Building the Ladder: Developing Leadership Skills Without the Title

The leap to library leadership can be difficult if you have no experience in supervision. While larger library systems may have a deep structure that allows employees to start on step one of the ladder and progress one rung at a time to that director position, most of us in Oregon work for smaller libraries where there are few or no successive steps between circulation clerk and director. In these types of organizations, how does someone gain the experience necessary to make one a viable candidate for the job? Because of the diversity of functions from library to library and position to position, experience with a specific set of tasks really does not assess someone’s success in a job. The viable candidate, especially in supervisory positions, does not necessarily have a specific operational skill set as much as a set of characteristics that will help one succeed as a leader. There is a distinction between management and leadership. While both are necessary, management tends to focus on hard skills while leadership is more about the soft skills. Leadership establishes a direction for the organization by creating a vision, by aligning people to the vision through superb communication and team-building skills, and by motivating and inspiring the team to follow the vision (Kotter, 2008). Managers plan and budget, establish rules and procedures, develop incentives, and take corrective action. John Kotter (2008) separated the two in this way: management produces order and consistency; leadership produces change and movement. While libraries tend to value order and consistency, those individuals who can produce change and movement will be of the most value to the 21st-century library

Reprogramming the kidney: a novel approach for regeneration

Nuclear reprogramming has reshaped stem cell science and created new avenues for cell-based therapies. The ability to bestow any given phenotype upon adult cells regardless of their origin is an exciting possibility. How can this powerful tool be harnessed for the treatment of kidney disease? Many approaches, including induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) production, direct lineage conversion, and reprogramming to a kidney progenitor, are now possible. Indeed, the generation of iPSC lines from adult kidney–derived cells has been successfully achieved. This, however, is just the beginning of the challenge. This review will discuss the fundamental concepts of transcription factor–based reprogramming in its various forms, highlighting recent advances in the field and how these are applicable to the kidney. The relative merits of each approach will be discussed in the context of what is a realistic and feasible strategy for kidney regeneration via reprogramming

The origin of the mammalian kidney: Implications for recreating the kidney in vitro

The mammalian kidney, the metanephros, is a mesodermal organ classically regarded as arising from the intermediate mesoderm (IM). Indeed, both the ureteric bud (UB), which gives rise to the ureter and the collecting ducts, and the metanephric mesenchyme (MM), which forms the rest of the kidney, derive from the IM. Based on an understanding of the signalling molecules crucial for IM patterning and kidney morphogenesis, several studies have now generated UB or MM, or both, in vitro via the directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Although these results support the IM origin of the UB and the MM, they challenge the simplistic view of a common progenitor for these two populations, prompting a reanalysis of early patterning events within the IM. Here, we review our understanding of the origin of the UB and the MM in mouse, and discuss how this impacts on kidney regeneration strategies and furthers our understanding of human development

Cap mesenchyme cell swarming during kidney development is influenced by attraction, repulsion, and adhesion to the ureteric tip

Morphogenesis of the mammalian kidney requires reciprocal interactions between two cellular domains at the periphery of the developing organ: the tips of the epithelial ureteric tree and adjacent regions of cap mesenchyme. While the presence of the cap mesenchyme is essential for ureteric branching, how it is specifically maintained at the tips is unclear. Using ex vivo timelapse imaging we show that cells of the cap mesenchyme are highly motile. Individual cap mesenchyme cells move within and between cap domains. They also attach and detach from the ureteric tip across time. Timelapse tracks collected for >800 cells showed evidence that this movement was largely stochastic, with cell autonomous migration influenced by opposing attractive, repulsive and cell adhesion cues. The resulting swarming behaviour maintains a distinct cap mesenchyme domain while facilitating dynamic remodelling in response to underlying changes in the tip

Quality Assurance: Procedures for Enhancing Project Sustainability

This presentation will provide an overview of quality assurance procedures employed by professionals at the Center for Education and Training for Employment (CETE) in the College of Education and Human Ecology. CETE's quality assurance procedures are based on the concept of "total quality management." Total quality management can be described as a management philosophy focused on the continual improvement of products, services or interventions based on customer satisfaction (Ahire, Landros & Gohar, 1995). The American Society for Quality (n.d.) identifies eight primary principles associated with total quality management. These principles include customer determination of quality; use of data in decision making; view of actors and processes as integrated systems; and reliance on strategic planning as a means for assessing systems and opportunities to improve interventions. Presenters will review principles and provide concrete examples of the use of quality assurance tools in several projects including application to the development of faculty grant proposals.AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Ryan Kapa, postdoctoral researcher, Center on Education and Training for Employment, College of Education and Human Ecology, [email protected] (Corresponding Author); David Julian, program director, Center on Education and Training for Employment, Ohio State College of Education and Human Ecology; Keli Bussell, graduate research associate, Center on Education and Training for Employment, Ohio State College of Education and Human Ecology; Alexis Little, doctoral student, Center on Education and Training for Employment, Ohio State College of Education and Human Ecology; Melissa Ross, program director, Center on Education and Training for Employment, Ohio State College of Education and Human EcologyQuality assurance provides a valuable model for evaluating the efficacy of and sustaining community partnerships and projects. Learn about principles and concrete examples of the use of quality assurance tools in several projects, including application to the development of faculty grant proposals

