A Conversation on Race and Justice in America: Fourth annual summit for social consciousness

Andrews University held its fourth annual Summit on Social Consciousness from Wednesday, April 8, through Saturday, April 11, 2015. The symposium focused on the theme of “A Conversation on Race and Justice in America.” The objective was to inform the community of the injustices and racial prejudices still alive in our nation, 51 years after the civil rights movement, and also provided a means for students and community leaders to engage in social action regardless of background. All events were free and open to the public

Are Cell Death Proteins/Antigens Found on Interdigital Cells Dying During Limb Development Expressed in a Simple Organism Such As Tetrahymena?

Numerous studies have been published that describe the genes and proteins that control cell death in various biological systems including normal embryonic development and in disease such as cancer. We describe attempts to look at a possible conserved cell death antigen in the simple organism Tetrahymena, using a unique monoclonal antibody that recognizes only dying cells in the chick limb. The main impetus for the research is to answer the question; does the cell death process have key proteins that exist in the dying process that can be modulated prior to the completion of the cell death process? Using various stimuli to induce cell death in tetrahymena thermophila including staurosporine, hypoxia and other know cell death modulators, we describe the preliminary methods used to verify that cells across two species may express conserved cell death proteins at certain times during the death process. The goal is to demonstrate that normal interdigit cell death is an ideal system for isolating programmed cell death antigens and provides a way to identify common mediators/markers in other model systems such as tetrahymena thermophila

The dark side of FIRE: predicting the population of dark matter subhaloes around Milky Way-mass galaxies

A variety of observational campaigns seek to test dark-matter models by measuring dark-matter subhaloes at low masses. Despite their predicted lack of stars, these subhaloes may be detectable through gravitational lensing or via their gravitational perturbations on stellar streams. To set measurable expectations for subhalo populations within LambdaCDM, we examine 11 Milky Way (MW)-mass haloes from the FIRE-2 baryonic simulations, quantifying the counts and orbital fluxes for subhaloes with properties relevant to stellar stream interactions: masses down to 10^6 Msun, distances < 50 kpc of the galactic center, across z = 0 - 1 (lookback time 0 - 8 Gyr). We provide fits to our results and their dependence on subhalo mass, distance, and lookback time, for use in (semi)analytic models. A typical MW-mass halo contains ~16 subhaloes >10^7 Msun (~1 subhalo >10^8 Msun) within 50 kpc at z = 0. We compare our results with dark-matter-only versions of the same simulations: because they lack a central galaxy potential, they overpredict subhalo counts by 2-10x, more so at smaller distances. Subhalo counts around a given MW-mass galaxy declined over time, being ~10x higher at z = 1 than at z = 0. Subhaloes have nearly isotropic orbital velocity distributions at z = 0. Across our simulations, we also identified 4 analogs of Large Magellanic Cloud satellite passages; these analogs enhance subhalo counts by 1.4-2.7 times, significantly increasing the expected subhalo population around the MW today. Our results imply an interaction rate of ~5 per Gyr for a stream like GD-1, sufficient to make subhalo-stream interactions a promising method of measuring dark subhaloes.Comment: 13 pages, submitted to MNRA

Race affects SVR12 in a large and ethnically diverse hepatitis C-infected patient population following treatment with direct-acting antivirals: Analysis of a single-center Department of Veterans Affairs cohort.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of chronic liver disease. HCV cure has been linked to improved patient outcomes. In the era of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), HCV cure has become the goal, as defined by sustained virological response 12&nbsp;weeks (SVR12) after completion of therapy. Historically, African-Americans have had lower SVR12 rates compared to White people in the interferon era, which had been attributed to the high prevalence of non-CC interleukin 28B (IL28B) type. Less is known about the association between race/ethnicity and SVR12 in DAA-treated era. The aim of the study is to evaluate the predictors of SVR12 in a diverse, single-center Veterans Affairs population. We conducted a retrospective study of patients undergoing HCV therapy with DAAs from 2014 to 2016 at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. We performed a multivariable logistic regression analysis to determine predictors of SVR12, adjusting for age, HCV genotype, DAA regimen and duration, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status, fibrosis, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) fibrosis score, homelessness, mental health, and adherence. Our cohort included 1068 patients, out of which 401 (37.5%) were White people and 400 (37.5%) were African-American. Genotype 1 was the most common genotype (83.9%, N&nbsp;=&nbsp;896). In the adjusted models, race/ethnicity and the&nbsp;presence of fibrosis were statistically significant predictors of non-SVR. African-Americans had 57% lower odds for reaching SVR12 (adj.OR&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.43, 95% CI&nbsp;=&nbsp;1.5-4.1) compared to White people. Advanced fibrosis (adj.OR&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.40, 95% CI&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.26-0.68) was also a significant predictor of non-SVR. In a single-center VA population on DAAs, African-Americans were less likely than White people to reach SVR12 when adjusting for covariates

Challenges to Implementing Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for Substance Use in Primary Care Settings at Rowan-Virtua

