EFRC Bulletin 77

EFRC's regular newletter covering policy, agricutlural research, policy and advisory wor

Prepared for Practice? Exploring and Evaluating the First Six Months of Post-qualified Practice in Social Work

This project explores how effective the Social work degree has been in enabling graduates to feel prepared for the practice of social work. Quantitative and qualitative data from online questionnaires and interviews with twelve graduates revealed that graduates perceived they were more confident, despite coming from a background where they were already practicing. They identified ways that this confidence (including in ICT and IL skills) has contributed to their preparedness for practice and their willingness to shape and challenge practices. Areas of practice where graduates felt least prepared included working with hostile service users. In terms of ICT skills development, variations in systems and technologyrelated practices resulted in tensions between the degree providing supportive guidance which fit particular software or social work settings compared with less supportive generic guidance which might be more widely applicable. IL skills were perceived to have more generic applicability

Melanoma mystery

Biological variability has confounded efforts to confirm the role of PREX2 mutations in melanoma

Researching the internet : a student tutorial

This project involves the development of a series of web pages that serve as a tutorial students use for Internet searching. Students in the Computer Concepts and Applications class at Hawkeye Community College use the Internet to find information for use in an oral report or written assignment. A limited amount of general information about the mechanics of working with a web browser and a brief introduction to search engines is presented to the students in class. The tutorial will assist students by providing links to search engines, ideas in formulating a search strategy, additional more detailed information on working with directories and search engines, ideas for choosing keywords, and assistance in evaluating the sites they find

Factors in the identification and treatment of stuttering.

A large number of children with a diagnosis of stuttering will recover, often without formal treatment. This recovery pattern highlights the importance of a clear, early diagnosis and has implications for therapeutic practice. This thesis investigated three factors that could assist speech and language therapists in their diagnosis and treatment of children who stutter (CWS). Those factors were social, motor and speech skills. A pilot study investigating a fourth factor, communication attitude, is reported as an appendix. All factors were investigated from the perspective of the EXPLAN model of fluency failure. EXPLAN suggests that a combination of speech timing and phonological difficulty is an important source of fluency failures. The investigation into the social skills of CWS indicated that there is a trend for CWS to hold a lower social position to that of age matched controls. CWS were more likely to be bullied at school than their peers. The relationship between stuttering severity and social status was not significant. The motor skills study, using a battery of tests of cerebellar function (Dow & Moruzzi, 1958), indicated that CWS showed a deficit in performance on balance/posture tests at a young age and on complex movement tasks at teenage when compared to age matched controls. These differences are discussed with relation to auditory and cerebellar function. The fluency of a group of CWS was examined using phonological word analysis (Au-Yeung & Howell, 1998). Five children were producing predominantly part- word repetitions at initial assessment. Four of these children had persisted in their stutter when followed up three years later. Results suggest that information regarding motor skills and linguistic analysis of speech may be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of CWS. The results of the experimental work are discussed with relation to their theoretical and clinical significance

Our Need for Seed: How News Media Framed the Pandemic Gardening Boom

Professor Roger Gatchet, Communication and Media, and Professor Amanda Davis Gatchet, Department of Communication Studies, Montgomery County Community College - Our Need for Seed: How News Media Framed the Pandemic Gardening Boo

A Dual Role of Caspase-8 in Triggering and Sensing Proliferation-Associated DNA Damage, a Key Determinant of Liver Cancer Development

Concomitant hepatocyte apoptosis and regeneration is a hallmark of chronic liver diseases (CLDs) predisposing to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, we mechanistically link caspase-8-dependent apoptosis to HCC development via proliferation- and replication-associated DNA damage. Proliferation-associated replication stress, DNA damage, and genetic instability are detectable in CLDs before any neoplastic changes occur. Accumulated levels of hepatocyte apoptosis determine and predict subsequent hepatocarcinogenesis. Proliferation-associated DNA damage is sensed by a complex comprising caspase-8, FADD, c-FLIP, and a kinase-dependent function of RIPK1. This platform requires a non-apoptotic function of caspase-8, but no caspase-3 or caspase-8 cleavage. It may represent a DNA damage-sensing mechanism in hepatocytes that can act via JNK and subsequent phosphorylation of the histone variant H2AX

Role of the JIP4 scaffold protein in the regulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathways

The c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK)-interacting protein (JIP) group of scaffold proteins (JIP1, JIP2, and JIP3) can interact with components of the JNK signaling pathway and potently activate JNK. Here we describe the identification of a fourth member of the JIP family. The primary sequence of JIP4 is most closely related to that of JIP3. Like other members of the JIP family of scaffold proteins, JIP4 binds JNK and also the light chain of the microtubule motor protein kinesin-1. However, the function of JIP4 appears to be markedly different from other JIP proteins. Specifically, JIP4 does not activate JNK signaling. In contrast, JIP4 serves as an activator of the p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway by a mechanism that requires the MAP kinase kinases MKK3 and MKK6. The JIP4 scaffold protein therefore appears to be a new component of the p38 MAP kinase signaling pathway