Sustainable Agriculture in Rural Central American Countries: Grassroots Effectiveness in Initiating Cultural Change

This study examines grassroots organizations with respect to their effectiveness in initiating a cultural change in the agricultural practices in Central American countries. This study used qualitative data from a study conducted by Sustainable Harvest Internationals’ Honduras Affiliate. The study was done to assess the long-term impacts of the grassroots organization Sustainable Harvest International. They determined that a vast majority of participants had indeed improved their living conditions and were using sustainable agricultural practices. Additional successful grassroots are provided, exemplifying the advantages of grassroots organizations in making change. The success for these grassroots organizations could provide a format for other grassroots efforts across the globe

Humor in Corporate Work Place Interactions: It\u27s Not What You Can Do for Humor, but What Humor Can Do for You

This review examines the role of humor in work place interactions through the social constructionist perspective (Hatch 1997). That is, this review explores the ways in which people construct their interactions through humor, and the effects that has on their performance in the work place. However, according to Robinson, “any attempt to analyze humor risks taking all the fun out of the subject,” but this review is going to do just that (2001:123). Humor is often defined as being in the eye of the beholder. However, there are a few theories as to what constitutes humor. Humor is generally known as a verbal or written incongruity, or inconsistency with a societal norm, and communicated with the intention of being amusing (O’Quin 1981). This review focuses on that humor which is intended to be humorous, regardless of the outcome. Humor is a diverse and complex creature that has been scrutinized by some of the most learned scholars over the years, as shown in this review, which has sources dating back to 1951. The wealth of knowledge gathered on humor over the years shows that humor can be used in just about any way imaginable. Humor can be used to alienate people (Emerson 1969; Fine and De Soucey 2005; Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2001; Stephenson 1951), to create conflict (Hatch 1997; Stephenson 1951), to ease conflict (Rose 2007; Romero and Cruthirds 2006; Stephenson 1951), to broach taboo topics (Emerson 1969; Sanford and Elder 1984; Stephenson 1951), or even to explore one’s own identity (Rose 2007; Sanford and Elder 1984). This review will briefly touch on all of these things, but the main focus of this review is the use of humor in the workplace, and how it is used to the benefit of the company and its employees. The review explores how and why humor builds group cohesion, facilitates communication, relieves stress, and (spark) sparks creativity (Romero and Cruthirds 2006; Romero and Pescosolido 2008). Managers and employees who use humor in a productive manner can create an atmosphere that stimulates many desirable aspects of the corporate workplace. However, humor is not entirely a bag full of chuckles, as there are some serious implications that are associated with humor (Emerson 1969). Humor can be used in a variety of unpleasant ways(;), both intentionally and unintentionally, such as to create boundaries between people, and can cause hurt feelings. This is important because it is entirely counterproductive to humor that enhances work place productivity. Productivity in the work place is essential, especially to managers, as this generation of employees increasingly expect work to be fun (Romero and Pescosolido 2008). This is highly relevant in this day and age, as employers must look for innovative ways to motivate their employees

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival