The Efficacy of ATP Monitoring Devices at Measuring Organic Matter on Postharvest Surfaces

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), specifically the Produce Safety Rule (PSR), requires growers to clean and sanitize food-contact surfaces to protect against produce contamination. The ATP monitoring device is a potential sanitation tool to monitor the efficacy of an on-farm cleaning and sanitation program that could help growers meet regulatory expectations mandated by PSR. The ATP device uses bioluminescence to detect all ATP (found in bacteria and produce matter cells) from a swabbed surface. Little work has been done to test the efficacy of these tools under postharvest conditions. The present study evaluated ATP measurement for postharvest surface cleanliness evaluation. Concentrations of leafy greens (spinach, romaine, red cabbage) (with/without L. innocua) were used as organic matter inocula onto stainless steel, HDPE plastic, and bamboo wood coupons to represent postharvest surfaces. The ATP levels on the coupons were measured using swabs and ATP monitoring device. Results showed that the concentration of L. innocua and leafy greens on a surface had a highly significant effect on the ATP device reading (PL. innocua at 4.5 log CFU/coupon where the ATP device could no longer detect ATP from L. innocua. The type of leafy green on a food-contact surface did not affect the ATP reading (P=0.88). Leafy greens with L. innocua had a higher ATP reading when compared to saline and L. innocua, demonstrating the presence of leafy green matter contributes to ATP reading when combined with L. innocua. The different food-contact surfaces had different ATP readings (P=0.03) and the ATP device did not detect bacterial or leafy green ATP from bamboo wood surfaces (P=0.16). Based upon our results, ATP measurement is an appropriate tool to measure produce or bacterial contamination on stainless steel or HDPE plastic surfaces, however it is not recommended for wood surfaces

Think With Your Fork: Five Areas of Intervention for Kimball Dining Hall

Our goal with the present proposal is to bring modifications to the dining experience in Kimball Hall at the College of the Holy Cross, so to encourage a more well-rounded approach, which would best represent the values of continuous learning and education of the whole person and reflect the mission of the College. In order to meet these goals, we recommend five changes to Kimball dining , which we plan to implement during the Spring 2017 semester in collaboration with two Montserrat seminars

Technology and the Demand for Skill:An Analysis of Within and Between Firm Differences

We estimate the effects of technology investments on the demand for skilled workers using longitudinally integrated employer-employee data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program infrastructure files spanning two Economic Censuses (1992 and 1997). We estimate the distribution of human capital and its observable and unobservable components within each business for each year from 1992 to 1997. We measure technology using variables from the Annual Survey of Manufactures and the Business Expenditures Survey (services, wholesale and retail trade), both administered during the 1992 Economic Census. Static and partial adjustment models are fit. There is a strong positive empirical relationship between advanced technology and skill in a cross-sectional analysis of businesses in both sectors. The more comprehensive measures of skill reveal that advanced technology interacts with each component of skill quite differently: firms that use advanced technology are more likely to use high-ability workers, but less likely to use high-experience workers. These results hold even when we control for unobservable heterogeneity by means of a selection correction and by using a partial adjustment specification.

Transcriptional crosstalk between helper bacteriophages and Staphylococcal aureus pathogenicity islands

Acquisition of a superantigen pathogenicity island (SaPI) significantly increases virulence in Staphylococcus aureus. Horizontal transfer of SaPIs occurs at high frequency and depends upon a helper bacteriophage, either through direct infection or SOS-mediated induction of a lysogen. SaPIs hijack the packaging machinery of the helper phage, leading to the formation of SaPI-containing transducing particles that can introduce the pathogenicity island into neighboring SaPI-negative cells. All SaPIs contain a conserved core of genes, some of which are co-transcribed as an operon and encode functions involved in helper exploitation. The goal of this study was to more fully understand the intricate relationships between the SaPI elements and their helper bacteriophages, specifically any regulatory crosstalk that might occur between them. We demonstrated phage-host interactions in 80 and 80α, and SaPI1 and SaPIbov1-mediated crosstalk with helper phage 80α. The phage Sri protein was shown to be a bi-functional protein that both derepresses SaPI1 and interferes with host chromosome replication. Incoming SaPI1 experiments showed that SaPI1 modulates the levels of the N-terminal part of orf14 mRNA. Induction experiments using the 80α ΔrinA phage as a genetic tool, reveal several new phage genes that SaPI1 targets for expression modulation. Finally, a novel SaPI1 interference mechanism was identified. In an 80α ΔrinA mutant, which cannot activate its late operon, SaPI1 can directly turn on expression of the packaging and structural genes in a noncanonical manner, initiating from the 2nd gene in the operon, the large terminase subunit

Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality: Assessing the Role of Reallocation

This paper exploits longitudinal employer-employee matched data from the U.S. Census Bureau to investigate the contribution of worker and firm reallocation to changes in earnings inequality within and across industries between 1992 and 2003. We find that factors that cannot be measured using standard cross-sectional data, including the entry and exit of firms and the sorting of workers across firms, are important sources of changes in earnings distributions over time. Our results also suggest that the dynamics driving changes in earnings inequality are heterogeneous across industries.inequality, linked employer-employee data, sorting

Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality Assessing the Role of Reallocation

This paper uses matched employer-employee data from the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics database to investigate the contribution of worker and firm reallocation to within industry changes in wage inequality between 1992 and 2003. We find that the entry and exit of firms and the sorting of workers and firms based on underlying worker "skills" are important determinants of changes in industry earnings distributions over time. Our results suggest that the underlying dynamics of earnings inequality are complex and are due to factors that cannot be measured in standard crosssectional data.

The oncoprotein H-RasV12 increases mitochondrial metabolism

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Promoting self-determination for transition-age youth: Views of high school general and special educators

This is the published version, also found here: http://cec.metapress.com/content/m5781621105k3332/?p=a26d6505487b4343b14b0042308735be&pi=2Recent developments in policy and practice have emphasized the importance of promoting self-determination and supporting access to the general curriculum for youth with disabilities. To understand how these trends align, we examined the efforts of 340 general and special educators to promote student self-determination in high school classrooms. Educators attached considerable importance to providing instruction in skills related to self-determination and reported addressing these skills with moderate to high frequency in their classrooms. Although opportunities for students with disabilities to learn skills that promote self-determination were reported to be available across the curriculum, there were some differences across teachers and curricular area. We discuss avenues for promoting student self-determination within the general curriculum, as well as offer recommendations for future research

The Impact of #365Papers: A Daily Scientific Twitter Campaign to Disseminate Exercise Oncology Literature

Purpose: Many health researchers and practitioners use Twitter to stimulate scientific dialogue and collaboration among peers, as well as the general public. In 2018, the Clinical Exercise Physiology Lab (CEPL) undertook a year-long scientific Twitter campaign (#365Papers) where one peer-reviewed publication related to cancer and exercise/physical activity was tweeted per day. Features of this campaign included Throwback Thursdays (selected article published before 2018) and guest tweeters (article chosen by other exercise oncology researchers). We report on the impact of the #365Papers campaign based on Twitter Analytics data (i.e., engagement rate). We also explore how engagement rate differed depending on publication features (e.g., type of research, journal impact factor, Altmetric Attention Score) and campaign features (i.e., Throwback Thursdays, guest tweeters). Methods: Campaign data were obtained from Twitter Analytics (Twitter, 2020: San Francisco, USA). Publication information (i.e., type of research, journal) was extracted by screening titles and abstracts, while each publication’s Altmetric Attention Score was obtained using the Altmetric Bookmarklet (Digital Science, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, 2020: Stuttgart, Germany). Twitter Analytics data were summarized using descriptive statistics. Differences in engagement rate were analyzed based on research type (e.g., randomized controlled trial), journal impact factor, Altmetric Attention Score, and if the publication was posted as part of a Throwback Thursday or by a guest tweeter. Results: The #365Papers Twitter campaign received a total of 688,117 impressions and 22,124 engagements, with a median engagement rate of 3.2% and the majority of engagement from URL clicks (n=8279; 37%). The mean monthly increase in CEPL Twitter account followers was 48 (±18). Engagement rate did not differ based on type of research (p=0.53), journal impact factor (r=-0.06; p=0.27), Altmetric Attention Score (r=0.01; p=0.80), nor if the tweet was part of a Throwback Thursday (p=0.97). However, guest tweets had significantly higher engagement rates versus non-guest tweets (median: 3.6% vs. 3.1%; p=0.01). Conclusion: Our findings suggest the potential of a daily scientific Twitter campaign to stimulate peer and public engagement and dialogue around new scientific publications, especially when prominent figures in the research field are incorporated into the campaign process