Sustainability, emergence and the graduate attribute of global citizenship

Universities have an another valuable role in enabling sustainability besides their research capacity. We are interested in their role as risk taking institutions, because we see risk as a pre-condition for sustainability. This paper will explore the relationship between sustainability, emergence, universities and a high level graduate attribute – global citizenship. We will explore this relationship by proposing a model that frames the theory of sustainability as a quality that emerges from a system. Emergence occurs from unmanaged multiple actions at the local scale and is more likely to occur in environments with greater risk and diversity. Emergence is only identified from the scale above where actions are taking place, so an emergent model of sustainability emphasises the space and interaction between the scales of action and observation. Australian universities play an important role in this space between the scales. They are both actor and observer, and trainers of the present and future actors and observers. By choosing to have higher level graduate attributes like leadership and global citizenship, universities are taking a risk in selecting and advocating for the attributes they think our future thinkers and leaders should have. We present the research design and some preliminary data that aims to determine if the global citizenship graduate attribute can serve as an example of universities' engagement between the scales to help create a sustainable future

17th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research

The 17th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research was held at the University of Madison, Wisconsin from June 27- July 2, 2006. ICAR-2006 included approximately 625 scientists from across the world. The scientific program was of excellent quality featuring 73 talks, including 30 from invited speakers. There were also 6 community-organized workshops (facilitated by conference staff) featuring additional talks on topics including ‘Submitting data to long-term repositories,’ ‘TAIR introductory workshop,’ ‘Web services and demonstration,’ ‘Public engagement: broadening the impact of your research,’ ‘Systems biology approaches to analysis of metabolic and regulatory networks of Arabidopsis,’ and ‘Mechanotransduction in Arabidopsis.’ Approximately 440 posters were presented in general topic areas including, among others, Development, Modeling/Other Systems, Energy, Environment, and Genetic/Epigenetic mechanisms. Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, junior faculty, and underrepresented minorities made up a significant portion of the oral presentations thereby promoting the training of young scientists and facilitating important career development opportunities for speakers. Several poster sessions provided an opportunity for younger participants to freely meet with more established scientists. The North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC) continued its outreach effort and again sponsored two special luncheons to encourage personal and professional development of young scientists and also underrepresented minorities. The ‘Emerging Scientists Luncheon’ featured 10 graduate students selected on the basis of scientific excellence of their submitted research abstracts. The ‘Minority Funding Luncheon,’ featured 8 awardees selected by the NAASC through a widely-publicized application process. This luncheon was established specifically to provide an opportunity for underrepresented minorities, and/or scientists from Minority-Serving Institutions/Historically Black Colleges and Universities to network with NAASC members and representatives from federal funding agencies in an informal and intimate setting. This luncheon included introductions of each award recipient and discussion of outreach efforts and informal research and career discussions. Outreach Activities: The conference is the largest annual international Arabidopsis venue which allowed the exchange of information at the forefront of Arabidopsis research and facilitated the establishment of new, and the strengthening of old, collaborations and networks. In addition, the conference provides the site for the annual meetings of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee and the NAASC. All conference abstracts and the full program were posted at The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR), a publicly-accessibly website (www.arabidopsis.org/news/abstracts.jsp.) To enable participation by under-represented minorities and young, domestic scientists, complete funding was provided to eight underrepresented minorities (funded by NSF), and registration or travel awards were given to 26 domestic graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, including 13 selected from submitted abstracts to give oral research presentations (funded by DOE)

Effectiveness of chlamydia screening: systematic review

Background Screening programmes are promoted to control transmission of and prevent female reproductive tract morbidity caused by genital chlamydia. The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of register-based and opportunistic chlamydia screening interventions. Methods We searched seven electronic databases (Cinahl, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, DARE, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO and SIGLE) without language restrictions from January 1990 to October 2007 and reference lists of retrieved articles to identify studies published before 1990. We included studies examining primary outcomes (pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes, neonatal infection, chlamydia prevalence) and harms of chlamydia screening in men and non-pregnant and pregnant women. We extracted data in duplicate and synthesized the data narratively or used random effects meta-analysis, where appropriate. Results We included six systematic reviews, five randomized trials, one non-randomized comparative study and one time trend study. Five reviews recommended screening of women at high risk of chlamydia. Two randomized trials found that register-based screening of women at high risk of chlamydia and of female and male high school students reduced the incidence of pelvic inflammatory disease in women at 1 year. Methodological inadequacies could have overestimated the observed benefits. One randomized trial showed that opportunistic screening in women undergoing surgical termination of pregnancy reduced post-abortal rates of pelvic inflammatory disease compared with no screening. We found no randomized trials showing a benefit of opportunistic screening in other populations, no trial examining the effects of more than one screening round and no trials examining the harms of chlamydia screening. Conclusion There is an absence of evidence supporting opportunistic chlamydia screening in the general population younger than 25 years, the most commonly recommended approach. Equipoise remains, so high-quality randomized trials of multiple rounds of screening with biological outcome measures are still needed to determine the balance of benefits and harms of chlamydia screenin

