White Actors in the Civil Rights Movement: Social Progressives in Americus, Georgia

This research explicates the complexity of race relations between whites and blacks during the mid-twentieth century by using the story of Koinonia Farm (now Koinonia Partners) in Americus, Georgia. Founded in 1942, Koinonia actively practiced and promoted equality between all ethnicities and emerged as a vanguard for liberal policies over a decade before the Civil Rights Movement reached Sumter County. Notably, Koinonians effected this change while refusing to engage or align with either the white liberal movement or the Civil Rights Movement, electing to avoid politicization of their endeavors in hopes of inspiring what they felt to be a truer change in race relations

Re-engineering Drug Discovery and Development

The rate of new drug approvals in the US has remained essentially constant since 1950, while the costs of drug development have soared. Many commentators question the sustainability of the current model of drug development, in which large pharmaceutical companies incur markedly escalating costs to deliver the same number of products to market. This Issue Brief summarizes the problem, describes ongoing governmental efforts to influence the process, and suggests changes in regulatory science and translational medicine that may promote more successful development of safe and effective therapeutics

Assessment of Watershed Health on Intermittent Watersheds in Southwestern North Dakota

Watersheds are complex systems that are influenced by many factors including geomorphology, climate, soil, vegetation, and land management. Due to this complexity, a watershed assessment that evaluates both the riparian and upland areas has yet to be developed. We proposed investigating a combination of plant community composition within the greenline, upland ecological site function assessment with the Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health (IIRH) protocol, and stream morphological parameters. Stream parameters investigated were Rosgen?s classification method, bank erosion hazard index (BEHI) and bank height ratio (BHR). This research was conducted on five intermittent streams in southwestern North Dakota. We found that facultative wetland species offered the most protection to intermittent streambanks as a result of hydrology. When assessing the uplands it was determined that there is a positive correlation between rangeland health and riparian health. The stream parameter that showed the strongest relationship was the BEHI

Cherenkov telescope array extragalactic survey discovery potential and the impact of axion-like particles and secondary gamma rays

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is about to enter construction phase and one of its main key science projects is to perform an unbiased survey in search of extragalactic sources. We make use of both the latest blazar gamma--ray luminosity function and spectral energy distribution to derive the expected number of detectable sources for both the planned Northern and Southern arrays of the CTA observatory. We find that a shallow, wide survey of about 0.5 hour per field of view would lead to the highest number of blazar detections. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of axion-like particles and secondary gamma rays from propagating cosmic rays on the source count distribution, since these processes predict different spectral shape from standard extragalactic background light attenuation. We can generally expect more distant objects in the secondary gamma-ray scenario, while axion-like particles do not significantly alter the expected distribution. Yet, we find that, these results strongly depend on the assumed magnetic field strength during the propagation. We also provide source count predictions for the High Altitude Water Cherenkov observatory (HAWC), the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) and a novel proposal of a hybrid detector.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, ApJ 2017 in pres

Searching for the Sunk Cost Fallacy

We seek to isolate in the laboratory factors that encourage and discourage the sunk cost fallacy. Subjects play a computer game in which they decide whether to keep digging for treasure on an island or to sink a cost (which will turn out to be either high or low) to move to another island. The research hypothesis is that subjects will stay longer on islands that were more costly to find. Nine treatment variables are considered, e.g. alternative visual displays, whether the treasure value of an island is shown on arrival or discovered by trial and error, and alternative parameters for sunk costs. The data reveal a surprisingly small and erratic sunk cost effect that is generally insensitive to the proposed psychological drivers.sunk cost fallacy, experimental economics

Searching for the Sunk Cost Fallacy

We seek to isolate in the laboratory factors that encourage and discourage the sunk cost fallacy. Subjects play a computer game in which they decide whether to keep digging for treasure on an island or to sink a cost (which will turn out to be either high or low) to move to another island. The research hypothesis is that subjects will stay longer on islands that were more costly to find. Nine treatment variables are considered, e.g. alternative visual displays, whether the treasure value of an island is shown on arrival or discovered by trial and error, and alternative parameters for sunk costs. The data reveal a surprisingly small and erratic sunk cost effect that is generally insensitive to the proposed psychological drivers.sunk cost fallacy

