The Future of Georgia's Nonprofit Leadership

The aim of this survey of Georgia nonprofits is to better understand how leadership transitions will impact nonprofits, and inform the development of strategies to address the pending generational shift in leaders. Sections cover executive director stability and career paths, depth of management capacity at organizations, and transition and succession plans

Determination of Biologically Relevant Vitamin D Metabolites in a Mouse Model of Non Melanoma Skin Cancer

Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (FAES): 1st Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)Background: Vitamin D has received recent attention as a nutrient in which a large portion of Americans may be deficient. Vitamin D is a unique “essential” nutrient in that it can be produced endogenously in the skin via UVB irradiation of 7-dehydrocholesterol, or taken in from the diet. Although it is well established that vitamin D plays a role in bone health, a growing body of evidence suggests that it may also have a role in chronic diseases, including several types of cancer. Vitamin D is not naturally present in many foods although some foods including dairy products and ready to eat cereals are fortified. Some researchers recommend that individuals receive approximately 5 to 15 minutes of unprotected sun exposure several times a week in order to produce sufficient amounts of vitamin D, yet unprotected sun exposure is also a risk factor for skin cancer. Cell studies have demonstrated that 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, the active metabolite of vitamin D, has an inhibitory effect on skin cancer initiation, but cancerous cells lose sensitivity to the growth regulating properties of the compound. These recent reports indicate an important biological role of vitamin D metabolites in skin cancer development, but there have been no studies on the disease measuring these compounds in skin. This is primarily due to the challenging nature of this analysis and need for highly sensitive and sophisticated analytical instrumentation. Purpose/Rationale: Since vitamin D may have a role in the prevention of skin cancer, and the UVB exposure needed for endogenous synthesis of the vitamin is a risk factor for the disease, the effects of dietary vitamin D on the development of skin cancer is a critical area of investigation. However, before results can be translated to humans, appropriate animal models of skin cancer need to be investigated. The purpose of this research is to measure the levels of biologically relevant vitamin D metabolites in the skin and serum of mice fed escalating doses of vitamin D. Research Methods: To evaluate the effects of dietary vitamin D on non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), 150 Skh-1 hairless, but immunocompetent, mice were placed on diets with escalating doses of the vitamin for 29 weeks. The Skh-1 mouse is a well-recognized model of NMSC. Equal numbers of male and female mice were assigned to each dietary level of vitamin D (25, 150, 1000 IU). Within each dietary level, n=15 mice were exposed to UVB light three times per week for the last 25 weeks of the study, and n=10 mice were abstained from the treatment. The UVB exposure given to the mice was one minimal erythemic dose, which is equivalent to a light sunburn. Vitamin D metabolite levels will be measured in the serum and skin of the mice using high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), a sensitive and advanced analytical technique. The estimated levels of these compounds in the skin are quite low, thus extracts from skin samples will be derivatized with 4-phenyl-1,2,4-triazoline-3,5-dione (PTAD), allowing more efficient and sensitive analysis of the vitamin D metabolites. Predicted Findings: We expect to see increased vitamin D metabolites in samples from mice supplemented with the nutrient. A dose-dependent increase in specific metabolites is also expected. Implications: The levels of vitamin D-related compounds in the tissues and serum of mice from this study will be correlated with previously evaluated cancer outcomes. This will be the first study of its kind to measure vitamin D metabolites in murine skin using HPLC-MS/MS in an effort to elucidate the influence of dietary vitamin D on NMSC.A five-year embargo was granted for this item

High resolution spectroscopy of two gamma-ray bursts in November 1978

The first results from the ISSEE-3 radiatively colled germanium gamma ray burst spectrometer are presented. Spectra and time histories from two events on the 1978 November 4 and 1978 November 19 are given. A significant difference in the continuum spectra for the two events was observed. Evidence is presented for two spectral features in the features in the November 19 events, a broad one at approximately 420 key KeV and a narrower one at 740 KeV with a suggestion of an accompanying high energy tail

Heat Treatment of Soy Flour and Its Effects on β-glucosidase Activity

College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Research Forum, Second Place in Food Science CategoryIsoflavones, phytochemicals readily found in soy beans and soy products, have been associated with reduced risk of prostate cancer in mice. Such findings require translation to human prostate cancer patients and thus methods for delivering the isoflavones to the body. Previous work in our laboratory has focused on soy-almond bread. The majority of isoflavones in soy are not in a form easily absorbed by the body. However, isoflavones are converted to a bioactive form by β-glucosidase, an enzyme intrinsic to soy and almond. Previous studies in our lab have suggested that the extent of this conversion may be affected by the heat treatment of soy ingredients. In order to elucidate the role of heat treatment in increasing β-glucosidase activity, crude enzyme extracts from raw almonds and raw or heat treated soy flour-soy milk mixture were obtained using a sodium phosphate buffer at pH 5.0. The heat treatment consisted of roasting or steaming. Protein content was quantified using the Bradford and bicinchoninic acid methods, which indicated that almond and raw soy mixture contained the most protein, while the steamed contained the least. When the β-glucosidase activity of the extracts was measured using p-nitrophenol-β-D-glucopyranoside, almond extract showed the greatest activity, but interestingly, roasted and steamed extracts showed the next highest activity, followed by fermented and raw. It appears that water plays a key role in the mechanism of conversion of isoflavones into bioactive forms, while protein content is less relevant. Such finding is critical when tailoring foods to contain high levels of phytochemicals that are potentially more bioactive by either modifying the crops that provide the raw ingredients or the processing that leads to the desired outcome.Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, S.E.E.D.S. GrantCollege of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Research GrantA five-year embargo was granted for this item

