An intact signal peptide on dengue virus E protein enhances immunogenicity for CD8+ T cells and antibody when expressed from modified vaccinia Ankara

Dengue is a global public health concern and this is aggravated by a lack of vaccines or antiviral therapies. Despite the well-known role of CD8(+) T cells in the immunopathogenesis of Dengue virus (DENV), only recent studies have highlighted the importance of this arm of the immune response in protection against the disease. Thus, the majority of DENV vaccine candidates are designed to achieve protective titers of neutralizing antibodies, with less regard for cellular responses. Here, we used a mouse model to investigate CD8(+) T cell and humoral responses to a set of potential DENV vaccines based on recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara (rMVA). To enable this study, we identified two CD8(+) T cell epitopes in the DENV-3 E protein in C57BL/6 mice. Using these we found that all the rMVA vaccines elicited DENV-specific CD8(+) T cells that were cytotoxic in vivo and polyfunctional in vitro. Moreover, vaccines expressing the E protein with an intact signal peptide sequence elicited more DENV-specific CD8(+) T cells than those expressing E proteins in the cytoplasm. Significantly, it was these same ER-targeted E protein vaccines that elicited antibody responses. Our results support the further development of rMVA vaccines expressing DENV E proteins and add to the tools available for dengue vaccine development.Parts of this work were supported by the InstitutoNacional de Ciência e Tecnologia de Vacinas–INCTV (National Insti-tute of Science and Technology of Vaccines) and by a FAPEMIGPPM grant (CBB, PPM-00461-11). BRQ was a CAPES/PDSE fellow-ship recipient (8815-11-9). FGF is a CNPq fellowship recipient. DCTis an ARC Future Fellow (FT110100310)

“State Regimes of Gender: Legal Aspects of Gender Identity Registration, Trans-Relevant Policies and Quality of LGBTIQ Lives”: A Roundtable Discussion

This roundtable took place at the European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in July 2019.  

State Regimes of Gender: Legal Aspects of Gender Identity Registration, Trans-Relevant Policies and Quality of LGBTIQ Lives : A Roundtable Discussion

Cooper, D, Kondakov, A, Molitor, V, Quinan, C, van de Vleuten, A, and Zimenkova, T, (2020) State Regimes of Gender: Legal Aspects of Gender Identity Registration, Trans-Relevant Policies and Quality of LGBTIQ Lives: A Roundtable Discussion’, International Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Law 1(1): 377-402. https://doi.org/10.19164/ijgsl.v1i1.985This roundtable took place at the European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in July 2019.Non peer reviewe

The Dynamics of Hypothalamic Cell Proliferation in Mice

Adult neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are generated by neural stem cells (NSC) and are integrated into existing neural circuits in the adult brain. Contemporary research in adult neurogenesis in mammals has primarily focused on the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricle and the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the dentate gyrus, as these regions have the most robust cell proliferation. However, there also is evidence for neurogenic activity in other areas, including in the hypothalamus, which is a master regulator, maintaining homeostasis in many physiological and behavioral functions. The present studies tested whether the circadian clock influences the rate of cell proliferation in the hypothalamus, and compared the overall rate of proliferation in the median eminence (ME) (a subregion of the hypothalamus) with the rest of the hypothalamus. Mice were injected with the S-phase marker 5-bromo-2'- deoxyuridine (BrdU). A quantitative analysis of the resulting BrdU-labeled cells in the hypothalamus revealed a pronounced diurnal pattern of cell proliferation; the ME maintains a rhythm of proliferation that is distinct from the rest of the hypothalamus. In a 72-hour longitudinal study after a single BrdU pulse, stable numbers of BrdU+ cells were observed in the ME, with a corresponding increase in BrdU+ cells in the rest of the hypothalamus. These data suggest that circadian signals regulate the timing of hypothalamic cell proliferation, and that newly generated cells in the ME either migrate away or die, maintaining the stable numbers of BrdU+ cells in this region

Examining Effort in 1D Uncertainty Communication Using Individual Differences in Working Memory and NASA-TLX.

