Response of Veterinarians to the Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Men

The selection of students for the veterinary college at Iowa State College has become a real problem. Every year several times the enrollment capacity applies for entrance, and from this large group the few who are to be allowed admission must be carefully selected. In selecting these students, chief reliance has been placed on past scholastic records, both high school and pre-professional training in college, and upon various measures of scholastic aptitude. At present, a veterinary aptitude test is being developed by W. A. Owens of the Department of Psychology and L. C. Payne, School of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State College. This test will aid materially in the solution of the problem. In an attempt to contribute some further aid in the selection of professional students, a study of the interests of veterinarians was undertaken. This study consists of the standardization of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Men on a group of veterinarians plus additional studies in the correlates of an interest score determined by this new scale

Correlates of Achievement in a Veterinary Medicine Curriculum

A correlational study was made of test scores and achievement of Veterinary Medicine students who graduated in the spring of 1959 from Iowa State University. Cumulative grade point averages were obtained at the time of graduation and correlated with selection data obtained at the time of admission to the College of Veterinary Medicine in the fall of 1955. These data included: pre-veterinary grade point averages; interest scores on the Strong Vocational Interest Blank; Veterinary Aptitude Test scores; American Council on Educational Psychological Examination (College Edition), Quantitative and Linguistic scores; and numerical ratings made by a faculty committee during screening interviews with the candidates for admission. Pre-veterinary grade point average and interview rating contributed the only statistically significant correlations with achievement

A Longitudinal Study of the Interests of Veterinarians

The newly-revised SVIB was restandardized on 362 members of the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association. Ninety-eight of these veterinarians in this 1966 criterion group were also members of the 1949 criterion groups when the SVIB veterinarian scale was first established. The answer sheets from both the 1949 and the 1966 criterion groups were scored by the newly devised scoring key and a comparison made of score changes over this period. In addition the response-choice frequencies to the items common to both the old and the new SVIB by the longitudinal group were determined and significant shifts were noted and reported in detail. In general, the longitudinal group displayed a lessening of interest in scientific activities and an increase of interest in managerial, business, and financial activities over the 17 year period

Striking augmentation of hematopoietic cell chimerism in noncytoablated allogeneic bone marrow recipients by flt3 ligand and tacrolimus

The influence of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM- CSF) and the recently identified hematopoietic stem-progenitor cell mobilizing factor flt3 ligand (FL) on donor leukocyte microchimerism in noncytodepleted recipients of allogeneic bone marrow (BM) was compared. B10 mice (H2b) given 50 x 106 allogeneic (B10.BR [H2(k)]) BM cells also received either GM-CSF (4 μg/day s.c.), FL (10 μg/day i.p.), or no cytokine, with or without concomitant tacrolimus (formerly FK506; 2 mg/kg) from day 0. Chimerism was quantitated in the spleen 7 days after transplantation by both polymerase chain reaction (donor DNA [major histocompatibility complex class II; I-E(k)]) and immunohistochemical (donor [I-E(k+)] cell) analyses. Whereas GM-CSF alone significantly augmented (fivefold) the level of donor DNA in recipients' spleens, FL alone caused a significant (60%) reduction. Donor DNA was increased 10-fold by tacrolimus alone, whereas coadministration of GM-CSF and tacrolimus resulted in a greater than additive effect (28-fold increase). A much more striking effect was observed with FL + tacrolimus (>125-fold increase in donor DNA compared with BM alone). These findings were reflected in the relative numbers of donor major histocompatibility complex class II+ cells (many resembling dendritic cells) detected in spleens, although quantitative differences among the groups were less pronounced. Evaluation of cytotoxic T lymphocyte generation by BM recipients' spleen cells revealed that FL alone augmented antidonor immunity and that this was reversed by tacrolimus. Thus, although FL may potentiate antidonor reactivity in nonimmunosuppressed, allogeneic BM recipients, it exhibits potent chimerism-enhancing activity when coadministered with recipient immunosuppressive therapy. This property of FL may offer considerable potential for the augmentation of microchimerism, with therapeutic implications for organ allograft survival and tolerance induction

Longitudinal study of DNA methylation during the first 5 years of life.

Background: Early life epigenetic programming influences adult health outcomes. Moreover, DNA methylation levels have been found to change more rapidly during the first years of life. Our aim was the identification and characterization of the CpG sites that are modified with time during the first years of life. We hypothesize that these DNA methylation changes would lead to the detection of genes that might be epigenetically modulated by environmental factors during early childhood and which, if disturbed, might contribute to susceptibility to diseases later in life. Methods: The study of the DNA methylation pattern of 485577 CpG sites was performed on 30 blood samples from 15 subjects, collected both at birth and at 5 years old, using Illumina® Infinium 450 k array. To identify differentially methylated CpG (dmCpG) sites, the methylation status of each probe was examined using linear models and the Empirical Bayes Moderated t test implemented in the limma package of R/Bioconductor. Surogate variable analysis was used to account for batch effects. Results: DNA methylation levels significantly changed from birth to 5 years of age in 6641 CpG sites. Of these, 36.79 % were hypermethylated and were associated with genes related mainly to developmental ontology terms, while 63.21 % were hypomethylated probes and associated with genes related to immune function. Conclusions: Our results suggest that DNA methylation alterations with age during the first years of life might play a significant role in development and the regulation of leukocyte-specific functions. This supports the idea that blood leukocytes experience genome remodeling related to their interaction with environmental factors, underlining the importance of environmental exposures during the first years of life and suggesting that new strategies should be take into consideration for disease prevention