Framing and Claiming Reproductive Rights: A Case Study of Civil Society Actors in Tanzania

This article focuses on the issue of maternal mortality in Tanzania from a human rights perspective. It deals with the findings of a study conducted in 2008, which examined the role of civil society actors in framing and claiming rights. During the research process, qualitative interviews were carried out with non-governmental organizations and focus group discussions were held with rural women in Tanzania. A key thrust of the research was to examine how reproductive rights are translated into the local context and how they are in turn used by civil society actors. The author argues that the way in which rights are framed with respect to the issue of maternal mortality also informs the way in which rights claims are made. A distinction was found in the research between those organisations that take a ‘social service approach’ to human rights promotion and those that take a ‘human rights advocacy approach’ (Merry 2006a: 138). Although both approaches converge in important ways, the author concludes that the chosen approach influences the way in which organisations’ work is carried out and their relationships with other actors

Faculty attitudes and behaviors concerning student cheating

The relationship between university faculty attitudes concerning student cheating and syllabus statements on academic integrity were evaluated to determine the relationship between faculty attitudes and their actual attempts to deter cheating rates through their syllabi. No relationship was found between attitudes about student cheating and the number of integrity-related syllabus statements, but this lack of relationship demonstrated an important inconsistency between faculty attitudes and behaviors: the amount of cheating that faculty believed happens does not correspond with written guidelines. In addition, faculty generally underestimated the levels of cheating in their classroom, particularly when faculty was on a non-tenured track. This study represents a preliminary attempt to evaluate the role and effect faculty have on student cheating in higher education

More reliable inference for the dissimilarity index of segregation

ACL-2International audienceThe most widely used measure of segregation is the so‐called dissimilarity index. It is now well understood that this measure also reflects randomness in the allocation of individuals to units (i.e. it measures deviations from evenness, not deviations from randomness). This leads to potentially large values of the segregation index when unit sizes and/or minority proportions are small, even if there is no underlying systematic segregation. Our response to this is to produce adjustments to the index, based on an underlying statistical model. We specify the assignment problem in a very general way, with differences in conditional assignment probabilities underlying the resulting segregation. From this, we derive a likelihood ratio test for the presence of any systematic segregation, and bias adjustments to the dissimilarity index. We further develop the asymptotic distribution theory for testing hypotheses concerning the magnitude of the segregation index and show that the use of bootstrap methods can improve the size and power properties of test procedures considerably. We illustrate these methods by comparing dissimilarity indices across school districts in England to measure social segregation

A Closer Look at the Genomic Variation of Geographically Diverse Mycobacterium abscessus Clones That Cause Human Infection and Disease

Mycobacterium abscessus is a multidrug resistant bacterium that causes pulmonary and extrapulmonary disease. The reported prevalence of pulmonary M. abscessus infections appears to be increasing in the United States (US) and around the world. In the last five years, multiple studies have utilized whole genome sequencing to investigate the genetic epidemiology of two clinically relevant subspecies, M. abscessus subsp. abscessus (MAB) and M. abscessus subsp. massiliense (MMAS). Phylogenomic comparisons of clinical isolates revealed that substantial proportions of patients have MAB and MMAS isolates that belong to genetically similar clusters also known as ‘dominant clones’. Unlike the genetic lineages of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that tend to be geographically clustered, the MAB and MMAS clones have been found in clinical populations from the US, Europe, Australia and South America. Moreover, the clones have been associated with worse clinical outcomes and show increased pathogenicity in macrophage and mouse models. While some have suggested that they may have spread locally and then globally through ‘indirect transmission’ within cystic fibrosis (CF) clinics, isolates of these clones have also been associated with sporadic pulmonary infections in non-CF patients and unrelated hospital-acquired soft tissue infections. M. abscessus has long been thought to be acquired from the environment, but the prevalence, exposure risk and environmental reservoirs of the dominant clones are currently not known. This review summarizes the genomic studies of M. abscessus and synthesizes the current knowledge surrounding the geographically diverse dominant clones identified from patient samples. Furthermore, it discusses the limitations of core genome comparisons for studying these genetically similar isolates and explores the breadth of accessory genome variation that has been observed to date. The combination of both core and accessory genome variation among these isolates may be the key to elucidating the origin, spread and evolution of these frequent genotypes

