The Grizzly, February 22, 1980

Freshmen Survey Results Explored • Songfest Boycott Considered • Career Planning Close-up • Eilts Selected As Graduation Speaker • USGA Notes • Baltz Returns to Union Coffeehouse • 1979 Music Awards • Captain Ray of Light\u27s Pseudo-Science • 1980 Spring Fraternity Pledge Classes • Stapp Enthralls Audience • 1980-81 Roster of Classes • W\u27s Basketball Downs Drexel • Ursinus To Host Grandmaster • Swimming MACs Start Tomorrow • Intramural Hoop Playoffs Open • Albright Downs Hoopsters, 103-82 • Wrestlers Post 6-9-1 Final Tally • Pitt Edges Gymnasts By Onehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1034/thumbnail.jp

Culturally-adapted and audio-technology assisted HIV/AIDS awareness and education program in rural Nigeria: a cohort study

Background: HIV-awareness programs tailored toward the needs of rural communities are needed. We sought to quantify change in HIV knowledge in three rural Nigerian villages following an integrated culturally adapted and technology assisted educational intervention. Methods: A prospective 14-week cohort study was designed to compare short-term changes in HIV knowledge between seminar-based education program and a novel program, which capitalized on the rural culture of small-group oral learning and was delivered by portable digital-audio technology. Results: Participants were mostly Moslem (99%), male (53.5%), with no formal education (55%). Baseline HIV knowledge was low (\u3c 80% correct answers for 9 of the 10 questions). Knowledge gain was higher (p \u3c 0.0001 for 8 of 10 questions) in the integrated culturally adapted and technology-facilitated (n = 511) compared with the seminar-based (n = 474) program. Conclusions: Baseline HIV-awareness was low. Culturally adapted, technology-assisted HIV education program is a feasible cost-effective method of raising HIV awareness among low-literacy rural communities

The Democratic Biopolitics of PrEP

PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a relatively new drug-based HIV prevention technique and an important means to lower the HIV risk of gay men who are especially vulnerable to HIV. From the perspective of biopolitics, PrEP inscribes itself in a larger trend of medicalization and the rise of pharmapower. This article reconstructs and evaluates contemporary literature on biopolitical theory as it applies to PrEP, by bringing it in a dialogue with a mapping of the political debate on PrEP. As PrEP changes sexual norms and subjectification, for example condom use and its meaning for gay subjectivity, it is highly contested. The article shows that the debate on PrEP can be best described with the concepts ‘sexual-somatic ethics’ and ‘democratic biopolitics’, which I develop based on the biopolitical approach of Nikolas Rose and Paul Rabinow. In contrast, interpretations of PrEP which are following governmentality studies or Italian Theory amount to either farfetched or trivial positions on PrEP, when seen in light of the political debate. Furthermore, the article is a contribution to the scholarship on gay subjectivity, highlighting how homophobia and homonormativity haunts gay sex even in liberal environments, and how PrEP can serve as an entry point for the destigmatization of gay sexuality and transformation of gay subjectivity. ‘Biopolitical democratization’ entails making explicit how medical technology and health care relates to sexual subjectification and ethics, to strengthen the voice of (potential) PrEP users in health politics, and to renegotiate the profit and power of Big Pharma

TESS Discovery of a Transiting Super-Earth in the π\pi Mensae System

We report the detection of a transiting planet around $\pi$ Mensae (HD 39091), using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The solar-type host star is unusually bright (V=5.7) and was already known to host a Jovian planet on a highly eccentric, 5.7-year orbit. The newly discovered planet has a size of $2.04\pm 0.05$ $R_\oplus$ and an orbital period of 6.27 days. Radial-velocity data from the HARPS and AAT/UCLES archives also displays a 6.27-day periodicity, confirming the existence of the planet and leading to a mass determination of $4.82\pm 0.85$ $M_\oplus$. The star's proximity and brightness will facilitate further investigations, such as atmospheric spectroscopy, asteroseismology, the Rossiter--McLaughlin effect, astrometry, and direct imaging.Comment: Accepted for publication ApJ Letters. This letter makes use of the TESS Alert data, which is currently in a beta test phase. The discovery light curve is included in a table inside the arxiv submissio

Automated detection and staging of malaria parasites from cytological smears using convolutional neural networks

Microscopic examination of blood smears remains the gold standard for laboratory inspection and diagnosis of malaria. Smear inspection is, however, time-consuming and dependent on trained microscopists with results varying in accuracy. We sought to develop an automated image analysis method to improve accuracy and standardization of smear inspection that retains capacity for expert confirmation and image archiving. Here, we present a machine learning method that achieves red blood cell (RBC) detection, differentiation between infected/uninfected cells, and parasite life stage categorization from unprocessed, heterogeneous smear images. Based on a pretrained Faster Region-Based Convolutional Neural Networks (R-CNN) model for RBC detection, our model performs accurately, with an average precision of 0.99 at an intersection-over-union threshold of 0.5. Application of a residual neural network-50 model to infected cells also performs accurately, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.98. Finally, combining our method with a regression model successfully recapitulates intraerythrocytic developmental cycle with accurate lifecycle stage categorization. Combined with a mobile-friendly web-based interface, called PlasmoCount, our method permits rapid navigation through and review of results for quality assurance. By standardizing assessment of Giemsa smears, our method markedly improves inspection reproducibility and presents a realistic route to both routine lab and future field-based automated malaria diagnosis

Pharmacological prion protein silencing accelerates central nervous system autoimmune disease via T cell receptor signalling

The primary biological function of the endogenous cellular prion protein has remained unclear. We investigated its biological function in the generation of cellular immune responses using cellular prion protein gene-specific small interfering ribonucleic acid in vivo and in vitro. Our results were confirmed by blocking cellular prion protein with monovalent antibodies and by using cellular prion protein-deficient and -transgenic mice. In vivo prion protein gene-small interfering ribonucleic acid treatment effects were of limited duration, restricted to secondary lymphoid organs and resulted in a 70% reduction of cellular prion protein expression in leukocytes. Disruption of cellular prion protein signalling augmented antigen-specific activation and proliferation, and enhanced T cell receptor signalling, resulting in zeta-chain-associated protein-70 phosphorylation and nuclear factor of activated T cells/activator protein 1 transcriptional activity. In vivo prion protein gene-small interfering ribonucleic acid treatment promoted T cell differentiation towards pro-inflammatory phenotypes and increased survival of antigen-specific T cells. Cellular prion protein silencing with small interfering ribonucleic acid also resulted in the worsening of actively induced and adoptively transferred experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Finally, treatment of myelin basic protein1–11 T cell receptor transgenic mice with prion protein gene-small interfering ribonucleic acid resulted in spontaneous experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Thus, central nervous system autoimmune disease was modulated at all stages of disease: the generation of the T cell effector response, the elicitation of T effector function and the perpetuation of cellular immune responses. Our findings indicate that cellular prion protein regulates T cell receptor-mediated T cell activation, differentiation and survival. Defects in autoimmunity are restricted to the immune system and not the central nervous system. Our data identify cellular prion protein as a regulator of cellular immunological homoeostasis and suggest cellular prion protein as a novel potential target for therapeutic immunomodulation

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN