Recommendations To Reduce Frequent Jail Contact

Although most jail admissions represent the only contact a person will have with the criminal legal system, there is a small group of people who experience more frequent jail contact and who represent a disproportionate number of both jail admissions and expenditures. People with frequent jail contact experience complex, interconnected social, economic, and behavioral health needs that may exacerbate (or be exacerbated by) their frequent jail contact. This group also experiences frequent contact with other services in the community, such as emergency rooms, homeless shelters, and treatment facilities. Strategies to implement services that meet complex needs and address structural barriers are critical to meaningfully and sustainably reduce system involvement among the population of people who experience frequent jail contact.Effective change for people with frequent jail contact must proceed simultaneously on a systemic, policy level and on the individual services level. The population discussed in this policy brief typically has complicated behavioral and medical health needs, extensive criminal legal encounters, and significant social deficits such as poverty, isolation, and elevated risk of being unhoused. Many of their needs can be addressed with intensive, person-centered treatment in a coordinated continuum of care

A Novel Lactococcal Vaccine Expressing a Peptide from the M2 Antigen of H5N2 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A Virus Prolongs Survival of Vaccinated Chickens

A cost-effective and efficacious influenza vaccine for use in commercial poultry farms would help protect against avian influenza outbreaks. Current influenza vaccines for poultry are expensive and subtype specific, and therefore there is an urgent need to develop a universal avian influenza vaccine. We have constructed a live bacterial vaccine against avian influenza by expressing a conserved peptide from the ectodomain of M2 antigen (M2e) on the surface of Lactococcus lactis (LL). Chickens were vaccinated intranasally with the lactococcal vaccine (LL-M2e) or subcutaneously with keyhole-limpet-hemocyanin conjugated M2e (KLHM2e). Vaccinated and nonvaccinated birds were challenged with high pathogenic avian influenza virus A subtype H5N2. Birds vaccinated with LL-M2e or KLH-M2e had median survival times of 5.5 and 6.0 days, respectively, which were significantly longer than non-vaccinated birds (3.5 days). Birds vaccinated subcutaneously with KLH-M2e had a lower mean viral burden than either of the other two groups. However, there was a significant correlation between the time of survival and M2e-specific serum IgG. The results of these trials show that birds in both vaccinated groups had significantly ( < 0.05) higher median survival times than non-vaccinated birds and that this protection could be due to M2e-specific serum IgG

Therapeutic targeting of autophagy in neurodegenerative and infectious diseases.

Autophagy is a conserved process that uses double-membrane vesicles to deliver cytoplasmic contents to lysosomes for degradation. Although autophagy may impact many facets of human biology and disease, in this review we focus on the ability of autophagy to protect against certain neurodegenerative and infectious diseases. Autophagy enhances the clearance of toxic, cytoplasmic, aggregate-prone proteins and infectious agents. The beneficial roles of autophagy can now be extended to supporting cell survival and regulating inflammation. Autophagic control of inflammation is one area where autophagy may have similar benefits for both infectious and neurodegenerative diseases beyond direct removal of the pathogenic agents. Preclinical data supporting the potential therapeutic utility of autophagy modulation in such conditions is accumulating.We are grateful to the Wellcome Trust (095317/Z/11/Z Principal Research Fellowship to D.C. Rubinsztein and strategic award 100140), the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Unit in Dementia at Addenbrooke’s Hospital (D.C. Rubinsztein), and the National Institutes of Health (AI042999 and AI111935; V. Deretic) for funding our work. D.C. Rubinsztein has received grant funding from MedImmune and is a scientific advisor for E3Bio and Bioblast.This is the final version. It was first published by Rockefeller University Press at http://jem.rupress.org/content/early/2015/06/17/jem.20150956.full

The Things You Do:Internal Models of Others' Expected Behaviour Guide Action Observation

Predictions allow humans to manage uncertainties within social interactions. Here, we investigate how explicit and implicit person models-how different people behave in different situations-shape these predictions. In a novel action identification task, participants judged whether actors interacted with or withdrew from objects. In two experiments, we manipulated, unbeknownst to participants, the two actors action likelihoods across situations, such that one actor typically interacted with one object and withdrew from the other, while the other actor showed the opposite behaviour. In Experiment 2, participants additionally received explicit information about the two individuals that either matched or mismatched their actual behaviours. The data revealed direct but dissociable effects of both kinds of person information on action identification. Implicit action likelihoods affected response times, speeding up the identification of typical relative to atypical actions, irrespective of the explicit knowledge about the individual's behaviour. Explicit person knowledge, in contrast, affected error rates, causing participants to respond according to expectations instead of observed behaviour, even when they were aware that the explicit information might not be valid. Together, the data show that internal models of others' behaviour are routinely re-activated during action observation. They provide first evidence of a person-specific social anticipation system, which predicts forthcoming actions from both explicit information and an individuals' prior behaviour in a situation. These data link action observation to recent models of predictive coding in the non-social domain where similar dissociations between implicit effects on stimulus identification and explicit behavioural wagers have been reported

Integrating inflammasome signaling in sexually transmitted infections

Inflammasomes are cytosolic multiprotein platforms with pivotal roles in infectious diseases. Activation of inflammasomes results in pro-inflammatory cytokine signaling and pyroptosis. Sexually transmitted infections are a major health problem worldwide, yet few studies have probed the impact of inflammasome signaling during these infections. Due to the dearth of appropriate infection models, our current understanding of inflammasomes in sexually transmitted infections is mostly drawn from results obtained in vitro, from distant infection sites, or from related microbial strains that are not sexually transmitted. Understanding how inflammasomes influence the outcome of sexually transmitted infections may lead to the development of novel and effective strategies to control disease and prevent transmission. Here, we discuss and highlight the recent progress in this field

The belief in a just world and distress at school

This article investigates the relationship between the belief in a just world (BJW) and distress at school. On the basis of just world theory, the authors argue that strong student BJW should be associated with low school distress. Two questionnaire studies with German secondary school students attending grades 7–13 are reported. Both studies found strong BJW to be associated with less distress at school, better grades, and the evaluation of grades and teachers as more just. Moreover, the relationship between strong BJW and low school distress persisted when controlled for grades, justice of grades, and teacher justice. This relationship held for all students, independently of their school track, grade level, or gender. Overall, the pattern of results reveals school distress to have a unique association with BJW and school-specific justice cognitions

Dogs, Canis familiaris, find hidden food by observing and interacting with a conspecific

Social learning is an important process in the development of behaviour in many species. It is involved in information transfer concerning food that leads, in some species, to food preferences. In our experiment an adult dog (the observer) was allowed to observe another adult dog (the demonstrator) while the latter was disappearing behind one of four projecting blinds. In one trial the demonstrator dog found food behind the projecting blind, but not in the other. After the demonstrator had inspected the potential food location, it returned to the observer dog and they were allowed to interact and to have snout contact. Afterwards, the observer dog was allowed to inspect the potential food locations, while no olfactory cues from the food were given. The observer dogs were able to adjust their search behaviour depending on the knowledge gained by observing and interacting with a conspecific. Food availability to the demonstrator dog during the demonstration phase increased the willingness of observer dogs to have snout contact with their demonstrators and increased their motivation to search for food. In contrast to snout contact, however, food availability to the demonstrator dog had no influence on the decision to go to a particular food location. Furthermore, our results suggest that dogs use snout contact as a source of information to decide whether to go to a potential food location or not