Soft power, hard news:How journalists at state-funded transnational media legitimize their work

How do journalists working for different state-funded international news organizations legitimize their relationship to the governments which support them? In what circumstances might such journalists resist the diplomatic strategies of their funding states? We address these questions through a comparative study of journalists working for international news organizations funded by the Chinese, US, UK and Qatari governments. Using 52 interviews with journalists covering humanitarian issues, we explain how they minimized tensions between their diplomatic role and dominant norms of journalistic autonomy by drawing on three – broadly shared – legitimizing narratives, involving different kinds of boundary-work. In, the first ‘exclusionary’ narrative, journalists differentiated their ‘truthful’ news reporting from the ‘false’ state ‘propaganda’ of a common Other, the Russian-funded network, RT. In the second ‘fuzzifying’ narrative, journalists deployed the ambiguous notion of ‘soft power’ as an ambivalent ‘boundary concept’, to defuse conflicts between journalistic and diplomatic agendas. In the final ‘inversion’ narrative, journalists argued that, paradoxically, their dependence on funding states gave them greater ‘operational autonomy’. Even when journalists did resist their funding states, this was hidden or partial, and prompted less by journalists’ concerns about the political effects of their work, than by serious threats to their personal cultural capital

Revealing the insoluble metasecretome of lignocellulosedegrading microbial communities

AbstractMicrobial communities metabolize plant biomass using secreted enzymes; however, identifying extracellular proteins tightly bound to insoluble lignocellulose in these microbiomes presents a challenge, as the rigorous extraction required to elute these proteins also lyses the microbes associated with the plant biomass releasing intracellular proteins that contaminate the metasecretome. Here we describe a technique for targeting the extracellular proteome, which was used to compare the metasecretome and meta-surface-proteome of two lignocellulose-degrading communities grown on wheat straw and rice straw. A combination of mass spectrometry-based proteomics coupled with metatranscriptomics enabled the identification of a unique secretome pool from these lignocellulose-degrading communities. This method enabled us to efficiently discriminate the extracellular proteins from the intracellular proteins by improving detection of actively secreted and transmembrane proteins. In addition to the expected carbohydrate active enzymes, our new method reveals a large number of unknown proteins, supporting the notion that there are major gaps in our understanding of how microbial communities degrade lignocellulosic substrates.</jats:p

Ultra-rare mutations in SRCAP segregate in Caribbean Hispanic families with Alzheimer disease.

OBJECTIVE: To identify rare coding variants segregating with late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD) in Caribbean Hispanic families. METHODS: Whole-exome sequencing (WES) was completed in 110 individuals from 31 Caribbean Hispanic families without APOE ε4 homozygous carriers. Rare coding mutations segregating in families were subsequently genotyped in additional families and in an independent cohort of Caribbean Hispanic patients and controls. SRCAP messenger RNA (mRNA) expression was assessed in whole blood from mutation carriers with LOAD, noncarriers with LOAD, and healthy elderly controls, and also from autopsied brains in 2 clinical neuropathologic cohort studies of aging and dementia. RESULTS: Ten ultra-rare missense mutations in the Snf2-related CREBBP, activator protein (SRCAP), were found in 12 unrelated families. Compared with the frequency in Caribbean Hispanic controls and the Latino population in the Exome Aggregation Consortium, the frequency of SRCAP mutations among Caribbean Hispanic patients with LOAD was significantly enriched (p = 1.19e-16). mRNA expression of SRCAP in whole blood was significantly lower in mutation carriers with LOAD, while the expression in whole blood and in the brain was significantly higher in nonmutation carriers with LOAD. Brain expression also correlated with clinical and neuropathologic endophenotypes. CONCLUSIONS: WES in Caribbean Hispanic families with LOAD revealed ultra-rare missense mutations in SRCAP, a gene expressed in the brain and mutated in Floating-Harbor syndrome. SRCAP is a potent coactivator of the CREB-binding protein and a regulator of DNA damage response involving ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling. We hypothesize that increased expression in LOAD suggests a compensatory mechanism altered in mutation carriers

Mining the biomass deconstructing capabilities of rice yellow stem borer symbionts

