A Content Analysis of Extension’s Presence on 1890 Land-Grant University Websites

The 1890s land-grant university was established to provide the tripartite mission of education, outreach, and research to rural and urban audiences. However, it is challenging to complete this mission if the Extension aspect of an 1890 university is not easily found through online media. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the online presence and technology presence of 1890 land-grant Extension programs on their respective university and college (or equivalent) websites. This content analysis of 18 land-grant universities found only one university had a direct click from the university homepage to the Extension homepage while 10 of the 19 schools had a direct click from the college (or equivalent) webpage to the Extension homepage. Additionally, Extension was not found to be promoted on the majority of university homepages. Twelve Extension programs were featured on the college (or equivalent) website. Using the DAGMAR model, it was concluded that the public’s awareness of Extension is limited if the programs are not readily accessible to the target population from university websites. The researchers recommend university communication specialists strive to promote Extension on homepages and through social media. Future research should include analyzing the social media content these Extension programs provided and evaluating each institution’s Extension website for usability

Successful strategies for high participation in three regional healthcare surveys: an observational study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Regional healthcare facility surveys to quantitatively assess nosocomial infection rates are important for confirming standardized data collection and assessing health outcomes in the era of mandatory reporting. This is particularly important for the assessment of infection control policies and healthcare associated infection rates among hospitals. However, the success of such surveys depends upon high participation and representativeness of respondents.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This descriptive paper provides methodologies that may have contributed to high participation in a series of administrative, infection control, and microbiology laboratory surveys of all 31 hospitals in a large southern California county. We also report 85% (N = 72) countywide participation in an administrative survey among nursing homes in this same area.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using in-person recruitment, 48% of hospitals and nursing homes were recruited within one quarter, with 75% recruited within three quarters.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Potentially useful strategies for successful recruitment included in-person recruitment, partnership with the local public health department, assurance of anonymity when presenting survey results, and provision of staff labor for the completion of detailed survey tables on the rates of healthcare associated pathogens. Data collection assistance was provided for three-fourths of surveys. High compliance quantitative regional surveys require substantial recruitment time and study staff support for high participation.</p

An \u3cem\u3eFTO\u3c/em\u3e Gene Variant Moderates the Association between Parental Restriction and Child BMI

Objective: This study aimed to explore whether a common variant in the FTO gene moderates the relationship between parental restriction and child BMI. Methods: This study reports on baseline data from 178 parent-child (ages 9–10 years) dyads. Parents completed the Child Feeding Questionnaire and reported on socio-demographic characteristics. Each child’s height, weight and FTO rs9939609 genotype was assessed. Ordinary least squares regression was used to fit the child’s BMI-percentile on parental restriction and the child’s FTO genotype, adjusted for covariates. A likelihood ratio test was used to compare a model with and without a multiplicative interaction term between restriction and genotype. Results: Most participants (93.3%) were white, non-Hispanic. Twenty-three percent of children were overweight/obese and FTO genotype was associated with weight status. Mean parental restriction was statistically higher among overweight/obese vs. normal weight children: 3.3 (SD 0.8) vs. 2.8 (SD 1.0); t-test p-value = 0.002. Parental restriction was positively associated with child BMI-percentile and BMI-z only among children with two copies of the high-risk FTO allele (p for interaction = 0.02), where each one-point increase in parental restriction was associated with a 14.7 increase in the child’s BMI-percentile or a 0.56-point increase in the child’s BMI z-score. Conclusion: For only the children with two high-risk alleles, parental restriction was positively associated with child BMI-percentile

Introduction: Toward an Engaged Feminist Heritage Praxis

We advocate a feminist approach to archaeological heritage work in order to transform heritage practice and the production of archaeological knowledge. We use an engaged feminist standpoint and situate intersubjectivity and intersectionality as critical components of this practice. An engaged feminist approach to heritage work allows the discipline to consider women’s, men’s, and gender non-conforming persons’ positions in the field, to reveal their contributions, to develop critical pedagogical approaches, and to rethink forms of representation. Throughout, we emphasize the intellectual labor of women of color, queer and gender non-conforming persons, and early white feminists in archaeology

Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use

Tobacco and alcohol use are heritable behaviours associated with 15% and 5.3% of worldwide deaths, respectively, due largely to broad increased risk for disease and injury(1-4). These substances are used across the globe, yet genome-wide association studies have focused largely on individuals of European ancestries(5). Here we leveraged global genetic diversity across 3.4 million individuals from four major clines of global ancestry (approximately 21% non-European) to power the discovery and fine-mapping of genomic loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use, to inform function of these loci via ancestry-aware transcriptome-wide association studies, and to evaluate the genetic architecture and predictive power of polygenic risk within and across populations. We found that increases in sample size and genetic diversity improved locus identification and fine-mapping resolution, and that a large majority of the 3,823 associated variants (from 2,143 loci) showed consistent effect sizes across ancestry dimensions. However, polygenic risk scores developed in one ancestry performed poorly in others, highlighting the continued need to increase sample sizes of diverse ancestries to realize any potential benefit of polygenic prediction.Peer reviewe

Gender injustice in compensating injury to autonomy in English and Singaporean negligence law

The extent to which English law remedies injury to autonomy (ITA) as a stand-alone actionable damage in negligence is disputed. In this article I argue that the remedy available is not only partial and inconsistent (Keren-Paz in Med Law Rev, 2018) but also gendered and discriminatory against women. I first situate the argument within the broader feminist critique of tort law as failing to appropriately remedy gendered harms, and of law more broadly as undervaluing women’s interest in reproductive autonomy. I then show by reference to English remedies law’s first principles how imposed motherhood cases—Rees v Darlington and its predecessor McFarlane v Tayside Health Board—result in gender injustice when compared with other autonomy cases such as Chester v Afshar and Yearworth v North Bristol NHS Trust: A minor gender-neutral ITA is better remedied than the significant gendered harm of imposing motherhood on the claimant; men’s reproductive autonomy is protected to a greater extent than women’s; women’s reproductive autonomy is protected by an exceptional, derisory award. Worst of all, courts refuse to recognise imposed motherhood as detriment; and the deemed, mansplained, nonpecuniary joys of motherhood are used to offset pecuniary upkeep costs, forcing the claimant into a position she sought to avoid and thus further undermining her autonomy. The recent Singaporean case ACB v Thomson Medical Pte Ltd, awarding compensation for undermining the claimant’s genetic affinity in an IVF wrong-sperm-mix-up demonstrates some improvement in comparison to English law, and some shared gender injustices in the context of reproductive autonomy. ACB’s analysis is oblivious to the nature of reproductive autonomy harm as gendered; and prioritises the father’s interest in having genetic affinity with the baby over a woman’s interest in not having motherhood imposed upon her

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival