Similarity Attraction and Old School Values: African American Led Nonprofits and African American Youth

This article examines the role of similarity-attraction between African American-led nonprofits and the predominately African American youth they serve. Informed by interview data with executive directors, board members, volunteers, and students, this research captures how similarity-attraction operates in the context of three, well-established African American-led nonprofit organizations by utilizing an old-school values approach. The findings suggest that each of these programs provides a direct focus on African American history and positive role models. Further, these programs teach African American youth how to excel while being black, from people who know first-hand what that experience entails. Nonprofit program leaders become trusted sources of advice and, ultimately, build self-confidence in the youth they serve. Given the limited research that focuses on African American-led nonprofits, this research illuminates an important, understudied area in nonprofit studies

Achieving the Dream and Four-Year Institutions: Perspectives from Three Houston Colleges

This report examines the experiences of three Houston area four-year universities that are participating in Achieving the Dream, a national initiative designed to use data-driven decision making to promote student success, especially among low-income students and students of color. Each of these universities is a minority-serving institution, two are Historically Black Colleges or Universities and one is a Hispanic Serving Institution

Technical Assistance: Coach and Data Facilitator Support Among Texas Colleges

The goal of this research brief is to provide an assessment of the relationship among Achieving the Dream colleges, coaches and data facilitators. This brief places emphasis on the coach and data facilitator relationship to the college and how it affects the work being done related to Achieving the Dream initiative

TB178: Methods for Evaluating Carbon Fractions in Forest Soils: A Review

This publication was developed as part of an effort to evaluate the existing methodologies for determining carbon fractions in soils that might be applied to the question of forest soil C sequestration. A great deal of research has been done on this topic although often focused on agronomic soils. Forest land managers will be increasingly interested in identifying methods to monitor and to evaluate the effects of forest practices on soil C reserves. As well researchers are interested in this and the logical linkages to N cycling. Ultimately practical methods that can be widely utilized will be needed; these may come from current methods or be developed through research. This review offers a framework for this area of investigation.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_techbulletin/1030/thumbnail.jp

Cross-sectional review of publication trends among OBGYN graduates

Objective: Research and other scholarly activities are essential components to medical training and may predict (i) success for matching into residency or fellowship programs and (ii) a future in academia. Despite this importance, little is known about the research outputs of obstetrics and gynecology residency graduates. In this cross-sectional analysis, we explored the characteristics of published, peer-reviewed publications of obstetrics and gynecology residency graduates and publication rates before, during, and after residency.Study Design: We employed a cross-sectional study design using a random sample of 50 obstetrics and gynecology residency programs found on the 2019-2020 Doximity residency navigator (Doximity Residency Navigator). Data were extracted for each graduate of the included programs with a pilot-tested Google Form and then analyzed using STATA 15.1 and Microsoft Excel. A protocol is publicly available. Publication Trends Among Medical Resi...)Results: We identified 281 residency programs, from which we randomly sampled 50. Among the 50 programs, 15 were included, totaling 303 obstetrics and gynecology residency graduates available for analysis. Of the 303 graduates, a total of 111 (36.6%) produced no publications, 137 (45.2%) produced 1-5 total publications, 28 (9.2%) produced 6-10 publications, 15 (5.0%) produced 11-15 publications, and 12 (4.0%) produced 16-20 publications. Of the graduates we analyzed, 79 (79/303, 26.1%) pursued fellowships, with most in maternal and fetal medicine (23/79, 29.1%). Academia was pursued by 46/303 (15.2%) of graduates. The mean number of publications per resident was 2.9 (SD). Our results showed an increase of publications during the progression of training with a mean of 0.38 publications prior to residency, 0.8 during residency, and 1.75 after residency.Conclusion: Our results showed that the majority of obstetrics and gynecology graduates do not go on to pursue a fellowship or career in academia. According to the ACGME, the average number of research experiences (poster or abstract presentations, publications, etc.) for matched residents as a whole was 3.3 while matched obstetrics and gynecology residents averaged 3.4 research experiences1. While matched obstetrics and gynecology residents only averaged slightly more research experiences than the average resident, publications throughout obstetrics and gynecology training trended upward as training progressed. The highest average of publications was seen post- residency, which suggests there may be an opportunity for residents to increase their scholastic activity while in training. We propose that one way to increase the scholarly activity while in training is to encourage collaborative research involvement between medical students, residents, and attending physicians. This joint effort will not only increase resident scholarly activity but will also facilitate teaching research principles to medical students early in medical training and provide opportunities for networking and knowledge sharing

A Framework for Reliability and Safety Analysis of Complex Space Missions

Long duration and complex mission scenarios are characteristics of NASA's human exploration of Mars, and will provide unprecedented challenges. Systems reliability and safety will become increasingly demanding and management of uncertainty will be increasingly important. NASA's current pioneering strategy recognizes and relies upon assurance of crew and asset safety. In this regard, flexibility to develop and innovate in the emergence of new design environments and methodologies, encompassing modeling of complex systems, is essential to meet the challenges

Congenital bovine spinal dysmyelination is caused by a missense mutation in the SPAST gene

Bovine spinal dysmyelination (BSD) is a recessive congenital neurodegenerative disease in cattle (Bos taurus) characterized by pathological changes of the myelin sheaths in the spinal cord. The occurrence of BSD is a longstanding problem in the American Brown Swiss (ABS) breed and in several European cattle breeds upgraded with ABS. Here, we show that the disease locus on bovine chromosome 11 harbors the SPAST gene that, when mutated, is responsible for the human disorder hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP). Initially, SPAST encoding Spastin was considered a less likely candidate gene for BSD since the modes of inheritance as well as the time of onset and severity of symptoms differ widely between HSP and BSD. However, sequence analysis of the bovine SPAST gene in affected animals identified a R560Q substitution at a position in the ATPase domain of the Spastin protein that is invariant from insects to mammals. Interestingly, three different mutations in human SPAST gene at the equivalent position are known to cause HSP. To explore this observation further, we genotyped more than 3,100 animals of various cattle breeds and found that the glutamine allele exclusively occurred in breeds upgraded with ABS. Furthermore, all confirmed BSD carriers were heterozygous, while all affected calves were homozygous for the glutamine allele consistent with recessive transmission of the underlying mutation and complete penetrance in the homozygous state. Subsequent analysis of recombinant Spastin in vitro showed that the R560Q substitution severely impaired the ATPase activity, demonstrating a causal relationship between the SPAST mutation and BSD

Optimal treatment duration of glyceryl trinitrate for chronic anal fissure: results of a prospective randomized multicenter trial

Background: Chronic anal fissure (CAF) is a painful condition that is unlikely to resolve with conventional conservative management. Previous studies have reported that topical treatment of CAF with glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) reduces pain and promotes healing, but optimal treatment duration is unknown. Methods: To assess the effect of different treatment durations on CAF, we designed a prospective randomized trial comparing 40 versus 80 days with twice daily topical 0.4% GTN treatment (Rectogesic®, Prostrakan Group). Chronicity was defined by the presence of both morphological (fibrosis, skin tag, exposed sphincter, hypertrophied anal papilla) and time criteria (symptoms present for more than 2 months or pain of less duration but similar episodes in the past). A gravity score (1 = no visible sphincter; 2 = visible sphincter; 3 = visible sphincter and fibrosis) was used at baseline. Fissure healing, the primary endpoint of the study, maximum pain at defecation measured with VAS and maximum anal resting pressure were assessed at baseline and at 14, 28, 40 and 80 days. Data was gathered at the end of the assigned treatment. Results: Of 188 patients with chronic fissure, 96 were randomized to the 40-day group and 92 to the 80-day group. Patients were well matched for sex, age, VAS and fissure score. There were 34 (19%) patients who did not complete treatment, 18 (10%) because of side effects. Of 154 patients who completed treatment, 90 (58%) had their fissures healed and 105 (68%) were pain free. There was no difference in healing or symptoms between the 40- and the 80-day group. There was no predictor of fissure healing. A low fissure gravity score correlated with increased resolution of pain (P < 0.05) and improvement of VAS score (P < 0.05) on both univariate and multivariate analysis. A lower baseline resting pressure was associated with better pain resolution on univariate analysis (P < 0.01). VAS at defecation and fissure healing significantly improved until 40 days (P < 0.001), while the difference between 40 and 80 days was not significant. Conclusion: We found no benefits in treating CAF with topical GTN for 80 days compared to 40 days. Fissure healing and VAS improvement continue until 6 weeks of treatment but are unlikely thereafter. © 2010 Springer-Verlag

