Parental feelings regarding factors in influencing and benefits derived from 4-H club participation by junior high and senior age members and former members of Grundy County, Tennessee

The purpose of this study was to determine the feelings of parents of 4-H members and dropouts about 4-H in Grundy County, Tennessee. Twenty-five parents of 4-H members and a like number of parents of drop outs were randomly selected and interviewed during 1978 and 1979. Parents were questioned concerning parental characteristics, attitudes toward, knowledge of, and expectation of 4-H, to discover important factors influencing membership or non-membership in 4-H. The median age of all parents was 40 years. Parents from the two groups differed little in marital status or income level. However, place of residence was mainly rural farm for most 4-H members, as opposed to rural, non-farm for dropouts. The parents of 4-H members had been active in 4-H themselves more often than the parents of dropouts. Parents had a fair general knowledge of 4-H. Local events were better known than County, District, State, or National events. Parents were not unhappy about their children joining 4-H. They felt 4-H was a useful learning experience, both for skills, and for personal development. Parents felt that more 4-H meetings should be held. The children of parents who themselves were involved in 4-H work tended to remain in 4-H longer. A majority of parents were willing to help with 4-H events, if asked. The earlier children joined 4-H, the more likely they were to stay in longer. If a child and/or his parents were involved in other clubs and organizations, he was more likely to join and remain in 4-H. The more personal attention (i.e. home visits, etc.) a child received from the 4-H agent, the more likely he was to remain in 4-H. On the negative side of the coin, it appeared that active involvement in organized sports was likely to interfere with a child\u27s 4-H involvement. Parents felt that the two greatest benefits of 4-H for their children were character building and new learning experiences. Parents felt that the 4-H program could be improved by (1) keeping parents better informed, (2) having more meeting places, (3) getting to know the agents better, (4) removing the grammar school image of 4-H, (5) building interest, and (6) getting more people involved. Recommendations were made for use of findings and further research

GAP activity, but not subcellular targeting, is required for Arabidopsis RanGAP cellular and developmental functions

The Ran GTPase activating protein (RanGAP) is important to Ran signaling involved in nucleocytoplasmic transport, spindle organization, and postmitotic nuclear assembly. Unlike vertebrate and yeast RanGAP, plant RanGAP has an N-terminal WPP domain, required for nuclear envelope association and several mitotic locations of Arabidopsis thaliana RanGAP1. A double null mutant of the two Arabidopsis RanGAP homologs is gametophyte lethal. Here, we created a series of mutants with various reductions in RanGAP levels by combining a RanGAP1 null allele with different RanGAP2 alleles. As RanGAP level decreases, the severity of developmental phenotypes increases, but nuclear import is unaffected. To dissect whether the GAP activity and/or the subcellular localization of RanGAP are responsible for the observed phenotypes, this series of rangap mutants were transformed with RanGAP1 variants carrying point mutations abolishing the GAP activity and/or the WPP-dependent subcellular localization. The data show that plant development is differentially affected by RanGAP mutant allele combinations of increasing severity and requires the GAP activity of RanGAP, while the subcellular positioning of RanGAP is dispensable. In addition, our results indicate that nucleocytoplasmic trafficking can tolerate both partial depletion of RanGAP and delocalization of RanGAP from the nuclear envelope

“It is not a scientific number it is just a feeling”:Populating a multi-dimensional end-of-life decision framework using deliberative methods

The capability approach is potentially valuable for economic evaluation at the end of life because of its conceptualisation of wellbeing as freedom and the potential for capturing outcomes for those at end of life and those close to persons at the end of life. For decision making, however, this information needs to be integrated into current evaluation paradigms. This research explored weights for an integrated economic evaluation framework using a deliberative approach. Twelve focus groups were held (38 members of the public, 29 ‘policy makers’, 7 hospice volunteers); budget pie tasks were completed to generate weights. Constant comparison was used to analyse qualitative data, exploring principles behind individuals’ weightings. Average weights elicited from members of the general population and policy makers for the importance that should be given to close persons (versus patients) were very similar, at around 30%. A ‘sliding scale’ of weights between health gain and the capability for a good death resulted from the policy maker and volunteer groups, with increasing weight given to the capability for a good death as the trajectory got closer to death. These weights can be used in developing a more comprehensive framework for economic evaluation at end of life

Correction: Standards Without Labs: Drug Development in the Psychedelic Underground

This article details a correction to: Bailey, J. and Kempner, J., 2022. Standards Without Labs: Drug Development in the Psychedelic Underground. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 7(1), p.41. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.52

Differential gene expression in multiple neurological, inflammatory and connective tissue pathways in a spontaneous model of human small vessel stroke

Aims: Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) causes a fifth of all strokes plus diffuse brain damage leading to cognitive decline, physical disabilities and dementia. The aetiology and pathogenesis of SVD are unknown, but largely attributed to hypertension or microatheroma. Methods: We used the spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rat (SHRSP), the closest spontaneous experimental model of human SVD, and age-matched control rats kept under identical, non-salt-loaded conditions, to perform a blinded analysis of mRNA microarray, qRT-PCRand pathway analysis in two brain regions (frontal and midcoronal) commonly affected by SVD in the SHRSP at age five, 16 and 21 weeks. Results: We found gene expression abnormalities, with fold changes ranging from 2.5 to 59 for the 10 most differentially expressed genes, related to endothelial tight junctions (reduced), nitric oxide bioavailability (reduced), myelination (impaired), glial and microglial activity (increased), matrix proteins (impaired), vascular reactivity (impaired) and albumin (reduced), consistent with protein expression defects in the same rats. All were present at age 5 weeks thus pre-dating blood pressure elevation. ‘Neurological’ and ‘inflammatory’ pathways were more affected than ‘vascular’ functional pathways. Conclusions: This set of defects, although individually modest, when acting in combination could explain the SHRSP's susceptibility to microvascular and brain injury, compared with control rats. Similar combined, individually modest, but multiple neurovascular unit defects, could explain susceptibility to spontaneous human SVD

Missed opportunities in the diagnosis of tuberculosis meningitis

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis meningitis (TBM) has high mortality and morbidity. Diagnostic delays can impact TBM outcomes. We aimed to estimate the number of potentially missed opportunities (MOs) to diagnose TBM and determine its impact on 90-day mortality. METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort of adult patients with a central nervous system (CNS) TB RESULTS: Of 893 patients with TBM, median age at diagnosis was 50 years (interquartile range, 37-64), 61.3% were male, and 35.2% had Medicaid as primary payer. Overall, 407 (45.6%) had a prior hospital or ED visit with an MO code. In-hospital 90-day mortality was not different between those with and without an MO, regardless of the MO coded during an ED visit (13.7% vs 15.2%, CONCLUSIONS: Approximately half the patients coded for TBM had a hospital or ED visit in the previous 6 months meeting the MO definition. We found no association between having an MO for TBM and 90-day in-hospital mortality