Pandemic Influenza Planning in the United States from a Health Disparities Perspective

Preparedness plans must account for the fact that illness and death rates may differ for members of some socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups during a pandemic

Power and limitations of electrophoretic separations in proteomics strategies

Proteomics can be defined as the large-scale analysis of proteins. Due to the complexity of biological systems, it is required to concatenate various separation techniques prior to mass spectrometry. These techniques, dealing with proteins or peptides, can rely on chromatography or electrophoresis. In this review, the electrophoretic techniques are under scrutiny. Their principles are recalled, and their applications for peptide and protein separations are presented and critically discussed. In addition, the features that are specific to gel electrophoresis and that interplay with mass spectrometry (i.e., protein detection after electrophoresis, and the process leading from a gel piece to a solution of peptides) are also discussed

Plasmodium knowlesi: Reservoir Hosts and Tracking the Emergence in Humans and Macaques

Plasmodium knowlesi, a malaria parasite originally thought to be restricted to macaques in Southeast Asia, has recently been recognized as a significant cause of human malaria. Unlike the benign and morphologically similar P. malariae, these parasites can lead to fatal infections. Malaria parasites, including P. knowlesi, have not yet been detected in macaques of the Kapit Division of Malaysian Borneo, where the majority of human knowlesi malaria cases have been reported. In order to extend our understanding of the epidemiology and evolutionary history of P. knowlesi, we examined 108 wild macaques for malaria parasites and sequenced the circumsporozoite protein (csp) gene and mitochondrial (mt) DNA of P. knowlesi isolates derived from macaques and humans. We detected five species of Plasmodium (P. knowlesi, P. inui, P. cynomolgi, P. fieldi and P. coatneyi) in the long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques, and an extremely high prevalence of P. inui and P. knowlesi. Macaques had a higher number of P. knowlesi genotypes per infection than humans, and some diverse alleles of the P. knowlesi csp gene and certain mtDNA haplotypes were shared between both hosts. Analyses of DNA sequence data indicate that there are no mtDNA lineages associated exclusively with either host. Furthermore, our analyses of the mtDNA data reveal that P. knowlesi is derived from an ancestral parasite population that existed prior to human settlement in Southeast Asia, and underwent significant population expansion approximately 30,000–40,000 years ago. Our results indicate that human infections with P. knowlesi are not newly emergent in Southeast Asia and that knowlesi malaria is primarily a zoonosis with wild macaques as the reservoir hosts. However, ongoing ecological changes resulting from deforestation, with an associated increase in the human population, could enable this pathogenic species of Plasmodium to switch to humans as the preferred host

Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis in proteomics: past, present and future

Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis has been instrumental in the birth and developments of proteomics, although it is no longer the exclusive separation tool used in the field of proteomics. In this review, a historical perspective is made, starting from the days where two-dimensional gels were used and the word proteomics did not even exist. The events that have led to the birth of proteomics are also recalled, ending with a description of the now well-known limitations of two-dimensional gels in proteomics. However, the often-underestimated advantages of two-dimensional gels are also underlined, leading to a description of how and when to use two-dimensional gels for the best in a proteomics approach. Taking support of these advantages (robustness, resolution, and ability to separate entire, intact proteins), possible future applications of this technique in proteomics are also mentioned

A naturalistic examination of successful change in junior high schools

Having successfully orchestrated a substantial change in his own junior high school, the author went to the literature on change in educational organizations for insight into the change process. The literature, though quite pessimistic about change in schools, did offer a kind of classic change implementation model. The model paralleled quite accurately the pattern of implementation followed by the administrator in his school, though he had employed a mere "common-sensical" approach. The problems presented themselves clearly: if the appropriate approach to the implementation of change in a school setting is so pedestrian, why is it that the literature is so pessimistic, and why do so many change attempts apparently meet with failure? And conversely, why was this change attempt, and other similar change experiences, successful?A qualitative approach to the problem seemed most appropriate, and within that paradigm a grounded theory strategy was chosen. Representative staff members from three middle schools which had gone through a common successful change process (the adoption of academic teams) were interviewed in free form and structured style. From the resulting 60 interviews, the hypothesis emerged that, perhaps, most innovations in education lacked the necessary motivators to entice teachers, the true arbiters of change, to fully accept the innovation. The interview data were consequently compared to Maslow's (1970) Needs Hierarchy model, and the results of that comparison were shared with the staffs. Another round of interviews with the teachers/administrators of the three schools lent support to the notion of necessity of attention to the psychological needs of teachers, as outlined by Maslow, and, to a lesser extent, to those of their students on the part of change agents. The study suggests, then, that those innovations and change processes which to some degree help satisfy the basic psychological needs of teachers have greatly enhanced changes of success. It appears that the degree of psychological satisfaction inherent to the nature of a change itself is much more elusive than is the more common-sensical classic model for change orchestration.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio