Ensuring Contractor Accountability Overseas: A Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act Would Be Preferable to Expansion of the False Claims Act

This Note considers the advisability of amending the False Claims Act’s qui tam provisions beyond instances of fraud to include criminal allegations against government contractors employed overseas. It considers the negative effects that result from qui tam actions in the fraud context and discusses alternatives for holding contractors accountable for crimes committed overseas that could avoid those negative effects. This Note particularly focuses on and recommends a civilian corollary to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act—the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. It discusses the benefits that the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act would provide such as increased judicial efficiency, increased prosecutorial flexibility, and even protection of the contractors implicated as compared to the relatively uncertain option of local nations’ laws

Improving Information Literacy Through Embedding

How do you reach and assist students who are halfway around the world? How can we ensure they are receiving library training that increases their information literacy skills? Join us for this presentation and conversation about how one university used embedding to reach the “unreachable,” and then expanded to reach online domestic students, and eventually those on the home campus. What began as a project between two librarians on five online courses has now grown to include additional librarians and tripled the number of classes over a few months. We will discuss the reasoning behind embedding in the Canvas Learning Management System, the steps we took to reach out to students, what worked well, what issues or limitations we faced, lessons learned, and the overall evolution of our embedding. To conclude our presentation, we will allot time to converse with the attendees and share ideas. We welcome your comments and opinions

Neonatal weight loss and gain patterns in caesarean section born infants : integrative systematic review

There is evidence that caesarean section delivery can impact on neonatal weight loss and weight gain patterns in the first 5 days of life. We conducted an integrative systematic review to examine the association of mode of delivery on early neonatal weight loss. Pubmed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Web of Science, Excerpta Medica dataBASE, and Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online were searched for relevant papers published before June 2019. Reference lists from the relevant papers were then backwards and forwards searched. As neonatal weight loss was reported in different formats, a meta‐analysis could not be carried out. Most studies did not distinguish between elective and emergency caesarean sections or instrumental and nonassisted vaginal deliveries. Seven papers were included. All papers except one found that caesarean section was associated with higher weight loss in the early days of life. Two papers presented data from studies on babies followed up to 1 month. One study found that on day 25, babies born by caesarean section had significantly higher weight gain than those born vaginally, while another found that by day 28, babies born vaginally gained more weight per day (11.9 g/kg/day) than those born by caesarean section (10.9 g/kg/day; p = .02). Overall, infants born by caesarean section lost more weight than those born vaginally, but due to the small number of studies included, more are needed to look at this difference and why it may occur. This discrepancy in weight between the two groups may be corrected over time, but future studies will need larger sample sizes and longer follow‐up periods to examine this

Conflict Environments and Civil War Onset

The spread of civil war poses serious risks and costs. We argue that conflict environments, which vary across time and space, systematically exacerbate the spread of civil war. As conflict in a state’s neighborhood becomes more spatially proximate and as lingering effects of conflict accumulate over time, that state’s risk of civil war onset increases. To theorize and test this argument, we construct the conflict environment (CE) score, a concept that taps into spatial and temporal dimensions of violence in a state’s neighborhood. Using the CE score in established empirical models of civil war onset, we demonstrate that a dangerous conflict environment consistently elevates the risk of civil war, outperforming traditional measures of nearby violence, even when domestic factors are taken into account

Flattening the Curve: The effects of intervention strategies during COVID-19

COVID-19 has plagued countries worldwide due to its infectious nature. Social distancing and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) are two main strategies employed to prevent its spread. A SIR model with a time-dependent transmission rate is implemented to examine the effect of social distancing and PPE use in hospitals. These strategies’ effect on the size and timing of the peak number of infectious individuals are examined as well as the total number of individuals infected by the epidemic. The effect on the epidemic of when social distancing is relaxed is also examined. Overall, social distancing was shown to cause the largest impact in the number of infections. Studying this interaction between social distancing and PPE use is novel and timely. We show that decisions made at the state level on implementing social distancing and acquiring adequate PPE have dramatic impact on the health of its citizens

Surviving HIV and Dying for a Smoke: Implications for Tobacco Use Among People Living With HIV

Background: Since the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy in the mid-nineties, deaths among persons living with HIV (PLWH) have declined nationally. Now a controllable condition, HIV has become a chronic disease, highlighting the importance of tobacco cessation in lowering morbidity and premature mortality. Current smoking is approximately twice as high among PLWH compared with the general population. PLWH who smoke experience higher rates of cardiovascular disease, AIDS-defining illnesses, and cancer than PLWH who do not smoke. Loss of life-years associated with smoking among PLWH is greater than life-years lost from HIV. Methods: Data on current smoking, derived from the 2009-12 Georgia Medical Monitoring Project (MMP) were analyzed. Smoking rates were calculated by demographic characteristics, and results were compared to those from the 2011 Georgia Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a population-based telephone survey. Results: The prevalence of current smoking among PLWH was 36.1%, compared with 21.2% among the general population in Georgia. Smoking prevalence for PLWH generally varied by demographic characteristics according to the same pattern as for the general population, but prevalence was consistently higher among PLWH. Conclusions: The prevalence of current smoking among PLWH in Georgia is high. Clinical and public health interventions must address smoking cessation as part of HIV care to prevent disease, improve quality of life, and reduce mortality. HIV infected smokers have more barriers to quitting (alcohol, depression, drug dependence, and inaccurate risk perception) and a lower quit rate than non-HIV-infected smokers. Efficacy studies of behavioral and pharmacological interventions for smoking cessation specific to PLWH are needed

