Qualitative Study Exploring Impacts Of Food Insecurity Among College Students

Food insecurity, or the inability to consistently obtain the amount of food or quality of food necessary for one to live a healthy lifestyle, remains a relevant and often unnoticed issue that college students face. The purpose of this study is to understand how the different dimensions of college students’ health are affected by food insecurity and to learn about what support or resources these students utilize and desire to help cope with their food situations. This study contains two components, including semi-structured interviews with the participants and a photovoice component. Through photovoice, participants take and submit photos that they feel represent how food insecurity impacts their health and their lives as college students. Analysis of the results focuses on detecting recurring themes of health effects derived from food insecurity as well as reported benefits and desires regarding resources intended for people, especially college students, facing food insecurity. Emerging themes consist of a lack of energy, missing out on wanted socialization, feeling the need to make unhealthy nutritional or health-related choices, and other health impacts. Patterns of a desire for a larger variety of food options and more advertising of resources available for food-insecure college students were also prominent.https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/urs2021hsc/1000/thumbnail.jp

Cryptic transcripts from a ubiquitous plasmid origin of replication confound tests for cis-regulatory function.

A vast amount of research on the regulation of gene expression has relied on plasmid reporter assays. In this study, we show that plasmids widely used for this purpose constitutively produce substantial amounts of RNA from a TATA-containing cryptic promoter within the origin of replication. Readthrough of these RNAs into the intended transcriptional unit potently stimulated reporter activity when the inserted test sequence contained a 3' splice site (ss). We show that two human sequences, originally reported to be internal ribosome entry sites and later to instead be promoters, mimic both types of element in dicistronic reporter assays by causing these cryptic readthrough transcripts to splice in patterns that allow efficient translation of the downstream cistron. Introduction of test sequences containing 3' ss into monocistronic luciferase reporter vectors widely used in the study of transcriptional regulation also created the false appearance of promoter function via the same mechanism. Across a large number of variants of these plasmids, we found a very highly significant correlation between reporter activity and levels of such spliced readthrough transcripts. Computational estimation of the frequency of cryptic 3' ss in genomic sequences suggests that misattribution of cis-regulatory function may be a common occurrence

Impact of food insecurity on the health and well-being of college students

Objective: To assess the impact of food insecurity on college student health and wellbeing. Participants: Sample of self-identified, food-insecure college students from a large midwestern university. Methods: a qualitative study utilizing interviews and photovoice measured the impacts of food insecurity. Results: Findings demonstrate that college students experience a large variety of negative health impacts among various dimensions of well-being because of food insecurity. Additionally, various barriers impact the effectiveness of university and community efforts to support food-insecure students. Conclusions: Future work addressing nutrition and food security on college campuses should focus on exploring effective policy-level and organizational-level interventions that decrease the occurrence of food insecurity among students, address each dimension of health affected by food insecurity, and decrease the occurrence of barriers that impact the effectiveness of university and community efforts

Modeling Empirical Stock Market Behavior Using a Hybrid Agent-Based Dynamical Systems Model

We describe the development and calibration of a hybrid agent-based dynamical systems model of the stock market that is capable of reproducing empirical market behavior. The model consists of two types of trader agents, fundamentalists and noise traders, as well as an opinion dynamic for the latter (optimistic vs. pessimistic). The trader agents switch types stochastically over time based on simple behavioral rules. A system of ordinary differential equations is used to model the stock price as a function of the states of the trader agents. We show that the model can reproduce key stylized facts (e.g., volatility clustering and fat tails) while providing a behavioral interpretation of how the stock market itself can cause periods of high volatility and large price movements, even when the economic value of the stock grows at a constant rate

A high-performance liquid chromatography method for determination of flavonoids in dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine liposome solutions

A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the determination of four different flavonoids, rutin, morin, quercetin, and 3-hydroxyflavone in dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) liposome solutions hasbeen developed. The method allows to quantify theirconsumption upon reaction with singlet molecular oxygen.The actual HPLC method uses an isocratic elution and detection. The chromatographic separation of these components is achieved using a C18 analytical column with a water:acetonitrile:acetic acid mixture 74.5:24.5:1 v/v. The peaks for the four flavonoids are well resolved and free from matrix interference and reaction products.The method has been found to be linear (r > 0.999) overa wide concentration range and reliable to perform kineticstudies in which singlet molecular oxygen is involved and the time dependent consumption of flavonoids in a microorganized system composed by lipidic surfactants is monitored

Engaging Youth as Active Citizens: Lessons from Youth Workforce Development Programs

This article identifies youth engagement strategies in programs funded by the federal Workforce Investment Act in California. The strategies demonstrate that youth can be meaningfully engaged at all stages of the policy process, including design, implementation, and evaluation. Our data come from a comparative case study evaluation that examined youth programs in 10 of California\u27s 50 local workforce areas. Youth engagement requires effort, but improves the quality of services, promising greater long-term payoffs that warrant increased public investment. Armed with youth development theory and research, Cooperative Extension personnel can be valuable contributors to local Youth Councils and Workforce Investment Boards

Análisis del Sistema de Evaluación de Desempeño Académico de la Universidad de Talca

79 p.El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el Sistema de Evaluación de Desempeño Académico de la Universidad de Talca, a partir de la perspectiva de sus académicos, los antecedentes sobre el propio sistema, así como referentes teóricos y empíricos en la materia.En primera instancia se plantea el problema a la luz de la contingencia actual, luego se hace un análisis de la literatura relacionada con evaluación de desempeño en organizaciones, el desempeño académico de la docencia universitaria y la normativa institucional de evaluación de desempeño de la Universidad de Talca. Para alcanzar el objetivo propuesto, se llevó a cabo una investigación exploratoria cualitativa, mediante la realización de entrevistas en profundidad a miembros de los distintos niveles del cuerpo académico de la universidad, las que son analizadas, siendo los principales hallazgos expuestos en este trabajo