Internship Experiences Contribute to Confident Career Decision Making for Doctoral Students in the Life Sciences.

The Graduate Student Internships for Career Exploration (GSICE) program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), offers structured training and hands-on experience through internships for a broad range of PhD-level careers. The GSICE program model was successfully replicated at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). Here, we present outcome data for a total of 217 PhD students participating in the UCSF and UC Davis programs from 2010 to 2015 and 2014 to 2015, respectively. The internship programs at the two sites demonstrated comparable participation, internship completion rates, and overall outcomes. Using survey, focus group, and individual interview data, we find that the programs provide students with career development skills, while increasing students' confidence in career exploration and decision making. Internships, in particular, were perceived by students to increase their ability to discern a career area of choice and to increase confidence in pursuing that career. We present data showing that program participation does not change median time to degree and may help some trainees avoid "default postdocs." Our findings suggest important strategies for institutions developing internship programs for PhD students, namely: including a structured training component, allowing postgraduation internships, and providing a central organization point for internship programs.

Analysis of miniature single- and double-notch bending specimens for estimating the fracture toughness of cortical bone.

Studies of the fracture behavior of cortical bone have determined multiple toughening mechanisms that are active during propagation of a crack. Common methods for measuring bone fracture toughness use single-notched specimens often in four-point (SN4PB) or three-point bending (SN3PB). A double-notch four-point bending (DN4PB) specimen is useful to study prefailure damage at the crack tip. Total failure occurs at one notch and only partial failure at the other allowing study of prefailure damage in the unbroken notch. There is no widely known method for calculating the fracture toughness of bone using a DN4PB specimen. A method for calculating the fracture toughness of cortical bone using a DN4PB is developed here and compared with results for a common SN3PB specimen. The new double-notch method permits using a single specimen to measure apparent fracture toughness and to study both pre- and postfailure microdamage in the bone matrix. When and how to use the new and the established test specimens for understanding bone mechanics is discussed.

Effects of mineral content on the fracture properties of equine cortical bone in double-notched beams.

We recently developed a method to measure cortical bone fracture initiation toughness using a double-notched beam in four-point bending. This method was used to test the hypothesis that mineralization around the two notch roots is correlated with fracture toughness and crack extension (physical damage). Total energy absorbed to failure negatively correlated with average mineralization of the beam (r(2)=0.62), but not with notch root mineralization. Fracture initiation toughness was positively correlated to mineralization at the broken notch root (r(2)=0.34). Crack length extension at the unbroken notch was strongly negatively correlated with the average mineralization of the notch roots (r(2)=0.81) whereas crack length extension at the broken notch did not correlate with any of the mineralization measurements. Mineralization at the notch roots and the average mineralization contributed independently to the mechanical and damage properties. The data are consistent with a hypothesis that a) high notch root mineralization results in less stable crack length extension but high force to initiate unstable crack propagation while b) higher average mineralization leads to low post-yield (and total) energy absorption to failure.

Material properties are related to stress fracture callus and porosity of cortical bone tissue at affected and unaffected sites.

Stress fractures are overuse injuries of bone that affect elite athletes and military recruits. One response of cortical bone to stress fracture is to lay down periosteal callus. The objectives of this study were to determine if material properties are different among bones with different stages of stress fracture callus, at both a callus site and at a distal site. Cortical specimens were mechanically tested to determine their stress-strain response. Material property differences were examined using nonparametric and regression analyses. At the callus site, material properties were low during the earliest stages of callus, higher with increasing callus maturity, but dropped at the late stage of callus. At the distal site, the material properties were low during early stages of callus and approached, or returned to, those of bones without callus during the late stages of callus. The effects of stress fracture and bone callus are not limited to the focal site of stress fracture.