Efficient deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass into simple sugars in an economically viable manner is a prerequisite for its global acceptance as a feedstock in bioethanol production. This is achieved in nature by suites of enzymes with the capability of efficiently depolymerizing all the components of lignocellulose. Here we provide detailed insight into the repertoire of enzymes produced by microorganisms enriched from the gut of the crop pathogen rice yellow stem borer ( Scirpophaga insertulas ). Results: A microbial community was enriched from the gut of the rice yellow stem borer for enhanced rice straw degradation by sub-culturing every 10 days, for one year, in minimal medium with rice straw as the main carbon source. The enriched culture demonstrated high cellulolytic and xylanolytic activity in the culture supernatant. Metatranscriptomic and metaexoproteomic analysis revealed a large array of enzymes potentially involved in rice straw deconstruction. The consortium was found to encode genes ascribed to all 5 class of carbohydrate active enzymes (GHs, GTs, CEs, PLs and AAs), including Carbohydrate-Binding Modules (CBMs), categorized in the Carbohydrate-Active enZYmes (CAZy) database. The GHs were the most abundant class of CAZymes. Predicted enzymes from these CAZy classes have the potential to digest each cell wall components of rice straw i.e. cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, callose and lignin. Several identified CAZy proteins appeared novel, having an unknown or hypothetical catalytic counterpart with a known class of CBM. To validate the findings, one of the identified enzymes that belongs to the GH10 family was functionally characterized. The enzyme expressed in E. coli efficiently hydrolyzed beechwood xylan, and pretreated and untreated rice straw. Conclusions: This is the first report describing the enrichment of lignocellulose degrading bacteria from the gut of the rice yellow stem borer to deconstruct rice straw, identifying a plethora of enzymes secreted by the microbial community when growing on rice straw as a carbon source. These enzymes could be important candidates for biorefineries to overcome the current bottlenecks in biomass processing

Social media in democratic transitions and consolidations: what can we learn from the case of Tunisia?

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of social media in the stages of uprising, democratic transition and democratic consolidation using the case study of Tunisia. While the impact of social media in uprisings has been widely documented in past research about the MENA region, Tunisia provides new evidence to the use of Internet in the processes of democratisation. Consequently, this research focuses in detail on the benefits but also the pitfalls of social media in transitions and consolidations. Data collection was based on interviews with Tunisian social media activists. The analysis is valuable to social media practitioners and researchers alike

Association of Long Runs of Homozygosity With Alzheimer Disease Among African American Individuals

IMPORTANCE: Mutations in known causal Alzheimer disease (AD) genes account for only 1% to 3% of patients and almost all are dominantly inherited. Recessive inheritance of complex phenotypes can be linked to long (>1-megabase [Mb]) runs of homozygosity (ROHs) detectable by single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between ROHs and AD in an African American population known to have a risk for AD up to 3 times higher than white individuals. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Case-control study of a large African American data set previously genotyped on different genome-wide SNP arrays conducted from December 2013 to January 2015. Global and locus-based ROH measurements were analyzed using raw or imputed genotype data. We studied the raw genotypes from 2 case-control subsets grouped based on SNP array: Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Consortium data set (871 cases and 1620 control individuals) and Chicago Health and Aging Project-Indianapolis Ibadan Dementia Study data set (279 cases and 1367 control individuals). We then examined the entire data set using imputed genotypes from 1917 cases and 3858 control individuals. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The ROHs larger than 1 Mb, 2 Mb, or 3 Mb were investigated separately for global burden evaluation, consensus regions, and gene-based analyses. RESULTS: The African American cohort had a low degree of inbreeding (F ~ 0.006). In the Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Consortium data set, we detected a significantly higher proportion of cases with ROHs greater than 2 Mb (P = .004) or greater than 3 Mb (P = .02), as well as a significant 114-kilobase consensus region on chr4q31.3 (empirical P value 2 = .04; ROHs >2 Mb). In the Chicago Health and Aging Project-Indianapolis Ibadan Dementia Study data set, we identified a significant 202-kilobase consensus region on Chr15q24.1 (empirical P value 2 = .02; ROHs >1 Mb) and a cluster of 13 significant genes on Chr3p21.31 (empirical P value 2 = .03; ROHs >3 Mb). A total of 43 of 49 nominally significant genes common for both data sets also mapped to Chr3p21.31. Analyses of imputed SNP data from the entire data set confirmed the association of AD with global ROH measurements (12.38 ROHs >1 Mb in cases vs 12.11 in controls; 2.986 Mb average size of ROHs >2 Mb in cases vs 2.889 Mb in controls; and 22% of cases with ROHs >3 Mb vs 19% of controls) and a gene-cluster on Chr3p21.31 (empirical P value 2 = .006-.04; ROHs >3 Mb). Also, we detected a significant association between AD and CLDN17 (empirical P value 2 = .01; ROHs >1 Mb), encoding a protein from the Claudin family, members of which were previously suggested as AD biomarkers. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: To our knowledge, we discovered the first evidence of increased burden of ROHs among patients with AD from an outbred African American population, which could reflect either the cumulative effect of multiple ROHs to AD or the contribution of specific loci harboring recessive mutations and risk haplotypes in a subset of patients. Sequencing is required to uncover AD variants in these individuals

Genetic architecture of age-related cognitive decline in African Americans

Objective: To identify genetic risk factors associated with susceptibility to age-related cognitive decline in African Americans (AAs). Methods: We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and an admixture-mapping scan in 3,964 older AAs from 5 longitudinal cohorts; for each participant, we calculated a slope of an individual's global cognitive change from neuropsychological evaluations. We also performed a pathway-based analysis of the age-related cognitive decline GWAS. Results: We found no evidence to support the existence of a genomic region which has a strongly different contribution to age-related cognitive decline in African and European genomes. Known Alzheimer disease (AD) susceptibility variants in the ABCA7 and MS4A loci do influence this trait in AAs. Of interest, our pathway-based analyses returned statistically significant results highlighting a shared risk from lipid/metabolism and protein tyrosine signaling pathways between cognitive decline and AD, but the role of inflammatory pathways is polarized, being limited to AD susceptibility. Conclusions: The genetic architecture of aging-related cognitive in AA individuals is largely similar to that of individuals of European descent. In both populations, we note a surprising lack of enrichment for immune pathways in the genetic risk for cognitive decline, despite strong enrichment of these pathways among genetic risk factors for AD

