Winter 2019 BUCK-I-SERV to Costa Rica

STEP Category: Service-Learning and Community ServiceThe Buck-I-Serv and Outdoor Adventure Center service trip to Costa Rica was a 10-day fully immersive experience into Costa Rica's rich culture through providing meaningful service to the town of Brujo, Costa Rica, interacting with homestay families, and participating in various high-adventure activities. The trip is part of the Service Learning and Community Service category. While in Costa Rica we worked with the organization Autentico Adventures to help improve the Brujo community, working 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. building a new fence, mixing concrete, doing stucco, and much more. The housing during the trip included a home stay, cabins, beach home, and even a cave! The trips total cost was $3,250 and included all transportation, meals, and activities (such as waterfall repelling, white water rafting, hiking, cliff jumping, and surfing).The Ohio State University Second-year Transformational Experience Program (STEP)Academic Major: Neuroscienc

Systematics of Himerometra (Echinodermata: Crinoidea: Himerometridae) based on morphology and molecular data

One of the most common genera of feather stars found on tropical Indo-western Pacific reefs, Himerometra A.H.Clark, 1907, has previously included six accepted species, distinguished chiefly by variations in the enlarged proximal pinnules. This study examined new and existing specimens using molecular (mtDNA and nuDNA) techniques and morphological characters to revise the genus. Both approaches support placing H. magnipinna and H. martensi as junior synonyms of H. robustipinna. Sequence data for specimens attributed to H. bartschi also place this species as a junior synonym of H. robustipinna, despite some morphological disparity. Himerometra sol is retained as distinct despite morphological congruence with H. robustipinna, because the two known specimens were collected outside the known range of the latter, with no molecular data currently available. Himerometra persica is herein transferred to Heterometra: the type specimens were incorrectly identified. The species treated as valid are redescribed. This study illustrates the importance of re-examining crinoid species boundaries for established taxa without molecular corroboration and demonstrates that diversity in this particular feather star clade might be lower than previously thought

Benefit Plan Cybersecurity Considerations: A Recordkeeper and Plan Perspective

The U.S. has no comprehensive national law governing cybersecurity and no uniform framework for measuring the effectiveness of protections, though retirement plan record keepers maintain the personally identifiable information on millions of workers, collecting names, birth dates, social security numbers, and beneficiaries. Plan sponsors frequently engage consultants and attorneys to help them secure sensitive data, but more work is necessary to engage a larger discussion around this issue. The SPARK Institute has outlined a flexible approach for an independent third-party reporting of cyber security capabilities with several key control objectives

RDM – an approach from a modern university with a growing research portfolio

This article describes the background work undertaken by Oxford Brookes University in assessing how best to position institutional support for Research Data Management. It further discusses the development of our University’s research data management policy and its collaborative approach to data management support. Finally, it reflects on the challenges of overseeing policy implementation and providing the required enactment infrastructure. The approach that we take is one that will hopefully be of interest to those institutions who are developing their research base and seeking to offer better data management support to researchers in a time of reduced or declining resource. Overall, we feel that the strategic and institution-wide approach that we have taken has worked well, and may be suited to institutions like ours that are less research-intensive. Finally, we feel that our approach is one that can readily be copied

Screening for convergence insufficiency using the CISS is not indicated in young adults

Aim This paper presents Convergence Insufficiency Symptom Survey (CISS) and orthoptic findings in a sample of typical young adults who considered themselves to have normal eyesight apart from weak spectacles. Methods The CISS questionnaire was administered,followed by a full orthoptic evaluation, to 167 university undergraduate and postgraduate students during the recruitment phase of another study. The primary criterion for recruitment to this study was that participants‘feltthey had normal eyesight'. A CISS score of ≥21 was used to define‘significant’symptoms, and convergence insufficiency (CI) was defined as convergence≥8cm from the nose with a fusion range <15Δ base-out with small or no exophoria. Results The group mean CISS score was 15.4. In all, 17(10%) of the participants were diagnosed with CI, but 11(65%) of these did not have significant symptoms. 41(25%) participants returned a‘high’CISS score of ≥21 but only 6 (15%) of these had genuine CI. Sensitivity of the CISS to detect CI in this asymptomatic sample was 38%; specificity 77%; positive predictive value 15%; and negative predictive value 92%. The area under a receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.596 (95% CI 0.46 to 0.73). Conclusions‘Visual symptoms’are common in young adults, but often not related to any clinical defect, while true CI may be asymptomatic. This study suggests that screening for CI is not indicate