Background and Purpose: Implementing the SBIRT model for substance use in a primary care setting has many benefits including normalizing conversations about alcohol and other substance use into patients’ visits, thereby reducing harm, reducing consumption and its negative impact, and promoting system changes to overcome barriers to treatment access. The full scope of the current SBIRT project involves the recruitment, hiring, training, and integration of health educators in 9 primary care sites throughout South Jersey, as well as a project supervisor serving as implementation lead and liaison to medical and administrative staff at all 9 primary care sites. Initial barriers to implementation within sites included challenges regarding work-flow between providers, CMA’s, and health educators (integration-of-care challenges between allied health professionals from varying disciplines); and variations in administrative processes across 9 different primary care settings serving diverse patient demographics. Challenges to implementation with personnel included unexpected loss of key project personnel and changeover in project leadership. Additionally, legalization of medical and recreational cannabis in the state of New Jersey has made implementation of the grant (as written) challenging, as cannabis remains a Schedule 1 substance at the federal level and is included in the writing of this federally funded grant as an illicit substance. Due to Covid, a decrease of in-person visits in primary care settings as well as the normalization of telehealth visits have challenged the Health Educators’ ability to see potential pre-screen-positive patients. This lower volume of in-person patients has also subsequently resulted in more efficient processing of patient visits, affording less time to incorporate health education and brief intervention within each patient visit. There is a distinct need to develop a protocol for intervention with telehealth patients who screen positive for SBIRT services. Strategies for addressing these challenges, future directions of the project, and lessons learned will also be presented. References: Kamath, C. C., Kelpin, S. S., Patten, C. A., Rummans, T. A., Kremers, H. M., Oesterle, T. S., Williams, M. D., & Breitinger, S. A. (2022). Shaping the Screening, Behavioral Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Model for Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder in the COVID-19 Era. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 97, Issue 10, pp. 1774–1779). Elsevier Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2022.07.006 Substance Abuse Overview 2021 Statewide - NJ.GOV. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2023, from https://nj.gov/humanservices/dmhas/publications/statistical/Substance%20Abuse%20Overview/2021/statewide.pd Moore, Ramey PhDa; Purvis, Rachel S. PhDa; Hallgren, Emily PhDa; Reece, Sharon MD, CCFPa; Padilla-Ramos, Alan MDa; Gurel-Headley, Morgan BSb,c; Hall, Spencer MAd; McElfish, Pearl A. PhD, MBAa,*. “I am hesitant to visit the doctor unless absolutely necessary”: A qualitative study of delayed care, avoidance of care, and telehealth experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medicine 101(32):p e29439, August 12, 2022. | DOI: 10.1097/MD.000000000002943

A profile in FIRE: resolving the radial distributions of satellite galaxies in the Local Group with simulations

While many tensions between Local Group (LG) satellite galaxies and LCDM cosmology have been alleviated through recent cosmological simulations, the spatial distribution of satellites remains an important test of physical models and physical versus numerical disruption in simulations. Using the FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in baryonic simulations, we examine the radial distributions of satellites with Mstar > 10^5 Msun around 8 isolated Milky Way- (MW) mass host galaxies and 4 hosts in LG-like pairs. We demonstrate that these simulations resolve the survival and physical destruction of satellites with Mstar >~ 10^5 Msun. The simulations broadly agree with LG observations, spanning the radial profiles around the MW and M31. This agreement does not depend strongly on satellite mass, even at distances <~ 100 kpc. Host-to-host variation dominates the scatter in satellite counts within 300 kpc of the hosts, while time variation dominates scatter within 50 kpc. More massive host galaxies within our sample have fewer satellites at small distances, likely because of enhanced tidal destruction of satellites via the baryonic disks of host galaxies. Furthermore, we quantify and provide fits to the tidal depletion of subhalos in baryonic relative to dark matter-only simulations as a function of distance. Our simulated profiles imply observational incompleteness in the LG even at Mstar >~ 10^5 Msun: we predict 2-10 such satellites to be discovered around the MW and possibly 6-9 around M31. To provide cosmological context, we compare our results with the radial profiles of satellites around MW analogs in the SAGA survey, finding that our simulations are broadly consistent with most SAGA systems.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, plus appendices. Main results in figures 2, 3, and 4. Accepted versio

FGF4 retrogene on CFA12 is responsible for chondrodystrophy and intervertebral disc disease in dogs.

Chondrodystrophy in dogs is defined by dysplastic, shortened long bones and premature degeneration and calcification of intervertebral discs. Independent genome-wide association analyses for skeletal dysplasia (short limbs) within a single breed (PBonferroni = 0.01) and intervertebral disc disease (IVDD) across breeds (PBonferroni = 4.0 × 10-10) both identified a significant association to the same region on CFA12. Whole genome sequencing identified a highly expressed FGF4 retrogene within this shared region. The FGF4 retrogene segregated with limb length and had an odds ratio of 51.23 (95% CI = 46.69, 56.20) for IVDD. Long bone length in dogs is a unique example of multiple disease-causing retrocopies of the same parental gene in a mammalian species. FGF signaling abnormalities have been associated with skeletal dysplasia in humans, and our findings present opportunities for both selective elimination of a medically and financially devastating disease in dogs and further understanding of the ever-growing complexity of retrogene biology

Doesn\u27t Your Work Just Re-Center Whiteness? The Fallen Impossibilities of White Allyship

Our purpose is to engage performative dialogue incorporative of currere on a central question in critical White studies (CWS). After precautionary notes and positionalities, we frame our dialogue within second-wave CWS. As its main section, six CWS scholars respond to the central question: Doesn’t research on White identities re-center whiteness? Analyzing the scholars’ responses, the performative dialogue is followed by an analytical discussion of CWS’ epistemological, ontological, and axiological convolutions. Via these convolutions, we recognize the impossibilities of facile “White allyship” within antiracist scholarship, curriculum and pedagogy, and related social movements. Instead of White allyship, we propose situated, relational, and process-oriented notions of alliance-oriented antiracist work