The Russia and Chechnya Conflict: Through Chechnya\u27s Eyes

The intention of this paper is to provide an explanation for the issues that Russia currently faces as a result of the horrific human rights violations during its war with Chechnya. The argument asserts that the terrorist issues that Russia currently faces with Chechen Muslims are in direct response to its brutal treatment of the Chechen people within the last few decades. Russia\u27 s former President, Vladimir Putin, unfoundedly places Russia in the same category of victims of terrorist attacks as the United States on September 11th, 2001. The chaos and destruction that Russia created in the Republic of Chechnya has created an opportunity for Islamic extremists to recruit the people of Chechnya in their global jihad. The component of Islamic extremists has taken this war to a highly complex level and has given it a whole new meaning. What was once a regional conflict is now be an international concern in preventing the spread of Islamic terrorists

Life Knots

This collection of creative nonfiction essays is framed by M.M. Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, the concrete juncture of time and space. Chronotopes include technical relationships between those elements, as well as worldviews. Each essay examines a different thing or place as a chronotope, including maps, a well house, boxes, a dining room, periodical cicadas, and a sand dollar. All of the essays, however, share themes, including the search for unity (and for what actually constitutes unity), relationships between ways of knowing, and relationships between the personal, spiritual, environmental, and cultural. The essays span genres, from the personal and academically personal, to memoir and place memoir, to meditation

The Influence of Alcohol-Related Advertisements on College Students Behaviors and Attitudes

College students have been exposed to alcohol-related advertisements for several decades now and research has proven that this exposure has an influence on today’s population’s knowledge, attitudes, and intentions to drink (Saffer, 2002). The college student population has been shown to participate in excessive drinking leading to other potential risks and harms, such as increased rates of depression (Furr et al., 2001; Hingson, 2009). Furthermore, students who experience depressive symptoms may experience elevated risks for alcohol-related problems (Joiner et al., 1992). The goal of this paper is to examine different persuasion techniques that alcohol companies currently expose to college students to analyze the effects the techniques have on the viewers. An online pre-test/post-test study experiment was distributed which included the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), Beck Depression Inventory, and a series of social norm related questions with four alcohol-related advertisements as the treatment group. Participants (N = 133) were recruited that ranged between ages 18 and 49 (n = 66 responses; M = 21.31; SD = 3.75). These participants were recruited through a variety of sampling methods, such as convenience and snowball sampling. The data was analyzed with both qualitative and quantitative examination. The quantitative results supported previous research showing the connection between alcohol related advertisements and college students’ intention to drink. However, there was no significant connection between the exposure to alcohol-related advertisements and the rates of depression among this population. Through qualitative analysis, a connection is seen between the perceptions of social norms and alcohol-related behaviors. This study provides a good foundation for future research into how to advertise alcohol-related advertisements to improve college students’ behaviors and attitudes towards alcohol

China neemt (Volvo) over

De gebeurtenissen sinds de overname van Volvo Cars door het Chinese Geely in 2010 tarten soms de verbeelding, alleszins voor de gemiddelde leek. In dit artikel zal worden aangetoond dat de Chinezen echter een zeer doordachte strategie gebruiken om hun geopolitieke en –economische doelen te verwezenlijken

Cognitive effects of cancer and its treatments at the intersection of aging: what do we know; what do we need to know?

There is a fairly consistent, albeit non-universal body of research documenting cognitive declines after cancer and its treatments. While few of these studies have included subjects aged 65 years and older, it is logical to expect that older patients are at risk of cognitive decline. Here, we use breast cancer as an exemplar disease for inquiry into the intersection of aging and cognitive effects of cancer and its therapies. There are a striking number of common underlying potential biological risks and pathways for the development of cancer, cancer-related cognitive declines, and aging processes, including the development of a frail phenotype. Candidate shared pathways include changes in hormonal milieu, inflammation, oxidative stress, DNA damage and compromised DNA repair, genetic susceptibility, decreased brain blood flow or disruption of the blood-brain barrier, direct neurotoxicity, decreased telomere length, and cell senescence. There also are similar structure and functional changes seen in brain imaging studies of cancer patients and those seen with "normal" aging and Alzheimer's disease. Disentangling the role of these overlapping processes is difficult since they require aged animal models and large samples of older human subjects. From what we do know, frailty and its low cognitive reserve seem to be a clinically useful marker of risk for cognitive decline after cancer and its treatments. This and other results from this review suggest the value of geriatric assessments to identify older patients at the highest risk of cognitive decline. Further research is needed to understand the interactions between aging, genetic predisposition, lifestyle factors, and frailty phenotypes to best identify the subgroups of older patients at greatest risk for decline and to develop behavioral and pharmacological interventions targeting this group. We recommend that basic science and population trials be developed specifically for older hosts with intermediate endpoints of relevance to this group, including cognitive function and trajectories of frailty. Clinicians and their older patients can advance the field by active encouragement of and participation in research designed to improve the care and outcomes of the growing population of older cancer patients

