The Audacity of Spring

The Audacity of Spring is a collection of lyric poems that engage with classic and modern poetic strategies, employing modes and forms such as the elegy, the sonnet, and the villanelle. This collection is otherwise written in free verse, with close attention paid to the sonic, rhythmic quality of language. These poems consider notions of embodiment— in particular, they explore conceptions of the female body, or the human body generally, and how these bodies are commodified and objectified by patriarchal society and neoliberal ideology. The speaker in this work peers into the past: a personal past and a literary one— cataloguing the rites of girlhood and family, as well as engaging with a series of intractable poetic influences. The speaker also examines crucial intersections of desire and lack, of subjectivity and objectivity, of natural and artificial, of human and animal— interrogating and troubling these binaries. The work explores how the internal self is mediated, morphed and distorted by its interactions with the external environment. The Atlantic Canadian landscape features prominently in these poems, highlighting the speaker’s various connections to, as well as their fragmentation from, the natural world. These poems examine human agency and expose the contradictions or limitations of our existence when confronted by the sublimity of the natural world, all the while confronting the ongoing perils of climate change amid progressive environmental decay

Neonatal Host Defense against Staphylococcal Infections

Preterm infants are especially susceptible to late-onset sepsis that is often due to Gram-positive bacterial infections resulting in substantial morbidity and mortality. Herein, we will describe neonatal innate immunity to Staphylococcus spp. comparing differences between preterm and full-term newborns with adults. Newborn innate immunity is distinct demonstrating diminished skin integrity, impaired Th1-polarizing responses, low complement levels, and diminished expression of plasma antimicrobial proteins and peptides, especially in preterm newborns. Characterization of distinct aspects of the neonatal immune response is defining novel approaches to enhance host defense to prevent and/or treat staphylococcal infection in this vulnerable population

Building Relationships in Inclusive Research in Diverse Contexts

This article explores relationships between academics and people with intellectual disabilities collaborating in inclusive research. The authors present and reflect upon narrative accounts from Norway and England from both sides of the relationship. Each relationship is examined, including how it was initiated, established, developed and sustained, what worked well, what the obstacles were and how any conflicts were approached. The concept of being an ‘alongsider’, working alongside each other (and alongside participants with intellectual disabilities) is used. The paper shows variety in how alongsider relationships are initiated and fostered over time. Mostly, partnerships were initiated informally, based on pre-existing relationships as friends or through support worker-client relationship or earlier research cooperation, although one was initiated through a formal selection process. The paper concludes that when building relationships over time, the personal dimension is important, including sharing an interest, mutual respect and liking each other, while funding and tight timelines can interfere

A Neonatal Model of Intravenous Staphylococcus epidermidis Infection in Mice <24 h Old Enables Characterization of Early Innate Immune Responses

Staphylococcus epidermidis (SE) causes late onset sepsis and significant morbidity in catheterized preterm newborns. Animal models of SE infection are useful in characterizing disease mechanisms and are an important approach to developing improved diagnostics and therapeutics. Current murine models of neonatal bacterial infection employ intraperitoneal or subcutaneous routes at several days of age, and may, therefore, not accurately reflect distinct features of innate immune responses to bacteremia. In this study we developed, validated, and characterized a murine model of intravenous (IV) infection in neonatal mice <24 hours (h) old to describe the early innate immune response to SE. C57BL/6 mice <24 h old were injected IV with 106, 107, 108 colony-forming units (CFU) of SE 1457, a clinical isolate from a central catheter infection. A prospective injection scoring system was developed and validated, with only high quality injections analyzed. Newborn mice were euthanized between 2 and 48 h post-injection and spleen, liver, and blood collected to assess bacterial viability, gene expression, and cytokine production. High quality IV injections demonstrated inoculum-dependent infection of spleen, liver and blood. Within 2 h of injection, SE induced selective transcription of TLR2 and MyD88 in the liver, and increased systemic production of plasma IL-6 and TNF-α. Despite clearance of bacteremia and solid organ infection within 48 h, inoculum-dependent impairment in weight gain was noted. We conclude that a model of IV SE infection in neonatal mice <24 h old is feasible, demonstrating inoculum-dependent infection of solid organs and a pattern of bacteremia, rapid and selective innate immune activation, and impairment of weight gain typical of infected human neonates. This novel model can now be used to characterize immune ontogeny, evaluate infection biomarkers, and assess preventative and therapeutic modalities

TLR2 Mediates Recognition of Live Staphylococcus epidermidis and Clearance of Bacteremia

