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Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is a major cause of serious human gastrointestinal illness and has the potential to cause life-threatening complications, such as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) (1). An [...]

Motivation and cohesion have both been found to have an effect on persistence and learning (Martens & Webber, 2002), as well as overall performance (Turman, 2003), signifying their imperative nature to any successful team. However, these two factors have yet to be examined in relation to one another when exploring gender as a contributing variable. The purpose of this study was to determine if gender and motivation type were related to athletes' perceptions of team cohesion. In order to address this concept, 253 male and female collegiate athletes completed a demographics questionnaire, the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS; Pelletier et al., 1995), and the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron et al., 1985). Results revealed significant positive correlations between perceptions of task and social cohesion with each of the three intrinsic motivation types and two extrinsic motivation types (i.e. integrated regulation and identified regulation). Negative relationships were found between a motivation and task and social cohesion. However, gender was not a significant predictor of perceived cohesion when moderated with motivation type; only self-determination score was a significant predictor of both task and social cohesion. These outcomes indicate that fostering intrinsic motivation, despite gender, in sport teams may contribute to more positive social and task cohesion among the group., A considerable amount of research has been conducted to understand why individuals choose to participate in sport (Kipp & Amorose, 2008). Two of the most common answers relate to athletes' [...]

Pre-performance routines and specifically putting routines are individualized tasks, which raises the question of whether the temporal consistency correlates with the behavioral consistency of routines (Penick & Shrake, 1992). The purpose of this study was to investigate the duration of pre-putt routines of highly skilled golfers and the accuracy of made putts. Participants consisted of collegiate golfers from 30 Division I Universities during two separate 54-hole collegiate golf tournaments. Putts of 3 feet (.91 meters) to 10 feet (3.04 meters) in length were recorded and divided into two categories of .91 meters to 1.82 meters and 1.82 meters to 3.04 meters. Two separate between-subjects and one within-subjects logistic regression models were conducted. The between-subjects model revealed duration of putting routines was a significant predictor of the likelihood of making the putt for only one tournament. The within-subjects model revealed significant findings in that players deviating less in routine duration were more likely to make the putt. Findings suggest a potential link between temporal consistencies and putting outcomes in relation for avenues of future research., The sport of golf presents researchers with various opportunities to examine athletes' behaviors in specific situations. Golf also provides an arena to test assumptions concerning motor control and performance, due [...]

The purpose of this study was to assess the causes of burnout among studentathletes in Division II institutions. The authors distributed the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ) to 125 undergraduate student-athletes enrolled at three Division II colleges and universities. The athletes competed in various sports. A 2 (Gender) x 2 (Type of Scholarship) x 2 (School Status) analysis of variance revealed that women and men reported different levels of burnout dependent upon type of scholarship. Men with no scholarship reported the lowest levels of burnout among the three types (None/Academic/Athletic), whereas women with no type of scholarship reported the highest levels of burnout. The authors discuss the results and offer implications, limitations, and future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature on student employment within campus recreation departments has focused on a variety of work-related factors, but has been limited by examining single institutions. The current study extended this area of research by examining 290 recreation student employees at 11 institutions located throughout the United States to determine how important five work-related variables were to student employment. Results indicated all variables were rated high in importance, but ability to work around class schedules was most important. Results also indicated that females believe pay rate is more important than males, first year employees do not desire supervisory roles as much as students with more work experience, and students who have supervisory responsibilities find these roles more important than students without such roles. These results can be used by recreation administrators to better understand the priorities of their employees, which ultimately could impact quality of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated skin disorder that is inherited as a complex genetic trait. Although genome-wide association scans (GWAS) have identified 36 disease susceptibility regions, more than 50% of the genetic variance can be attributed to a single Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) locus, known as PSORS1. Genetic studies indicate that HLA-C is the strongest PSORS1 candidate gene, since markers tagging HLA-Cw*0602 consistently generate the most significant association signals in GWAS. However, it is unclear whether HLA-Cw*0602 is itself the causal PSORS1 allele, especially as the role of SNPs that may affect its expression has not been investigated. Here, we have undertaken an in-depth molecular characterization of the PSORS1 interval, with a view to identifying regulatory variants that may contribute to disease susceptibility. By analysing high-density SNP data, we refined PSORS1 to a 179 kb region encompassing HLA-C and the neighbouring HCG27 pseudogene. We compared multiple MHC sequences spanning this refined locus and identified 144 candidate susceptibility variants, which are unique to chromosomes bearing HLA-Cw*0602. In parallel, we investigated the epigenetic profile of the critical PSORS1 interval and uncovered three enhancer elements likely to be active in T lymphocytes. Finally we showed that nine candidate susceptibility SNPs map within a HLA-C enhancer and that three of these variants co-localise with binding sites for immune-related transcription factors. These data indicate that SNPs affecting HLA-Cw*0602 expression are likely to contribute to psoriasis susceptibility and highlight the importance of integrating multiple experimental approaches in the investigation of complex genomic regions such as the MHC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of coat color mutants have greatly contributed to the discovery of genes that regulate melanocyte development and function. Here, we generated Yy1 conditional knockout mice in the melanocyte-lineage and observed profound melanocyte deficiency and premature gray hair, similar to the loss of melanocytes in human piebaldism and Waardenburg syndrome. Although YY1 is a ubiquitous transcription factor, YY1 interacts with M-MITF, the Waardenburg Syndrome IIA gene and a master transcriptional regulator of melanocytes. YY1 cooperates with M-MITF in regulating the expression of piebaldism gene KIT and multiple additional pigmentation genes. Moreover, ChIP--seq identified genome-wide YY1 targets in the melanocyte lineage. These studies mechanistically link genes implicated in human conditions of melanocyte deficiency and reveal how a ubiquitous factor (YY1) gains lineage-specific functions by co-regulating gene expression with a lineage-restricted factor (M-MITF)--a general mechanism which may confer tissue-specific gene expression in multiple lineages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technical advances in lipidomic analysis have generated tremendous amounts of quantitative lipid molecular species data, whose value has not been fully explored. We describe a novel computational method to infer mechanisms of de novo lipid synthesis and remodeling from lipidomic data. We focus on the mitochondrial-specific lipid cardiolipin (CL), a polyglycerol phospholipid with four acyl chains. The lengths and degree of unsaturation of these acyl chains vary across CL molecules, and regulation of these differences is important for mitochondrial energy metabolism. We developed a novel mathematical approach to determine mechanisms controlling the steady-state distribution of acyl chain combinations in CL . We analyzed mitochondrial lipids from 18 types of steady-state samples, each with at least 3 replicates, from mouse brain, heart, lung, liver, tumor cells, and tumors grown in vitro. Using a mathematical model for the CL remodeling mechanisms and a maximum likelihood approach to infer parameters, we found that for most samples the four chain positions have an independent and identical distribution, indicating they are remodeled by the same processes. Furthermore, for most brain samples and liver, the distribution of acyl chains is well-fit by a simple linear combination of the pools of acyl chains in phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), and phosphatidylglycerol (PG). This suggests that headgroup chemistry is the key determinant of acyl donation into CL, with chain length/saturation less important. This canonical remodeling behavior appears damaged in some tumor samples, which display a consistent excess of CL molecules having particular masses. For heart and lung, the "proportional incorporation" assumption is not adequate to explain the CL distribution, suggesting additional acyl CoA-dependent remodeling that is chain-type specific. Our findings indicate that CL remodeling processes can be described by a small set of quantitative relationships, and that bioinformatic approaches can help determine these processes from high-throughput lipidomic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Athletes participating in all levels of sport experience extraordinarily high levels of stress, expectations, and physical challenges. The throws event athlete in track and field should strive to achieve an optimal state of arousal and concentration during specific competitions. A strong body of research evaluating the qualities of the flow state in athletics and psychological skills training is present in sport psychology. A practical guide for coaches to apply psychological skills training in a periodized training plan is missing. The purpose of this article is to: 1) describe a periodized annual plan for mental skills training and 2) suggest a method to interject those skills into the competition day routine to achieve flow for the track and field thrower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]