3D surface scanners in spine clinic: A pilot study to assess scanner accuracy

The externally visible deformity, in terms of rib hump, shoulder and hip asymmetry and anterior rib asymmetry, is usually the first symptom observed by adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) patients. Often these cosmetic factors remain the primary concern for patients. Presently, AIS deformity is assessed clinically from standing X-rays using the Cobb angle, the magnitude of which does not correlate well with external appearance or post-surgical satisfaction. Torso rotational deformity (rib hump) is currently assessed by laying a goniometer across the patient’s back while they bend forward. Whilst rapid, this test does not fully encompass all elements of the deformity and fails to address the areas of most cosmetic concern to the patient. Despite enormous variations in price, the accuracy of the scanned deformity was comparable to routine clinical measures. This study presents pilot data to select a suitable scanner for use in future research into AIS progression

The Virome of Cerebrospinal Fluid: Viruses Where We Once Thought There Were None.

Traditionally, medicine has held that some human body sites are sterile and that the introduction of microbes to these sites results in infections. This paradigm shifted significantly with the discovery of the human microbiome and acceptance of these commensal microbes living across the body. However, the central nervous system (CNS) is still believed by many to be sterile in healthy people. Using culture-independent methods, we examined the virome of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a cohort of mostly healthy human subjects. We identified a community of DNA viruses, most of which were identified as bacteriophages. Compared to other human specimen types, CSF viromes were not ecologically distinct. There was a high alpha diversity cluster that included feces, saliva, and urine, and a low alpha diversity cluster that included CSF, body fluids, plasma, and breast milk. The high diversity cluster included specimens known to have many bacteria, while other specimens traditionally assumed to be sterile formed the low diversity cluster. There was an abundance of viruses shared among CSF, breast milk, plasma, and body fluids, while each generally shared less with urine, feces, and saliva. These shared viruses ranged across different virus families, indicating that similarities between these viromes represent more than just a single shared virus family. By identifying a virome in the CSF of mostly healthy individuals, it is now less likely that any human body site is devoid of microbes, which further highlights the need to decipher the role that viral communities may play in human health

Identification of Anchor Genes during Kidney Development Defines Ontological Relationships, Molecular Subcompartments and Regulatory Pathways

The development of the mammalian kidney is well conserved from mouse to man. Despite considerable temporal and spatial data on gene expression in mammalian kidney development, primarily in rodent species, there is a paucity of genes whose expression is absolutely specific to a given anatomical compartment and/or developmental stage, defined here as ‘anchor’ genes. We previously generated an atlas of gene expression in the developing mouse kidney using microarray analysis of anatomical compartments collected via laser capture microdissection. Here, this data is further analysed to identify anchor genes via stringent bioinformatic filtering followed by high resolution section in situ hybridisation performed on 200 transcripts selected as specific to one of 11 anatomical compartments within the midgestation mouse kidney. A total of 37 anchor genes were identified across 6 compartments with the early proximal tubule being the compartment richest in anchor genes. Analysis of minimal and evolutionarily conserved promoter regions of this set of 25 anchor genes identified enrichment of transcription factor binding sites for Hnf4a and Hnf1b, RbpJ (Notch signalling), PPARγ:RxRA and COUP-TF family transcription factors. This was reinforced by GO analyses which also identified these anchor genes as targets in processes including epithelial proliferation and proximal tubular function. As well as defining anchor genes, this large scale validation of gene expression identified a further 92 compartment-enriched genes able to subcompartmentalise key processes during murine renal organogenesis spatially or ontologically. This included a cohort of 13 ureteric epithelial genes revealing previously unappreciated compartmentalisation of the collecting duct system and a series of early tubule genes suggesting that segmentation into proximal tubule, loop of Henle and distal tubule does not occur until the onset of glomerular vascularisation. Overall, this study serves to illuminate previously ill-defined stages of patterning and will enable further refinement of the lineage relationships within mammalian kidney development