Utilization of Core Values and Branding to Recruit the Best Trainees for Your Program.

Branding is a tactic which has been well described in the business literature as a way to enhance a company's reputation, promote a sense of high quality and value, and influence an individual's perception and behavior. Branding has not traditionally been explicitly used by training programs for recruitment. However, it can be used as a powerful tool to help recruit and retain candidates who will thrive in your program. Branding has become even more important since the COVID-19 pandemic with the absence of in-person experiences for most applicants and a transition to virtual interview platforms. This article discusses how to develop and use your core values to understand your brand identity, create a clear and memorable message to your applicants, and ensure a brand experience that will allow applicants to understand the essence of your training program.

Condom availability program in an inner city public school: effect on the rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia infection.

PURPOSE: Sexual activity and sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates are high in adolescents. In this study, we sought to determine whether the initiation of a school-based condom availability program was associated with a decrease in STI rates. METHODS: We compared the rates of STIs in 15-19-yr-olds reported to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for the 3 years before and after a condom availability program was introduced in Holyoke, MA, as compared with a similar city, Springfield, MA, which did not have such a program. RESULTS: Holyoke males, aged 15-19 years, showed a 47% decrease in the rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia infection combined over the 3 years after the implementation of the condom availability program, whereas similar aged males in Springfield had a 23% increase in the rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia infection. The difference in regression slopes in this period was significant (p < .01). Females, aged 15-19 years, from either Holyoke or Springfield, showed moderate, variable changes in rates of STIs after 2005; there was no significant difference in the regression slopes of STIs between Holyoke and Springfield. CONCLUSIONS: Initiating a condom availability program in a city's high school was associated with a decrease in STI rates for 15-19-yr-old males but not females.

Mga2p processing by hypoxia and unsaturated fatty acids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: impact on LORE-dependent gene expression.

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, OLE1 encodes a delta9 fatty acid desaturase, an enzyme that plays a critical role in maintaining the correct ratio of saturated to monounsaturated fatty acids in the cell membrane. Previous studies have demonstrated that (i) OLE1 expression is repressed by unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) and induced by low oxygen tension, (ii) a component of this regulation is mediated through the same low oxygen response element (LORE) in the OLE1 promoter, and (iii) Mga2p is involved in LORE-dependent hypoxic induction of OLE1. We now report that LORE-CYC1 basal promoter-lacZ fusion reporter assays demonstrate that UFAs repress the reporter expression under hypoxic conditions in a dose-dependent manner via LORE. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays show that UFAs repress the hypoxia-induced complex formation with LORE. Studies with a construct encoding a truncated form of Mga2p support the hypothesis that both hypoxia and UFA signals affect the processing of Mga2p and the UFA repression of OLE1 hypoxic induction is mediated through Mga2p. Data from Western blot assays provide evidence that under normoxic conditions, Mga2p processing produces approximately equimolar levels of the membrane-bound and processed forms and is unaffected by UFAs. Hypoxic induction of OLE1, however, is associated with increased processing of the protein, resulting in an approximately fivefold increase in the soluble active form that is counteracted by exposure of the cells to unsaturated fatty acids. Data from this study suggest that the Mga2p-LORE interaction plays an important role in OLE1 expression under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions.