The Gendered Anniversary: the story of America\u27s Women Astronauts

As this special issue of the Florida Historical Quarterly has generously acknowledged, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. As important as that anniversary is to the people of Florida, 2008 marks an equally significant anniversary of the space age. June 18, 2008, was the 25 anniversary of the launch of STS-7, Challenger\u27s second flight, and the first flight of Dr. Sally K. Ride. As many Americans will recognize the name, Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in space

Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps

Why, Amy E. Foster asks, did it take two decades after the Soviet Union launched its first female cosmonaut for the United States to send its first female astronaut into space? In answering this question, Foster recounts the complicated history of integrating women into NASA’s astronaut corps. NASA selected its first six female astronauts in 1978. Foster examines the political, technological, and cultural challenges that the agency had to overcome to usher in this new era in spaceflight. She shows how NASA had long developed progressive hiring policies but was limited in executing them by a national agenda to beat the Soviets to the moon, budget constraints, and cultural ideas about women’s roles in America. Lively writing and compelling stories, including personal interviews with America’s first women astronauts, propel Foster’s account. Through extensive archival research, Foster also examines NASA’s directives about sexual discrimination, the technological issues in integrating women into the corps, and the popular media’s discussion of women in space. Foster puts together a truly original study of the experiences not only of early women astronauts but also of the managers and engineers who helped launch them into space.In documenting these events, Foster offers a broader understanding of the difficulties in sexually integrating any workplace, even when the organization approaches the situation with as positive an outlook and as strong a motivation as did NASA

Introducing First Year Medical Students to Personalized Medicine Concepts in a Small Group Activity

Presented as a Poster Presentation at 2020 IUSM Education Day.An individuals’ genetic profile is becomingly an increasingly important parameter in healthcare decisions. This small group activity was developed to introduce first year medical students in the Molecules to Cells and Tissues course to the concept and significance of Pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine. Additionally, this activity provided students with an opportunity to work with a large dataset and use the information to impact clinical decision making. This activity has two cases, takes student groups approximately 2 hours to complete, and requires internet access. Case materials are available through the learning management system Canvas, and include open-ended questions to guide students through the cases. In these cases students explore the functional significance of different alleles of a panel of cytochrome P450 genes. The group activity has the students examine a large data set of cytochrome P450 genes and cognate alleles to determine their prevalence in the local population and calculate the individuals’ gene scores. The students are then asked to explain the impact of the genotype (or gene score) on the resulting patient phenotype (i.e. the functional significance of the genotype). The first case involves a breast cancer survivor support group in which patients taking Taxol discuss lack of adequate pain relief from opioids and the potential impact of concomitant use of natural compounds/supplements on drug metabolism. The second case involves a patient presenting with recurrent stroke-like symptoms despite being on the anticoagulant medication clopidogrel. The patient is initially suspected to be non-compliant, but is later determined to be a poor metabolizer of the anticoagulant clopidogrelto its active form thus decreasing its efficacy. The expertise of the IUSM Medical Genetics research faculty was leveraged to provide a large data set of cytochrome P450 genes and cognate alleles. The selection of cytochrome P450 was based upon delivering content focused on the biochemistry of the enzyme system and provided an opportunity to highlight the drug interaction database available through IUSM Clinical Pharmacology (The FlockhartTable™ ; https://drug-interactions.medicine.iu.edu/). The addition of natural compounds was to draw students’ attention to the Natural Medicines database, which is the recommended source for evidence-based data on complementary and alternative medicine. Natural Medicines is available through the Ruth Lilly Medical Library and can be searched by substance or condition. It provides both a summary of the literature available on substances as well as the level of evidence or quality of studies done on the substance

Developing High Performance Computing Resources for Teaching Cluster and Grid Computing courses

High-Performance Computing (HPC) and the ability to process large amounts of data are of paramount importance for UK business and economy as outlined by Rt Hon David Willetts MP at the HPC and Big Data conference in February 2014. However there is a shortage of skills and available training in HPC to prepare and expand the workforce for the HPC and Big Data research and development. Currently, HPC skills are acquired mainly by students and staff taking part in HPC-related research projects, MSc courses, and at the dedicated training centres such as Edinburgh University’s EPCC. There are few UK universities teaching the HPC, Clusters and Grid Computing courses at the undergraduate level. To address the issue of skills shortages in the HPC it is essential to provide teaching and training as part of both postgraduate and undergraduate courses. The design and development of such courses is challenging since the technologies and software in the fields of large scale distributed systems such as Cluster, Cloud and Grid computing are undergoing continuous change. The students completing the HPC courses should be proficient in these evolving technologies and equipped with practical and theoretical skills for future jobs in this fast developing area. In this paper we present our experience in developing the HPC, Cluster and Grid modules including a review of existing HPC courses offered at the UK universities. The topics covered in the modules are described, as well as the coursework projects based on practical laboratory work. We conclude with an evaluation based on our experience over the last ten years in developing and delivering the HPC modules on the undergraduate courses, with suggestions for future work

The effects of anthracyclines on calcium handling and contractility in sheep ventricular myocytes; role of oxidative stress

