Why's Everybody Always Pickin' on me? A New Look at Police/Minority Contact

Presently there are two explanations for disproportionate minority/police contact: racism and a belief that minorities commit most crimes and there is a need to focus on those communities. This article examines a third possibility that focuses on policing as a social service and minority use of social services in our society. The research examines policing as a social service and compares minority use of other social services with their use of police services. The research also looks at pulling of police into neighborhoods by measuring calls-for-service in various communities; it examines police resource allocation which, as the research indicates, is significantly based on these calls-for-service; and compares minority use of police services with minority utilization of other social services. The research supports the premise that disproportionate minority contact by police is a social phenomenon that is similar to minority over-utilization of other social services

Rebranding the Classics: The University of Mississippi

This thesis seeks to analyze the current perceptions of the study of classics from an Integrated Marketing Communications perspective with the goal of realigning misconceptions with the contemporary ideology of those within the field. The field of classics is facing challenges stemming from misappropriation of the field itself, and there is a current debate about the decline in the number of classicists in the field and in the number of undergraduate students studying classics. Specifically, this thesis looks at the Department of Classics at the University of Mississippi as a model for other like departments across the field to use the findings in order to expand their own department’s reach. Combining both Classics and Integrated Marketing Communications, this thesis aims to answer the question about how the perception of the study of classics can change without losing the prestige and history behind it. Through both secondary and primary research, insights are gathered to form a conclusion and recommendations for the Department of Classics at the University of Mississippi to look into. Many aspects of the departments were analyzed to form these insights, including its current branding, its outreach programs, and the structure of the department’s degree requirements. It was discovered that engaging with potential students through social media, increasing interactions with other liberal arts programs, and preparing students for beyond graduation are key recommendations for the department to follow

ARTEMISIA:a mechanistic study of a novel Janus kinase 1 inhibitor to advance molecular understanding and precision medicine in asthma

Background: Patients with uncontrolled asthma despite the use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), may have a variety of biological pathways driving their airway inflammation. Londamocitinib (AZD4604), a selective, inhaled, Janus kinase 1 inhibitor, has been designed to target a broad inflammatory cytokine profile including those classically unresponsive to ICS. The ARTEMISIA mechanistic study aims to provide a clear understanding of the pathways impacted by londamocitinib in the lung, determine how this impact is reflected in the nose and periphery, and identify candidate biomarkers of londamocitinib-treatment response in asthma. This article reports the design and objectives of the ARTEMISIA study. Methods: ARTEMISIA is a placebo-controlled, double-blind study of adults with moderate-to-severe asthma aiming to assess the effects of inhaled londamocitinib on Type 2 (T2) and non-T2 driven inflammatory pathways. Extensive parallel bio-sampling of the lung target tissue, nasal mucosa, blood and urine will be performed prior to the first dose and after 4-weeks of treatment with either londamocitinib or placebo. The main objectives of the study are to evaluate the effect of londamocitinib on gene expression in endobronchial brushings and signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) phosphorylation in endobronchial biopsies. Key exploratory objectives include investigating the correlation between inflammatory phenotype-specific bronchial epithelial gene signatures and other biomarkers in the lung and peripheral samples; as well as analysis of transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic biomarkers in the nose, blood, and urine. Discussion: ARTEMISIA commenced recruitment in 2024 and is poised to deliver a deep understanding of the mechanism of action of londamocitinib and its potential to impact on a population of asthmatics with high unmet need. The multiomic analysis of paired central and peripheral samples may reveal novel insights into the connection and translation between these compartments, deepen understanding of airways disease, and identify novel candidate biomarkers for asthma and JAK activity. In addition to sampling the airway directly, with parallel nasal and peripheral bio-sampling mirrored by the Phase 2a AJAX study (NCT06020014), the ARTEMISIA study may provide a unique link between bronchial assessed mechanisms of action and clinical outcomes. Trial registration: NCT06435273 (ClinicalTrials.gov). Registered 24th May 2024

Dealloying of Cobalt from CuCo Nanoparticles under Syngas Exposure

International audienceThe structure and composition of core−shell CuCo nanoparticles were found to change as a result of cleaning pretreatments and when exposed to syngas (CO + H 2) at atmospheric pressure. In situ X-ray absorption and photoelectron spectroscopies revealed the oxidation state of the particles as well as the presence of adsorbates under syngas. Transmission electron microscopy was used for ex situ analysis of the shape, elemental composition, and structure after reaction. The original core−shell structure was found to change to a hollow CuCo alloy after pretreatment by oxidation in pure O 2 and reduction in pure H 2. After 30 min of exposure to syngas, a significant fraction (5%) of the particles was strongly depleted in cobalt giving copper-rich nanoparticles. This fraction increased with duration of syngas exposure, a phenomenon that did not occur under pure CO or pure H 2. This study suggests that Co and Cu can each individually contribute to syngas conversion with CuCo catalysts

