When Big Brother Privatizes: Commercial Surveillance, the Privacy Act of 1974, and the Future of RFID

RFID is a powerful new technology that has the potential to allow commercial retailers to undermine individual control over private information. Despite the potential of RFID to undermine personal control over such information, the federal government has not enacted a set of practicable standards to ensure that personal data does not become widely misused by commercial entities. Although some potential privacy abuses could be addressed by modifying RFID technology, this iBrief argues that it would be wise to amend the Privacy Act of 1974 so that corporations would have a statutory obligation to preserve individual anonymity and respect the privacy preferences of consumers

The Plot Thickens: Haploid and Triploid-Like Thalli, Hybridization, and Biased Mating Type Ratios in Letharia

The study of the reproductive biology of lichen fungal symbionts has been traditionally challenging due to their complex lifestyles. Against the common belief of haploidy, a recent genomic study found a triploid-like signal in Letharia. Here, we infer the genome organization and reproduction in Letharia by analyzing genomic data from a pure culture and from thalli, and performing a PCR survey of the MAT locus in natural populations. We found that the read count variation in the four Letharia specimens, including the pure culture derived from a single sexual spore of L. lupina, is consistent with haploidy. By contrast, the L. lupina read counts from a thallus' metagenome are triploid-like. Characterization of the mating-type locus revealed a conserved heterothallic configuration across the genus, along with auxiliary genes that we identified. We found that the mating-type distributions are balanced in North America for L. vulpina and L. lupina, suggesting widespread sexual reproduction, but highly skewed in Europe for L. vulpina, consistent with predominant asexuality. Taken together, we propose that Letharia fungi are heterothallic and typically haploid, and provide evidence that triploid-like individuals are hybrids between L. lupina and an unknown Letharia lineage, reconciling classic systematic and genetic studies with recent genomic observations

Pensionärer, pandemin och sociala medier : En kvalitativ studie om kvinnliga pensionärers användande av sociala medier under pandemin

The aim of this study was to investigate how social media was used by Swedish female pensioners during the Covid-19 pandemic and what significance it has had to them. During the pandemic, many elderly people, who have been considered a risk group for the disease, have had to isolate themselves in their homes to avoid getting ill. The study was conducted through individual qualitative interviews with eight Swedish female pensioners aged between 70-80 years who were users of at least one social media platform. The two research questions for the study were: 1) How and why do female pensioners use social media? 2) How do female pensioners experience social media's meaning and impact on them during the pandemic? The interviews were semi-structured and executed using an interview-guide. The answers from the interviews were coded to find keywords and themes. Four themes were found and used as titles for the different sections of the analysis chapter. Uses and gratifications theory was used to analyze the interview results. Results showed that social media was mostly used as a way to pass time, but also for social interaction and acknowledgement through likes and comments. Social media was also used for information seeking, entertainment and keeping up with what other people posted. The pensioners overall had a positive attitude towards social media. Even though not all of them seemed to have used social media more than usual during the pandemic, it seemed that social media might have had some special meaning during the pandemic to many of them. This might be due to the possibilities for communicating with others even with the risks and restrictions that the pandemic brought. This study can help with a better understanding of what social media usage can mean in terms of communication and loneliness for pensioners and elderly

Pensionärer, pandemin och sociala medier : En kvalitativ studie om kvinnliga pensionärers användande av sociala medier under pandemin

The aim of this study was to investigate how social media was used by Swedish female pensioners during the Covid-19 pandemic and what significance it has had to them. During the pandemic, many elderly people, who have been considered a risk group for the disease, have had to isolate themselves in their homes to avoid getting ill. The study was conducted through individual qualitative interviews with eight Swedish female pensioners aged between 70-80 years who were users of at least one social media platform. The two research questions for the study were: 1) How and why do female pensioners use social media? 2) How do female pensioners experience social media's meaning and impact on them during the pandemic? The interviews were semi-structured and executed using an interview-guide. The answers from the interviews were coded to find keywords and themes. Four themes were found and used as titles for the different sections of the analysis chapter. Uses and gratifications theory was used to analyze the interview results. Results showed that social media was mostly used as a way to pass time, but also for social interaction and acknowledgement through likes and comments. Social media was also used for information seeking, entertainment and keeping up with what other people posted. The pensioners overall had a positive attitude towards social media. Even though not all of them seemed to have used social media more than usual during the pandemic, it seemed that social media might have had some special meaning during the pandemic to many of them. This might be due to the possibilities for communicating with others even with the risks and restrictions that the pandemic brought. This study can help with a better understanding of what social media usage can mean in terms of communication and loneliness for pensioners and elderly

Concussion, microvascular injury, and early tauopathy in young athletes after impact head injury and an impact concussion mouse model

Abstract The mechanisms underpinning concussion, traumatic brain injury, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and the relationships between these disorders, are poorly understood. We examined post-mortem brains from teenage athletes in the acute-subacute period after mild closed-head impact injury and found astrocytosis, myelinated axonopathy, microvascular injury, perivascular neuroinflammation, and phosphorylated tau protein pathology. To investigate causal mechanisms, we developed a mouse model of lateral closed-head impact injury that uses momentum transfer to induce traumatic head acceleration. Unanaesthetized mice subjected to unilateral impact exhibited abrupt onset, transient course, and rapid resolution of a concussion-like syndrome characterized by altered arousal, contralateral hemiparesis, truncal ataxia, locomotor and balance impairments, and neurobehavioural deficits. Experimental impact injury was associated with axonopathy, blood–brain barrier disruption, astrocytosis, microgliosis (with activation of triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells, TREM2), monocyte infiltration, and phosphorylated tauopathy in cerebral cortex ipsilateral and subjacent to impact. Phosphorylated tauopathy was detected in ipsilateral axons by 24 h, bilateral axons and soma by 2 weeks, and distant cortex bilaterally at 5.5 months post-injury. Impact pathologies co-localized with serum albumin extravasation in the brain that was diagnostically detectable in living mice by dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI. These pathologies were also accompanied by early, persistent, and bilateral impairment in axonal conduction velocity in the hippocampus and defective long-term potentiation of synaptic neurotransmission in the medial prefrontal cortex, brain regions distant from acute brain injury. Surprisingly, acute neurobehavioural deficits at the time of injury did not correlate with blood–brain barrier disruption, microgliosis, neuroinflammation, phosphorylated tauopathy, or electrophysiological dysfunction. Furthermore, concussion-like deficits were observed after impact injury, but not after blast exposure under experimental conditions matched for head kinematics. Computational modelling showed that impact injury generated focal point loading on the head and seven-fold greater peak shear stress in the brain compared to blast exposure. Moreover, intracerebral shear stress peaked before onset of gross head motion. By comparison, blast induced distributed force loading on the head and diffuse, lower magnitude shear stress in the brain. We conclude that force loading mechanics at the time of injury shape acute neurobehavioural responses, structural brain damage, and neuropathological sequelae triggered by neurotrauma. These results indicate that closed-head impact injuries, independent of concussive signs, can induce traumatic brain injury as well as early pathologies and functional sequelae associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. These results also shed light on the origins of concussion and relationship to traumatic brain injury and its aftermath