A record of fossil shallow-water whale falls from Italy

Twenty-five Neogene-Quaternary whales hosted in Italian museum collections and their associated fauna were analysed for evidence of whale-fall community development in shallow-water settings. The degree of bone articulation, completeness of the skeleton and lithology of the embedding sediments were used to gather information on relative water depth, water energy, sedimentation rate and overall environmental predictability around the bones. Shark teeth and hard-shelled invertebrates with a necrophagous diet in close association with the bones were used as evidence of scavenging. Fossil bone bioerosion, microbially mediated cementation and other mollusc shells in the proximity of the remains informed on past biological activity around the bones. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that shallow-water whale falls differ from their deep-water counterparts. Taphonomic pathways are more variable on the shelf and whale carcasses may not go through all steps of the ecological succession as recognised in the deep sea. Whilst the mobile scavenger and the enrichment opportunistic stages are well represented, chemosynthetic taxa typical of the sulphophilic stage were recovered only in one instance. The presence of a generalist fauna among the suspension feeding bivalves and carnivorous gastropods, and the extreme rarity of chemosynthetic taxa, suggest that predatory pressure rules out whale-fall specialists from shallow shelf settings as in analogous cold seep and vent shallow-water communities. © 2014 The Lethaia Foundation

Hyalotekite, (Ba,Pb,K)(4)(Ca,Y)(2)Si-8(B,Be)(2)(Si,B)(2)O28F, a Tectosilicate Related to Scapolite: New Structure Refinement, Phase Transitions and a Short-Range Ordered 3B Superstructure

Hyalotekite, a framework silicate of composition (Ba,Pb,K)(4)(Ca,Y)(2)Si-8(B,Be)(2) (Si,B)(2)O28F, is found in relatively high-temperature(greater than or equal to 500 degrees C) Mn skarns at Langban, Sweden, and peralkaline pegmatites at Dara-i-Pioz, Tajikistan. A new paragenesis at Dara-i-Pioz is pegmatite consisting of the Ba borosilicates leucosphenite and tienshanite, as well as caesium kupletskite, aegirine, pyrochlore, microcline and quartz. Hyalotekite has been partially replaced by barylite and danburite. This hyalotekite contains 1.29-1.78 wt.% Y2O3, equivalent to 0.172-0.238 Y pfu or 8-11% Y on the Ca site; its Pb/(Pb+Ba) ratio ranges 0.36-0.44. Electron microprobe F contents of Langban and Dara-i-Pioz hyalotekite range 1.04-1.45 wt.%, consistent with full occupancy of the F site. A new refinement of the structure factor data used in the original structural determination of a Langban hyalotekite resulted in a structural formula, (Pb1.96Ba1.86K0.18)Ca-2(B1.76Be0.24)(Si1.56B0.44)Si8O28F, consistent with chemical data and all cations with positive-definite thermal parameters, although with a slight excess of positive charge (+57.14 as opposed to the ideal +57.00). An unusual feature of the hyalotekite framework is that 4 of 28 oxygens are non-bridging; by merging these 4 oxygens into two, the framework topology of scapolite is obtained. The triclinic symmetry of hyalotekite observed at room temperature is obtained from a hypothetical tetragonal parent structure via a sequence of displacive phase transitions. Some of these transitions are associated with cation ordering, either Pb-Ba ordering in the large cation sites, or B-Be and Si-B ordering on tetrahedral sites. Others are largely displacive but affect the coordination of the large cations (Pb, Ba, K, Ca). High-resolution electron microscopy suggests that the undulatory extinction characteristic of hyalotekite is due to a fine mosaic microstructure. This suggests that at least one of these transitions occurs in nature during cooling, and that it is first order with a large volume change. A diffuse superstructure observed by electron diffraction implies the existence of a further stage of short-range cation ordering which probably involves both (Pb,K)-Ba and (BeSi,BB)-BSi

FAN1 activity on asymmetric repair intermediates is mediated by an atypical monomeric virus-type replication-repair nuclease domain

FAN1 is a structure-selective DNA repair nuclease with 5' flap endonuclease activity, involved in the repair of interstrand DNA crosslinks. It is the only eukaryotic protein with a virus-type replication-repair nuclease ("VRR-Nuc") "module" that commonly occurs as a standalone domain in many bacteria and viruses. Crystal structures of three representatives show that they structurally resemble Holliday junction resolvases (HJRs), are dimeric in solution, and are able to cleave symmetric four-way junctions. In contrast, FAN1 orthologs are monomeric and cleave 5' flap structures in vitro, but not Holliday junctions. Modeling of the VRR-Nuc domain of FAN1 reveals that it has an insertion, which packs against the dimerization interface observed in the structures of the viral/bacterial VRR-Nuc proteins. We propose that these additional structural elements in FAN1 prevent dimerization and bias specificity toward flap structures

[Re]Integrating a dispersed agenda: advancing archaeological research in Central Eurasia

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