Building Skills for and Implementing Course Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) Across an Environmental Studies Curriculum

Course Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are an effective method of teaching students not only content, but also critical thinking, scientific practice, and other skills beneficial to their education and success. They lower the barrier to participation in undergraduate research, thereby increasing access to entry. Thus, CUREs are especially valuable to under-performing students as they are an effective means of bridging the achievement gap. Due to the value and effectiveness of CUREs in student development, Lynn University has implemented a means by which students are exposed to CUREs and skills necessary to complete a CURE throughout the Environmental Studies major curriculum. This presentation will give a description of the curriculum and how CUREs and CURE-required skills are taught throughout the curriculum culminating in a fully independent capstone research project

Building Skills for and Implementing Course Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) Across an Environmental Studies Curriculum

Course Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are an effective method of teaching students not only content, but also critical thinking, scientific practice, and other skills beneficial to their education and success. They lower the barrier to participation in undergraduate research, thereby increasing access to entry. Thus, CUREs are especially valuable to under-performing students as they are an effective means of bridging the achievement gap. Due to the value and effectiveness of CUREs in student development, Lynn University has implemented a means by which students are exposed to CUREs and skills necessary to complete a CURE throughout the Environmental Studies major curriculum. This presentation will give a description of the curriculum and how CUREs and CURE-required skills are taught throughout the curriculum culminating in a fully independent capstone research project

“Natural” Sunscreens Although More Expensive Are Not More Effective at Preventing UV Exposure

Skin cancer, the most common type of cancer within humans, has approximately 3.5 million cases each year. The evidence supports that the use of sunscreen can help to prevent different forms of skin cancers. There are a multitude of brands that make sunscreen, each claiming to be better than the next. The two main types of sunscreen are physical and chemical. Physical sunscreens deflect the ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun and are normally made of zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, whereas chemical sunscreen absorb the suns UV rays and can be composed of many different ingredients. It was hypothesized that the physical sunscreens would do a better job at protecting against the sun’s rays than the chemical sunscreen brands. In this experiment E. coli growth was tested under UV light exposure with an application of five different brands of sunscreen. The control was exposed to UV with no sunscreen protection. After exposure to the UV light, the bacteria were set aside to grow and colonies were counted for survival. A statistical ANOVA was used to look at the significance between each brand of sunscreen, physical and chemical. Through the statistical analysis it was found that there was no significant difference between each brand of sunscreen. However, there was a significant difference in E. coli counts between each sunscreen application and the control. There was no statistical difference in E. coli counts between sunscreen types, indicating both types of sunscreen provide the same amount of protection from UV radiation

Home country advantage? The influence of Italian, German and Austrian employee representatives in the UniCredit European Works Council

This article examines the first European Works Council (EWC) to be established in the Italian banking sector, at UniCredit. It focuses on the interaction between Italian, German and Austrian delegations of employee representatives and on the perspectives and practices that reflect their different cultural and institutional backgrounds in industrial relations. Much of the literature suggests that employee representatives from the home country of a multinational company are likely to mould EWC structures in accordance with their own national backgrounds and have greater confidence in dealing with central management in EWC meetings. Our findings partly substantiate this argument, but also suggest that minority delegations, when they have the benefit of strong national institutional arrangements and less fragmented union patterns, are more likely to be cohesive and experienced and therefore able to challenge management and sometimes win significant arguments over strategy

A gene-based SNP resource and linkage map for the copepod Tigriopus californicus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>As yet, few genomic resources have been developed in crustaceans. This lack is particularly evident in Copepoda, given the extraordinary numerical abundance, and taxonomic and ecological diversity of this group. <it>Tigriopus californicus </it>is ideally suited to serve as a genetic model copepod and has been the subject of extensive work in environmental stress and reproductive isolation. Accordingly, we set out to develop a broadly-useful panel of genetic markers and to construct a linkage map dense enough for quantitative trait locus detection in an interval mapping framework for <it>T. californicus--</it>a first for copepods.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>One hundred and ninety Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) were used to genotype our mapping population of 250 F₂larvae. We were able to construct a linkage map with an average intermarker distance of 1.8 cM, and a maximum intermarker distance of 10.3 cM. All markers were assembled into linkage groups, and the 12 linkage groups corresponded to the 12 known chromosomes of <it>T. californicus</it>. We estimate a total genome size of 401.0 cM, and a total coverage of 73.7%. Seventy five percent of the mapped markers were detected in 9 additional populations of <it>T. californicus</it>. Of available model arthropod genomes, we were able to show more colocalized pairs of homologues between <it>T. californicus </it>and the honeybee <it>Apis mellifera</it>, than expected by chance, suggesting preserved macrosynteny between Hymenoptera and Copepoda.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study provides an abundance of linked markers spanning all chromosomes. Many of these markers are also found in multiple populations of <it>T. californicus</it>, and in two other species in the genus. The genomic resource we have developed will enable mapping throughout the geographical range of this species and in closely related species. This linkage map will facilitate genome sequencing, mapping and assembly in an ecologically and taxonomically interesting group for which genomic resources are currently under development.</p