Included, but Deportable: A New Public Health Approach to Policies That Criminalize and Integrate Immigrants.

There has been a burst of research on immigrant health in the United States and an increasing attention to the broad range of state and local policies that are social determinants of immigrant health. Many of these policies criminalize immigrants by regulating the "legality" of their day-to-day lives while others function to integrate immigrants through expanded rights and eligibility for health care, social services, and other resources.Research on the health impact of policies has primarily focused on the extremes of either criminalization or integration. Most immigrants in the United States, however, live in states that possess a combination of both criminalizing and integrating policies, resulting in distinct contexts that may influence their well-being.We present data describing the variations in criminalization and integration policies across states and provide a framework that identifies distinct but concurrent mechanisms of deportability and inclusion that can influence health. Future public health research and practice should address the ongoing dynamics created by both criminalization and integration policies as these likely exacerbate health inequities by citizenship status, race/ethnicity, and other social hierarchies

Improved photocatalytic properties of doped titanium-based nanometric oxides

Photocatalysis is considered one of the most promising technologies for applications in the environmental field especially in the abatement of water-soluble organic pollutants. In this field, titanium dioxide nanoparticles have drawn much attention recently; however, the use of this oxide presents some limitation since it allows to obtain high photoresponse and degradation efficiency only under UV light irradiation, that represents the 3 to 4% of the solar radiation, so preventing its environmental large-scale applications under diffuse daylight. In this work the photocatalytic efficiencyoftitanium-based oxides systems containing alkaline earth metals such as barium and strontium, prepared by a simple sol-gel method was investigated, evaluating the degradation of methylene blue as model compound under UV and visible light irradiation. The results were compared with those obtained with Degussa P25 titanium dioxide. The achieved degradation percentage of methylene blue are very promising showing that under visible light irradiation it is possible to obtain a maximum dye removal percentage ~ 50 % higher than that obtained with the Degussa P25

Dark Monopoles in Grand Unified Theories

We consider a Yang-Mills-Higgs theory with gauge group $G=SU(n)$ broken to $G_{v} = [SU(p)\times SU(n-p)\times U(1)]/Z$ by a Higgs field in the adjoint representation. We obtain monopole solutions whose magnetic field is not in the Cartan Subalgebra. Since their magnetic field vanishes in the direction of the generator of the electromagnetic group $U(1)_{em}$, we call them Dark Monopoles. These Dark Monopoles must exist in some Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) without the need to introduce a dark sector. We analyze the particular case of $SU(5)$ GUT, where we obtain that their mass is $M = 4\pi v \widetilde{E}(\lambda/e^{2})/e$, where $\widetilde{E}(\lambda/e^{2})$ is a monotonically increasing function of $\lambda/e^{2}$ with $\widetilde{E}(0)=1.294$ and $\widetilde{E}(\infty)=3.262.$ We also give a geometrical interpretation to their non-abelian magnetic charge.Comment: 22 pages; added some comments on possible cosmological implications of Dark Monopoles in the last section and added some references. Published Versio

Telephone-cord instabilities in thin smectic capillaries

Telephone-cord patterns have been recently observed in smectic liquid crystal capillaries. In this paper we analyse the effects that may induce them. As long as the capillary keeps its linear shape, we show that a nonzero chiral cholesteric pitch favors the SmA*-SmC* transition. However, neither the cholesteric pitch nor the presence of an intrinsic bending stress are able to give rise to a curved capillary shape. The key ingredient for the telephone-cord instability is spontaneous polarization. The free energy minimizer of a spontaneously polarized SmA* is attained on a planar capillary, characterized by a nonzero curvature. More interestingly, in the SmC* phase the combined effect of the molecular tilt and the spontaneous polarization pushes towards a helicoidal capillary shape, with nonzero curvature and torsion.Comment: Submitte

Kidney regeneration: common themes from the embryo to the adult

The vertebrate kidney has an inherent ability to regenerate following acute damage. Successful regeneration of the injured kidney requires the rapid replacement of damaged tubular epithelial cells and reconstitution of normal tubular function. Identifying the cells that participate in the regeneration process as well as the molecular mechanisms involved may reveal therapeutic targets for the treatment of kidney disease. Renal regeneration is associated with the expression of genetic pathways that are necessary for kidney organogenesis, suggesting that the regenerating tubular epithelium may be “reprogrammed” to a less-differentiated, progenitor state. This review will highlight data from various vertebrate models supporting the hypothesis that nephrogenic genes are reactivated as part of the process of kidney regeneration following acute kidney injury (AKI). Emphasis will be placed on the reactivation of developmental pathways and how our understanding of the resulting regeneration process may be enhanced by lessons learned in the embryonic kidney.Fil: Cirio, Maria Cecilia. University of Pittsburgh; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: de Groh, Eric D.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: de Caestecker, Mark P.. Vanderbilt University; Estados UnidosFil: Davidson, Alan J.. The University of Auckland; Nueva ZelandaFil: Hukriede, Neil A.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados Unido

Shortened primary cilium length and dysregulated Sonic hedgehog signaling in Niemann-Pick C1 disease

The Niemann-Pick type C1 (NPC1) disease is a neurodegenerative lysosomal storage disorder due to mutations in the NPC1 gene, encoding a transmembrane protein related to the Sonic hedgehog receptor, Patched, and involved in intracellular trafficking of cholesterol. We have recently found that the proliferation of cerebellar granule neuron precursors is significantly reduced in Npc1-/- mice due to the downregulation of Shh expression. This finding prompted us to analyze the formation of the primary cilium, a non-motile organelle that is specialized for Shh signal transduction and responsible, when defective, for several human genetic disorders. In this study, we show that the expression and subcellular localization of Shh effectors and ciliary proteins are severely disturbed in Npc1-deficient mice. The dysregulation of Shh signaling is associated with a shortening of the primary cilium length and with a reduction of the fraction of ciliated cells in Npc1-deficient mouse brains and the human fibroblasts of NPC1 patients. These defects are prevented by treatment with 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin, a promising therapy currently under clinical investigation. Our findings indicate that defective Shh signaling is responsible for abnormal morphogenesis of the cerebellum of Npc1-deficient mice and show, for the first time, that the formation of the primary cilium is altered in NPC1 disease

Public policies and food security and family farming networks: contributions to the construction of effectiveness indicators.

This work presents a methodology for investigating the performance of public politics regarding food security networks formed in Brazilian municipalities aimed at increasing income and employment in familiar farming. These programs need to further develop the methodologies used for studying their efficiency so that they can reach a new stage in the improvement and use of management tools thereby achieving beteer results of social inclusion and/or food security. This paper constitutes a first effort to bring together indicators for the evaluation of the efficiency of public politicies

Nodal involvement evaluation in advanced cervical cancer: a single institutional experience

Purpose: To assess the usefulness of different imaging techniques in the detection of nodal involvement in patients with advanced cervical carcinoma. Moreover, to analyze the correlation between the presurgical (FIGO) and postsurgical (pTNM) staging classifications. Materials and Methods: All patients diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer (FIGO Stages IIB-IV) from 2005 to 2012 were selected. The medical charts of 51 patients that underwent presurgical assessment with posterior surgical staging by means of paraaortic lymphadenectomy, were reviewed. Nodal status assessment by computed tomography scan (CT scan), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and sonography was compared, as well as the size given in imaging techniques compared to the final pathologic report information. Results: Presurgical analysis by CT scan, MRI, PET, and sonography showed pelvic nodal involvement in 51.3% of patients, and para-aortic involvement in 30.8% of cases. CT scan showed positive pelvic nodes in 35% of cases, but pathologic confirmation was observed in just 17.6% of cases. However, MRI resulted in higher rates of up to 48.8% of cases. Concerning para-aortic nodal involvement, CT scan showed positive nodes in 25% of cases, MRI in 3.2% of cases, and the pathologic report in 15.6% of cases. The authors found significant differences between staging groups among both classifications (FIGO vs. pTNM; p < 0.001). Eight cases (15.7%) were understaged by FIGO classification. Conclusions: Despite all imaging techniques available, none has demonstrated to be efficient enough to avoid the systematic study of para-aortic nodal status by means of surgical evaluatio