Defining a Service-Learning Pedagogy of Access and Success

Ask most college administrators how they define access and they would probably reply inclusive opportunity. Ask most college faculty how they would identify a benchmark of success and they would probably reply critical thinking skills. Indeed, our traditional notions of educational access and success tend to be either numerically delineated, the number of entering or graduating students or characterized as producing rationally oriented leaders and citizens

Vitamin D Status of College Students: Implications for Health Leaders

Vitamin D deficiency is considered to be a pandemic with implications for compromised bone health and other chronic diseases. Few studies have examined vitamin D status in college-aged individuals where prevention of future health consequences is still possible. Serum vitamin D 25(OH)D status and vitamin D intake were examined in 98 college students ages 18-29 years during winter. BMI was classified as \u3c 25and 25 or greater. Race was categorized as Caucasian or other. Overall, 69.5% had suboptimal serum vitamin D levels, \u3c30ng/mL. Only 8 students (8.2%) met the EAR (400 IU) per day for vitamin D intake. t tests were used to determine if there were significant differences in serum vitamin D level and dietary intake based on gender, race and BMI. Significant differences were found in serum vitamin D level when compared by gender and race. Females tended to have a higher serum vitamin D level than males. Those representing minorities had lower serum vitamin D levels than Caucasians; One hundred percent of the minority students had suboptimal serum vitamin D levels. Based on these findings, dietitians should increase efforts to target college-aged individuals in educational programming related to factors affecting vitamin D synthesis, vitamin D intake, and health consequences of suboptimal vitamin D status, particularly in winter. Consideration should be given to vitamin D fortification of foods that meet the preferences of today’s consumer

Interpreting the Clustering of Radio Sources

We develop the formalism required to interpret, within a CDM framework, the angular clustering of sources in a deep radio survey. The effect of nonlinear evolution of density perturbations is discussed as is the effect of the assumed redshift distribution of sources. We also investigate what redshift ranges contribute to the clustering signal at different angular scales. Application of the formalism is focussed on the clustering detected in the FIRST survey but measurements made for other radio surveys are also investigated. We comment on the implications for the evolution of clustering.Comment: 7 pages latex, 6 figures, to appear in MNRAS, replaced version corrects typo in expression for w(theta

Clustering of HI galaxies in HIPASS and ALFALFA

We investigate the clustering of HI-selected galaxies in the ALFALFA survey and compare results with those obtained for HIPASS. Measurements of the angular correlation function and the inferred 3D-clustering are compared with results from direct spatial-correlation measurements. We are able to measure clustering on smaller angular scales and for galaxies with lower HI masses than was previously possible. We calculate the expected clustering of dark matter using the redshift distributions of HIPASS and ALFALFA and show that the ALFALFA sample is somewhat more anti-biased with respect to dark matter than the HIPASS sample.Comment: 5 Pages 4 Figures accepted by MNRA

TGF-β receptor levels regulate the specificity of signaling pathway activation and biological effects of TGF-β

AbstractTGF-β is a pluripotent cytokine that mediates its effects through a receptor composed of TGF-β receptor type II (TGFBR2) and type I (TGFBR1). The TGF-β receptor can regulate Smad and nonSmad signaling pathways, which then ultimately dictate TGF-β's biological effects. We postulated that control of the level of TGFBR2 is a mechanism for regulating the specificity of TGF-β signaling pathway activation and TGF-β's biological effects. We used a precisely regulatable TGFBR2 expression system to assess the effects of TGFBR2 expression levels on signaling and TGF-β mediated apoptosis. We found Smad signaling and MAPK–ERK signaling activation levels correlate directly with TGFBR2 expression levels. Furthermore, p21 levels and TGF-β induced apoptosis appear to depend on relatively high TGFBR2 expression and on the activation of the MAPK–ERK and Smad pathways. Thus, control of TGFBR2 expression and the differential activation of TGF-β signaling pathways appears to be a mechanism for regulating the specificity of the biological effects of TGF-β