The Market Day Simulation: Collaboration through Experience

Today’s graduates need skills that transcend traditional job descriptions combining interpersonal skills and the abilities to build relationships with business partners. A key component of many job advertisements are that the applicant be “a team player.” Our Market Day project gives students needed experiences that imitate the partnerships they will build in their future career endeavors

Creating the infrastructure for a living laboratory at the Miller Ecological Park and other preparations

Course Code: ENR 2367Our goal is to connect the local children of Lebanon, Ohio with nature via the Miller Ecological Park. To do this, we are focusing on the addition of a Living Laboratory to the property that can be used by local schools and Boy/Girl scout groups. The Living Laboratory will consist of an interactive trail that connects Bowman Elementary School to a restored prairie and wetlands at the southeastern corner of the MEP. We also are suggesting infrastructure additions to supplement the educational experience of local children through proper integration with school curriculums.Academic Major: BiologyAcademic Major: Environment, Economy, Development, and SustainabilityAcademic Major: Environmental ScienceAcademic Major: Forestry, Fisheries, and Wildlif

Ignite The Leader Within: Virtual Latinx Youth Empowerment And Community Leadership Amid Covid-19

Summer Youth Programs continue to grow as a way to provide alternative educational spaces for Youth of Color who are often framed in deficit ways and that position them as being “at-risk” or in need of assistance (Weiner, 2006; Brown, 2016). To address these perceived deficits, after school and summer programs have been created and funded to serve the needs of children and Youth of Color, in particular Latinxs and African Americans. The literature often centralizes a pathologizing narrative that Youth of Color need saving (Tuck, 2009) via Summer Youth Programs to “keep youth off the streets” and avoid delinquency (Baldridge, 2014). Recent scholarship points to the necessity to interrogate the underlying racialized discourse that permeates through summer youth programming towards one that acknowledges and centers youth agency, resiliency, and identity. This article presents findings from a study of Latinx youth that participated in a summer youth program hosted virtually through collaboration with the Prevention and Early Intervention Division of the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services, and two universities in Central Texas. Due to COVID-19, the summit was re-imagined virtually and strives to build and nurture a community of youth leaders. This qualitative study also examines and evaluates Latinx youth participants’ (ages 13 to 18) expectations of and experiences in the virtual summer youth summit.  Our study questions included: 1) How do Latinx youth learn about leadership through an Online Youth Summit amidst COVID-19? And 2) How does the Youth Summit provide a (virtual) space to re-narrate Latinx youth leadership? Emerging findings indicate that Latinx youth were given opportunities to re-narrate leadership and activism, co-create networks and virtual connections with other Latinx and Black youth, and reflect on their own identities and community involvements.

Social influences on microglial reactivity and neuronal damage after cardiac arrest/cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Social isolation presents a risk factor and worsens outcome to cerebrovascular diseases; however, the underlying mechanisms remain underspecified. This study examines the effect of social environment on microglial reactivity after global cerebral ischemia, to test the hypothesis that social isolation leads to greater microglial responses. Adult female and male mice were pair-housed or socially isolated for one week prior to cardiac arrest/cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CA/CPR) or the sham procedure, and following either 2 or 24 hours of reperfusion, microglia samples were enriched and analyzed for gene expression. At the 2-hour time point, microglia from both females and males exhibited ischemia-induced inflammation, characterized by the gene expression increase of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β) and interleukin 6 (IL-6), regardless of the housing conditions. However, at 24 hours post-ischemia, social housing attenuated microglial pro-inflammatory gene expression in a sex-specific manner. At this time point, the ischemia-induced increased expression of IL-1β and IL-6 was attenuated by social interaction in microglia from male mice, while among female mice social attenuation of the inflammatory response was observed in the microglial expression of cell surface protein major histocompatibility complex II (MHC II). A second study examined behavioral and physiological measures 96 hours after ischemic injury. At this time point, female and male mice displayed increased locomotion and exploratory behavior following CA/CPR relative to controls. Regardless of sex, ischemia also elicited neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration, both of which were modulated by the social environment. Hippocampal nitric oxide (iNOS), cortical TNF-α, and counts of Fluoro-Jade C positive stained cells in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, were increased in the isolated CA/CPR group relative to sham controls and the pair-housed CA/CPR groups. Together, these data indicate that female and male mice exhibit similar outcome measures and social modulation at 96 hours post-ischemic injury, nonetheless, that social environment influences microglial reactivity to global cerebral ischemia in a sex-specific manner

Do You Think Your Group Thinks?

