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While teaching in Taiwan, Ah-Young Song found that asking students for midterm self-reflections helped them to be more attuned to their distinct educational trajectories and that their comments provided useful insights into adjustments that could be made as a teacher. This article describes how two of those English language learners from the creative writing unit approached a poetry writing assignment and used the occasion to advance biographical counternarratives, positioned against assumptions made by adult figures in their lives. The writers, despite being regarded as less capable, supplanted imposed narratives with more self-empowering conceptions of identity grounded in a recognition of their ability to exceed expectations.

Ginsenosides are the principal active components of ginseng and are considered attractive candidates for combination cancer therapy because they can kill tumors and have favorable safety profiles. However, the overall benefit of ginsenosides remains unclear, particularly in cancer immunosurveillance, considering the controversial results showing repression or promotion of immune responses. Here we identify a potentiating role of ginsenoside F1 (G-F1) in cancer surveillance by natural killer (NK) cells. Among 15 different ginsenosides, G-F1 most potently enhanced NK cell cytotoxicity in response to diverse activating receptors and cancer cells. G-F1 also improved cancer surveillance in mouse models of lymphoma clearance and metastatic melanoma that rely on NK cell activity. G-F1-treated NK cells exhibited elevated cytotoxic potential such as upregulation of cytotoxic mediators and of activation signals upon stimulation. NK cell potentiation by G-F1 was antagonized by insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 blockade and recapitulated by IGF-1 treatment, suggesting the involvement of IGF-1. Thus, our results suggest that G-F1 enhances NK cell function and may have chemotherapeutic potential in NK cell-based immunotherapy. We anticipate our results to be a starting point for further comprehensive studies of ginsenosides in the immune cells mediating cancer surveillance and the development of putative therapeutics.

The synthesis and magnetic properties of multifunctional CoPtAu alloy nanoparticles of three compositions by a modified polyol process are described. The x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy analyses have shown the formation of the alloy nanostructure comprising Au-rich and Pt-rich nanophases, with a narrow distribution of particle sizes and have provided the structural arrangements.

Critical media literacies can help nurture students' creative agencies and engender positive, sustained change in local communities. Although students do need to develop faculties with digital technologies, they must also participate in critical readings of cultural artifacts and discriminate between various multimedia sources. It is important for youth to conceptualize language as perpetuating different kinds of ideologies. The proliferation of digital and mobile applications expand academic and political boundaries, for within a critical media literacies framework, reading is a collective transaction, learning is a generative act, and political engagement is an accessible achievement. This paper provides an overview of several significant studies that have interrogated the possibilities of critical media pedagogies in youth spaces. In this paper, I chart ways in which students can engage with critical media literacies, namely by (1) affording the production of meaningful and authentic autoethnographies, (2) facilitating hospitable connections with near and distant others, and 3) encouraging imaginative self-constructions of identities within virtual communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on an approach to literacy education in the modern age. Topics include that critical digital literacies can help facilitate skills, as it is an approach that conceives of learning as a socially situated practice, informed by an individual's multiple identities, family dynamics, and fluctuating sociocultural environments; and refers to the insistence in critical theory on intensive examinations of dominant narratives and the establishment of counter-hegemonies.

