A century of Toxoplasma gondii research

Toxoplasma gondii (Fig. 1) is a protozoan parasite that can be transmitted directly from cats to humans through faecal contamination of food, or indirectly from cats to livestock and then to humans through undercooked meat. Around 30% of humans in the United Kingdom are infected, and as such, harbour dormant cysts in their brain, but few have overt symptoms of disease. Neurological disease can occur in these people if they become immunosuppressed (Fig. 2). The possibility that apparently healthy people with infection are more likely to develop psychiatric disease, including schizophrenia and depression, is under investigation. Infection during pregnancy can cause abortion or foetal infection. Congenital disease can result in systemic, neurological and progressive eye disease

Vacuum Degeneracy and Conformal Mass in Lovelock AdS Gravity

It is shown that the notion of Conformal Mass can be defined within a given anti-de Sitter (AdS) branch of a Lovelock gravity theory as long as the corresponding vacuum is not degenerate. Indeed, conserved charges obtained by the addition of Kounterterms to the bulk action turn out to be proportional to the electric part of the Weyl tensor, when the fall-off of a generic solution in that AdS branch is considered. The factor of proportionality is the degeneracy condition for the vacua in the particular Lovelock AdS theory under study. This last feature explains the obstruction to define Conformal Mass in the degenerate case.Comment: 22 pages, no figures, a few references adde

Convective Instability and Boundary Driven Oscillations in a Reaction-Diffusion-Advection Model

In a reaction-diffusion-advection system, with a convectively unstable regime, a perturbation creates a wave train that is advected downstream and eventually leaves the system. We show that the convective instability coexists with a local absolute instability when a fixed boundary condition upstream is imposed. This boundary induced instability acts as a continuous wave source, creating a local periodic excitation near the boundary, which initiates waves traveling both up and downstream. To confirm this, we performed analytical analysis and numerical simulations of a modified Martiel-Goldbeter reaction-diffusion model with the addition of an advection term. We provide a quantitative description of the wave packet appearing in the convectively unstable regime, which we found to be in excellent agreement with the numerical simulations. We characterize this new instability and show that in the limit of high advection speed, it is suppressed. This type of instability can be expected for reaction-diffusion systems that present both a convective instability and an excitable regime. In particular, it can be relevant to understand the signaling mechanism of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum that may experience fluid flows in its natural habitat.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, published in Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Scienc

Alopecia areata: a multifactorial autoimmune condition

Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease that results in non-scarring hair loss, and it is clinically characterised by small patches of baldness on the scalp and/or around the body. It can later progress to total loss of scalp hair (Alopecia totalis) and/or total loss of all body hair (Alopecia universalis). The rapid rate of hair loss and disfiguration caused by the condition causes anxiety on patients and increases the risks of developing psychological and psychiatric complications. Hair loss in alopecia areata is caused by lymphocytic infiltrations around the hair follicles and IFN-γ. IgG antibodies against the hair follicle cells are also found in alopecia areata sufferers. In addition, the disease coexists with other autoimmune disorders and can come secondary to infections or inflammation. However, despite the growing knowledge about alopecia areata, the aetiology and pathophysiology of disease are not well defined. In this review we discuss various genetic and environmental factors that cause autoimmunity and describe the immune mechanisms that lead to hair loss in alopecia areata patients

The Effects of Remote Teaching Pedagogy on Online Writing Instruction

This thesis will investigate the development of online writing instruction and the new innovations or adaptations that were created to cope with the online learning environment during the pandemic. I conducted interviews with four Writing & Rhetoric professors from Florida International University. The interviews I conduct for this thesis focused on the experience that these professors had and how they faced certain challenges along the way such as building an online community and promoting communication and collaboration in the online classroom. I argue that the themes of mindfulness, flexibility, balance, community, and empathy that were found in the interviews are the foundation or the origin of why the key areas of interest that I chose to focus on (active learning, community, digital literacy, and trauma-informed pedagogy) are so important for teaching online writing instruction remotely or online. By representing some of the experiences and changes to pedagogy that happened during the pandemic, this thesis adds to the existing conversation around pandemic pedagogy, and helps professors learn more ways they can create a comfortable, safe, and efficient learning space whether it is online or in-person

La Feminista Nuyorquina Contextualizing Latina Experience in the Space of Radical U.S. History: Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban Presence in New York City

International migrations of women to the United States had a pronounced urban bias because cities offered women the best chances to work for wages, whether they came alone or in family groups. Immigrant women were more likely than men to arrive in East Coast ports, especially New York - Donna Gabaccia Latino immigrants have been entering the United States through New York City since before the inception of the country\u27s history. Political history on the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Cuba includes influential interference from the United States. Latinos began mass migration to the U.S. in the 1940s and most heavily through the 1970s and 1980s. Radical U.S. History (i.e. National Protests of Vietnam War, Black and Chicano Civil Rights Movements, Women\u27s Liberation Movement) carved a space for Latinas assimilated in U.S. life to participate in the counterculture and political movement. However, their cultural existence and personal attachments to the islands traditions provoked a big challenge in being able to fully participate and be accepted as influential in U.S. political history. I have concentrated my research to contextualize the experiences of Hispanic Caribbean women to respect differences in historical, political, economic and social status that make up the Latino racial identity and migration pattern

Electrical Solar Panel Moisture Detector & Heater

This Major Qualifying Project approaches the need to protect solar panel devices from inclement weather conditions that involve snow and ice by creating a temperature- and moisture-sensing unit and accompanying heating unit. The use of a thermistor, moisture sensor, operational amplifier, relay and heating unit working in unison help to accomplish the goal of reducing the amount of precipitation present during cold weather periods