Physical Activity Promotion in the Evolving Work Landscape

How and where we do our work is changing in the United States across industry, government, and non-profit sectors. This evolving landscape includes downsized office space, the reduction of corporate fitness centers, decreased daily commutes, increased hybrid or remote work environments, and experiments with the length of the work week. While some of these changes may prove transient, others will likely be permanent changes affecting the context of work. Some occupations require in-person work settings, especially in the health care, education, travel and food processing sectors. Many of these employees are experiencing burnout after prolonged overtime work and stressful pandemic-related work conditions. Accordingly, employers are turning their focus to employee health and well-being; productivity, retention, promotion; diversity, equity, and inclusion; re-thinking their corporate wellness programs; and prioritizing financial stability, work-life balance, mental health, and other health-promoting culture, systems and policy changes

Consensus-based care recommendations for adults with myotonic dystrophy type 1

Purpose of review Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is a severe, progressive genetic disease that affects between 1 in 3,000 and 8,000 individuals globally. No evidence-based guideline exists to inform the care of these patients, and most do not have access to multidisciplinary care centers staffed by experienced professionals, creating a clinical care deficit. Recent findings The Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation (MDF) recruited 66 international clinicians experienced in DM1 patient care to develop consensus-based care recommendations. MDF created a 2-step methodology for the project using elements of the Single Text Procedure and the Nominal Group Technique. The process generated a 4-page Quick Reference Guide and a comprehensive, 55-page document that provides clinical care recommendations for 19 discrete body systems and/or care considerations. Summary The resulting recommendations are intended to help standardize and elevate care for this patient population and reduce variability in clinical trial and study environments. Described as “one of the more variable diseases found in medicine,” myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is an autosomal dominant, triplet-repeat expansion disorder that affects somewhere between 1:3,000 and 1:8,000 individuals worldwide.1 There is a modest association between increased repeat expansion and disease severity, as evidenced by the average age of onset and overall morbidity of the condition. An expansion of over 35 repeats typically indicates an unstable and expanding mutation. An expansion of 50 repeats or higher is consistent with a diagnosis of DM1. DM1 is a multisystem and heterogeneous disease characterized by distal weakness, atrophy, and myotonia, as well as symptoms in the heart, brain, gastrointestinal tract, endocrine, and respiratory systems. Symptoms may occur at any age. The severity of the condition varies widely among affected individuals, even among members of the same family. Comprehensive evidence-based guidelines do not currently exist to guide the treatment of DM1 patients. As a result, the international patient community reports varied levels of care and care quality, and difficulty accessing care adequate to manage their symptoms, unless they have access to multidisciplinary neuromuscular clinics. Consensus-based care recommendations can help standardize and improve the quality of care received by DM1 patients and assist clinicians who may not be familiar with the significant variability, range of symptoms, and severity of the disease. Care recommendations can also improve the landscape for clinical trial success by eliminating some of the inconsistencies in patient care to allow more accurate understanding of the benefit of potential therapies

Border Insecurity: Reading Transnational Environments in Jim Lynch’s Border Songs

This article applies an eco-critical approach to contemporary American fiction about the Canada-US border, examining Jim Lynch’s portrayal of the British Columbia-Washington borderlands in his 2009 novel Border Songs. It argues that studying transnational environmental actors in border texts—in this case, marijuana, human migrants, and migratory birds—helps illuminate the contingency of political boundaries, problems of scale, and discourses of risk and security in cross-border regions after 9/11. Further, it suggests that widening the analysis of trans-border activity to include environmental phenomena productively troubles concepts of nature and regional belonging in an era of climate change and economic globalization. Cet article propose une lecture écocritique de la fiction étatsunienne contemporaine portant sur la frontière entre le Canada et les États-Unis, en étudiant le portrait donné par Jim Lynch de la région frontalière entre la Colombie-Britannique et Washington dans son roman Border Songs, paru en 2009. L’article soutient que l’étude, dans les textes sur la frontière, des acteurs environnementaux transnationaux – dans ce cas-ci, la marijuana, les migrants humains et les oiseaux migratoires – jette un jour nouveau sur la contingence des limites territoriales politiques, des problèmes d’échelle et des discours sur le risque et la sécurité des régions transfrontalières après les évènements du 11 septembre 2001. Il suggère également qu’en élargissant l’analyse de l’activité transfrontalière pour y inclure les phénomènes environnementaux, on brouille de façon productive les concepts de nature et d’appartenance régionale d’une époque marquée par les changements climatiques et la mondialisation de l’économie

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Developing Quantitative and Analytic Skills in Undergraduates Using Conservation Examples

This talk was given during the North American Congress for Conservation Biology

Student Interpretation of Conservation Data: Does their Reach exceed their Grasp

This study examined how well undergraduate students can develop data analysis skills relevant to conservation biology over the course of a single semester. Students completed two conservation data analysis exercises, pre and post self-assessments of confidence in data analysis skills, a classroom discussion, and pre/post content assessments. Between the first and second exercises, a data analysis teaching intervention was administered in all classes. Instructional and assessment materials were created and validated by 24 conservation educators led by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at AMNH. Results from one semester (100+ students) show that students scored significantly higher on post-content assessments for both exercises. We also found significant increases in student self-assessment of confidence in data analysis skills. However, when evaluated at the level of different skill dimensions, students\u27 ability to represent and interpret data improved between exercises, but ability to complete calculations and draw conclusions was significantly worse on the second exercise. While our study demonstrates that direct instruction in data analysis does improve student performance overall, there is a disconnect between student self-assessment of their data analysis skills and their actual ability. This indicates that some aspects of data analysis may require different teaching intervention approaches

Student Interpretation of Conservation Data: Does Their Reach Exceed their Grasp

Background/Question/Methods: The fast pace of biological data generated nowadays calls for our biology students to be proficient in quantitative skills such as data analysis. This study examined how well undergraduate students can develop data analysis skills relevant to ecology and conservation biology over the course of a single semester. Students completed two data analysis exercises, pre and post self-assessments of confidence in data analysis skills, a classroom discussion, and pre/post content assessments. The two data analysis exercises were adapted from the free online teaching modules on the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners website (www.ncep.amnh.org). Between the first exercise (a demography problem involving palm harvests and parrots) and second exercise (calculating diversity indices for spider communities), a data analysis teaching intervention was administered in all classes. Instructional and assessment materials were created and validated by 24 conservation educators led by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at AMNH. Results/Conclusions: Results from one semester show that students scored significantly higher on post-content assessments for both conservation exercises (N1 = 207 students; N2 = 199; P \u3c 0.01 for both). We also found significant increases in student self-assessment of confidence in data analysis skills (N = 87). However, when evaluated at the level of different skill dimensions, students’ ability to represent and interpret data improved between exercises (N = 257; P \u3c 0.01), but ability to complete calculations and draw conclusions was significantly worse on the second exercise (P \u3c 0.01). While our study demonstrates that direct instruction in data analysis does improve student performance overall, there is a disconnect between student self-assessment of their data analysis skills and their actual ability. This indicates that some aspects of data analysis may require different teaching intervention approaches