Combining High-Impact Practices to Facilitate Hope for Young Adults Transitioning into College

Today’s societal challenges are causing young people to feel less hopeful about the future, negatively impacting their mental health. Educators are called to address this crisis and provide opportunities for young people to experience hope. Jesuit colleges and universities are uniquely poised to do so given their focus on caring for the whole person and the recent release of the Universal Apostolic Preferences, which prioritize “journeying with youth in the creation of a hope-filled future.” High-impact practices at Jesuit institutions could particularly be effective given the ways in which they intellectually engage students and help students cultivate a sense of belonging. Therefore, this study examines the combination of two high-impact practices (first-year seminars/experiences and service-learning) at The College of the Holy Cross to better understand if and how they facilitate and cultivate hope. Findings indicate that first-year seminars with a service-learning component do positively impact students’ sense of hope for the future because of the ways they help students: connect with others; witness individuals and institutions who are impacting change; increase their confidence and feeling of worthiness; develop a sense of purpose and understanding of mission; and reflect on and live out their personal values

Phototrophic N2 and CO2 Fixation Using a Rhodopseudomonas palustris-H2 Mediated Electrochemical System With Infrared Photons

A promising approach for the synthesis of high value reduced compounds is to couple bacteria to the cathode of an electrochemical cell, with delivery of electrons from the electrode driving reductive biosynthesis in the bacteria. Such systems have been used to reduce CO2 to acetate and other C-based compounds. Here, we report an electrosynthetic system that couples a diazotrophic, photoautotrophic bacterium, Rhodopseudomonas palustris TIE-1, to the cathode of an electrochemical cell through the mediator H2 that allows reductive capture of both CO2 and N2 with all of the energy coming from the electrode and infrared (IR) photons. R. palustris TIE-1 was shown to utilize a narrow band of IR radiation centered around 850 nm to support growth under both photoheterotrophic, non-diazotrophic and photoautotrophic, diazotrophic conditions with growth rates similar to those achieved using broad spectrum incandescent light. The bacteria were also successfully cultured in the cathodic compartment of an electrochemical cell with the sole source of electrons coming from electrochemically generated H2, supporting reduction of both CO2 and N2 using 850 nm photons as an energy source. Growth rates were similar to non-electrochemical conditions, revealing that the electrochemical system can fully support bacterial growth. Faradaic efficiencies for N2 and CO2 reduction were 8.5 and 47%, respectively. These results demonstrate that a microbial-electrode hybrid system can be used to achieve reduction and capture of both CO2 and N2 using low energy IR radiation and electrons provided by an electrode

Plenarna diskusija o zaključcima pojedinih radnih grupa

International audienc

Phase 2a randomised controlled feasibility trial of a new ‘balanced binocular viewing’ treatment for unilateral amblyopia in children age 3–8 years : trial protocol

Introduction Treatments for amblyopia, the most common vision deficit in children, often have suboptimal results. Occlusion/atropine blurring are fraught with poor adherence, regression and recurrence. These interventions target only the amblyopic eye, failing to address imbalances of cortical input from the two eyes (‘suppression’). Dichoptic treatments manipulate binocular visual experience to rebalance input. Poor adherence in early trials of dichoptic therapies inspired our development of balanced binocular viewing (BBV), using movies as child-friendly viewable content. Small observational studies indicate good adherence and efficacy. A feasibility trial is needed to further test safety and gather information to design a full trial. Methods/analysis We will carry out an observer-masked parallel-group phase 2a feasibility randomised controlled trial at two sites, randomising 44 children aged 3–8 years with unilateral amblyopia to either BBV or standard occlusion/atropine blurring, with 1:1 allocation ratio. We will assess visual function at baseline, 8 and 16 weeks. The primary outcome is intervention safety at 16 weeks, measured as change in interocular suppression, considered to precede the onset of potential diplopia. Secondary outcomes include safety at other time points, eligibility, recruitment/retention rates, adherence, clinical outcomes. We will summarise baseline characteristics for each group and assess the treatment effect using analysis of covariance. We will compare continuous clinical secondary endpoints between arms using linear mixed effect models, and report feasibility endpoints using descriptive statistics. Ethics/dissemination This trial has been approved by the London-Brighton & Sussex Research Ethics Committee (18/LO/1204), National Health Service Health Research Authority and Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. A lay advisory group will be involved with advising on and disseminating the results to non-professional audiences, including on websites of funder/participating institutions and inputting on healthcare professional audience children would like us to reach. Reporting to clinicians and scientists will be via internal and external meetings/conferences and peer-reviewed journals

Sharing of carbapenemase-encoding plasmids between Enterobacteriaceae in UK sewage uncovered by MinION sequencing

Dissemination of carbapenem resistance among pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria is a looming medical emergency. Efficient spread of resistance within and between bacterial species is facilitated by mobile genetic elements. We hypothesized that wastewater contributes to the dissemination of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), and studied this through a cross-sectional observational study of wastewater in the East of England. We isolated clinically relevant species of CPE in untreated and treated wastewater, confirming that waste treatment does not prevent release of CPE into the environment. We observed that CPE-positive plants were restricted to those in direct receipt of hospital waste, suggesting that hospital effluent may play a role in disseminating carbapenem resistance. We postulated that plasmids carrying carbapenemase genes were exchanged between bacterial hosts in sewage, and used short-read (Illumina) and long-read (MinION) technologies to characterize plasmids encoding resistance to antimicrobials and heavy metals. We demonstrated that different CPE species ($\textit{Enterobacter kobei}$ and $\textit{Raoultella ornithinolytica}$) isolated from wastewater from the same treatment plant shared two plasmids of 63 and 280 kb. The former plasmid conferred resistance to carbapenems ($bla_\text{OXA-48}$), and the latter to numerous drug classes and heavy metals. We also report the complete genome sequence for $\textit{Enterobacter kobei}$. Small, portable sequencing instruments such as the MinION have the potential to improve the quality of information gathered on antimicrobial resistance in the environment.This publication presents independent research supported by the Health Innovation Challenge Fund (WT098600, HICF-T5-342), a parallel funding partnership between the Department of Health, UK, and the Wellcome Trust. C. L. is a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Postdoctoral Fellow (110243/Z/15/Z). T. G. is a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellow (103387/Z/13/Z)

The use of a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model to evaluate deconvolution measurements of systemic absorption

BACKGROUND: An unknown input function can be determined by deconvolution using the systemic bolus input function (r) determined using an experimental input of duration ranging from a few seconds to many minutes. The quantitative relation between the duration of the input and the accuracy of r is unknown. Although a large number of deconvolution procedures have been described, these routines are not available in a convenient software package. METHODS: Four deconvolution methods are implemented in a new, user-friendly software program (PKQuest, ). Three of these methods are characterized by input parameters that are adjusted by the user to provide the "best" fit. A new approach is used to determine these parameters, based on the assumption that the input can be approximated by a gamma distribution. Deconvolution methodologies are evaluated using data generated from a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model (PBPK). RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The 11-compartment PBPK model is accurately described by either a 2 or 3-exponential function, depending on whether or not there is significant tissue binding. For an accurate estimate of r the first venous sample should be at or before the end of the constant infusion and a long (10 minute) constant infusion is preferable to a bolus injection. For noisy data, a gamma distribution deconvolution provides the best result if the input has the form of a gamma distribution. For other input functions, good results are obtained using deconvolution methods based on modeling the input with either a B-spline or uniform dense set of time points