Ice Ice Baby: Teaching Addiction Using Experiential Learning and Reflection

This activity was previously presented at the 2016 Association for Gerontology in Higher Education Annual Conference in Long Beach, California. Abstract Students are often reluctant to realize that their parents, grandparents, or older clients may be using or abusing drugs. Recent research indicates that alcohol is the most frequently abused substance among adults over 50. Prescriptions rank second, but research shows dramatic increases in the use of illicit drugs by older females. Additionally, the over 50 age group had the highest hospital admission for illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, or opiates. The addiction simulation exercise ICE ICE BABY provides students with a deeper understanding of addiction, including an insight into the social experiences of drug/alcohol use and abuse. Explicit directions for using the exercise are included as well as reflections from students within two programs. Keywords: drug addiction, simulations, active learning, experiential learning DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-6-16 Publication date: February 29th 202

The ABCs of Racial Disparity

Data show that Black and White people use marijuana at roughly equal rates. Yet in 2018, in six of Dallas County\u27s biggest cities, Black people were vastly overrepresented in the enforcement of low-level drug crimes. With a look at enforcement trends before the election of District Attorney John Creuzot, this study launches a series of reports about how his reforms have impacted Dallas County.https://scholar.smu.edu/deasoncenter/1004/thumbnail.jp

Scaffolding & Fading: Enhancing Literacy Skills across a Curriculum to Achieve Mastery

This paper discusses the use of paragraph frames in a formative assessment activity within an introductory sociology course. The paragraph frame scaffolding allows the student to be a more informed and engaged learner in lower level courses and feel success with their introductory summary writing. This self-confidence allows the student to move forward into no longer being reliant upon paragraph frames or others (peers/instructors). The Sociology in the News activity incorporates scaffolding and fading via the use of a similar activity across the curriculum. The use of the paragraph frames focuses on mastery of information literacy, and accommodates student needs through effective instruction (using paragraph frames). This allows for retention, progression, and matriculation of students. The sociology curriculum is discussed via the use of scaffolding and fading based on Vygotsky’s scaffolding concepts within the student’s zone of proximal development, using paragraph frames across a curriculum, using the concept of IRMA level of ability (Introduce, Reinforce, Mastery, and Assessment) in formative assessments. As universities are focusing general education assessment of students, particularly Post-Covid19, information literacy is a skill that is can be assessed using IRMA level of ability. Literacy skills are particularly important in moving the students toward life-long learning and understanding how information is situated from a social situated perspective as well as the production from a scholarly standpoint. Keywords: IRMA Level of Ability, Paragraph Frames, Literacy, Vygotsky, Scaffolding DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-3-01 Publication date: January 31st 202

Creating a Professional Development Plan for a Simulation Consortium

As the United States struggles with health care reform and a nursing education system that inadequately prepares students for practice, dramatic advances in educational technology signal opportunities for both academic and practicing nurses to affect our profession as never before. Simulation technologies provide large and small institutions with the means to educate health care students and novice professionals effectively and efficiently through hands-on experience, but the costs of such a venture can be prohibitive. A simulation consortium offers a venue for different health care and educational institutions with shared goals to pool knowledge, monies, and labor toward health care education throughout a geographic area. This article details one Midwestern U.S. region's work in creating a professional development plan for a new simulation consortium

Communication between levels of transcriptional control improves robustness and adaptivity

Regulation of eukaryotic gene expression depends on groups of related proteins acting at the levels of chromatin organization, transcriptional initiation, RNA processing, and nuclear transport. However, a unified understanding of how these different levels of transcriptional control interact has been lacking. Here, we combine genome-wide protein–DNA binding data from multiple sources to infer the connections between functional groups of regulators in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Our resulting transcriptional network uncovers novel biological relationships; supporting experiments confirm new associations between actively transcribed genes and Sir2 and Esc1, two proteins normally linked to silencing chromatin. Analysis of the regulatory network also reveals an elegant architecture for transcriptional control. Using communication theory, we show that most protein regulators prefer to form modules within their functional class, whereas essential proteins maintain the sparse connections between different classes. Moreover, we provide evidence that communication between different regulatory groups improves the robustness and adaptivity of the cell

Survival, Growth and Reproduction of Non-Native Nile Tilapia II: Fundamental Niche Projections and Invasion Potential in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Understanding the fundamental niche of invasive species facilitates our ability to predict both dispersal patterns and invasion success and therefore provides the basis for better-informed conservation and management policies. Here we focus on Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus Linnaeus, 1758), one of the most widely cultured fish worldwide and a species that has escaped local aquaculture facilities to become established in a coastal-draining river in Mississippi (northern Gulf of Mexico). Using empirical physiological data, logistic regression models were developed to predict the probabilities of Nile tilapia survival, growth, and reproduction at different combinations of temperature (14 and 30°C) and salinity (0–60, by increments of 10). These predictive models were combined with kriged seasonal salinity data derived from multiple long-term data sets to project the species\u27 fundamental niche in Mississippi coastal waters during normal salinity years (averaged across all years) and salinity patterns in extremely wet and dry years (which might emerge more frequently under scenarios of climate change). The derived fundamental niche projections showed that during the summer, Nile tilapia is capable of surviving throughout Mississippi\u27s coastal waters but growth and reproduction were limited to river mouths (or upriver). Overwinter survival was also limited to river mouths. The areas where Nile tilapia could survive, grow, and reproduce increased during extremely wet years (2–368%) and decreased during extremely dry years (86–92%) in the summer with a similar pattern holding for overwinter survival. These results indicate that Nile tilapia is capable of 1) using saline waters to gain access to other watersheds throughout the region and 2) establishing populations in nearshore, low-salinity waters, particularly in the western portion of coastal Mississippi

Teaching Summative Writing within an Introductory Sociology Course: Do Paragraph Frames Improve Students’ Writing Skills?

This article describes the use of a summary writing assignment within an intro sociology course for application of sociological knowledge to current events. Summative writing is paramount to moving through the college curriculum, yet students struggle to be able to begin summary writing exercises, often procrastinating until the last moment, and thus are unsuccessful. Scripts or summary frames are also helpful in the transition to academic language acquisition skill-building, noting scripts, even for speech, provide scaffolding. Thus low states summary writings such as in introductory sociology courses are allowing students to build upon their learned skill as they move through into their upper level discipline focused courses. The skill is transferable to all disciplines and is not relegated to discipline specificity. The following article describes a Time 1/Time 2 assessment of the use of summary frames, with Time 1 using non-prompted writing within the assignment, and Time 2 using prompted writing within the assignments. Additionally, an assessment of the Readability Flesch-Kincaid is considered. Keywords: Writing Prompts, Summative Writing, Introduction courses, Sociology DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-29-09 Publication date:October 31st 2019

The Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network

The Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network is a national network recently established to focus on developing new interventions and disseminating and translating proven interventions into practice to reduce cancer burden and disparities, especially among minority and medically underserved populations. Jointly funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network consists of sites administered through Prevention Research Centers funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The five sites are located in Kentucky, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Texas, Washington State, and West Virginia. The Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network's intervention areas include primary prevention of cancer through healthy eating, physical activity, sun avoidance, tobacco control, and early detection of cancer through screening. The Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network uses the methods of community-based participatory research and seeks to build on the cancer-relevant systematic reviews of the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Initial foci for the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network's research work groups include projects to increase screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers; to promote informed decision making for prostate cancer screening; and to validate educational materials developed for low-literacy populations

Biscayne Bay commercial pink shrimp, Farfantepenaeus duorarum, fisheries, 1986-2005

The Biscayne Bay bait (1986–2005) and food (1989–2005) fisheries for pink shrimp were examined using dealer-reported individual vessel-trip landings data, separated by waterbody code to represent only catches from Biscayne Bay. Annual landings varied little during the 1980’s and early 1990’s, and landings of the bait shrimp fishery exceeded those of the food shrimp fishery. The number of trips and landings in both fisheries increased from the late 1990’s through 2002 and food shrimp landings exceeded landings of bait shrimp; landings in both fisheries decreased sharply in 2003. Landings in both fisheries increased in 2004 and 2005, but the increase in food shrimp landings was stronger. Annual catch per trip was much lower in the bait fishery than the food fishery. Each fishery exploited shrimp of a different size. The bait fishery targeted shrimp less than 19 mm carapace length (CL), whereas the food fishery caught shrimp greater than 19 mm CL. We compared monthly bait shrimp catch per unit of effort (CPUE) from the fishery to an estimate of shrimp density from a fishery-independent sampling effort over a 3-yr period and found a strong statistical relationship with the density estimate lagged by 3 mo. The relationship supported the use of bait shrimp fishery CPUE as an index of abundance in upcoming assessments of the effect of a massive water-management-based ecosystem restoration project on pink shrimp in Biscayne Bay. Project implementation will affect freshwater inflows to the bay and salinity patterns. An abundance index with a lengthy pre-implementation history that can be carried into the operational phase of the restoration project will be invaluable in assessing project effects and protecting an important fishery resource of Biscayne Bay. The bait shrimp fishery can provide a continuing index of shrimp abundance from late 1986 forward