Potential for and Barriers to Actionable Antiracism in the Writing Center: Views from the IWCA Special Interest Group on Antiracism Activism

The IWCA Special Interest Group (SIG) on Antiracism Activism “is a group committed to undoing racism at multiple levels: in the immediate context of the writing conference and local writing center, and more widely through systematic cross-curricular and cross-institutional initiatives” (“WCActivism”). This piece features the SIG’s participation in the 2018 online IWCA Collaborative at CCCC: the SIG leaders assembled a diverse panel of scholars and practitioners from different races, ages, institutions, and varying levels and types of writing center experience, but with useful and firm beliefs in action. Using Rasha Diab et al.’s 2013 article “Making Commitments to Racial Justice Actionable” as a starting point, the panelists drew on their various perspectives to examine the potential for and barriers to actionable antiracism activism within both the writing center and the IWCA. The authors reflect on antiracism action in, through, and by writing centers and those who work in them, situated within writing centers’ local, academic, and institutional contexts.University Writing Cente

Creating a Computable Cognitive Model of Visual Aesthetics for Automatic Aesthetics Evaluation of Robotic Dance Poses

Inspired by human dancers who can evaluate the aesthetics of their own dance poses through mirror observation, this paper presents a corresponding mechanism for robots to improve their cognitive and autonomous abilities. Essentially, the proposed mechanism is a brain-like intelligent system that is symmetrical to the visual cognitive nervous system of the human brain. Specifically, a computable cognitive model of visual aesthetics is developed using the two important aesthetic cognitive neural models of the human brain, which is then applied in the automatic aesthetics evaluation of robotic dance poses. Three kinds of features (color, shape and orientation) are extracted in a manner similar to the visual feature elements extracted by human brains. After applying machine learning methods in different feature combinations, machine aesthetics models are built for automatic evaluation of robotic dance poses. The simulation results show that our approach can process visual information effectively by cognitive computation, and achieved a very good evaluation performance of automatic aesthetics

Visualization of the Genesis and Fate of Isotype-switched B Cells during a Primary Immune Response

The life history of isotype-switched B cells is unclear, in part, because of an inability to detect rare antigen-specific B cells at early times during the immune response. To address this issue, a small population of B cells carrying targeted antibody transgenes capable of class switching was monitored in immunized mice. After contacting helper T cells, the first switched B cells appeared in follicles rather than in the red pulp, as was expected. Later, some of the switched B cells transiently occupied the red pulp and marginal zone, whereas others persisted in germinal centers (GCs). Antigen-experienced IgM B cells were rarely found in GCs, indicating that these cells switched rapidly after entering GCs or did not persist in this environment

Synthesis of Naphthol-Benzothiazole Derivatives (HBO) and Dual-channel Non-destructive Detection of Salmon Freshness Using Agarose Gel Loaded with HBO

In order to make up for the misjudgment of fish freshness by colorimetry due to the unclear color distinction, a naphthol-benzothiazole derivative (HBO) was synthesized by the condensation reaction of naphthol as a fluorophore with benzothiazole salt. HBO could recognize organic amines by colorimetric and fluorescent responses, and allow nondestructive detection of salmon freshness. HBO showed an obvious response for all 12 amines tested in an EtOH/H2O (1:9, V/V) system, had a low limit of detection (0.4 μmol/L for spermine), and could image for spermine in living cells. The sensing gel HBO agarose gel (HBOAL) was prepared by loading the probe onto agarose gels. When salmon flesh is stored with HBOAL, the fish can be judged to be spoiled if HBOAL exhibits a light red color in daylight and a yellow color in ultraviolet light. HBOAL distinguished clearly among the three grades of salmon fish freshness with accurate evaluation results, and therefore could be used to monitor the freshness of salmon fish in real time

Precise Measurements of Branching Fractions for Ds+D_s^+ Meson Decays to Two Pseudoscalar Mesons

We measure the branching fractions for seven $D_{s}^{+}$ two-body decays to pseudo-scalar mesons, by analyzing data collected at $\sqrt{s}=4.178\sim4.226$ GeV with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider. The branching fractions are determined to be $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to K^+\eta^{\prime})=(2.68\pm0.17\pm0.17\pm0.08)\times10^{-3}$, $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to\eta^{\prime}\pi^+)=(37.8\pm0.4\pm2.1\pm1.2)\times10^{-3}$, $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to K^+\eta)=(1.62\pm0.10\pm0.03\pm0.05)\times10^{-3}$, $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to\eta\pi^+)=(17.41\pm0.18\pm0.27\pm0.54)\times10^{-3}$, $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to K^+K_S^0)=(15.02\pm0.10\pm0.27\pm0.47)\times10^{-3}$, $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to K_S^0\pi^+)=(1.109\pm0.034\pm0.023\pm0.035)\times10^{-3}$, $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to K^+\pi^0)=(0.748\pm0.049\pm0.018\pm0.023)\times10^{-3}$, where the first uncertainties are statistical, the second are systematic, and the third are from external input branching fraction of the normalization mode $D_s^+\to K^+K^-\pi^+$. Precision of our measurements is significantly improved compared with that of the current world average values

Repression of the genome organizer SATB1 in regulatory T cells is required for suppressive function and inhibition of effector differentiation

Regulatory T cells (T(reg) cells) are essential for self-tolerance and immune homeostasis. Lack of effector T cell (T(eff) cell) function and gain of suppressive activity by T(reg) cells are dependent on the transcriptional program induced by Foxp3. Here we report that repression of SATB1, a genome organizer that regulates chromatin structure and gene expression, was crucial for the phenotype and function of T(reg) cells. Foxp3, acting as a transcriptional repressor, directly suppressed the SATB1 locus and indirectly suppressed it through the induction of microRNAs that bound the SATB1 3' untranslated region. Release of SATB1 from the control of Foxp3 in T(reg) cells caused loss of suppressive function, establishment of transcriptional T(eff) cell programs and induction of T(eff) cell cytokines. Our data support the proposal that inhibition of SATB1-mediated modulation of global chromatin remodeling is pivotal for maintaining T(reg) cell functionality.Marc Beyer... Timothy Sadlon...Simon C Barry... et al

Minimum Information about T Regulatory Cells: A Step toward Reproducibility and Standardization.

Cellular therapies with CD4+ T regulatory cells (Tregs) hold promise of efficacious treatment for the variety of autoimmune and allergic diseases as well as posttransplant complications. Nevertheless, current manufacturing of Tregs as a cellular medicinal product varies between different laboratories, which in turn hampers precise comparisons of the results between the studies performed. While the number of clinical trials testing Tregs is already substantial, it seems to be crucial to provide some standardized characteristics of Treg products in order to minimize the problem. We have previously developed reporting guidelines called minimum information about tolerogenic antigen-presenting cells, which allows the comparison between different preparations of tolerance-inducing antigen-presenting cells. Having this experience, here we describe another minimum information about Tregs (MITREG). It is important to note that MITREG does not dictate how investigators should generate or characterize Tregs, but it does require investigators to report their Treg data in a consistent and transparent manner. We hope this will, therefore, be a useful tool facilitating standardized reporting on the manufacturing of Tregs, either for research purposes or for clinical application. This way MITREG might also be an important step toward more standardized and reproducible testing of the Tregs preparations in clinical applications

Study on Response Relation between Eco-Environment Change and Soil Erosion Process in Reclaimed Forestland of Loess Hilly Region in China

Abstract: The soil erosion of Loess Plateau is the main cause of the worse eco-environment, and the control of erosion environment is the key to ensure the eco-environment construction successfully. Based on the 10 year's data observed in the Loess hilly region, the paper studied the response relation between eco-environment change and soil erosion process after forestlands reclaimed. The results showed that when the man-made changed the eco-environment to reclaim forestland, the intensity of man-made soil erosion was more 1,000 times than that of the natural erosion. Taken the soil erosion modulus unit erosivity of rainfall as the index, the soil erosion intensity increased apparently with the erosive time eroded. Then from the analysis of soil physical and forces properties, in 10 th year eroded after forestland reclaimed, the clay content and physical clay content decreased 2.74% and 3.01% respectively, which showed the soil particles had the tendency to skeleton soil, and the >0.25mm water stable aggregate content also decreased 58.7%, the soil unit weight increased and the soil shear strength decreased, all of which were easier to occur soil erosion. The correlation analysis showed that >0.25mm water stable aggregate content was the maximum effect factor to soil erosion, the partial correlated coefficient was 0.9728, and then were soil coarse grain and soil shear strength, the partial correlated coefficients were 0.8879 and 0.6020 respectively. The relation between the >0.25mm water stable aggregate content, the soil sheer strength and the soil erosion intensity were analyzed, which showed that the first and seventh year were the turn years of the soil erosion intensity after the forestlands reclaimed, revealed the change of eco-environment was the main cause to accelerate soil erosion. The degenerative soil eroded and eco-environment formed the peculiar erosion environment, which increased the soil erosion rapidly. So to return slope farmland into forest and grassland, to recover and reconstruct vegetation and improve the eco-environment were the key measurement to control soil erosion of Loess Plateau