Isolation of SARS-CoV-2 in viral cell culture in immunocompromised patients with persistently positive RT-PCR results

Immunocompromised adults can have prolonged acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positive RT-PCR results, long after the initial diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aimed to determine if SARS-CoV-2 virus can be recovered in viral cell culture from immunocompromised adults with persistently positive SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests. We obtained 20 remnant SARS-CoV-2 PCR positive nasopharyngeal swabs from 20 immunocompromised adults with a positive RT-PCR test ≥14 days after the initial positive test. The patients\u27

Genomic features of bacterial adaptation to plants

Author(s): Levy, A; Salas Gonzalez, I; Mittelviefhaus, M; Clingenpeel, S; Herrera Paredes, S; Miao, J; Wang, K; Devescovi, G; Stillman, K; Monteiro, F; Rangel Alvarez, B; Lundberg, DS; Lu, TY; Lebeis, S; Jin, Z; McDonald, M; Klein, AP; Feltcher, ME; Rio, TG; Grant, SR; Doty, SL; Ley, RE; Zhao, B; Venturi, V; Pelletier, DA; Vorholt, JA; Tringe, SG; Woyke, T; Dangl, JL | Abstract: © 2017 The Author(s). Plants intimately associate with diverse bacteria. Plant-associated bacteria have ostensibly evolved genes that enable them to adapt to plant environments. However, the identities of such genes are mostly unknown, and their functions are poorly characterized. We sequenced 484 genomes of bacterial isolates from roots of Brassicaceae, poplar, and maize. We then compared 3,837 bacterial genomes to identify thousands of plant-associated gene clusters. Genomes of plant-associated bacteria encode more carbohydrate metabolism functions and fewer mobile elements than related non-plant-associated genomes do. We experimentally validated candidates from two sets of plant-associated genes: one involved in plant colonization, and the other serving in microbe-microbe competition between plant-associated bacteria. We also identified 64 plant-associated protein domains that potentially mimic plant domains; some are shared with plant-associated fungi and oomycetes. This work expands the genome-based understanding of plant-microbe interactions and provides potential leads for efficient and sustainable agriculture through microbiome engineering

Use of Novel Strategies to Develop Guidelines for Management of Pyogenic Osteomyelitis in Adults: A WikiGuidelines Group Consensus Statement.

Importance Traditional approaches to practice guidelines frequently result in dissociation between strength of recommendation and quality of evidence. Objective To construct a clinical guideline for pyogenic osteomyelitis management, with a new standard of evidence to resolve the gap between strength of recommendation and quality of evidence, through the use of a novel open access approach utilizing social media tools. Evidence Review This consensus statement and systematic review study used a novel approach from the WikiGuidelines Group, an open access collaborative research project, to construct clinical guidelines for pyogenic osteomyelitis. In June 2021 and February 2022, authors recruited via social media conducted multiple PubMed literature searches, including all years and languages, regarding osteomyelitis management; criteria for article quality and inclusion were specified in the group's charter. The GRADE system for evaluating evidence was not used based on previously published concerns regarding the potential dissociation between strength of recommendation and quality of evidence. Instead, the charter required that clear recommendations be made only when reproducible, prospective, controlled studies provided hypothesis-confirming evidence. In the absence of such data, clinical reviews were drafted to discuss pros and cons of care choices. Both clear recommendations and clinical reviews were planned with the intention to be regularly updated as new data become available. Findings Sixty-three participants with diverse expertise from 8 countries developed the group's charter and its first guideline on pyogenic osteomyelitis. These participants included both nonacademic and academic physicians and pharmacists specializing in general internal medicine or hospital medicine, infectious diseases, orthopedic surgery, pharmacology, and medical microbiology. Of the 7 questions addressed in the guideline, 2 clear recommendations were offered for the use of oral antibiotic therapy and the duration of therapy. In addition, 5 clinical reviews were authored addressing diagnosis, approaches to osteomyelitis underlying a pressure ulcer, timing for the administration of empirical therapy, specific antimicrobial options (including empirical regimens, use of antimicrobials targeting resistant pathogens, the role of bone penetration, and the use of rifampin as adjunctive therapy), and the role of biomarkers and imaging to assess responses to therapy. Conclusions and Relevance The WikiGuidelines approach offers a novel methodology for clinical guideline development that precludes recommendations based on low-quality data or opinion. The primary limitation is the need for more rigorous clinical investigations, enabling additional clear recommendations for clinical questions currently unresolved by high-quality data