Catalyzing Collaboration: The Developing Infrastructure for Federal Public Private Partnerships

There is growing interest on the part of government, philanthropy and business to work together to achieve greater impact. Partnerships that span the sectors have the potential to achieve more than any sector can achieve on its own by leveraging the strengths of each. However, such partnerships also give rise to added costs and entail greater risks. To address these challenges, offices of strategic partnerships are emerging at the federal level to provide an infrastructure to catalyze cross-sectoral partnerships. This report examines 21 such offices in federal departments and agencies whose purpose is to facilitate and accelerate partnerships with philanthropy and business -- ranging from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Education, to the Department of State and the Agency for International Development, to the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The formation of these offices has been driven by champions within government -- many with prior experience in philanthropy or business -- that have witnessed the power of working collaboratively with other sectors. Their actions have often been reinforced by executive orders and other directives conducive to their growth. In the case of those offices that have been created in the last few years, they have also been encouraged by the examples of their more established counterparts

Offices of Strategic Partnerships: Helping Philanthropy and Government Work Better Together

· There is a growing interest on the part of philanthropy and government in working together to address problems of common interest. But crosssectoral collaborations are not easy. In response, a new organizational structure – the office of strategic partnerships – is emerging that catalyzes, fosters, and accelerates such partnerships. · These offices help to overcome the barriers of working across sectors by sharing knowledge and information about the sectors, identifying and convening stakeholders to discuss shared solutions, and leveraging resources to support public-problem solving. · Based on interviews and a convening of principals of six of these offices at the city, state, and federal levels, this article1 examines the lessons for making these offices successful in facilitating government-philanthropic partnerships. · In particular, it focuses on the need to determine appropriate roles and expectations, match philanthropic and government interests, find and field the right leadership, and build a record of success that encourages the sustainability of these offices

A survey of low-velocity collisional features in Saturn's F ring

Small (~50km scale), irregular features seen in Cassini images to be emanating from Saturn's F ring have been termed mini-jets by Attree et al. (2012). One particular mini-jet was tracked over half an orbital period, revealing its evolution with time and suggesting a collision with a local moonlet as its origin. In addition to these data we present here a much more detailed analysis of the full catalogue of over 800 F ring mini-jets, examining their distribution, morphology and lifetimes in order to place constraints on the underlying moonlet population. We find mini-jets randomly located in longitude around the ring, with little correlation to the moon Prometheus, and randomly distributed in time, over the full Cassini tour to date. They have a tendency to cluster together, forming complicated `multiple' structures, and have typical lifetimes of ~1d. Repeated observations of some features show significant evolution, including the creation of new mini-jets, implying repeated collisions by the same object. This suggests a population of <~1km radius objects with some internal strength and orbits spread over 100km in semi-major axis relative to the F ring but with the majority within 20km. These objects likely formed in the ring under, and were subsequently scattered onto differing orbits by, the perturbing action of Prometheus. This reinforces the idea of the F ring as a region with a complex balance between collisions, disruption and accretion.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in Icarus. Supplementary information available at http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~attree/mini-jets

Copper-catalysed C-H functionalisation gives access to 2-aminobenzimidazoles

This paper describes the development, optimisation and exemplification of a copper-catalysed C–H functionalisation to form pharmaceutically relevant 2-aminobenzimidazoles from aryl-guanidines. High throughput screening was used as a tool to identify a catalytically active copper source, DoE was used for reaction optimisation and a range of aryl-guanidines were prepared and exposed to the optimum conditions to afford a range of 2-aminobenzimidazoles in moderate to good yields. The methodology has been applied to the synthesis of Emedastine, a marketed anti-histamine pharmaceutical compound, with the key cyclisation step performed on a gram-scale

The discovery and dynamical evolution of an object at the outer edge of Saturn's A ring

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (Grant No. ST/F007566/1) and we are grateful to them for financial assistance. C.D.M. is also grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a Research Fellowshippublisher PDF not permitted, withdraw

LRP5 and LRP6 Are Not Required for Protective Antigen–Mediated Internalization or Lethality of Anthrax Lethal Toxin

