Creative Approaches to Building Community Research Partnerships: Resources and Collaborations

Moderator: Robin A. Robinson, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Session Description The purpose of this interdisciplinary breakout session is to present several different approaches to the perception, creation, and implementation of community engaged research partnerships, and the range of funding sources that support them. Panelists will present brief descriptions of their projects and funding, followed by the UMass Dartmouth Research Development Manager’s insights and suggestions concerning the funding of successful matches of academic researchers and community research partners. Session Presenters, Titles and Descriptions Caitlin M. Stover, PhD, RN, PHCNS-BC, CNE, College of Nursing, Department of Community Nursing Community Based Participatory Research with Community Health Workers of the Southcoast Region My community partner and I had several ideas and projects that we wanted to work on together. To help organize our thoughts and deliverables, we applied for a spot in the first cohort of the Community Based Participatory Research Academy, a grant funded week-long course presented by the University Of Michigan School Of Public Health and the Detroit Urban Research Center. Spending a week with community engaged researchers and community leaders focused the academic-community partnership of UMass Dartmouth College of Nursing Assistant Professor Caitlin Stover and Community Leader Kathleen Murphy to promote the health of Southcoast region by mobilizing and building the capacity of Community Health Workers in the region. Monthly guided video conferences/workshops/virtual communications conducted by our assigned mentors (one community based mentor and one academic mentor) and the core of community engaged researchers assisted us in receiving a non-competitive Community Partnership Building Grant, creating and accomplishing short and long term goals, all while providing expert mentorship in applying the CBPR tenets to our work. Andrea Klimt, PhD, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology & Anthropology Pride of Place: The Potential of Collaborative Photography The Fall River Portraits project brought together university sociology and anthropology students, local high school students, and senior citizens to photographically document the complex social realities of a small economically-struggling Massachusetts city. Project photographers documented the impact of decades of economic decline on the social fabric and built environment of this urban space as well as evidence of cultural vibrancy and resilience in the city’s various neighborhoods. The resulting visual narratives fostered a pride of place and hopeful sense of self-recognition amongst local residents and encouraged the thoughtful engagement with local realities of participating college students. This project was funded by the UMass President\u27s Office, Creative Economy Award. Christina Cipriano, PhD, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology Class Interrupted: Improving Under-studied Classroom Environments Funded by the William T. Grant Foundation and recently, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the RELATE Project has been conducting systematic investigations of self-contained classrooms over the past four years across the Northeast. Towards the end of improving outcomes for students and educators in self-contained special education classrooms, we are advancing the science of classroom observation and improving the quality of educational experiences, one classroom at a time. To date, our work has resulted in a new psychometrically validated tool for evaluating effective interactions in these classrooms and an ecologically valid team-based professional development approach for teacher-paraeducator teams. Robin A. Robinson, PhD, PsyD, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology & Anthropology Psychological Foundations of Power and Relational Abuse Amongst Rural and Small-Town Teens Initially funded by a pilot grant from the UMass Medical School CTSA-CER Pilot Program, and in community partnership with the Cape Cod Justice for Youth Collaborative and other member agencies of the Barnstable County Council for Children, Youth, and Families, this multi-stage project addressed the question: What are the conscious and unconscious psychological processes and power dynamics that explain behaviors associated with “teen dating violence”? The strong collaborative, and integrated, relationship that already existed between the PI and community partners contributed to the success of this pilot study, and facilitated new alliances amongst ancillary agencies. Collaborations has included regional organization of focus groups across Barnstable County (Cape Cod) to produce a data pool of first-person perspectives of teen relationships and violence in contexts of community challenges and supports. The work has considered diverse social and economic contexts as variable forces that affect psychological processes, to explore the psychology of teen relational abuse. Mary Hensel, Research Development Manager, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Research Development Strategies for Community Engaged Research Partnership

Applying desirability functions to preference modelling in low-energy building design optimization

Building performance optimization is a valuable aid to design decision-making. Most existing research takes an ‘a posteriori’ approach, where stakeholder preferences are considered after deriving optimised results. Whilst this approach yields technically optimal solutions, it overlooks sub-optimal solutions that still satisfy stakeholder preferences. This research develops a technique to incorporate preferences into optimization by applying a “desirability function” to each criterion for multiple stakeholders. The approach enables the tradeoffs between decision-makers to be visualised as a Pareto frontier and aids “democratic” decision-making. Hence, incorporating preferences in advance of optimization may increase the likelihood of finding a desirable solution

Hyper-Methylated Loci Persisting from Sessile Serrated Polyps to Serrated Cancers

Although serrated polyps were historically considered to pose little risk, it is now understood that progression down the serrated pathway could account for as many as 15%–35% of colorectal cancers. The sessile serrated adenoma/polyp (SSA/P) is the most prevalent pre-invasive serrated lesion. Our objective was to identify the CpG loci that are persistently hyper-methylated during serrated carcinogenesis, from the early SSA/P lesion through the later cancer phases of neoplasia development. We queried the loci hyper-methylated in serrated cancers within our rightsided SSA/Ps from the New Hampshire Colonoscopy Registry, using the Illumina Infinium Human Methylation 450 k panel to comprehensively assess the DNA methylation status. We identified CpG loci and regions consistently hyper-methylated throughout the serrated carcinogenesis spectrum, in both our SSA/P specimens and in serrated cancers. Hyper-methylated CpG loci included the known the tumor suppressor gene RET (p = 5.72 x 10−10), as well as loci in differentially methylated regions for GSG1L, MIR4493, NTNG1, MCIDAS, ZNF568, and RERG. The hyper-methylated loci that we identified help characterize the biology of SSA/P development, and could be useful as therapeutic targets, or for future identification of patients who may benefit from shorter surveillance intervals

