Why Weightlifters Grunt: A Classroom Exercise That Introduces Students to Evolution

A classroom exercise is described in which college students take part in creating and supporting an evolutionary hypothesis that explains effort grunting. The exercise holds their interest throughout and readies them to understand hypotheses of animal and plant evolution. It informs them about the dependence of cultural evolution upon biological evolution, and it connects widely to curricula

Eyes in the field, a seat at the table, a voice at the ranch : a study on optimal farm labor conditions.

The field of human resource development has twin obligations to promote the performance of organizations and the satisfaction and welfare of all workers. Nevertheless, agriculture appears to be an understudied industry in the field, despite this obligation and the potential for suffering experienced by workers performing crop work. This case study sought to understand the process through which a single agricultural operation fosters optimal conditions for workers engaged in labor-intensive crop production. This study found employees experienced better treatment compared to other agricultural operations, and that conditions were rich in both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsic factors were marked by (a) the recognition employees receive from customers and a vendor; (b) sense of achievement from high rates of production and being treated and respected as professionals; (c) opportunities for advancement that are fair and based on merit; (d) an abundance of growth and development opportunities, including communication and problem-solving skills; (e) responsibility workers have to improve the workplace and share in decision making, and (f) a sense of freedom from oppressive working conditions. Extrinsic factors were marked by: (a) high/low earning potential and potential work interruptions; (b) employer actively striving to offer more year-around employment to core employees; (c) trained and fair managers; (d) amicable and respectful interpersonal relations at all levels; (e) fair company policies and administration; (f) working conditions that promote employee health and welfare; (g) quality of personal life that is diminished by low hours and potential for back pain; and (h) employer is supportive of families

Retrograde movements and the educational encounter : working-class adults in first-year composition.

This dissertation explores the role first-year composition (FYC) courses play in the academic lives of working-class adult students in the University of Louisville, an institution that, during portions of its long history, has been a valuable educational resource for working adults in the Louisville area. A confluence of political and administrative pressures from both within and outside the institution have been working to shift U of L\u27s focus away from being an access-oriented metropolitan university and toward the standard research university model, which has meant raising minimum standardized test scores, increasing tuition on an annual basis, and reducing the number of evening classes available. All of these factors have dramatically decreased the percentage of nontraditional-age students at U of L-both across the curriculum and in FYC courses specifically. Those nontraditional students who do remain rely heavily on the literacy sponsorship of their families, employers, instructors, and (sometimes) their fellow students. While working-class adults are frequently among the diligent students in FYC classes, they are also likely to experience some feelings of isolation and alienation that stem from being the only older student in class, which in turn might reduce their contributions to classroom discussions. And yet working-class adults enrich our classes immeasurably by being both exemplary students and a complicating and enriching presence, requiring instructors to interrogate composition pedagogies often designed by default for a classroom full of 18-year-old freshmen

Podium Presentation: Nursing and Emotional Health Before and During the COVID-19 Hospital Surges

Background: Occupational burnout, a symptom of chronic work-related stress, can lead to negative health outcomes such as anxiety, depression, diabetes, insomnia, and increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Burnout also augments negative occupational risks such as increased sick days, decreased productivity, disability claims, and turnover. Nurses working in the hospital setting report high levels of work-related stress and burnout related to patient acuity levels and short staffing, and rates have further worsened in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergence of the virus brought multiple hospital surges, greatly increasing nursing workload as patient acuity climbed and simultaneously, national nurse turnover rates escalated to 19% in 2020 compared to 16% in 2019. In one health system, relationships between providing nursing care pre versus post COVID-19, emotional health, and turnover rates were unknown. Purpose/aims: To investigate relationships between working in the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, turnover rates, and nursing self-reported emotional health. Methods/Approach: In this project, we investigated data from two studies conducted at a single, multi-state health system: one between 2018-2019 (considered “pre-pandemic”) and another between 2020-2021 (considered “pandemic”). The sample of nurses (n = 91) working pre-pandemic completed valid and reliable surveys measuring stress (perceived stress scale, short form [PSS]), mood (Scale of Positive and Negative Experience), and sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale [KSS]) immediately following a 12-hour day or night shift. The second study included different nurses (n = 57) who completed valid measures on mood (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule), stress (PSS), sleepiness (KSS), COVID-related anxiety, sadness, and stress (Likert-scale items) under similar conditions. Results: Nurses reported more stress during the pandemic (m = 5.9, n = 57) versus before (m = 4.1, n = 91, p \u3c 0.001). Positive mood increased as self-reported stress decreased (r = -0.35 pre; -0.49 post, p \u3c 0.05), and the reverse was true for negative mood (r = 0.32 pre; 0.51 post, p \u3c 0.05) in both studies. Nurse sleepiness following a 12-hour shift during the pandemic compared to prior remained stable (p = 0.25). In the pandemic sample, nurses self-reported increased stress (83%, n = 45), anxiety (65%, n = 35), and sadness (52%, n = 28) due to working during COVID-19 surges. Nursing turnover rates in the health system followed similar trends to the national rates between 2018 -2021 (21% pre-pandemic to 27.5% after). Conclusion: Nurses working full-time, 12-hour shifts during the COVID pandemic are experiencing increased stress and worse mood, while simultaneously, overall nursing turnover rates increased compared to prior. Higher levels of stress related to worse mood for nurses during both conditions. Future work should explore strategies to help acute care nurses manage emotional health while promoting retention. Implications for practice: Providing hospital-based nursing care is demanding. Nursing leaders need to advocate for evidence-based resources to foster emotional well-being of nurses, regardless of whether hospitals are acutely experiencing increased acuity and critical staffing. References: Woo, T., Ho, R., Tang, A., & Tam, W. (2020). Global prevalence of burnout symptoms among nurses: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of psychiatric research, 123, 9-20. Backé, E. M., Seidler, A., Latza, U., Rossnagel, K., & Schumann, B. (2012). The role of psychosocial stress at work for the development of cardiovascular diseases: a systematic review. International archives of occupational and environmental health, 85(1), 67-79. Salvagioni, D. A. J., Melanda, F. N., Mesas, A. E., González, A. D., Gabani, F. L., & Andrade, S. M. D. (2017). Physical, psychological and occupational consequences of job burnout: A systematic review of prospective studies. PloS one, 12(10), e0185781. Sagherian, K., Steege, L. M., Cobb, S. J., & Cho, H. (2020). Insomnia, fatigue and psychosocial well‐being during COVID‐19 pandemic: A cross‐sectional survey of hospital nursing staff in the United States. Journal of clinical nursing. Colosi, B. (2021). 2021 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report. Nursing Soluntions Incorporated. Retrieved from https://www.nsinursingsolutions.com/Documents/Library/NSI_National_Health_Care_Retention_Report.pdf University of Saint Augustine for Health Sciences. (May 2021). The 2021 American Nursing Shortage: A Data Study. Retrieved from https://www.usa.edu/blog/nursing-shortage