Anthrax toxin (AnTx) plays a key role in the pathogenesis of anthrax. AnTx is composed of three proteins: protective antigen (PA), edema factor, and lethal factor (LF). PA is not toxic but serves to bind cells and translocate the toxic edema factor or LF moieties to the cytosol. Recently, the low-density lipoprotein receptor–related protein LRP6 has been reported to mediate internalization and lethality of AnTx. Based on its similarity to LRP6, we hypothesized that LRP5 may also play a role in cellular uptake of AnTx. We assayed PA-dependent uptake of anthrax LF or a cytotoxic LF fusion protein (FP59) in cells and mice harboring targeted deletions of Lrp5 or Lrp6. Unexpectedly, we observed that uptake was unaltered in the presence or absence of either Lrp5 or Lrp6 expression. Moreover, we observed efficient PA-mediated uptake into anthrax toxin receptor (ANTXR)–deficient Chinese hamster ovary cells (PR230) that had been stably engineered to express either human ANTXR1 or human ANTXR2 in the presence or absence of siRNA specific for LRP5 or LRP6. Our results demonstrate that neither LRP5 nor LRP6 is necessary for PA-mediated internalization or lethality of anthrax lethal toxin

So depression is an inflammatory disease, but where does the inflammation come from?

BACKGROUND: We now know that depression is associated with a chronic, low-grade inflammatory response and activation of cell-mediated immunity, as well as activation of the compensatory anti-inflammatory reflex system. It is similarly accompanied by increased oxidative and nitrosative stress (O&NS), which contribute to neuroprogression in the disorder. The obvious question this poses is 'what is the source of this chronic low-grade inflammation?' DISCUSSION: This review explores the role of inflammation and oxidative and nitrosative stress as possible mediators of known environmental risk factors in depression, and discusses potential implications of these findings. A range of factors appear to increase the risk for the development of depression, and seem to be associated with systemic inflammation; these include psychosocial stressors, poor diet, physical inactivity, obesity, smoking, altered gut permeability, atopy, dental cares, sleep and vitamin D deficiency. SUMMARY: The identification of known sources of inflammation provides support for inflammation as a mediating pathway to both risk and neuroprogression in depression. Critically, most of these factors are plastic, and potentially amenable to therapeutic and preventative interventions. Most, but not all, of the above mentioned sources of inflammation may play a role in other psychiatric disorders, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism and post-traumatic stress disorder

Differential expression of miRNAs in colon cancer between African and Caucasian Americans: Implications for cancer racial health disparities

Colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence and mortality are higher in African Americans (AAs) than in Caucasian Americans (CAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to be dysregulated in colonic and other neoplasias. The aim of this exploratory study was to identify candidate miRNAs that could contribute to potential biological differences between AA and CA colon cancers. Total RNA was isolated from tumor and paired adjacent normal colon tissue from 30 AA and 31 CA colon cancer patients archived at Stony Brook University (SBU) and Washington University (WU)-St. Louis Medical Center. miRNA profiles were determined by probing human genome-wide miRNA arrays with RNA isolated from each sample. Using repeated measures analysis of variance (RANOVA), miRNAs were selected that exhibited significant (p<0.05) interactions between race and tumor or significant (fold change >1.5, p<0.05) main effects of race and/or tumor. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (q-PCR) was used to confirm miRNAs identified by microarray analysis. Candidate miRNA targets were analyzed using immunohistochemistry. RANOVA results indicated that miR-182, miR152, miR-204, miR-222 and miR-202 exhibited significant race and tumor main effects. Of these miRNAs, q-PCR analysis confirmed that miR-182 was upregulated in AA vs. CA tumors and exhibited significant race:tumor interaction. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that the levels of FOXO1 and FOXO3A, two potential miR-182 targets, are reduced in AA tumors. miRNAs may play a role in the differences between AA and CA colon cancer. Specifically, differences in miRNA expression levels of miR-182 may contribute to decreased survival in AA colon cancer patients

Proceedings of the 2015 WA Chapter of MSA Symposium on Music Performance and Analysis

This publication, entitled Proceedings of the 2015 WA Chapter MSA Symposium on Music Performance and Analysis, is a double-blind peer-reviewed conference proceedings published by the Western Australian Chapter of the Musicological Society of Australia, in conjunction with the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, edited by Jonathan Paget, Victoria Rogers, and Nicholas Bannan. The original symposium was held at the University of Western Australia, School of Music, on 12 December 2015. With the advent of performer-scholars within Australian Universities, the intersections between analytical knowledge and performance are constantly being re-evaluated and reinvented. This collection of papers presents several strands of analytical discourse, including: (1) the analysis of music recordings, particularly in terms of historical performance practices; (2) reinventions of the \u27page-to-stage\u27 paradigm, employing new analytical methods; (3) analytical knowledge applied to pedagogy, particularly concerning improvisation; and (4) so-called \u27practice-led\u27 research.https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecubooks/1005/thumbnail.jp