Food Purchasing Habits of Participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Among Shelby County, Tennessee Residents

The supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a government entitlement program that provides monetary assistance for participants to consistently acquire adequate food. Many unanswered questions remain regarding nutrition quality of SNAP purchases. Eighty-four SNAP participants were surveyed at food pantries throughout Shelby County, TN to obtain a descriptive analysis of participant purchasing habits. The majority of households received $150 or less per month in benefits, which were spent most frequently at convenience stores (n=42) and in bakeries/delis (n=44). 77% (n=65) of participants reported experiencing times while utilizing SNAP benefits where there was not enough food to feed his/her family. Meat products were the most expensive items participants purchased and also the items participants most frequently cited desires to have more money to purchase. Regionally tailored nutrition interventions for the future include greater access to food pantries in conjunction with encouraging local plant-based protein options to improve dietary quality

A transboundary political ecology of air pollution: slow violence on Thailand's margins

This study develops a transboundary political ecology of air pollution to show how its spatially and socially unequal distribution constitutes a form of slow violence among already marginal sections of society. Recent research on transboundary air pollution in Southeast Asia and globally has mainly focused on the supranational or regional scale of environmental governance without taking into proper account the socially differentiated impacts of these cross-border flows of environmental harm at lower organisational scales. Air pollution in Thailand, which ranks amongst the worst in the world, generates spill-over effects across sub-national borders that disproportionately impact the urban and rural poor. We examine the drivers of the three major sources of air pollution in Thailand: vehicular emissions, agricultural emissions and industrial emissions to direct attention toward the barriers and opportunities for collaborative governance in urban, peri-urban and rural settings. The article argues that administrative fragmentation and the protection of vested economic interests by Thai business and political elites have compromised transboundary governance of the air while adding to socio-spatial inequalities and environmental injustices. We recommend legislative reforms centred on cross-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional cooperation to provide redress for the slow violence perpetrated against marginal citizens in the governance of air pollution

Creating a Social Justice Mindset: Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice in the Collections Directorate of the MIT Libraries

The Collections Directorate of the MIT Libraries sponsored a task force to identify opportunities for archives, technical services, preservation, scholarly communication, and collections strategy staff to manifest the values of diversity, inclusion, and social justice in their daily work. In this report the Collections Directorate Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (DISJ) task force describes some of the overarching social and economic contexts for academic libraries, as well as the core professional values that guide us, and offers recommendations to the Directorate for operationalizing the values of diversity, inclusion, and social justice. The task force aims to demonstrate, through our recommendations, how DISJ values might guide every aspect of our work. We look forward to working together to foster a social justice mindset throughout the MIT Libraries’ Collections Directorate

Closing the loop or widening the gap? The unequal politics of Thailand's circular economy in addressing marine plastic pollution

10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136218JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION39

With a Little Help from our Friends: Teaching Collectives as Lifelines in Troublesome Times

Emergencies have a way of changing the orientation of faculty from academic projects to surviving the unknown and coping with change. Many faculty members, because they frequently work independently, often lack support structures through which they can engage in mutual aid during times of crisis. The authors recently discovered that having a community of colleagues with whom to share ideas has made them more resilient to changing circumstances. While the Civility Community of Practice at IUPUI has been meeting since 2014 as an interdisciplinary research collective, it transitioned to a weekly online teaching and support seminar in response to the university’s unexpected move to online course delivery on account of the pandemic. This reflective essay will examine the transformative possibilities of a teaching collective in the face of crisis. From the onset of the crisis, each of the authors had personal and teaching challenges that the group’s Zoom meetings resolved. The weekly meetings involved sharing teaching tips but also basic survival strategies, tips they never imagined discussing with professional colleagues. In addition to discussing the elements that make a successful learning community, this essay will include reflections by each of the five community members about how the Zoom meetings helped them adapt to and navigate their personal and professional lives during the pandemic. In these individual reflections, the authors will discuss how moving their courses online challenged their teaching practices, motivated their experimentation with Zoom, and transformed their online classroom to impact the student learning experience

Promoting tau secretion and propagation by hyperactive p300/CBP via autophagy-lysosomal pathway in tauopathy.

BackgroundThe trans-neuronal propagation of tau has been implicated in the progression of tau-mediated neurodegeneration. There is critical knowledge gap in understanding how tau is released and transmitted, and how that is dysregulated in diseases. Previously, we reported that lysine acetyltransferase p300/CBP acetylates tau and regulates its degradation and toxicity. However, whether p300/CBP is involved in regulation of tau secretion and propagation is unknown.MethodWe investigated the relationship between p300/CBP activity, the autophagy-lysosomal pathway (ALP) and tau secretion in mouse models of tauopathy and in cultured rodent and human neurons. Through a high-through-put compound screen, we identified a new p300 inhibitor that promotes autophagic flux and reduces tau secretion. Using fibril-induced tau spreading models in vitro and in vivo, we examined how p300/CBP regulates tau propagation.ResultsIncreased p300/CBP activity was associated with aberrant accumulation of ALP markers in a tau transgenic mouse model. p300/CBP hyperactivation blocked autophagic flux and increased tau secretion in neurons. Conversely, inhibiting p300/CBP promoted autophagic flux, reduced tau secretion, and reduced tau propagation in fibril-induced tau spreading models in vitro and in vivo.ConclusionsWe report that p300/CBP, a lysine acetyltransferase aberrantly activated in tauopathies, causes impairment in ALP, leading to excess tau secretion. This effect, together with increased intracellular tau accumulation, contributes to enhanced spreading of tau. Our findings suggest that inhibition of p300/CBP as a novel approach to correct ALP dysfunction and block disease progression in tauopathy