Social interactions and the demand for sport: an economic analysis

‘The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.com '. Copyright Blackwell Publishing DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7287.2007.00071.xThis paper explores the decision to participate in sports activities in the UK and the subsequent frequency of participation. The paper draws links between economic and other theories of social interaction to motivate the discussion and links these theories to assessing policy initiatives in the UK. Cluster analysis is combined with a Heckman analysis to examine the empirical evidence provided by the General Household Survey in 2002. The results suggest that social and personal capital are of paramount importance in determining sports participation and consequently it is these features that policy should focus upon.Peer reviewe

Bioinformatic approaches for the genetic and phenotypic characterization of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast collection

The objective of the present study was to compare genetic and phenotypic variation of 103 Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains isolated from winemaking environments. We used bioinformatics approaches to identify genetically similary strains with specific phenotypes and to estimate a strain's biotechnological potential. 
A S. cerevisiae collection, comprising 440 strains that were obtained from winemaking environments in Portugal has been constituted during the last years. All strains were genetically characterized by a set of eleven highly polymorphic microsatellites and showed unique allelic combinations. Using neural networks, a subset of 103 genetically most diverse strains was chosen for phenotypic analysis, that included growth in synthetic must media at various temperatures, utilization of carbon sources (glucose, ribose, arabinose, xylose, saccharose, galactose, rafinose, maltose, glycerol, potassium acetate and pyruvic acid), growth in ethanol containing media, evaluation of osmotic and oxidative stress resistance, H2S production and utilization of different nitrogen sources. Using supervised data mining approaches we have found that genotype represented with presence/absence of eleven microsatellites relates well with geographical location (performance evaluation using leave-out-out technique resulted in high performance scores; e.g., area under ROC curve was above 0.8 for a number of standard machine learning approaches tested). To find relations between phenotypes and genotypes, we used a two-step approach which first hierarchically clusters the strains according to their phenotype, and then tests if the resulting sub-clusters are identifiable using strain’s genetic data. Several groups of strains with similar phenotype profiles and common features in genotype were identified this way, and they are subject to further investigations. 

Financially supported by the programs POCI 2010 (FEDER/FCT, POCTI/AGR/56102/2004) and AGRO (ENOSAFE, Nº 762).
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Ambientes colaborativos virtuais: potencial das redes sociais. O caso das empresas do Algarve

O objetivo do presente artigo é analisar o potencial das redes sociais no desempenho das pequenas e médias empresas da região do Algarve, tendo sido efectuado um questionário para o efeito. O estudo empírico realizado revela que os dados recolhidos (de 70 empresas) possuem boas qualidades psico-métricas. Procedeu-se a uma análise categórica de componentes principais, a qual identificou duas principais tipologias de objectivos nas redes sociais: redes sociais para interacção produto-cliente e pesquisa ou conhecimento; e redes sociais com potencial para o marketing. Uma análise suplementar - análise hierárquica de clusters (com recurso ao método de agrupamento de Ward) - identificou três padrões de empresas consoante o seu grau de envolvimento em redes sociais: cluster Social Tec Grau 1; cluster Social Tec Grau 2 e cluster Social Tec Grau 3. Estas análises permitem validar uma metodologia sustentável para este tipo de avaliação