Passion with Purpose A Case Study of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is “leading the way the world understands, treats, and defeats childhood cancer and other life threatening diseases” (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital). Fifty-five years ago when St. Jude opened its doors, the overall childhood cancer survival rate was 20 percent; today, the overall childhood cancer survival rate exceeds 80 percent. Through research and discovery, St. Jude has played a pivotal role in increasing this survival rate. St. Jude, a non-profit organization and hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, operates primarily through donations. St. Jude-American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) is the fundraising and awareness organization with the sole purpose of keeping St. Jude Children Research Hospital’s doors open. This senior Honors capstone project will explore the connection between passion paired with purpose and the success of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This capstone develops a detailed case study gleaned from interviews with several St. Jude-ALSAC representatives who provide provocative insights into leadership structure at St. Jude and more importantly, the role that passion plays in an employee’s commitment to the organization’s values, vision, and mission

A simplified analytical approach for optimal planning of distributed generation in electrical distribution networks

DG-integrated distribution system planning is an imperative issue since the installing of distributed generations (DGs) has many effects on the network operation characteristics, which might cause significant impacts on the system performance. One of the most important characteristics that mostly varies because of the installation of DG units is the power losses. The parameters affecting the value of the power losses are number, location, capacity, and power factor of the DG units. In this paper, a new analytical approach is proposed for optimally installing DGs to minimize power loss in distribution networks. Different parameters of DG are considered and evaluated in order to achieve a high loss reduction in the electrical distribution networks. The algorithm of the proposed approach has been implemented using MATLAB software and has been tested and investigated on 12-bus, 33-bus, and 69-bus IEEE distribution test systems. The results show that the proposed approach can provide an accurate solution via simple algorithm without using exhaustive process of power flow computations

From reverse to structural vaccinology : profiling of CyRPA as new Plasmodium falciparum malaria vaccine candidate antigen

Malaria is one of the most important and life-threatening infectious diseases worldwide. In 2015 malaria claimed about 429 000 lives, mostly among children below five year of age in sub‐Saharan Africa, and caused 212 million clinical episodes in a population of approximately 3.3 billion people living in regions at risk of infection. The development of an effective malaria vaccine is recognized as one of the most promising approaches for preventing infections and reducing transmission. To date, there is no vaccine on the market for prevention of malaria and only a few candidate vaccines were able to induce some protective efficacy. Thus, there is an urgent need to accelerate the pace of design and development of new malaria vaccine candidates that induce broad and long-lasting protective immunity. Reverse vaccinology and structural vaccinology are two complementary techniques that hold much promise in this regard. The pathogenesis of malaria is primarily associated with blood-stage infection and there is strong evidence that antibodies specific for parasite blood-stage antigens can control parasitemia. This provides a strong rationale for incorporation of asexual blood-stage antigen components into an effective multivalent malaria subunit vaccine. In this thesis, we exploited the great potential of the ‘omics’ sciences for the selection of hypothetical surface-exposed protein and the evaluation of their potential as vaccine candidate antigens. For the characterization of selected antigens we have exploited an entirely cell-based, rapid and reliable approach for the generation of antigen-specific and parasite cross-reactive monoclonal antibodies (mAbs): (I) generation of mammalian cell lines expressing high levels of the selected predicted malaria antigens as transmembrane proteins; (II) living­-cell immunization of mice; (III) generation of hybridoma cell lines producing mAbs capable of recognizing the endogenous antigen in its native context. This strategy has led us to the identification of the Plasmodium falciparum Cysteine-­Rich Protective Antigen (PfCyRPA) as promising blood­-stage malaria vaccine candidate: (I) PfCyRPA has limited natural immunogenicity, (II) is highly conserved among P. falciparum isolates and (III) forms together with the Reticulocyte-binding Homolog 5 (PfRH5) and the PfRH5-interacting Protein (PfRipr) a multiprotein complex crucial for P. falciparum erythrocyte invasion; (IV) PfCyRPA-specific mAbs showed parasite in vitro growth­-inhibitory activity due to inhibition of merozoite invasion; (V) passive immunization experiments in P. falciparum infected NOD­scid IL2Rγnull mice engrafted with human erythrocytes demonstrated in vivo growth-­inhibitory activity of PfCyRPA specific mAbs. To investigate whether growth inhibitory anti­PfCyRPA and anti­PfRH5 Abs can be induced by active immunization with the adjuvanted recombinant proteins, PfCyRPA and PfRH5 were recombinantly expressed as soluble protein in mammalian and insect cells respectively, purified from culture supernatant and employed for immunization of mice. mAbs raised against recombinant PfCyRPA and PfRH5 proteins showed potent parasite growth-­inhibitory activity both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, both in vitro and in vivo anti-PfCyRPA and anti-PfRH5 antibodies showed more potent parasite growth inhibitory activity in combination than on their own, supporting a combined delivery of PfCyRPA and PfRH5 in a vaccine. To examine the 3D structure of PfCyRPA and to explore the dynamics of its surface loops, we generated co-crystals of it in complex with an inhibitory mAb and elucidated the 3D structure of PfCyRPA and of the epitope–paratope interface by X-ray crystallography. Elucidation of the structure of the epitope recognized by the protective mAb will strongly facilitate design of peptidomimetics in a structural vaccinology approach. The overall structure of PfCyRPA is a six-bladed β-propeller with each blade of the propeller being a four-stranded anti-parallel β-sheet. The five disulfide bonds of the protein are located within blades 1-5, stabilizing each individual blade. Since the 6th blade is composed of β-strands both from the N- and the C-terminus and has no disulfide bond, PfCyRPA has the potential to undergo large conformational changes by disassembly of blade 6. Among additional hypothetical antigens investigated in the framework of this thesis, PF14_0044 showed interesting features: while none of the generated PF14_0044-specific mAbs significantly inhibited parasite growth, a synergistic in vitro inhibitory activity was observed when anti-PF14_0044 mAbs were combined with anti-PfCyRPA mAbs. Applying the principle of reverse vaccinology, we thus identified PfCyRPA and PF14_0044 as targets of merozoite invasion‐inhibitory antibodies. Taken together results show how a combination of reverse and structural vaccinology approaches can enable the identification of new target antigens for incorporation into subunit vaccines

LA PROTEZIONE DELLA POPOLAZIONE CIVILE NEI TERRITORI OCCUPATI TRA DIRITTO INTERNAZIONALE UMANITARIO E DIRITTI UMANI

This PhD thesis deals with the protection of the civilian population in occupied territories. After defining the notion of 'military occupation\u2019 in the light of recent practice of both States and international organizations, as well as analysing the relevant provisions of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the research focuses on the extraterritorial application of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and the interplay between IHL and IHRL in occupied territories. The aim is to ascertain how to reconcile these two legal regimes whenever a conflict of norms arises, as in the case of the tension between internment of civilians in time of occupation (Art. 78 IVGC) and the right to personal liberty enshrined in human rights treaties (Art. 9 ICCPR and Art. 5 ECHR)

Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty in Fuchs' corneal endothelial dystrophy: Anterior segment optical coherence tomography and in vivo confocal microscopy analysis

Background: To evaluate the in vivo corneal changes using in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) and anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) in patients with Fuchs' dystrophy who underwent Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) and the relationship between these changes and the postoperative visual recovery up to 1-year follow-up. Methods: Before DSAEK and 1 day, 3, 6 and 12 months after surgery 31 patients (39 pseudophakic eyes) underwent a complete ophthalmological evaluation including best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), IVCM (subepithelial haze, interface haze, graft thickness) and AS-OCT (graft thickness). Results: Graft thickness measurements by AS-OCT were strongly correlated to those obtained using IVCM at every follow-up stage (intraclass correlation coefficientâ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.95 to 0.97 between 3 and 12 months, Pâ\u88\u88<â\u88\u880.001 for all coefficients). No correlation between BCVA and graft thickness measured by AS-OCT at any follow-up stage was found, while at 3 and 6 postoperative months the correlations between BCVA and preoperative subepithelial haze (râ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.61, Pâ\u88\u88<â\u88\u880.001 and râ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.46, Pâ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.002), interface haze (râ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.51, Pâ\u88\u88<â\u88\u880.001 and râ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.46, Pâ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.003), postoperative subepithelial haze (râ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.43, Pâ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.004 and râ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.39, Pâ\u88\u88=â\u88\u880.001) were significant. Conclusions: The study confirmed corneal subepithelial haze and interface haze as important factors limiting visual acuity after DSAEK, while graft thickness was not related to BCVA

A General Methodology for Short-circuit Calculations in Hybrid AC/DC Microgrids

In this paper, the issues related to short-circuit calculations in hybrid AC/DC microgrids are discussed. The reference standard for short-current calculations in DC systems is the IEC 61660, which provides a mathematical formulation of the problem. The standard only includes radial DC grids and does not consider a more complex system, such as meshed DC systems or a hybrid AC/DC microgrid. This paper proposes a generalized approach that can be used independently of the characteristics of the hybrid system. The proposed approach is applied to four test microgrids with different distributed sources and number of nodes and the results are compared with those obtained simulating the same grids with Neplan 360®

Energy Management of a Hybrid Photovoltaic-Wind System with Battery Storage: A Case Report

This work presents a case report related to the management and the monitoring of a hybrid photovoltaic-wind system with battery energy storage, installed at the administrative offices building of the municipality of Valderice (Italy) within the framework of the Italy-Tunisia ENPI cooperation project Le Développement Durable Dans la Production Energétique Dans le Territoire (DE.DU.ENER.T.). The paper describes the hybrid system and briefly reports the monitoring data for a whole year, comparing the real production with the expected one and evaluating some performance indexes of the system. The performance indexes are very simple and have been defined only with the purpose of showing the advantages of distributed generation. Then, two different control logics for the battery energy storage systems are compared in order to define the most suitable management of the local energy resources, in presence of different Time-of-Use electricity tariffs. In particular, the two logics are compared by varying the difference between the electricity prices in peak hours and in off-peak hours and the rate between the electricity consumption of the building and the battery energy storage’s capacity