Oral history interview with Douglas R. Snow (SOH-078)

Dr. Douglas R. Snow, Professor Emeritus of the Institute of Public Services at Suffolk University, reflects on his personal and professional life before, during, and after his career at Suffolk University. Dr. Snow also talks about his role as a faculty member and chair of the Public Administration department, the growth of the various programs and degrees offered, as well as, the colleagues that inspired him during his career. Dr. Snow concludes with a reflection on what he hopes students gain from the MPA programs, their potential impact in the public sphere, and the future direction of Suffolk’s program.https://dc.suffolk.edu/soh/1052/thumbnail.jp

Bottle-nose dolphin stranded at Kovalam in Kerala

On 5th September 1998, an Indian bottle-nose dolphin {Tursiops truncatus aduncus Ehrenberg. 1833) was washed ashore at Ashoka beach in Kovalam

A COMPARATIVE EVALUATION ON THE EFFECT OF ZINC-PROBIOTIC AND PROBIOTIC THERAPY IN PAEDIATRIC ACUTE DIARRHOEA AND THE IMPACT OF COUNSELLING OF MOTHERS

Objective: To compare the efficacy of zinc-probiotic combination therapy and probiotic therapy alone in the treatment of acute paediatric diarrhoea and to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of the mothers of affected children and the impact of counselling on diarrhoea management.Methods: A prospective observational comparative study was conducted from October 2014 to March 2015 in the paediatric department of Cosmopolitan Hospitals Pvt. Ltd., Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, South India. The study was carried out on 150 patients between the ages of 3 mo to 12 y. The selected patients were divided into 2 groups of 75 members each. Initially, demographic data, details of socioeconomic status, severity, duration and frequency of diarrhoea and the presence of other associated symptoms and KAP of mothers before and after counselling was collected by using specially designed proforma. Group 1 patients received zinc and probiotic and Group 2 received probiotic only by oral administration. All children in both groups received sufficient quantity of oral rehydration solution (ORS). The requirement of other medications and adverse effects were also monitored.Results: The study revealed that, in group 1, 54.6% of patients were males and in group 2, 58.6% were females. The mean age of affected children was 5.14±3.53. In both groups, the majority of patients were from outpatient (OP) departments. In group 1, majority of patients, 49.3% were resting in upper lower economic class followed by 30.7% were lower middle class. In the case of group 2, 34.6% patients were from lower middle and 28% were from upper middle class. Other medications such as antiemetic and antipyretic were administered to 127and 110 patients respectively. Antisecretory and antibiotic were administered to 31 and 26 patients respectively. Totally 8 patients were affected with adverse drug reactions such as rashes and swelling of lips. In both groups severity of diarrhoea was high before treatment and it was changed after effective treatment with drugs. Comparing with group 2, the duration and severity of diarrhoea and other associated symptoms in group 1 patients were significantly reduced after treatment. Before counseling, the majority of mothers had very poor knowledge about the diarrhoeal disease and its management. Evaluation after counselling showed a significant improvement.Conclusion: Low socioeconomic life is a risk factor for diarrhoea. A combination of zinc and probiotic therapy is more effective than probiotic therapy alone in the treatment of acute diarrhoea and vomiting in children. The emergence and severity of the diarrhoeal disease can be reduced by effective clinical pharmacist interventions, and a great emphasis is needed in the counselling and education of mothers about this disease and its management.Keywords: Paediatric diarrhoea, Zinc, Probiotic, KAP, Counselling and educatio

Inhibition of the growth of Bacillus subtilis DSM10 by a newly discovered antibacterial protein from the soil metagenome

A functional metagenomics based approach exploiting the microbiota of suppressive soils from an organic field site has succeeded in the identification of a clone with the ability to inhibit the growth of Bacillus subtilis DSM10. Sequencing of the fosmid identified a putative β-lactamase-like gene abgT. Transposon mutagenesis of the abgT gene resulted in a loss in ability to inhibit the growth of B. subtilis DSM10. Further analysis of the deduced amino acid sequence of AbgT revealed moderate homology to esterases, suggesting that the protein may possess hydrolytic activity. Weak lipolytic activity was detected; however the clone did not appear to produce any β-lactamase activity. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the protein is a member of the family VIII group of lipase/esterases and clusters with a number of proteins of metagenomic origin. The abgT gene was sub-cloned into a protein expression vector and when introduced into the abgT transposon mutant clones restored the ability of the clones to inhibit the growth of B. subtilis DSM10, clearly indicating that the abgT gene is involved in the antibacterial activity. While the precise role of this protein has yet to fully elucidated, it may be involved in the generation of free fatty acid with antibacterial properties. Thus functional metagenomic approaches continue to provide a significant resource for the discovery of novel functional proteins and it is clear that hydrolytic enzymes, such as AbgT, may be a potential source for the development of future antimicrobial therapies

The role of microtubule movement in bidirectional organelle transport

We study the role of microtubule movement in bidirectional organelle transport in Drosophila S2 cells and show that EGFP-tagged peroxisomes in cells serve as sensitive probes of motor induced, noisy cytoskeletal motions. Multiple peroxisomes move in unison over large time windows and show correlations with microtubule tip positions, indicating rapid microtubule fluctuations in the longitudinal direction. We report the first high-resolution measurement of longitudinal microtubule fluctuations performed by tracing such pairs of co-moving peroxisomes. The resulting picture shows that motor-dependent longitudinal microtubule oscillations contribute significantly to cargo movement along microtubules. Thus, contrary to the conventional view, organelle transport cannot be described solely in terms of cargo movement along stationary microtubule tracks, but instead includes a strong contribution from the movement of the tracks.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure

Stranding of a rare marine dolphin at Vizhinjam

On sighting a dolphin struggling for survival In the near shore area off Adimaithura (near Vizhinjam) on 31-08-1998, the fishermen encircled it with a shore seine. It was a rare marine Risso's dolphin, Grampus griseus (Cuvier, 1812), measuring 250 cm in length. In spite of the medical treatments given for the injuries, it survived in the Marine Aquarium at Vizhinjam for about 13 hrs only

Scaffolding School Pupils’ Scientific Argumentation with Evidence-Based Dialogue Maps

This chapter reports pilot work investigating the potential of Evidence-based Dialogue Mapping to scaffold young teenagers’ scientific argumentation. Our research objective is to better understand pupils’ usage of dialogue maps created in Compendium to write scientific ex-planations. The participants were 20 pupils, 12-13 years old, in a summer science course for “gifted and talented” children in the UK. Through qualitative analysis of three case studies, we investigate the value of dialogue mapping as a mediating tool in the scientific reasoning process during a set of learning activities. These activities were published in an online learning envi-ronment to foster collaborative learning. Pupils mapped their discussions in pairs, shared maps via the online forum and in plenary discussions, and wrote essays based on their dialogue maps. This study draws on these multiple data sources: pupils’ maps in Compendium, writings in science and reflective comments about the uses of mapping for writing. Our analysis highlights the diversity of ways, both successful and unsuccessful, in which dialogue mapping was used by these young teenagers