The Role of Academic Space Management at Research Universities and Academic Medical Centers

Facilities represent the greatest financial investment for most institutions, yet they remain largely ignored from a management perspective. Improving academic facilities information would provide institutional leaders with an additional tool to improve institutional planning and resource allocations. Academic Space Management (ASM) is a construct that suggests how space management can be more detailed, web-based, and utilized for planning and decision making. This project reports on a case study of three research-focused institutions and the institutions' interest in and use of space information. Results suggest the importance of senior leadership, trust among participants, the practical nature of the space database, and understanding the role that institutional culture plays

Borrelia burgdorferi Enolase Is a Surface-Exposed Plasminogen Binding Protein

Borrelia burgdorferi is the causative agent of Lyme disease, the most commonly reported arthropod-borne disease in the United States. B. burgdorferi is a highly invasive bacterium, yet lacks extracellular protease activity. In order to aid in its dissemination, B. burgdorferi binds plasminogen, a component of the hosts' fibrinolytic system. Plasminogen bound to the surface of B. burgdorferi can then be activated to the protease plasmin, facilitating the bacterium's penetration of endothelial cell layers and degradation of extracellular matrix components. Enolases are highly conserved proteins with no sorting sequences or lipoprotein anchor sites, yet many bacteria have enolases bound to their outer surfaces. B. burgdorferi enolase is both a cytoplasmic and membrane associated protein. Enolases from other pathogenic bacteria are known to bind plasminogen. We confirmed the surface localization of B. burgdorferi enolase by in situ protease degradation assay and immunoelectron microscopy. We then demonstrated that B. burgdorferi enolase binds plasminogen in a dose-dependent manner. Lysine residues were critical for binding of plasminogen to enolase, as the lysine analog εaminocaproic acid significantly inhibited binding. Ionic interactions did not play a significant role in plasminogen binding by enolase, as excess NaCl had no effects on the interaction. Plasminogen bound to recombinant enolase could be converted to active plasmin. We conclude that B. burgdorferi enolase is a moonlighting cytoplasmic protein which also associates with the bacterial outer surface and facilitates binding to host plasminogen

Covid and care: how a ‘stacked’ care system could help places like Hackney

The weakness of local support networks, already cut to the bone, has been cruelly exposed by the pandemic. The LSE’s COVID and Care Research Group looks at the situation in Hackney and explains how an alternative ‘stacked’ care system could help

Partial sight, dependency and open poetic forms

This thesis aims to characterize the poetics of partial sight. It first places these poetics within a theoretical framework and then enacts them in a collection of poems. The thesis treats partial sight not primarily as a physiological fact but rather as symbolic of the limitations of human vision. It draws inspiration from the Homeric epics, which acknowledge these limits and show the dependency they bring, whether on the Muse or on other factors external to the poet’s conscious self, as central to poetic composition. The persistent trope of the blind poet, who loses his sight but gains creative vision, highlights links between partial sight and the partial apprehension that poets experience as they engage with an emerging poem. Both situations highlight the partial nature of human perception in a mysterious world and both necessitate dependency on factors beyond the self for success. Critically and creatively the thesis charts an evolving awareness of the importance of partial sight in poetic composition. This awareness has gradually inspired perspectival and methodological changes. The project began as a desire to challenge those poetic representations of blindness that cast it less as a valuable creative perspective than as a symbol of anxiety about dependency and consequent lack of agency. Early versions of the thesis sought to challenge this pattern by asserting the selfhood of figures with visual impairment as part of a disability-based identity poetics. This practice encouraged the use of relatively closed forms that stressed a speaker’s personal vision. However, as the thesis developed it took more account of the power dynamics that underpin poetic form. It became apparent that an overly closed approach could undermine the project’s aims by replicating poetic practices that have facilitated the use of blindness in poetry as an edifying spectacle for sighted readers. Such formal choices can also create a sense of certainty that troubles an aesthetic of partial sight. Moreover, the thesis argues that to confine discussions of partial sight to identity poetics radically restricts our understanding of the poetics of partial sight, dependency and open forms and leaves these poetics insufficiently imagined. It draws on the work of Alan Grossman, Rae Armantrout and Larry Eigner among others, to reimagine partial sight and dependency as a route to poetic knowledge. The poetry collection moves from exploring partial sight as a source of identity to using the combination of partial sight and dependency as a generative principle. Different poems express this principle through troubled syntax, variable lineation and the deformation by erasure of pre-existing texts on blindness. The thesis seeks to demonstrate that partial sight and dependency are experiences shared by, and relevant to, all writers and readers of poetry. It returns to an earlier understanding of these factors, which sees them not as sources of social anxiety, but rather as creative catalysts that open the way to new poetic possibilities. In so doing it aims to challenge understandings not only of poetics but also of the meaning of disability

SWATted away : the challenging experience of setting up a programme of SWATs in paediatric trials

The authors wish to acknowledge the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research funding for the TRECA study (NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Project: 14/21/21). The NIHR did not have a role in the design of the study or the writing of this manuscript. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Borrelia burgdorferi Adhere to Blood Vessels in the Dura Mater and are Associated with Increased Meningeal T Cells during Murine Disseminated Borreliosis

Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, is a vector-borne bacterial infection that is transmitted through the bite of an infected tick. If not treated with antibiotics during the early stages of infection, disseminated infection can spread to the central nervous system (CNS). In non-human primates (NHPs) it has been demonstrated that the leptomeninges are among the tissues colonized by B. burgdorferi spirochetes. Although the NHP model parallels aspects of human borreliosis, a small rodent model would be ideal to study the trafficking of spirochetes and immune cells into the CNS. Here we show that during early and late disseminated infection, B. burgdorferi infects the meninges of intradermally infected mice, and is associated with concurrent increases in meningeal T cells. We found that the dura mater was consistently culture positive for spirochetes in transcardially perfused mice, independent of the strain of B. burgdorferi used. Within the dura mater, spirochetes were preferentially located in vascular regions, but were also present in perivascular, and extravascular regions, as late as 75 days post-infection. At the same end-point, we observed significant increases in the number of CD3+ T cells within the pia and dura mater, as compared to controls. Flow cytometric analysis of leukocytes isolated from the dura mater revealed that CD3+ cell populations were comprised of both CD4 and CD8 T cells. Overall, our data demonstrate that similarly to infection in peripheral tissues, spirochetes adhere to the dura mater during disseminated infection, and are associated with increases in the number of meningeal T cells. Collectively, our results demonstrate that there are aspects of B. burgdorferi meningeal infection that can be modelled in laboratory mice, suggesting that mice may be useful for elucidating mechanisms of meningeal pathogenesis by B. burgdorferi