Caught Between a Rock, Negligence, Racism, and a Hard Place: Exploring the Balance Between the EEOC’s Arrest and Conviction Investigation Guidelines and Society’s Best Interest

In many instances, employers have an obligation to conduct criminal background checks on their applicants to ensure that the public that comes into contact with these employees shall not be harmed. In other instances, these criminal background checks are unnecessary as they prove to be of little relevance, yet they have the effect of causing a disparate impact within certain Title VII-protected classes, including Black Americans and Hispanics. To resolve this disparate impact, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has set forth non-biding guidance, proposing an assessment of “Green Factors” that employers should consider before denying an ex-convict employment. In following this guidance, the EEOC aims to create equal employment opportunities for all job applicants including those with criminal histories. While this guidance and these Green factors play a large role in furthering societal benefits, many employers have raised objections to the recent EEOC guidance. Employers argue that the guidance creates a “catch-22,” forcing the employer to choose between being liable for negligent hiring and being liable for violating Title VII. Because the EEOC guidance furthers fundamental societal interests, it should remain in effect. Nevertheless, the guidance must be amended in order to clarify its ambiguous language concerning “business necessity,” which will then resolve the catch-22 conflict that employers currently experience

Social decision making network involved in intrasexual aggression in zebrafish

The neural substrate of social behavior has been described as a “social behavior network” (SBN), and each brain area is involved in multiple forms of social behavior which are reciprocally connected, including aggression. Moreover, the mesolimbic reward system and the SBN are better understood as an integrated social decision-making (SDM) network regulating responses to salient stimuli. Aggression and the neural mechanisms involved in fighting behaviors are usually studied in males but not in females, despite the fact that in different species both sexes show aggressive behavior. The aim of this study is to compare male and female intrasexual aggression in agonistic encounters, and to compare patterns of brain activation in the SDM network in winners and losers from both sexes. We exposed adult zebrafish to social interaction with an opponent of the same sex (n = 20 contests per sex). We recorded the encounter and, after distinguishing a winner and a loser, samples were collected to determine brain activation by immunohistochemistry of the phosphorylated ribosomal protein pS6. The latency did not vary between sexes, while the time of resolution is shorter in females. Our results suggest that in both sexes, animals exposed to social interaction had higher overall brain activation than non-interacting controls. Moreover, females show more overall brain activation than males. In order to study how brain activation is interconnected among different areas in each social group, we performed network analysis. Our analysis suggests that female winners have a brain network with majority of positive correlations, while brain network in female losers is more similar to males, with mainly negative correlations. These results suggest that, even though intrasexual aggression follows similar structure and behavioural displays in both sexes, females solve conflict faster than males and this could be related to differential pattern of brain activation.Fil: Scaia, María Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental y Aplicada. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental y Aplicada; ArgentinaFil: Akinrinade, Ibukun. Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia; PortugalFil: Oliveira, Rui. Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia; Portugal10th IBRO World CongressDaeguCorea del SurInternational Brain Research Organizatio

Sex differences in social buffering and social contagion of alarm responses in zebrafish

The alarm substance in fsh is a pheromone released by injured individuals after a predator attack. When detected by other fsh, it triggers fear/defensive responses, such as freezing and erratic movement behaviours. Such responses can also help other fsh in the shoal to modulate their own behaviours: decreasing a fear response if conspecifcs have not detected the alarm substance (social bufering) or triggering a fear response if conspecifcs detected the alarm substance (social contagion). Response variation to these social phenomena is likely to depend on sex. Because males have higher-risk life-history strategies than females, they may respond more to social bufering where they risk not responding to a real predator attack, while females should respond more to social contagion because they only risk responding to a false alarm. Using zebrafsh, we explored how the response of males and females to the presence/absence of the alarm substance is modifed by the alarmed/ unalarmed behaviour of an adjacent shoal of conspecifcs. We found that, in social bufering, males decreased freezing more than females as expected, but in social contagion males also responded more than females by freezing at a higher intensity. Males were, therefore, more sensitive to visual information, while females responded more to the alarm substance itself. Because visual information updates faster than chemical information, males took more risks but potentially more benefts as well, because a quicker adjustment of a fear response allows to save energy to other activities. These sex diferences provide insight into the modifying efect of life-history strategies on the use of social information.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sex differences in aggression are paralleled by differential activation of the brain social decision-making network in Zebrafish