On the morphology of the electron-positron annihilation emission as seen by SPI/INTEGRAL

The 511 keV positron annihilation emission remains a mysterious component of the high energy emission of our Galaxy. Its study was one of the key scientific objective of the SPI spectrometer on-board the INTEGRAL satellite. In fact, a lot of observing time has been dedicated to the Galactic disk with a particular emphasis on the central region. A crucial issue in such an analysis concerns the reduction technique used to treat this huge quantity of data, and more particularly the background modeling. Our method, after validation through a variety of tests, is based on detector pattern determination per ~6 month periods, together with a normalisation variable on a few hour timescale. The Galactic bulge is detected at a level of ~70 sigma allowing more detailed investigations. The main result is that the bulge morphology can be modelled with two axisymmetric Gaussians of 3.2 deg. and 11.8 deg. FWHM and respective fluxes of 2.5 and 5.4 x 10^-4 photons/(cm^2.s^1). We found a possible shift of the bulge centre towards negative longitude at l=-0.6 +/- 0.2 degrees. In addition to the bulge, a more extended structure is detected significantly with flux ranging from 1.7 to 2.9 x10^-3 photons/(cm^2.s^1) depending on its assumed geometry (pure disk or disk plus halo). The disk emission is also found to be symmetric within the limits of the statistical errors.Comment: This paper has 12 pages and 14 figures. Accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journa

MGGPOD: a Monte Carlo Suite for Modeling Instrumental Line and Continuum Backgrounds in Gamma-Ray Astronomy

Intense and complex instrumental backgrounds, against which the much smaller signals from celestial sources have to be discerned, are a notorious problem for low and intermediate energy gamma-ray astronomy (~50 keV - 10 MeV). Therefore a detailed qualitative and quantitative understanding of instrumental line and continuum backgrounds is crucial for most stages of gamma-ray astronomy missions, ranging from the design and development of new instrumentation through performance prediction to data reduction. We have developed MGGPOD, a user-friendly suite of Monte Carlo codes built around the widely used GEANT (Version 3.21) package, to simulate ab initio the physical processes relevant for the production of instrumental backgrounds. These include the build-up and delayed decay of radioactive isotopes as well as the prompt de-excitation of excited nuclei, both of which give rise to a plethora of instrumental gamma-ray background lines in addition to continuum backgrounds. The MGGPOD package and documentation are publicly available for download from http://sigma-2.cesr.fr/spi/MGGPOD/. We demonstrate the capabilities of the MGGPOD suite by modeling high resolution gamma-ray spectra recorded by the Transient Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (TGRS) on board Wind during 1995. The TGRS is a Ge spectrometer operating in the 40 keV to 8 MeV range. Due to its fine energy resolution, these spectra reveal the complex instrumental background in formidable detail, particularly the many prompt and delayed gamma-ray lines. We evaluate the successes and failures of the MGGPOD package in reproducing TGRS data, and provide identifications for the numerous instrumental lines.Comment: 60 pages, 13 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

The Goddard program of gamma ray transient astronomy

Gamma ray burst studies are reviewed. The past results, present status and future expectations are outlined regarding endeavors using experiments on balloons, IMP-6 and -7, OGO-3, ISEE-1 and -3, Helios-2, Solar Maximum Mission, the Einstein Observatory, Solar Polar and the Gamma Ray Observatory, and with the interplanetary gamma ray burst networks, to which some of these spacecraft sensors contribute. Additional emphasis is given to the recent discovery of a new type of gamma ray transient, detected on 1979 March 5

Jovian protons and electrons: Pioneer 11

A preliminary account of the Pioneer 11 passage through the Jovian magnetosphere as viewed by particle detector systems is presented. Emphasis is placed on the region well within the Jovian magnetosphere using data from the LET-II telescope, which measured the proton flux from 0.2 to 21.2 MeV in seven energy intervals and electrons from 0.1 to 2 MeV in four energy intervals. The relative trajectories of Pioneer 10 and 11 are discussed and indicate that Pioneer 11 was exposed to a much lower total radiation dose than Pioneer 10, largely as a result of the retrograde trajectory which approached and exited the inner region of the magnetosphere at high latitudes. Angular distributions, calculations from Pioneer 11 magnetic field data, and the low-energy nucleon component are included in the discussion

The interplanetary acceleration of energetic nucleons

Co-rotating proton and electron streams are the dominant type of low-energy (0.1-10 MeV/nucleon) particle event observed at 1 A.U. The radial dependence of these events was studied between 1 and 4.6 A.U. using essentially identical low-energy detector systems on IMP 7, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. It was expected that at a given energy, the intensity of these streams would decrease rapidly with heliocentric distance due to the effects of interplanetary adiabatic deceleration. Instead it was found that from event to event the intensity either remains roughly constant or increases significantly (more than an order of magnitude) between 1 and 3 A.U. It appears that interplanetary acceleration processes are the most plausible explanation. Several possible acceleration models are explored

Measurement of the fluxes of galactic cosmic ray H-2 and He-3 in 1972 - 1973

If a nearby source of low-energy helium is present, which has traversed a relatively small amount of matter and thus has not caused the production of a significant amount of H-2 or He-3, then these abundance ratios will be suppressed, particularly at low energies. This seems to be the most likely explanation for low ratios