Creating Opportunities Through an Experiential, Community-Based Cooperative Extension Internship Program

Extension is positioned to develop and implement high-quality, high-impact internship experiences for college students in local communities. The creation of the Rising Star Internship program arose from interest in providing experiential work opportunities for Iowa State University students coupled with the organizational goals of promoting awareness of Cooperative Extension and increasing interest in employability within Extension. The program provides a paid county-level summer internship with several unique elements. Evidence collected from student participants suggests that it is a mutually beneficial endeavor for Extension, students, and communities. Extension systems may desire to replicate these efforts if they share similar ambitions

Establishing a Common Language: The Meaning of Research-Based and Evidence-Based Programming (in the Human Sciences)

This article describes the development, implementation, and exploratory evaluation of a professional development series that addressed educators\u27 knowledge and use of the terms research-based and evidence-based within Human Sciences Extension and Outreach at one university. Respondents to a follow-up survey were more likely to select correctly the commonly accepted standard for each term, and they reported asking more questions, talking with others, examining programs\u27 evidence bases, and placing more value on fidelity and evaluation following participation in the professional development series. Educator reactions to the series were generally positive, although researchers interested in designing like programs might consider engaging educators within the context of their preexisting knowledge levels

Establishing a Common Language: The Meaning of ResearchBased and Evidence-Based Programming (in the Human Sciences)

This article describes the development, implementation, and exploratory evaluation of a professional development series that addressed educators\u27 knowledge and use of the terms research-based and evidence-based within Human Sciences Extension and Outreach at one university. Respondents to a follow-up survey were more likely to select correctly the commonly accepted standard for each term, and they reported asking more questions, talking with others, examining programs\u27 evidence bases, and placing more value on fidelity and evaluation following participation in the professional development series. Educator reactions to the series were generally positive, although researchers interested in designing like programs might consider engaging educators within the context of their preexisting knowledge levels

The Relationship of Fertility, Lifestyle, and Longevity Among Women

Longevity in women has been found to be associated with several reproductive factors; the age of women when they give birth, their total number of children, and the age at which they experience menopause. In the context of expectations from the evolutionary theory of aging, the focus of this study examined relationships between lifetime reproduction, age at menopause and longevity, while accounting for various lifestyle factors. The purpose of this study was to assess fertility and age at onset of menopause in 197 women of the Georgia Centenarian Study. It was hypothesized that greater lifetime reproduction would predict earlier menopause and subsequently an earlier death. An independent t test was computed to assess ethnic differences between Caucasian and African American participants. Two block-wise multiple regression analyses were computed to evaluate the impact of low socioeconomic status in childhood, the age at the time of the first childbirth, the total number of children, smoking and alcohol use, incidence of heart disease and stroke, and the age at onset of menopause on longevity. Results from this study suggest a positive association between the total number of children to the age at onset of menopause and longevity. However, when considering the lifestyle factor of smoking, the association of the total number of children to longevity is diminished

Creating Opportunities Through an Experiential, Community-Based Cooperative Extension Internship Program

Extension is positioned to develop and implement high-quality, high-impact internship experiences for college students in local communities. The creation of the Rising Star Internship program arose from interest in providing experiential work opportunities for Iowa State University students coupled with the organizational goals of promoting awareness of Cooperative Extension and increasing interest in employability within Extension. The program provides a paid county-level summer internship with several unique elements. Evidence collected from student participants suggests that it is a mutually beneficial endeavor for Extension, students, and communities. Extension systems may desire to replicate these efforts if they share similar ambitions

Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium: Accelerating Evidence-Based Practice of Genomic Medicine

Despite rapid technical progress and demonstrable effectiveness for some types of diagnosis and therapy, much remains to be learned about clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) and its role within the practice of medicine. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium includes 18 extramural research projects, one National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project, and a coordinating center funded by the NHGRI and National Cancer Institute. The consortium is exploring analytic and clinical validity and utility, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of sequencing via multidisciplinary approaches; it has thus far recruited 5,577 participants across a spectrum of symptomatic and healthy children and adults by utilizing both germline and cancer sequencing. The CSER consortium is analyzing data and creating publically available procedures and tools related to participant preferences and consent, variant classification, disclosure and management of primary and secondary findings, health outcomes, and integration with electronic health records. Future research directions will refine measures of clinical utility of CGES in both germline and somatic testing, evaluate the use of CGES for screening in healthy individuals, explore the penetrance of pathogenic variants through extensive phenotyping, reduce discordances in public databases of genes and variants, examine social and ethnic disparities in the provision of genomics services, explore regulatory issues, and estimate the value and downstream costs of sequencing. The CSER consortium has established a shared community of research sites by using diverse approaches to pursue the evidence-based development of best practices in genomic medicine

