GBCW Support for Shellfish Activities 2003

The Great Bay Coast Watch (GBCW) is a volunteer estuarine monitoring program established in 1989 that includes teachers, students, and local citizens with a diversity of backgrounds. Volunteers participate in a variety of training programs that enable them to monitor water quality parameters in Great Bay and coastal areas, sample for marine phytoplankton blooms and conduct shoreline surveys and habitat evaluations. Since 1997 the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) has relied on the ability of GBCW to recruit and train volunteers to assist with the implementation of its plan to protect, restore and manage the states estuarine systems. This year GBCW again participated in plan implementation by assisting the NH Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) Shellfish Program. Volunteers completed a variety of work tasks, including mussel collection, sample collection and transport and general field assistance

(In)Forming and Pressing Matters: Laying the Foundations for the Preservation and Interpretation of the Western Clay Manufacturing Company

In the United States, brick and tile manufactories were once ubiquitous. Currently, the number of extant late nineteenth- to early-twentieth century complexes devoted to the production of brick and tile products is negligible. Of the few remaining historic manufactories, none evidences what can be found at Helena, Montana’s shuttered Western Clay Manufacturing Company (Western Clay): three generations of kiln technology and numerous intact principal buildings, machinery, and infrastructural elements related to the production of structural and hollow clay tile. Since its closure, Western Clay’s place in historical memory has suffered attrition. Concomitantly, the greater public’s understanding of this manufactory has diminished. Still, this site is poised to tell the little-known but important social, technological, and industrial histories of late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century brickyards. Through in-depth historical research, this thesis will illuminate the significance of Western Clay and begin to reinvest the site with historical memories. In an effort to revitalize, not elide important histories through the removal of buildings, machinery and infrastructural elements that might otherwise fulfill important mnemonic functions and provide both identity constructing and educational functions for both present and future generations, this work also furnishes the manufactory’s stewards and supporters with a site-specific, historically informed rationale for future preservation decision-making. This rationale is grounded in author and preservation professional Ned Kaufman’s concept of “storyscapes.” It is also informed by both the aforementioned body of historical research and a general conditions assessment that was created during the summer of 2011

Great Bay Coast Watch: A Citizen Water Monitoring Program Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Manual, 2004

The Great Bay Coast Watch is citizen volunteers, working within the UNH Cooperative Extension/NH Sea Grant Program, protecting the long-term health and natural resources of New Hampshire’s coastal waters and estuarine systems through monitoring and education projects. The purpose of this document is to present step-by-step instructions for conducting water quality testing in support of the Great Bay Coast Watch (GBCW)

ER translocation intermediates are adjacent to a nonglycosylated 34-kD integral membrane protein

We have used the homobifunctional cross-linking reagent disuccinimidyl suberate (DSS) to identify proteins that are adjacent to nascent polypeptides undergoing translocations across mammalian rough ER. Translocation intermediates were assembled by supplementing cell free translations of truncated mRNAs with the signal recognition particle (SRP) and microsomal membrane vesicles. Two prominent cross-linked products of 45 and 64 kD were detected. The 64-kD product was obtained when the cell free translation contained SRP, while formation of the 45-kD product required both SRP and translocation competent microsomal membrane vesicles. In agreement with previous investigators, we suggest that the 64-kD product arises by cross-linking of the nascent polypeptide to the 54-kD subunit of SRP. The 45-kD product resists alkaline extraction from the membrane, so we conclude that the 11-kD nascent polypeptide has been crosslinked to an integral membrane protein of approximately 34 kD (imp34). The cross-linked product does not bind to ConA Sepharose, nor is it sensitive to endoglycosidase H digestion; hence imp34 is not identical to the alpha or beta subunits of the signal sequence receptor (SSR). We propose that imp34 functions in concert with SSR to form a translocation site through which nascent polypeptides pass in traversing the membrane bilayer of the rough endoplasmic reticulum

Clostridium difficile in patients attending tuberculosis hospitals in Cape Town, South Africa, 2014–2015

Background: Diarrhoea due to Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) poses a significant burden on healthcare systems around the world. However, there are few reports on the current status of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Objectives: This study examined the occurrence of CDI in a South African population of tuberculosis patients, as well as the molecular epidemiology and antibiotic susceptibility profiles of C. difficile strains responsible for disease. Methods: Toxigenic C. difficile in patients with suspected CDI attending two specialist tuberculosis hospitals in the Cape Town area were detected using a PCR-based diagnostic assay (Xpert® C. difficile). C. difficile strains isolated from PCR-positive specimens were characterised by ribotyping, multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis and antibiotic susceptibility testing. Results: The period prevalence of CDI was approximately 70.07 cases per 1000 patient admissions. Strains belonging to ribotype 017 (RT017) made up over 95% of the patient isolates and all of them were multi-drug resistant. Multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis revealed several clusters of highly related C. difficile RT017 strains present in tuberculosis patients in several wards at each hospital. Conclusion: Tuberculosis patients represent a population that may be at an increased risk of developing CDI and, in addition, may constitute a multi-drug resistant reservoir of this bacterium. This warrants further investigation and surveillance of the disease in this patient group and other high-risk patient groups in sub-Saharan Africa

Reliability of grading using a rubric versus a traditional marking scheme in statistics

Assessment grading in statistics and mathematics has often been approached in an ad-hoc manner, using marking schemes that attach marks to specific steps of a model solution and often do not explicitly reference assessment criteria. Another approach for grading is to use rubrics. Rubrics are recognised to have several advantages for assessment, but research on the reliability of grading with rubrics is equivocal and mostly conducted in less quantitative disciplines. We present a direct comparison of the reliability of marking of a written statistics assignment using a rubric and using the traditional marking scheme approach. We use a Bayesian statistical analysis and find that both methods yield similar levels of inter-rater and intra-rater reliability