Where PYD Meets CBPR: A Photovoice Program for Latino Immigrant Youth

Community engagement in identifying issues of collective concern to address health disparities is an approach that is central to conducting community-based participatory research. It is particularly important for youth to be engaged in dialogue around issues that affect their lives. Participation of this nature is understood, within a Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach, to be an element of primary prevention vis a vis health risks. Photovoice has been an increasingly used methodology to enable youth to identify and address issues relevant to their daily experiences. We implemented a six-week Photovoice project guided by a PYD approach with Latino immigrant youth (n=12) from Langley Park, MD. This article describes the experiences of facilitators in implementing the program, testing a new curriculum, and also presents results related to changes in PYD assets among participants. We also offer recommendations for future Photovoice programs with similar populations and aims

Where PYD Meets CBPR: A Photovoice Program for Latino Immigrant Youth

Community engagement in identifying issues of collective concern to address health disparities is an approach that is central to conducting community-based participatory research. It is particularly important for youth to be engaged in dialogue around issues that affect their lives. Participation of this nature is understood, within a Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach, to be an element of primary prevention vis a vis health risks. Photovoice has been an increasingly used methodology to enable youth to identify and address issues relevant to their daily experiences. We implemented a six-week Photovoice project guided by a PYD approach with Latino immigrant youth (n=12) from Langley Park, MD. This article describes the experiences of facilitators in implementing the program, testing a new curriculum, and also presents results related to changes in PYD assets among participants. We also offer recommendations for future Photovoice programs with similar populations and aims

Promotion of protocell self-assembly from mixed amphiphiles at the origin of life

Vesicles formed from single-chain amphiphiles (SCAs) such as fatty acids probably played an important role in the origin of life. A major criticism of the hypothesis that life arose in an early ocean hydrothermal environment is that hot temperatures, large pH gradients, high salinity and abundant divalent cations should preclude vesicle formation. However, these arguments are based on model vesicles using 1–3 SCAs, even though Fischer–Tropsch-type synthesis under hydrothermal conditions produces a wide array of fatty acids and 1-alkanols, including abundant C10–C15 compounds. Here, we show that mixtures of these C10–C15 SCAs form vesicles in aqueous solutions between pH ~6.5 and >12 at modern seawater concentrations of NaCl, Mg2+ and Ca2+. Adding C10 isoprenoids improves vesicle stability even further. Vesicles form most readily at temperatures of ~70 °C and require salinity and strongly alkaline conditions to self-assemble. Thus, alkaline hydrothermal conditions not only permit protocell formation at the origin of life but actively favour it

Whole genome SNP-associated signatures of local adaptation in honeybees of the Iberian Peninsula

The availability of powerful high-throughput genomic tools, combined with genome scans, has helped identifying genes and genetic changes responsible for environmental adaptation in many organisms, including the honeybee. Here, we resequenced 87 whole genomes of the honeybee native to Iberia and used conceptually different selection methods (Samβada, LFMM, PCAdapt, iHs) together with in sillico protein modelling to search for selection footprints along environmental gradients. We found 670 outlier SNPs, most of which associated with precipitation, longitude and latitude. Over 88.7% SNPs laid outside exons and there was a significant enrichment in regions adjacent to exons and UTRs. Enrichment was also detected in exonic regions. Furthermore, in silico protein modelling suggests that several non-synonymous SNPs are likely direct targets of selection, as they lead to amino acid replacements in functionally important sites of proteins. We identified genomic signatures of local adaptation in 140 genes, many of which are putatively implicated in fitness-related functions such as reproduction, immunity, olfaction, lipid biosynthesis and circadian clock. Our genome scan suggests that local adaptation in the Iberian honeybee involves variations in regions that might alter patterns of gene expression and in protein-coding genes, which are promising candidates to underpin adaptive change in the honeybee.John C. Patton, Phillip San Miguel, Paul Parker, Rick Westerman, University of Purdue, resequenced the 87 whole genomes of IHBs. Jose Rufino provided computational resources at IPB. Analyses were performed using the computational resources at the Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX), Uppsala University. DH was supported by a PhD scholarship (SFRH/BD/84195/2012) from the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT). MAP is a member of and receives support from the COST Action FA1307 (SUPER-B). This work was supported by FCT through the programs COMPETE/QREN/EU (PTDC/BIA-BEC/099640/2008) and the 2013-2014 BiodivERsA/FACCE-JPI (joint call for research proposals, with the national funders FCT, Portugal, CNRS, France, and MEC, Spain) to MAP

Actuation Timing Perception of a Powered Ankle Exoskeleton and Its Associated Ankle Angle Changes During Walking

Robotic ankle exoskeletons have the potential to extend human ability, and actuation timing serves as one of the critical parameters in its controller design. While many experiments have investigated the optimal actuation timing values to achieve different objective functions (e.g. minimizing metabolic cost), studies on users’ perception of control parameters are gaining interest as it gives information on people’s comfort, coordination, and trust in using devices, as well as providing foundations on how the sensorimotor system detects the exoskeleton behavior changes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate people’s sensitivity to changes in exoskeleton actuation timing and its associated exoskeleton ankle angle changes during walking. Participants (n =15) with little or no prior experience with ankle exoskeletons were recruited and performed a psychophysical experiment to characterize their just-noticeable difference (JND) thresholds for actuation timing. Participants wore a bilateral active ankle exoskeleton and compared pairs of torque profiles with different actuation timings and low peak torque (0.225 Nm/kg) while walking on the treadmill. The mean timing JND across participants was 2.8±0.6% stride period. Individuals exhibited different sensitivity towards actuation timing, and their associated exoskeleton ankle angle changes also varied. The variance in ankle angle changes might be explained by their differences in ankle stiffness and different ankle torques provided during walking. The results provide insights into how people perceive the changes in exoskeleton control parameters and show individual differences in exoskeleton usage. The actuation timing JND found in this study can also help determine the necessary controller precision