“Do You Think Your Group Thinks?” An Examination of the Relationship between Groupthink and Small Group Type The intent of our research was to analyize the six main groups in our culture and to determine which group, if any, suffers from groupthink more than the others. Groupthink is defined as “a strong concurrence-seeking tendency among members within a group that leads to a deterioration in the decision making process.” There are six main types of groups, primary groups, social groups, educational/theraputic groups, decision making/problem solving groups, work groups and mediated communication groups. A literature review was conducted on previous studies about various aspects of small group and groupthink research. In 1972, Irving L. Janis studied political disasters and developed “groupthink theory”. Eight symptoms were developed to assess group think. We determined that surveys were the best, and most efficient way to calculate these queries. Entitled, “Group Interaction Survey” our group composed a survey which consists of twelve close-ended (yes or no) questions. Each question was designed to detect one of the eight symptoms of groupthink Janis outlined. The purpose of asking these surveys was to gauge what groups are more susceptible to groupthink. Twenty surveys were passed out to each group totalling 120 surveys. According to our research, determined by the survey, primary groups had the highest amount of groupthink. Of the people we surveyed 55% of the answers indicated group think. Problem solving groups had the lowest amount of accumulated groupthink with an outcome of only 40% of the answers indicating groupthink. There are other ways the study could have been conducted, several other factors that could have been considered such as a wider variety of ages, greater number of surveys, or wider geographical area covered. Other methods could have been used as well to evaluate each individaul symptom

The Homeodomain-Containing Transcription Factors Arx and Pax4 Control Enteroendocrine Subtype Specification in Mice

Intestinal hormones are key regulators of digestion and energy homeostasis secreted by rare enteroendocrine cells. These cells produce over ten different hormones including GLP-1 and GIP peptides known to promote insulin secretion. To date, the molecular mechanisms controlling the specification of the various enteroendocrine subtypes from multipotent Neurog3+ endocrine progenitor cells, as well as their number, remain largely unknown. In contrast, in the embryonic pancreas, the opposite activities of Arx and Pax4 homeodomain transcription factors promote islet progenitor cells towards the different endocrine cell fates. In this study, we thus investigated the role of Arx and Pax4 in enteroendocrine subtype specification. The small intestine and colon of Arx- and Pax4-deficient mice were analyzed using histological, molecular, and lineage tracing approaches. We show that Arx is expressed in endocrine progenitors (Neurog3+) and in early differentiating (ChromograninA−) GLP-1-, GIP-, CCK-, Sct- Gastrin- and Ghrelin-producing cells. We noted a dramatic reduction or a complete loss of all these enteroendocrine cell types in Arx mutants. Serotonin- and Somatostatin-secreting cells do not express Arx and, accordingly, the differentiation of Serotonin cells was not affected in Arx mutants. However, the number of Somatostatin-expressing D-cells is increased as Arx-deficient progenitor cells are redirected to the D-cell lineage. In Pax4-deficient mice, the differentiation of Serotonin and Somatostatin cells is impaired, as well as of GIP and Gastrin cells. In contrast, the number of GLP-1 producing L-cells is increased concomitantly with an upregulation of Arx. Thus, while Arx and Pax4 are necessary for the development of L- and D-cells respectively, they conversely restrict D- and L-cells fates suggesting antagonistic functions in D/L cell allocation. In conclusion, these finding demonstrate that, downstream of Neurog3, the specification of a subset of enteroendocrine subtypes relies on both Arx and Pax4, while others depend only on Arx or Pax4

Effects of Youth Tobacco Access and Possession Policy Interventions on Heavy Adolescent Smokers

This study evaluated the effects of tobacco PUP (Purchase, Use and Possession) laws on tobacco use patterns among students in twenty-four towns, which were randomly assigned into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group involved both PUP law enforcement and reducing minors’ access to commercial sources of tobacco, and the condition for the control group involved only efforts to reduce minors’ access to commercial sources of tobacco. The present study found that adolescents in the control group had a significantly greater increase in the percentage of youth who smoked 20 or more cigarettes per day when compared to the experimental group

Low Sucrose, Omega-3 Enriched Diet Has Region-Specific Effects on Neuroinflammation and Synaptic Function Markers in a Mouse Model of Doxorubicin-Based Chemotherapy

Chemotherapeutic agents such as doxorubicin may negatively affect long-term brain functioning in cancer survivors; neuroinflammation may play a causal role. Dietary approaches that reduce inflammation, such as lowering sucrose and increasing eicosapentaenoic acid plus docosahexaenoic acid (EPA + DHA), may attenuate chemotherapy-induced neuroinflammation and synaptic damage, thereby improving quality of life. Ovariectomized, C57BL/6 mice were assigned to a chemotherapy (9 mg/kg doxorubicin + 90 mg/kg cyclophosphamide) or vehicle two-injection regimen, with injections two and four weeks after starting diets. In Study 1, mice received low sucrose diets with EPA + DHA or No EPA + DHA for four to six weeks; tissues were collected four, seven, or 14 days after the second injection. Compared to vehicle, chemotherapy increased pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1β at day seven in the cortex and hippocampus, and reduced gene expression of synaptic marker Shank 3 at all timepoints in cortex, while EPA + DHA increased expression of Shank 3. In Study 2, high or low sucrose/EPA + DHA or No EPA + DHA diets were fed for five weeks; tissues were collected ten days after the second injection. Among chemotherapy-treated mice, brain DHA was higher with low sucrose feeding. Furthermore, low sucrose increased gene expression of Shank 1, while EPA + DHA increased expression of Shank 3 and reduced protein concentrations of pro-inflammatory markers IL-5, IL-6 and KC/GRO in the cortex, but not the hippocampus. Low sucrose, EPA + DHA diets may attenuate neuroinflammation and synaptic damage induced by doxorubicin-based chemotherapy in specific brain regions