Adding value? A review of the international literature on the role of higher education in police training and education

This paper reviews the current English-language literature on developments in police training and education in order to identify common areas where higher education ‘adds value’ to police learning and development. Reforms in training and education are constituent parts of the ongoing shift to a service-oriented professional police in a number of countries. A comparative analysis of the literature on police training and education is provided here which focuses primarily on the USA, the European Union, Australia and India. The review provides a contribution to international policy debates about future developments in this area

Technical Basis for Gas-Phase Vadose Zone Remediation Technologies at Hanford: A Review -12186

ABSTRACT In situ vadose zone remediation approaches are being evaluated as potential options to mitigate the transport of inorganic and radionuclide contaminants from the vadose zone to the groundwater. Some of the candidate approaches are based on changing the contaminant or subsurface conditions in a way that slows downward migration of the contaminants through the vadose zone using amendments delivered in the gas-phase. Two promising approaches that have undergone testing at Hanford include soil desiccation to address technetium-99 contamination and ammonia-induced sequestration of uranium. For soil desiccation, a dry gas is injected to desiccate a targeted portion of the subsurface and thereby decrease contaminant movement by removing moisture and decreasing the hydraulic conductivity of the desiccated zone. Ammonia-induced sequestration of uranium relies on changing the pore water chemistry, primarily through pH changes, to induce dissolution and precipitation processes that decrease the amount of mobile uranium in the vadose zone

Deletion of Topoisomerase 1 in excitatory neurons causes genomic instability and early onset neurodegeneration

Topoisomerase 1 (TOP1) relieves torsional stress in DNA during transcription and facilitates the expression of long (>100 kb) genes, many of which are important for neuronal functions. To evaluate how loss of Top1 affected neurons in vivo, we conditionally deleted (cKO) Top1 in postmitotic excitatory neurons in the mouse cerebral cortex and hippocampus. Top1 cKO neurons develop properly, but then show biased transcriptional downregulation of long genes, signs of DNA damage, neuroinflammation, increased poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP1) activity, single-cell somatic mutations, and ultimately degeneration. Supplementation of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) with nicotinamide riboside partially blocked neurodegeneration, and increased the lifespan of Top1 cKO mice by 30%. A reduction of p53 also partially rescued cortical neuron loss. While neurodegeneration was partially rescued, behavioral decline was not prevented. These data indicate that reducing neuronal loss is not sufficient to limit behavioral decline when TOP1 function is disrupted

CD4+CCR6+ T cells dominate the BCG-induced transcriptional signature

Background The century-old Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) remains the only licensed vaccine against tuberculosis (TB). Despite this, there is still a lot to learn about the immune response induced by BCG, both in terms of phenotype and specificity. Methods We investigated immune responses in adult individuals pre and 8 months post BCG vaccination. We specifically determined changes in gene expression, cell subset composition, DNA methylome, and the TCR repertoire induced in PBMCs and CD4 memory T cells associated with antigen stimulation by either BCG or a Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb)-derived peptide pool. Findings Following BCG vaccination, we observed increased frequencies of CCR6+ CD4 T cells, which includes both Th1* (CXCR3+CCR6+) and Th17 subsets, and mucosal associated invariant T cells (MAITs). A large number of immune response genes and pathways were upregulated post BCG vaccination with similar patterns observed in both PBMCs and memory CD4 T cells, thus suggesting a substantial role for CD4 T cells in the cellular response to BCG. These upregulated genes and associated pathways were also reflected in the DNA methylome. We described both qualitative and quantitative changes in the BCG-specific TCR repertoire post vaccination, and importantly found evidence for similar TCR repertoires across different subjects. Interpretation The immune signatures defined herein can be used to track and further characterize immune responses induced by BCG, and can serve as reference for benchmarking novel vaccination strategies