Rebranding a South Los Angeles Corner Store: The Unique Logic of Retail Brands

Retail brands are important mediators of culture and value that help us understand contemporary consumption. Drawing on a collaborative ethnographic approach to a corner store-rebranding project in South Los Angeles, we demonstrate the ways in which physical retail spaces and their curated product mix can shape specific types of shopping experiences and behaviors. Building on recent studies of brand, we argue that retail curation is another important consideration for understanding how brand communications are formed, filtered and expressed. Expanding on theorizations of brand we demonstrate how retail brands, as physical sites of experience, can attempt to influence relationships between consumption, identity and behavior

Duoethnography as Transformative Praxis: Conversations about Nourishment and Coercion in the COVID-Era Academy

This article introduces the feminist praxis of duoethnography as a way to examine the COVID era. As a group of diverse, junior, midcareer, and senior feminist scholars, we developed a methodology to critically reflect on our positions in our institutions and social worlds. As a method, duoethnography emphasizes the dialogical intimacy that can form through anthropological work. While autoethnography draws on individual daily lives to make sense of sociopolitical dynamics, duoethnography emphasizes the relational character of research across people and practices. Taking the relational aspects of knowledge production seriously, we conceptualized this praxis as a transformative method for facilitating radical empathy, mobilizing our collective voice, and merging together our partial truths. As collective authors, interviewers, and interlocutors of this article, the anonymity of duoethnography allows us to vocalize details of the experience of living through COVID19 that we could not have safely spoken about publicly or on our ow

Pharmacokinetics, safety and tolerability of olaparib and temozolomide for recurrent glioblastoma: results of the phase I OPARATIC trial

Background: The poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib potentiated radiation and temozolomide chemotherapy in pre-clinical glioblastoma models but brain penetration was poor. Clinically, PARP inhibitors exacerbate the hematological side-effects of temozolomide. The OPARATIC trial was conducted to measure penetration of recurrent glioblastoma by olaparib, and assess the safety and tolerability of its combination with temozolomide. Methods: Pre-clinical pharmacokinetic studies evaluated olaparib tissue distribution in rats and tumor-bearing mice. Adult patients with recurrent glioblastoma received various doses and schedules of olaparib and low-dose temozolomide in a 3+3 design. Suitable patients received olaparib prior to neurosurgical resection; olaparib concentrations in plasma, tumour core and tumour margin specimens were measured by mass spectrometry. A dose expansion cohort tested tolerability and efficacy of the recommended phase II dose (RP2D). Radiosensitizing effects of olaparib were measured by clonogenic survival in glioblastoma cell lines. Results: Olaparib was a substrate for multi-drug resistance protein-1 and showed no brain penetration in rats but was detected in orthotopic glioblastoma xenografts. Clinically, olaparib was detected in 71/71 tumor core specimens (27 patients, median 496nM) and 21/21 tumor margin specimens (9 patients, median 512.3nM). Olaparib exacerbated TMZ-related hematological toxicity, necessitating intermittent dosing. RP2D was olaparib 150mg (3 days/week) with TMZ 75mg/m2 daily for 42 days. Fourteen (36%) of 39 evaluable patients were progression-free at 6 months. Olaparib radiosensitized six glioblastoma cell lines at clinically relevant concentrations of 100 and 500 nM. Conclusions: Olaparib reliably penetrates recurrent glioblastoma at radiosensitizing concentrations, supporting further clinical development and highlighting the need for better pre-clinical models

Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Mediates Bronchioalveolar Stem Cell Expansion in Mouse Models of Oncogenic K-ras-Induced Lung Cancer

Background: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common cause of cancer-related death in Western countries. Developing more effective NSCLC therapeutics will require the elucidation of the genetic and biochemical bases for this disease. Bronchioalveolar stem cells (BASCs) are a putative cancer stem cell population in mouse models of oncogenic K-ras-induced lung adenocarcinoma, an histologic subtype of NSCLC. The signals activated by oncogenic K-ras that mediate BASC expansion have not been fully defined. Methodology/Principal Findings: We used genetic and pharmacologic approaches to modulate the activity of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), a key mediator of oncogenic K-ras, in two genetic mouse models of lung adenocarcinoma. Oncogenic K-ras-induced BASC accumulation and tumor growth were blocked by treatment with a small molecule PI3K inhibitor and enhanced by inactivation of phosphatase and tensin homologue deleted from chromosome 10, a negative regulator of PI3K. Conclusions/Significance: We conclude that PI3K is a critical regulator of BASC expansion, supporting treatment strategies to target PI3K in NSCLC patients

Marine biodiversity baseline for Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica: published records

The diversity of tropical marine organisms has not been studied as intensively as the terrestrial biota worldwide. Additionally, marine biodiversity research in the tropics lags behind other regions. The 43,000 ha Sector Marino of Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG, Marine Sector of Guanacaste Conservation Area), on the North Pacific coast of Costa Rica is no exception. For more than four decades, the terrestrial flora and fauna has been studied continuously. The ACG marine biodiversity was studied in the 1930’s by expeditions that passed through the area, but not much until the 1990’s, except for the marine turtles. In the mid 1990’s the Center for Research in Marine Science and Limnology (CIMAR) of the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) initiated the exploration of the marine environments and organisms of ACG. In 2015, ACG, in collaboration with CIMAR, started the BioMar project whose goal is to inventory the species of the marine sector of ACG (BioMar ACG project). As a baseline, here I have compiled the published records of marine ACG species, and found that 594 marine species have been reported, representing 15.5% of the known species of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The most diverse groups were the crustaceans, mollusks and cnidarians comprising 71.7% of the ACG species. Some taxa, such as mangroves and fish parasites are well represented in ACG when compared to the rest of the Costa Rican coast but others appear to be greatly underrepresented, for example, red algae, polychaetes, copepods, equinoderms, and marine fishes and birds, which could be due to sampling bias. Thirty species have been originally described with specimens from ACG, and 89 species are not known from other localities on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica except ACG. Most of the sampling has been concentrated in a few localities in Sector Marino, Playa Blanca and Islas Murciélago, and in the nearby waters of Bahía Santa Elena. In an effort to fill this gap, CIMAR is collaborating with ACG and a private foundation to start an inventory of the marine organisms of the conservation area. The project will be assisted by two marine parataxonomists, and all samples will be catalogued, photographed, bar coded and voucher specimens deposited at the Museo de Zoología, UCR. All the information will be available through Internet. It is anticipated that the BioMar project will fill many of the knowledge gaps and significantly more marine species will be encountered. This project could become a viable model for marine biodiversity inventories in other Costa Rican Conservation Areas (Áreas de Conservación) and in other countries.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR

The Roles of Women, Children and Men in Household Food Planning, Purchasing, Preparation and Consumption in Santiago, Cuba

This work explores the roles of Women, Children and Men in Household food planning, purchasing, preparation and consumption in Santiago de Cuba. The data for this investigation were collected over a 10-week period during the Summer of 2008. This work focuses on Cuba’s second largest city, Santiago, located in the southeastern part of the island, Santiago provides an urban setting through which to view urban food cultivation and food symbolism in Cuba. Little scholarly work has been published on food issues in Santiago. Santiago is generally perceived of as being more “rural” than Havana; Santiagueros often selfidentify as guajieros or peasants, though the population is about 500,000 people and the average population density is about 500 people per square kilometer. Santiago’s tropical climate provides ideal growing conditions for many crops, including sugar, tobacco, coffee and fruit

The Struggle for a Decent Meal: Household Food Consumption in Santiago de Cuba

As the welfare state disintegrates in the post-Cold War era, through the changing practices of everyday life, there are also shifts in community interactions, family dynamics, and individual subjectivities. Drawing on 16 months of ethnographic research in 22 households in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba's second largest city, I reveal that recent changes in food consumption practices are the grounds for reworking longstanding parameters for ethical conduct at the household and community level, which, in turn, influence how individuals see themselves. While in capitalist settings, states have been weakened as corporations have gained immense power, in Cuba there are no non-state-based intermediaries, and the state still has the ultimate power. Increasingly the work necessary to maintain households and keep food on the table is shifting away from state responsibility onto individuals and families. I analyze study participants' longing for a "decent" meal as a highly emotional means of clinging to the social ideal of well rounded, culturally appropriate, and calorically adequate meals. However, given that the late-socialist state can no longer provide basic necessities free of cost, those who adhere to this standard are challenged to find new ways to access food. Most of my research participants do not fully achieve this ideal; rather they endure a less than decent standard of living and a great deal of stress. Some families engage in practices that may not meet local standards for ethical behavior in order to acquire food they deem appropriate for consumption. The struggle to acquire food is compounded as solutions to practical barriers are met with moral dilemmas. As people reflect on their shifting ethical standards for interaction with family, friends, and community in the face of food scarcity, they begin rethink who they are as people. This represents a shift in the community relations surrounding consumption leading to a transformation in subjectivity. I analyze this struggle and transformation to offer critical insights into the social implications of shifting consumption patterns during the decline of the welfare state. I also reveal the ways in which social relationships and subjectivities are reconfigured as political economic systems change

The Roles of Women, Children and Men in Household Food Planning, Purchasing, Preparation and Consumption in Santiago, Cuba

This work explores the roles of Women, Children and Men in Household food planning, purchasing, preparation and consumption in Santiago de Cuba. The data for this investigation were collected over a 10-week period during the Summer of 2008. This work focuses on Cuba’s second largest city, Santiago, located in the southeastern part of the island, Santiago provides an urban setting through which to view urban food cultivation and food symbolism in Cuba. Little scholarly work has been published on food issues in Santiago. Santiago is generally perceived of as being more “rural” than Havana; Santiagueros often selfidentify as guajieros or peasants, though the population is about 500,000 people and the average population density is about 500 people per square kilometer. Santiago’s tropical climate provides ideal growing conditions for many crops, including sugar, tobacco, coffee and fruit

An Anterior-to-Posterior Shift in Midline Cortical Activity in Schizophrenia During Self-Reflection

Background Deficits in social cognition, including impairments in self-awareness, contribute to the overall functional disability associated with schizophrenia. Studies in healthy subjects have shown that social cognitive functions, including self-reflection, rely on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and posterior cingulate gyrus, and these regions exhibit highly correlated activity during “resting” states. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia show dysfunction of this network during self-reflection and that this abnormal activity is associated with changes in the strength of resting-state correlations between these regions. Methods Activation during self-reflection and control tasks was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging in 19 patients with schizophrenia and 20 demographically matched control subjects. In addition, the resting-state functional connectivity of midline cortical areas showing abnormal self-reflection-related activation in schizophrenia was measured. Results Compared with control subjects, the schizophrenia patients demonstrated lower activation of the right ventral mPFC and greater activation of the mid/posterior cingulate gyri bilaterally during self-reflection, relative to a control task. A similar pattern was seen during overall social reflection. In addition, functional connectivity between the portion of the left mid/posterior cingulate gyrus showing abnormally elevated activity during self-reflection in schizophrenia, and the dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus was lower in the schizophrenia patients compared with control subjects. Conclusions Schizophrenia is associated with an anterior-to-posterior shift in introspection-related activation, as well as changes in functional connectivity, of the midline cortex. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that aberrant midline cortical function contributes to social cognitive impairment in schizophrenia.Poitras Center for Affective Disorders Researc