The effect of diet/supplement intake and competitive swimming/gymnastics upon the bone mineral density of collegiate females

The purpose of this pilot study was to determine if there was a relationship between dietary/supplemental intake and competitive activity (swimming and gymnastics), on the bone mineral density of 18-21 year old females. Five swimmers, 4 gymnasts, and 12 control subjects were recruited from the university student body. All subjects completed a 3-day diet/supplement record, 3-day activity record, past calcium intake form, and a medical history form. Bone mineral density (BMD) was measured for the whole body, L1-L4, the proximal femur and body composition by DEXA. Results indicated the control subjects reported a significantly greater percent of the RDA for energy, protein, and carbohydrate than the athletic groups. There were no differences found for bone building nutrients among the three groups. No correlations could be made between diet/supplement intake and BMD. Gymnasts initiated training at an earlier age than swimmers, and were found to be shorter and experience delayed menarche than other groups. Gymnasts had significantly greater whole body BMD than the control subjects, but not significantly greater than the swimmers. Gymnasts also had greater BMD at all sites measured, and significantly greater than the control subjects at the spine L1-L4, and femoral neck. Gymnasts had significantly greater BMD at the femoral neck and total hip than the swimmers. Though not significant, the swimmers had greater BMD at whole body, and spine L1-L4 than the control subjects. As in similar studies, the greater BMD found in the gymnasts can be attributed to their weight bearing exercise. Due to small sample size, conclusions concerning the benefit of swimming on BMD cannot be made from this study

Compassion Fatigue: The Effects of Secondary Traumatic Stress and Vicarious Traumatization Among Baltimore Police Department Community Chaplains

Baltimore is plagued with a history of high crime, violence, and murder resulting in trauma. The purpose of the Doctor of Ministry action research project was to educate Baltimore Police Department (BPD) Community Chaplains concerning compassion fatigue while maintaining effective quality care. A two-day workshop was developed as an intervention to address the problem. Pretest and posttest surveys were administered using the Professional Quality of Life Scale, Version 5, and the Skovholt Professional Practitioner Resiliency and Self-Care Inventory. Data in the form of surveys, group notes, field notes, recorded testimonials, and stories were collected and analyzed. Results of the data yielded minimal significant increase in the knowledge of compassion fatigue thereby increasing the effectiveness and quality of the BPD Community Chaplains. The results demonstrated a divergence from the expectation of the researcher. Instead of demonstrating compassion fatigue, the results demonstrated moderate to high levels of compassion satisfaction for the majority of the BPD Community Chaplains. There is a cost associated with caring for the traumatized. Those who serve the traumatized should be trauma-informed, and practice adequate self-care. Those individuals who are trauma- informed and practice self-care may experience compassion satisfaction. For future study, the researcher offers the recommendations of repeating the study in a post Covid Pandemic, face-to-face format, with revisions to the design of the intervention such as increased time of engagement with the content material, while inviting all BPD Community Chaplains from each of the nine districts throughout the city to participate in the research project

Typographic Effect on Learning Management System Effectiveness

Learning Management Systems (LMS) harness and share knowledge. The most extensive and well-populated knowledge networks are useless if they remain underutilized, with lower performing students 40% less likely to effectively use the LMS than higher performing peers. This study investigated the effect of four typographic elements—typeface, size, alignment, and emphasis—on perceived knowledge sharing effectiveness. With a sample size of 108 participants, typeface, size, alignment, and emphasis each had a significant (p < .05) effect on knowledge sharing effectiveness. Arial was the preferred typeface (p < .0001), 12-point the preferred font size (p = .0001), left or justified the preferred alignment (p < .0001), and sentence case the preferred emphasis (p < .0001). The ease and increased prevalence of adjusting these typographic elements thus leads to potential adverse effects on student use of LMS and their learning outcomes

An Active Learning Project In A Managerial Accounting Principles Class: Is It Time Well-Spent?

The current active learning project involves students visits to area companies to collect information regarding the companies’ use or nonuse of Responsibility Reports (RRs). The students involved were attending a managerial accounting principles class at southeastern, regional university, and were given oral instructions by their teacher to complete the project. Sixty-two students participated, along with sixty-one companies. The average grade earned by the students was 15.58 of 20 points, and nine students earned a perfect score. The student findings were that 45 of the 61 companies, or 73.8%, use RRs. Based on the student performance, reports and feedback, the project was determined to be a valuable Active Learning experience

The effects of grain storage technologies on maize marketing behaviour of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe

This study investigated the effects of grain storage practices on smallholder farmers’ maize marketing behaviour using primary data collected from 413 random households in Makoni and Shamva Districts of Zimbabwe. The data was analysed using the ordered probit model and the study results revealed that storage practices had significant effects on the maize marketing behaviour of smallholder farmers. Storage using insecticide and traditional granary increased the chances of farmers to become net sellers of maize. Using insecticide in storage reduces the amount of grain that is lost in storage hence farmers are able to preserve the amount of grain available for consumption and also for sale. This implies that safe storage of maize may increase household incomes thus reducing poverty. This also contributes to improved food security. Investment in safe grain storage technologies is thus a fundamental key policy issue in developing countries. Quantity harvested, market location, household head’s sex and other household factors influenced maize marketing behaviour of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe

Network effects in a human capital based economic growth model

We revisit a recently introduced agent model[ACS {\bf 11}, 99 (2008)], where economic growth is a consequence of education (human capital formation) and innovation, and investigate the influence of the agents' social network, both on an agent's decision to pursue education and on the output of new ideas. Regular and random networks are considered. The results are compared with the predictions of a mean field (representative agent) model.Comment: to appear in Physica

Amino-terminal cysteine residues of RGS16 are required for palmitoylation and modulation of G(i)- and G(q)-mediated signaling

RGS proteins (Regulators of G protein Signaling) are a recently discovered family of proteins that accelerate the GTPase activity of heterotrimeric G protein α subunits of the i, q, and 12 classes. The proteins share a homologous core domain but have divergent amino-terminal sequences that are the site of palmitoylation for RGS-GAIP and RGS4. We investigated the function of palmitoylation for RGS16, which shares conserved amino-terminal cysteines with RGS4 and RGS5. Mutation of cysteine residues at residues 2 and 12 blocked the incorporation of [3H]palmitate into RGS16 in metabolic labeling studies of transfected cells or into purified RGS proteins in a cell-free palmitoylation assay. The purified RGS16 proteins with the cysteine mutations were still able to act as GTPase-activating protein for Giα. Inhibition or a decrease in palmitoylation did not significantly change the amount of protein that was membrane-associated. However, palmitoylation-defective RGS16 mutants demonstrated impaired ability to inhibit both Gi- and Gq-linked signaling pathways when expressed in HEK293T cells. These findings suggest that the amino-terminal region of RGS16 may affect the affinity of these proteins for Gα subunits in vivo or that palmitoylation localizes the RGS protein in close proximity to Gα subunits on cellular membranes