CASA of Franklin County

Franklin County, children are appointed by the courts either a private attorney or a CASA volunteer GAL. CA abuse appointed SA volunteers complete an extensive screening and training process and are officially sworn officers of the court. CASA exists to serve the most at-risk and severe cases of child abuse and neglect in the community. In 2014, over 3,000 children will enter the Franklin County Juvenile Courts System through no fault of their own as victims of abuse and neglect. CASA of Franklin County is on tract to serve over 805 of these; the most children CASA of Franklin County has served in its 22 year history. CASA children are: 52% male, 64% living below the federal poverty level 55% aged 0-5 years old 47% are a racial minority (African American, American Indian, Asian, and Other and neglect be appointed a Guardian ad Litem (GAL).https://fuse.franklin.edu/ss2014/1061/thumbnail.jp

Educating Future Nursing Scientists: Recommendations for Integrating Omics Content in PhD Programs

Preparing the next generation of nursing scientists to conduct high-impact, competitive, sustainable, innovative, and interdisciplinary programs of research requires that the curricula for PhD programs keep pace with emerging areas of knowledge and health care/biomedical science. A field of inquiry that holds great potential to influence our understanding of the underlying biology and mechanisms of health and disease is omics. For the purpose of this article, omics refers to genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics, exposomics, microbiomics, and metabolomics. Traditionally, most PhD programs in schools of nursing do not incorporate this content into their core curricula. As part of the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science\u27s Idea Festival for Nursing Science Education, a work group charged with addressing omics preparation for the next generation of nursing scientists was convened. The purpose of this article is to describe key findings and recommendations from the work group that unanimously and enthusiastically support the incorporation of omics content into the curricula of PhD programs in nursing. The work group also calls to action faculty in schools of nursing to develop strategies to enable students needing immersion in omics science and methods to execute their research goals

Sex bias in CNS autoimmune disease mediated by androgen control of autoimmune regulator

Male gender is protective against multiple sclerosis and other T-cell-mediated autoimmune diseases. This protection may be due, in part, to higher androgen levels in males. Androgen binds to the androgen receptor (AR) to regulate gene expression, but how androgen protects against autoimmunity is not well understood. Autoimmune regulator (Aire) prevents autoimmunity by promoting self-antigen expression in medullary thymic epithelial cells, such that developing T cells that recognize these self-antigens within the thymus undergo clonal deletion. Here we show that androgen upregulates Aire-mediated thymic tolerance to protect against autoimmunity. Androgen recruits AR to Aire promoter regions, with consequent enhancement of Aire transcription. In mice and humans, thymic Aire expression is higher in males compared with females. Androgen administration and male gender protect against autoimmunity in a multiple sclerosis mouse model in an Aire-dependent manner. Thus, androgen control of an intrathymic Aire-mediated tolerance mechanism contributes to gender differences in autoimmunity

T Follicular Helper Cell-Dependent Clearance of a Persistent Virus Infection Requires T Cell Expression of the Histone Demethylase UTX

Epigenetic changes, including histone methylation, control T cell differentiation and memory formation, though the enzymes that mediate these processes are not clear. We show that UTX, a histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27) demethylase, supports T follicular helper (Tfh) cell responses that are essential for B cell antibody generation and the resolution of chronic viral infections. Mice with a T cell-specific UTX deletion had fewer Tfh cells, reduced germinal center responses, lacked virus-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG), and were unable to resolve chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infections. UTX-deficient T cells showed decreased expression of interleukin-6 receptor-α and other Tfh cell-related genes that were associated with increased H3K27 methylation. Additionally, Turner Syndrome subjects, who are predisposed to chronic ear infections, had reduced UTX expression in immune cells and decreased circulating CD4(+) CXCR5(+) T cell frequency. Thus, we identify a critical link between UTX in T cells and immunity to infection

Taking it on: Disclosure, Stigmatization, and Self-Esteem

Employed parents of children with emotional or behavioral disorders face many potential challenges when striving to find balance between their work and family responsibilities. While responding to the demands of the workplace, they must also attend to the unique caregiving needs of their children such as facilitating on-going treatment, responding to frequent emergencies, and arranging adequate child care (Rosenzweig, Brennan, Huffstutter, & Bradley, in press). These parents often develop strategies to gain the flexibility at work they need in order to care for their child while still maintaining a high level of job performance (Rosenzweig, Brennan, & Ogilvie 2002). Whether parents are successful in achieving this balance often depends on the culture of their workplace, the decisions they make regarding whether and how much to disclose about their child\u27s situation, and the stigmatization they may encounter as a result of this disclosure. In this presentation, we reported the results of six focus groups of employed parents of children with mental health difficulties. This research was conducted as part of a federally funded five-year research project investigating work-life integration for this group of families. Our analysis focused on the parental experiences in the workplace and on the interrelationships between workplace culture, decision-making regarding disclosure, stigmatization, and workplace support

Database Protection in a Digital World

Digital Property and the Digital Marketplace Expenditures in the information technology arena indicate that digital property - defined as digitized information and the tools to use it - is generating astonishing wealth. Globally, expenditures in the information and communication technology markets exceed $1.8 trillion annually and comprise six percent (6%) of aggregate global Gross Domestic Product ( GDP ). By 1997, such expenditures had escalated forty percent (40%) over 1992 levels. Current spending on information and communication technologies is growing twenty-seven percent (27%) faster than the overall worldwide GDP, averaging roughly 5.5 percent annually. Technological innovations have become the primary engine of economic growth. For example, according to a 1997 government report, the technology market accounted for seventy-six percent (76%) of economic growth in France, seventy-eight percent (78%) in Germany, seventy-three percent (73%) in the United Kingdom, and fifty-five percent (55%) in Japan