Defective production of interferon-γ and tumour necrosis factor-α by AIDS mononuclear cells after in vitro exposure to Rhodococcus equi

The production of interferon-γ and tumour necrosis factor-α was evaluated in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy donors and AIDS patients after Rhodococcus equi infection in vitro. PBMCs from healthy donors secreted elevated levels of IFN-γ and TNF-α when challenged in vitro with killed R. equi, whereas the release of both cytokines was impaired in supernatant cultures from AIDS patients. We conclude that the failure of IFN-γ generation in AIDS patients in response to R. equi is not antigen-specific but it may reflect the global impairment of T-cell function. In such patients, however, the infection with R. equi, a facultative intracellular pathogen which survives and replicates within macrophages, may be responsible for the impairment in the TNF-α release, possibly enhancing the HIV-induced macrophage dysftmction

Recruiting, Training, and Engaging Virtual Faculty via an Award-Winning Online Pedagogy Institute -- #NSWM30

Columbia University School of Social Work’s (CSSW) five-week Institute on Pedagogy and Technology for Online Courses prepares social work professionals to become excellent educators with our Online Campus, which offers a fully online MSW degree. 152 participants from 31 US states have passed in the first four cohorts, and they have led about 100 online courses so far. The award-winning Online Pedagogy Institute includes weekly live virtual class sessions and homework each week in our learning management system, and now offers CEUs. This session will share the details of this innovative training institute and the impact on talent management. The Online Pedagogy Institute is for social workers who want to explore pedagogy and technology for online courses and trains social work professionals to become excellent educators with CSSW’s Online Campus. The institute is designed to be highly engaging, with homework that includes relevant readings, realistic scenarios, quizzes and flashcards to reinforce learning, and weekly live virtual class sessions and discussion forums that build community and enable participants to share their thoughts and expertise. Participants learn how to establish a virtual classroom environment that is welcoming and reflective of social work values, and plan interactive and engaging lessons for an Adobe Connect virtual classroom using web conferencing tools. Participants see the Instructor and Teaching Associate roles modeled, and think about ways they can develop their online teaching skills and personas at a high level of quality. The institute was recognized with an 2018 International E-Learning Award from the International E-Learning Association and a 2019 International Distance Learning Award from the United States Distance Learning Association. The institute attracts a variety of social workers from across the country, creating a diverse and supportive community of professionals who care about providing the next generation of social workers with a high quality education. When the institute concludes, the top participants are recruited for positions as instructors and TAs. As a case study, the institute has high ratings on feedback surveys from graduates. When asked “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the overall quality of this Institute?” the average score from our last two cohorts was 9.72. Comments from graduates have included, “The Institute set a golden standard for online education. The live sessions, along with the assignments, modeled holistic learning opportunities and effective teaching strategies. It was incredibly well-rounded and of high quality!” Further, social justice, diversity, and inclusion themes are interwoven throughout the institute’s curriculum in line with social work values. Discussions are held on Universal Design for Learning to support accessibility for all learners and how to address current events, including those impacting social justice. The institute focuses on teaching and modeling pedagogy that is inclusive and accounts for diverse experiences, including have a range of diverse guest faculty discuss their innovative approaches to teaching online

Increasing Faculty Satisfaction and Student Access to Online Education via Dedicated Technical Support Specialists

It is critical to have high-quality technical support and knowledge in synchronous social work classes (Marquart, Fleming, Rosenthal, & Hibbert, 2016; Marquart & Fleming, 2014). As many seasoned or novice online social work instructors have discovered, technology is not always predictable and technological disruptions or challenges are inevitable (Pardasani, Goldkind, Heyman, & Cross-Denny, 2012). To support the technological preparedness of both students and instructors, a closer look at technology support is needed for online social work courses (Levin, Fulginiti, & Moore, 2018). This poster overviews our School’s practice of having a dedicated technical support specialist for each course, called a Live Support Specialist (LSS)

Recruiting, Training, and Engaging Virtual Faculty via an Award-Winning Online Pedagogy Institute -- #SWDE2019

Columbia University School of Social Work's five-week Institute on Pedagogy and Technology for Online Courses prepares future instructors and teaching assistants (TAs) to become excellent educators with our Online Campus, which offers a fully online MSW degree. 151 participants from 31 US states have passed in the first four cohorts, and they have led about 100 online courses so far. The award-winning Institute includes weekly two-hour live virtual class sessions and about three hours of homework each week in our learning management system, and now offers CEUs. This session will share the details of this institute, and its social justice approach to online education

Linking International Agricultural Research Knowledge with Action for Sustainable Development

We applied an innovation framework to sustainable livestock development research projects in Africa and Asia. The focus of these projects ranged from pastoral systems to poverty and ecosystems services mapping to market access by the poor to fodder and natural resource management to livestock parasite drug resistance. We found that these projects closed gaps between knowledge and action by combining different kinds of knowledge, learning, and boundary spanning approaches; by providing all partners with the same opportunities; and by building the capacity of all partners to innovate and communicate

Dynamical properties of the spin-Peierls compound \alpha'--NaV2O5

Dynamical properties of the novel inorganic spin-Peierls compound \alpha'--NaV2O5 are investigated using a one-dimensional dimerized Heisenberg model. By exact diagonalizations of chains with up to 28 sites, supplemented by a finite-size scaling analysis, the dimerization parameter \delta is determined by requiring that the model reproduces the experimentally observed spin gap \Delta. The dynamical and static spin structure factors are calculated. As for CuGeO3, the existence of a low energy magnon branch separated from the continuum is predicted. The present calculations also suggest that a large magnetic Raman scattering intensity should appear above an energy threshold of 1.9 \Delta. The predicted photoemission spectrum is qualitatively similar to results for an undimerized chain due to the presence of sizable short-range antiferromagnetic correlations.Comment: 4 pages, latex, minor misprints corrected and a few references adde

Anthropic prediction in a large toy landscape

The successful anthropic prediction of the cosmological constant depends crucially on the assumption of a flat prior distribution. However, previous calculations in simplified landscape models showed that the prior distribution is staggered, suggesting a conflict with anthropic predictions. Here we analytically calculate the full distribution, including the prior and anthropic selection effects, in a toy landscape model with a realistic number of vacua, $N \sim 10^{500}$. We show that it is possible for the fractal prior distribution we find to behave as an effectively flat distribution in a wide class of landscapes, depending on the regime of parameter space. Whether or not this possibility is realized depends on presently unknown details of the landscape.Comment: 13 page