All grown up? The fate after 15 years of a quarter of a million UK firms born in 1998

The theory of firm growth is in a rather unsatisfactory state. However, the analysis of large firm-level datasets which have become available in recent years allows us to begin building an evidence base which can, in turn, be used to underpin the development of more satisfactory theory. Here we study the 239 thousand UK private sector firms born in 1998 over their first 15 years of life. A first, and quite striking, finding is the extraordinary force of mortality. By age 15, 90% of the UK firms born in 1998 are dead, and, for those surviving to age 15, the hazard of death is still about 10% a year. The chance of death is related to the size and growth of firms in an interesting way. Whilst the hazard rate after 15 years is largely independent of size at birth, it is strongly affected by the current (age 14) size. In particular, firms with more than five employees are half as likely to die in the next year as firms with less than five employees. A second important finding is that most firms, even those which survive to age 15, do not grow very much. By age 15 more than half the 26,000 survivors still have less than five jobs. In other words, the growth paths – what we call the ‘growth trajectories’ – of most of the 26,000 survivors are pretty flat. However, of the firms that do grow, firms born smaller grow faster than those born larger. Another striking finding is that growth is heavily concentrated in the first five years. Whilst growth does continue, even up to age 15, each year after age five it involves only a relatively small proportion of firms. Finally, there are two groups of survivors which contribute importantly to job creation. Some are those born relatively large (with more than 20 jobs) although their growth rate is quite modest. More striking though, is a very small group of firms born very small with less than five jobs (about 5% of all survivors) which contribute a substantial proportion (more than one third) of the jobs added to the cohort total by age 15

The Science of Sungrazers, Sunskirters, and Other Near-Sun Comets

This review addresses our current understanding of comets that venture close to the Sun, and are hence exposed to much more extreme conditions than comets that are typically studied from Earth. The extreme solar heating and plasma environments that these objects encounter change many aspects of their behaviour, thus yielding valuable information on both the comets themselves that complements other data we have on primitive solar system bodies, as well as on the near-solar environment which they traverse. We propose clear definitions for these comets: We use the term near-Sun comets to encompass all objects that pass sunward of the perihelion distance of planet Mercury (0.307 AU). Sunskirters are defined as objects that pass within 33 solar radii of the Sun’s centre, equal to half of Mercury’s perihelion distance, and the commonly-used phrase sungrazers to be objects that reach perihelion within 3.45 solar radii, i.e. the fluid Roche limit. Finally, comets with orbits that intersect the solar photosphere are termed sundivers. We summarize past studies of these objects, as well as the instruments and facilities used to study them, including space-based platforms that have led to a recent revolution in the quantity and quality of relevant observations. Relevant comet populations are described, including the Kreutz, Marsden, Kracht, and Meyer groups, near-Sun asteroids, and a brief discussion of their origins. The importance of light curves and the clues they provide on cometary composition are emphasized, together with what information has been gleaned about nucleus parameters, including the sizes and masses of objects and their families, and their tensile strengths. The physical processes occurring at these objects are considered in some detail, including the disruption of nuclei, sublimation, and ionisation, and we consider the mass, momentum, and energy loss of comets in the corona and those that venture to lower altitudes. The different components of comae and tails are described, including dust, neutral and ionised gases, their chemical reactions, and their contributions to the near-Sun environment. Comet-solar wind interactions are discussed, including the use of comets as probes of solar wind and coronal conditions in their vicinities. We address the relevance of work on comets near the Sun to similar objects orbiting other stars, and conclude with a discussion of future directions for the field and the planned ground- and space-based facilities that will allow us to address those science topics