National Leadership Index 2007: A National Study of Confidence in Leadership

The National Study of Confidence in Leadership is a social science research program examining the attitudes of the American public toward the nation’s leadership. The study includes the National Leadership Index 2007, a multidimensional measure of the public’s confidence in leadership within different sectors of society.US News & World Report, Center for Public Leadershi

National Leadership Index 2006: A National Study of Confidence in Leadership

The National Leadership (NSCL) is a social science research program examining the attitudes of the American public toward the nation’s leadership. The study includes the National Leadership Index 2006 (NLI), a multidimensional measure of the public’s confidence in the leadership of different sectors of society.US News & World Report, Center for Public Leadershi

Fluorescence imaging to localize head and neck squamous cell carcinoma for enhanced pathological assessment

Accurately identifying close or positive margins in real-time permits re-excision during surgical procedures. Intraoperative assessment of margins via gross examination and frozen section is a widely used tool to assist the surgeon in achieving complete resection. While this methodology permits diagnosis of freshly resected tissue, the process is fraught with misinterpretation and sampling errors. During fluorescence-guided surgery, an exogenous fluorescent agent specific for the target disease is imaged in order to navigate the surgical excision. As this technique quickly advances into the clinic, we hypothesize that the disease-specific fluorescence inherently contained within the resected tissues can be used to guide histopathological assessment. To evaluate the feasibility of fluorescence-guided pathology, we evaluated head and neck squamous cell carcinoma tumour specimens and margins resected from animals and patients after systemic injection of cetuximab-IRDye800CW. In a preclinical model of luciferase-positive tumour resection using bioluminescence as the gold standard, fluorescence assessment determined by closed-field fluorescence imaging of fresh resected margins accurately predicted the presence of disease in 33/39 positive margins yielding an overall sensitivity of 85%, specificity of 95%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 94%, and a negative predictive value (NPV) of 87%, which was superior to both surgical assessment (54%, 61%, 57%, and 58%) and pathological assessment (49%, 95%, 91%, and 66%), respectively. When the power of the technique was evaluated using human-derived tumour tissues, as little as 0.5mg (1mm(3)) of tumour tissue was identified (tumour-to-background-ratio:5.2). When the sensitivity/specificity of fluorescence-guided pathology was determined using traditional histological assessment as the gold standard in human tissues obtained during fluorescence-guided surgery, the technique was highly accurate with a sensitivity of 91%, specificity of 85%, PPV of 81%, and NPV of 93% for 90 human-derived samples. This approach can be used as a companion to the pathologist, eliminating confounding factors while impacting surgical intervention and patient management

A Comparison of Embedded and Nonembedded Print Coverage of the U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

This study examines the impact of embedded versus nonembedded (unilateral) news coverage during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. A content analysis was conduycted of the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune news coverage of the invasion and occupation examining whether embedded and nonembedded new reports were different and, if so, how. News reports were examined for differences in tone toward the military, trust in the military, framing, and authoritativeness. The results of the study revealed significant differences in overall tone toward the military, trust in military personnel, framing, and authoritativeness between embedded and nonembedded articles.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Polyantigenic Interferon-γ Responses Are Associated with Protection from TB among HIV-Infected Adults with Childhood BCG Immunization

Surrogate immunologic markers for natural and vaccine-mediated protection against tuberculosis (TB) have not been identified. HIV-infected adults with childhood BCG immunization entering the placebo arm of the DarDar TB vaccine trial in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were assessed for interferon gamma (IFN-γ) responses to three mycobacterial antigen preparations--secreted Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens 85 (Ag85), early secretory antigenic target 6 (ESAT-6) and polyantigenic whole cell lysate (WCL). We investigated the association between the number of detectable IFN-γ responses at baseline and the subsequent risk of HIV-associated TB. During a median follow-up of 3.3 years, 92 (9.4%) of 979 placebo recipients developed TB. The incidence of TB was 14% in subjects with no detectable baseline IFN-γ responses vs. 8% in subjects with response to polyantigenic WCL (P = 0.028). Concomitant responses to secreted antigens were associated with further reduction in the incidence of HIV-associated TB. Overall the percentage of subjects with 0, 1, 2 and 3 baseline IFN-γ responses to mycobacterial preparations who developed HIV-associated TB was 14%, 8%, 7% and 4%, respectively (P = 0.004). In a multivariate Cox regression model, the hazard of developing HIV-associated TB was 46% lower with each increment in the number of detectable baseline IFN-γ responses (P<0.001). Among HIV-infected adults who received BCG in childhood and live in a TB-endemic country, polyantigenic IFN-γ responses are associated with decreased risk of subsequent HIV-associated TB. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT0052195

The Politics of Race and Class and the Changing Spatial Fortunes of the McCarren Pool in Brooklyn, New York, 1936-2010

This paper explores the changing spatial properties of the McCarren Pool and connects them to the politics of race and class. The pool was a large liberal government project that sought to improve the leisure time of working class Brooklynites and between 1936 and the early 1970s it was a quasi-public functional space. In the 1970s and the early 1980s, the pool became a quasi-public dysfunctional space because the city government reduced its maintenance and staffing levels. Working class whites of the area engaged into neighborhood defense in order to prevent the influx of Latinos and African Americans into parts of Williamsburg and Greenpoint and this included the environs of the McCarren Pool. The pool was shut down in 1983 because of a mechanical failure. Its restoration did not take place because residents and storekeepers near the vicinity of the pool complained that by the 1970s, it was only African Americans and Latinos who patronized the pool and that their presence in the neighborhood undermined white exclusivity. For two decades, the McCarren Pool became a multi-use alternative space frequented by homeless people, graffiti artists, heroin users, teenagers, and drug dealers. Unlike previous decades, during this period, people of various racial and ethnic backgrounds frequented the pool area in a relatively harmonious manner. In the early part of the twenty-first century, a neoliberal city administration allowed a corporation to organize music concerts in the pool premises and promised to restore the facility into an operable swimming pool. The problem with this restoration project is that the history of the pool between the early 1970s and the early 2000s is downplayed and this does not serve well former or future users of the poo

A Small Molecule Inhibitor of Signal Peptide Peptidase Inhibits Plasmodium Development in the Liver and Decreases Malaria Severity

The liver stage of Plasmodium's life cycle is the first, obligatory step in malaria infection. Decreasing the hepatic burden of Plasmodium infection decreases the severity of disease and constitutes a promising strategy for malaria prophylaxis. The efficacy of the gamma-secretase and signal peptide peptidase inhibitor LY411,575 in targeting Plasmodium liver stages was evaluated both in human hepatoma cell lines and in mouse primary hepatocytes. LY411,575 was found to prevent Plasmodium's normal development in the liver, with an IC50 of approximately 80 nM, without affecting hepatocyte invasion by the parasite. In vivo results with a rodent model of malaria showed that LY411,575 decreases the parasite load in the liver and increases by 55% the resistance of mice to cerebral malaria, one of the most severe malaria-associated syndromes. Our data show that LY411,575 does not exert its effect via the Notch signaling pathway suggesting that it may interfere with Plasmodium development through an inhibition of the parasite's signal peptide peptidase. We therefore propose that selective signal peptide peptidase inhibitors could be potentially used for preventive treatment of malaria in humans

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin