From the College Section Chair Rodrigo, Rochelle (Shelley)
College English,
07/2019, Volume:
81, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Rodrigo discusses the workings of the College Section, a National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) group. The group does important work within the NCTE both to further the interests of ...postsecondary instructors of English studies and to build connections both to further the interests of postsecondary instructors of English studies and to build connections. As it is currently organized, the College Section does not officially represent the college members and groups within NCTE. Rodrigo also mentions the kinds of changes that would make the College Section truly representative of the shared concerns that give the members of the NCTE cohesion as a community.
The gecko adhesion system fascinates biologists and materials scientists alike for its strong, reversible, glue-free, dry adhesion. Understanding the adhesion system's performance on various surfaces ...can give clues as to gecko behaviour, as well as towards designing synthetic adhesive mimics. Geckos encounter a variety of surfaces in their natural habitats; tropical geckos, such as Gekko gecko, encounter hard, rough tree trunks as well as soft, flexible leaves. While gecko adhesion on hard surfaces has been extensively studied, little work has been done on soft surfaces. Here, we investigate for the first time the influence of macroscale and nanoscale substrate modulus on whole animal adhesion on two different substrates (cellulose acetate and polydimethylsiloxane) in air and find that across 5 orders of magnitude in macroscale modulus, there is no change in adhesion. On the nanoscale, however, gecko adhesion is shown to depend on substrate modulus. This suggests that low surface-layer modulus may inhibit the gecko adhesion system, independent of other influencing factors such as macroscale composite modulus and surface energy. Understanding the limits of gecko adhesion is vital for clarifying adhesive mechanisms and in the design of synthetic adhesives for soft substrates (including for biomedical applications and wearable electronics).
Scientific Reports 7: Article number: 43647; published online 13 March 2017; updated on 24 April 2017 This Article contains an error in the legend of Figure 2 where the symbols corresponding to ...calculations using the spring model are incorrectly given as solid shapes. The Figure and accompanying Figure legend appear below.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a degenerative disease that progressively destroys motor neurons (MNs). Earlier studies identified EphA4, a receptor tyrosine kinase, as a possible ...disease-modifying gene. The complex interplay between the EphA4 receptor and its ephrin ligands in motor neurons and astrocytes has not yet been fully elucidated and includes a putative pro-apoptotic activity of the unbound receptor compared to ephrin-bound receptor. We recently reported that astrocytes from patients with ALS induce cell death in co-cultured MNs. Here we found that first-generation synthetic EphA4 agonistic agent 123C4, effectively protected MNs when co-cultured with reactive astrocytes from patients with ALS from multiple subgroups (sALS and mutant SOD1). Newer generation and more potent EphA4 agonistic agents 150D4, 150E8, and 150E7 provided effective protection at a lower therapeutic dose. Combined, the data suggest that the development of EphA4 agonistic agents provides potentially a promising therapeutic strategy for patients with ALS.
Display omitted
•We report on potent and selective EphA4 agents targeting its ligand-binding domain•We used a method that generates neuronal progenitor cells from patient fibroblasts•The agents reverse motor neuron cell death are cellular models of patients with ALS•Our EphA4 agonists can effectively prevent astrocyte-mediated motor neuron toxicity
Medical biochemistry; Molecular biology; Neuroscience
•Technology related service is difficult to articulate and often invisible to others.•Motivation and compensation for technology related service is varied.•Cultural capital earned, or lost, happens ...at various institutional levels.•Both types of service work and cultural capital changes over time.
As institutions that include Writing Studies (Rhetoric and Composition, Business, Technical and Professional Writing) in their curriculum at various levels increasingly move to include more digital technology infrastructural support for classes, faculty who have scholarly expertise in various technologies are often being called upon, through either necessity to complete their own agendas or because of additional departmental and college needs, to do service work beyond required committee work. Oftentimes, this work is invisible.
This article reports the results on interviews collected from 23 faculty members regarding types of technologically-related service being done. It discusses the changing nature of the types of service done by faculty we term Writing Program Technologists (WPTs). It also discusses the connections between shifts in technology and infrastructure at various institutions and the varying ways that compensation of the WPT occurs depending upon personal as well as institutional needs, desires, and constraints. Making visible this often invisible labor can provide information for faculty who are trying to develop arguments for more equitable compensation for this work that in terms of time expended and intellectual labor involved goes beyond other forms of service expectations.