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE AFRICAN PLASMODIUM FALCIPARUM DATABASE – (afriPFdb)

The detailed investigation of mantle structure from the dispersion of surface waves is a young but vigorous field of study. Observations have been accumulating rapidly in the past few years because of the wide-spread installation of long-period instruments. Modern methods of data analysis used in conjunction with high-speed digital computers have made it possible to determine dispersion with greater precision and over a broader spectrum than has previously been possible. Observations now extend out to the fundamental periods of free oscillations of the whole earth. Interpretation has lagged behind observation because of the difficulties inherent in the problem of dispersion over realistic models of a spherical earth. This problem is now well in hand and dispersion appropriate to the standard earth models suggested by earlier body waves studies has been calculated. Even with digital computers, however, the computations are so formidable that until recently only the most tentative efforts have been made to modify the standard earth structures to give a more satisfactory fit to the data. A review as recent as the one by Bolt in the preceding volume of this series was, of necessity, limited to a discussion of the various standard earth models with no attempt made to use the full power of surface waves as an independent technique. Recent developments have made detailed surface wave interpretations possible and new information, rather than generalized verification of old information, should be rapidly forthcoming. Project Mohole and the International Upper Mantle Project have focused the attention of many earth scientists on the upper mantle. Because of this renewed emphasis present information and speculation on the properties of the mantle based on a variety of sources is summarized and re-examined in some detail. This provides the guide-lines for potentially fruitful further research and points out the nature of some of the discrepancies and limitations in our present knowledge that may be resolved by the surface wave method

Curve fitting with confidence for preclinical dose-response data

Abstract. In the preclinical stage of pharmaceutical drug development, when investigating the medicinal properties of a new compound, there are two important questions to address. The first question is simply whether the compound has a significant beneficial effect compared to vehicle (placebo) or reference treatments. The second question concerns the more nuanced dose–response relationship of the compound of interest. One of the aims of this thesis is to design an experiment appropriate for addressing both of these questions simultaneously. Another goal is to make this design optimal, meaning that dose-levels and sample sizes are arranged in a manner which maximises the amount of information gained from the experiment. We implement a method for assessing efficacy (the first question) in a modelling environment by basing inference on the confidence band of a regression curve. The verdicts of this method are compared to those of one-way anova coupled with the multiple comparison procedure Dunnett’s test. When applied to our empirical data sets, the two methods are in perfect agreement regarding which dose-levels have an effect at the 5% significance level. Through simulation, we find that our modelling approach tends to be more conservative than Dunnett’s test in trials with few dose-levels, and vice versa in trials with many dose-levels. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of optimally designing the simulated trials, and also the consequences of misspecifying the underlying dose–response model during regression, in order to assess the robustness of the implemented method

Statistical learning from high-dimensional data in biomedicine

This thesis encompasses three projects devoted to gaining biomedical insight from data gathered using high-throughput assays, such as next-generation sequencing, mass spectrometry (MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The analyses are based on high-dimensional statistics and graphical models, with an emphasis on robustness and interpretability. In two of the projects, biological validation experiments were performed in order to assess the causal nature of relevant predictions made by the models. The first project aimed to estimate signal progression from gene expression data obtained in gene perturbation experiments as well as an unperturbed system sampled over time. To this end, we extended the framework of a nested-effects model to incorporate data from perturbation experiments with a non-interventional time series (Cardner, Meyer-Schaller et al., 2019). Jointly analysing the two types of experiment in this manner yields an estimate of how signals progress through a pathway in response to a receptor stimulus. The method's development was motivated by experiments performed by Meyer-Schaller et al. (2019), and it was applied to the corresponding sets of gene expression data. Parts of the inferred signalling pathway were validated in luciferase reporter assays. The second project concerned the function and composition of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), as well as its role in coronary heart disease (CHD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Based on functional and compositional measurements of HDL in 51 healthy volunteers and 98 patients with CHD or T2DM, we aimed to understand how disease-relevant functions of HDL are determined by its composition, in terms of the hundreds of proteins and lipids which constitute HDL particles. To this end, we used a robust Gaussian graphical model to infer conditional dependence between HDL functions measured in bioassays and compositional features assayed using MS and NMR spectroscopy. We found several clinically relevant candidates, and experimentally validated novel causal links between certain HDL functions and compositional constituents (Cardner, Yalcinkaya et al., 2020). The third and final project is devoted to liquid biopsies from cancer patients, which provide a non-invasive means of monitoring systemic tumour burden and assessing treatment response. Here we analysed data from shallow whole-genome sequencing of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in blood plasma samples taken from 118 cancer patients. By leveraging certain biochemical properties of cfDNA, we developed a method for predicting the proportion of tumour-derived cfDNA in a sample. This prediction is useful in its own right for quantifying the tumour content of a sample, for instance during relapse monitoring. In addition, we used our method to quantify copy-number aberrations across the genome, thereby identifying deletions, gains, and focal amplifications of genetic material in the circulating tumour DNA