Addressing Distinct Health Needs of People with Disabilities

One in five adults (21%) in the state of Connecticut is living with a disability of some kind, whether it be intellectual or physical. When compared to people without disabilities, people with disabilities are at increased risk for adverse health outcomes such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression; are more likely not to be able to see a physician due to cost; and have worse self-rated health. Barriers to addressing these disparities are two-fold: primary care physicians lack sufficient guidance on health needs of people with disabilities, and caretakers, who are often either family members or conservators, find themselves stretched thin with responsibilities. To address these two groups of individuals, an interactive infographic was created using the online tool called Venngage. Infographics have been shown to be an effective way to communicate health information to wide populations of people. The infographic features introductory text, key statistics on disability health in the state of Connecticut, and hyperlinks to resources for health care providers and caregivers. Qualitative interviews confirmed the need for such an infographic as a way to close equity gaps and improve health education. The infographic is published online and available to local healthcare providers and community organizations. Next steps include validating the infographic via surveys and focus groups.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1972/thumbnail.jp

Detecting the need for change : how the British Army adapted to warfare on the Western Front and in the Southern Cameroons

This article addresses a gap in the literature on military adaptation by focusing on the first step in the adaptive process: detecting failure. We argue that institutionalised feedback loops are a critical mechanism for facilitating detection. Feedback loops are most effective when they filter information and distribute lessons learned to senior tactical commanders. In turn, effective filtration depends on incorporating frontline soldiers and specialists into intelligence cells while creating a protected space for dissent. We evaluate our theory against both irregular and conventional wars fought by the British Army: the counterinsurgency campaign in the Southern Cameroons (1960–1) as well as the evolution of British assault tactics on the Western Front of the First World War (1914–18).PostprintPeer reviewe

A crucial role of the mitochondrial protein import receptor MOM19 for the biogenesis of mitochondria

The novel genetic method of "sheltered RIP" (repeat induced point mutation) was used to generate a Neurospora crassa mutant in which MOM19, a component of the protein import machinery of the mitochondrial outer membrane, can be depleted. Deficiency in MOM19 resulted in a severe growth defect, but the cells remained viable. The number of mitochondrial profiles was not grossly changed, but mutant mitochondria were highly deficient in cristae membranes, cytochromes, and protein synthesis activity. Protein import into isolated mutant mitochondria was decreased by factors of 6 to 30 for most proteins from all suborganellar compartments. Proteins like the ADP/ATP carrier, MOM19, and cytochrome c, whose import into wild-type mitochondria occurs independently of MOM19 became imported normally showing that the reduced import activities are solely caused by a lack of MOM19. Depletion of MOM19 reveals a close functional relationship between MOM19 and MOM22, since loss of MOM19 led to decreased levels of MOM22 and reduced protein import through MOM22. Furthermore, MOM72 does not function as a general backup receptor for MOM19 suggesting that these two proteins have distinct precursor specificities. These findings demonstrate that the import receptor MOM19 fulfills an important role in the biogenesis of mitochondria and that it is essential for the formation of mitochondria competent in respiration and phosphorylation

Measuring the landscape of civil war : evaluating geographic coding decisions with historic data from the Mau Mau rebellion

This research has been supported by grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-09-1-0314) and the Department of Defense Minerva Initiative through the Office of Naval Research (N00014-14-0071).Subnational conflict research increasingly utilizes georeferenced event datasets to understand contentious politics and violence. Yet, how exactly locations are mapped to particular geographies, especially from unstructured text sources such as newspaper reports and archival records, remains opaque and few best practices exist for guiding researchers through the subtle but consequential decisions made during geolocation. We begin to address this gap by developing a systematic approach to georeferencing that articulates the strategies available, empirically diagnoses problems of bias created by both the data-generating process and researcher-controlled tasks, and provides new generalizable tools for simultaneously optimizing both the recovery and accuracy of coordinates. We then empirically evaluate our process and tools against new microlevel data on the Mau Mau Rebellion (Colonial Kenya 1952-1960), drawn from 20,000 pages of recently declassified British military intelligence reports. By leveraging a subset of this data that includes map codes alongside natural language location descriptions, we demonstrate how inappropriately georeferencing data can have important downstream consequences in terms of systematically biasing coefficients or altering statistical significance and how our tools can help alleviate these problems.PostprintPeer reviewe

College Mathematics Students\u27 Peceptions of Believing Teacher Actions

Believing and doubting – two methodological processes – deserve equal attention according to Elbow (1986; 2006). When a teacher plays the doubting game in a mathematics classroom her own mathematical thinking dominates and she attempts to find flaws and errors and misconceptions in students’ mathematical thinking. When a teacher plays the believing game in a mathematics classroom she surrenders her own mathematical thinking and she attempts to find virtues and strengths and merits in students’ mathematical thinking. Paradoxically and succinctly, a teacher must believe her own mathematical thinking in order to doubt and a teacher must doubt her own mathematical thinking in order to believe. For this qualitative case study, the fifth in a series focused on playing the believing game in mathematics classrooms, students in a college Proofs course were interviewed after the course ended. Throughout the semester, the professor purposefully played the believing game, using a list of a priori teacher actions she created prior to the beginning of the course. Students described some aspects of her a priori teacher actions. Although the original focus of the research was on the a priori teacher actions, it became evident that the students perceived the teacher’s stance. This implies that to move towards playing the believing game the teacher stance is a critical component that impacts teacher actions

An investigation into the effect of particle platyness on the strength of granular materials using the discrete element method

It has long been recognised that the macroscopic mechanical behaviour of a granular material depends, to differing extents, on micro-mechanical properties such as the particle size distribution, the particle shape, the inter-particle friction angle and the particle strength. However, a systematic investigation of some of these effects is still lacking. In this paper we focus on particle shape, which is one of the fundamental characteristics of a granular material. We build on previous work that used the axes of an equivalent scalene ellipsoid to characterise particle form, one of the three aspects that define particle shape. (The other two being angularity and roughness.) We use DEM simulations to investigate the effect of particle form, and in particular of particle platyness, on the friction angle of a granular material at critical state. It is found that a deviation of particle shape from that of a sphere leads to higher angles of friction; quantities such as fabric, average rates of particle rotation and interparticle sliding are used to provide insights into the underlying micromechanics

Mechanistic Insights into Aging, Cell-Cycle Progression, and Stress Response

The longevity of an organism depends on the health of its cells. Throughout life cells are exposed to numerous intrinsic and extrinsic stresses, such as free radicals, generated through mitochondrial electron transport, and ultraviolet irradiation. The cell has evolved numerous mechanisms to scavenge free radicals and repair damage induced by these insults. One mechanism employed by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to combat stress utilizes the Anaphase Promoting Complex (APC), an essential multi-subunit ubiquitin-protein ligase structurally and functionally conserved from yeast to humans that controls progression through mitosis and G1. We have observed that yeast cells expressing compromised APC subunits are sensitive to multiple stresses and have shorter replicative and chronological lifespans. In a pathway that runs parallel to that regulated by the APC, members of the Forkhead box (Fox) transcription factor family also regulate stress responses. The yeast Fox orthologs Fkh1 and Fkh2 appear to drive the transcription of stress response factors and slow early G1 progression, while the APC seems to regulate chromatin structure, chromosome segregation, and resetting of the transcriptome in early G1. In contrast, under non-stress conditions, the Fkhs play a complex role in cell-cycle progression, partially through activation of the APC. Direct and indirect interactions between the APC and the yeast Fkhs appear to be pivotal for lifespan determination. Here we explore the potential for these interactions to be evolutionarily conserved as a mechanism to balance cell-cycle regulation with stress responses