The association of affectionate touch and well-being among older married adults

In today’s society, we touch our cell phones more than we touch each other. Touch is the first language of communication that we learn as human beings and by far the most fundamental and straightforward of all of the sensory systems. Affectionate touch is not only a critical component of physiological and psychological regulation in all humans; it is also related to increased mortality and morbidity in older adults. Touch is not only fundamental across the life span, but older individuals tend to rely heavily on touch, especially in times of increased stress. At an age when human touch is still very important, many older adults are experiencing less and less physical contact. Though the medical field has long recognized the fundamental human need and physical benefit of touch for all age groups, the psychosocial value of touch for older adults has continued to attract little research. Utilizing data from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project data (NSHAP, 2005 - 2011), this study extends the current literature by assessing the relationship of affectionate touch and three aspects of well-being in older, married adults. Examined both longitudinally and in a cross-sectional model, the main findings of this research study showed that affectionate touch influenced well-being outcomes in older, married adults. Additional findings also yielded important information on the role of perceived partner support and perceived stress in the relation of affectionate touch and well-being in older, married adults. Finally, implications of these findings, as well as future directions for research in affectionate touch among older adults are discussed.</p

Creating Opportunities Through an Experiential, Community-Based Cooperative Extension Internship Program

Extension is positioned to develop and implement high-quality, high-impact internship experiences for college students in local communities. The creation of the Rising Star Internship program arose from interest in providing experiential work opportunities for Iowa State University students coupled with the organizational goals of promoting awareness of Cooperative Extension and increasing interest in employability within Extension. The program provides a paid county-level summer internship with several unique elements. Evidence collected from student participants suggests that it is a mutually beneficial endeavor for Extension, students, and communities. Extension systems may desire to replicate these efforts if they share similar ambitions.This article is published as Sellers, D.M., Heronemus, C., Gannon, C., Lockhart, P.A., Creating Opportunities Through an Experiential, CommunityBased Cooperative Extension Internship Program. Journal of Extension. December 2020 Volume 58 Number 6 Article #v58-6iw4 Ideas at Work. Posted with permission. </p

The Parkes survey of 21-Centimeter absorption in discrete-source spectra. II. Galactic 21-Centimeter observations in the direction of 35 extragalactic sources

A detailed comparison of emission and absorption spectra obtained in the direction of extragalactic sources permits an unambiguous separation of the contribution from a diffuse, high-temperature, optically thin component and that from denser and colder local concentration of hydrogen. The concentrations have a mean column density N<SUB>Hc</SUB>≈ 3 × 10<SUP>20</SUP> atoms cm<SUP>-2</SUP> and a spin temperature T<SUB>s</SUB> ≈ 60°-80° K. They are typically separated along a line of sight by one full scale-thickness of the galactic disk. The diffuse intercloud medium has a column density N<SUB>Hi</SUB> ≈ 1.4 × 10<SUP>20</SUP> cosec |b| atoms cm<SUP>-2</SUP>, a spin temperature in excess of 750° K, and contains half of the total mass of hydrogen in the solar neighborhood

Establishing a Common Language: The Meaning of ResearchBased and Evidence-Based Programming (in the Human Sciences)

This article describes the development, implementation, and exploratory evaluation of a professional development series that addressed educators' knowledge and use of the terms research-based and evidence-based within Human Sciences Extension and Outreach at one university. Respondents to a follow-up survey were more likely to select correctly the commonly accepted standard for each term, and they reported asking more questions, talking with others, examining programs' evidence bases, and placing more value on fidelity and evaluation following participation in the professional development series. Educator reactions to the series were generally positive, although researchers interested in designing like programs might consider engaging educators within the context of their preexisting knowledge levels.This article is published as Sellers, D.M.; Schainker, L.M.; Lockhart, P.; Yeh,H. Establishing a common language: The meaning of research-based and evidence-based programming (within the human sciences); Journal of Extension; 2017 55(6). Posted with permission.</p