All animals have the ability to repair damaged or diseased tissues. The degree to which regeneration can occur can vary from some invertebrates and vertebrates regenerating entire limbs, to mammals which have a very restricted regenerative capacity. While damages to muscle, peripheral nerves, and, to a limited extent, liver initiates regenerative programs to restore function, the central nervous system (CNS) healing is largely incomplete. Rapid and efficient clearance of cellular debris is necessary for tissue regeneration to occur. Myelin debris can be found in the white matter tracts years after an injury to the CNS in both humans and primates. Myelin is a membrane outgrowth of glial cells that ensheath axons purpose of which is to allow fast saltatory conduction of action potential along the axon. Myelin sheath also has within it many proteins that are inhibitory for axon growth, presumably to prevent errant axon sprouting. The prolonged presence of myelin-associated inhibitors of axon regeneration is thought to be a major contributor to the failure of recovery after injury to the CNS. Myelin in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) also contains inhibitors of axon regeneration. In stark contrast to the CNS, injury to the PNS results in rapid clearance of myelin thereby making the environment permissive for axon regeneration. It has been demonstrated that endogenous antibodies are required for rapid and robust clearance of myelin debris after injury to the PNS. Endogenous antibodies enter the site of injury and bind myelin debris which recruits macrophages to rapidly phagocytose the debris. It was hypothesized that Th2 activated (alternatively activated) macrophages (or M2 macrophages) are playing a critical role in the clearance of myelin and other apoptotic debris in PNS injury. Perhaps, then, this might be another explanation why the PNS recovers and the CNS fails to recover after injury. This would have significant implications for people who suffer from spinal cord injuries.

Along strike strain variation related to the Alleghanian Orogeny are observed in the Iron Mountains, southwest Virginia, located in the transition between the Virginia salient and Tennessee recess. A regional scale dextral transpression fault—the E-W striking Byllesby-Falls fault system (BFFS)—is present across the Iron Mountains. Tectonic convergence direction during the later stages of the Alleghanian orogeny transitioned from an initial NW-directed transport phase to a WNW-directed transport phase (e.g. Wise, 2004). This change in tectonic transport direction introduced a lateral kinematic component into the structural corner of the orogen and was accommodated by formation of the BFFS during the later Alleghanian stage. Additionally, there are 2 populations of mesoscale normal faults observed in Iron Mountains: 1) faults orthogonal to BFFS with purely normal slip motion, and 2) faults parallel to the BFFS with either oblique normal slip or alternating between normal and dextral slip motion. The first normal slip fault population is appropriately oriented to accommodate tangential extension along the BFFS during oblique convergence in the structural corner. The second normal fault population may have formed to accommodate extension in response to an over-steepening orogenic wedge as it exceeded critical taper angle. However, this normal fault population also accommodated dextral motion within the salient wedge. These fault populations in the Iron Mountains indicate that extension and dextral transpression motion were simultaneously active components and record three-dimensional structural processes in the salient wedge during the last stage of Alleghanian collision.

Within academia and industry, spatial skills are essential for success as a student or expert in the geosciences. Little work has assessed the relationship between spatial skill and upper level undergraduate, graduate, or expert level geologic interpretations. This presentation will discuss results of a pre-post study that assess spatial skill and sequence stratigraphic interpretation. Additionally, the presentation will present how spatial skills may impact conceptual errors on interpretation tasks. This study had students complete a geologic task that contained a sequence stratigraphic diagram and a Wheeler diagram. The Sequence stratigraphic diagram is a depth vs. distance diagram of subsurface sediment. The Wheeler diagram and a spatiotemporal diagram representing time vs. distance and corresponds to the layers in the sequence stratigraphic diagram. The results show that mental folding and unfolding significantly predicted student interpretation scores for the complete task and each diagram. Item level analysis of students’ answers on the geologic task revealed a set of unique geologic conceptual errors, some of which are integral to students’ spatial understanding of the diagrams. One specific error will be featured in this presentation, students’ assumption that the lateral contact between rock units represents gaps in the rock record. This is a unique issue as this is geologically implausible, and that the representation of these contacts mimics introductory level representations of gaps in the rock record and students either are over-relying on the spatial skill of pattern matching or have major errors in their conceptual understanding. An essential aspect of this study is that it starts to explore student needs for interpreting spatiotemporal diagrams. Additionally, it is the first study within the geosciences to assess mental folding and unfolding, a skill used across geosciences and other STEM disciplines.

New partnerships and technologies are creating opportunities for faculty to develop and share open access journals and other digital scholarship at SUNY Oneonta. Our college is investing in open resources in multiple ways, including by opening a new faculty librarian position in 2020 to support and extend open access and scholarly communications services on campus. At the same time, the SUNY system has elevated SUNY Create from a campus-level project (born at SUNY Oneonta and three other comprehensive colleges) to a system-wide platform for faculty and students to build their own open-source, web-enabled teaching, learning, and research materials in a supported environment. Two faculty members from the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department are unearthing the potential of SUNY Create by reviving Northeast Geoscience, a regional open access journal with a history on our campus. In partnership with Milne Library’s Scholarly Communications Librarian and an Instructional Designer from the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center (TLTC), we are developing an open access journal site to host, manage, and display a newly accessible version of Northeast Geoscience journal.

Located at the eastern extent of the Great Lakes snowbelt, Central New York averages some of the highest annual snowfall totals east of the Rocky Mountains. This is in large part due to the variety of snowstorms that affect the region including lake-effect storms, coastal storms, and overrunning storms. Previous estimates suggest that lake-effect snowstorms account for approximately half of the seasonal snow in the Great Lakes basin, but ignore the spatial variability that exists within the region. Therefore, this study examines the seasonal snowfall contributions of the different snowstorm types to affect Central New York. Results suggest that although lake-effect snowstorms are the dominant snowstorm type in the region, their seasonal snowfall contributions vary between 13 and 48%. Although lake-effect snowstorms produce more snow during the peak and mid-seasons, their relative contribution is greatest during the early and mid-winter seasons. Generally, higher contributions occur near the Tug Hill Plateau, with lower contributions in southern Central New York. Instead, snowfall in southern Central New York is mostly dominated by Nor'easters (16–35%), with lesser contributions from Rocky lows (14–29%). Overrunning storms that originate in Canada (e.g., Alberta clippers) and non-cyclonic storms contribute the least to seasonal snowfall totals across Central New York; however, they are often the catalyst for lake-effect snowstorms in the region, as they advect continental polar air masses that destabilize across the lake. Understanding the actual snowfall contribution from different snowstorm types is needed for future climate predictions. Since the potential trajectory of future snowfall varies according to the type of storm, climate models must accurately predict the type of storm that is producing the snow.

Setting: A park alongside bustling street. A small platform is set up with a podium and small table. A step or small set of steps allows access up onto the platform. The table contains a pile of pamphlets, flyers, various bottles filled with liquids and tablets, a Marshall Rennet Testing Kit and large tin container. Underneath the table is a metal chest. Posters saying, “Meatless Mondays,” “Wheatless Wednesdays,” “Buy Local,” “When in doubt, eat Potatoes” and “Observe the Gospel of the clean plate” line the back of the small platform. At the front of the platform a sign reads “Live Demonstration at 10:00”.

Urbanization is one of the most important settlement shifts in human history and has been the focus of research within bioarchaeology for decades. However, there have been limited attempts to synthesize the results of these studies in order to gain a broader perspective on whether or how urbanization affects the biology, demography, and behavior of humans, and how these potential effects are embodied in the human skeleton. This paper outlines how bioarchaeology is well-suited to examine urbanization in the past, and we provide an overview and examples of three main ways in which urbanization is studied in bioarchaeological research: comparison of (often contemporaneous) urban and rural sites, synchronic studies of the variation that exists within and between urban sites, and investigations of changes that occur within urban sites over time. Studies of urbanization, both within bioarchaeology and in other fields of study, face a number of limitations, including a lack of a consensus regarding what urban and urbanization mean, the assumed dichotomous nature of urban versus rural settlements, the supposition that urbanization is universally bad for people, and the assumption (at least in practice) of homogeneity within urban and rural populations. Bioarchaeologists can address these limitations by utilizing a wide array of data and methods, and the studies described here collectively demonstrate the complex, nuanced, and highly variable effects of urbanization.

