Straddling Two Words: Biracial Identity in Flight

If borderlands are the space between two territories that is the space bi-racial people occupy every day. Their entire life is lived in the space between creating a unique form of othering where they’re never fully part of either community their parents belonged to. In Sherman Alexie’s novel Flight, the Narrator Zits is a bi-racial Native American teenager who constantly grapples with his identity. Through the theme of past-lives Zits is able to embrace both parts of his ethnicity, establish his identity, and grow up. It is a coming of age tale that is remarkably unique. This paper draws on the work of Chris Hyeouk Hahm and Anna Elizabeth Kim’s, In the Path of Establishing Ethnic Identity and Raushanah Hud-Aleem and Jacqueline Countryman’s “Biracial Identity Development and Recommendations in Therapy” to discuss how ethnicity is a crucial concept to a person of color’s identity, and how biracial children struggle to form an ethnic identity. This paper is a literary analysis of Sherman Alexie’s novel Flight, a novel written by a Native American man about a Native American character. This paper contributes to the theme of the conference because it takes a look at the metaphysical borders that real-life people inhabit every day

A coarse grained transport model for nanofluidic systems

Molecular Dynamics (MD) is an important tool to simulate flows at the nanoscale. The limitation of MD in simulating important biological and chemical systems having a large length and time scale, increased the interest in efficient coarse-grained (CG) models. Although many existing CG models for various fluids are able to capture structure and dynamics of the bulk fluid accurately, these models are not suited to describe transport phenomena involving explicit walls in nano-channels. Previous coarse-grained models for confined fluids are only optimized to match the structure of the confined fluid. Here we introduce a complete CG transport model for a single component fluid in nano-channels having explicit walls. The model, which was applied to the water-graphene system, was able to demonstrate a very good match, with the structure (error< 7%) and dynamical (error<1%) equilibrium properties of MD simulations. Moreover, the CG model was able to reproduce the MD results for water transport in a Poiseuille flow configuration with an error < 5%. The accuracy of the model was transferable through different configurations and forcing conditions up to a critical force, where the MD slip velocity starts to deviate from the equilibrium prediction. Finally, the CG model was able to achieve ≈ 20x speedup compared to MD simulations, making it more suitable for flows close to experimental conditions, where MD produces a poor signal to noise ratio

MDR tuberculosis and non-compliance with therapy

The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis is a worldwide public health problem. We reported a case of pulmonary MDR tuberculosis in a 41-year-old man with diabetes from the West Bank, Palestine. 1 The bacteria belonged to the Beijing family, which is highly virulent and easily disseminated. 2 The patient withdrew from treatment after 2 years while still sputum-positive. Despite persistent efforts of the tuberculosis directly observed treatment programme, he disappeared and cannot be located. The patient might have fled to a neighbouring country, and there is a risk that he will pass on MDR tuberculosis to people with whom he has contact

Assessment of Sanitary Conditions in the Main Swimming Pools in Gaza Strip (2010 -2013): Palestine

Abstract. Approximately 1.7 million inhabitants of 378 km 2 areaofGazaStripdon&apos;thaveenoughrecreationalareas,except Gaza beach which suffers from sewage pollution as well as some public and private swimming pools which considered as merely recreational places. The main objective of this study is to assess the microbiological quality of swimming pools water in Gaza Strip to assure its health safety for swimmers. Sampling and analysis were conducted by the Ministry of Health over a period of about four years (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013). Samples were collected from seven central swimming pools in Gaza Strip periodically and examined for Total Coliforms and Faecal Coliforms. In addition, Staphylococcus aureus, Faecal Streptococcus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from the swimming pools samples with different percentages. Percentages of microbial contamination, concentration of free chlorine and pH level were examined in the studied swimming pools and compared with the international standards and the annual trends were demonstrated. The results show that, about 75% of the recorded data regarding pH level are unacceptable, while 100% of the recorded data about the concentration of free chlorine within the swimming pools are unacceptable. About 57% of the collected samples were contaminated by Total Coliforms, 39% were contaminated by Faecal Coliforms, 46% were contaminated by Staphylococcus aureus, 21% were contaminated by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 18% were contaminated by Faecal streptococci. The annual trends show increase in percentage of contamination to be the worst during the year 2013. Therefore, proper intensive surveillance and water chlorination is needed periodically

