Forks in the Road of Men’s Gender Politics: Men’s Rights vs Feminist Allies

How do men respond to feminist movements and to shifts in the gender order?  In this paper, I introduce the concept of historical gender formation to show how shifting social conditions over the past forty years shaped a range of men’s organized responses to feminism. Focusing on the US, I show how progressive men reacted to feminism in the 1970s by forming an internally contradictory ‘men’s liberation’ movement that soon split into opposing anti-feminist and pro-feminist factions. Three large transformations of the 1980s and 1990s – the professional institutionalization of feminism, the rise of a postfeminist sensibility, and shifts in the political economy (especially deindustrialization and the rise of the neoliberal state) – generated new possibilities. I end by pointing to an emergent moderate men’s rights discourse that appeals to a postfeminist sensibility, and to an increasingly diverse base for men’s work to prevent violence against women

‘It’s like equality now; it’s not as if it’s the old days’: an investigation into gender identity development and football participation of adolescent girls

This article explores the influence participating in football has on the development of adolescent girls’ gender identity, an area which currently lacks academic attention. Data were taken from an ethnographic study with a group of adolescent girls and boys and compared to Jeanes’ research. A social constructionist framework was deployed with links to both critical theory and feminist literature. Qualitative and participatory methods were used to fully engage with the complex issue of gender identity. The girls within this study were aware of the normative gender expectations linked to ‘being a female’ but did not find this restrictive. The girls moved between many changing identities and organised their ‘web of selves’ accordingly. The apparent need to measure success by the parameters of male standards created a barrier to girls’ identity development

Experimental evaluation of an adaptive Joule--Thomson cooling system including silicon-microfabricated heat exchanger and microvalve components

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98726/1/JVA021005.pd

Machine Learning Predicts the Yeast Metabolome from the Quantitative Proteome of Kinase Knockouts

A challenge in solving the genotype-to-phenotype relationship is to predict a cell\u27s metabolome, believed to correlate poorly with gene expression. Using comparative quantitative proteomics, we found that differential protein expression in 97 Saccharomyces cerevisiae kinase deletion strains is non-redundant and dominated by abundance changes in metabolic enzymes. Associating differential enzyme expression landscapes to corresponding metabolomes using network models provided reasoning for poor proteome-metabolome correlations; differential protein expression redistributes flux control between many enzymes acting in concert, a mechanism not captured by one-to-one correlation statistics. Mapping these regulatory patterns using machine learning enabled the prediction of metabolite concentrations, as well as identification of candidate genes important for the regulation of metabolism. Overall, our study reveals that a large part of metabolism regulation is explained through coordinated enzyme expression changes. Our quantitative data indicate that this mechanism explains more than half of metabolism regulation and underlies the interdependency between enzyme levels and metabolism, which renders the metabolome a predictable phenotype. Predicting metabolomes from gene expression data is a key challenge in understanding the genotype-phenotype relationship. Studying the enzyme expression proteome in kinase knockouts, we reveal the importance of a so far overlooked metabolism-regulatory mechanism. Enzyme expression changes are impacting on metabolite levels through many changes acting in concert. We show that one can map regulatory enzyme expression patterns using machine learning and use them to predict the metabolome of kinase-deficient cells on the basis of their enzyme expression proteome. Our study quantifies the role of enzyme abundance in the regulation of metabolism and by doing so reveals the potential of machine learning in gaining understanding about complex metabolism regulation

Opportunities for organoids as new models of aging.

The biology of aging is challenging to study, particularly in humans. As a result, model organisms are used to approximate the physiological context of aging in humans. However, the best model organisms remain expensive and time-consuming to use. More importantly, they may not reflect directly on the process of aging in people. Human cell culture provides an alternative, but many functional signs of aging occur at the level of tissues rather than cells and are therefore not readily apparent in traditional cell culture models. Organoids have the potential to effectively balance between the strengths and weaknesses of traditional models of aging. They have sufficient complexity to capture relevant signs of aging at the molecular, cellular, and tissue levels, while presenting an experimentally tractable alternative to animal studies. Organoid systems have been developed to model many human tissues and diseases. Here we provide a perspective on the potential for organoids to serve as models for aging and describe how current organoid techniques could be applied to aging research

The impacts of discriminatory experiences on lesbian, gay and bisexual people in sport

This study examines the nature and impact of sexist and homophobic discrimination experienced by lesbians, gays and bisexuals (LGB) in Australian sporting settings. A mixed methods online survey was utilized to collate participant experiences. The findings suggest that, in sport, participants experienced sexism directly and systemically, and homophobia explicitly and implicitly. Women experienced sexism and homophobia, whilst men reported more homophobic events. The most mentioned impacts of discrimination were negative emotions such as sadness, anger, distress and shame, followed by negative engagement with sport such as disliking sport, or avoiding or leaving sport. The well-recognized benefits of sport such as physical and mental well-being, social connections, enjoyment, positive identity and achievement may be more difficult to realize within this context of significant social stress

Expansion and Characterization of Human Melanoma Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TILs)

Various immunotherapeutic strategies for cancer are aimed at augmenting the T cell response against tumor cells. Adoptive cell therapy (ACT), where T cells are manipulated ex vivo and subsequently re-infused in an autologous manner, has been performed using T cells from various sources. Some of the highest clinical response rates for metastatic melanoma have been reported in trials using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). These protocols still have room for improvement and furthermore are currently only performed at a limited number of institutions. The goal of this work was to develop TILs as a therapeutic product at our institution.TILs from 40 melanoma tissue specimens were expanded and characterized. Under optimized culture conditions, 72% of specimens yielded rapidly proliferating TILs as defined as at least one culture reaching ≥3×10(7) TILs within 4 weeks. Flow cytometric analyses showed that cultures were predominantly CD3+ T cells, with highly variable CD4+:CD8+ T cell ratios. In total, 148 independent bulk TIL cultures were assayed for tumor reactivity. Thirty-four percent (50/148) exhibited tumor reactivity based on IFN-γ production and/or cytotoxic activity. Thirteen percent (19/148) showed specific cytotoxic activity but not IFN-γ production and only 1% (2/148) showed specific IFN-γ production but not cytotoxic activity. Further expansion of TILs using a 14-day "rapid expansion protocol" (REP) is required to induce a 500- to 2000-fold expansion of TILs in order to generate sufficient numbers of cells for current ACT protocols. Thirty-eight consecutive test REPs were performed with an average 1865-fold expansion (+/- 1034-fold) after 14 days.TILs generally expanded efficiently and tumor reactivity could be detected in vitro. These preclinical data from melanoma TILs lay the groundwork for clinical trials of ACT

A time-resolved proteomic and prognostic map of COVID-19.

COVID-19 is highly variable in its clinical presentation, ranging from asymptomatic infection to severe organ damage and death. We characterized the time-dependent progression of the disease in 139 COVID-19 inpatients by measuring 86 accredited diagnostic parameters, such as blood cell counts and enzyme activities, as well as untargeted plasma proteomes at 687 sampling points. We report an initial spike in a systemic inflammatory response, which is gradually alleviated and followed by a protein signature indicative of tissue repair, metabolic reconstitution, and immunomodulation. We identify prognostic marker signatures for devising risk-adapted treatment strategies and use machine learning to classify therapeutic needs. We show that the machine learning models based on the proteome are transferable to an independent cohort. Our study presents a map linking routinely used clinical diagnostic parameters to plasma proteomes and their dynamics in an infectious disease