Alien Registration- Landry, Laura (Westbrook, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/20746/thumbnail.jp

Learning Through Serving: Learning Service-Learning Pedagogy to Enhance your Teaching

This workshop is geared toward faculty and staff at universities who would want to integrate service learning into their courses as well as community partners who would like to explore a service-learning opportunity with a campus partner. The definition of service learning and how it is different from other forms of experiential learning will be discussed. Concepts will be illustrated using a short video clip and other real life examples. The service learning criteria of Meaningful Service, Enhanced Academic Learning, and Purposeful Civic Learning will be identified. The application of these criteria will be illustrated through BGSU service-learning courses - the Listening Post and Small Group Communication are two courses that have integrated older adults into the curriculum. Specific examples and strategies will be described. The role and importance of continuous reflection will be described. Participants will receive handouts on the What, So What, Now What model and the DEAL Model of Critical Reflection. Emphasis on the mutual benefit for community partners will be shared along with best practices in Community Partnerships.Participants will have the opportunity to brainstorm potential courses and community partnerships for service-learning. Using an Action Plan handout, faculty and staff participants will identify new or existing courses at their institutions to apply service-learning pedagogy, identify one learning objective related to each criteria, list potential community partner to support learning objectives, and list potential challenges. Community partner participants and practitioners will have the opportunity to develop a partnership action plan. They will receive a similar Action Plan handout to brainstorm how their organization might be able to utilize a service-learning partnership; identifying potential projects, why they would fit as service-learning, and what action steps they could take to initiate a partnership with a local campus. Additional resources for service-learning will be identified including Ohio Campus Compact (funding, program models), Campus Compact syllabi database, and Offices of Service-Learning on various campuses

Cross-Shelf Differences in the Response of Herbivorous Fish Assemblages to Severe Environmental Disturbances

Cross-shelf differences in coral reef benthic and fish assemblages are common, yet it is unknown whether these assemblages respond uniformly to environmental disturbances or whether local conditions result in differential responses of assemblages at different shelf positions. Here, we compare changes in the taxonomic and functional composition, and associated traits, of herbivorous reef fish assemblages across a continental shelf, five years before and six months after two severe cyclones and a thermal bleaching event that resulted in substantial and widespread loss of live hard coral cover. Each shelf position maintained a distinct taxonomic assemblage of fishes after disturbances, but the assemblages shared fewer species among shelf positions. There was a substantial loss of species richness following disturbances within each shelf position. Total biomass of the herbivorous fish assemblage increased after disturbances on mid- and outer-shelf reefs, but not on inner-shelf reefs. Using trait-based analyses, we found there was a loss of trait richness at each shelf position, but trait specialisation and originality increased on inner-shelf reefs. This study highlights the pervasiveness of extreme environmental disturbances on ecological assemblages. Whilst distinct cross-shelf assemblages can remain following environmental disturbances, assemblages have reduced richness and are potentially more vulnerable to chronic localised stresses

Development of a Nutrition Education Program for the Mississippi Communities for Healthy Living Nutrition Intervention Using the Diffusion of Innovations Theory

This research identified themes when exploring the Dietary Guidelines for Americans’ (DGA) attributes of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability to provide information for the design and structure of a nutrition education program for the Mississippi Communities of Healthy Living Nutrition Intervention. Diffusion of Innovations theory was used to develop education sessions to promote the adoption and consumption of a DGAbased healthy diet innovation in the Lower Mississippi Delta. Two focus groups were conducted with a purposive sample of 13 women in the community as well as one expert panel of six registered dietitians. Major themes identified for the DGA were Balanced Nutrition, All-inclusive, and Protective as the relative advantage; Adaptability when exploring compatibility; low complexity as Simple to Follow and Convenient and Portable; Gradual Change and Taste Tests when discussing trialability; and Modeling for observability. A Generational theme reflected participants’ desire to impart healthy behaviors to future generations. Results were used to operationalize attributes and develop 12 lesson plans

The internationalization of National Biomechanics Day

National Biomechanics Day (NBD) was initiated in 2016 as a nation-wide effort to introduce Biomechanics to high school students throughout the United States. After that initial year, many people around the world joined NBD to promote Biomechanics in their own countries. National Biomechanics Day became international. We describe NBD procedures and events in four of these countries with the intent of demonstrating mechanisms that may enable Biomechanists around the world to successfully join the NBD celebration

Activation of p53-regulated pro-apoptotic signaling pathways in PrP-mediated myopathy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We have reported that doxycycline-induced over-expression of wild type prion protein (PrP) in skeletal muscles of Tg(HQK) mice is sufficient to cause a primary myopathy with no signs of peripheral neuropathy. The preferential accumulation of the truncated PrP C1 fragment was closely correlated with these myopathic changes. In this study we use gene expression profiling to explore the temporal program of molecular changes underlying the PrP-mediated myopathy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We used DNA microarrays, and confirmatory real-time PCR and Western blot analysis to demonstrate deregulation of a large number of genes in the course of the progressive myopathy in the skeletal muscles of doxycycline-treated Tg(HQK) mice. These include the down-regulation of genes coding for the myofibrillar proteins and transcription factor MEF2c, and up-regulation of genes for lysosomal proteins that is concomitant with increased lysosomal activity in the skeletal muscles. Significantly, there was prominent up-regulation of p53 and p53-regulated genes involved in cell cycle arrest and promotion of apoptosis that paralleled the initiation and progression of the muscle pathology.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The data provides the first <it>in vivo </it>evidence that directly links p53 to a wild type PrP-mediated disease. It is evident that several mechanistic features contribute to the myopathy observed in PrP over-expressing mice and that p53-related apoptotic pathways appear to play a major role.</p

A small protein coded within the mitochondrial canonical gene nd4 regulates mitochondrial bioenergetics

BACKGROUND: Mitochondria have a central role in cellular functions, aging, and in certain diseases. They possess their own genome, a vestige of their bacterial ancestor. Over the course of evolution, most of the genes of the ancestor have been lost or transferred to the nucleus. In humans, the mtDNA is a very small circular molecule with a functional repertoire limited to only 37 genes. Its extremely compact nature with genes arranged one after the other and separated by short non-coding regions suggests that there is little room for evolutionary novelties. This is radically different from bacterial genomes, which are also circular but much larger, and in which we can find genes inside other genes. These sequences, different from the reference coding sequences, are called alternatives open reading frames or altORFs, and they are involved in key biological functions. However, whether altORFs exist in mitochondrial protein-coding genes or elsewhere in the human mitogenome has not been fully addressed. RESULTS: We found a downstream alternative ATG initiation codon in the + 3 reading frame of the human mitochondrial nd4 gene. This newly characterized altORF encodes a 99-amino-acid-long polypeptide, MTALTND4, which is conserved in primates. Our custom antibody, but not the pre-immune serum, was able to immunoprecipitate MTALTND4 from HeLa cell lysates, confirming the existence of an endogenous MTALTND4 peptide. The protein is localized in mitochondria and cytoplasm and is also found in the plasma, and it impacts cell and mitochondrial physiology. CONCLUSIONS: Many human mitochondrial translated ORFs might have so far gone unnoticed. By ignoring mtaltORFs, we have underestimated the coding potential of the mitogenome. Alternative mitochondrial peptides such as MTALTND4 may offer a new framework for the investigation of mitochondrial functions and diseases

Marine mammal skin microbiotas are influenced by host phylogeny

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Apprill, A., Miller, C. A., Van Cise, A. M., U'Ren, J. M., Leslie, M. S., Weber, L., Baird, R. W., Robbins, J., Landry, S., Bogomolni, A., & Waring, G. Marine mammal skin microbiotas are influenced by host phylogeny. Royal Society Open Science, 7(5), (2020): 192046, doi:10.1098/rsos.192046.Skin-associated microorganisms have been shown to play a role in immune function and disease of humans, but are understudied in marine mammals, a diverse animal group that serve as sentinels of ocean health. We examined the microbiota associated with 75 epidermal samples opportunistically collected from nine species within four marine mammal families, including: Balaenopteridae (sei and fin whales), Phocidae (harbour seal), Physeteridae (sperm whales) and Delphinidae (bottlenose dolphins, pantropical spotted dolphins, rough-toothed dolphins, short-finned pilot whales and melon-headed whales). The skin was sampled from free-ranging animals in Hawai‘i (Pacific Ocean) and off the east coast of the United States (Atlantic Ocean), and the composition of the bacterial community was examined using the sequencing of partial small subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA genes. Skin microbiotas were significantly different among host species and taxonomic families, and microbial community distance was positively correlated with mitochondrial-based host genetic divergence. The oceanic location could play a role in skin microbiota variation, but skin from species sampled in both locations is necessary to determine this influence. These data suggest that a phylosymbiotic relationship may exist between microbiota and their marine mammal hosts, potentially providing specific health and immune-related functions that contribute to the success of these animals in diverse ocean ecosystems.Funding provided by the Earth Microbiome Project, WHOI Marine Mammal Center, WHOI Ocean Life Institute and WHOI's Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowed Fund for Innovative Research to A.A. Hawai‘i sampling was undertaken during field projects funded by grants from ONR (N000141310648 to R.W.B, N000141110612 to T.A. Mooney and N00014101686 to R.D. Andrews) and NMFS (NA13OAR4540212 to R.W.B)