To Arm the Amazons: Educating Students about the Characteristics and Problems of Feminist Workplaces

The following article is adapted from an essay appearing in The Women \u27s Studies Service Learning Handbook: From the Classroom to the Community, edited by Jerilyn Fisher and Elaine Reuben, and available for $6.50 from the National Women\u27s Studies Association, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Sisterhood can be joyous and energizing. It can also be frustrating and disillusioning. The personal cost of working in a women\u27s center, a rape project, or a women\u27s studies program is often quite high. We expect the hours of exciting and tedious processing that it takes to build such programs. We don\u27t expect pain and confusion about our worth, skills, and values, but these are also outcomes of the feminist group experience

The effect of participation in a pro-poor dairy development project on milk consumption among reproductive age women in rural Tanzania

Animal milk is an important contributor to women’s dietary diversity, especially among pastoral communities where access to diverse diets is limited. While there have been numerous large-scale milk development projects in East Africa, few examples of propoor milk collective action projects exist that focus on expanding milk production and consumption by women. This study reports cross-sectional findings on the association between participation in a pro-poor dairy development project and women’s milk consumption in rural Tanzania. Socio-demographic and health-related characteristics associated with milk consumption were assessed as well. The study utilized data from a sample of 272 women who participated in two surveys conducted in the Morogoro and Tanga regions of Tanzania in 2015. Chi-square and Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel analyses identified factors associated with whether milk was consumed in the previous 24-hour period. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) identified factors associated with frequency of milk consumption. Multivariable logistic regression was applied to estimate associations between program participation, socio-demographic, health characteristics, milk consumption behavior. Seventy-six percent of women reported drinking milk in the previous 24-hour period. The mean frequency of milk intake among the control group was 1.61 times 2.15 times among the intervention group. The adjusted odds of consuming any milk in the previous 24 hours were 16.1 (95% CI 1.72-150.44) times greater for Maasai than other tribes. Among Maasai, the adjusted odds of consuming milk 3-4 times per day compared to 1-2 times per day were 9.96 (95% CI 1.03 - 96.09) times greater for those in the dairy development group compared to the control. Among non-Maasai, the adjusted odds of consuming any milk in the prior 24 hours was 3.45 (95% CI 1.07- 11.05) times greater for those in the dairy development group compared to the control. Milk consumption was greatest among Maasai and communities with propoor dairy development programs. Findings suggest that participation in a Pro-poor agricultural intervention to improve milk production may improve women’s milk consumption and ultimately help to address rural poverty and improve household nutrition

Tumor Antigen Acrosin Binding Protein Normalizes Mitotic Spindle Function to Promote Cancer Cell Proliferation

Cancer cells manage to divide in the context of gross chromosomal abnormalities. These abnormalities can promote bypass of normal restraints on cell proliferation, but at a cost of mitotic vulnerabilities that can be attacked by chemotherapy. Determining how cancer cells balance these issues may permit chemotherapeutic sensitivity to be leveraged more efficiently. From a pan-genomic siRNA screen for modifiers of chemoresponsiveness, we identified the tumor antigen ACRBP/OY-TES-1 as a specifier of paclitaxel resistance. ACRBP expression is normally restricted to the testes but detected in a wide variety of cancers, including most ovarian cancers. We found that ACRBP is both necessary and sufficient for paclitaxel resistance in ovarian cancer cell lines and ovarian tumor explants. Moreover, high ACRBP expression correlated with reduced survival time and faster relapse among ovarian cancer patients. We identified the mitotic spindle protein NuMA as an ACRBP-interacting protein that could account for the effects of ACRBP on paclitaxel sensitivity. In cancer cells, ACRBP restricted a NuMA-dependent abrogation of mitotic spindle assembly that is otherwise pathologic. As a consequence, ACRBP depletion resulted in mitotic errors and reduced proliferative fitness that could be rescued by NuMA co-depletion. We propose that the co-dependent relationship of ACRBP and NuMA in cancer cells reflects their passage through a selection bottleneck during tumor evolution, one which requires the acquisition of traits which normalize mitotic perturbations that originally drove the plasticity of a pre-neoplastic genome. The molecular definition of such traits as defined by the ACRBP-NuMA complex may represent conceptually ideal intervention targets, based on the wide therapeutic windows they may offer

Allele-specific differences in ryanodine receptor 1 mRNA expression levels may contribute to phenotypic variability in malignant hyperthermia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malignant hyperthermia (MH) is a dominantly inherited skeletal muscle disorder that can cause a fatal hypermetabolic reaction to general anaesthetics. The primary locus of MH (MHS1 locus) in humans is linked to chromosome 19q13.1, the position of the gene encoding the ryanodine receptor skeletal muscle calcium release channel (RyR1).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this study, an inexpensive allele-specific PCR (AS-PCR) assay was designed that allowed the relative quantification of the two RyR1 transcripts in heterozygous samples found to be susceptible to MH (MHS). Allele-specific differences in RyR1 expression levels can provide insight into the observed variable penetrance and variations in MH phenotypes between individuals. The presence/absence of the H4833Y mutation in <it>RYR</it>1 transcripts was employed as a marker that allowed discrimination between the two alleles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In four skeletal muscle samples and two lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from different MHS patients, the wild type allele was found to be expressed at higher levels than the mutant RyR1 allele. For both LCLs, the ratios between the wild type and mutant <it>RYR</it>1 alleles did not change after different incubation times with actinomycin D. This suggests that there are no allele-specific differences in RyR1 mRNA stability, at least in these cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The data presented here revealed for the first time allele-specific differences in <it>RYR</it>1 mRNA expression levels in heterozygous MHS samples, and can at least in part contribute to the observed variable penetrance and variations in MH clinical phenotypes.</p

Women’s empowerment, food security and nutrition of pastoral communities in Tanzania

This paper presents a mixed-methods study that examines the relationship between women’s empowerment, household food security, and maternal and child diet diversity (as one indicator of nutrition security) in two regions of Tanzania. Indicators across three domains of women’s empowerment were scored and matched to a household food insecurity access scale. Qualitative research helped appreciate the gender dynamics affecting the women’s empowerment-food security and women’s empowerment-nutrition security nexus. In cluster adjusted regression analyses, scores from each domain were significantly associated with women’s dietary diversity, but not with household food security. All three empowerment domains were positively associated with food security and nutrition in the qualitative analysis. This article discusses these findings and shows the pathways by which respondents saw their empowerment to affect their household food security

Data for wetlandscapes and their changes around the world

Geography and associated hydrological, hydroclimate and land-use conditions and their changes determine the states and dynamics of wetlands and their ecosystem services. The influences of these controls are not limited to just the local scale of each individual wetland but extend over larger landscape areas that integrate multiple wetlands and their total hydrological catchment – the wetlandscape. However, the data and knowledge of conditions and changes over entire wetlandscapes are still scarce, limiting the capacity to accurately understand and manage critical wetland ecosystems and their services under global change. We present a new Wetlandscape Change Information Database (WetCID), consisting of geographic, hydrological, hydroclimate and land-use information and data for 27 wetlandscapes around the world. This combines survey-based local information with geographic shapefiles and gridded datasets of large-scale hydroclimate and land-use conditions and their changes over whole wetlandscapes. Temporally, WetCID contains 30-year time series of data for mean monthly precipitation and temperature and annual land-use conditions. The survey-based site information includes local knowledge on the wetlands, hydrology, hydroclimate and land uses within each wetlandscape and on the availability and accessibility of associated local data. This novel database (available through PANGAEA https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.907398; Ghajarnia et al., 2019) can support site assessments; cross-regional comparisons; and scenario analyses of the roles and impacts of land use, hydroclimatic and wetland conditions, and changes in whole-wetlandscape functions and ecosystem services

Identifying Contributions to the Stellar Halo from Accreted, Kicked-Out, and In Situ Populations

[Abridged] We present a medium-resolution spectroscopic survey of late-type giant stars at mid-Galactic latitudes of (30$^{\circ}<|b|<60^{\circ}$), designed to probe the properties of this population to distances of $\sim$9 kpc. Because M giants are generally metal-rich and we have limited contamination from thin disk stars by the latitude selection, most of the stars in the survey are expected to be members of the thick disk ($\sim$-0.6) with some contribution from the metal-rich component of the nearby halo. Here we report first results for 1799 stars. The distribution of radial velocity (RV) as a function of l for these stars shows (1) the expected thick disk population and (2) local metal-rich halo stars moving at high speeds relative to the disk, that in some cases form distinct sequences in RV-$l$ space. High-resolution echelle spectra taken for 34 of these "RV outliers" reveal the following patterns across the [Ti/Fe]-[Fe/H] plane: seventeen of the stars have abundances reminiscent of the populations present in dwarf satellites of the Milky Way; eight have abundances coincident with those of the Galactic disk and more metal-rich halo; and nine of the stars fall on the locus defined by the majority of stars in the halo. The chemical abundance trends of the RV outliers suggest that this sample consists predominantly of stars accreted from infalling dwarf galaxies. A smaller fraction of stars in the RV outlier sample may have been formed in the inner Galaxy and subsequently kicked to higher eccentricity orbits, but the sample is not large enough to distinguish conclusively between this interpretation and the alternative that these stars represent the tail of the velocity distribution of the thick disk. Our data do not rule out the possibility that a minority of the sample could have formed from gas {\it in situ} on their current orbits.Comment: 43 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables, published in the Astrophysical Journa