Although aggression is more prevalent in males, females also express aggressive behaviors and in specific ecological contexts females can be more aggressive than males. The aim of this work is to assess sex differences in aggression and to characterize the patterns of neuronal activation of the social-decision making network (SDMN) in response to intra-sexual aggression in both male and female zebrafish. Adult fish were exposed to social interaction with a same-sex opponent and all behavioral displays, latency, and time of resolution were quantified. After conflict resolution, brains were sampled and sex differences on functional connectivity throughout the SDMN were assessed by immunofluorescence of the neuronal activation marker pS6. Results suggest that both sexes share a similar level of motivation for aggression, but female encounters show shorter conflict resolution and a preferential use of antiparallel displays instead of overt aggression, showing a reduction of putative maladaptive effects. Although there are no sex differences in the neuronal activation in any individual brain area from the SDMN, agonistic interactions increased neuronal activity in most brain areas in both sexes. Functional connectivity was assessed using bootstrapped adjacency matrices that capture the co-activation of the SDMN nodes. Male winners increased the overall excitation and showed no changes in inhibition across the SDMN, whereas female winners and both male and female losers showed a decrease in both excitation and inhibition of the SDMN in comparison to non-interacting control fish. Moreover, network centrality analysis revealed both shared hubs, as well as sex-specific hubs, between the sexes for each social condition in the SDMN. In summary, a distinct neural activation pattern associated with social experience during fights was found for each sex, suggesting a sex-specific differential activation of the social brain as a consequence of social experience. Overall, our study adds insights into sex differences in agonistic behavior and on the neuronal architecture of intrasexual aggression in zebrafish.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Accessory genetic content in Campylobacter jejuni ST21CC isolates from feces and blood

Campylobacter jejuni is an important foodborne pathogen and the most commonly reported bacterial cause of gastroenteritis. C. jejuni is occasionally found in blood, although mechanisms important for invasiveness have remained unclear. C. jejuni is divided into many different lineages, of which the ST21 clonal complex (CC) is widely distributed. Here, we performed comparative genomic and in vitro analyses on 17C. jejuni ST21CC strains derived from human blood and feces in order to identify features associated with isolation site. The ST21CC lineage is divided into two large groups; centered around ST-21 and ST-50. Our clinical strains, typed as ST-50, showed further microevolution into two distinct clusters. These clusters were distinguished by major differences in their capsule loci and the distribution of accessory genetic content, including C. jejuni integrated elements (CJIEs) and plasmids. Accessory genetic content was more common among fecal than blood strains, whereas blood strains contained a hybrid capsule locus which partially consisted of C. jejuni subsp. doylei-like content. In vitro infection assays with human colon cell lines did not show significant differences in adherence and invasion between the blood and fecal strains. Our results showed that CJIEs and plasmid derived genetic material were less common among blood isolates than fecal isolates; in contrast, hybrid capsule loci, especially those containing C. jejuni subsp. doylei-like gene content, were found among many isolates derived from blood. The role of these findings requires more detailed investigation.Peer reviewe

Whole genome sequencing delineates regulatory, copy number, and cryptic splice variants in early onset cardiomyopathy

Cardiomyopathy (CMP) is a heritable disorder. Over 50% of cases are gene-elusive on clinical gene panel testing. The contribution of variants in non-coding DNA elements that result in cryptic splicing and regulate gene expression has not been explored. We analyzed whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data in a discovery cohort of 209 pediatric CMP patients and 1953 independent replication genomes and exomes. We searched for protein-coding variants, and non-coding variants predicted to affect the function or expression of genes. Thirty-nine percent of cases harbored pathogenic coding variants in known CMP genes, and 5% harbored high-risk loss-of-function (LoF) variants in additional candidate CMP genes. Fifteen percent harbored high-risk regulatory variants in promoters and enhancers of CMP genes (odds ratio 2.25, p = 6.70 × 10−7 versus controls). Genes involved in α-dystroglycan glycosylation (FKTN, DTNA) and desmosomal signaling (DSC2, DSG2) were most highly enriched for regulatory variants (odds ratio 6.7–58.1). Functional effects were confirmed in patient myocardium and reporter assays in human cardiomyocytes, and in zebrafish CRISPR knockouts. We provide strong evidence for the genomic contribution of functionally active variants in new genes and in regulatory elements of known CMP genes to early onset CMP.This project was supported by the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research (SM, JE), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (PJT 175034) (SM, JE) and by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (ENP 161429), under the frame of ERA PerMed (SM). SM holds the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada & Robert M Freedom Chair in Cardiovascular Science. SWS holds the GlaxoSmithKline Endowed Chair in Genome Sciences at the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto. PGM holds a Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Non-coding Disease Mechanisms. PGM acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), [NFRFE-2018-01305]. EO holds the Bitove Family Professorship of Adult Congenital Heart Disease. MM holds a Ramon y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC-2017-22249). WO is supported by funding from Fundació La Marató (321/C/2019). JB is funded by a Frans Van de Werf fellowship for clinical cardiovascular research, and by a senior clinical investigator fellowship of the FWO Flanders. KM was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow under grant no. DGE1144152 during the majority of the project. CS is the recipient of a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellowship (1154992). JI is the recipient of an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (1162929). RDB is the recipient of a New South Wales Health Cardiovascular Disease Senior Scientist Grant. PSD is supported by the DBT/Wellcome Trust- Indian Alliance. We acknowledge the Labatt Family Heart Centre Biobank at the Hospital for Sick Children for access to DNA samples, and The Centre for Applied Genomics at the Hospital for Sick Children for performing WGS. We thank Xiucheng Cui and Emanuela Pannia for performing the zebrafish experiments at the SickKids Zebrafish Genetics and Disease Models Core (CRISPR-Cas9 and gRNA syntheses, zebrafish embryo microinjections, gRNA PCR validation, qRT-PCR, cardiac imaging). This research was made possible through access to the data and findings generated by the 100,000 Genomes Project. The 100,000 Genomes Project is managed by Genomics England Limited (a wholly owned company of the Department of Health and Social Care). The 100,000 Genomes Project is funded by the National Institute for Health Research and NHS England. The Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council have also funded research infrastructure. The 100,000 Genomes Project uses data provided by patients and collected by the National Health Service as part of their care and support. We thank members of the ICGC/PCAWG working groups for generating the variant calls used in our case-control burden analyses.Peer Reviewed"Article signat per 38 autors/es: Robert Lesurf, Abdelrahman Said, Oyediran Akinrinade, Jeroen Breckpot, Kathleen Delfosse, Ting Liu, Roderick Yao, Gabrielle Persad, Fintan McKenna, Ramil R. Noche, Winona Oliveros, Kaia Mattioli, Shreya Shah, Anastasia Miron, Qian Yang, Guoliang Meng, Michelle Chan Seng Yue, Wilson W. L. Sung, Bhooma Thiruvahindrapuram, Jane Lougheed, Erwin Oechslin, Tapas Mondal, Lynn Bergin, John Smythe, Shashank Jayappa, Vinay J. Rao, Jayaprakash Shenthar, Perundurai S. Dhandapany, Christopher Semsarian, Robert G. Weintraub, Richard D. Bagnall, Jodie Ingles, Genomics England Research Consortium, Marta Melé, Philipp G. Maass, James Ellis, Stephen W. Scherer & Seema Mital"Postprint (published version

Prevalence of Titin Truncating Variants in General Population

Peer reviewe

Comparision of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) storage characteristics under different storage media and conditions

This research was carried out to compare cowpea storage characteristics using different storage medium, under different weather conditions. Several technologies reputedly attribute losses of stored cowpea grain to bruchid beetles. Comparison of these different postharvest storage methods can provide the basis for deciding which performs best in terms of weight loss, pest infestation and nutritive losses. Proximate analysis was carried out before, during and after storage with two month intervals, over four months of storage in three storage media: a seed gene bank, modified anthill rhombus, and a covered container (the control). Temperature, humidity, and weight values (for moisture content analysis) were taken during the storage period. Results showed that the cowpea seed sample, stored in the AC section of the seed gene bank, proved to be more tolerant to pest infestation compared to seed samples, stored in the Modified anthill rhombus, and seed samples, stored under ambient conditions. The cowpea seeds weight recorded reduction after infestation, which also was significant when compared to the non-infested seeds in the seed gene bank. Proximate analysis of cowpea seeds after infestation showed a decrease in the value of carbohydrate content and protein, while crude fibre, moisture, fat and total ash recorded increased. Further research should be carried out on cowpea storage under different weather conditions, with and without insecticide, and using more media such as jute bags, etc. There should also be an extension of the storage period more than the four month