The Contribution of Pdx1-Bound Chromatin Remodelers in Controlling β-Cell Differentiation and Function

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Understanding β-cell development and function is essential for generating more effective treatment options for individuals with diabetes. A key player in pancreatogenesis, islet development, and mature β-cell function is the Pdx1 transcription factor (TF). Pdx1 activity is modulated through interactions with various coregulators, including the Swi/Snf chromatin remodeling and Nucleosome Remodeling and Deacetylase (NuRD) complexes. Loss of one Swi/Snf ATPase subunit, Brg1, in early pancreatogenesis reduces final pancreas mass, and β-cell-specific deletion of both subunits, Brg1 and Brm, leads to glucose intolerance and loss of insulin production in the β-cell. Here, we hypothesized Swi/Snf governs endocrine progenitor cell development and postnatal islet function. To test this, we generated conditional murine knockouts of Brg1 (Brg1Δendo;Brm+/-), Brm (Brg1Δendo/+;Brm-/-), or both subunits (DKOΔendo) during endocrine cell development. No DKOΔendo mice were recovered at weaning, and loss of Brg1 but not Brm led to severe glucose intolerance, ad-lib fed hyperglycemia, and reduced insulin levels by four weeks of age. Brg1Δendo;Brm+/- mice had fewer islets and compromised insulin secretion. Together, these data suggest that loss of Brg1 during endocrine cell development has negative impacts on postnatal islet function, with loss of both Brg1 and Brm being early postnatal lethal. Pdx1 has been shown to also interact with the Chd4 helicase subunit of the NuRD complex. Here, we demonstrate Pdx1:Chd4 interactions are increased under stimulatory conditions and hypothesize that Chd4 modulates expression of Pdx1-bound genes critical for β-cell function. To test this, we generated a tamoxifen inducible, β-cell-specific Chd4 knockout mouse model (Chd4Δβ). Four weeks following Chd4 removal, Chd4Δβ mutants were glucose intolerant with severe insulin secretion defects. Additionally, Chd4Δβ islets contained fewer mature insulin granules and secreted more proinsulin. RNA-sequencing from Chd4Δβ β-cells identified numerous upregulated (eg Hk2, Mycl) and downregulated genes (eg MafA, Chga, Chgb, Slc2a2). Through ATAC-sequencing, we discovered several differentially accessible genomic regions, including Chd4-bound and Pdx1-controlled MafA Region 3, which had reduced accessibility in Chd4Δβ β-cells. Lastly, we demonstrate that CHD4 impacts human β-cell function and PDX1:CHD4 interactions were reduced in human donor β-cells with type 2 diabetes, demonstrating loss of these interactions is a significant feature of diabetes pathogenesis

Testing the Design of a Library Information Gateway

In autumn of 1999, librarians at Appalachian State University and Georgia Southern University had decided to revise their Web sites. Each institution’s site had been in place for more than a year, and experience with library users had shown that there were certain aspects of the sites’ designs that were confusing. Previous efforts to improve these library sites had involved the pooling of criticisms from the librarians and users, and then a small group of library faculty and staff would attempt to create new designs that avoided the weaknesses of the old designs

GPU accelerated multispectral EO imagery optimised CCSDS-123 lossless compression implementation

Continual advancements in Earth Observation (EO) optical imager payloads has led to a significant increase in the volume of multispectral data generated onboard EO satellites. As a result, a growing onboard data bottleneck need to be alleviated. One technique commonly used is onboard image compression. However, the performance of traditional space qualified processors, such as radiation hardened FPGAs, are not able to meet current nor future onboard data processing requirements. Therefore, a new high capability hardware architecture is required. In previous work a new GPU accelerated scalable heterogeneous hardware architecture for onboard data processing was proposed. In this paper, two new CUDA GPU implementations of the state-of-the-art lossless multidimensional image compression algorithm CCSDS-123, are discussed. The first implementation is a generic CUDA implementation of the CCSDS-123 algorithm whilst the second is optimised specifically for multispectral EO imagery. Both implementations utilise image tiling to leverage an additional axis for algorithm parallelisation to increase processing throughput. The CUDA implementation and optimisation techniques deployed are discussed in the paper. In addition, compression ratio and throughput performance results are presented for each implementation. Further experimental studies into the relationships between algorithm user definable compression parameters, tile sizes, tile dimensions and the achieved compression ratio and throughput, were performed