Extending the behavioral immune system to political psychology: Are political conservativism and disgust sensitivity really related

Previous research suggests that several individual and cultural level attitudes, cognitions, and societal structures may have evolved to mitigate the pathogen threats posed by intergroup interactions. It has been suggested that these anti-pathogen defenses are at the root of conservative political ideology. Here, we test a hypothesis that political conservatism functions as a pathogen-avoidance strategy. Across three studies, we consistently find no relationship between sensitivity to pathogen disgust and multiple measures of political conservatism. These results are contrasted with theoretical perspectives suggesting a relationship between conservatism and pathogen avoidance, and with previous findings of a relationship between conservatism and disgust sensitivity

The kunitz domain protein BLI-5 plays a functionally conserved role in cuticle formation in a diverse range of nematodes

The cuticle of parasitic nematodes performs many critical functions and is essential for proper development and for protection from the host immune response. The biosynthesis, assembly, modification and turnover of this exoskeleton have been most extensively studied in the free-living nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, where it represents a complex multi-step process involving a whole suite of enzymes. The biosynthesis of the cuticle has an additional level of complexity, as many of the enzymes also require additional proteins to aid their activation and selective inhibition. Blister-5 (BLI-5) represents a protein with a kunitz-type serine protease interacting domain and is involved in cuticle collagen biosynthesis in C. elegans, through its interaction with subtilisin-like processing enzymes (such as BLI-4). Mutation of the bli-5 gene causes blistering of the collagenous adult cuticle. Homologues of BLI-5 have been identified in several parasitic species that span different nematode clades. In this study, we molecularly and biochemically characterize BLI-5 homologues from the clade V nematodes C. elegans and Haemonchus contortus and from the clade III filarial nematode Brugia malayi. The nematode BLI-5 orthologues possess a shared domain structure and perform similar in vitro and in vivo functions, performing important proteolytic enzyme functions. The results demonstrate that the bli-5 genes from these diverse parasitic nematodes are able to complement a C. elegansbli-5 mutant and thereby support the use of the C. elegans model system to examine gene function in the experimentally less-amenable parasitic species

CometChip: A High-throughput 96-Well Platform for Measuring DNA Damage in Microarrayed Human Cells

DNA damaging agents can promote aging, disease and cancer and they are ubiquitous in the environment and produced within human cells as normal cellular metabolites. Ironically, at high doses DNA damaging agents are also used to treat cancer. The ability to quantify DNA damage responses is thus critical in the public health, pharmaceutical and clinical domains. Here, we describe a novel platform that exploits microfabrication techniques to pattern cells in a fixed microarray The ‘CometChip’ is based upon the well-established single cell gel electrophoresis assay (a.k.a. the comet assay), which estimates the level of DNA damage by evaluating the extent of DNA migration through a matrix in an electrical field. The type of damage measured by this assay includes abasic sites, crosslinks, and strand breaks. Instead of being randomly dispersed in agarose in the traditional assay, cells are captured into an agarose microwell array by gravity. The platform also expands from the size of a standard microscope slide to a 96-well format, enabling parallel processing. Here we describe the protocols of using the chip to evaluate DNA damage caused by known genotoxic agents and the cellular repair response followed after exposure. Through the integration of biological and engineering principles, this method potentiates robust and sensitive measurements of DNA damage in human cells and provides the necessary throughput for genotoxicity testing, drug development, epidemiological studies and clinical assays.National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Training Grant in Environmental Toxicology T32-ES007020)Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Environmental Health Sciences (P30-ES002109)National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (5-UO1-ES016045)National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (1-R21-ES019498)National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R44-ES021116

The ZEUS Forward Plug Calorimeter with Lead-Scintillator Plates and WLS Fiber Readout

A Forward Plug Calorimeter (FPC) for the ZEUS detector at HERA has been built as a shashlik lead-scintillator calorimeter with wave length shifter fiber readout. Before installation it was tested and calibrated using the X5 test beam facility of the SPS accelerator at CERN. Electron, muon and pion beams in the momentum range of 10 to 100 GeV/c were used. Results of these measurements are presented as well as a calibration monitoring system based on a $^{60}$Co source.Comment: 38 pages (Latex); 26 figures (ps

Large scale cosmic-ray anisotropy with KASCADE

The results of an analysis of the large scale anisotropy of cosmic rays in the PeV range are presented. The Rayleigh formalism is applied to the right ascension distribution of extensive air showers measured by the KASCADE experiment.The data set contains about 10^8 extensive air showers in the energy range from 0.7 to 6 PeV. No hints for anisotropy are visible in the right ascension distributions in this energy range. This accounts for all showers as well as for subsets containing showers induced by predominantly light respectively heavy primary particles. Upper flux limits for Rayleigh amplitudes are determined to be between 10^-3 at 0.7 PeV and 10^-2 at 6 PeV primary energy.Comment: accepted by The Astrophysical Journa

Acceleration of generalized hypergeometric functions through precise remainder asymptotics

We express the asymptotics of the remainders of the partial sums {s_n} of the generalized hypergeometric function q+1_F_q through an inverse power series z^n n^l \sum_k c_k/n^k, where the exponent l and the asymptotic coefficients {c_k} may be recursively computed to any desired order from the hypergeometric parameters and argument. From this we derive a new series acceleration technique that can be applied to any such function, even with complex parameters and at the branch point z=1. For moderate parameters (up to approximately ten) a C implementation at fixed precision is very effective at computing these functions; for larger parameters an implementation in higher than machine precision would be needed. Even for larger parameters, however, our C implementation is able to correctly determine whether or not it has converged; and when it converges, its estimate of its error is accurate.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX2e. Fixed sign error in Eq. (2.28), added several references, added comparison to other methods, and added discussion of recursion stabilit

Disgust sensitivity is not associated with health in a rural Bangladeshi sample.

Disgust can be considered a psychological arm of the immune system that acts to prevent exposure to infectious agents. High disgust sensitivity is associated with greater behavioral avoidance of disease vectors and thus may reduce infection risk. A cross-sectional survey in rural Bangladesh provided no strong support for this hypothesis. In many species, the expression of pathogen- and predator-avoidance mechanisms is contingent on early life exposure to predators and pathogens. Using childhood health data collected in the 1990s, we examined if adults with more infectious diseases in childhood showed greater adult disgust sensitivity: no support for this association was found. Explanations for these null finding and possible directions for future research are discussed

Am I just not good enough? The creation, development and questioning of a high performance coaching identity

While the career experiences and trajectories of various sports workers have received increased scholarly attention, those of professional coaches have, in comparison, received scant consideration. This paper focuses on the career experiences of Maeve (a pseudonym), a high performance coach, and the critical incidents related to the creation, development, and, ultimately, questioning of her professional identity. Data were collected through a series of narrative-biographical interviews and were subject to a process of iterative data analysis. The results indicated that her significant investment into her coaching self, combined with the vagaries and uncertain nature of work in high performance coaching, led her to experience a biographical disruption that interrupted the narrative coherence of her coaching life. The findings add further credence to recent critiques of only understanding and representing coaching careers in a linear and chronically staged fashion