To exclose nests or not: structured decision making for the conservation of a threatened species

Decisions regarding endangered species recovery often face sparse data and multiple sources of uncertainty about the effects of management. Structured decision making (SDM) provides a framework for assembling knowledge and expert opinion and evaluating the tradeoffs between different objectives while formally incorporating uncertainty. The Atlantic Coast piping plover provides an illustrative case for the utility of SDM in endangered species management because its population growth is simple to model, most populations are monitored, decision alternatives are well defined, and many managers are open to recovery recommendations. We built a model to evaluate the decision to use nest exclosures to protect piping plover eggs from predators, where the objective was to maximize λ and the tradeoff was between nest survival and adult survival. The latter can be reduced by exclosures. We used a novel mixed multinomial logistic exposure model to predict daily nest fates and incorporated the results into a stochastic projection matrix that included renesting after nest failure, and adult mortality associated with abandonment. In our test data set (n = 329 nests from 28 sites over four years), the mean nest survival over 34 days was markedly higher for exclosed nests (0.76 ± 0.03 SE) than for unexclosed nests (0.37 ± 0.07). Abandonment rates were also higher for exclosed nests (0.092 ± 0.017) than for unexclosed nests (0.045 ± 0.017), but the difference was not statistically signifi- cant and the loss rate to “other sources” (mostly predators) was much lower for exclosed nests (0.15 ± 0.03) than for unexclosed nests (0.58 ± 0.07). Population growth rate (λ) was clearly improved by exclosure use at the sites with high background nest loss rates, but λ was still \u3c1 with exclosure use. Where the background nest loss rates were low, the decision to use exclosures was ambiguous, and λ could benefit from reducing uncertainty in vital rates. Our process demonstrated that geographic and temporal variation in nest mortality determines whether exclosures will be useful in attaining positive population growth rates and that other management options must be considered where the background nest mortality rates are high

AAV-mediated expression of anti-tau scFvs decreases tau accumulation in a mouse model of tauopathy

Tauopathies are characterized by the progressive accumulation of hyperphosphorylated, aggregated forms of tau. Our laboratory has previously demonstrated that passive immunization with an anti-tau antibody, HJ8.5, decreased accumulation of pathological tau in a human P301S tau-expressing transgenic (P301S-tg) mouse model of frontotemporal dementia/tauopathy. To investigate whether the

The Myth of the Angry Atheist

Atheists are often portrayed in the media and elsewhere as angry individuals. Although atheists disagree with the pillar of many religions, namely the existence of a God, it may not necessarily be the case that they are angry individuals. The prevalence and accuracy of angry-atheist perceptions were examined in 7 studies with 1,677 participants from multiple institutions and locations in the United States. Studies 1–3 revealed that people believe atheists are angrier than believers, people in general, and other minority groups, both explicitly and implicitly. Studies 4–7 then examined the accuracy of these beliefs. Belief in God, state anger, and trait anger were assessed in multiple ways and contexts. None of these studies supported the idea that atheists are particularly angry individuals. Rather, these results support the idea that people believe atheists are angry individuals, but they do not appear to be angrier than other individuals in reality

The Association Between Ascorbate and the Hypoxia-Inducible Factors in Human Renal Cell Carcinoma Requires a Functional Von Hippel-Lindau Protein

Hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIFs) drive angiogenesis and cancer cell growth, contributing to an aggressive tumor phenotype. HIF-α protein levels and activity are controlled at the post-translational level by HIF hydroxylases. Hydroxylated HIF-α is recognized by the von Hippel Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor and targeted for degradation. The HIF hydroxylases are members of the iron and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases, which require ascorbate as cofactor for activity. Clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC) harbor mutations in the VHL gene, whereas papillary RCC (pRCC) have a functional VHL. These natural occurring VHL variants in RCC enable the testing, in clinical samples, of the hypothesis that ascorbate modulates HIF-α levels through its role as a cofactor for the HIF hydroxylases. We measured ascorbate, HIF-1α, and HIF-2α protein and HIF downstream targets BNIP3, CA9, cyclin D1, GLUT1, and VEGF (combined to generate the HIF pathway score) in VHL-defective ccRCC (n = 73) and VHL-proficient pRCC human tumor tissue (n = 41). HIF and ascorbate levels were increased in ccRCC and pRCC tumors compared to matched renal cortex. HIF-1 and total HIF pathway activation scores were decreased with higher ascorbate in pRCC tumors (Spearman r = −0.38, p < 0.05 and r = −0.35, p < 0.05). This was not evident for ccRCC tumors. In mechanistic studies in vitro, ascorbate influenced HIF-1 activity in VHL-proficient, but not VHL-defective ccRCC cells. Our results indicate that ccRCC, which lacks a functional VHL, does not respond to ascorbate-mediated modulation of the HIF response. This contrasts with the demonstrated association between ascorbate content and the HIF pathway observed in pRCC and other tumors with a functional VHL. The results support a role for ascorbate as a modulator of HIF activity and tumor aggression in cancer types with a functional hypoxic response