Increasing crop heterogeneity enhances multitrophic diversity across agricultural regions

International audienceAgricultural landscape homogenization has detrimental effects on biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Increasing agricultural landscape heterogeneity by increasing seminatural cover can help to mitigate biodiversity loss. However, the amount of seminatural cover is generally low and difficult to increase in many intensively managed agricultural landscapes. We hypothesized that increasing the heterogeneity of the crop mosaic itself (hereafter “crop heterogeneity”) can also have positive effects on biodiversity. In 8 contrasting regions of Europe and North America, we selected 435 landscapes along independent gradients of crop diversity and mean field size. Within each landscape, we selected 3 sampling sites in 1, 2, or 3 crop types. We sampled 7 taxa (plants, bees, butterflies, hoverflies, carabids, spiders, and birds) and calculated a synthetic index of multitrophic diversity at the landscape level. Increasing crop heterogeneity was more beneficial for multitrophic diversity than increasing seminatural cover. For instance, the effect of decreasing mean field size from 5 to 2.8 ha was as strong as the effect of increasing seminatural cover from 0.5 to 11%. Decreasing mean field size benefited multitrophic diversity even in the absence of seminatural vegetation between fields. Increasing the number of crop types sampled had a positive effect on landscape-level multitrophic diversity. However, the effect of increasing crop diversity in the landscape surrounding fields sampled depended on the amount of seminatural cover. Our study provides large-scale, multitrophic, cross-regional evidence that increasing crop heterogeneity can be an effective way to increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes without taking land out of agricultural production

Malignant hyperthermia

Malignant hyperthermia (MH) is a pharmacogenetic disorder of skeletal muscle that presents as a hypermetabolic response to potent volatile anesthetic gases such as halothane, sevoflurane, desflurane and the depolarizing muscle relaxant succinylcholine, and rarely, in humans, to stresses such as vigorous exercise and heat. The incidence of MH reactions ranges from 1:5,000 to 1:50,000–100,000 anesthesias. However, the prevalence of the genetic abnormalities may be as great as one in 3,000 individuals. MH affects humans, certain pig breeds, dogs, horses, and probably other animals. The classic signs of MH include hyperthermia to marked degree, tachycardia, tachypnea, increased carbon dioxide production, increased oxygen consumption, acidosis, muscle rigidity, and rhabdomyolysis, all related to a hypermetabolic response. The syndrome is likely to be fatal if untreated. Early recognition of the signs of MH, specifically elevation of end-expired carbon dioxide, provides the clinical diagnostic clues. In humans the syndrome is inherited in autosomal dominant pattern, while in pigs in autosomal recessive. The pathophysiologic changes of MH are due to uncontrolled rise of myoplasmic calcium, which activates biochemical processes related to muscle activation. Due to ATP depletion, the muscle membrane integrity is compromised leading to hyperkalemia and rhabdomyolysis. In most cases, the syndrome is caused by a defect in the ryanodine receptor. Over 90 mutations have been identified in the RYR-1 gene located on chromosome 19q13.1, and at least 25 are causal for MH. Diagnostic testing relies on assessing the in vitro contracture response of biopsied muscle to halothane, caffeine, and other drugs. Elucidation of the genetic changes has led to the introduction, on a limited basis so far, of genetic testing for susceptibility to MH. As the sensitivity of genetic testing increases, molecular genetics will be used for identifying those at risk with greater frequency. Dantrolene sodium is a specific antagonist of the pathophysiologic changes of MH and should be available wherever general anesthesia is administered. Thanks to the dramatic progress in understanding the clinical manifestation and pathophysiology of the syndrome, the mortality from MH has dropped from over 80% thirty years ago to less than 5%