Challenging Participation in Sustainability Research

If we take the rhetoric of recent academic and policy discourse at face value, crossing disciplinary and institutional boundaries and engaging extra-scientific actors in the production and distribution of knowledge has become a kind of ‘gold standard’ . This is particularly true for fields like sustainability research, which is supposed to address the complexity of so-called ‘grand challenges’ of contemporary societies. Investigating the projects of a funding scheme for participatory sustainability research, this paper explores how researchers frame participatory research practices in their prospective narrations in research proposals and in their retrospective reflections in the framework of interviews. Thereby we focus on their stories about (1 ) the overall value of participation, (2) the roles allocated to different actors, (3) the temporal organization of participation as well as the (4) spatial dimension of collaboration. Building on this analysis, the paper concludesthat even though participatory research programs create new possibilities, they remain limited in scope as they operate in an environment in which this kind of cross-boundary work does not fit the established standards. This strongly limits any form of “collective experimentation” and new ways of learning in sustainability research and beyond

Challenging Participation in Sustainability Research

If we take the rhetoric of recent academic and policy discourse at face value, crossing disciplinary and institutional boundaries and engaging extra-scientific actors in the production and distribution of knowledge has become a kind of ‘gold standard’ . This is particularly true for fields like sustainability research, which is supposed to address the complexity of so-called ‘grand challenges’ of contemporary societies. Investigating the projects of a funding scheme for participatory sustainability research, this paper explores how researchers frame participatory research practices in their prospective narrations in research proposals and in their retrospective reflections in the framework of interviews. Thereby we focus on their stories about (1 ) the overall value of participation, (2) the roles allocated to different actors, (3) the temporal organization of participation as well as the (4) spatial dimension of collaboration. Building on this analysis, the paper concludesthat even though participatory research programs create new possibilities, they remain limited in scope as they operate in an environment in which this kind of cross-boundary work does not fit the established standards. This strongly limits any form of “collective experimentation” and new ways of learning in sustainability research and beyond

A principal component meta-analysis on multiple anthropometric traits identifies novel loci for body shape

Large consortia have revealed hundreds of genetic loci associated with anthropometric traits, one trait at a time. We examined whether genetic variants affect body shape as a composite phenotype that is represented by a combination of anthropometric traits. We developed an approach that calculates averaged PCs (AvPCs) representing body shape derived from six anthropometric traits (body mass index, height, weight, waist and hip circumference, waist-to-hip ratio). The first four AvPCs explain >99% of the variability, are heritable, and associate with cardiometabolic outcomes. We performed genome-wide association analyses for each body shape composite phenotype across 65 studies and meta-analysed summary statistics. We identify six novel loci: LEMD2 and CD47 for AvPC1, RPS6KA5/C14orf159 and GANAB for AvPC3, and ARL15 and ANP32 for AvPC4. Our findings highlight the value of using multiple traits to define complex phenotypes for discovery, which are not captured by single-trait analyses, and may shed light onto new pathways.Peer reviewe

The Therapeutic Landscape of Rheumatoid Arthritis: Current State and Future Directions

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a debilitating autoimmune disease with grave physical, emotional and socioeconomic consequences. Despite advances in targeted biologic and pharmacologic interventions that have recently come to market, many patients with RA continue to have inadequate response to therapies, or intolerable side effects, with resultant progression of their disease. In this review, we detail multiple biomolecular pathways involved in RA disease pathogenesis to elucidate and highlight pathways that have been therapeutic targets in managing this systemic autoimmune disease. Here we present an up-to-date accounting of both emerging and approved pharmacological treatments for RA, detailing their discovery, mechanisms of action, efficacy, and limitations. Finally, we turn to the emerging fields of bioengineering and cell therapy to illuminate possible future targeted therapeutic options that combine material and biological sciences for localized therapeutic action with the potential to greatly reduce side effects seen in systemically applied treatment modalities

Dichotomous roles for externalized cardiolipin in extracellular signaling : promotion of phagocytosis and attenuation of innate immunity

We perform an experiment designed to assess the accuracy of beliefs about characteristics and decisions. Subjects are asked to declare beliefs typically formed through real world experiences. They are then asked to report beliefs concerning other individuals from the same environment. We test two main hypotheses: (i) whether for items not perfectly observable, individuals suffer from some type of biased beliefs; (ii) whether this bias is reduced when information is more readily available. We find a powerful and ubiquitous bias in perceptions that is “self-centered” in the sense that those at extremes tend to perceive themselves as closer to the middle of the distribution than is the case. This bias does not completely disappear when the information is more readily available. We present evidence from our experiment that limited attention and self-serving deception can provide explanations for this bias and present important economic applications. Among the distinct molecular signatures present in the mitochondrion is the tetra-acylated anionic phospholipid cardiolipin, a lipid also present in primordial, single-cell bacterial ancestors of mitochondria and multiple bacterial species today. Cardiolipin is normally localized to the inner mitochondrial membrane; however, when cardiolipin becomes externalized to the surface of dysregulated mitochondria, it promotes inflammasome activation and stimulates the elimination of damaged or nonfunctional mitochondria by mitophagy. Given the immunogenicity of mitochondrial and bacterial membranes that are released during sterile and pathogen-induced trauma, we hypothesized that cardiolipins might function as “eat me” signals for professional phagocytes. In experiments with macrophage cell lines and primary macrophages, we found that membranes with mitochondrial or bacterial cardiolipins on their surface were engulfed through phagocytosis, which depended on the scavenger receptor CD36. Distinct from this process, the copresentation of cardiolipin with the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) agonist lipopolysaccharide dampened TLR4-stimulated production of cytokines. These data suggest that externalized, extracellular cardiolipins play a dual role in host-host and host-pathogen interactions by promoting phagocytosis and attenuating inflammatory immune responses