1963

Trees for a Beautiful Golf Course by Philip Scott (page 1) The Golf Course\u27s Worst Enemy by Charles Amorim and Hal Haskell (2) Message from the President by James f. Gilligan (2) Turf Management Club News (3) Quotes from 1962 Freshman (4) When I consider How my Night is Spent Leonard Mailloux(5) Protection of a Golf Course by Pay Lucas Jr. (6) Safety - The Superintendents\u27 Responsibility by Gerald Peters (7) Picture - Senior Stockbridge Turf Majors (8) Picture - Freshmen Stockbridge Turf Majors (9) Kansas - In the Transition Zone by Carl Beer (10 Seeds by Don Daigle (11) Picture - Dean F. P. Jeffrey, Dr. W.G. Colby and Director J. R. Beattie (12) Picture - Graduates of Winter School for Turf Managers - 1963 (13) The Effect of Last Year\u27s Weather Upon This Year\u27s Incidence of Turf Insects by John C. Schread (A-1) Labor-Management Relations by Mortimer H. Gavin S.J. (A-4) Massachusetts Labor Laws by Andrew C. SInclair (A-7) Golf Course Budget by John Espey (A-10) Golf Course Budgets by Robert St. Thomas (A-12) Purpose & Method of Budgeting by Leon St. Pierre (A-13) The Committee Chairman, His Duties by Charles Connelly (A-16) Long-range vs. Short-range Planning by George Farber (A-18) The Golf Course Superintendent, His Duties by Sherwood Moore (A-20) The Budget by Leo Kowalski (A-25) Public Relations by Leon St. Pierre (A-26) A Study of WIlt by Harry Meusal (A-28) Specifications for a Method of Putting Green Construction by Alexander Radko (A-33) Management of Kentucky Bluegrass & Grass Mixtures for Turf by F.V. Juska (A-38) What\u27s New in Fertilizers by Geoffrey S. Cornish (A-40) Methylene Ureas by Harvey Stangel (A-42) Plastic Coated Fertilizers by Louis I. Hansen (A-44) The Role of Sewage Sludge by James Latham Jr. (A-49) The Role of Ureaforms in the Turf Fertilizer Industry by Robert T. Miller (A-51) Why Low Phosphorus & Higher Potassium by L. J. Sullivan (A-55) Uptake of Potassium by Evangel Bredakis (A-59) Responsibility of Industry & Community in Land Usage & Plantings by Joseph L. Beasley (A-61) Turf & Other Planting Problems by H. Thurston Handley Jr. (A-65) Weeds & Diseases by Dominic Marini (A-67) General Maintenacne & Equipment by Lewis Hodgkinson (A-68) Fertilizer Problems by William J. Bennett (A-70) Lawn Construction & Insect Problems by herbert C. Fordham (A-71

Trans-pQTL study identifies immune crosstalk between Parkinson and Alzheimer loci

Objective: Given evidence from genetic studies, we hypothesized that there may be a shared component to the role of myeloid function in Parkinson and Alzheimer disease (PD and AD) and assessed whether PD susceptibility variants influenced protein expression of well-established AD-associated myeloid genes in human monocytes. Methods: We repurposed data in which AD-related myeloid proteins CD33, TREM1, TREM2, TREML2, TYROBP, and PTK2B were measured by flow cytometry in monocytes from 176 participants of the PhenoGenetic Project (PGP) and Harvard Aging Brain Study. Linear regression was used to identify associations between 24 PD risk variants and protein expression. The 2 cohorts were meta-analyzed in a discovery analysis, and the 4 most strongly suggestive results were validated in an independent cohort of 50 PGP participants. Results: We discovered and validated an association between the PD risk allele rs12456492G in the RIT2 locus and increased CD33 expression (pjoint = 3.50 × 10−5) and found strongly suggestive evidence that rs11060180A in the CCDC62/HIP1R locus decreased PTK2B expression (pjoint = 1.12 × 10−4). Furthermore, in older individuals, increased CD33 expression on peripheral monocytes was associated with a greater burden of parkinsonism (p = 0.047), particularly bradykinesia (p = 6.64 × 10−3). Conclusions: We find that the rs12456492 PD risk variant affects expression of AD-associated protein CD33 in peripheral monocytes, which suggests that genetic factors for these 2 diseases may converge to influence overlapping innate immune-mediated mechanisms that contribute to neurodegeneration. Furthermore, the effect of the rs12456492G PD risk allele on increased CD33 suggests that the inhibition of certain myeloid functions may contribute to PD susceptibility, as is the case for AD