The Ever Circling Year: Church Year Meditations in Verse

Martin W. Leeseberg. Calgary: Foothills Lutheran Press, 197

Factorial Design Applied to Waste Immobilisation in Geopolymer-based Systems

Concentrated alkali, ground glass and air pollution control residues were mixed in various proportions and cured for up to 28 days. These blocks were tested in strength and analysed by thermal gravimetric analysis to assess the success of the geopolymerisation process. A Taguchi factorial design approach was then adopted to investigate the effects of different variables upon the strength development of these blocks

Work in progress: a novel method of creating an academic content repository

This paper outlines a project aimed at addressing the issue of the scalability of online academic support. This project is being run during the Autumn semester at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Toowoomba Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Digital Futures Institute. The study attached to the project will use Design-Based Research to evaluate the effectiveness of a simple, but innovative academic content and metadata creation tool referred to as Academic Assist. Academic Assist has been recently developed at USQ as a plug-in block for the moodle-based Learning Management System employed at USQ for its several hundred online subjects. The pilot project and associated study now extends over nine subjects, including three consecutive subjects in computer engineering; and covers faculties of Engineering, Education, Business, Science and Arts. Some preliminary results are presented here. Complete results of the study including acceptance surveys, expert reviews and usage statistics will be presented at FIE 2009

Relationship Between Single Motherhood Status and Stunting Among Children Under 5 in Kgatleng, Botswana

Undernutrition affects sub-Saharan African countries with increased stunting among children under 5 years old. The short- and long-term effects of this stunting include the potential for slow growth in early life, impaired health, and educational and economic disadvantages in adolescent and adult years. In this quantitative cross-sectional study, we analyzed the relationship between single-mother families and the occurrence of stunting among children under 5 years old in the Kgatleng District of Botswana. We collected primary data from 196 mothers and their children who visited selected clinics in Kgatleng. The results of the binary logistic regression analysis were significant: χ2 (1, N = 196) = 4.119, p = .046, indicating the model was able to distinguish between those respondents who reported stunting and those who did not report stunting. The implications for positive social change include the potential to increase awareness among health professionals to continually check the linear growth of children under 5 to help curb the deleterious effects and the social inequalities caused by stunting

The Assimilation of Glutarnic Acid by Yeast

SUMMARY : Using the corresponding amino-acid decarboxylases, the six amino-acids arginine, glutamic acid, histidine, lysine, ornithine and tyrosine were found to be free inside the cells of yeast. They are present when growth takes place in the absence of amino-acids, but their concentration may be increased by growing the organisms in media rich in amino-acids. Uptake of glutamic acid from the external medium is dependent on a source of energy which can be provided by the simultaneous fermentation of glucose. The presence of an ammonium salt in the medium decreases both the rate a t which glutamic acid enters the cells and the amount of glutamic acid which can be taken up. Certain other amino-acids exert a similar sparing action on the assimilation of glutamic acid, which can be related to their efficiency as nitrogen sources for growth. The free glutamic acid content of cells remains practically constant when the cells are suspended in salt solutions without amino-acids, but if glucose is also present then the concentration of free glutamic acid inside the cells decreases steadily. When ammonia is also present the concentration of glutamic acid remains constant, suggesting that glutamic acid is synthesized by the cells under these conditions, or alternatively that the ammonia is assimilated and utilized preferentially

Keyword Mnemonic Method for Teaching Vocabulary: Its Use by Learning Disabled Children with Memory Difficulties

Psycholog

Weight loss, glycemic control, and cardiovascular disease risk factors in response to differential diet composition in a weight loss program in type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled trial.

ObjectiveTo test whether a weight loss program promotes greater weight loss, glycemic control, and improved cardiovascular disease risk factors compared with control conditions and whether there is a differential response to higher versus lower carbohydrate intake.Research design and methodsThis randomized controlled trial at two university medical centers enrolled 227 overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes and assigned them to parallel in-person diet and exercise counseling, with prepackaged foods in a planned menu during the initial phase, or to usual care (UC; two weight loss counseling sessions and monthly contacts).ResultsRelative weight loss was 7.4% (95% CI 5.7-9.2%), 9.0% (7.1-10.9%), and 2.5% (1.3-3.8%) for the lower fat, lower carbohydrate, and UC groups (P < 0.001 intervention effect). Glycemic control markers and triglyceride levels were lower in the intervention groups compared with UC group at 1 year (fasting glucose 141 [95% CI 133-149] vs. 159 [144-174] mg/dL, P = 0.023; hemoglobin A1c 6.9% [6.6-7.1%] vs. 7.5% [7.1-7.9%] or 52 [49-54] vs. 58 [54-63] mmol/mol, P = 0.001; triglycerides 148 [134-163] vs. 204 [173-234] mg/dL, P < 0.001). The lower versus higher carbohydrate groups maintained lower hemoglobin A1c (6.6% [95% CI 6.3-6.8%] vs. 7.2% [6.8-7.5%] or 49 [45-51] vs. 55 [51-58] mmol/mol) at 1 year (P = 0.008).ConclusionsThe weight loss program resulted in greater weight loss and improved glycemic control in type 2 diabetes

Epigenetic Modifications of the PGC-1α Promoter during Exercise Induced Expression in Mice

The transcriptional coactivator, PGC-1α, is known for its role in mitochondrial biogenesis. Although originally thought to exist as a single protein isoform, recent studies have identified additional promoters which produce multiple mRNA transcripts. One of these promoters (promoter B), approximately 13.7kb upstream of the canonical PGC-1α promoter (promoter A), yields alternative transcripts present at levels much lower than the canonical PGC-1α mRNA transcript. In skeletal muscle, exercise resulted in a substantial, rapid increase of mRNA of these alternative PGC-1α transcripts. Although the β2-adrenergic receptor was identified as a signaling pathway that activates transcription from PGC-1α promoter B, it is not yet known what molecular changes occur to facilitate PGC-1α promoter B activation following exercise. We sought to determine whether epigenetic modifications were involved in this exercise response in mouse skeletal muscle. We found that DNA hydroxymethylation correlated to increased basal mRNA levels from PGC-1α promoter A, but that DNA methylation appeared to play no role in the exercise-induced activation of PGC-1α promoter B. The level of the activating histone mark H3K4me3 increased with exercise 2–4 fold across PGC- 1α promoter B, but remained unaltered past the canonical PGC-1α transcriptional start site. Together, these data show that epigenetic modifications partially explain exercise-induced changes in the skeletal muscle mRNA levels of PGC-1α isoforms