Determining the Efficacy of the Community Research Fellows Training: An 18-Month Evaluation

Community members equipped with knowledge, training, resources, and opportunity acquired through structured research educational programs can strengthen the research relationship and improve the process for community-based participatory research. The purpose of this research is to explore the sustained efficacy of the Mississippi Community Research Fellows Training conducted by the 18-month post-completion of the first cohort. A mixed method approach that included fielding a brief survey and having a focus group discussion among fellows was applied to the study to determine impact, value, and utility of skills learned. Seventeen of the 25 Cohort 1 fellows completed an online survey. Six participated in a focus group. The participants recognized the relevancy of the skills acquired and had applied their training to forge new collaborations with researchers and community organizations and contributed to the acquisition of resources for their communities and disseminated culturally appropriate health information to the residents. Recommendations for the future training programs were identified. The findings could ensure the long-term utility of the lessons and skills learned

La amiga de la flor

Victoria Rodrigo, PhD- Serie Leamos’ EditorProfessor of Spanish World Languages and Cultures DepartmentGeorgia State Universityhttps://scholarworks.gsu.edu/wcl_leamos/1009/thumbnail.jp

The role of single occupancy effects on integrase dynamics in a cell-free system

Phage integrase-based circuits are an alternative approach to relying on transcriptional and translational repression for biomolecular circuits. Previous research has shown that circuits based on integrases can perform a variety of functions, including counters, Boolean logic operators, memory modules and temporal event detectors. It is therefore essential to develop a principled theoretical and experimental framework for the design, implementation and study of such circuits. One of the fundamental questions that such a framework should address concerns the functionality limitations and temporal dynamics of the integrases as regulatory elements. Here, we test the functionality of several large serine integrases from a recently published library in a cell-free transcription-translation (TX-TL) platform. Additionally, we use a combination of experimental data and models to investigate integrase dynamics as a function of enzyme concentration and number of binding sites. We report that sequestration of integrase molecules, either in the form of monomers or dimers, by the integrase's own binding sites dominates integrase dynamics, and that the delay in the activation of the reporter is negatively correlated with integrase plasmid concentration. We have validated our sequestration hypothesis by building a model with MATLAB’s SimBiology toolbox, and running simulations with various integrase and binding sites concentrations. The simulation results qualitatively match the experimental results, and offer further insights into the system

The evolution of cooperation: a recreation of Axelrod’s computer tournament

The iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is a commonly studied game in Game Theory. Many real life situations, such as trench warfare during World War I, can be modeled by such a game. Robert Axelrod implemented a computer tournament in order to determine the best strategy during repeated interactions. Various entries, ranging from very simple to very sophisticated strategies, competed in his tournament. We recreate the tournament using a programming language Matlab and examine the results. Although our results are not entirely identical to Axelrod’s results, we confirm Axelrod’s general findings. In particular, in order for a strategy to be successful, it should be nice, forgiving, relatively easy to understand by its opponents and also retaliatory

Just ethnic matching? Racial and ethnic minority students and culturally appropriate mental health provision at British universities

The need for “culturally appropriate” support for racial and ethnic minority (REM) students has prompted several British universities to embrace targeted interventions such as “ethnic matching” to encourage professional help-seeking on campus (i.e., pairing REM students with ethnically similar practitioners). There remains, however, little clarity on what culturally appropriate support entails. This study explores how REM students define culturally appropriate support and the approaches they view to be effective in promoting help-seeking

Building a Peer Reviewer Community of Practice

Introduction: Scholarly peer review is the cornerstone for maintaining quality and relevance in the medical literature. Few programs that support peer-reviewer training have been described. Methods: We developed a 2-pronged approach to support peer-reviewer training at our institution. This approach included a formal online course that offered a certificate of completion and an informal group manuscript peer review (GMPR) meeting held monthly. Results: A total of 13 participants completed the online course in the first 2 years (2017-2018). Nineteen enrolled in the third year. The GMPR met regularly over 3 years and reviewed 26 manuscripts. Typical attendance has been 8-10 interprofessional faculty and learners per session. Discussion: The online course has gained increasing enrollment over its first 3 years, extending beyond the institution and even internationally. Over half of learners who have completed the course are now engaged as peer reviewers for our institutional journal. The GMPR meetings have had consistent, interprofessional attendance, providing a spectrum of viewpoints and levels of expertise. Conclusions: We propose that both an online training course and GMPR meetings are viable options to support and build a scholarly peer-reviewer community of practice

Is feedback to medical learners associated with characteristics of improved patient care?

Our Research Question: What is the association of medical learner feedback with characteristics of improved patient care

Association between differential gene expression and body mass index among endometrial cancers from The Cancer Genome Atlas Project

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) identified four integrated clusters for endometrial cancer (EC): POLE, MSI, CNL and CNH. We evaluated differences in gene expression profiles of obese and non-obese women with EC and examined the association of body mass index (BMI) within the clusters identified in TCGA