An immersive field trip focused on beef production increases the sense of belonging in ethnoracial minority college students.

Sense of belonging is a student's sense of feeling accepted, valued, and included by others in their discipline. Imposter syndrome is self-perceived intellectual fraud in areas of success. Sense of belonging and imposter syndrome can influence behavior and well-being and are linked to academic and career outcomes. Our objective was to evaluate if a 5-d tour of the beef cattle industry changed college students' sense of belonging and imposter tendencies with a focus on ethnicity/race. Procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Texas State University (TXST) IRB (#8309). Students from TXST and Texas A&M University (TAMU) attended a beef cattle industry tour in the Texas Panhandle in May 2022. Identical pre- and post-tests were administered immediately before and after the tour. Statistical analyses were conducted with SPSS v.26. Independent sample t-tests were used to evaluate the change from pre- to post-survey and one-way ANOVA was used to evaluate the effect of ethnicity/race. Students (n = 21) were mostly female (81%); attended TAMU (67%) or TXST (33%); and were White (52%), Hispanic (33%), or Black (14%). "Hispanic" and "Black" were combined as a single variable to analyze differences between White and ethnoracial minority students. Before the tour, there was a difference (P = 0.05) in sense of belonging in agriculture between White (4.33 ± 0.16) and ethnoracial minority (3.73 ± 0.23) students such that White students had stronger belonging. There was no change (P = 0.55) in White students' sense of belonging as a result of the tour, from 4.33 ± 0.16 to 4.39 ± 0.44. However, there was a change (P ≤ 0.01) in ethnoracial minority students' sense of belonging, from 3.73 ± 0.23 to 4.37 ± 0.27. There was no change (P = 0.36) in imposter tendencies from the pre-test (58.76 ± 2.46) to the post-test (60.52 ± 2.79). Ultimately, participating in the tour increased ethnoracial minority, but not White, students' sense of belonging and did not impact imposter syndrome tendencies across or within ethnicity/race. One benefit of implementing experiential learning opportunities in dynamic social environments is the potential to improve students' sense of belonging, especially in disciplines and careers where ethnoracial minority people are underrepresented.

Color attributes and myoglobin chemistry exhibit relationships with tenderness and calpain-1 abundance in postmortem Longissimus lumborum muscles from Holstein heifers.

The objective of this study was to determine the extent that myoglobin and beef color are associated with calpain-1 relative abundance relative and tenderness. Longissimus lumborum (LL) samples from the left side of Holstein beef carcasses (n = 31) were collected immediately post-evisceration for 0 h analyses. At 48 h postmortem six steaks were removed from the right side of each carcass for analyses at 48 and 336 h postmortem. Myoglobin concentrations resulted in negative correlations (P < 0.05) to Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) values at 336 h postmortem. L*, a*, and b* values at 48 h resulted in positive correlations (P < 0.05) with WBSF values at 48 and 336 h. Values for b* at 336 h had positive correlations with calpain-1 concentration at 0 and 336 h. Data from this study indicate a potential relationship between myoglobin concentration and meat color with tenderness aspects and calpain-1 relative abundance.

Evaluation of absences and myoclonic seizures in adults with genetic (idiopathic) generalized epilepsy: a comparison between self-evaluation and objective evaluation based on home video-EEG telemetry.

People with focal epilepsies are known to under-document their seizures, but there is no data on self-documentation in adults with genetic (idiopathic) generalized epilepsy (GGE/IGE). We assessed the accuracy of self-evaluation of typical absences (TA) or myoclonic seizures (MS) in adults with IGE based on home video-EEG telemetry (HVET). Patients' own estimates were compared to the objective count of definite TA and MS, performed visually. We considered definite TA as generalized spike-wave discharges (GSWD) that met any of the following criteria: 1) coinciding with clear behavioural arrest on video, 2) followed after a few seconds by positive indication that an absence occurred, or 3) in the absence of video, consistently coinciding with clear motor arrest, as evidenced by interruption of continuous muscle activity. For each patient, we also classified probable TA as GSWDs that were longer than those corresponding to the shortest definite TA on HVET or based on the most recent sleep-deprived EEG (SDEEG). From the first 300 consecutive adults who had HVET, 24 had IGE with TA and / or MS; 23 were women. Only one patient had newly diagnosed IGE. Erroneous self-assessment of TA and MS was noted in 16/24 patients (66.7%). Seizures were overestimated in nine (37.5%) and underestimated in seven (29.2%). Only one patient (4.2%) documented all her TA and MS without false-positive estimates. Overestimation (but not underestimation) of TA on HVET could be predicted when patients reported daily or multiple weekly TA and a recent SDEEG was either normal or contained only subclinical GSWD (p=0.0095). Under- and over-self-documentation of TA and MS occurred in two thirds of adults with GGE/IGE, with substantial impact on their outpatient management and treatment. Diagnostic HVET is a useful tool for the detection of erroneous self-evaluation in these patients.