Review of \u3cem\u3ePolitics and Partnerships: The Role of Voluntary Associations in America\u27s Political Past and Present.\u3c/em\u3e Elisabeth Clemens & Doug Guthrie (Eds.). Reviewed by John G. McNutt.

Book review of Elisabeth Clemens and Doug Guthrie, Eds. (2010). Politics and Partnerships: The Role of Voluntary Associations in America\u27s Political Past and Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, $55.00 (hardcover),$19 (paperback)

Review of \u3cem\u3eThe Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution.\u3c/em\u3e Robert D. Bullard (Ed.). Reviewed by John G. McNutt.

Book review of Robert Bullard (Ed.), The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 2005. $18.95 papercover

Cross-modal individual recognition in wild African lions

Individual recognition is considered to have been fundamental in the evolution of complex social systems and is thought to be a widespread ability throughout the animal kingdom. Although robust evidence for individual recognition remains limited, recent experimental paradigms that examine cross-modal processing have demonstrated individual recognition in a range of captive non-human animals. It is now highly relevant to test whether cross-modal individual recognition exists within wild populations and thus examine how it is employed during natural social interactions. We address this question by testing audio–visual cross-modal individual recognition in wild African lions (Panthera leo) using an expectancy-violation paradigm. When presented with a scenario where the playback of a loud-call (roaring) broadcast from behind a visual block is incongruent with the conspecific previously seen there, subjects responded more strongly than during the congruent scenario where the call and individual matched. These findings suggest that lions are capable of audio–visual cross-modal individual recognition and provide a useful method for studying this ability in wild populations

Disseminating Research News in HCI: Perceived Hazards, How-To's, and Opportunities for Innovation

Mass media afford researchers critical opportunities to disseminate research findings and trends to the general public. Yet researchers also perceive that their work can be miscommunicated in mass media, thus generating unintended understandings of HCI research by the general public. We conduct a Grounded Theory analysis of interviews with 12 HCI researchers and find that miscommunication can occur at four origins along the socio-technical infrastructure known as the Media Production Pipeline (MPP) for science news. Results yield researchers' perceived hazards of disseminating their work through mass media, as well as strategies for fostering effective communication of research. We conclude with implications for augmenting or innovating new MPP technologies.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, accepted paper to CHI 2020 conferenc

Cholesterol Homeostasis in Two Commonly Used Human Prostate Cancer Cell-Lines, LNCaP and PC-3

BACKGROUND:Recently, there has been renewed interest in the link between cholesterol and prostate cancer. It has been previously reported that in vitro, prostate cancer cells lack sterol-mediated feedback regulation of the major transcription factor in cholesterol homeostasis, sterol-regulatory element binding protein 2 (SREBP-2). This could explain the accumulation of cholesterol observed in clinical prostate cancers. Consequently, perturbed feedback regulation to increased sterol levels has become a pervasive concept in the prostate cancer setting. Here, we aimed to explore this in greater depth. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:After altering the cellular cholesterol status in LNCaP and PC-3 prostate cancer cells, we examined SREBP-2 processing, downstream effects on promoter activity and expression of SREBP-2 target genes, and functional activity (low-density lipoprotein uptake, cholesterol synthesis). In doing so, we observed that LNCaP and PC-3 cells were sensitive to increased sterol levels. In contrast, lowering cholesterol levels via statin treatment generated a greater response in LNCaP cells than PC-3 cells. This highlighted an important difference between these cell-lines: basal SREBP-2 activity appeared to be higher in PC-3 cells, reducing sensitivity to decreased cholesterol levels. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE:Thus, prostate cancer cells are sensitive to changing sterol levels in vitro, but the extent of this regulation differs between prostate cancer cell-lines. These results shed new light on the regulation of cholesterol metabolism in two commonly used prostate cancer cell-lines, and emphasize the importance of establishing whether or not cholesterol homeostasis is perturbed in prostate cancer in vivo

Footprint evidence of early hominin locomotor diversity at Laetoli, Tanzania

Bipedal trackways discovered in 1978 at Laetoli site G, Tanzania and dated to 3.66 million years ago are widely accepted as the oldest unequivocal evidence of obligate bipedalism in the human lineage1-3. Another trackway discovered two years earlier at nearby site A was partially excavated and attributed to a hominin, but curious affinities with bears (ursids) marginalized its importance to the paleoanthropological community, and the location of these footprints fell into obscurity3-5. In 2019, we located, excavated and cleaned the site A trackway, producing a digital archive using 3D photogrammetry and laser scanning. Here we compare the footprints at this site with those of American black bears, chimpanzees and humans, and we show that they resemble those of hominins more than ursids. In fact, the narrow step width corroborates the original interpretation of a small, cross-stepping bipedal hominin. However, the inferred foot proportions, gait parameters and 3D morphologies of footprints at site A are readily distinguished from those at site G, indicating that a minimum of two hominin taxa with different feet and gaits coexisted at Laetoli

ReproPhylo:An environment for reproducible Phylogenomics

The reproducibility of experiments is key to the scientific process, and particularly necessary for accurate reporting of analyses in data-rich fields such as phylogenomics. We present ReproPhylo, a phylogenomic analysis environment developed to ensure experimental reproducibility, to facilitate the handling of large-scale data, and to assist methodological experimentation. Reproducibility, and instantaneous repeatability, is built in to the ReproPhylo system and does not require user intervention or configuration because it stores the experimental workflow as a single, serialized Python object containing explicit provenance and environment information. This 'single file' approach ensures the persistence of provenance across iterations of the analysis, with changes automatically managed by the version control program Git. This file, along with a Git repository, are the primary reproducibility outputs of the program. In addition, ReproPhylo produces an extensive human-readable report and generates a comprehensive experimental archive file, both of which are suitable for submission with publications. The system facilitates thorough experimental exploration of both parameters and data. ReproPhylo is a platform independent CC0 Python module and is easily installed as a Docker image or a WinPython self-sufficient package, with a Jupyter Notebook GUI, or as a slimmer version in a Galaxy distribution

Coming Perspectives in the Development of Electronic Advocacy for Social Policy Practice

Advocacy has been seen as part of professional practice since the early days of social work (Specht & Courtney, 1994; Trattner, 1994). Throughout the profession's history, social workers have fought for the rights of groups that could not advocate for themselves. This is a rare characteristic for any profession, which almost by definition means an occupation tied to the preservation of the existing social order. For social work to continue this practice, the profession has developed a large number of intervention techniques under the rubric of social policy practice (Jansson, 1999). Electronic techniques, particularly those that utilize Internet based technologies, are changing the way that advocacy is practiced (Fitzgerald & McNutt, 1997, March; McNutt & Boland, 1998; 1999; Turner, 1998; Grobman & Grant, 1998; Schwartz, 1996; Bowen, 1996). New techniques provide a means to make lobbying, campaigning and organizing more effective. They also allow small organizations, under certain situations, to compete with large, well-funded opponents (McNutt & Boland, 1999; Turner 1998). While the use of these techniques is now an established form of practice, electronic advocacy is very much a practice in the developmental stages. The next few years will define the field and determine how practice will evolve and what types of interventions are developed. In addition, changes in advocacy methods, as well as modifications in the political landscape, provide an opportunity to move beyond the profession's traditional stance into a transformed reality. This paper will explore several forces that are shaping the future of electronic advocacy and identify trends and research needs in this new vein of policy practice interventions. The paper is divided into three parts. The first section provides an overview of electronic advocacy. This will be followed by a discussion of the forces that are facing this type of practice. Finally, implications will be draw and research needs identified