Background: Professional support in pediatric and rehabilitation care environments has been recommended as a means to build youth competence in life skills during their transition to adulthood. Life skills are the essential psychosocial competencies and interpersonal skills needed to manage one’s life. Residential immersive life skills (RILS) programs offer youth with physical disabilities enriched learning environments to acquire these skills. This study explored trajectories of personal growth in life skills and positive psychological outcomes among youth participating in a RILS program and related caregiver perspectives. Method: Delivered by a multidisciplinary healthcare team, The Independence Program is an intensive summer program housed in a college residence that provides realistic experiences of living away from home for small groups of youth between 17 and 21 years of age who have congenital and/or acquired physical disabilities. Using a longitudinal case study and qualitative descriptive design, four youth and their parents/guardians participated in semi-structured interviews prior to, and then 1 month, and 3 to 4 months after the program. A conventional content analysis yielded chronological narratives for each youth and caregiver dyad of their experiences, perceptions and outcomes over time. These narratives were further summarized using a ‘line of development’ perspective to describe individual developmental trajectories of personal growth. Results: All four of the youth returned from the program with positive reports about the new life skills acquired and new behaviours they engaged in. These positive reports generally continued post-program, albeit with differing trajectories unique to each youth and varying levels of congruence with their caregivers’ readiness to support, accommodate and facilitate these changes. Caregivers differed in their capacity to shift in their parenting role to support consolidation of youth life skill competencies following program participation. Conclusions: RILS programs can be transformative. Varied youth trajectories identified significant personal growth through enhanced self-determination, self-efficacy and self-advocacy. Congruence in youth and caregiver perceptions of post-program changes was an important transactional factor. Professional support addressing caregiver needs may be beneficial to facilitate developmentally appropriate shifts in parenting roles. This shift is central to a model of shared management whereby adolescents take on greater responsibility for their own care and life choices.

While the ability to breast-feed is virtually universal among women, the experience of breast-feeding is particular to each woman and is influenced by her social, economic, and personal circumstances. This paper explores quantitative and experience-focused ethnographic data on the experiences of low-income women from the eastern periphery of the city of São Paulo, Brazil, who were breast-feeding for the first time. The prospective, longitudinal data collection method involved repeated in-depth interviews with a group of 65 women, from the end of pregnancy through the first 12 weeks postpartum. Multivariate statistical analyses of the quantitative data revealed that older age, lower interpersonal satisfaction, and unplanned pregnancy shortened the period of exclusive breast-feeding and increased women’s likelihood of having begun supplementation by 12 weeks postpartum. Ethnographic data analysis exposed the meanings of breast-feeding and motherhood for women who had experienced unplanned pregnancy and helped to shed light on the dramatic influence of unplanned pregnancy on women’s breast-feeding practice.

Objectives: Many studies of infant sleep rely solely on parentally-reported data, assuming that parents accurately report their infant's sleep parameters. The objective of this paper is to examine whether night-time sleep parameters of exclusively breastfed or exclusively formula-fed infants differ, and whether correspondence between parental reports and objective measures varies by feeding type. Methods: Mother-infant dyads intending to breastfeed or formula-feed exclusively for 18 weeks were recruited. Mothers were multiparas and primiparas, aged between 18 and 45 years. Infants were full-term, normal birthweight singletons. Maternal report and actigraphic data on infant sleep were collected fortnightly, from four to 18 weeks postpartum. Data were analysed cross-sectionally using t-tests and GLM analysis to control for interaction between feed-type and sleep location. Results: Actigraphy-assessed infant sleep parameters did not vary by feed-type but parentally reported sleep parameters did. Maternal report and actigraphy data diverged at 10 weeks postpartum and discrepancies were associated with infant feeding type. Compared to actigraphy, maternal reports by formula-feeding mothers (controlling for infant sleep location) over-estimated infant's Total Sleep Time (TST) at 10 weeks and Longest Sleep Period (LSP) at 10, 12 and 18 weeks. Conclusions: These results raise questions about the outcomes of previous infant sleep studies where accuracy of parentally-reported infant sleep data is assumed. That parental reports of infant sleep vary by feeding type is particularly important for reconsidering previous studies of infant sleep development and intervention studies designed to influence sleep outcomes, especially where feed-type was heterogeneous, but was not considered as an independent variable.