Every transaction falls somewhere in "continuum" between aesthetic and efferent poles (Rosenblatt, 1981, p. 22), and readers are constantly resituating themselves along the spectrum, rather than remaining in a decisively aesthetic or efferent orientation. Reading, therefore, allows for an unceasing reorientation along the continuum even within a single literacy event, as students intake information and accordingly adjust their positions based on personal memories, present environmental factors, and serendipitous anchorings of their attentive mental faculties onto particular devices or words that spark involuntary emotional currents. At the heart of this essay is what happens when the transactional model of reading is applied to writing workshops and peer evaluations of personal essays in the English classroom. Following the tradition of the Critical Friends Group (CFG) model, I call the readings of peer essays critical peer reviews because they act as contributors who offer encouraging support and candid criticisms as they critically examine peers' artifacts. Critical peer reviews are built on a community of participants engaged in structured reflection, effective feedback, and constructive revisions. Importantly, critical peers do not take on hierarchical or dominant roles as assessors but become collaborative members of learning groups who rotate and serve as writer/reader, observer/participant, and artist/critic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though a number of studies have evaluated postural adjustments based on kinematic changes in subjects with low back pain (LBP), kinematic stability has not been examined for abnormal postural responses during the one leg standing test. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative kinematic stability of the lower extremities and standing duration in subjects with and without chronic LBP. In total, 54 subjects enrolled in the study, including 28 subjects without LBP and 26 subjects with LBP. The average age of the subjects was 37.8 ± 12.6 years and ranged from 19 to 63 years. The outcome measures included normalized holding duration and relative kinematic stability. All participants were asked to maintain the test position without visual input (standing on one leg with his/her eyes closed and with the contra lateral hip flexed 90°) for 25 s. The age variable was used as a covariate to control confounding effects for the data analyses. The control group demonstrated significantly longer holding duration times ( T = −2.78, p = 0.007) than the LBP group (24.6 ± 4.2 s vs. 20.5 ± 6.7 s). For the relative kinematic stability, there was a difference in dominance side ( F = 9.91, p = 0.003). There was a group interaction between side and lower extremities ( F = 11.79, p = 0.001) as well as an interaction between age and dominance side ( F = 7.91, p = 0.007). The relative kinematic stability had a moderate negative relationship with age ( r = −0.60, p = 0.007) in subjects without LBP. Clinicians need to understand the effects of age and relative stability, which decreased significantly in the single leg holding test, in subjects with LBP in order to develop effective rehabilitation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the synthesis and magnetic properties of multifunctional Fe3O4-AuPt core-shell nanoparticles. The Fe3O4-Au Pt core-shell nanoparticles were synthesized by a one-pot polyol process in two consecutive steps from Fe, Au, and Pt precursors. The structural characterization and property analysis proves the formation of the core-shell nanostructure fusing the multifunctionality in a single entity. The TEM observation shows that the Fe3O4-AuPt core-shell nanoparticles are highly crystalline and uniform in size distribution, with an averaged particle size of ~12.5 nm in diameter, whereas the X-ray diffraction patterns provide further substantiation. The surface plasmon resonance arising from the AuPt nano-shell was revealed by UV-vis spectroscopy, while the magnetic measurements by YSM and PPMS demonstrate the well-defined superparamagnetic and/or soft-ferromagnetic behavior of the Fe3O4-AuPt core-shell nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural killer (NK) cells are key effectors in cancer immunosurveillance and can be used as a prognostic biomarker in diverse cancers. Nonetheless, the role of NK cells in pancreatic cancer (PC) remains elusive, given conflicting data on their association with disease prognosis. In this study, using conventional K562 target cells and complementary engineered target cells providing defined and synergistic stimulation for NK cell activation, a correlation between impaired NK cell cytotoxic degranulation and PC progression was determined. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 31 patients with newly diagnosed PC, 24 patients with non-malignant tumors, and 37 healthy controls were analyzed by flow cytometry. The frequency, phenotype, and effector functions of the NK cells were evaluated, and correlations between NK cell functions and disease stage and prognosis were analyzed. The results demonstrated that effector functions, but not frequency, of NK cells was progressively decreased on a per-cell basis during PC progression. Impaired cytotoxic degranulation, but not IFN-γ production, was associated with clinical features indicating disease progression, such as high serum CA19-9 and high-grade tumors. Significantly, this impairment correlated with cancer recurrence and mortality in a prospective analysis. Furthermore, the impaired cytotoxic degranulation was unrelated to NKG2D downregulation but was associated with increased circulating and tumor-associated TGF-β1 expression. Thus, NK cell cytotoxic activity was associated with PC progression and may be a favorable biomarker with predictive and prognostic value in PC.