Walk Leader training manual

The Walking for Health programme was established in 2001 and continues to be an integral part of Government policy to address the health and wellbeing of the population in Northern Ireland. The programme is delivered through HSC Trusts across Northern Ireland and is supported by the Public Health Agency. Walking for Health aims to encourage inactive people to increase their level of physical activity by participating in local led health walks.

Walk Leader information leaflet

The Walking for Health programme was established in 2001 and continues to be an integral part of Government policy to address the health and wellbeing of the population in Northern Ireland. The programme is delivered through HSC Trusts across Northern Ireland and is supported by the Public Health Agency. Walking for Health aims to encourage inactive people to increase their level of physical activity by participating in local led health walks.

Walk Leader role description

The Walking for Health programme was established in 2001 and continues to be an integral part of Government policy to address the health and wellbeing of the population in Northern Ireland. The programme is delivered through HSC Trusts across Northern Ireland and is supported by the Public Health Agency. Walking for Health aims to encourage inactive people to increase their level of physical activity by participating in local led health walks.

Walk Leader health walk poster

The Walking for Health programme was established in 2001 and continues to be an integral part of Government policy to address the health and wellbeing of the population in Northern Ireland. The programme is delivered through HSC Trusts across Northern Ireland and is supported by the Public Health Agency. Walking for Health aims to encourage inactive people to increase their level of physical activity by participating in local led health walks.

Walk Leader certificate

The Walking for Health programme was established in 2001 and continues to be an integral part of Government policy to address the health and wellbeing of the population in Northern Ireland. The programme is delivered through HSC Trusts across Northern Ireland and is supported by the Public Health Agency. Walking for Health aims to encourage inactive people to increase their level of physical activity by participating in local led health walks.

Interplay between insulin signaling, juvenile hormone, and vitellogenin regulates maternal effects on polyphenism in ants.

Polyphenism is the phenomenon in which alternative phenotypes are produced by a single genotype in response to environmental cues. An extreme case is found in social insects, in which reproductive queens and sterile workers that greatly differ in morphology and behavior can arise from a single genotype. Experimental evidence for maternal effects on caste determination, the differential larval development toward the queen or worker caste, was recently documented in Pogonomyrmex seed harvester ants, in which only colonies with a hibernated queen produce new queens. However, the proximate mechanisms behind these intergenerational effects have remained elusive. We used a combination of artificial hibernation, hormonal treatments, gene expression analyses, hormone measurements, and vitellogenin quantification to investigate how the combined effect of environmental cues and hormonal signaling affects the process of caste determination in Pogonomyrmex rugosus. The results show that the interplay between insulin signaling, juvenile hormone, and vitellogenin regulates maternal effects on the production of alternative phenotypes and set vitellogenin as a likely key player in the intergenerational transmission of information. This study reveals how hibernation triggers the production of new queens in Pogonomyrmex ant colonies. More generally, it provides important information on maternal effects by showing how environmental cues experienced by one generation can translate into phenotypic variation in the next generation.

Footprints of a trypanosomatid RNA world: pre-small subunit rRNA processing by spliced leader addition trans-splicing

The addition of a capped mini-exon [spliced leader (SL)] through trans-splicing is essential for the maturation of RNA polymerase (pol) II-transcribed polycistronic pre-mRNAs in all members of the Trypanosomatidae family. This process is an inter-molecular splicing reaction that follows the same basic rules of cis-splicing reactions. In this study, we demonstrated that mini-exons were added to precursor ribosomal RNA (pre-rRNA) are transcribed by RNA pol I, including the 5' external transcribed spacer (ETS) region. Additionally, we detected the SL-5'ETS molecule using three distinct methods and located the acceptor site between two known 5'ETS rRNA processing sites (A' and A1) in four different trypanosomatids. Moreover, we detected a polyadenylated 5'ETS upstream of the trans-splicing acceptor site, which also occurs in pre-mRNA trans-splicing. After treatment with an indirect trans-splicing inhibitor (sinefungin), we observed SL-5'ETS decay. However, treatment with 5-fluorouracil (a precursor of RNA synthesis that inhibits the degradation of pre-rRNA) led to the accumulation of SL-5'ETS, suggesting that the molecule may play a role in rRNA degradation. The detection of trans-splicing in these molecules may indicate broad RNA-joining properties, regardless of the polymerase used for transcription.

A directed approach for the identification of transcripts harbouring the spliced leader sequence and the effect of trans-splicing knockdown in Schistosoma mansoni

Schistosomiasis is a major neglected tropical disease caused by trematodes from the genus Schistosoma. Because schistosomes exhibit a complex life cycle and numerous mechanisms for regulating gene expression, it is believed that spliced leader (SL) trans-splicing could play an important role in the biology of these parasites. The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of trans-splicing in Schistosoma mansoni through analysis of genes that may be regulated by this mechanism and via silencing SL-containing transcripts through RNA interference. Here, we report our analysis of SL transcript-enriched cDNA libraries from different S. mansoni life stages. Our results show that the trans-splicing mechanism is apparently not associated with specific genes, subcellular localisations or life stages. In cross-species comparisons, even though the sets of genes that are subject to SL trans-splicing regulation appear to differ between organisms, several commonly shared orthologues were observed. Knockdown of trans-spliced transcripts in sporocysts resulted in a systemic reduction of the expression levels of all tested trans-spliced transcripts; however, the only phenotypic effect observed was diminished larval size. Further studies involving the findings from this work will provide new insights into the role of trans-splicing in the biology of S. mansoni and other organisms. All Expressed Sequence Tags generated in this study were submitted to dbEST as five different libraries. The accessions for each library and for the individual sequences are as follows: (i) adult worms of mixed sexes (LIBEST_027999: JZ139310 - JZ139779), (ii) female adult worms (LIBEST_028000: JZ139780 - JZ140379), (iii) male adult worms (LIBEST_028001: JZ140380 - JZ141002), (iv) eggs (LIBEST_028002: JZ141003 - JZ141497) and (v) schistosomula (LIBEST_028003: JZ141498 - JZ141974).

The identification of two Trypanosoma cruzi I genotypes from domestic and sylvatic transmission cycles in Colombia based on a single polymerase chain reaction amplification of the spliced-leader intergenic region

A single polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reaction targeting the spliced-leader intergenic region of Trypanosoma cruzi I was standardised by amplifying a 231 bp fragment in domestic (TcIDOM) strains or clones and 450 and 550 bp fragments in sylvatic strains or clones. This reaction was validated using 44 blind coded samples and 184 non-coded T. cruzi I clones isolated from sylvatic triatomines and the correspondence between the amplified fragments and their domestic or sylvatic origin was determined. Six of the nine strains isolated from acute cases suspected of oral infection had the sylvatic T. cruzi I profile. These results confirmed that the sylvatic T. cruzi I genotype is linked to cases of oral Chagas disease in Colombia. We therefore propose the use of this novel PCR reaction in strains or clones previously characterised as T. cruziI to distinguish TcIDOMfrom sylvatic genotypes in studies of transmission dynamics, including the verification of population selection within hosts or detection of the frequency of mixed infections by both T. cruzi I genotypes in Colombia.

Genetic interplay between HLA-C and MIR148A in HIV control and Crohn disease.

Variation in the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of the HLA-C locus determines binding of the microRNA Hsa-miR-148a, resulting in lower cell surface expression of alleles that bind miR-148a relative to those alleles that escape its binding. The HLA-C 3'UTR variant was shown to associate with HIV control, but like the vast majority of disease associations in a region dense with causal candidates, a direct effect of HLA-C expression level on HIV control was not proven. We demonstrate that a MIR148A insertion/deletion polymorphism associates with its own expression levels, affecting the extent to which HLA-C is down-regulated, the level of HIV control, and the risk of Crohn disease only among those carrying an intact miR-148a binding site in the HLA-C 3'UTR. These data illustrate a direct effect of HLA-C expression level on HIV control that cannot be attributed to other HLA loci in linkage disequilibrium with HLA-C and highlight the rich complexity of genetic interactions in human disease.

