Sustainable Showcase Project: Student Pathway to Understanding Sustainability in the Apparel and Home Furnishings Industries

As consumers increasingly look to textile and apparel industry firms to be more sensitive and reactive to significant social issues, it is necessary for university fashion majors to understand the key issues and philosophies related to sustainability that directly affect the fashion industry and its customers. Sustainability is a resource consumption concept that focuses on utilizing renewable resources in order to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources so as not to cause harm to people or the planet. Thus, an important aspect of people and companies transitioning to sustainability is to focus on the idea of recycling, or reusing resources. Because recycling is an activity that can be performed by everyone and any act of recycling supports the concept of sustainability, no matter how inconsequential it seems, a course project focused on recycling is valid

Experiential Learning and Service Activities for University Students: Development of the Fashion Earth Project to Foster Leadership and Management Skills through Volunteerism

As a plan to support recycling and sustainability in the fashion industry, the instructor challenged university students enrolled in a career development course to develop a project to build awareness and promote recycling and conservation in the fashion industry through a campus-based project in April, around Earth Day. The teambuilding project was designed to also develop effective leadership and management skills of the students, and through numerous submissions and planning meetings of the class, one multi-faceted project called, Fashion Earth, was selected that would be executed by the class members, in organized teams with specific tasks

Building Bookstore Displays: A Collaboration Between University Fashion Students and Campus Bookstore to Develop Merchandising, Management, and Leadership Skills Through the Development of Visual Displays

Through a partnership with the Fashion Promotion class, the students could help with the fashion merchandising and promotion in the bookstore. As a result, students were assigned a three-part Building Bookstore Displays Project. For each segment, a project worksheet was given to the student teams with objectives. Before beginning the project, the students and instructor visited the store together and received an orientation that included a tour and discussion of student expectations during the project. Project included display proposal, display execution and display presentation and analysis.The Building Bookstore Displays Project outcome exceeded the expectations of the initial plan, and the coordination of segments throughout the semester to complete one project that clearly made a positive visual change in the store windows, proved to be successful based on instructor analysis, store manager comments, and the sustained interest of the students

Preparing University Students for Future Careers in the Retail Industry: The Retailer Realities Project

With currently high unemployment rates, the job market has become increasingly more competitive, leading to more aggressive efforts of recent college graduates to obtain entry-level career positions in merchandising and retailing. While many merchandising students work in retail settings while in college, some never look beyond their current job to explore other retail companies. As merchandising and retailing programs strive to meet the needs of students and employers, university faculty must teach students practical and professional skills through classroom and experiential learning activities while encouraging students to investigate companies that can provide future opportunities,. Consequently, the objective of this teaching strategy is to provide senior-level merchandising students with broader knowledge of varied types of retail companies as well as specific companies in order to be able to make better decisions about career choices when evaluating potential employers

Service Learning for University Students: Convergence of Fashion Coursework and Community Service to Develop Leadership and Management Skills Through the Planet Style Project

In order to connect university students to the community, a service learning activity was designed to allow students to improve future leadership skills by executing a project that was created to promote awareness of Earth Day and also the Fashion and Textiles Program on a university campus. Ultimately, this activity provided upper-level, undergraduate fashion design and fashion merchandising majors enrolled in a career development course with immediate experience in project management through an experiential learning project that would prepare future graduates for the workplace by developing leadership and management skills

Coordination of microtubule and microfilament dynamics by Drosophila Rho1, Spire, and Cappuccino

The actin nucleation factors Spire and Cappuccino regulate the onset of ooplasmic streaming in Drosophila1-5. Although this streaming event is microtubule-based, actin assembly is required for its timing. It is not understood how the interaction of microtubules and microfilaments is mediated in this context. Here we demonstrate that Cappuccino and Spire have microtubule and microfilament crosslinking activity. The spire locus encodes several distinct protein isoforms (SpireA, SpireC, and SpireD). SpireD was recently shown to nucleate actin, but the activity of the other isoforms has not been addressed. We find that SpireD does not have crosslinking activity, while SpireC is a potent crosslinker. We show that SpireD binds to Cappuccino and inhibits Factin/ microtubule crosslinking, and activated Rho1 abolishes this inhibition, establishing a mechanistic basis for the regulation of Capu and Spire activity. We propose that Rho1, cappuccino and spire are elements of a conserved developmental cassette that is capable of directly mediating crosstalk between microtubules and microfilaments

Rapid Functional and Sequence Differentiation of a Tandemly Repeated Species-Specific Multigene Family in Drosophila

