11 research outputs found
Availability of Information about Airborne Hazardous Releases from Animal Feeding Operations
A comprehensive review of levels and determinants of personal exposure to dust and endotoxin in livestock farming
Immunogenic Properties of Archaeal Species Found in Bioaerosols
The etiology of bioaerosol-related pulmonary diseases remains poorly understood. Recently, archaea emerged as prominent airborne components of agricultural environments, but the consequences of airway exposure to archaea remain unknown. Since subcomponents of archaea can be immunogenic, we used a murine model to study the pulmonary immune responses to two archaeal species found in agricultural facilities: Methanobrevibacter smithii (MBS) and Methanosphaera stadtmanae (MSS). Mice were administered intranasally with 6.25, 25 or 100 µg of MBS or MSS, once daily, 3 days a week, for 3 weeks. MSS induced more severe histopathological alterations than MBS with perivascular accumulation of granulocytes, pronounced thickening of the alveolar septa, alveolar macrophages accumulation and increased perivascular mononucleated cell accumulation. Analyses of bronchoalveolar lavage fluids revealed up to 3 times greater leukocyte accumulation with MSS compared to MBS. Instillation of 100 µg of MBS or MSS caused predominant accumulation of monocyte/macrophages (4.5×10(5) and 4.8×10(5) cells/ml respectively) followed by CD4(+) T cells (1.38×10(5) and 1.94×10(5) cells/ml respectively), B cells (0.73×10(5) and 1.28×10(5) cells/ml respectively), and CD8(+) T cells (0.20×10(5) and 0.31×10(5) cells/ml respectively) in the airways. Both archaeal species induced similar titers of antigen-specific IgGs in plasma. MSS but not MBS caused an accumulation of eosinophils and neutrophils in the lungs, which surprisingly, correlated inversely with the size of the inoculum. Stronger immunogenicity of MSS was confirmed by a 3 fold higher accumulation of myeloid dendritic cells in the airways, compared to MBS. Thus, the dose and species of archaea determine the magnitude and nature of the pulmonary immune response. This is the first report of an immunomodulatory role of archaeal species found in bioaerosols
Global Ethnography
Globalization poses a challenge to existing social scientific methods
of inquiry and units of analysis by destabilizing the embeddedness of social relations
in particular communities and places. Ethnographic sites are globalized by means of
various external connections across multiple spatial scales and porous and contested
boundaries. Global ethnographers must begin their analysis by seeking out 'placemaking
projects' that seek to define new kinds of places, with new definitions of social
relations and their boundaries. Existing ethnographic studies of global processes tend
to cluster under one of three slices of globalization 'global forces, connections, or
imaginations' each defined by a different kind of place-making project. The extension
of the site in time and space poses practical and conceptual problems for ethnographers,
but also political ones. Nonetheless, by locating themselves firmly within the time and
space of social actors 'living the global', ethnographers can reveal howglobal processes
are collectively and politically constructed, demonstrating the variety of ways in which
globalization is grounded in the local