To facilitate its goal of fostering department transformation, the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE) organizes some of its work into five geographic regions and leverages the expertise of the PULSE Fellows in each region. This article examines how these Regional Networks have driven department-level changes through outreach activities, use of the PULSE Rubrics as a diagnostic tool to help departments to advance the Vision and Change recommendations, and implementation of the PULSE framework to address local needs and challenges. We present impact data through Regional Network activities and identify commonalities in successes and challenges across all the geographic regions. Through reports from the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, and Midwest Great Plains, we highlight each Regional Network’s accomplishments in influencing the adoption of PULSE strategies to implement the Vision and Change recommendations to transform departments.
Background Creatine is one of the most extensively studied ergogenic aids, with over three decades of research supporting its role in exercise performance, recovery, and health.Methods This narrative review summarizes the historical development of creatine supplementation and evaluates evidence regarding its mechanisms, efficacy across active, athletic populations (e.g. strength, endurance, team-sport), and tactical (e.g. military, law enforcement) populations, and its safety profile.Results The evidence suggests that creatine enhances phosphocreatine resynthesis and cellular energy availability, resulting in consistent improvements in high-intensity exercise performance, training adaptations, lean body mass, strength, and power. Additional findings indicate that creatine may attenuate exercise-induced muscle damage and inflammation, support recovery, and improve functional outcomes following strenuous activity. Emerging research suggests benefits for endurance and team-sport athletes through enhanced glycogen resynthesis, calcium handling, oxidative stress mitigation, and repeated-sprint performance. In tactical populations, creatine may support occupational readiness by improving strength, hydration status, thermoregulation, cognition, sleep quality, and recovery, with possible neuroprotective and cardiometabolic implications. Soccer-specific evidence demonstrates improvements in repeated-sprint ability and tolerance to high training loads, with preliminary data suggesting protective effects against neurotrauma and gut barrier disruption. Importantly, pooled analyses from hundreds of clinical trials report no greater incidence of adverse events compared with placebo, reinforcing creatine's established safety profile.Conclusion Overall, the evidence suggests that creatine is a versatile supplement with strong evidence to enhance performance and recovery across diverse populations. Future research should prioritize individualized dosing strategies, long-term outcomes in underrepresented groups, and exploration of novel therapeutic applications in health and disease
This paper examines the moral formation of the protagonist of the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) through the framework of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Though extensive research has been conducted on the use of film as a vehicle for moral education and a tool for ethics pedagogy, there exists a demonstrable gap in research which applies the principles of virtue ethics to character analysis in film. This paper presents a scene-based, qualitative analysis comparing the actions of the main character to the model of habituation of virtue as presented in The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. In observing the state of the protagonist's moral posture chronologically, it will be demonstrated that his character arc engages with familiar virtue ethics concepts such as habituation (ethos), disposition (hexis), practical wisdom (phronesis), friendship (philia), contemplation (theōria), and ultimately eudaimonia. The concluding arguments will present Walter Mitty’s moral development as a roadmap to understanding his personal journey to eudaimonia through habituation, supportive friendships, and engagement with reality. Finally, a film analysis framework constructed on the tenets of virtue ethics will be proposed using this film as a case study. The analysis in this paper is intended to contribute to evolving conversations surrounding film philosophy, ethics pedagogy, and narrative screenwriting by encouraging contemporary filmmakers to adopt similar patterns of character formation which can depict authentic human flourishing on screen.
The brain accounts for approximately 2% of the total body mass yet it consumes about 20% of the daily energy expenditure. These energetic demands are further elevated during periods of metabolic stress, including sleep deprivation, hypoxia, forced mental fatigue, mood disorders, and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Creatine monohydrate supplementation (CrM) plays a critical role in brain bioenergetics via the phosphocreatine (PCr) energy system, which acts as a spatial and temporal buffer by rapidly regenerating adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from adenosine diphosphate (ADP). Accordingly, CrM has been proposed as a potential neuroprotective intervention, particularly under conditions of metabolic stress. This narrative review examines both the mechanistic rationale and empirical evidence supporting this role. CrM has been shown to increase brain creatine content by 3–10%, enhance PCr availability, stabilize intracellular pH, and support mitochondrial function. These physiological effects are associated with attenuated cognitive declines during acute sleep deprivation and hypoxia, improved executive function under forced mental fatigue, and reduced depressive symptoms, especially when used adjunctively with standard therapies. In the context of TBI, preclinical studies in rodents demonstrate reduced cortical damage and improved bioenergetics, while limited but promising pediatric clinical data suggest improved recovery outcomes with CrM supplementation. Collectively, the existing body of research indicates that CrM can enhance brain creatine content and bioenergetic capacity, which is associated with improvements in cognitive function. Despite these promising findings, the current body of evidence remains limited. Large, well-designed randomized controlled trials are needed to establish optimal dosing strategies, determine population-specific efficacy, and evaluate long-term neurological outcomes associated with CrM supplementation.
Strategies to augment weight loss, fitness, and body composition are in high demand. The myokine beta-amino-isobutyric acid (BAIBA) has been shown to increase fat loss, while grains of paradise (GOP), a member of the ginger family, may aid weight loss by reducing appetite and increasing thermogenesis. Purpose To evaluate the impact of 56 days of supplementing with L-BAIBA or L-BAIBA + GOP (BGOP) on resting metabolic rate, body composition, perceptual indicators of mood and affect, and cardiometabolic markers in overweight and obese men and women. Methods Healthy men and women (43.2 ± 11.4 years, 169.4 ± 7.6 cm, 90.3 ± 15.6 kg, 31.4 ± 4.4 kg∙m-2) completed a weekly exercise program and followed a calorie-restrictive diet and were randomly assigned in a double-blind and blocked manner according to sex and DXA lean mass to consume daily either a placebo (PLA) (n=12 [11F, 1M]), 500 mg L-BAIBA (L-BAIBA: MitoBurn™, NNB Nutrition) (n=13 [9F, 4M]), or 500 mg L-BAIBA + 40 mg GOP (BGOP: CaloriBurn™, NNB Nutrition) (n=12 [8F, 4M]). After 0, 14, 28, and 56 days of supplementation, participants were evaluated for changes in body mass, body composition using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), resting metabolic rate, perceptual indicators of hunger, appetite, energy, focus, attention, and concentration using 100-mm anchored visual analog scales (VAS) and mood using the Profile of Mood States along with evaluation of selected cardiometabolic markers. Dietary intake was evaluated using 3-day dietary recalls using ASA24 throughout the study. Mixed factorial ANOVAs with repeated measures assessed the main and interaction effects. A p-value of 0.05 was used to determine statistical outcomes. Results No statistically significant group × time interactions (p>0.05) were found for body mass, resting metabolic rate, DXA fat mass, DXA fat-free mass, DXA
