Writing Programs as Distributed Networks: A Materialist Approach to University-Community Digital Media Literacy

This article addresses how community-university digital media literacy projects are redefining literacy, literate practices, and institutions. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which emphasizes the organizing process itself, I analyze the shifting definitions of literacy within one particular university-community collaboration. My analysis demonstrates the importance of creating writer and producer identities for all project participants and developing networks of responsibility and sustainability through the distribution of expertise among university and community institutions. In order to sustain such collaborations and university- community networks, literacy workers and writing programs must challenge static forms of participation and expertise, as well as monolithic notions of literacy, and become more responsive to concrete literacy needs within our communities

Examining the Effect of Maternal High-Fat Diet Consumption on the Physiology and Pancreas Development of Fetal and Juvenile Nonhuman Primate Offspring

The purpose of these studies was to investigate the impact of high-fat diet (HFD) exposure during pregnancy and the early post-natal period on fetal and post-natal development of the endocrine pancreas of the Japanese macaque. Specifically I hypothesized that the HFD would alter islet morphology and lead to disturbances in glucose homeostasis in these animals. Adult female Japanese macaques were placed on either a control (CTR) or HFD diet for 4 years. Fetuses were collected at gestational day 130 (G130), while other offspring from the CTR and HFD mothers were carried to term. After birth, infant animals were maintained with their mothers on the same diet then weaned onto either the CTR or HFD diet for five months. Animals were studied up to 13 months of age, yielding 4 postnatal groups: CTR/CTR, CTR/HFD, HFD/CTR and HFD/HFD. Pancreata were collected from these offspring for gene expression and immunohistochemical analysis. Physiological measurements, including body weight, body fat percentage, fasting glucose, insulin, glucagon and response to intravenous glucose tolerance tests (IVGTTs) and an intravenous insulin tolerance test (IVITT) were collected from the post-natal offspring. Total fetal islet mass and β cell mass were not changed, but α cell mass was significantly decreased in HFD fetuses, leading to a significant increase in the β cell to α cell ratio in HFD fetal offspring. The HFD offspring displayed a significant change from CTR offspring in expression of genes involved in glucose homeostasis and islet neogenesis, including PDX1, NeuroD, Glucokinase and Glut2. Postnatal HFD animals were significantly heavier than CTR offspring and had increased adiposity by 6-7 months of age. There was no significant effect on fasting or stimulated insulin secretion at this time point, but HFD offspring were significantly insulin resistant just prior to weaning. At 13 months of age, basal and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion were elevated in HFD/HFD animals and the CTR/HFD group displayed moderate insulin resistance. There was also a significant sex effect, with males from the HFD/CTR and HFD/HFD group having increased body weight and elevated fasting glucose. Although pancreata from both the HFD/HFD and CTR/HFD animals displayed significant changes in expression of genes involved in glucose homeostasis, the pattern was distinct for the two groups. Islet mass was also elevated in both of these groups; yet, HFD/HFD only displayed an increase in β cell area, while CTR/HFD had a concomitant increase in α cell area, which served to normalize the β cell to α cell ratio to control levels. In contrast, the HFD/HFD group exhibited a 40% increase in the β cell to α cell ratio. These studies demonstrate that in-utero exposure to a HFD leads to decreased α cell plasticity in response to chronic post-natal HFD consumption. Animals exposed to the HFD during pregnancy and the early post-natal period become insulin resistant, but remain normoglycemic. HFD consumption during the post-weaning period causes similar complications in glucose homeostasis and islet mass in both the CTR/HFD and HFD/HFD animals. However, there are distinct differences in the molecular and cellular adaptive response between these two groups

Developing a real-time translator from neural signals to text: An articulatory phonetics approach

New developments in brain-computer interfaces (BCI) harness machine learning to decode spoken language from electrocorticographic (ECoG) and local field potential (LFP) signals. Orienting to signals associated with motor movements that produce articulatory features improves phoneme detection quality: individual phonemes share features, but possess a unique feature set; classification by feature set allows for a finer distinction between neural signals. Data indicates vowels are more detectable, consonants have greater detection accuracy, place of articulation informs precision, and manner of articulation affects recall. Findings have implications for the multisensory integration of speech and the role of motor imagery in phonemic neural representations

Case Report Drug-Induced Thrombocytopenia following a Transvaginal Oocyte Retrieval for In Vitro Fertilization

Drug-induced immune thrombocytopenia has been associated with hundreds of medications and can lead to devastating consequences for the patient. We present a case of a healthy 33-year-old female undergoing in vitro fertilization who developed a severe drug-induced thrombocytopenia, petechiae, and a large hemoperitoneum after receiving Cefazolin antibiotic prophylaxis for a transvaginal oocyte retrieval. The patient was admitted to the intensive care unit for resuscitation with blood products. The presence of drug-dependent platelet antibodies to Cefazolin was confirmed serologically

Effects of sample handling and storage on quantitative lipid analysis in human serum

There is sparse information about specific storage and handling protocols that minimize analytical error and variability in samples evaluated by targeted metabolomics. Variance components that affect quantitative lipid analysis in a set of human serum samples were determined. The effects of freeze-thaw, extraction state, storage temperature, and freeze-thaw prior to density-based lipoprotein fractionation were quantified. The quantification of high abundance metabolites, representing the biologically relevant lipid species in humans, was highly repeatable (with coefficients of variation as low as 0.01 and 0.02) and largely unaffected by 1–3 freeze-thaw cycles (with 0–8% of metabolites affected in each lipid class). Extraction state had effects on total lipid class amounts, including decreased diacylglycerol and increased phosphatidylethanolamine in thawed compared with frozen samples. The effects of storage temperature over 1 week were minimal, with 0–4% of metabolites affected by storage at 4°C, −20°C, or −80°C in most lipid classes, and 19% of metabolites in diacylglycerol affected by storage at −20°C. Freezing prior to lipoprotein fractionation by density ultracentrifugation decreased HDL free cholesterol by 37% and VLDL free fatty acid by 36%, and increased LDL cholesterol ester by 35% compared with fresh samples. These findings suggest that density-based fractionation should preferably be undertaken in fresh serum samples because up to 37% variability in HDL and LDL cholesterol could result from a single freeze-thaw cycle. Conversely, quantitative lipid analysis within unfractionated serum is minimally affected even with repeated freeze-thaw cycles

Vitamin A deficiency and inflammatory markers among preschool children in the Republic of the Marshall Islands

BACKGROUND: The exclusion of individuals with elevated acute phase proteins has been advocated in order to improve prevalence estimates of vitamin A deficiency in surveys, but it is unclear whether this will lead to sampling bias. The purpose of the study was to determine whether the exclusion of individuals with elevated acute phase proteins is associated with sampling bias and to characterize inflammation in children with night blindness. METHODS: In a survey in the Republic of the Marshall Islands involving 281 children, aged 1–5 years, serum retinol, C-reactive protein (CRP), and α(1)-acid glycoprotein (AGP) were measured. RESULTS: Of 281 children, 24 (8.5%) had night blindness and 165 (58.7%) had serum retinol <0.70 μmol/L. Of 248 children with AGP and CRP measurements, 123 (49.6%) had elevated acute phase proteins (CRP >5 mg/L and/or AGP >1000 mg/L). Among children with and without night blindness, the proportion with serum retinol <0.70 μmol/L was 79.2% and 56.8% (P = 0.03) and with anemia was 58.3% and 35.7% (P = 0.029), respectively. The proportion of children with serum retinol <0.70 μmol/L was 52.0% after excluding children with elevated acute phase proteins. Among children with and without elevated acute phase proteins, mean age was 2.8 vs 3.2 years (P = 0.016), the proportion of boys was 43.1% vs. 54.3% (P = 0.075), with no hospitalizations in the last year was 11.0% vs 23.6% (P = 0.024), and with anemia was 43.8% vs 31.7% (P = 0.05), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Exclusion of children with inflammation in this survey of vitamin A deficiency does not improve prevalence estimates for vitamin A deficiency and instead leads to sampling bias for variables such as age, gender, anemia, and hospitalization history

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead