Performing and Deconstructing Whiteness in Student Affairs

The student affairs profession upholds whiteness through its practices, policies, and structures. The dynamics of whiteness have a particularly harmful impact on student affairs professionals of color. The authors explore the concept of whiteness in relation to their professional identities and unpack how people of color are encouraged to embody whiteness to fit into the field of student affairs. The authors propose suggestions for naming, understanding, and re-framing how professionals of color engage with whiteness

Toward a Deep Neural Approach for Knowledge-Based IR

International audienceThis paper tackles the problem of the semantic gap between a document and a query within an ad-hoc information retrieval task. In this context, knowledge bases (KBs) have already been acknowledged as valuable means since they allow the representation of explicit relations between entities. However, they do not necessarily represent implicit relations that could be hidden in a corpora. This latter issue is tackled by recent works dealing with deep representation learning of texts. With this in mind, we argue that embedding KBs within deep neural architectures supporting document-query matching would give rise to fine-grained latent representations of both words and their semantic relations. In this paper, we review the main approaches of neural-based document ranking as well as those approaches for latent representation of entities and relations via KBs. We then propose some avenues to incorporate KBs in deep neural approaches for document ranking. More particularly, this paper advocates that KBs can be used either to support enhanced latent representations of queries and documents based on both distributional and relational semantics or to serve as a semantic translator between their latent distributional representations

Ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of norbornene by a Group VIII carbene complex in protic media

During the past two decades, intense research efforts have enabled an in-depth understanding of the olefin metathesis reaction as catalyzed by early transition metal complexes. In contrast, the nature of the intermediates and the reaction mechanism for group VIII transition metal metathesis catalysts remain elusive. Such knowledge is important in view of the promise group VIII metals show in polymerizing a wide variety of functionalized cyclic olefins in protic solvents. Highly active late transition metal catalysts should also open the way to the metathesis of functionalized acyclic olefins. Previous studies in our group have focused on the chemistry of highly active, functional-group-tolerant catalysts prepared from aquoruthenium(II) olefin complexes. In these systems, characterization of the catalytic intermediates is difficult due to their very low concentrations and high activity in the reaction mixtures. Although it is reasonable to assume that the active species are ruthenacyclobutanes and ruthenium carbenes (ruthenaolefins), the oxidation state and ligation of these intermediates are not known. Furthermore, the discrete ruthenium carbene complexes that have been isolated to date do not exhibit both metathesis activity and stability to protic/aqueous solvents. We report here the reaction of an Ru(II) complex with a strained olefin to produce a carbene species that polymerizes norbornene in organic media both in the absence and presence of protic/aqueous solvents. In both solvent systems, a stable propagating carbene complex can be observed throughout the course of the polymerization, as has been previously found with titanium, tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, and ruthenium complexes

Convenient Synthesis of Copper (I) Thiolates and Related Compounds

Copper (I) salts of various anions including thiolates, diethyl dithiocarbamate, diethyl dithiophosphate, trithiocyanurate, 1-cyano-3-methylisothiourea, 2-aminothiazole, and tetrakis(1-imidazolyl)borate are conveniently synthesized by reducing copper (II) sulfate in aqueous ammonia. The addition of phosphine ligands to several of the products is demonstrated, and the crystal structure of [Cu2(MBT)2(DPPE)3] · Et2O (MBT = 2-mercaptobenzothiazolate, DPPE = 1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane) is reported

Surveys of Cancer Patients and Cancer Health Care Providers Regarding Complementary Therapy Use, Communication, and Information Needs

Background. Complementary therapies (CTs) are increasingly utilized by cancer patients. Nonetheless, patients report insufficient support from health care practitioners (HCPs) and there is a general lack of patient-practitioner communication about CT use. Best care practices suggest that HCPs should address the needs of patients, including CT use. This study examined current practices of patients and HCPs as well as their interactions relating to CTs. Methods. A total of 481 cancer outpatients and 100 HCPs completed questionnaires. Patient questions addressed CT use and information needs; HCP questions addressed knowledge, opinions and beliefs about complementary and alternative medicine. Patient-practitioner communication around CT was also examined. Results. 47% of patients reported using CTs since diagnosis. Many commenced CT use to improve quality of life (65%) based on recommendations from family or friends. Patients acknowledged the need for trusted sources of information and would attend a hospital-based education program (72%). HCPs reported limited training about CTs but most (90%) expressed interested in receiving more training. The majority of HCPs (\u3e80%) reported limited knowledge about the role of CTs in cancer care or evidence to support CT use. Questions about communication and interactions revealed that 80% of patients reported not having had an HCP speak to them about CTs. However, 63% of HCPs reported addressing CT use. Conclusion. Results demonstrate a need for improved CT education and training for patients and HCPs. increasing HCP knowledge and clinical skills will ensure patients information needs about CTs are acknowledged and attended to, thereby providing safer and comprehensive cancer care