Lateral hypothalamic circuits for feeding and reward

In experiments conducted over 60 years ago, the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA) was identified as a critical neuroanatomical substrate for motivated behavior. Electrical stimulation of the LHA induces voracious feeding even in non-restricted animals. In the absence of food, animals will work tirelessly, often lever-pressing 1000’s of times per hour, for electrical stimulation at the same site that provokes feeding, drinking, and other species-typical motivated behaviors. Here we review the classic findings from electrical stimulation studies and integrate them with more recent work that has utilized contemporary circuit-based approaches to study the LHA. We identify specific anatomically and molecularly defined LHA elements that integrate diverse information arising from cortical, extended amygdala, and basal forebrain networks to ultimately generate a highly specified and invigorated behavioral state conveyed via LHA projections to downstream reward and feeding specific circuits

Platelet-Activating Factor-Induced Reduction in Contact Hypersensitivity Responses Is Mediated by Mast Cells via Cyclooxygenase-2-Dependent Mechanisms

Platelet-activating factor (PAF) stimulates numerous cell types via activation of the G protein-coupled PAF receptor (PAFR). PAFR activation not only induces acute proinflammatory responses, but it also induces delayed systemic immunosuppressive effects by modulating host immunity. Although enzymatic synthesis and degradation of PAF are tightly regulated, oxidative stressors, such as UVB, chemotherapy, and cigarette smoke, can generate PAF and PAF-like molecules in an unregulated fashion via the oxidation of membrane phospholipids. Recent studies have demonstrated the relevance of the mast cell (MC) PAFR in PAFR-induced systemic immunosuppression. The current study was designed to determine the exact mechanisms and mediators involved in MC PAFR-mediated systemic immunosuppression. By using a contact hypersensitivity model, the MC PAFR was not only found to be necessary, but also sufficient to mediate the immunosuppressive effects of systemic PAF. Furthermore, activation of the MC PAFR induces MC-derived histamine and PGE2 release. Importantly, PAFR-mediated systemic immunosuppression was defective in mice that lacked MCs, or in MC-deficient mice transplanted with histidine decarboxylase- or cyclooxygenase-2-deficient MCs. Lastly, it was found that PGs could modulate MC migration to draining lymph nodes. These results support the hypothesis that MC PAFR activation promotes the immunosuppressive effects of PAF in part through histamine- and PGE2-dependent mechanisms

Induction of prostacyclin receptor expression in human erythroleukemia cells

AbstractWe have identified both high-affinity (KD = 36±3 nM) and low-affinity (KD = 2.1±0.8 μM) prostacyclin (PGI2)-receptor sites on human erythroleukemia (HEL) cells using the radiolabelled prostacyclin analogue, [3H]iloprost. The addition of the phorbol ester, TPA, to the culture medium caused a 5–10-fold increase in the number of both the low- and the high-affinity sites, without any change in their affinity constants. Iloprost stimulated HEL cell membrane adenylate cyclase activity 5-fold. This stimulation was potentiated in the presence of GTP, indicating a conventional PGI2 receptor-Gs-adenylate cyclase system. HEL cells represent a source of prostacyclin receptor mRNA which may be of value in expression cloning of this receptor

Locus coeruleus to basolateral amygdala noradrenergic projections promote anxiety-like behavior

Increased tonic activity of locus coeruleus noradrenergic (LC-NE) neurons induces anxiety-like and aversive behavior. While some information is known about the afferent circuitry that endogenously drives this neural activity and behavior, the downstream receptors and anatomical projections that mediate these acute risk aversive behavioral states via the LC-NE system remain unresolved. Here we use a combination of retrograde tracing, fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, electrophysiology, and in vivo optogenetics with localized pharmacology to identify neural substrates downstream of increased tonic LC-NE activity in mice. We demonstrate that photostimulation of LC-NE fibers in the BLA evokes norepinephrine release in the basolateral amygdala (BLA), alters BLA neuronal activity, conditions aversion, and increases anxiety-like behavior. Additionally, we report that β-adrenergic receptors mediate the anxiety-like phenotype of increased NE release in the BLA. These studies begin to illustrate how the complex efferent system of the LC-NE system selectively mediates behavior through distinct receptor and projection-selective mechanisms