Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy in Multiple Sclerosis

Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) is a rare and debilitating disease caused by the JC virus and results in demyelination of oligodendrocytes and glial cell lysis. The virus is able to cross the blood brain barrier, leading to plaque development on the brain and neurological problems. (Gorelik et al., 2011). PML develops in individuals who have an immune disorder and who have been treated with immunomodulatory medications, including patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). There is no cure for PML and 30-50% of patients who develop the disease die within the first few months of diagnosis. The JC virus is thought to affect 66-92% of the general population and is acquired in childhood (White & Khalili, 2011). Despite the prevalence of JC antibodies after exposure, the actual occurrence of PML is low leading to the conclusion that the virus is re-activated, after a period of latency, in immunosuppressed individuals (White & Khalili, 2011). The pathophysiology of the disease is significant in that many patients diagnosed with MS, who are undergoing immunosuppression therapy, may also have JC virus antibodies which increases their risk of reactivating the infection and results in PML. Therefore, screening and close observation is warranted in the patient with MS

Bolognini Competition 4th Annual Alumni Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

The instituionalization of the public school system in Missouri: 1865-1882

By the early 1870s, the public school system in Missouri became an embedded institution in the state's cultural and political fabric. This thesis provides an explanation of how and why Missouri powerholders solidified a government-supplemented educational system during Reconstruction, along with the strategies used to help the system weather the storm of political upheaval and citizen pushback in the decade after Reconstruction's close. The post-Civil War system initiated by state-level Radical Republicans was built on Missouri's antebellum common system, incubated in St. Louis, and in its early stages across the state prior to the conflict. The postbellum public system was a product of the Radical agenda to open publicly funded schools to children regardless of skin color, place of birth, gender, or class. Cultural mores held by some Missouri citizens--racism and anti-tax sentiment, among others--resulted in uneven application of reforms at the local level, but powerholders navigated this convoluted terrain through promotion, an emphasis on teacher professionalization, and a push for capacity expansion to further root the system in Missouri communities. The end of Radical Republican leadership in 1870 did not signal the end of the public school system; rather, spurred by urban growth, rural adaptation, and an expanding web of education-adjacent groups and businesses, public schooling survived in a post-Radical political environment. The system's institutionalization required Democrats to critique and modify within the system. This thesis argues that the survival of public schools from 1865 onward was neither assured nor even likely in Missouri, but key leadership choices and the legacy of education in St. Louis resulted in its continuance.Includes bibliographical references

The Parentless Child\u27s Right to a Permanent Family

More than 420,000 children in the United States are in foster care, and more than 110,000 of them are waiting to be adopted. State adoption statutes typically seek to achieve adoption for these children as promptly as possible, but some limit the pool of potential adoptive parents in one way or another. In this Article, we argue that such restrictions violate the State’s constitutional duties to parentless children in its care. Specifically, we contend that children in State custody have a substantive liberty interest in a secure and stable family relationship, because such a relationship is essential in order for these children to attain the capacities needed to function as autonomous adults. Developmental science demonstrates that children need an enduring attachment relationship with a primary caregiver in order to achieve the self-regulation and social competence necessary to function in society, and to receive the essential feedback they need to develop a sense of who they are – that is, to acquire “the ability independently to define one’s identity that is central to any concept of liberty.” A secure and stable family relationship is therefore a component of the minimally adequate nurturing that the State is constitutionally obligated to provide to parentless children in its custody, and this constitutional obligation constrains the State’s choices in establishing its foster care and adoption policies. In particular, given the unstable placements that typify foster care in the United States, laws and regulations categorically disqualifying a class of people from adopting work a direct and substantial interference with the child’s right to a secure and stable family relationship, and therefore must survive strict scrutiny in order to pass muster. However, we suggest that careful thought is needed before the child’s right to a secure and stable family relationship is extended to contexts in which it conflicts with the right of a parent

Conformal Bootstrap, Universality and Gravitational Scattering

We use the conformal bootstrap equations to study the non-perturbative gravitational scattering between infalling and outgoing particles in the vicinity of a black hole horizon in AdS. We focus on irrational 2D CFTs with large $c$ and only Virasoro symmetry. The scattering process is described by the matrix element of two light operators (particles) between two heavy states (BTZ black holes). We find that the operator algebra in this regime is (i) universal and identical to that of Liouville CFT, and (ii) takes the form of an exchange algebra, specified by an R-matrix that exactly matches with the scattering amplitude of 2+1 gravity. The R-matrix is given by a quantum 6j-symbol and the scattering phase by the volume of a hyperbolic tetrahedron. We comment on the relevance of our results to scrambling and the holographic reconstruction of the bulk physics near black hole horizons.Comment: 61 pages, 12 figures; some typos corrected and references improve

The Parentless Child\u27s Right to a Permanent Family

More than 420,000 children in the United States are in foster care, and more than 110,000 of them are waiting to be adopted. State adoption statutes typically seek to achieve adoption for these children as promptly as possible, but some limit the pool of potential adoptive parents in one way or another. In this Article, we argue that such restrictions violate the State’s constitutional duties to parentless children in its care. Specifically, we contend that children in State custody have a substantive liberty interest in a secure and stable family relationship, because such a relationship is essential in order for these children to attain the capacities needed to function as autonomous adults. Developmental science demonstrates that children need an enduring attachment relationship with a primary caregiver in order to achieve the self-regulation and social competence necessary to function in society, and to receive the essential feedback they need to develop a sense of who they are – that is, to acquire “the ability independently to define one’s identity that is central to any concept of liberty.” A secure and stable family relationship is therefore a component of the minimally adequate nurturing that the State is constitutionally obligated to provide to parentless children in its custody, and this constitutional obligation constrains the State’s choices in establishing its foster care and adoption policies. In particular, given the unstable placements that typify foster care in the United States, laws and regulations categorically disqualifying a class of people from adopting work a direct and substantial interference with the child’s right to a secure and stable family relationship, and therefore must survive strict scrutiny in order to pass muster. However, we suggest that careful thought is needed before the child’s right to a secure and stable family relationship is extended to contexts in which it conflicts with the right of a parent

Talking Is Thinking: Supporting Student Sense-Making Through Discourse and Assessment

Learning in the classroom is highly influenced by the experiences a teacher plans for students. Concerned that students were not achieving adequate conceptual knowledge during traditional undergraduate physics courses, the authors used the Making Sense of SCIENCE curriculum to tailor a course for 21 pre-service elementary teachers at the University of Mississippi. The organization of instruction, facilitation practices, discussion opportunities, and assessment of content are all important aspects of the learning process. We found the changes we implemented significantly impacted the learning of students enrolled in this course

The location of international practices: what is human rights practice?

This article opens up space to challenge state-centrism about human rights practice. To do so, it presents and critically assesses four methods that can be used to determine who and/or what counts as a part of any international practice: the agreement method, which locates a practice by referring to speech acts that define it; the contextual method, which locates a practice by referring to the actions, meanings, and intentions of practitioners; the value method, which locates a practice by identifying a value or principle that the practice reflects or instantiates; and the purpose method, which locates a practice by constructing an account of the sociopolitical reason(s) for a practice's existence. The purpose method, based on an interpretation of Rawls' constructivism, is developed, in a way that focuses on practitioners' judgement-based reasons to assign responsibility for human rights to any state or non-state actor