“Digital James Dickey” Developing an App for the iPad based on a poem by James Dickey (grade level 11 & 12)

The purpose of our project was to create an app for the ipad based on a nature poem by James Dickey that could be used by a high school teacher in a classroom. The app includes a poem, video readings by the poet, perspectives (comment and literary criticisms) by a number of experts, biography, a gallery of photos, and a resources page. In fall of 2013 we will test the app in the high school classroo

Highly Differentiated, Resting Gn-Specific Memory CD8+ T Cells Persist Years after Infection by Andes Hantavirus

In man, infection with South American Andes virus (ANDV) causes hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS). HCPS due to ANDV is endemic in Southern Chile and much of Argentina and increasing numbers of cases are reported all over South America. A case-fatality rate of about 36% together with the absence of successful antiviral therapies urge the development of a vaccine. Although T-cell responses were shown to be critically involved in immunity to hantaviruses in mouse models, no data are available on the magnitude, specificity and longevity of ANDV-specific memory T-cell responses in patients. Using sets of overlapping peptides in IFN-γ ELISPOT assays, we herein show in 78 Chilean convalescent patients that Gn-derived epitopes were immunodominant as compared to those from the N- and Gc-proteins. Furthermore, while the relative contribution of the N-specific response significantly declined over time, Gn-specific responses remained readily detectable ex vivo up to 13 years after the acute infection. Tetramer analysis further showed that up to 16.8% of all circulating CD3+CD8+ T cells were specific for the single HLA-B*3501-restricted epitope Gn465–473 years after the acute infection. Remarkably, Gn465–473–specific cells readily secreted IFN-γ, granzyme B and TNF-α but not IL-2 upon stimulation and showed a ‘revertant’ CD45RA+CD27−CD28−CCR7−CD127− effector memory phenotype, thereby resembling a phenotype seen in other latent virus infections. Most intriguingly, titers of neutralizing antibodies increased over time in 10/17 individuals months to years after the acute infection and independently of whether they were residents of endemic areas or not. Thus, our data suggest intrinsic, latent antigenic stimulation of Gn-specific T-cells. However, it remains a major task for future studies to proof this hypothesis by determination of viral antigen in convalescent patients. Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether Gn-specific T cells are critical for viral control and protective immunity. If so, Gn-derived immunodominant epitopes could be of high value for future ANDV vaccines

The Policy Dystopia Model:an interpretive analysis of tobacco industry political activity

BACKGROUND: Tobacco industry interference has been identified as the greatest obstacle to the implementation of evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use. Understanding and addressing industry interference in public health policy-making is therefore crucial. Existing conceptualisations of corporate political activity (CPA) are embedded in a business perspective and do not attend to CPA's social and public health costs; most have not drawn on the unique resource represented by internal tobacco industry documents. Building on this literature, including systematic reviews, we develop a critically informed conceptual model of tobacco industry political activity. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We thematically analysed published papers included in two systematic reviews examining tobacco industry influence on taxation and marketing of tobacco; we included 45 of 46 papers in the former category and 20 of 48 papers in the latter (n = 65). We used a grounded theory approach to build taxonomies of "discursive" (argument-based) and "instrumental" (action-based) industry strategies and from these devised the Policy Dystopia Model, which shows that the industry, working through different constituencies, constructs a metanarrative to argue that proposed policies will lead to a dysfunctional future of policy failure and widely dispersed adverse social and economic consequences. Simultaneously, it uses diverse, interlocking insider and outsider instrumental strategies to disseminate this narrative and enhance its persuasiveness in order to secure its preferred policy outcomes. Limitations are that many papers were historical (some dating back to the 1970s) and focused on high-income regions. CONCLUSIONS: The model provides an evidence-based, accessible way of understanding diverse corporate political strategies. It should enable public health actors and officials to preempt these strategies and develop realistic assessments of the industry's claims

Repensar els estudis catalans des de la teoria queer

Catalan Studies are basically focused on national/linguistic identity, but recent debate on Catalan identity triggered by the current pro-independent process in Catalonia, may help reshape this academic field. A more diverse approach to Catalan culture should consider sexuality, which has traditionally been banished from literary analysis as a ‘private’ matter. Here, we discussed how queer theory can reframe Catalan Studies mainly by building a specific LGBT literary tradition, identifying queer episodes and characters in the canon, questioning received meanings, promoting interdisciplinary analysis of Catalan culture and exploring the role of queer subjectivity in history

Role of CD8+ T cells in HFRS

Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is caused by hantavirus infection. Although host immunity is thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of HFRS, the mechanism remains to be elucidated. A mouse model of HFRS, which showed renal hemorrhage similar to that seen in patients, has been developed previously. In this study, we aimed to clarify whether CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are involved in the development of renal hemorrhage in the mouse model. At 2 days before virus inoculation, CD4+ or CD8+ T cells in 6-week-old BALB/c mice were depleted by administration of antibodies. The CD4+ T cell-depleted mice developed signs of disease such as transient weight loss, ruffled fur and renal hemorrhage as in non-depleted mice. In contrast, the CD8+ T cell-depleted mice showed no signs of disease. After determination of CTL epitopes on the viral glycoprotein in BALB/c mice, the quantity of virus-specific CTLs was analyzed using an MHC tetramer. The quantity of virus-specific CTLs markedly increased in spleens and kidneys of virus-infected mice. However, the quantity in high-pathogenic clone-infected mice was comparable to that in low-pathogenic clone-infected mice. We previously reported that the high-pathogenic clone propagated more efficiently than the low-pathogenic clone in kidneys of mice during the course of infection. Therefore, there is a possibility that the balance between quantities of the target and effector is important for disease outcome. In conclusion, this study showed that CD8+ T cells are involved in the development of renal hemorrhage in a mouse model of HFRS

Local Extinction and Unintentional Rewilding of Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis) on a Desert Island

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) were not known to live on Tiburón Island, the largest island in the Gulf of California and Mexico, prior to the surprisingly successful introduction of 20 individuals as a conservation measure in 1975. Today, a stable island population of ∼500 sheep supports limited big game hunting and restocking of depleted areas on the Mexican mainland. We discovered fossil dung morphologically similar to that of bighorn sheep in a dung mat deposit from Mojet Cave, in the mountains of Tiburón Island. To determine the origin of this cave deposit we compared pellet shape to fecal pellets of other large mammals, and extracted DNA to sequence mitochondrial DNA fragments at the 12S ribosomal RNA and control regions. The fossil dung was (14)C-dated to 1476–1632 calendar years before present and was confirmed as bighorn sheep by morphological and ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis. 12S sequences closely or exactly matched known bighorn sheep sequences; control region sequences exactly matched a haplotype described in desert bighorn sheep populations in southwest Arizona and southern California and showed subtle differentiation from the extant Tiburón population. Native desert bighorn sheep previously colonized this land-bridge island, most likely during the Pleistocene, when lower sea levels connected Tiburón to the mainland. They were extirpated sometime in the last ∼1500 years, probably due to inherent dynamics of isolated populations, prolonged drought, and (or) human overkill. The reintroduced population is vulnerable to similar extinction risks. The discovery presented here refutes conventional wisdom that bighorn sheep are not native to Tiburón Island, and establishes its recent introduction as an example of unintentional rewilding, defined here as the introduction of a species without knowledge that it was once native and has since gone locally extinct