Symposium: Gender, Health and the Constitution: More than Merely Two-legged Wombs : Lessons on Metaphor and Body Politics from Atwood\u27s \u3ci\u3eThe Handmaiden\u27s Tale\u3c/i\u3e (1985)

This essay explores the dehumanizing potential of metaphors used to describe women’s reproductive biology through literary analysis of Margaret Atwood’s canonical feminist novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Attending to the rhetoric that both justifies and contests ritualized rape and forced surrogacy in Atwood’s novel, this essay begins by interrogating the ubiquitous cultural and biomedical metaphors that reduce women and pregnant people to their bodies’ reproductive potential. The first section draws from scholarship in medical anthropology, medical rhetoric, and literary studies to illuminate how gendered stereotypes pervade biomedical, cultural, and legal representations of reproduction, reifying the conflation of women and people who can become pregnant with their reproductive biology. The essay’s second section applies an ecofeminist lens to The Handmaid’s Tale to consider the consequences of this metaphorization amid a simultaneously environmental and public health crisis. The novel renders biomedical metaphors of women’s bodies as reproductive machines literal by legally classifying fertile women as “national resources” within a patriarchal capitalist economy, a dehumanizing abstraction that permits the State first to commodify, then to commandeer and equitably distribute fertile women in the name of public health and ecological crisis management. When considered from this angle, The Handmaid’s Tale inspires closer attention to figurative language’s real-world impact on health law and policy, particularly in moments of environmental catastrophe and political unrest

\u27Clean Energy\u27 At What Cost?

Ecuador was ‘refounded’ at the turn of the 21st century, with the articulation of progressive and inclusive ideals in a new Constitution. Social movements and leftist intellectuals in Ecuador have expressed that president Rafael Correa has failed to uphold the 2008 Constitution’s goals and values. President Correa and his Alianza PAIS government have utilized the rhetoric of the revolutionary ideals articulated in the Constitution, but in practice, they have continued to implement the status quo Western development model, and a large part of their development strategy involves ‘neo-extractive’ activities. Hydroelectric energy production is contributing to the ‘neo-extractive’ development model in Ecuador, and its implementation has often violated Constitutional rights. This thesis is an analysis of natural resource extraction in Ecuador and its social repercussions, with a focus on hydroelectric energy production. It is shown that the hydroelectric industry in Ecuador is not as “clean,” sustainable, or non-extractive as it is purported to be, through a case study of the San José del Tambo hydroelectric project and the exploration of an international support for hydroelectric extractivism, the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism, and its misleading framing of extractive projects as “sustainable development.” Social movements in Ecuador are acting to reverse the perversion of their originally revolutionary ideals, and to implement a post-extractive model informed by those revolutionary ideals

EDUCATION Policies Prohibiting Bullying: Amend Policies prohibiting Bullying Behavior; Make Changes Relating to Local School Board Policies Regarding Bullying in Student Codes of Conduct; Change the Definition of Bullying Behavior; Provide that Policies Relating to Bullying Behavior Apply to Students in Kindergarten Through Grade 12; Require Training on Bullying Behavior for Certain School System Personnel; Provide that Local School Systems Provide Information to the Department of Education on the Number and Disposition of Bullying Incidents Reported; Repeal Conflicting Laws, and for Other Purposes

Policies Prohibiting Bullying: Amend Policies prohibiting Bullying Behavior; Make Changes Relating to Local School Board Policies Regarding Bullying in Student Codes of Conduct; Change the Definition of Bullying Behavior; Provide that Policies Relating to Bullying Behavior Apply to Students in Kindergarten Through Grade 12; Require Training on Bullying Behavior for Certain School System Personnel; Provide that Local School Systems Provide Information to the Department of Education on the Number and Disposition of Bullying Incidents Reported; Repeal Conflicting Laws, and for Other Purpose

Diversity and dissonance: a narrative exploration of adolescent transcultural identity construction within the International School

This qualitative research study explores how the analysis of identity narratives written by transcultural individuals who attended international high schools can strengthen researchers\u27 and international school teachers\u27 understanding of how to better assist this population in negotiating their multicultural identities. This study examines a sample of eight narratives written by adult transculturals now in their twenties who attended high school at the International Christian School of Vienna (ICSV). The analysis of the identity narratives also aims to shed light on how the power structures present in the international school affect transculturals ongoing identity construction and perception of their agency and place on the global stage. The resulting research paper considers the effects that experience had on shaping their current understanding of their cultural identity. It also explores how the interplay of identity, power dynamics and rhetorical/discursive practices within the international school can aid adolescent transculturals in better understanding the construction, negotiation, and ongoing transformation of their multi-faceted identities. This project draws upon the intersecting arenas of intercultural communication identity theories, critical rhetorical/discourse analysis, and the rhetorical impact of narrative

EDUCATION Policies Prohibiting Bullying: Amend Policies prohibiting Bullying Behavior; Make Changes Relating to Local School Board Policies Regarding Bullying in Student Codes of Conduct; Change the Definition of Bullying Behavior; Provide that Policies Relating to Bullying Behavior Apply to Students in Kindergarten Through Grade 12; Require Training on Bullying Behavior for Certain School System Personnel; Provide that Local School Systems Provide Information to the Department of Education on the Number and Disposition of Bullying Incidents Reported; Repeal Conflicting Laws, and for Other Purposes

Policies Prohibiting Bullying: Amend Policies prohibiting Bullying Behavior; Make Changes Relating to Local School Board Policies Regarding Bullying in Student Codes of Conduct; Change the Definition of Bullying Behavior; Provide that Policies Relating to Bullying Behavior Apply to Students in Kindergarten Through Grade 12; Require Training on Bullying Behavior for Certain School System Personnel; Provide that Local School Systems Provide Information to the Department of Education on the Number and Disposition of Bullying Incidents Reported; Repeal Conflicting Laws, and for Other Purpose

Metadata Challenges in Library Discovery Systems

With discovery systems such as Summon, EDS, and Primo Central, patrons can search nearly all of their libraries\u27 resources from a single platform. In order to create this experience, data from disparate sources must be normalized and unified into one index. In this session, we discussed some of the metadata challenges facing each of the parties involved in library discovery; the library, the publisher, and the discovery system provider. Libraries must normalize their bibliographic records to make them compatible with the discovery system’s schema. Publishers need to create mechanisms to regularly export records with meaningful metadata, and the discovery system provider must integrate metadata from these sources while ensuring the best possible user experience. We also touched on the recent guidelines of the NISO Open Discovery Initiative. The guidelines include goals such as “to streamline the process by which information providers, discovery service providers, and librarians work together to better serve libraries and their users.” The session will explore how these guidelines can be implemented along with some of the challenges and will include a discussion with the audience

Babesiosis Acquired through Blood Transfusion, California, USA

Babesiosis was reported in a California resident who received a transfusion of blood products collected in the disease-endemic northeastern region of the United States. Babesiosis should be considered year-round in the diagnosis of febrile and afebrile patients with abnormal blood cell counts who have received blood products from disease-endemic areas

Estimating error models for whole genome sequencing using mixtures of Dirichlet-multinomial distributions

Motivation: Accurate identification of genotypes is an essential part of the analysis of genomic data, including in identification of sequence polymorphisms, linking mutations with disease and determining mutation rates. Biological and technical processes that adversely affect genotyping include copy-number-variation, paralogous sequences, library preparation, sequencing error and reference-mapping biases, among others. Results: We modeled the read depth for all data as a mixture of Dirichlet-multinomial distributions, resulting in significant improvements over previously used models. In most cases the best model was comprised of two distributions. The major-component distribution is similar to a binomial distribution with low error and low reference bias. The minor-component distribution is overdispersed with higher error and reference bias. We also found that sites fitting the minor component are enriched for copy number variants and low complexity regions, which can produce erroneous genotype calls. By removing sites that do not fit the major component, we can improve the accuracy of genotype calls. Availability and Implementation: Methods and data files are available at https://github.com/ CartwrightLab/WuEtAl2017/ (doi:10.5281/zenodo.256858). Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information: Supplementary data is available at Bioinformatics online

Solid pseudopapillary neoplasm of the pancreas : clinical-radiological-pathological characteristics of four pediatric cases

"Received date: March 09, 2020; Accepted date: March 13, 2020; Published date: March 17, 2020...Copyright: © 2020 Zhongxin Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of The Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited."Solid Pseudopapillary Neoplasm (SPN) of the pancreas represents 1-3 % of all exocrine pancreatic tumors and is uncommon in children. We report four pediatric patients with SPN where each patient posed a unique diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. We describe these four cases with detailed clinical-radiological-pathological correlations. All patients are female, with a median age 13.5 years. Two patients presented with abdominal pain, one with jaundice and one with an incidental pancreatic mass on abdominal CT scan. Radiological studies included abdominal ultrasound, CT scan and MRI of abdomen. Pancreaticoduodenectomy was performed in three patients and laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy in one patient. Mean tumor size was 4.5 cm (ranged from 1.9 to 11.5 cm). All SPNs were benign on histological exam. One patient developed pancreatic insufficiency post-surgery. No tumor recurrence was observed over a mean follow up period of 1 year. We conclude that diagnosis of SPN in pediatric population can be challenging due to non-specific clinical findings, and surgical removal of the tumor is usually required for definitive histologic diagnosis and treatment. Most tumors are benign and recurrence is very rare