Anthracyclines such as doxorubicin (DOX) and daunorubicin (DAUN) are effective chemotherapeutics and contribute to improved cancer survival rates in children and adults. However, anthracyclines exhibit acute and chronic cardiotoxicity which can produce heart failure in cancer survivors. While the cellular basis remains unclear, limited previous studies show DOX perturbs certain aspects of excitation-contraction coupling and increases production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Fewer studies have investigated the effects of DAUN and the effects of either anthracycline on excitation-contraction coupling (ECC) in a large animal model has yet to be demonstrated. Furthermore, the extent to which altered ECC is dependent on anthracycline-induced ROS production remains ambiguous. This is compounded by the fact that no studies have investigated whether elevated ROS production produces oxidative stress in cardiac myocytes. To address these gaps in our understanding, we performed the first integrative investigation of the effects of DOX and DAUN in sheep ventricular myocytes. We also measured the effect of DOX and DAUN on oxidative stress in these cells and further elucidated the underlying sources of ROS. Furthermore, we investigated the dependence of perturbed ECC on ROS thence oxidative stress elevations.Sheep ventricular myocytes were enzymatically isolated in accordance with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, UK, 1986 and used for all experiments. Intracellular calcium and contractility dynamics were measured using epi-fluorescent photometry and video sarcomere detection simultaneously. Cells were field stimulated at 0.5 Hz then acutely exposed to 1 nM DOX or DAUN. Rapid application of 10 mM caffeine was used to measure SR Ca content. Oxidative stress was measured using CellROX red. Fluorescent images were captured using the cytation imaging system and cell fluorescence determined using ImageJ software. DOX reduced the activity of SERCA and increased the activity of NCX resulting in a reduction in SR Ca content. DAUN also reduced SR Ca content however due to an interaction with caffeine the mechanism could not be fully elucidated. The decrease in SR Ca content accounted for a decrease in systolic Ca which underpinned a decrease in systolic shortening. Both DOX and DAUN increased myofilament sensitivity to Ca, potentially offsetting the effect on contractility. DOX increased oxidative stress in a concentration and time-dependent manner. DAUN also increased oxidative stress, but only at relatively high concentrations (10 mM). Removal of oxidative stress by n-acetylcysteine (NAC) attenuated the effects of DOX on the majority of Ca handling and contractility parameters. For example, the effect of DOX on SR Ca content and Ca transient amplitude were reduced by approximately 50 %. Inhibition of the ROS producing enzymes NADPH oxidase (NOX) and xanthine oxidase (XO) reduced DOX-mediated oxidative stress by ~50 % and ~20 % respectively and attenuated the effects on ECC.In cells from sheep with heart failure, DOX reduced SR Ca content thence systolic Ca and contractility but had no effect on SERCA and NCX. These findings suggest that in a large animal model, DOX and DAUN decrease SR Ca content leading to a reduction in systolic Ca thence contractility. In the case of DOX, decreased SERCA and increased NCX activity likely contribute to the decrease of SR Ca content. However, that this isn’t the case in heart failure suggests a role for other mechanisms. These findings are also the first to show that DOX and DAUN increase intracellular oxidative stress in the heart and that NOX and XO are key enzymatic sources of ROS. Furthermore, these findings show this increase in oxidative stress is pathologically important as it accounts for approximately half of the effects of DOX on ECC. Collectively, these findings further elucidate the effects of anthracyclines on ECC and make important contributions to the understanding of the cellular basis of anthracycline-mediated cardiotoxicity. Furthermore, the dependence on and sources of oxidative stress reveal clinically relevant therapeutic targets

SUMOylation Status and Effects of SUMylation on DAX-1

DAX-1 (Dosage Sensitive Sex Reversal Adrenal Hypoplasia Congenita on the X Chromosome gene 1) is a Nuclear Hormone Receptor, which acts as a transcriptional repressor in the nucleus. DAX-1 plays an important role in development and also appears to have some influence on the progression of cancer. In an effort to better understand DAX-1 function both in normal and disease states we are examining one type of posttranslational modification, SUMOylation. SUMOylation involves the addition of the small polypeptide conjugate SUMO (Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier) to proteins, this can have a variety of effects on protein activity. To study the effects of SUMOylation on DAX-1, the overall SUMOylation status of DAX-1 in mammalian cell lines was determined. It was found that DAX-1 is SUMOylated in several cell lines, both normal and carcinoma cells. Mutations were made in putative SUMOylation sites within the DAX-1 gene and assayed for changes in gene expression and activity

End-Fire Silicon Optical Phased Array with Half-Wavelength Spacing

We demonstrate a one-dimensional optical phased array on an integrated silicon platform for operation at 1.55 microns. Light is emitted end-fire from the chip edge where the waveguides are terminated. The innovative design and high confinement afforded by the silicon waveguides enables lambda/2 spacing (775-nm pitch) at the output. Steering is achieved by inducing a phase shift between the waveguides via integrated thermo-optic heaters. The device forms a beam with a FWHM angular width of 17 degrees, and we demonstrate beam steering over a 64 degrees range

Beyond Basic Skills: State Strategies to Connect Low-Skilled Students to an Employer- Valued Postsecondary Education

This report describes strategies that state policymakers can use to strengthen connections between basic skills education and postsecondary education to help lower-skilled adults and out-of-school youth attain the postsecondary credentials they need to advance in the labor market