Children’s Futures: Lessons From a Second-Generation Community Change Initiative

· This article describes Children’s Futures, a 10-year initiative in Trenton, N.J., that seeks to improve the health and well-being of children from 0 to 3 years old and ensure that they are ready for school. · During the first five years, the initiative was successful in implementing a number of evidence-based practices to improve children’s health, such as providing home visits to pregnant women, measuring and improving the quality of day care centers, and improving the use of information systems to track childhood immunizations. · Efforts to provide services for fathers and improve home-based child care were not successful; these are areas in which there are not any evidence-based practices. · Leveraging public and private money beyond the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s substantial $20 million commitment proved challenging because the foundation’s commitment was so large. The authors recommend obtaining agreements for matching funds prior to finalizing commitments. · A lack of attention to initiative-wide communications hindered integration across programs. · A need for a citywide data system was identified; this is being implemented in the second five-year funding cycle

A Case for Heresy

This article serves as a reminder to mainstream Christians about the origins of the word heresy. While today heresy has an immediate and profoundly negative connotation, this was not always true. Originally, the root of the word heresy implied a choice, or a different school of thought. This implied a difference, but not necessarily incorrectness. For instance, the word hairesis was used by Josephus, a first century Jewish historian, to describe the three branches of Judaism Sadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees. While these three sects had different understandings of their faith, there was not a sense of condemnation. In fact, without the three branches existing and interacting with the increasingly Hellenized culture, there is no guarantee that Judaism would have survived or that Christianity would have developed. Therefore, heresy took part in sustaining and creating faiths. There was not a negative connotation to the word until the early Church began to establish itself, and to strive for unity to ensure its survival. Even then, it was not the fact that there were different opinions that was problematic, but rather that those differences could break down unity. Heresies, or differences, were against the agenda of the Church; soon the Church began to correlate heresy with blasphemy, and began persecuting heretics. The author hopes that this reminder of the origins of the word heresy will help contemporary Christians to think critically about their use of the word today

Role and implications of local beliefs and expertise in conservation programmes : the case of a site with sacred lemurs in the multi-use forest area of Antrema (Sakalava Land, Madagascar)

The importance of sites containing sacred lemurs has been stressed by several studies in northwestern Madagascar. These studies indicated that some places (villages, hills, islets) constitute true « natural areas of conservation » for biodiversity. Ancestral laws of great importance to the Sakalava populations traditionally protect these sites, which typically are home to a species (animal or plant) recognized as sacred by the local community. Due to these sacred attributions, both the species and the site itself remain protected. The present study concerns a previously overlooked site in the territory of Antrema where sacred lemurs (Propithecus coronatus of the Indridae family) can be found. The study highlights the complementary roles of both local tradition and international regulation in the domain of conservation

A role for non-coding Tsix transcription in partitioning chromatin domains within the mouse X-inactivation centre

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Delimiting distinct chromatin domains is essential for temporal and spatial regulation of gene expression. Within the X-inactivation centre region (<it>Xic</it>), the <it>Xist </it>locus, which triggers X-inactivation, is juxtaposed to a large domain of H3K27 trimethylation (H3K27me3).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We describe here that developmentally regulated transcription of <it>Tsix</it>, a crucial non-coding antisense to <it>Xist</it>, is required to block the spreading of the H3K27me3 domain to the adjacent H3K4me2-rich <it>Xist </it>region. Analyses of a series of distinct <it>Tsix </it>mutations suggest that the underlying mechanism involves the RNA Polymerase II accumulating at the <it>Tsix </it>3'-end. Furthermore, we report additional unexpected long-range effects of <it>Tsix </it>on the distal sub-region of the <it>Xic</it>, involved in <it>Xic</it>-<it>Xic </it>trans-interactions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data point toward a role for transcription of non-coding RNAs as a developmental strategy for the establishment of functionally distinct domains within the mammalian genome.</p

Des médias par et pour les minoritaires ? (Re)production du genre et imbrication des rapports de domination

Ce numéro est issu du colloque international organisé en mars 2010 à la MSHS de Poitiers par l'équipe Minoritymedia sur « les médias des minorités ethniques, entre hégémonie et résistances ? ». Il reprend particulièrement les textes de la session consacrée au genre et à l'articulation des rapports de domination. Notre réflexion est ancrée dans une tradition intellectuelle qui analyse les pratiques culturelles au cœur même des systèmes hégémoniques. Nous nous appuyons sur la notion d'hégémonie..

Redirecting NK cells mediated tumor cell lysis by a new recombinant bifunctional protein

Natural killer (NK) cells are at the crossroad between innate and adaptive immunity and play a major role in cancer immunosurveillance. NK cell stimulation depends on a balance between inhibitory and activating receptors, such as the stimulatory lectin-like receptor NKG2D. To redirect NK cells against tumor cells, we designed bifunctional proteins able to specifically bind tumor cells and to induce their lysis by NK cells, after NKG2D engagement. To this aim, we used the ‘knob into hole' heterodimerization strategy, in which ‘knob' and ‘hole' variants were generated by directed mutagenesis within the CH3 domain of human IgG1 Fc fragments fused to an anti-CEA or anti-HER2 scFv or to the H60 murine ligand of NKG2D, respectively. We demonstrated the capacity of the bifunctional proteins produced to specifically coat tumor cells surface with H60 ligand. Most importantly, we demonstrated that these bifunctional proteins were able to induce an NKG2D-dependent and antibody-specific tumor cell lysis by murine NK cells. Overall, the results show the possibility to redirect NK cytotoxicity to tumor cells by a new format of recombinant bispecific antibody, opening the way of potential NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies by specific activation of the NKG2D receptor at the tumor sit

ChIP on SNP-chip for genome-wide analysis of human histone H4 hyperacetylation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>SNP microarrays are designed to genotype Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). These microarrays report hybridization of DNA fragments and therefore can be used for the purpose of detecting genomic fragments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we demonstrate that a SNP microarray can be effectively used in this way to perform chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) on chip as an alternative to tiling microarrays. We illustrate this novel application by mapping whole genome histone H4 hyperacetylation in human myoblasts and myotubes. We detect clusters of hyperacetylated histone H4, often spanning across up to 300 kilobases of genomic sequence. Using complementary genome-wide analyses of gene expression by DNA microarray we demonstrate that these clusters of hyperacetylated histone H4 tend to be associated with expressed genes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The use of a SNP array for a ChIP-on-chip application (ChIP on SNP-chip) will be of great value to laboratories whose interest is the determination of general rules regarding the relationship of specific chromatin modifications to transcriptional status throughout the genome and to examine the asymmetric modification of chromatin at heterozygous loci.</p

Underpinning effective strategy design: reflection paper

The debate around the smart specialisation concept and its applicability to regional development policy has so far concentrated on the design phase of policies, most notably on the question of definition of specialisation domains through an entrepreneurial discovery process involving a wide range of stakeholders. This question of prioritisation is indeed a central piece of the strategy for regions willing to upgrade their economic transformation potential