Gene clusters of recently duplicated genes are hotbeds for evolutionary change. However, our understanding of how mutational mechanisms and evolutionary forces shape the structural and functional evolution of these clusters is hindered by the high sequence identity among the copies, which typically results in their inaccurate representation in genome assemblies. The presumed testis-specific, chimeric gene Sdic originated, and tandemly expanded in Drosophila melanogaster, contributing to increased male-male competition. Using various types of massively parallel sequencing data, we studied the organization, sequence evolution, and functional attributes of the different Sdic copies. By leveraging long-read sequencing data, we uncovered both copy number and order differences from the currently accepted annotation for the Sdic region. Despite evidence for pervasive gene conversion affecting the Sdic copies, we also detected signatures of two episodes of diversifying selection, which have contributed to the evolution of a variety of C-termini and miRNA binding site compositions. Expression analyses involving RNA-seq datasets from 59 different biological conditions revealed distinctive expression breadths among the copies, with three copies being transcribed in females, opening the possibility to a sexually antagonistic effect. Phenotypic assays using Sdic knock-out strains indicated that should this antagonistic effect exist, it does not compromise female fertility. Our results strongly suggest that the genome consolidation of the Sdic gene cluster is more the result of a quick exploration of different paths of molecular tinkering by different copies than a mere dosage increase, which could be a recurrent evolutionary outcome in the presence of persistent sexual selection

A Functional Genomic Screen Combined with Time-Lapse Microscopy Uncovers a Novel Set of Genes Involved in Dorsal Closure of Drosophila Embryos

Morphogenesis, the establishment of the animal body, requires the coordinated rearrangement of cells and tissues regulated by a very strictly-determined genetic program. Dorsal closure of the epithelium in the Drosophila melanogaster embryo is one of the best models for such a complex morphogenetic event. To explore the genetic regulation of dorsal closure, we carried out a large-scale RNA interference-based screen in combination with in vivo time-lapse microscopy and identified several genes essential for the closure or affecting its dynamics. One of the novel dorsal closure genes, the small GTPase activator pebble (pbl), was selected for detailed analysis. We show that pbl regulates actin accumulation and protrusion dynamics in the leading edge of the migrating epithelial cells. In addition, pbl affects dorsal closure dynamics by regulating head involution, a morphogenetic process mechanically coupled with dorsal closure. Finally, we provide evidence that pbl is involved in closure of the adult thorax, suggesting its general requirement in epithelial closure processes

A comparative sequence analysis reveals a common GBD/FH3-FH1-FH2-DAD architecture in formins from Dictyostelium, fungi and metazoa

BACKGROUND: Formins are multidomain proteins defined by a conserved FH2 (formin homology 2) domain with actin nucleation activity preceded by a proline-rich FH1 (formin homology 1) domain. Formins act as profilin-modulated processive actin nucleators conserved throughout a wide range of eukaryotes. RESULTS: We present a detailed sequence analysis of the 10 formins (ForA to J) identified in the genome of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. With the exception of ForI and ForC all other formins conform to the domain structure GBD/FH3-FH1-FH2-DAD, where DAD is the Diaphanous autoinhibition domain and GBD/FH3 is the Rho GTPase-binding domain/formin homology 3 domain that we propose to represent a single domain. ForC lacks a FH1 domain, ForI lacks recognizable GBD/FH3 and DAD domains and ForA, E and J have additional unique domains. To establish the relationship between formins of Dictyostelium and other organisms we constructed a phylogenetic tree based on the alignment of FH2 domains. Real-time PCR was used to study the expression pattern of formin genes. Expression of forC, D, I and J increased during transition to multi-cellular stages, while the rest of genes displayed less marked developmental variations. During sexual development, expression of forH and forI displayed a significant increase in fusion competent cells. CONCLUSION: Our analysis allows some preliminary insight into the functionality of Dictyostelium formins: all isoforms might display actin nucleation activity and, with the exception of ForI, might also be susceptible to autoinhibition and to regulation by Rho GTPases. The architecture GBD/FH3-FH1-FH2-DAD appears common to almost all Dictyostelium, fungal and metazoan formins, for which we propose the denomination of conventional formins, and implies a common regulatory mechanism

Freshwater Sponges Have Functional, Sealing Epithelia with High Transepithelial Resistance and Negative Transepithelial Potential

Epithelial tissue — the sealed and polarized layer of cells that regulates transport of ions and solutes between the environment and the internal milieu — is a defining characteristic of the Eumetazoa. Sponges, the most ancient metazoan phylum [1], [2], are generally believed to lack true epithelia [3], [4], [5], but their ability to occlude passage of ions has never been tested. Here we show that freshwater sponges (Demospongiae, Haplosclerida) have functional epithelia with high transepithelial electrical resistance (TER), a transepithelial potential (TEP), and low permeability to small-molecule diffusion. Curiously, the Amphimedon queenslandica sponge genome lacks the classical occluding genes [5] considered necessary to regulate sealing and control of ion transport. The fact that freshwater sponge epithelia can seal suggests that either occluding molecules have been lost in some sponge lineages, or demosponges use novel molecular complexes for epithelial occlusion; if the latter, it raises the possibility that mechanisms for occlusion used by sponges may exist in other metazoa. Importantly, our results imply that functional epithelia evolved either several times, or once, in the ancestor of the Metazoa