JeffHEALTH: Helping East Africa Link to Health

JeffHEALTH-Helping East Africa Link to Health is a student-run organization at Thomas Jefferson University dedicated to improving basic medical education and quality of life in Rwanda, which was devastated in 1994 by civil war and genocide. Working in partnership with the Rwanda Village Concept Project, a student organization at the National University of Rwanda, JeffHEALTH seeks to implement sustainable health initiatives in our partner villages. Graduate students from Thomas Jefferson University travel to Rwanda where we taught Community Health Workers from the Villages of Akarambi and Ruli the following topics: Nutrition and Vitamin Deficiencies, Family Planning, Prenatal care, HIV, Sexually Transmitted Illnesses and Hepatitis, Breast and Cervical Cancer, Diabetes, and Fistulas. We also taught two programs to children of the villages (Oral Hygiene and Soil Transmitted Helminths) and talked with young adults about Circumcision and HIV Prevention and Sex Education.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/cwicposters/1018/thumbnail.jp

Demandas energéticas en el bailaor norteamericano profesional de flamenco.

El objetivo de este estudio ha sido examinar la capacidad aeróbica y anaeróbica de bailaores estadounidenses profesionales de flamenco, con el fin de conocer las necesidades energéticas de esta danza. La muestra estudiada estaba formada por 11 bailaores profesionales de flamenco de Albuquerque, Nuevo Méjico (4 hombres y 7 mujeres). Se han registrado 3 variables: la composición corporal, medida con un adipómetro calipers; el consumo máximo de oxígeno (VO2max) estimado mediante el análisis de gases durante un test de esfuerzo progresivo; y la capacidad anaeróbica, calculada a través del test de Wingate. La edad media de los bailaores fue de 28.45 años (22-44 años) y el tiempo medio que llevaban participando en espectáculos flamencos era de 13.5 años (2-40 años). Respecto a la composición corporal, los participantes presentan datos de porcentaje de grasa corporal (GC) inferior a la media, tanto la muestra masculina, 9.96% GC (5,25-13,09% GC), como la femenina, 16.35% GC (12,96-20,17% GC). La media máxima de capacidad aeróbica fue de 51.63 mlO2•kg–1•min–1 para los hombres (40.7-59,5 mlO2•kg–1•min–1) y 38,78 mlO2•kg–1•min–1 para las mujeres (32.9-43,8 mlO2•kg–1•min–1), en ambos casos por encima de la media. La potencia máxima media registrada en el test de Wingate, fue de 16.2 W/kg (13.7-18.3 W/kg) y 11.3 W/kg (8.6 hasta 14.3 W/kg) para hombres y mujeres, respectivamente, con un índice de fatiga del 65.5% (62-74%) para los hombres y 56.1% (35.2-68.1%) para las mujeres. Estos resultados son superiores, casi en un 25 %, a otros datos publicados sobre deportistas que realizan actividades anaeróbicas. Por lo tanto, los bailaores de flamenco tienen una considerable potencia anaeróbica. Atendiendo en los resultados de este estudio, se sugiere que el entrenamiento de bailaores incluya componentes aeróbicos y anaeróbicos

Local food environment interventions to improve healthy food choice in adults: a systematic review and realist synthesis protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Local food environments have been linked with dietary intake and obesity in adults. However, overall evidence remains mixed with calls for increased theoretical and conceptual clarity related to how availability of neighbourhood food outlets, and within-outlet food options, influence food purchasing and consumption. The purpose of this work is to develop a programme theory of food availability, supported by empirical evidence from a range of local food environment interventions. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A systematic search of the literature will be followed by duplicate screening and quality assessment (using the Effective Public Health Practice Project tool). Realist synthesis will then be conducted according to the Realist And Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards (RAMESES) publication standards, including transparent appraisal, synthesis and drawing conclusions via consensus. DISSEMINATION: The final synthesis will propose an evidence-based programme theory of food availability, including evidence mapping to demonstrate contextual factors, pathways of influence and potential mechanisms. With the paucity of empirically supported programme theories used in current local food environment interventions to improve food availability, this synthesis may be used to understand how and why interventions work, and thus inform the development of theory-driven, evidence-based interventions to improve healthy food choice and future empirical work. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: PROSPERO CRD42014009808.The work was undertaken by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR, MR/K023187/1), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. Additionally, TLP's PhD studentship is generously supported by the Cambridge International Scholarship, a scheme funded by the Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the British Medical Journal via http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-00716

Corals of the genus Porites are a locally abundant component of the epibiont community on mangrove prop roots at Calabash Caye, Turneffe Atoll, Belize

Mangroves are generally regarded as inhospitable for corals, but recent reports suggest they provide ecological refuge for some species. We surveyed diverse mangrove habitats on Turneffe Atoll, Belize, documenting 127 colonies of Porites divaricata (Thin Finger Coral) along 1858 m of mangrove prop roots at Calabash Caye and a much more diverse coral assemblage at Crooked Creek. At Calabash, corals were highly clumped, and varied widely in size and morphology, including large well-arborized colonies, encrusting forms with few branches, and new recruits with no branches, suggesting an age-structuredpopulation exhibiting extensive morphological plasticity. The data described here contributeto an emerging picture of mangroves as potentially critical habitat for many Caribbeancoral species.Accepted manuscrip

Developing argumentation strategies in electronic dialogs: Is modeling effective?

The study presented here examines how interacting with a more capable interlocutor influences use of argumentation strategies in electronic discourse. To address this question, 54 young adolescents participating in an intervention centered on electronic peer dialogs were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control condition. In both conditions, pairs who held the same position on a social issue engaged in a series of electronic dialogs with pairs who held an opposing position. In the experimental condition, in some dialogs, unbeknownst to them (because dialog took place electronically), the opponent was a more capable (“expert”) adult. Dialogs in the control condition were only with peers. Argumentation strategies of the experimental group who argued with the “expert” showed immediate strategy improvements in their subsequent peer dialogs, improvement absent in the control group (Cohen's d = 1.12). In particular, the experimental group showed greater use of counterargument in general and advanced forms of counterargument (undermining) that challenges the deeper premises or reasoning on which an argument is based. Implications with respect to mechanisms of change in the development of argumentation skills are considered

Teaching Children to Become Fluent and Automatic Readers

The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of two instructional approaches designed to improve the reading fluency of 2nd-grade children. The first approach was based on Stahl and Heubach’s (2005) fluency-oriented reading instruction (FORI) and involved the scaffolded, repeated reading of grade-level texts over the course of each week. The second was a wide-reading approach that also involved scaffolded instruction, but that incorporated the reading of 3 different grade-level texts each week and provided significantly less opportunity for repetition. By the end of the school year, FORI and wide-reading approaches showed similar benefits for standardized measures of word reading efficiency and reading comprehension skills compared to control approaches, although the benefits of the wide-reading approach emerged earlier and included oral text reading fluency skill. Thus, we conclude that fluency instruction that emphasizes extensive oral reading of grade-level text using scaffolded approaches is effective for promoting reading development in young learners

In vivo cell-autonomous transcriptional abnormalities revealed in mice expressing mutant huntingtin in striatal but not cortical neurons

Huntington's disease (HD), caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin (HTT) gene, is characterized by abnormal protein aggregates and motor and cognitive dysfunction. Htt protein is ubiquitously expressed, but the striatal medium spiny neuron (MSN) is most susceptible to dysfunction and death. Abnormal gene expression represents a core pathogenic feature of HD, but the relative roles of cell-autonomous and non-cell-autonomous effects on transcription remain unclear. To determine the extent of cell-autonomous dysregulation in the striatum in vivo, we examined genome-wide RNA expression in symptomatic D9-N171-98Q (a.k.a. DE5) transgenic mice in which the forebrain expression of the first 171 amino acids of human Htt with a 98Q repeat expansion is limited to MSNs. Microarray data generated from these mice were compared with those generated on the identical array platform from a pan-neuronal HD mouse model, R6/2, carrying two different CAG repeat lengths, and a relatively high degree of overlap of changes in gene expression was revealed. We further focused on known canonical pathways associated with excitotoxicity, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, dopamine signaling and trophic support. While genes related to excitotoxicity, dopamine signaling and trophic support were altered in both DE5 and R6/2 mice, which may be either cell autonomous or non-cell autonomous, genes related to mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor are primarily affected in DE5 transgenic mice, indicating cell-autonomous mechanisms. Overall, HD-induced dysregulation of the striatal transcriptome can be largely attributed to intrinsic effects of mutant Htt, in the absence of expression in cortical neuron

Discovery of a novel simian pegivirus in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) with lymphocytic enterocolitis

From 2010 to 2015, 73 common marmosets

Aquilegia, Vol. 38 No. 2, Summer 2014, Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1148/thumbnail.jp