Brokering Community–campus Partnerships: An Analytical Framework

Academic institutions and community-based organizations have increasingly recognized the value of working together to meet their different objectives and address common societal needs. In an effort to support the development and maintenance of these partnerships, a diversity of brokering initiatives has emerged. We describe these brokering initiatives broadly as coordinating mechanisms that act as an intermediary with an aim to develop collaborative and sustainable partnerships that provide mutual benefit. A broker can be an individual or an organization that helps connect and support relationships and share knowledge. To date, there has been little scholarly discussion or analysis of the various elements of these initiatives that contribute to successful community–campus partnerships. In an effort to better understand where these features may align and diverge, we reviewed a sample of community–campus brokering initiatives across North America and the United Kingdom to consider their different roles and activities. From this review, we developed a framework to delineate characteristics of different brokering initiatives to better understand their contributions to successful partnerships. The framework is divided into two parts. The first examines the different structural allegiances of the brokering initiatives by identifying their affiliation, principle purpose, and who received primary benefits. The second considers the dimensions of brokering activities in respect to their level of engagement, platforms used, scale of activity, and area of focus. The intention of the community campus engagement brokering framework is to provide an analytical tool for academics and community-based practitioners engaged in teaching and research partnerships. When developing a brokering initiative, these categories describing the different structures and dimensions encourage participants to think through the overall goals and objectives of the partnership and adapt the initiative accordingly

Contribution of Natural Inhibitors to the Understanding of the PI3K/PDK1/PKB Pathway in the Insulin-mediated Intracellular Signaling Cascade

The critical initial steps in insulin action include phosphorylation of adapter proteins and activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K). One of important components in this process is a protein called Akt/protein kinase B (PKB). The work of numerous different researchers indicates a role of PKB in regulating insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. The crucial role of lipid second messengers in PKB activation has been dissected through the use of the PI3K-specific inhibitors wortmannin and LY294002. Receptor-activated PI3K synthesizes the lipid second messenger PtdIns[3,4,5]-trisphosphate, leading to the recruitment of PKB to the membrane. Membrane attachment of PKB is mediated by its pleckstrin homology domain binding to PtdIns[3,4,5]-trisphosphate or PtdIns[3,4]-bisphosphate with high affinity. Activation of PKB alpha is then achieved at the plasma membrane by phosphorylation of Thr308 in the activation-loop of the kinase domain and Ser473 in the carboxy-terminal regulatory region, respectively. 3-Phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase-1 (PDK1) is responsible for T308 phosphorylation. The usage of specific inhibitors and natural compound has significantly contributed to investigate the molecular mechanism of PI3K/PDK1/PKB signaling pathway, leading to the putative therapeutics benefits of patients. This review focuses on the contribution of natural inhibitor or compound in our understanding of the mechanism by which insulin induces, especially in PI3K/PDK1/PKB signaling

Provoking Change in Researchers’ Roles: Using a Community-Based Research Approach to Address Research Needs in the Community

This article is based on a community-based research practicum conducted with a Headstart program in western Canada. The purpose of the text is to describe the progression of one researcher’s roles from inception to completion of a year-long research project while working in collaboration with a community partner. Following a brief review of principles of community-based research, a case study is used to show how principles were adhered to in a practicum. A variation of traditional role theory is introduced as a useful framework to navigate burgeoning researcher roles and role multiplicity. These are (a) researcher as researcher, (b) researcher as collaborator, (c) researcher as relationship builder, (d) researcher as teacher, and (e) researcher as learner. Considerations for ways to promote researchers—students and academics—to develop skills to correspond with changing researcher roles are presented, along with future directions to empirically examine researcher roles in community-based research

University students with reading difficulties : Do perceived supports and comorbid difficulties predict well-being and GPA?

We examined the impact of the number of comorbid difficulties, social support, and community support on life satisfaction and academic achievement among 120 university students or recent graduates with self-reported reading difficulties. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing perceived social support, perceived community support, the number of comorbid difficulties in addition to reading difficulty, life satisfaction, and academic achievement (grade point average). Results supported a main effect model in which the number of comorbid difficulties and social, but not community, support predicted life satisfaction. Social and community support did not moderate the relationship between the number of comorbid difficulties and life satisfaction, lending no support to the buffering effect hypothesis. However, a mediation model showed that social support partially mediated the relationship between the number of comorbid difficulties and life satisfaction. Academic achievement did not correlate with any included variable

Inositol pyrophosphates regulate cell death and telomere length through phosphoinositide 3-kinase-related protein kinases

Inositol pyrophosphates physiologically regulate vesicular endocytosis, ribosomal disposition, and directly phosphorylate proteins. Here we demonstrate roles in cell death and regulation of telomere length. Lethal actions of wortmannin and caffeine are selectively abolished in yeast mutants that cannot synthesize inositol pyrophosphates. Wortmannin and caffeine appear to act through the phosphoinositide 3-kinase-related protein kinases Tel1 and Mec1, known regulators of telomere length. Inositol pyrophosphates physiologically antagonize the actions of these kinases, which is demonstrated by the fact that yeast mutants with reduced or elevated levels of inositol pyrophosphates, respectively, display longer and shorter telomeres

Polymorphism of Saccharomyces cerevisiae aquaporins

Aquaporin water channels facilitate the transmembrane diffusion of water and higher organisms possess a large number of isoforms. The genome of the yeast Saccharomyce cerevisiae contains two highly similar aquaporin genes, AQY1 and AQY2. AQY1 has been shown to encode a functional water channel but only in certain laboratory strains. Here we show that the AQY2 gene is interrupted by an 11 bp deletion in 23 of the 27 laboratory strains tested, with the exception of strains from the S1278b background, which also exhibit a functional Aqy1p. However, although the AQY2 gene from S1278b is highly homologous to functional aquaporins, we did not observe Aqy2p mediated water transport in Xenopus oocytes. A survey of 52 yeast strains revealed that all industrial and wild yeasts carry the allele encoding a functional Aqy1p, while none of these strains appear to have a functional Aqy2p. We conclude that natural and industrial conditions provide selective pressure to maintain AQY1 but apparently not AQY2

A theoretical model of adolescent suicide and some evidence from US data

Suicide rates for adolescents have doubled since 1970 and tripled since 1960, even as rates for other age groups have declined. Using a Becker-type model of household production and consumption, we demonstrate conditions under which utility maximizing parents allocate time away from time-intensive commodities like children's well-being, and towards market work and less time-intensive consumption commodities. This reallocation of time towards market work has mixed effects on children' mental health: higher money income tends to improve family and children's well-being, but the loss of parental time has an opposite effect on children's mental health and increases the risk of adolescent suicide. Empirical evidence using state panel regressions of adolescent suicide rates on economic, social and demographic variables is consistent with predictions based on our model; our results indicate that the favorable effect of higher incomes has more than offset the negative effect of lost parental time. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.