From Translation to Rewriting : the Interplay of Text and Image in The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault and The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Abstract :This article examines the interplay of text and image in The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault (1977), translated by Angela Carter and illustrated by Martin Ware, as a form of intersemiotic dialogue that sheds new light on Carter's work. It argues that Ware's highly original artwork based on the translation not only calls into question the association of fairy tales with children's literature (which still characterizes Carter's translation), but also captures an essential if heretofore neglected aspect of Carter's creative process, namely the dynamics between translating, illustrating and rewriting classic tales. Several elements from Ware's illustrations are indeed taken up and elaborated on in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979), the collection of "stories about fairy stories" that made Carter famous. These include visual details and strategies that she transposed to the realm of writing, giving rise to reflections on the relation between visuality and textuality.RésuméCet article considère l'interaction du texte et de l'image dans les contes de Perrault traduits par Angela Carter et illustrés par Martin Ware (The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, 1977) comme une forme de dialogue intersémiotique particulièrement productif. Il démontre que les illustrations originales de Ware ne mettent pas seulement en question l'assimilation des contes à la littérature de jeunesse (qui est encore la perspective adoptée par la traductrice dans ce livre), mais permettent aussi de saisir un aspect essentiel bien que jusque là ignoré du procession de création dans l'oeuvre de Carter, à savoir la dynamique qui lie la traduction, l'illustration et la réécriture des contes classiques. Plusieurs éléments des illustrations de Ware sont ainsi repris et élaborés dans The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979), la collection de "stories about fairy stories" qui rendit Carter célèbre. La transposition de détails et de stratégies visuelles dans l'écriture donnent ainsi l'occasion de réflexions sur les rapports entre la visualité et la textualité.

Transforming personal experience and emotions through education to cultural diversity: an interplay between unicity and genericity

When subjects studied at school are close to societal discourses and to the students' social identities, when they have high emotional resonance, is it possible to enable the students to distance themselves from their emotions and personal experience, and to conceptualise them? Examining the relation between emotion and learning through the lens of socio-cultural psychology, the aim of our study was to shed light on "secondarisation" processes, that is, processes that transform personal experience and emotions into conceptualised forms of thinking. We analysed 85 video-recorded lessons in education for cultural diversity involving 12 teachers (of primary and secondary schools). Having identified episodes in which emotions were put into words or personal experience was reported, we analysed the use of pronouns (taken as indicators of secondarisation processes) and found a recurrent pattern: "the unicity-genericity routine". We illustrate the functioning of this routine with various excerpts taken from lessons in education for diversity taught in the classes of two teachers in primary school. The results show that the interplay between unicity and genericity works as a discursive resource for the development of secondarisation processes.

Leader corruption depends on power and testosterone

We used incentivized experimental games to manipulate leader power-the number of followers and the discretion leaders had to enforce their will. Leaders had complete autonomy in deciding payouts to themselves and their followers. Although leaders could make prosocial decisions to benefit the public good they could also abuse their power by invoking antisocial decisions, which reduced the total payouts to the group but increased leader's earnings. In Study 1 (N = 478), we found that both amount of followers and discretionary choices independently predicted leader corruption. In Study 2 (N = 240), we examined how power and individual differences (e.g., personality, hormones) affected leader corruption over time; power interacted with testosterone in predicting corruption, which was highest when leader power and baseline testosterone were both high. Honesty predicted initial level of leader antisocial decisions; however, honesty did not shield leaders from the corruptive effect of power.

Interplay between keratinocytes and immune cells--recent insights into psoriasis pathogenesis.

Psoriasis is one of the most common human inflammatory skin diseases characterised by hyperproliferation and aberrant differentiation of keratinocytes. The trigger of the typical epidermal changes seen in psoriasis was considered to be a dysregulated immune response with Th-1/Tc1 cells playing a central role. Recent studies have provided new insights into psoriasis pathogenesis in defining intraepidermal alpha(1)beta(1)+ T cells as key effectors driving keratinocyte changes. Critical roles for IFN-alpha secreted by plasmacytoid dendritic cells and the IL-23/Th-17 axis were postulated. Initially, these subsequent stages are at least partially driven by the endogenous antimicrobial peptide LL37 that converts inert self-DNA into a potent trigger of interferon production by binding and delivering the DNA into plasmacytoid dendritic cells to trigger toll-like receptor 9. As LL37 is expressed by keratinocytes upon various stimuli, keratinocytes might regain momentum as instigators of an aberrant immune response which then precedes the characteristic changes in the epidermis. Data from these new studies indicate a complex interplay between keratinocytes overexpressing antimicrobial peptides and immune cells driving epidermal hyperproliferation and aberrant keratinocyte differentiation in the pathogenesis of psoriasis.

School Leader Update, September 2004

Monthly newsletter produced by Iowa Department of Education