Creating Citizenship Communities: Final Report

The full data are stored at the Department of Education and the National Foundation for Educational Research, University of York, and can be made available on request.The project ‘Creating Citizenship Communities’ was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation during the period 2011–2013. The project team was based at the Department of Education at the University of York and the National Foundation for Educational Research. The project investigated the thinking and actions of professionals in schools and young people about forms of citizenship that relate to strong communities and developed educational materials designed to enhance understanding and skill development. The key stages of the project were a literature review, secondary data analysis, a national survey of schools (completed by relevant professionals) and focus groups of young people. There is widespread agreement about the importance of community but there are different perspectives about its meaning. A great deal of work is undertaken by schools to support the development of citizenship communities. However: (a) schools could do more to create a sense of community within schools themselves and (b) schools could do more to help young people engage with their local communities. The teaching and learning about citizenship and communities in schools does not have the same status as other areas of the curriculum. Young people suggest that schools should take citizenship education more seriously and that the content of citizenship education could be more directly relevant to their lives. The co-ordination of curricular and whole-school approaches to citizenship and community is not always strongly developed. There is at times relatively little attention paid to young people’s existing knowledge and experience in the development of education to explore and support citizenship communities.Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, UK (Grant 10-1102)

Immunotherapy of pediatric brain tumor patients should include an immunoprevention strategy: a medical hypothesis paper

Adults diagnosed with Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) are frequently faced with a 7% chance of surviving 2 years compared with pediatric patients with GBM who have a 26% survival rate. Our recent screen of possible glioma-associated antigen precursor protein (TAPP) profiles displayed from different types of pediatric brain tumors showed that pediatric patients contained a subset of the tumor antigens displayed by adult GBM patients. Adult GBM possess at least 27 tumor antigens that can potentially stimulate T cell immune responses, suggesting that these tumors are quite antigenic. In contrast, pediatric brain tumors only expressed nine tumor antigens with mRNA levels that were equivalent to those displayed by adult GBM. These tumor-associated antigens could be used as possible targets of therapeutic immunization for pediatric brain cancer patients. Children have developing immune systems that peak at puberty. An immune response mounted by these pediatric patients might account for their extended life spans, even though the pediatric brain tumors express far fewer total tumor-associated antigens. Here we present a hypothesis that pediatric brain tumor patients might be the best patients to show that immunotherapy can be used to successfully treat established cancers. We speculate that immunotherapy should include a panel of tumor antigens that might prevent the out-growth of more malignant tumor cells and thereby prevent the brain tumor relapse. Thus, pediatric brain tumor patients might provide an opportunity to prove the concept of immunoprevention

Pemphigus autoimmunity: Hypotheses and realities

The goal of contemporary research in pemphigus vulgaris and pemphigus foliaceus is to achieve and maintain clinical remission without corticosteroids. Recent advances of knowledge on pemphigus autoimmunity scrutinize old dogmas, resolve controversies, and open novel perspectives for treatment. Elucidation of intimate mechanisms of keratinocyte detachment and death in pemphigus has challenged the monopathogenic explanation of disease immunopathology. Over 50 organ-specific and non-organ-specific antigens can be targeted by pemphigus autoimmunity, including desmosomal cadherins and other adhesion molecules, PERP cholinergic and other cell membrane (CM) receptors, and mitochondrial proteins. The initial insult is sustained by the autoantibodies to the cell membrane receptor antigens triggering the intracellular signaling by Src, epidermal growth factor receptor kinase, protein kinases A and C, phospholipase C, mTOR, p38 MAPK, JNK, other tyrosine kinases, and calmodulin that cause basal cell shrinkage and ripping desmosomes off the CM. Autoantibodies synergize with effectors of apoptotic and oncotic pathways, serine proteases, and inflammatory cytokines to overcome the natural resistance and activate the cell death program in keratinocytes. The process of keratinocyte shrinkage/detachment and death via apoptosis/oncosis has been termed apoptolysis to emphasize that it is triggered by the same signal effectors and mediated by the same cell death enzymes. The natural course of pemphigus has improved due to a substantial progress in developing of the steroid-sparing therapies combining the immunosuppressive and direct anti-acantholytic effects. Further elucidation of the molecular mechanisms mediating immune dysregulation and apoptolysis in pemphigus should improve our understanding of disease pathogenesis and facilitate development of steroid-free treatment of patients

Deoxidation of liquid copper: effect of phosphorus on oxygen activity

An analysis of the deoxidation of liquid copper is made by use of an Ellingham-type diagram, which incorporates data now available on interactions between copper and the deoxidant in solution. To make the diagram more quantitative information is required on interactions between oxygen and the deoxidants and the activities of component oxides in slags of interest in copper smelting

An improved method for calculating activities from distribution equilibria

The method of Gibbs-Duhem integration suggested by Speiser et al. has been modified to derive activities from distribution equilibria. It is shown that, in general, the activities of components in melts with a common anion can be calculated, without using their standard Gibbs energies of formation, from eqUilibrium ratios and the knowledge of activities in the metal phase. Moreover, if systems are so chosen that the concentration of one element in the metal phase lies in the Henry's law region (less than 1 %), information on activities in the metal phase is not required. Conversely, activities of elements in an alloy can be readily calculated from equilibrium distribution ratios alone, if the salt phase in equilibrium contains very small amounts of one element. Application of the method is illustrated using distribution ratios from the literature on AgCI-CuCI, AgBr-CuBr, and CuDo.5 -PbD systems. The results indicate that covalent bonding and van der Waals repulsive interactions in certain types of fused salt melts can significantly affect the thermodynamic properties of mixing

Do Parents Matter? Errin J. Jeffes

Higher education in America has attempted to define the relationships it has with both students and parents for many years. While some argue that the philosophy of in loco parentis has seemingly disappeared, others suggest that its return is imminent on American college campuses. One example of this return is the trend among campuses towards notifying parents when students are involved in judicial matters. Recent changes in federal privacy laws have clarified the right of colleges and universities to notify parents when their son or daughter is involved in a violation of the university alcohol policy. There is an assumption that parents will intervene with their students and help the university promote a more responsible use of alcohol. Many colleges are debating the value of such notifications, but little is known as to whether or not the inclusion of parents in university discipline affects the decisions college students make about their alcohol consumption. The present study used qualitative and quantitative means to address this gap in literature. Students whose parents were notified of their alcohol violation were interviewed in the qualitative component of the study. The interviews explored the relationships between students and parents before entering college, immediately after enrolling in college, and after parental notification. Students were then assigned positions within three categories of parenting styles (General Relationships, Level of Parental Involvement, and Parental Attitudes Toward Alcohol) for the three time periods explored in this study. The quantitative component explored students' experience with alcohol during the same three time periods. Students completed a pencil and paper survey about their drinking behaviors and were assigned to categor..