researchers need to work together to help untangle, contextualise and interpret fragmented evidence through systems approaches to make decisions in spite of uncertainty. Individuals and institutions acting as knowledge brokers can support these interactions by facilitating the co-creation and use of scientific and other knowledge. Given the patchy nature of data and evidence, particularly in developing countries, it is important to draw on the full range of available models, tools and evidence. In this paper we review the use of evidence to inform multiple-objective integrated landscape management policies and programmes, focusing on how to simultaneously achieve different sustainable development objectives in diverse landscapes. We set out key success factors for evidence-based decision-making, which are summarised into 10 key principles for integrated landscape management knowledge brokering in integrated landscape management and 12 key skills for knowledge brokers. We finally propose a decision-support framework to organise evidence that can be used to tackle different types of land management policy decision

The Malta cistern mapping project : expedition II

This paper documents the second of two archeological expeditions that employed several underwater robot mapping and localization techniques. The goal of this project is to explore and map ancient cisterns located on the islands of Malta and Gozo. Dating back to 300 B.C., the cisterns of interest acted as water storage systems for fortresses, private homes, and churches. They often consisted of several connected chambers, still containing water. A Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), was deployed into cisterns to obtain video and sonar images. Using a variety of sonar based mapping techniques, two-dimensional maps of 18 different cisterns were created.peer-reviewe

A Novel Mechanism for CTCF in the Epigenetic Regulation of Bax in Breast Cancer Cells

Wepreviously reported the association of elevated levels of themultifunctional transcription factor, CCCTC binding factor (CTCF), in breast cancer cells with the specific anti-apoptotic function of CTCF. To understand the molecularmechanisms of this phenomenon, we investigated regulation of the human Bax gene by CTCF in breast and non-breast cells. Two CTCF binding sites (CTSs) within the Bax promoter were identified. In all cells, breast and non-breast, active histone modifications were present at these CTSs, DNA harboring this region was unmethylated, and levels of Bax mRNA and protein were similar. Nevertheless, up-regulation of Bax mRNA and protein and apoptotic cell deathwere observed only in breast cancer cells depleted of CTCF.We proposed that increased CTCF binding to the Bax promoter in breast cancer cells, by comparison with non-breast cells, may be mechanistically linked to the specific apoptotic phenotype in CTCF-depleted breast cancer cells. In this study, we show that CTCF binding was enriched at the Bax CTSs in breast cancer cells and tumors; in contrast, binding of other transcription factors (SP1,WT1, EGR1, and c-Myc) was generally increased in non- breast cells and normal breast tissues. Our findings suggest a novel mechanism for CTCF in the epigenetic regulation of Bax in breast cancer cells, whereby elevated levels of CTCF support preferential binding of CTCF to the Bax CTSs. In this context, CTCF functions as a transcriptional repressor counteracting influences of positive regulatory factors; depletion of breast cancer cells from CTCF therefore results in the activation of Bax and apoptosis. © 2013 Neoplasia Press, Inc

Stakeholder views regarding ethical issues in the design and conduct of pragmatic trials : study protocol

This work is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research through the Project Grant competition (competitive, peer reviewed), award number PJT-153045. Jeremy Grimshaw holds a Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake and a CIHR Foundation Grant (FDN-143269). Charles Weijer holds a Canada Research Chair in Bioethics. Joanne McKenzie is supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship (1143429). Vipul Jairath hold a personal Endowed Chair at Western University (John and Susan McDonald Endowed Chair). Marion Campbell is based with the Health Services Research Unit which is core-funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. Ian Graham is a CIHR Foundation Grant recipient (FDN# 143237).Peer reviewedPublisher PD