The Dynamics of the M87 Globular Cluster System

We present the results from a study of the dynamics of the system of globular clusters around M87. After eliminating foreground galactic stars and background galaxies, we end up with a sample of 205 bona fide M87 globular clusters for which we have radial velocities determined from multi-slit spectra taken with the LRIS on the Keck Telescope. We find that the mean radial velocity of the M87 globular clusters agrees well with that of M87 itself, and that the velocity histogram is well represented by a Gaussian distribution. We find evidence for rotation in the globular cluster system. We find that the observed velocity dispersion of the M87 globular cluster system increases with radius from 270 \kms~ at $r$ = 9 kpc to $\approx$400 \kms~ at $r$ = 40 kpc. The inferred mass-to-light ratio in solar units increases from 5 at $r$ = 9 kpc to $\approx$30 at $r$ = 40 kpc with $M(r) \sim r^{1.7}$. The long slit optical spectroscopy near the center of M87 and the recent analysis of the ROSAT X-ray data are in good agreement with this analysis near the nucleus and in the outer parts of M87 respectively.Comment: 29 pages, TeX, with 6 Figures. Accepted for publication in the Ap

Effectiveness of chlamydia screening: systematic review

BACKGROUND: Screening programmes are promoted to control transmission of and prevent female reproductive tract morbidity caused by genital chlamydia. The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of register-based and opportunistic chlamydia screening interventions. METHODS: We searched seven electronic databases (Cinahl, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, DARE, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO and SIGLE) without language restrictions from January 1990 to October 2007 and reference lists of retrieved articles to identify studies published before 1990. We included studies examining primary outcomes (pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes, neonatal infection, chlamydia prevalence) and harms of chlamydia screening in men and non-pregnant and pregnant women. We extracted data in duplicate and synthesized the data narratively or used random effects meta-analysis, where appropriate. RESULTS: We included six systematic reviews, five randomized trials, one non-randomized comparative study and one time trend study. Five reviews recommended screening of women at high risk of chlamydia. Two randomized trials found that register-based screening of women at high risk of chlamydia and of female and male high school students reduced the incidence of pelvic inflammatory disease in women at 1 year. Methodological inadequacies could have overestimated the observed benefits. One randomized trial showed that opportunistic screening in women undergoing surgical termination of pregnancy reduced post-abortal rates of pelvic inflammatory disease compared with no screening. We found no randomized trials showing a benefit of opportunistic screening in other populations, no trial examining the effects of more than one screening round and no trials examining the harms of chlamydia screening. CONCLUSION: There is an absence of evidence supporting opportunistic chlamydia screening in the general population younger than 25 years, the most commonly recommended approach. Equipoise remains, so high-quality randomized trials of multiple rounds of screening with biological outcome measures are still needed to determine the balance of benefits and harms of chlamydia screening

Drug Combinations as a First Line of Defense against Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Viruses

The world was unprepared for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and remains ill-equipped for future pandemics. While unprecedented strides have been made developing vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, there remains a need for highly effective and widely available regimens for ambulatory use for novel coronaviruses and other viral pathogens. We posit that a priority is to develop pan-family drug cocktails to enhance potency, limit toxicity, and avoid drug resistance. We urge cocktail development for all viruses with pandemic potential both in the short term (Peer reviewe

Chlamydia control activities in Europe: cross-sectional survey

Background: Chlamydia is the most commonly reported bacterial sexually transmitted infection in Europe. The objective of the Screening for Chlamydia in Europe (SCREen) project was to describe current and planned chlamydia control activities in Europe. Methods: The authors sent a questionnaire asking about different aspects of chlamydia epidemiology and control to public health and clinical experts in each country in 2007. The principles of sexually transmitted infection control were used to develop a typology comprising five categories of chlamydia control activities. Each country was assigned to a category, based on responses to the questionnaire. Results: Experts in 29 of 33 (88%) invited countries responded. Thirteen of 29 countries (45%) had no current chlamydia control activities. Six countries in this group stated that there were plans to introduce chlamydia screening programmes. There were five countries (17%) with case management guidelines only. Three countries (10%) also recommended case finding amongst partners of diagnosed chlamydia cases or people with another sexually transmitted infection. Six countries (21%) further specified groups of asymptomatic people eligible for opportunistic chlamydia testing. Two countries (7%) reported a chlamydia screening programme. There was no consistent association between the per capita gross domestic product of a country and the intensity of chlamydia control activities (P = 0.816). Conclusion: A newly developed classification system allowed the breadth of ongoing national chlamydia control activities to be described and categorized. Chlamydia control strategies should ensure that clinical guidelines to optimize chlamydia diagnosis and case management have been implemented before considering the appropriateness of screening programme

Nucleons or diquarks? Competition between clustering and color superconductivity in quark matter

We study the instabilities of quark matter in the framework of a generalized Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, in order to explore possible competition between three-quark clustering to form nucleons and diquark formation leading to color superconductivity. Nucleon and $\Delta$ solutions are obtained for the relativistic Faddeev equation at finite density and their binding energies are compared with those for the scalar and axial-vector diquarks found from the Bethe-Salpeter equation. In a model with interactions in both scalar and axial diquark channels, bound nucleons exist up to nuclear matter density. However, except at densities below about a quarter of that of nuclear matter, we find that scalar diquark formation is energetically favored. This raises the question of whether a realistic phase diagram of baryonic matter can be obtained from any model which does not incorporate color confinement.Comment: 23 pages (RevTeX), 5 figures (epsf