Report: Interventions for Rural and Remote Youth Mental Health

Rural and remote communities in both Australia and Canada have a higher burden of mental illness relative to their urban counterparts. Suicide rates, particularly, are higher across all age groups among men in rural communities as compared to metropolitan areas. Mental health issues are especially present in younger populations within these communities. Additionally, rural and remote communities tend to have higher propo

Carbon Nanotube-Enhanced Carbon-Phenenolic Ablator Material

This viewgraph presentation reviews the use of PICA (phenolic impregnated carbon ablator) as the selected material for heat shielding for future earth return vehicles. It briefly reviews the manufacturing of PICA and the advantages for the use of heat shielding, and then explains the reason for using Carbon Nanotubes to improve strength of phenolic resin that binds carbon fibers together. It reviews the work being done to create a carbon nanotube enhanced PICA. Also shown are various micrographic images of the various PICA materials

First‐in‐Human Study of the Safety and Efficacy of TOL101 Induction to Prevent Kidney Transplant Rejection

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107383/1/ajt12698.pd

High Distribution of CD40 and TRAF2 in Th40 T Cell Rafts Leads to Preferential Survival of this Auto-Aggressive Population in Autoimmunity

CD40-CD154 interactions have proven critical in autoimmunity, with the identification of CD4(lo)CD40(+) T cells (Th40 cells) as harboring an autoaggressive T cell population shedding new insights into those disease processes. Th40 cells are present at contained levels in non-autoimmune individuals but are significantly expanded in autoimmunity. Th40 cells are necessary and sufficient in transferring type 1 diabetes in mouse models. However, little is known about CD40 signaling in T cells and whether there are differences in that signaling and subsequent outcome depending on disease conditions. When CD40 is engaged, CD40 and TNF-receptor associated factors, TRAFs, become associated with lipid raft microdomains. Dysregulation of T cell homeostasis is emerging as a major contributor to autoimmune disease and thwarted apoptosis is key in breaking homeostasis.Cells were sorted into CD4(hi) and CD4(lo) (Th40 cells) then treated and assayed either as whole or fractionated cell lysates. Protein expression was assayed by western blot and Nf-kappaB DNA-binding activity by electrophoretic mobility shifts. We demonstrate here that autoimmune NOD Th40 cells have drastically exaggerated expression of CD40 on a per-cell-basis compared to non-autoimmune BALB/c. Immediately ex-vivo, untreated Th40 cells from NOD mice have high levels of CD40 and TRAF2 associated with the raft microdomain while Th40 cells from NOR and BALB/c mice do not. CD40 engagement of Th40 cells induces Nf-kappaB DNA-binding activity and anti-apoptotic Bcl-X(L) expression in all three mouse strains. However, only in NOD Th40 cells is anti-apoptotic cFLIP(p43) induced which leads to preferential survival and proliferation. Importantly, CD40 engagement rescues NOD Th40 cells from Fas-induced death.CD40 may act as a switch between life and death promoting signals and NOD Th40 cells are poised for survival via this switch. This may explain how they expand in autoimmunity to thwart T cell homeostasis

Development of Pavement Structural Analysis Tool (PSAT) for Iowa Local Roads

Iowa has three classes of public roads: state primary highways, county (secondary) roads, and city streets. Among these, Iowa county roads serve rural Iowa transport needs by assuring a public road connection (i.e., to local access roads) for serving as conduits that channel the flow of people and commodities to and from towns and terminals (i.e., farm-to-market roads). Many Iowa county pavement systems are multilayered structures that have experienced multiple cycles of construction and renewal that make it more complex to estimate pavement structures\u2019 current structural capacities

Development of Pavement Structural Analysis Tool (PSAT) for Iowa Local Roads [Summary]

This study developed a user-friendly tool that allows local agencies to understand the current structural capacities of their pavement assets, prioritize their preservation and rehabilitation needs, and make better-informed pavement infrastructure decisions

The Gene Regulatory Cascade Linking Proneural Specification with Differentiation in Drosophila Sensory Neurons

Temporal expression profiling of sensory precursor cells reveals how the atonal proneural transcription factor regulates a specialized neuronal differentiation pathway

Recurrence of Type 1 Diabetes After Simultaneous Pancreas-Kidney Transplantation, Despite Immunosuppression, Is Associated With Autoantibodies and Pathogenic Autoreactive CD4 T-Cells

