The Educational Sojourn Of The Returned Iranian Alumni From University Of California, 1963-64--1973-74

PROBLEM: The flow of returning Iranian graduates from American educational institutions has focused attention upon the educational experiences of the graduates and the extent to which they are able to utilize their training for employment in Iran. PURPOSE: The major purposes of this study were to analyze (.1) the degree of satisfaction of the sojourn period in terms of the academic, economic, arid social experiences of a group of Iranian alumni who have returned to Iran, and (2) the relevancy and applicability of their American education. METHODOLOGY: The sample for this study was a group of Iranian graduates from the University of California system who returned to Iran. A list of 103 alumni was prepared under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Iran. The alumni were contacted on the phone by the researcher in Iran and 76 confirmations for the interviews were arranged. During the course of interviews, a structured questionnaire was administered and items therein were discussed at length. The questionnaire contained 28 reaction items pertaining to the institutional information and 20 general items designed to elicit descriptive data. Open-ended questions were also included. Selected-computer programs for·the statistical package for the Social Science (SPSS) provided the following analyses: (1) frequency distributions, (2) contingency tables for the categorical data, and (3) means, standard deviations, and Pearson Product Correlation Coefficients for the items related to the degree of satisfaction. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study indicated that 10 to 45 percent of the respondents encountered difficulties in 11 specific areas of academic, economic, and social aspects of their sojourn experiences. The major difficulties were: finding suitable housing, using the English language effectively, and receiving helps from the student advisors. The respondents indicated their satisfaction with the academic, economic, and social aspects of the University of California experiences. Male graduates with doctoral degrees were the most satisfied group of the graduates with their academic aspects of their experience. Females expressed a higher degree of satisfaction with social and physical aspects of their sojourn experience then did the males. The males and singles who graduated with a doctoral degree were highly satisfied with the relevancy and_ applicability of their training to the needs of Iran. Ninety-five percent of the respondents reported using their training to either some or high degree in their employment. The graduates in environmental design indicated that they were highly satisfied with the opportunities they had for using their university training in Iran, while the graduates in chemistry were the least satisfied in this respect. Upon returning to Iran, 87 percent of the graduates held positions in 3 occupational categories: professorships, 41 percent; administrative positions, 33 percent; and engineering, 13 percent. The remaining 13 percent of the graduates held positions in 7 different disciplines. RECOMMENDATIONS: 1) Adequate information should be provided for the student who wishes to study in the United States. The prospective university should supply the student with accurate information related to the academic, economic, physical, and social aspects of the institutions. 2) Sufficient knowledge of English language should be required of students prior to admittance into universities. 3) The government of Iran should direct and encourage Iranian students who wish to study abroad into fields of study which are in demand and are easily applicable in Iran. 4) This study should be replicated in an effort to substantiate the findings and to generalize them into wider populations

Quantitative Measurement of Pathogen-Specific Human Memory T cell Repertoire Diversity Using a CDR3 beta-specific Microarray

BACKGROUND: Providing quantitative microarray data that is sensitive to very small differences in target sequence would be a useful tool in any number of venues where a sample can consist of a multiple related sequences present in various abundances. Examples of such applications would include measurement of pseudo species in viral infections and the measurement of species of antibodies or T cell receptors that constitute immune repertoires. Difficulties that must be overcome in such a method would be to account for cross-hybridization and for differences in hybridization efficiencies between the arrayed probes and their corresponding targets. We have used the memory T cell repertoire to an influenza-derived peptide as a test case for developing such a method. RESULTS: The arrayed probes were corresponded to a 17 nucleotide TCR-specific region that distinguished sequences differing by as little as a single nucleotide. Hybridization efficiency between highly related Cy5-labeled subject sequences was normalized by including an equimolar mixture of Cy3-labeled synthetic targets representing all 108 arrayed probes. The same synthetic targets were used to measure the degree of cross hybridization between probes. Reconstitution studies found the system sensitive to input ratios as low as 0.5% and accurate in measuring known input percentages (R2 = 0.81, R = 0.90, p \u3c 0.0001). A data handling protocol was developed to incorporate the differences in hybridization efficiency. To validate the array in T cell repertoire analysis, it was used to analyze human recall responses to influenza in three human subjects and compared to traditional cloning and sequencing. When evaluating the rank order of clonotype abundance determined by each method, the approaches were not found significantly different (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, p \u3e 0.05). CONCLUSION: This novel strategy appears to be robust and can be adapted to any situation where complex mixtures of highly similar sequences need to be quantitatively resolved

Age-Based Dynamics of a Stable Circulating Cd8 T Cell Repertoire Component

T-cell memory to pathogens can be envisioned as a receptor-based imprint of the pathogenic environment on the naive repertoire of clonotypes. Recurrent exposures to a pathogen inform and reinforce memory, leading to a mature state. The complexity and temporal stability of this system in man is only beginning to be adequately described. We have been using a rank-frequency approach for quantitative analysis of CD8 T cell repertoires. Rank acts as a proxy for previous expansion, and rank-frequency, the number of clonotypes at a particular rank, as a proxy for abundance, with the relation of the two estimating the diversity of the system. Previous analyses of circulating antigen-experienced cytotoxic CD8 T-cell repertoires from adults have shown a complex two-component clonotype distribution. Here we show this is also the case for circulating CD8 T cells expressing the BV19 receptor chain from five adult subjects. When the repertoire characteristic of clonotype stability is added to the analysis, an inverse correlation between clonotype rank frequency and stability is observed. Clonotypes making up the second distributional component are stable; indicating that the circulation can be a depot of selected clonotypes. Temporal repertoire dynamics was further examined for influenza-specific T cells from children, middle-aged, and older adults. Taken together, these analyses describe a dynamic process of system development and aging, with increasing distributional complexity, leading to a stable circulating component, followed by loss of both complexity and stability

Introduction to the Neuropsychological Norms for the US-Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) Project

ObjectiveThe present introduction to the Neuropsychological Norms for the U.S.-Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) project aims to provide an overview of the conceptual framework and rationale that guided the development of this project.MethodsWe describe important aspects of our conceptual framework, which was guided by some of the main purposes of neuropsychological testing, including the identification of underlying brain dysfunction, and the characterization of cognitive strengths and weakness relevant to everyday functioning. We also provide our rationale for focusing this norm development project on Spanish-speakers in the United States, and provide an outline of the articles included in this Special Issue focused on the NP-NUMBRS project.ConclusionsThe data presented in this Special Issue represent an important tool for clinicians and researchers working in the neuropsychological assessment of Spanish-speakers in the United States

Phospholipase Cγ1 is essential for T cell development, activation, and tolerance

Phospholipase Cγ1 (PLCγ1) is an important signaling effector of T cell receptor (TCR). To investigate the role of PLCγ1 in T cell biology, we generated and examined mice with T cell–specific deletion of PLCγ1. We demonstrate that PLCγ1 deficiency affects positive and negative selection, significantly reduces single-positive thymocytes and peripheral T cells, and impairs TCR-induced proliferation and cytokine production, and the activation of ERK, JNK, AP-1, NFAT, and NF-κB. Importantly, PLCγ1 deficiency impairs the development and function of FoxP3+ regulatory T cells, causing inflammatory/autoimmune symptoms. Therefore, PLCγ1 is essential for T cell development, activation, and tolerance

The Right to a Space: Live Music Venues and the Dissonance Between Meaning Making and Cultural Commodification

Music venues have increasingly become sites of cultural commodification as cities utilize live music culture as an anchor for urban branding to appeal to tourism and industry investment. However, branding and marketing strategies based on local cultural vibrancy neglect the needs and desires of the very communities which build the cultural depth being enclosed, leading to a loss of meaningful cultural establishments. Given the juxtaposition between cultural commodification and meaningful sites of cultural production, my research focuses on Club Passim, a local non-profit music venue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a case study to uncover the values and meanings ascribed to live music venues by various stakeholders including artists, audiences, venue staff, and business representatives. These values (aesthetic & material, social & cultural, experiential, historical, and economic) reveal the complexity surrounding the benefit of live music venues and capture the ways in which music venues are shaped by the interests of different stakeholders. I use David Harvey’s “Right to the City'' (2003) to discuss how the manifestation of these values in the built environment express certain claims on space. I argue that Club Passim’s right to a space is based on a set of values which serves their local community and therefore functions as a site of meaningful cultural production