As uncertainty visualizations for general audiences become increasingly common, designers must understand the full impact of uncertainty communication techniques on viewers' decision processes. Prior work demonstrates mixed performance outcomes with respect to how individuals make decisions using various visual and textual depictions of uncertainty. Part of the inconsistency across findings may be due to an over-reliance on task accuracy, which cannot, on its own, provide a comprehensive understanding of how uncertainty visualization techniques support reasoning processes. In this work, we advance the debate surrounding the efficacy of modern 1D uncertainty visualizations by conducting converging quantitative and qualitative analyses of both the effort and strategies used by individuals when provided with quantile dotplots, density plots, interval plots, mean plots, and textual descriptions of uncertainty. We utilize two approaches for examining effort across uncertainty communication techniques: a measure of individual differences in working-memory capacity known as an operation span (OSPAN) task and self-reports of perceived workload via the NASA-TLX. The results reveal that both visualization methods and working-memory capacity impact participants' decisions. Specifically, quantile dotplots and density plots (i.e., distributional annotations) result in more accurate judgments than interval plots, textual descriptions of uncertainty, and mean plots (i.e., summary annotations). Additionally, participants' open-ended responses suggest that individuals viewing distributional annotations are more likely to employ a strategy that explicitly incorporates uncertainty into their judgments than those viewing summary annotations. When comparing quantile dotplots to density plots, this work finds that both methods are equally effective for low-working-memory individuals. However, for individuals with high-working-memory capacity, quantile dotplots evoke more accurate responses with less perceived effort. Given these results, we advocate for the inclusion of converging behavioral and subjective workload metrics in addition to accuracy performance to further disambiguate meaningful differences among visualization techniques

Framing gender identity registration amidst national and international developments: Introduction to ‘Bodies, identities, and gender regimes: Human rights and legal aspects of gender identity registration’

Introduction to ‘Bodies, identities, and gender regimes: Human rights and legal aspects of gender identity registration

Caracterización De La Composición Y Fluctuaciones En La Densidad Y Diversidad De Los Ensambles Planctónicos En Cuatro Humedales De Tarapacá

La limnología de los humedales interiores en Tarapacá presenta ciclos productivos altamente dependientes de las lluvias estivales y las condiciones fisicoquímicas del medio. Entre 2013 y 2015 se estudiaron ensambles planctónicos de dos lagunas de evaporación y dos quebradas, durante dos temporadas productivas y dos vegetativas, junto con esto se observaron las condiciones fisicoquímicas asociadas. Los resultados mostraron que el fitoplancton en general estuvo dominado por diatomeas y solo en una quebrada por algas verdes, mientras que el zooplancton presentó composiciones muy distintas entre las lagunas y entre las quebradas, con importantes variaciones temporales. En lagunas las densidades altas de zooplancton asociaron positivamente con sólidos disueltos totales y su diversidad inversamente con la temperatura, por su parte la diversidad de fitoplancton mantuvo una relación inversa con la riqueza de zooplancton

Toward Objective Evaluation of Working Memory in Visualizations: A Case Study Using Pupillometry and a Dual-Task Paradigm

Cognitive science has established widely used and validated procedures for evaluating working memory in numerous applied domains, but surprisingly few studies have employed these methodologies to assess claims about the impacts of visualizations on working memory. The lack of information visualization research that uses validated procedures for measuring working memory may be due, in part, to the absence of cross-domain methodological guidance tailored explicitly to the unique needs of visualization research. This paper presents a set of clear, practical, and empirically validated methods for evaluating working memory during visualization tasks and provides readers with guidance in selecting an appropriate working memory evaluation paradigm. As a case study, we illustrate multiple methods for evaluating working memory in a visual-spatial aggregation task with geospatial data. The results show that the use of dual-task experimental designs (simultaneous performance of several tasks compared to single-task performance) and pupil dilation can reveal working memory demands associated with task difficulty and dual-tasking. In a dual-task experimental design, measures of task completion times and pupillometry revealed the working memory demands associated with both task difficulty and dual-tasking. Pupillometry demonstrated that participants’ pupils were significantly larger when they were completing a more difficult task and when multitasking. We propose that researchers interested in the relative differences in working memory between visualizations should consider a converging methods approach, where physiological measures and behavioral measures of working memory are employed to generate a rich evaluation of visualization effort