ObjectiveTo investigate if recurrent autoimmunity explained hyperglycemia and C-peptide loss in three immunosuppressed simultaneous pancreas-kidney (SPK) transplant recipients.Research design and methodsWe monitored autoantibodies and autoreactive T-cells (using tetramers) and performed biopsy. The function of autoreactive T-cells was studied with in vitro and in vivo assays.ResultsAutoantibodies were present pretransplant and persisted on follow-up in one patient. They appeared years after transplantation but before the development of hyperglycemia in the remaining patients. Pancreas transplant biopsies were taken within approximately 1 year from hyperglycemia recurrence and revealed beta-cell loss and insulitis. We studied autoreactive T-cells from the time of biopsy and repeatedly demonstrated their presence on further follow-up, together with autoantibodies. Treatment with T-cell-directed therapies (thymoglobulin and daclizumab, all patients), alone or with the addition of B-cell-directed therapy (rituximab, two patients), nonspecifically depleted T-cells and was associated with C-peptide secretion for >1 year. Autoreactive T-cells with the same autoantigen specificity and conserved T-cell receptor later reappeared with further C-peptide loss over the next 2 years. Purified autoreactive CD4 T-cells from two patients were cotransplanted with HLA-mismatched human islets into immunodeficient mice. Grafts showed beta-cell loss in mice receiving autoreactive T-cells but not control T-cells.ConclusionsWe demonstrate the cardinal features of recurrent autoimmunity in three such patients, including the reappearance of CD4 T-cells capable of mediating beta-cell destruction. Markers of autoimmunity can help diagnose this underappreciated cause of graft loss. Immune monitoring during therapy showed that autoimmunity was not resolved by the immunosuppressive agents used

Effector and Naturally Occurring Regulatory T Cells Display No Abnormalities in Activation Induced Cell Death in NOD Mice

BACKGROUND: Disturbed peripheral negative regulation might contribute to evolution of autoimmune insulitis in type 1 diabetes. This study evaluates the sensitivity of naïve/effector (Teff) and regulatory T cells (Treg) to activation-induced cell death mediated by Fas cross-linking in NOD and wild-type mice. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Both effector (CD25(-), FoxP3(-)) and suppressor (CD25(+), FoxP3(+)) CD4(+) T cells are negatively regulated by Fas cross-linking in mixed splenocyte populations of NOD, wild type mice and FoxP3-GFP trangeneess. Proliferation rates and sensitivity to Fas cross-linking are dissociated in Treg cells: fast cycling induced by IL-2 and CD3/CD28 stimulation improve Treg resistance to Fas-ligand (FasL) in both strains. The effector and suppressor CD4(+) subsets display balanced sensitivity to negative regulation under baseline conditions, IL-2 and CD3/CD28 stimulation, indicating that stimulation does not perturb immune homeostasis in NOD mice. Effective autocrine apoptosis of diabetogenic cells was evident from delayed onset and reduced incidence of adoptive disease transfer into NOD.SCID by CD4(+)CD25(-) T cells decorated with FasL protein. Treg resistant to Fas-mediated apoptosis retain suppressive activity in vitro. The only detectable differential response was reduced Teff proliferation and upregulation of CD25 following CD3-activation in NOD mice. CONCLUSION: These data document negative regulation of effector and suppressor cells by Fas cross-linking and dissociation between sensitivity to apoptosis and proliferation in stimulated Treg. There is no evidence that perturbed AICD in NOD mice initiates or promotes autoimmune insulitis

Fantastically reasonable: ambivalence in the representation of science and technology in super-hero comics

A long-standing contrast in academic discussions of science concerns its perceived disenchanting or enchanting public impact. In one image, science displaces magical belief in unknowable entities with belief in knowable forces and processes and reduces all things to a single technical measure. In the other, science is itself magically transcendent, expressed in technological adulation and an image of scientists as wizards or priests. This paper shows that these contrasting images are also found in representations of science in super-hero comics, which, given their lowly status in Anglo-American culture, would seem an unlikely place to find such commonality with academic discourse. It is argued that this is evidence that the contrast constitutes an ambivalence arising from the dilemmas that science poses; they are shared rhetorics arising from and reflexively feeding a set of broad cultural concerns. This is explored through consideration of representations of science at a number of levels in the comics, with particular focus on the science-magic constellation, and enchanted and disenchanted imagery in representations of technology and scientists. It is concluded that super-hero comics are one cultural arena where the public meaning of science is actively worked out, an activity that unites “expert” and “non-expert” alike