Migrant and Minority Activism: Between protest movements and everyday engagement

At a time of Black Lives Matter and the proliferation of migrant, refugee and minority protests across the world (Polish women’s, Belarusian, Palestinian, Roma and Sinti, to name just a few), as well as local and regional initiatives by minorities, migrants and refugees, we would like to bring together scholars who combine a focus on migrants or minorities with that on protest, resistance, activism, social engagement, and other related themes. We are interested both in the most visible struggles and everyday forms of activism, emerging activism, prefigurative politics, and other efforts of migrants and minorities, which often escape public and academic recognition

Verrucous Hyperplasia : Case report and differential diagnosis

Verrucous hyperplasia (VH) is a rare exophytic oral mucosal lesion which can transform into verrucous carcinoma (VC), its malignant but clinically similar counterpart. These entities can be distinguished by the lack of invasive growth in VH cases; as such, it is essential to include a margin with adequate depth whenperforming a biopsy of the epithelium of the lesion. We report an 80-year-old male patient who presented to the Bapuji Dental College & Hospital, Davangere, Karanataka, India, in 2011 with a warty whitish-pink growth on the inside of his cheek. The patient was treated with wide surgical excision of the lesion and a diagnosis of VH was made based on histopathological features. There was no evidence of recurrence at a five-year follow-up. This report highlights the histological variations, pathogenesis and differential diagnosis of VH

Unusual premonsoon eddy and Kelvin wave activities in the Bay of Bengal during Indian Summer monsoon deficit in June 2009 and 2012

An investigation of the eddy and coastal Kelvin wave activities in the Bay of Bengal (BoB) is carried out during premonsoon season in two years of Indian summer monsoon deficit in June (2009 and 2012), occurred in the recent warming hiatus period. Using altimeter observations, our study reveals that over the northern BoB cyclonic eddy kinetic energy is reduced by 35% and 50% from the climatology during premonsoon seasons in 2009 and 2012, respectively, while the cyclonic eddy area is reduced by 18% and 24%, respectively. A concurrent reduction is observed in the first upwelling Kelvin wave (uKW) activities in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean as well as in the coastal BoB for these years. The reduction in the generation of the first uKW in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean is attributed to the westerly wind anomalies in January-March of these years. Additionally, meridional wind stress anomalies during March-April in these years are found to be southerly, causing anomalous coastal downwelling in the eastern rim of BoB. This coastal downwelling blocks the propagation of the first uKW. The decrease in the first uKW activities in the coastal waveguide of the BoB reduces the radiation of upwelling Rossby waves, thereby decreasing the cyclonic eddy activities in the northern BoB. The results from this letter could be helpful for further understanding of upper ocean mixing processes in the BoB during monsoon deficit years

Unusual Premonsoon Eddy and Kelvin Wave Activities in the Bay of Bengal During Indian Summer Monsoon Deficit in June 2009 and 2012

An investigation of the eddy and coastal Kelvin wave activities in the Bay of Bengal (BoB) is carried out during premonsoon season in two years of Indian summer monsoon deficit in June (2009 and 2012), occurred in the recent warming hiatus period. Using altimeter observations, our study reveals that over the northern BoB cyclonic eddy kinetic energy is reduced by 35% and 50% from the climatology during premonsoon seasons in 2009 and 2012, respectively, while the cyclonic eddy area is reduced by 18% and 24%, respectively. A concurrent reduction is observed in the first upwelling Kelvin wave (uKW) activities in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean as well as in the coastal BoB for these years. The reduction in the generation of the first uKW in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean is attributed to the westerly wind anomalies in January-March of these years. Additionally, meridional wind stress anomalies during March-April in these years are found to be southerly, causing anomalous coastal downwelling in the eastern rim of BoB. This coastal downwelling blocks the propagation of the first uKW. The decrease in the first uKW activities in the coastal waveguide of the BoB reduces the radiation of upwelling Rossby waves, thereby decreasing the cyclonic eddy activities in the northern BoB. The results from this letter could be helpful for further understanding of upper ocean mixing processes in the BoB during monsoon deficit years

Immune checkpoint inhibitor PD-1 pathway is down-regulated in synovium at various stages of rheumatoid arthritis disease progression.

Immune checkpoint blockade with therapeutic anti-cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen (CTLA)-4 (Ipilimumab) and anti-programmed death (PD)-1 (Nivolumab and Pembrolizumab) antibodies alone or in combination has shown remarkable efficacy in multiple cancer types, concomitant with immune-related adverse events, including arthralgia and inflammatory arthritis (IA) in some patients. Herein, using Nivolumab (anti-PD-1 antagonist)-responsive genes along with transcriptomics of synovial tissue from multiple stages of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease progression, we have interrogated the activity status of PD-1 pathway during RA development. We demonstrate that the expression of PD-1 was increased in early and established RA synovial tissue compared to normal and OA synovium, whereas that of its ligands, programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) and PD-L2, was increased at all the stages of RA disease progression, namely arthralgia, IA/undifferentiated arthritis, early RA and established RA. Further, we show that RA patients expressed PD-1 on a majority of synovial tissue infiltrating CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Moreover, enrichment of Nivolumab gene signature was observed in IA and RA, indicating that the PD-1 pathway was downregulated during RA disease progression. Furthermore, serum soluble (s) PD-1 levels were increased in autoantibody positive early RA patients. Interestingly, most of the early RA synovium tissue sections showed negative PD-L1 staining by immunohistochemistry. Therefore, downregulation in PD-1 inhibitory signaling in RA could be attributed to increased serum sPD-1 and decreased synovial tissue PD-L1 levels. Taken together, these data suggest that agonistic PD1 antibody-based therapeutics may show efficacy in RA treatment and interception

ATHENA detector proposal - a totally hermetic electron nucleus apparatus proposed for IP6 at the Electron-Ion Collider

ATHENA has been designed as a general purpose detector capable of delivering the full scientific scope of the Electron-Ion Collider. Careful technology choices provide fine tracking and momentum resolution, high performance electromagnetic and hadronic calorimetry, hadron identification over a wide kinematic range, and near-complete hermeticity.This article describes the detector design and its expected performance in the most relevant physics channels. It includes an evaluation of detector technology choices, the technical challenges to realizing the detector and the R&D required to meet those challenges

The United States COVID-19 Forecast Hub dataset

Academic researchers, government agencies, industry groups, and individuals have produced forecasts at an unprecedented scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. To leverage these forecasts, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with an academic research lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to create the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub. Launched in April 2020, the Forecast Hub is a dataset with point and probabilistic forecasts of incident cases, incident hospitalizations, incident deaths, and cumulative deaths due to COVID-19 at county, state, and national, levels in the United States. Included forecasts represent a variety of modeling approaches, data sources, and assumptions regarding the spread of COVID-19. The goal of this dataset is to establish a standardized and comparable set of short-term forecasts from modeling teams. These data can be used to develop ensemble models, communicate forecasts to the public, create visualizations, compare models, and inform policies regarding COVID-19 mitigation. These open-source data are available via download from GitHub, through an online API, and through R packages

ATHENA detector proposal — a totally hermetic electron nucleus apparatus proposed for IP6 at the Electron-Ion Collider

ATHENA has been designed as a general purpose detector capable of delivering the full scientific scope of the Electron-Ion Collider. Careful technology choices provide fine tracking and momentum resolution, high performance electromagnetic and hadronic calorimetry, hadron identification over a wide kinematic range, and near-complete hermeticity. This article describes the detector design and its expected performance in the most relevant physics channels. It includes an evaluation of detector technology choices, the technical challenges to realizing the detector and the R&D required to meet those challenges