Cultural bridging: an extension of cultural branding in the lingerie market by Savage X Fenty

Cultural branding theory assumes that iconic brands are made by leapfrogging a cultural status quo and capitalizing on an opposing cultural discourse.. Brands position themselves by taking a stance against a dominant cultural narrative. This creates two types of cultural positioning on each side of an ideological divide. This present thesis examines how a brand like Savage X Fenty practices cultural branding by reconciling the two sides (rather than opposing them) and functionally bridging the ideological gap. The findings emerge from qualitative data analysis based on 625 pages of newspaper articles from 2005-2019, a netnography of lingerie brands over the course of a year, and the archives of Savage X Fenty’s social media presence. In doing so, two ideo-typical lingerie brands were conceptualized: the Bombshell and Body Positive brands. I contribute to the extent literature by showing how cultural branding can operate by bridging opposing cultural narratives, rather than taking a stance against a dominant narrative. I show how Savage X Fenty was able to reconcile the gap between these brands by blending their goal, offering products that covered and blended elements of the two brands and working with a wide variety of ambassadors. The brand’s founder, pop star Rihanna, served as a catalyst for the brand’s success. This brings in a human element to the existing literature on cultural branding in marketing. These results suggest there is a capability to capitalize on bridging cultural divides as well as creating iconic brands out of person-brands

Carbon Sequestration Capacities of Different Land Cover Types and Climate Change

Human-caused climate change creates a positive feedback loop that emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of being sequestered in the Earth or its oceans. A major contributor to this feedback loop is deforestation in order to use land for agriculture and livestock. This study aims to investigate differences in carbon sequestration capabilities of forests, pastures, and cropland through soil and tree sampling in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The main hypothesis of this study is that forested land will be the most effective at carbon sequestration. The loss on ignition method (LOI) was used to determine the percent organic material in the soil for each land type. The soil in the forest sequestered the most CO2 per unit area at 0.012 tons/m2, followed by the pasture at 0.010 tons/m2, and finally the cropland at 0.009 tons/m2. When including the trees in the total carbon sequestered per unit area the carbon sequestered per unit area was 0.109 tons/m2 with average carbon sequestered per tree being 43644.4 pounds (21.8 tons). These results have implications for land management practices being used to mitigate climate change, as the different land covers sequestered significantly different amounts of CO2

Angiotensin II-Induced Hypertension in Apolipoprotein E-Deficient Rats

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are characterized by a weakened vessel wall and a diameter 50% greater than normal. AAA are usually asymptomatic until they are near rupturing, which can be fatal if not treated immediately. Apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE) mice are commonly used as a model to study aneurysm growth. Our lab has created a similar model using rats, which are more similar to humans. This study focuses on the analysis of blood pressures collected from ApoE rats for comparison with a known mouse model. Five ApoE rats (1 female, 4 males) received subcutaneous implants of osmotic mini pumps that released a continuous flow of angiotensin II (AngII) at 200 ng/kg/min. AngII is a protein known to increase blood pressure by acting on the renin-angiotensin system. Systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressures were measured using a non-invasive tail cuff system (CODA, Kent Scientific). Measurements were taken before pump implantation and on days 3, 7, 14, 21, and 28 after implantation. Mean arterial pressure increased from 133.8 ± 21.2 mmHg before pump implantation to 169.4 ± 20.3 mmHg on day 28. Systolic and diastolic pressures rose in a similar manner. Although the blood pressure increased in a manner similar to the mice, no aneurysms were observed in any of the rats. This may be due to species differences that affect vessel thickness and metabolic rate. Further investigations will be needed to determine why ApoE rats become hypertensive due to AngII, but do not develop suprarenal dissecting aortic aneurysms

Ontogeny-based immunogens for the induction of V2-directed HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies.

CAPRISA, 2017.Abstract available in pdf

The Design of Student Training Resources to Enhance the Student Voice in Academic Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement Processes

Without appropriate training and recognition, students – in particular Class Representatives – often struggle to engage fully with a University’s quality assurance and quality enhancement processes. Through the “Our Student Voice” project in Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), a suite of digital training resources were designed to provide training for students to help develop the requisite knowledge and skills for effective participation there processes, thus strengthening student engagement and enhancing the student voice. The resources are organised into thirteen accessible episodes that each commence with an animated scenario that sets out key messages. The remainder of the episode provides detailed guidance for students and learning activities to help students develop their skillset. Upon completion of the learning activities, and having satisfactorily undertaken one of three specific student role in the quality processes, students can apply for recognition through a digital badge. The training resources and digital badges have been co-designed by a project team comprised of staff and students from across the University guided by best practice internationally. This paper describes the co-design process and presents a set of lessons learned that may assist other higher education institutions in enabling impactful student engagement in their academic quality assurance and quality enhancement processes

The Grizzly, February 20, 1996

Talk Show Trouble • Major Fair 1996 • J.D. Salinger: A Grizzly Staffer!; The Skipped Diploma • Boxer Tommy Morrison HIV-Positive • Swedish Vocal Ensemble to Perform • Meet the Candidates: A Largely Biased Commentary • Take it Back, Captain Jack? • Blatant Generalizations • You Bet Your Life • Confessions of a Computer Dork • To Bus or Not to Bus • Vicki Abt Revisited • Free Speech, Abortion, and Presidential Politics • Valentine\u27s Spectacular Brings Elegant Dining to Zack\u27s • WVOU: State of the Nation • Airband Proceeds to Help Student Ryan Auch • Guys Come Up Short in Muhlenberg • Lady Bears Get Crushed by Muhlenberg • Bears Place Four at Eastern Regionalshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1375/thumbnail.jp

A Naturally Selected Dimorphism within the HLA-B44 Supertype Alters Class I Structure, Peptide Repertoire, and T Cell Recognition

HLA-B*4402 and B*4403 are naturally occurring MHC class I alleles that are both found at a high frequency in all human populations, and yet they only differ by one residue on the α2 helix (B*4402 Asp156→B*4403 Leu156). CTLs discriminate between HLA-B*4402 and B*4403, and these allotypes stimulate strong mutual allogeneic responses reflecting their known barrier to hemopoeitic stem cell transplantation. Although HLA-B*4402 and B*4403 share >95% of their peptide repertoire, B*4403 presents more unique peptides than B*4402, consistent with the stronger T cell alloreactivity observed toward B*4403 compared with B*4402. Crystal structures of B*4402 and B*4403 show how the polymorphism at position 156 is completely buried and yet alters both the peptide and the heavy chain conformation, relaxing ligand selection by B*4403 compared with B*4402. Thus, the polymorphism between HLA-B*4402 and B*4403 modifies both peptide repertoire and T cell recognition, and is reflected in the paradoxically powerful alloreactivity that occurs across this “minimal” mismatch. The findings suggest that these closely related class I genes are maintained in diverse human populations through their differential impact on the selection of peptide ligands and the T cell repertoire

Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress signalling - from basic mechanisms to clinical applications

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a membranous intracellular organelle and the first compartment of the secretory pathway. As such, the ER contributes to the production and folding of approximately one-third of cellular proteins, and is thus inextricably linked to the maintenance of cellular homeostasis and the fine balance between health and disease. Specific ER stress signalling pathways, collectively known as the unfolded protein response (UPR), are required for maintaining ER homeostasis. The UPR is triggered when ER protein folding capacity is overwhelmed by cellular demand and the UPR initially aims to restore ER homeostasis and normal cellular functions. However, if this fails, then the UPR triggers cell death. In this review, we provide a UPR signalling-centric view of ER functions, from the ER's discovery to the latest advancements in the understanding of ER and UPR biology. Our review provides a synthesis of intracellular ER signalling revolving around proteostasis and the UPR, its impact on other organelles and cellular behaviour, its multifaceted and dynamic response to stress and its role in physiology, before finally exploring the potential exploitation of this knowledge to tackle unresolved biological questions and address unmet biomedical needs. Thus, we provide an integrated and global view of existing literature on ER signalling pathways and their use for therapeutic purposes

MYC regulates fatty acid metabolism through a multigenic program in claudin-low triple negative breast cancer

Background: Recent studies have suggested that fatty acid oxidation (FAO) is a key metabolic pathway for the growth of triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs), particularly those that have high expression of MYC. However, the underlying mechanism by which MYC promotes FAO remains poorly understood. Methods: We used a combination of metabolomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics, and microscopy to elucidate a potential mechanism by which MYC regulates FAO in TNBC. Results: We propose that MYC induces a multigenic program that involves changes in intracellular calcium signalling and fatty acid metabolism. We determined key roles for fatty acid transporters (CD36), lipases (LPL), and kinases (PDGFRB, CAMKK2, and AMPK) that each contribute to promoting FAO in human mammary epithelial cells that express oncogenic levels of MYC. Bioinformatic analysis further showed that this multigenic program is highly expressed and predicts poor survival in the claudin-low molecular subtype of TNBC, but not other subtypes of TNBCs, suggesting that efforts to target FAO in the clinic may best serve claudin-low TNBC patients. Conclusion: We identified critical pieces of the FAO machinery that have the potential to be targeted for improved treatment of patients with TNBC, especially the claudin-low molecular subtype

Zbtb46 expression distinguishes classical dendritic cells and their committed progenitors from other immune lineages

Distinguishing dendritic cells (DCs) from other cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system is complicated by the shared expression of cell surface markers such as CD11c. In this study, we identified Zbtb46 (BTBD4) as a transcription factor selectively expressed by classical DCs (cDCs) and their committed progenitors but not by plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs), monocytes, macrophages, or other lymphoid or myeloid lineages. Using homologous recombination, we replaced the first coding exon of Zbtb46 with GFP to inactivate the locus while allowing detection of Zbtb46 expression. GFP expression in Zbtb46(gfp/+) mice recapitulated the cDC-specific expression of the native locus, being restricted to cDC precursors (pre-cDCs) and lymphoid organ- and tissue-resident cDCs. GFP(+) pre-cDCs had restricted developmental potential, generating cDCs but not pDCs, monocytes, or macrophages. Outside the immune system, Zbtb46 was expressed in committed erythroid progenitors and endothelial cell populations. Zbtb46 overexpression in bone marrow progenitor cells inhibited granulocyte potential and promoted cDC development, and although cDCs developed in Zbtb46(gfp/gfp) (Zbtb46 deficient) mice, they maintained expression of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and leukemia inhibitory factor receptors, which are normally down-regulated in cDCs. Thus, Zbtb46 may help enforce cDC identity by restricting responsiveness to non-DC growth factors and may serve as a useful marker to identify rare cDC progenitors and distinguish between cDCs and other mononuclear phagocyte lineages