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Large-Scale Candidate Gene Analysis of HDL Particle Features

Background: HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) is an established marker of cardiovascular risk with significant genetic determination. However, HDL particles are not homogenous, and refined HDL phenotyping may improve insight into regulation of HDL metabolism. We therefore assessed HDL particles by NMR spectroscopy and conducted a large-scale candidate gene association analysis. Methodology/Principal Findings: We measured plasma HDL-C and determined mean HDL particle size and particle number by NMR spectroscopy in 2024 individuals from 512 British Caucasian families. Genotypes were 49,094 SNPs in >2,100 cardiometabolic candidate genes/loci as represented on the HumanCVD BeadChip version 2. False discovery rates (FDR) were calculated to account for multiple testing. Analyses on classical HDL-C revealed significant associations (FDR<0.05) only for CETP (cholesteryl ester transfer protein; lead SNP rs3764261: p = 5.6*10(-15)) and SGCD (sarcoglycan delta; rs6877118: p = 8.6*10(-6)). In contrast, analysis with HDL mean particle size yielded additional associations in LIPC (hepatic lipase; rs261332: p = 6.1*10(-9)), PLTP (phospholipid transfer protein, rs4810479: p = 1.7*10(-8)) and FBLN5 (fibulin-5; rs2246416: p = 6.2*10(-6)). The associations of SGCD and Fibulin-5 with HDL particle size could not be replicated in PROCARDIS (n = 3,078) and/or the Women's Genome Health Study (n = 23,170). Conclusions: We show that refined HDL phenotyping by NMR spectroscopy can detect known genes of HDL metabolism better than analyses on HDL-C

Infection susceptibility in gastric intrinsic factor (vitamin B12) defective mice is subject to maternal influences

UNLABELLED: Mice harboring a mutation in the gene encoding gastric intrinsic factor (Gif), a protein essential for the absorption of vitamin B12/cobalamin (Cbl), have potential as a model to explore the role of vitamins in infection. The levels of Cbl in the blood of Gif(tm1a/tm1a) mutant mice were influenced by the maternal genotype, with offspring born to heterozygous (high Cbl, F1) mothers exhibiting a significantly higher serum Cbl level than those born to homozygous (low Cbl, F2) equivalents. Low Cbl levels correlated with susceptibility to an infectious challenge with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium or Citrobacter rodentium, and this susceptibility phenotype was moderated by Cbl administration. Transcriptional and metabolic profiling revealed that Cbl deficient mice exhibited a bioenergetic shift similar to a metabolic phenomenon commonly found in cancerous cells under hypoxic conditions known as the Warburg effect, with this metabolic effect being exacerbated further by infection. Our findings demonstrate a role for Cbl in bacterial infection, with potential general relevance to dietary deficiency and infection susceptibility. IMPORTANCE: Malnutrition continues to be a major public health problem in countries with weak infrastructures. In communities with a high prevalence of poor diet, malnourishment and infectious disease can impact vulnerable individuals such as pregnant women and children. Here, we describe a highly flexible murine model for monitoring maternal and environmental influences of vitamin B12 metabolism. We also demonstrate the potential importance of vitamin B12 in controlling susceptibility to bacterial pathogens such as C. rodentium and S Typhimurium. We postulate that this model, along with similarly vitamin deficient mice, could be used to further explore the mechanisms associated with micronutrients and susceptibility to diseases, thereby increasing our understanding of disease in the malnourished

Integrative Genome Comparison of Primary and Metastatic Melanomas

A cardinal feature of malignant melanoma is its metastatic propensity. An incomplete view of the genetic events driving metastatic progression has been a major barrier to rational development of effective therapeutics and prognostic diagnostics for melanoma patients. In this study, we conducted global genomic characterization of primary and metastatic melanomas to examine the genomic landscape associated with metastatic progression. In addition to uncovering three genomic subclasses of metastastic melanomas, we delineated 39 focal and recurrent regions of amplification and deletions, many of which encompassed resident genes that have not been implicated in cancer or metastasis. To identify progression-associated metastasis gene candidates, we applied a statistical approach, Integrative Genome Comparison (IGC), to define 32 genomic regions of interest that were significantly altered in metastatic relative to primary melanomas, encompassing 30 resident genes with statistically significant expression deregulation. Functional assays on a subset of these candidates, including MET, ASPM, AKAP9, IMP3, PRKCA, RPA3, and SCAP2, validated their pro-invasion activities in human melanoma cells. Validity of the IGC approach was further reinforced by tissue microarray analysis of Survivin showing significant increased protein expression in thick versus thin primary cutaneous melanomas, and a progression correlation with lymph node metastases. Together, these functional validation results and correlative analysis of human tissues support the thesis that integrated genomic and pathological analyses of staged melanomas provide a productive entry point for discovery of melanoma metastases genes