2016 AAPP Monograph Series: African American Professors Program

The African American Professors Program (AAPP) at the University of South Carolina is honored to publish this fifteenth edition of its annual monograph series. AAPP recognizes the significance of offering scholars a venue through which to engage actively in research and to publish their refereed papers. Parallel with the publication of their manuscripts is the opportunity to gain visibility among colleagues throughout postsecondary institutions at national and international levels. Scholars who have contributed papers for this monograph are acknowledged for embracing the value of including this responsibility within their academic milieu. Writing across disciplines adds to the intellectual diversity of these manuscripts. From neophytes to quite experienced individuals, the chapters have been researched and written in depth. Founded in 1997 through the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies in the College of Education, AAPP was designed originally to address the under-representation of African American professors on college and university campuses. Its mission is to expand the pool of these professors in critical academic and research areas. Sponsored historically by the University of South Carolina, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the South Carolina General Assembly, the program recruits doctoral students for disciplines in which African Americans currently are underrepresented among faculty in higher education. The continuation of this monograph series is seen as responding to a window of opportunity to be sensitive to academic expectation of graduates as they pursue career placement and, at the same time, to allow for the dissemination of products of scholarship to a broader community. The importance of this series has been voiced by one of our 2002 AAPP graduates, Dr. Shundelle LaTjuan Dogan, formerly an Administrative Fellow at Harvard University, a Program Officer for the Southern Education Foundation, and a Program Officer for the Arthur M. Blank Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia. She is currently a Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs Manager for IBM-International Business Machines in Atlanta, Georgia and has written the Foreword for the 2014 monograph. Dr. Dogan wrote: One thing in particular that I want to thank you for is having the African American Professors Program scholars publish articles for the monograph. I have to admit that writing the articles seemed like extra work at the time. However, in my recent interview process, organizations have asked me for samples of my writing. Including an article from a published monograph helped to make my portfolio much more impressive. You were \u27right on target\u27 in having us do the monograph series. (AAPP 2003 Monograph, p. xi) The African American Professors Program continues the tradition as a promoter of international scholarship in higher education evidenced through the inspiration from this group of interdisciplinary manuscripts. I hope that you will envision these published papers to serve as an invaluable contribution to your own professional development and career enhancement. John McFadden, PhD The Benjamin Elijah Mays Distinguished Professor Emeritus Director, African American Professors Program University of South Carolinahttps://scholarcommons.sc.edu/mcfadden_monographs/1003/thumbnail.jp

Simulation of ultrafast photodynamics of pyrrole with a multiconfigurational Ehrenfest method

We report the first results of ab initio multiconfigurational Ehrenfest simulations of pyrrole photodynamics. We note that, in addition to the two intersections of 11A2 and 11B1 states with the ground state 11A1, which are known to be responsible for N–H bond fission, another intersection between the 12A2 and 12B1 states of the resulting molecular radical becomes important after the departure of the H atom. This intersection, which is effectively between the two lowest electronic states of the pyrrolyl radical, may play a significant role in explaining the branching ratio between the two states observed experimentally. The exchange of population between the two states of pyrrolyl occurs on a longer scale than that of N–H bond fission

Comparison of performance-based measures among native Japanese, Japanese-Americans in Hawaii and Caucasian women in the United States, ages 65 years and over: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Japanese (both in Japan and Hawaii) have a lower incidence of falls and of hip fracture than North American and European Caucasians, but the reasons for these differences are not clear. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study. We compared neuromuscular risk factors for falls using performance-based measures (chair stand time, usual and rapid walking speed, and grip strength) among 163 Japanese women in Japan, 681 Japanese-American women in Hawaii and 9403 Caucasian women in the United States aged 65 years and over. RESULTS: After adjusting for age, the Caucasian women required about 40% more time to complete 5 chair stands than either group of Japanese. Walking speed was about 10% slower among Caucasians than native Japanese, whereas Japanese-American women in Hawaii walked about 11% faster than native Japanese. Grip strength was greatest in Japan, which may reflect the rural farming district that this sample was drawn from. Additional adjustment for height, weight or body mass index increased the adjusted means of chair stand time and grip strength among Japanese, but the differences remained significant. CONCLUSIONS: Both native Japanese and Japanese-American women in Hawaii performed better than Caucasians on chair stand time and walking speed tests, and native Japanese had greater grip strength than Japanese in Hawaii and Caucasians. The biological implications of these differences in performance are uncertain, but may be useful in planning future comparisons between populations

A National Survey of Hereditary Angioedema and Acquired C1 Inhibitor Deficiency in the United Kingdom

Background: Detailed demographic data on people with hereditary angioedema (HAE) and acquired C1 inhibitor deficiency in the United Kingdom are relatively limited. Better demographic data would be beneficial in planning service provision, identifying areas of improvement, and improving care./ Objective: To obtain more accurate data on the demographics of HAE and acquired C1 inhibitor deficiency in the United Kingdom, including treatment modalities and services available to patients./ Methods: A survey was distributed to all centers in the United Kingdom that look after patients with HAE and acquired C1 inhibitor deficiency to collect these data./ Results: The survey identified 1152 patients with HAE-1/2 (58% female and 92% type 1), 22 patients with HAE with normal C1 inhibitor, and 91 patients with acquired C1 inhibitor deficiency. Data were provided by 37 centers across the United Kingdom. This gives a minimum prevalence of 1:59,000 for HAE-1/2 and 1:734,000 for acquired C1 inhibitor deficiency in the United Kingdom. A total of 45% of patients with HAE were on long-term prophylaxis (LTP) with the most used medication being danazol (55% of all patients on LTP). Eighty-two percent of patients with HAE had a home supply of acute treatment with C1 inhibitor or icatibant. A total of 45% of patients had a supply of icatibant and 56% had a supply of C1 inhibitor at home./ Conclusions: Data obtained from the survey provide useful information about the demographics and treatment modalities used in HAE and acquired C1 inhibitor deficiency in the United Kingdom. These data are useful for planning service provision and improving services for these patients

The Diabetes Technology Society Error Grid and Trend Accuracy Matrix for Glucose Monitors.

INTRODUCTION: An error grid compares measured versus reference glucose concentrations to assign clinical risk values to observed errors. Widely used error grids for blood glucose monitors (BGMs) have limited value because they do not also reflect clinical accuracy of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). METHODS: Diabetes Technology Society (DTS) convened 89 international experts in glucose monitoring to (1) smooth the borders of the Surveillance Error Grid (SEG) zones and create a user-friendly tool-the DTS Error Grid; (2) define five risk zones of clinical point accuracy (A-E) to be identical for BGMs and CGMs; (3) determine a relationship between DTS Error Grid percent in Zone A and mean absolute relative difference (MARD) from analyzing 22 BGM and nine CGM accuracy studies; and (4) create trend risk categories (1-5) for CGM trend accuracy. RESULTS: The DTS Error Grid for point accuracy contains five risk zones (A-E) with straight-line borders that can be applied to both BGM and CGM accuracy data. In a data set combining point accuracy data from 18 BGMs, 2.6% of total data pairs equally moved from Zones A to B and vice versa (SEG compared with DTS Error Grid). For every 1% increase in percent data in Zone A, the MARD decreased by approximately 0.33%. We also created a DTS Trend Accuracy Matrix with five trend risk categories (1-5) for CGM-reported trend indicators compared with reference trends calculated from reference glucose. CONCLUSION: The DTS Error Grid combines contemporary clinician input regarding clinical point accuracy for BGMs and CGMs. The DTS Trend Accuracy Matrix assesses accuracy of CGM trend indicators

Mapping genetic variations to three- dimensional protein structures to enhance variant interpretation: a proposed framework

The translation of personal genomics to precision medicine depends on the accurate interpretation of the multitude of genetic variants observed for each individual. However, even when genetic variants are predicted to modify a protein, their functional implications may be unclear. Many diseases are caused by genetic variants affecting important protein features, such as enzyme active sites or interaction interfaces. The scientific community has catalogued millions of genetic variants in genomic databases and thousands of protein structures in the Protein Data Bank. Mapping mutations onto three-dimensional (3D) structures enables atomic-level analyses of protein positions that may be important for the stability or formation of interactions; these may explain the effect of mutations and in some cases even open a path for targeted drug development. To accelerate progress in the integration of these data types, we held a two-day Gene Variation to 3D (GVto3D) workshop to report on the latest advances and to discuss unmet needs. The overarching goal of the workshop was to address the question: what can be done together as a community to advance the integration of genetic variants and 3D protein structures that could not be done by a single investigator or laboratory? Here we describe the workshop outcomes, review the state of the field, and propose the development of a framework with which to promote progress in this arena. The framework will include a set of standard formats, common ontologies, a common application programming interface to enable interoperation of the resources, and a Tool Registry to make it easy to find and apply the tools to specific analysis problems. Interoperability will enable integration of diverse data sources and tools and collaborative development of variant effect prediction methods

Garotas de loja, história social e teoria social [Shop Girls, Social History and Social Theory]

Shop workers, most of them women, have made up a significant proportion of Britain’s labour force since the 1850s but we still know relatively little about their history. This article argues that there has been a systematic neglect of one of the largest sectors of female employment by historians and investigates why this might be. It suggests that this neglect is connected to framings of work that have overlooked the service sector as a whole as well as to a continuing unease with the consumer society’s transformation of social life. One element of that transformation was the rise of new forms of aesthetic, emotional and sexualised labour. Certain kinds of ‘shop girls’ embodied these in spectacular fashion. As a result, they became enduring icons of mass consumption, simultaneously dismissed as passive cultural dupes or punished as powerful agents of cultural destruction. This article interweaves the social history of everyday shop workers with shifting representations of the ‘shop girl’, from Victorian music hall parodies, through modernist social theory, to the bizarre bombing of the Biba boutique in London by the Angry Brigade on May Day 1971. It concludes that progressive historians have much to gain by reclaiming these workers and the service economy that they helped create