21ST CENTURY SKILL DEVELOPMENT IN REMOTE, ON-LINE LEARNING BIOCHEMISTRY STUDENTS

BACKGROUND 21st Century skills encompass the transdisciplinary capabilities required for future work and scholarship. These skills are articulated in graduate attributes and developed through individual subjects. With the rapid transition of on-campus classes to remote learning, questions arose as to whether the same skills translated, or whether new skills were supported. Using a biochemistry unit as a case study, gap analysis of skill development was undertaken. STUDY DESIGN The biochemistry unit (450 students) had face-to-face components (lecture, practical, workshop, examination) which were transitioned asynchronously online. Content was delivered as recordings supported by synchronous, optional online drop-in sessions held 1-3 times a week. Through staff reflection and student feedback, supported skills were identified in the two modes of delivery using a published rubric. OUTCOME The “drop-in sessions” had participation of approximately 50 engaged students, but with the lack of compulsory laboratory sessions staff perceived many students lost reflective capability and identity to the cohort, discipline and the institution. The lack of laboratories may have reduced practical skill development and awareness of how these skills contribute to employability. However, remote delivery reinforced key 21st Century skills promoting self-direction, time management, application of professional knowledge and resilience

Extreme morning chronotypes are often familial and not exceedingly rare: the estimated prevalence of advanced sleep phase, familial advanced sleep phase, and advanced sleep-wake phase disorder in a sleep clinic population.

Study objectivesReport the first prevalence estimates of advanced sleep phase (ASP), familial advanced sleep phase (FASP), and advanced sleep-wake phase disorder (ASWPD). This can guide clinicians on the utility of screening for extreme chronotypes both for clinical decision-making and to flag prospective participants in the study of the genetics and biology of FASP.MethodsData on morning or evening sleep schedule preference (chronotype) were collected from 2422 new patients presenting to a North American sleep center over 9.8 years. FASP was determined using a severity criterion that has previously identified dominant circadian mutations in humans. All patients were personally seen and evaluated by one of the authors (C.R.J.).ResultsOur results demonstrate an ASP prevalence of 0.33%, an FASP prevalence of 0.21%, and an ASWPD prevalence of at least 0.04%. Most cases of young-onset ASP were familial.ConclusionsAmong patients presenting to a sleep clinic, conservatively 1 out of every 300 patients will have ASP, 1 out of every 475 will have FASP, and 1 out of every 2500 will have ASWPD. This supports obtaining a routine circadian history and, for those with extreme chronotypes, obtaining a family history of circadian preference. This can optimize treatment for evening sleepiness and early morning awakening and lead to additional circadian gene discovery. We hope these findings will lead to improved treatment options for a wide range of sleep and medical disorders in the future

Paper no. 30

Abstract Some probabilistic aspects of the number variance statistic are investigated. Infinite systems of independent Brownian motions and symmetric α-stable processes are used to construct explicit new examples of processes which exhibit both divergent and saturating number variance behaviour. We derive a general expression for the number variance for the spatial particle configurations arising from these systems and this enables us to deduce various limiting distribution results for the fluctuations of the associated counting functions. In particular, knowledge of the number variance allows us to introduce and characterize a novel family of centered, long memory Gaussian processes. We obtain fractional Brownian motion as a weak limit of these constructed processes

Breastfeeding status and its influence on Native American women’s food preferences

Introduction: To evaluate if breastfeeding alters Native American women’s food preferences, recently postpartum women were offered food interest surveys during their 6-week postpartum checkup at W. W. Hastings Indian Hospital in Tahlequah, OK (a Native American serving health facility owned by the Cherokee Nation of OK).Methods: Surveys were offered at check in, and no identifying information (name, age, race, SSN) or protected health information was collected. Women were asked whether they were breastfeeding, number of infants delivered, and if this was their first baby. Level of hunger was rated on a Likert scale that ranged from 1 (not hungry at all) to 9 (very hungry), with 5 indicating “don’t care.”Results: Overall, breastfeeding women indicated increased hunger ratings over non-breastfeeding women. Next, the rate of interest in eating specific foods from 6 different taste categories (salty, sweet, meaty, bitter, sour, and hot) was determined. There were no striking differences in eating foods in particular taste categories, except for sweet foods. In the sweet group, there was a greater interest in eating chocolate bars and cookies in the breastfeeding women.Conclusions: These findings represent the potential impact of breastfeeding on the interest in eating certain foods by Native American women and how breastfeeding status may guide food preferences, thus altering food choices. We found that Native American women in the breastfeeding group indicated a higher interest in eating foods of the sweet category in comparison to the nonbreastfeeding Native American mothers. These choices may have implications for postpartum weight loss as well as for childhood disease processes such as diabetes mellitus, obesity, and other nutrition related diseases as maternal food choices influence family meals and the overall health of her children

The Effectiveness of Exercise Interventions for the Management of Frailty: A Systematic Review

This systematic review examines the effectiveness of current exercise interventions for the management of frailty. Eight electronic databases were searched for randomized controlled trials that identified their participants as “frail” either in the title, abstract, and/or text and included exercise as an independent component of the intervention. Three of the 47 included studies utilized a validated definition of frailty to categorize participants. Emerging evidence suggests that exercise has a positive impact on some physical determinants and on all functional ability outcomes reported in this systematic review. Exercise programs that optimize the health of frail older adults seem to be different from those recommended for healthy older adults. There was a paucity of evidence to characterize the most beneficial exercise program for this population. However, multicomponent training interventions, of long duration (≥5 months), performed three times per week, for 30–45 minutes per session, generally had superior outcomes than other exercise programs. In conclusion, structured exercise training seems to have a positive impact on frail older adults and may be used for the management of frailty

Turgor loss point predicts survival responses to experimental and natural drought in tropical tree seedlings

Identifying key traits that can serve as proxies for species drought resistance is crucial for predicting and mitigating the effects of climate change in diverse plant communities. Turgor loss point (πtlp) is a recently emerged trait that has been linked to species distributions across gradients of water availability. However, a direct relationship between πtlp and species ability to survive drought has yet to be established for woody species. Using a manipulative field experiment to quantify species drought resistance (i.e., their survival response to drought), combined with measurements of πtlp for 16 tree species, we show a negative relationship between πtlp and seedling drought resistance. Using long-term forest plot data, we also show that πtlp predicts seedling survival responses to a severe El Niño-related drought, although additional factors are clearly also important. Our study demonstrates that species with lower πtlp exhibit higher survival under both experimental and natural drought. These results provide a missing cornerstone in the assessment of the traits underlying drought resistance in woody species and strengthen πtlp as a proxy for evaluating which species will lose or win under projections of exacerbating drought regimes.National Science Foundation DEB-1464866, DEB-1623775, DEB-184540