With a Little Help from our Friends: Teaching Collectives as Lifelines in Troublesome Times

Emergencies have a way of changing the orientation of faculty from academic projects to surviving the unknown and coping with change. Many faculty members, because they frequently work independently, often lack support structures through which they can engage in mutual aid during times of crisis. The authors recently discovered that having a community of colleagues with whom to share ideas has made them more resilient to changing circumstances. While the Civility Community of Practice at IUPUI has been meeting since 2014 as an interdisciplinary research collective, it transitioned to a weekly online teaching and support seminar in response to the university’s unexpected move to online course delivery on account of the pandemic. This reflective essay will examine the transformative possibilities of a teaching collective in the face of crisis. From the onset of the crisis, each of the authors had personal and teaching challenges that the group’s Zoom meetings resolved. The weekly meetings involved sharing teaching tips but also basic survival strategies, tips they never imagined discussing with professional colleagues. In addition to discussing the elements that make a successful learning community, this essay will include reflections by each of the five community members about how the Zoom meetings helped them adapt to and navigate their personal and professional lives during the pandemic. In these individual reflections, the authors will discuss how moving their courses online challenged their teaching practices, motivated their experimentation with Zoom, and transformed their online classroom to impact the student learning experience

Nutrition Screening and Assessment in Hospitalized Patients

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141744/1/ncp0483.pd

A Distinct Metabolite Signature in Military Personnel Exposed to Repetitive Low-Level Blasts

Military Breachers and Range Staff (MBRS) are subjected to repeated sub-concussive blasts, and they often report symptoms that are consistent with a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Biomarkers of blast injury would potentially aid blast injury diagnosis, surveillance and avoidance. Our objective was to identify plasma metabolite biomarkers in military personnel that were exposed to repeated low-level or sub-concussive blast overpressure. A total of 37 military members were enrolled (18 MBRS and 19 controls), with MBRS having participated in 8–20 breaching courses per year, with a maximum exposure of 6 blasts per day. The two cohorts were similar except that the number of blast exposures were significantly higher in the MBRS, and the MBRS cohort suffered significantly more post-concussive symptoms and poorer health on assessment. Metabolomics profiling demonstrated significant differences between groups with 74% MBRS classification accuracy (CA). Feature reduction identified 6 metabolites that resulted in a MBRS CA of 98%, and included acetic acid (23.7%), formate (22.6%), creatine (14.8%), acetone (14.2%), methanol (12,7%), and glutamic acid (12.0%). All 6 metabolites were examined with individual receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses and demonstrated areas-under-the-curve (AUCs) of 0.82–0.91 (P ≤ 0.001) for MBRS status. Several parsimonious combinations of three metabolites increased accuracy of ROC curve analyses to AUCs of 1.00 (P \u3c 0.001), while a combination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs; acetic acid, acetone and methanol) yielded an AUC of 0.98 (P \u3c 0.001). Candidate biomarkers for chronic blast exposure were identified, and if validated in a larger cohort, may aid surveillance and care of military personnel. Future point-of-care screening could be developed that measures VOCs from breath, with definitive diagnoses confirmed with plasma metabolomics profiling

Inflammation, insulin resistance, and diabetes-mendelian randomization using CRP haplotypes points upstream

Background Raised C-reactive protein (CRP) is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. According to the Mendelian randomization method, the association is likely to be causal if genetic variants that affect CRP level are associated with markers of diabetes development and diabetes. Our objective was to examine the nature of the association between CRP phenotype and diabetes development using CRP haplotypes as instrumental variables. Methods and Findings We genotyped three tagging SNPs (CRP + 2302G > A; CRP + 1444T > C; CRP + 4899T > G) in the CRP gene and measured serum CRP in 5,274 men and women at mean ages 49 and 61 y (Whitehall II Study). Homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) were measured at age 61 y. Diabetes was ascertained by glucose tolerance test and self-report. Common major haplotypes were strongly associated with serum CRP levels, but unrelated to obesity, blood pressure, and socioeconomic position, which may confound the association between CRP and diabetes risk. Serum CRP was associated with these potential confounding factors. After adjustment for age and sex, baseline serum CRP was associated with incident diabetes (hazard ratio = 1.39 [95% confidence interval 1.29-1.51], HOMA-IR, and HbA1c, but the associations were considerably attenuated on adjustment for potential confounding factors. In contrast, CRP haplotypes were not associated with HOMA-IR or HbA1c (p=0.52-0.92). The associations of CRP with HOMA-IR and HbA1c were all null when examined using instrumental variables analysis, with genetic variants as the instrument for serum CRP. Instrumental variables estimates differed from the directly observed associations (p=0.007-0.11). Pooled analysis of CRP haplotypes and diabetes in Whitehall II and Northwick Park Heart Study II produced null findings (p=0.25-0.88). Analyses based on the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (1,923 diabetes cases, 2,932 controls) using three SNPs in tight linkage disequilibrium with our tagging SNPs also demonstrated null associations. Conclusions Observed associations between serum CRP and insulin resistance, glycemia, and diabetes are likely to be noncausal. Inflammation may play a causal role via upstream effectors rather than the downstream marker CRP