Cuyahoga County Grocery Store Assessment, 2023

High profile grocery store closures in working class neighborhoods have galvanized community efforts and political will to address grocery store gaps – albeit in a reactive manner. Grocery stores are an essential part of our communities, providing access to food, medicine, jobs, household items and banking services. Their relevance merits a robust focus on policy solutions. This Grocery Store Assessment is a collaboration among public sector entities and neighborhood leaders to better understand the grocery store landscape, learn from implementation efforts and develop proactive policy solutions. There are 223 small, mid and large-scale grocery stores and 11,000 grocery workers in Cuyahoga County. About 14% (178,000) of county residents are lower-income AND lack a grocery store in their neighborhood – what we characterize as a food desert. Families living in these locations are also less likely to own a vehicle. Considerations resulting from community dialogue on grocery store issues: -How might we better anticipate grocery store closures? -Are there strategies that government can employ to stabilize existing stores? -How might we use community benefit agreements among grocers, community and government

Empirical Legal Studies Before 1940: A Bibliographic Essay

The modern empirical legal studies movement has well-known antecedents in the law and society and law and economics traditions of the latter half of the 20th century. Less well known is the body of empirical research on legal phenomena from the period prior to World War II. This paper is an extensive bibliographic essay that surveys the English language empirical legal research from approximately 1940 and earlier. The essay is arranged around the themes in the research: criminal justice, civil justice (general studies of civil litigation, auto accident litigation and compensation, divorce, small claims, jurisdiction and procedure, civil juries), debt and bankruptcy, banking, appellate courts, legal needs, legal profession (including legal education), and judicial staffing and selection. Accompanying the essay is an extensive bibliography of research articles, books, and reports

Host Chemokine and Cytokine Response in the Endocervix within the First Developmental Cycle of Chlamydia muridarum▿

The initial host response in a primary chlamydial infection is the onset of acute inflammation. However, we still know very little about the early temporal events in the induction of the acute inflammatory response and how these events relate to the initial chlamydial developmental cycle in an actual genital infection. Because it was critical to initiate a synchronous infection in the endocervix in the first 24 h to evaluate the sequential expression of the host response, we developed the surgical methodology of depositing Chlamydia muridarum directly on the endocervix. Cervical tissue was collected at 3, 12, and 24 h after inoculation and the expression array of chemokines, cytokines, and receptors was assessed to characterize the response during the initial developmental cycle. Polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) infiltration was first observed at 12 h after inoculation, and a few PMNs could be seen in the epithelium at 24 h. Electron microscopic analysis at 24 h showed that virtually all inclusions were at the same stage of development, indicating a synchronous infection. Several chemokine and cytokine genes were expressed as early as 3 h after infection, but by 12 h, 41 genes were expressed. Thus, activation of the host response occurs both with the introduction of elementary bodies into the host and early replication of reticulate bodies. No significant response was observed when UV-inactivated organisms were inoculated into the cervix at any time interval. This model provides an ideal opportunity to investigate the mechanisms by which the early inflammatory response is induced in vivo

Critical Role for Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) during Chlamydia muridarum Genital Infection and Bacterial Replication-Independent Secretion of IL-1β in Mouse Macrophages▿

Recent findings have implicated interleukin-1β (IL-1β) as an important mediator of the inflammatory response in the female genital tract during chlamydial infection. But how IL-1β is produced and its specific role in infection and pathology are unclear. Therefore, our goal was to determine the functional consequences and cellular sources of IL-1β expression during a chlamydial genital infection. In the present study, IL-1β−/− mice exhibited delayed chlamydial clearance and decreased frequency of hydrosalpinx compared to wild-type (WT) mice, implying an important role for IL-1β both in the clearance of infection and in the mediation of oviduct pathology. At the peak of IL-1β secretion in WT mice, the major producers of IL-1β in vivo are F4/80+ macrophages and GR-1+ neutrophils, but not CD45− epithelial cells. Although elicited mouse macrophages infected with Chlamydia muridarum in vitro secrete minimal IL-1β, in vitro prestimulation of macrophages by Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) purified from Escherichia coli or C. trachomatis L2 prior to infection greatly enhanced secretion of IL-1β from these cells. By using LPS-primed macrophages as a model system, it was determined that IL-1β secretion was dependent on caspase-1, potassium efflux, and the activity of serine proteases. Significantly, chlamydia-induced IL-1β secretion in macrophages required bacterial viability but not growth. Our findings demonstrate that IL-1β secreted by macrophages and neutrophils has important effects in vivo during chlamydial infection. Additionally, prestimulation of macrophages by chlamydial TLR ligands may account for the elevated levels of pro-IL-1β mRNA observed in vivo in this cell type

Mouse Strain-Dependent Chemokine Regulation of the Genital Tract T Helper Cell Type 1 Immune Response

Vaginal infection with the mouse pneumonitis agent of Chlamydia trachomatis (MoPn) produces shorter courses of infection in C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice than in C3H/HeN mice, while C57BL/6 mice are more resistant to oviduct pathology. A robust Th1 response is extremely important in host defense against chlamydia. In this study we examined gamma interferon (IFN-γ), interleukin 10 (IL-10), and the T-cell-regulatory chemokines macrophage inflammatory protein-1α (MIP-1α) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) to determine if differences in these responses were associated with the differential courses of infection seen in these three strains of mice. Increased and prolonged IFN-γ responses and lower IL-10 responses were observed in the C57BL/6 strain compared to BALB/c and C3H. Examination of genital tract chemokines revealed a marked predominance of MIP-1α over MCP-1 only in the C57 strain. Thus, a pattern of high MIP-1α and low MCP-1 levels during the first week of infection is associated with an increased Th1 response and a shorter, more benign chlamydial infection. Inhibition of the MCP-1 response in C3H mice increased their later T-cell production of IFN-γ but decreased their early IFN-γ response and had no effect on the course or outcome of infection. Inhibition of MCP-1 is not beneficial in chlamydial infection because of its pleiotropic effects

Cephalopods in neuroscience: regulations, research and the 3Rs

Cephalopods have been utilised in neurosci- ence research for more than 100 years particularly because of their phenotypic plasticity, complex and centralised nervous system, tractability for studies of learning and cellular mechanisms of memory (e.g. long-term potentia- tion) and anatomical features facilitating physiological studies (e.g. squid giant axon and synapse). On 1 January 2013, research using any of the about 700 extant species of ‘‘live cephalopods’’ became regulated within the European Union by Directive 2010/63/EU on the ‘‘Protection of Animals used for Scientific Purposes’’, giving cephalopods the same EU legal protection as previously afforded only to vertebrates. The Directive has a number of implications, particularly for neuroscience research. These include: (1) projects will need justification, authorisation from local competent authorities, and be subject to review including a harm-benefit assessment and adherence to the 3Rs princi- ples (Replacement, Refinement and Reduction). (2) To support project evaluation and compliance with the new EU law, guidelines specific to cephalopods will need to be developed, covering capture, transport, handling, housing, care, maintenance, health monitoring, humane anaesthesia, analgesia and euthanasia. (3) Objective criteria need to be developed to identify signs of pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm particularly in the context of their induction by an experimental procedure. Despite diversity of views existing on some of these topics, this paper reviews the above topics and describes the approaches being taken by the cephalopod research community (represented by the authorship) to produce ‘‘guidelines’’ and the potential contribution of neuroscience research to cephalopod welfare