The processes of reading, research and writing are complex and intertwined. Currently, the larger educational technology landscape requires using multiple tools to do these processes. Being able to ...pull them into a single tool can allow learners to focus on learning and streamlining
processes instead of using their cognitive bandwidth to learn multiple new technologies. The weary travellers who conducted this study set off on a journey to discover such a tool and determine its efficacy in their various online courses across the disciplines of environmental science, nutritional
science, writing studies, literature and information science. The study was conducted through a series of pre- and post-surveys asking students about the strength of their reading, research and writing skills, the ease with which they performed them, and how much they enjoyed completing the
tasks associated with those skills. The travellers found that many students felt more confident in their abilities, found processes to be easier and enjoyed the processes more than they did before the tool was introduced. This case study suggests that when we remove the complexity of balancing
various technology tools in our online classes, students can focus on the process and not the tool; however, there was a small subset of students who did not find the tool improved their processes because they already had processes in place that they liked. This suggests that tools that 'rule
them all' should be introduced early in an academic career and be made available by the institution throughout a student's time at their academic institution.
Patient diversity and unknown disease cause are major challenges for drug development and clinical trial design for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Transgenic animal models do not adequately ...reflect the heterogeneity of ALS. Direct reprogramming of patient fibroblasts to neuronal progenitor cells and subsequent differentiation into patient astrocytes allows rapid generation of disease relevant cell types. Thus, this methodology can facilitate compound testing in a diverse genetic background resulting in a more representative population for therapeutic evaluation. Here, we used established co‐culture assays with motor neurons and reprogrammed patient skin‐derived astrocytes (iAs) to evaluate the effects of (SP‐4‐2)‐2,2’‐(1,2‐dimethyl‐1,2‐ethanediylidene)bisN‐methylhydrazinecarbothioamidato‐κN2,κS(2‐)‐copper (CuATSM), currently in clinical trial for ALS in Australia. Pretreatment of iAs with CuATSM had a differential effect on neuronal survival following co‐culture with healthy motor neurons. Using this assay, we identified responding and non‐responding cell lines for both sporadic and familial ALS (mutant SOD1 and C9ORF72). Importantly, elevated mitochondrial respiration was the common denominator in all CuATSM‐responders, a metabolic phenotype not observed in non‐responders. Pre‐treatment of iAs with CuATSM restored mitochondrial activity to levels comparable to healthy controls. Hence, this metabolic parameter might allow selection of patient subpopulations best suited for CuATSM treatment. Moreover, CuATSM might have additional therapeutic value for mitochondrial disorders. Enhanced understanding of patient‐specific cellular and molecular profiles could help improve clinical trial design in the future.
Main Points
The clinical stage drug CuATSM normalizes aberrant metabolic phenotypes of ALS astrocytes and restores support towards neurons.
Patient samples could be stratified based on this phenotype, indicating that the model system might support clinical trial result interpretation or design.
We assessed aging hallmarks in skin, muscle, and adipose in the genetically diverse HET3 mouse, and generated a broad dataset comparing these to individual animal diagnostic SNPs from the 4 founding ...inbred strains of the HET3 line. For middle- and old-aged HET3 mice, we provided running wheel exercise to ensure our observations were not purely representative of sedentary animals, but age-related phenotypes were not improved with running wheel activity. Adipose tissue fibrosis, peripheral neuropathy, and loss of neuromuscular junction integrity were consistent phenotypes in older-aged HET3 mice regardless of physical activity, but aspects of these phenotypes were moderated by the SNP% contributions of the founding strains for the HET3 line. Taken together, the genetic contribution of founder strain SNPs moderated age-related phenotypes in skin and muscle innervation and were dependent on biological sex and chronological age. However, there was not a single founder strain (BALB/cJ, C57BL/6J, C3H/HeJ, DBA/2J) that appeared to drive more protection or disease-risk across aging in this mouse line, but genetic diversity in general was more protective.
Display omitted
•Genetically diverse HET3 mice are susceptible to age-related neuromuscular decline.•Voluntary exercise was ineffective at preventing age-related neuromuscular decline.•Relative contributions of HET3 founder strain genetics moderated neuropathy onset.
PDF