Phosphorylation and translocation of heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin in human myocardium after cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass

ObjectivesCardiac surgery using cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass subjects myocardium to hypothermic reversible ischemic injury that can impair cardiac function. Research in animal and cell models demonstrates that acute myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury causes phosphorylation of heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin. Phosphorylation of heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin is implicated in the regulation of both beneficial and detrimental responses to ischemic injury. The phosphorylation status of these proteins in human myocardium after ischemic insults associated with cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass is unknown.MethodsRight atrial appendage and chest wall skeletal muscle samples were collected from patients before and after cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass. Cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass-induced changes in phosphorylation and localization of heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin were determined using immunoblot and confocal microscopy with total and phospho-specific antibodies.ResultsCardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass increased the phosphorylation of heat shock protein 27 on serine 15, 78, and 82, and αB-crystallin on serine 59 and 45, but not serine 19. The majority of heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin localized to I-bands of cardiac myofilaments and shifted to a detergent insoluble fraction after cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass. Cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass–induced phosphorylation of specific heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin residues were associated with additional subcellular locations. Increases in phosphorylation of heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin were negatively correlated with cardiac function after surgery.ConclusionCardiac surgery using cardioplegia and cardiopulmonary bypass is associated with phosphorylation and myofilament translocation of heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin in human myocardium. Phosphorylation of specific heat shock protein 27 and αB-crystallin serine residues is associated with distinct localization. Understanding the human myocardial small heat shock protein response may have significant implications for surgical myocardial protection

Insulin treatment enhances the myocardial angiogenic response in diabetes

ObjectiveGrowth factor and cell-based angiogenesis are attractive therapeutic options for diabetic patients with end-stage coronary disease. Reduced collateral vessel formation observed in diabetes is associated with increased expression of anti-angiogenic proteins, angiostatin and endostatin. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of insulin treatment on the diabetic angiogenic response to chronic myocardial ischemia.MethodsYucatan miniswine were treated with alloxan (pancreatic β-cell specific toxin, 150 mg/kg) and divided into two groups. In the diabetic group (DM, n = 8), blood glucose levels were kept greater than 250 mg/dL, and in the insulin-treated group (IDM, n = 6), intramuscular insulin was administered daily to keep blood glucose less than 150 mg/dL. A third group of age-matched swine served as nondiabetic controls (ND; n = 8). Eight weeks later, all animals underwent circumflex artery ameroid constrictor placement to induce chronic ischemia. Myocardial perfusion was assessed at 3 and 7 weeks after ameroid placement using microspheres. Microvascular function, capillary density, and myocardial expression of anti-angiogenic mediators were evaluated.ResultsDiabetic animals exhibited significant impairments in endothelium-dependent microvessel relaxation to adenosine diphosphate and substance P, which were reversed in insulin-treated animals. Collateral-dependent perfusion in the ischemic circumflex territory, which was profoundly reduced in diabetic animals (−0.18 ± 0.02 vs +0.23 ± 0.07 mL · min−1 · g−1; P < .001), improved significantly with insulin treatment (0.12 ± 0.05 mL · min−1 · g−1; P < .01). Myocardial expression of anti-angiogenic proteins, angiostatin and endostatin, showing a 4.3- and 3.6-fold increase in diabetic animals respectively (both P < .01 vs ND), was markedly reduced in insulin-treated animals (2.3- and 1.8-fold vs ND; both P < .01).ConclusionsInsulin treatment successfully reversed diabetic coronary endothelial dysfunction and significantly improved the endogenous angiogenic response. These pro-angiogenic effects may be mediated through downregulation of anti-angiogenic mediators. Insulin therapy appears to be a promising modality to enhance the angiogenic response in diabetic patients