Background: Staphylococcus epidermidis (SE) is a nosocomial pathogen that causes catheter-associated bacteremia in the immunocompromised, including those at the extremes of age, motivating study of host clearance mechanisms. SE-derived soluble components engage TLR2; but additional signaling pathways have also been implicated, and TLR2 can play complex, at times detrimental, roles in host defense against other Staphylococcal spp. The role of TLR2 in responses of primary blood leukocytes to live SE and in clearance of SE bacteremia, the most common clinical manifestation of SE infection, is unknown. Methodology/Principal Findings: We studied TLR2-mediated recognition of live clinical SE strain 1457 employing TLR2- transfected cells, neutralizing anti-TLR antibodies and TLR2-deficient mice. TLR2 mediated SE-induced cytokine production in human embryonic kidney cells, human whole blood and murine primary macrophages, in part via recognition of a soluble TLR2 agonist. After i.v. challenge with SE, early (1 h) cytokine/chemokine production and subsequent clearance of bacteremia (24-48 h) were markedly impaired in TLR2-deficient mice. Conclusions/Significance: TLR2 mediates recognition of live SE and clearance of SE bacteremia in vivo

School violence, school differences and school discourses

This article highlights one strand of a study which investigated the concept of the violenceresilient school. In six inner-city secondary schools, data on violent incidents in school and violent crime in the neighbourhood were gathered, and compared with school practices to minimise violence, accessed through interviews. Some degree of association between the patterns of behaviour and school practices was found: schools with a wider range of wellconnected practices seemed to have less difficult behaviour. Interviews also showed that the different schools had different organisational discourses for construing school violence, its possible causes and the possible solutions. Differences in practices are best understood in connection with differences in these discourses. Some of the features of school discourses are outlined, including their range, their core metaphor and their silences. We suggest that organisational discourse is an important concept in explaining school effects and school differences, and that improvement attempts could have clearer regard to this concept

IL-12 sensing in neurons induces neuroprotective CNS tissue adaptation and attenuates neuroinflammation in mice

Interleukin-12 (IL-12) is a potent driver of type 1 immunity. Paradoxically, in autoimmune conditions, including of the CNS, IL-12 reduces inflammation. The underlying mechanism behind these opposing properties and the involved cellular players remain elusive. Here we map IL-12 receptor (IL-12R) expression to NK and T cells as well as neurons and oligodendrocytes. Conditionally ablating the IL-12R across these cell types in adult mice and assessing their susceptibility to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis revealed that the neuroprotective role of IL-12 is mediated by neuroectoderm-derived cells, specifically neurons, and not immune cells. In human brain tissue from donors with multiple sclerosis, we observe an IL-12R distribution comparable to mice, suggesting similar mechanisms in mice and humans. Combining flow cytometry, bulk and single-nucleus RNA sequencing, we reveal an IL-12-induced neuroprotective tissue adaption preventing early neurodegeneration and sustaining trophic factor release during neuroinflammation, thereby maintaining CNS integrity in mice

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

Does General Parenting Context Modify Adolescents' Appraisals and Coping with a Situation of Parental Regulation? The Case of Autonomy-Supportive Parenting

Theory and research suggest that adolescents differ in their appraisals and coping reactions in response to parental regulation. Less is known, however, about factors that determine these differences in adolescents’ responses. In this study, we examined whether adolescents' appraisals and coping reactions depend upon parents’ situation-specific autonomy-supportive or controlling communication style (i.e., the situation) in interaction with adolescents’ past experiences with general autonomy-supportive parenting (i.e., the parenting context). Whereas in Study 1 (N = 176) adolescents’ perceived general autonomy-supportive parenting context was assessed at one point in time, in Study 2 (N = 126) it was assessed multiple times across a 6-year period, allowing for an estimation of trajectories of perceived autonomy-supportive parenting context. In each study, adolescents read a vignette-based scenario depicting a situation of maternal regulation (i.e., a request to study more), which was communicated in either an autonomy-supportive or a controlling way. Following this scenario, they reported upon their appraisals and their anticipated coping reactions. Results of each study indicated that both the autonomy-supportive (relative to the controlling) situation and the perceived autonomy-supportive parenting context generally related to more positive appraisals (i.e., more autonomy need satisfaction, less autonomy need frustration), as well as to more constructive coping responses (i.e., less oppositional defiance and submission, more negotiation and accommodation). In addition, situation × context interactions were found, whereby adolescents growing up in a more autonomy-supportive context seemed to derive greater benefits from the exposure to an autonomy-supportive situation and reacted more constructively to a controlling situation