Manipulating adenovirus hexon hypervariable loops dictates immune neutralisation and coagulation factor X-dependent cell interaction in vitro and in vivo

Adenoviruses are common pathogens, mostly targeting ocular, gastrointestinal and respiratory cells, but in some cases infection disseminates, presenting in severe clinical outcomes. Upon dissemination and contact with blood, coagulation factor X (FX) interacts directly with the adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) hexon. FX can act as a bridge to bind heparan sulphate proteoglycans, leading to substantial Ad5 hepatocyte uptake. FX “coating” also protects the virus from host IgM and complement-mediated neutralisation. However, the contribution of FX in determining Ad liver transduction whilst simultaneously shielding the virus from immune attack remains unclear. In this study, we demonstrate that the FX protection mechanism is not conserved amongst Ad types, and identify the hexon hypervariable regions (HVR) of Ad5 as the capsid proteins targeted by this host defense pathway. Using genetic and pharmacological approaches, we manipulate Ad5 HVR interactions to interrogate the interplay between viral cell transduction and immune neutralisation. We show that FX and inhibitory serum components can co-compete and virus neutralisation is influenced by both the location and extent of modifications to the Ad5 HVRs. We engineered Ad5-derived HVRs into the rare, native non FX-binding Ad26 to create Ad26.HVR5C. This enabled the virus to interact with FX at high affinity, as quantified by surface plasmon resonance, FX-mediated cell binding and transduction assays. Concomitantly, Ad26.HVR5C was also sensitised to immune attack in the absence of FX, a direct consequence of the engineered HVRs from Ad5. In both immune competent and deficient animals, Ad26.HVR5C hepatic gene transfer was mediated by FX following intravenous delivery. This study gives mechanistic insight into the pivotal role of the Ad5 HVRs in conferring sensitivity to virus neutralisation by IgM and classical complement-mediated attack. Furthermore, through this gain-of-function approach we demonstrate the dual functionality of FX in protecting Ad26.HVR5C against innate immune factors whilst determining liver targeting

Evaluation of headache severity after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage

AbstractObjectiveThe most common complaint from patients after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is headache. The headache appears to be persistent and often severe. Although this problem is pervasive in the care of SAH patients, very little data have been published to describe the nature and severity of the headache nor is there evidence-based guidance on the appropriate treatment of headache due to SAH.MethodsThis was a retrospective medical record review of adults with aneurysmal SAH. Basic demographics, along with pain scores and analgesic medication administration, were collected. Patients with early vasospasm (within 7days of ictus) were compared with patients with no vasospasm.ResultsThe patient population was characteristic of the typical SAH population. Approximately 31.5% of patients exhibited early vasospasm. These patients had higher pain scores (median 8/10) than did patients without vasospasm (median 6/10) and required more analgesics such as acetaminophen/butalbital/caffeine. Treatment success with any analgesic used in this population was minimal. The pain scores associated with headache increased over the first 7days in both groups.ConclusionsHeadache after SAH is persistent and treatment refractory. There may be an association with development of vasospasm and worsening of headache. Novel treatment strategies to attenuate headache in this population are needed

MODBASE, a database of annotated comparative protein structure models and associated resources.

MODBASE (http://salilab.org/modbase) is a database of annotated comparative protein structure models. The models are calculated by MODPIPE, an automated modeling pipeline that relies primarily on MODELLER for fold assignment, sequence-structure alignment, model building and model assessment (http:/salilab.org/modeller). MODBASE currently contains 5,152,695 reliable models for domains in 1,593,209 unique protein sequences; only models based on statistically significant alignments and/or models assessed to have the correct fold are included. MODBASE also allows users to calculate comparative models on demand, through an interface to the MODWEB modeling server (http://salilab.org/modweb). Other resources integrated with MODBASE include databases of multiple protein structure alignments (DBAli), structurally defined ligand binding sites (LIGBASE), predicted ligand binding sites (AnnoLyze), structurally defined binary domain interfaces (PIBASE) and annotated single nucleotide polymorphisms and somatic mutations found in human proteins (LS-SNP, LS-Mut). MODBASE models are also available through the Protein Model Portal (http://www.proteinmodelportal.org/)