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This study explores common themes in recruitment and retention practices of Latinx undergraduate and graduate students that emerged across interviews of faculty in leadership positions at Institutes of Higher Education (IHE). In-depth interviews were conducted of six faculty holding leadership positions in their early childhood education programs (i.e. program chair or ECE coordinator). Faculty were selected after initial identification of the IHE as serving high percentages of Latinx students and achieving high retention rates of Latinx students. Findings include IHEs implementation of key practices faculty believe as effective, including use of culturally sustaining pedagogy and accommodation for specific challenges and barriers that Latinx students may face. These findings add to a growing base of recruitment and retention practices for IHE faculty to consider when improving and developing programs that could attract and retain Latinx students into the early childhood education field.

Given the complex environment in which the U.S. military operates, leaders at all levels must be prepared for a force that is more responsive to regional combatant commanders needs, better employs joint capabilities, facilitates force packaging and rapid deployment, and fights self contained units in non-linear, non-contiguous battle space. This project's goal is to provide computer-mediated environments for learning from simulated leadership challenges within the discussion space of professional forums. The primary tool used in the project is the Simulated Cognitive Leadership Challenge, "Leader Challenge," a platform where Soldiers can construct solutions to various scenarios presented to them by their peers and/or predecessors. The U.S. Army's web-based peer-to-peer professional forums provide a good avenue to explore multi-modal, distributed, asynchronous education to troops deployed in a combat environment. These forums provide a collaborative learning environment where the "field" Army and the institutional Army education system (the "schoolhouse") can overlap in a distributed and powerful manner. These professional forums (namely the PlatoonLeader and CompanyCommand forums) employ a variety of techniques to foster connections, content, and conversation--all with the goal of improving member effectiveness and advancing the practice. The particular intervention discussed herein is a cognitive constructive simulation based on dialogue interviews. Currently, over 3200 participants have provided data. Overall, participants found the Leader Challenges engaging and worthwhile. Participants reflect learning through an increase in response quality from pre-test to post-test. Participants also report increased perceptions of self-efficacy from initial engagement in the Leader Challenge modules to the exit surveys. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

Tumor-associated endothelial cells (TECs) are crucial mediators of immune surveillance and immune escape in the tumor microenvironment (TME). TECs driven by angiogenic growth factors form an abnormal vasculature which deploys molecular machinery to selectively promote the function and recruitment of immunosuppressive cells while simultaneously blocking the entry and function of anti-tumor immune cells. TECs also utilize a similar set of signaling regulators to promote the metastasis of tumor cells. Meanwhile, the tumor-infiltrating immune cells further induce the TEC anergy by secreting pro-angiogenic factors and prevents further immune cell penetration into the TME. Understanding the complex interactions between TECs and immune cells will be needed to successfully treat cancer patients with combined therapy to achieve vasculature normalization while augmenting antitumor immunity. In this review, we will discuss what is known about the signaling crosstalk between TECs and tumor-infiltrating immune cells to reveal insights and strategies for therapeutic targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects critically on simulations. Building on the authors' experience simulating the Palestinian-Israeli-American Camp David negotiations of 2000, they argue that simulations are useful pedagogical tools that encourage creative--but not critical--thinking and constructivist learning. However, they can also have the deleterious effect of reproducing unequal power relations in the classroom. The authors develop this argument in five stages: (1) They distinguish between problem solving and critical theory and define "critical thinking"--something not done by the simulation orthodoxy; (2) They describe the Camp David simulation. This is their contribution to the relatively small corpus of literature on simulating Palestinian-Israeli relations; (3) They review the constructivist learning and peer teaching accomplished through their simulation. This section is notable because it is authored by a graduate student who participated in the simulation as a meaning maker; (4) They review the manner in which simulations promote creative, not critical, thinking, and reproduce asymmetrical power relations; and (5) They reflect on the overall utility of simulating the Camp David negotiations in the classroom.

Discusses technology diffusion through formal and informal networks. Develops a model that includes channels and mechanisms involved in transferring technology into innovative small businesses. The model depicts influences that increase or slow the rate of diffusion. (SK)

The emotional life of community organizations and their members has been neglected in community development, although it can have an impact at individual, societal, and micro-social levels. Both the instrumental tasks and the emotions of organizations must be addressed. Understanding group dynamics can create awareness of this dimension. (Contains 45 references.) (SK)

Includes "Community Work in the U.K.: Reflections on the 1980s" (Miller, Bryant); "Multiplication and Divisions: Trends in Community Development in Ireland since the 1960s" (Cinneide, Walsh); "Reconstruction to Deconstruction: The Transformation of Community Work in Australia" (Meekosha; Mowbray): "Community Development in North America: Survey and Prospects for the 1990s" (Mitchell-Weaver); "Community Action in the United States" (Miller, Rein, Levitt). (SK)

Objective responses of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) associated with systemic immunotherapies suggest the potential for T-cell-mediated tumor clearance. Recent analyses associate clonally expanded T cells present in the tumor at diagnosis with responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). To identify and further characterize tumor-associated, clonally expanded T cells, we characterized the density, spatial distribution, T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire, and transcriptome of tumor-infiltrating T cells from 14 renal tumors at the time of resection and compared them with T cells in peripheral blood and normal adjacent kidney. Multiplex immunohistochemistry revealed that T-cell density was higher in clear cell RCC (ccRCC) than in other renal tumor histologies with spatially nonuniform T-cell hotspots and exclusion zones. TCR repertoire analysis also revealed increased clonal expansion in ccRCC tumors compared with non-clear cell histologies or normal tissues. Expanded T-cell clones were most frequently CD8+ with some detectable in peripheral blood or normal kidney and others found exclusively within the tumor. Divergent expression profiles for chemokine receptors and ligands and the Ki67 proliferation marker distinguished tumorrestricted T-cell clones from those also present in blood suggesting a distinct phenotype for subsets of clonally expanded T cells that also differed for upregulated markers of T-cell activation and exhaustion. Thus, our single-cell level stratification of clonally expanded tumor infiltrating T-cell subpopulations provides a framework for further analysis. Future studies will address the spatial orientation of these clonal subsets within tumors and their association with treatment outcomes for ICIs or other therapeutic modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We initiate an investigation of structures on the set of real numbers having the property that path components of definable sets are definable. All o-minimal structures on $(\mathbb {R}, have the property, as do all expansions of $(\mathbb {R},+,\cdot ,\mathbb {N})$. Our main analytic-geometric result is that any such expansion of $(\mathbb {R}, by Boolean combinations of open sets (of any arities) either is o-minimal or defines an isomorph of $(\mathbb N,+,\cdot)$. We also show that any given expansion of $(\mathbb {R}, by subsets of $\mathbb {N}^n$ (n allowed to vary) has the property if and only if it defines all arithmetic sets. Variations arise by considering connected components or quasicomponents instead of path components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The s-SHIP protein is a shorter isoform of the longer SHIP1 protein and lacks the N-terminal SH2 domain region contained in SHIP1. s-SHIP is expressed in ES cells and in enriched bone marrow stem cells, and may be controlled by a promoter within intron 5 of the ship1 gene. We therefore examined the potential specificity of promoter activity in ES cells of an intron 5/intron 6 ship1 genomic segment and its tissue specificity within transgenic mice expressing GFP from this promoter region. The results indicate that s-SHIP promoter activity is specific for ES cells in vitro and for known and presumptive stem/progenitor cells throughout embryo development of the transgenic mice. Specific GFP expression was observed in the blastocyst, primordial germ cells, thymus, arterioles, osteoblasts, and skin epidermis. The epidermis/epithelium is the progenitor for hair follicles, mammary tissue, and prostate. Interestingly, each of these latter tissues acquired a few GFP-positive cells in the course of their development from the epithelial layers, and these cells express marker proteins for stem/progenitor cells. These results identify potential stem cell populations, mark these cells for analyses in normal and cancer development, and implicate s-SHIP as an important protein in stem/progenitor cell function. Keywords: s-SHIP; Embryonic stem cells; Internal promoter; Transgenic mice; Inner cell mass (ICM); Primordial germ cells; Epidermis; Mammary buds; Hair follicles; Prostate

Abstract Background Alport syndrome (AS) is a progressive renal disease with cochlear and ocular involvement. The majority of AS cases are X-linked (XLAS) and due to mutations in the COL4A5 gene. Although the disease may appear early in life and progress to end stage renal disease (ESRD) in young adults, in other families ESRD occurs in middle age. Few of the more than four hundred mutations described in COL4A5 are associated with adult type XLAS, but the families may be very large. Methods We classified adult type AS mutation by prevalence in the US and we developed a molecular assay using a set of hybridization probes that identify the three most common adult type XLAS mutations; C1564S, L1649R, and R1677Q. Results The test was validated on samples previously determined to contain one or none of these mutations. In the US, the test's clinical specificity and sensitivity are estimated to be higher than 99% and 75% respectively. Analytical specificity and sensitivity are above 99%. Conclusion This test may be useful for presymptomatic and carrier testing in families with one of the mutations and in the diagnosis of unexplained hematuria or chronic kidney disease.

Abstract Background Since real time PCR was first developed, several approaches to estimating the initial quantity of template in an RT-PCR reaction have been tried. While initially only the early thermal cycles corresponding to exponential duplication were used, lately there has been an effort to use all of the cycles in a PCR. The efforts have included both fitting empirical sigmoid curves and more elaborate mechanistic models that explore the chemical reactions taking place during each cycle. The more elaborate mechanistic models require many more parameters than can be fit from a single amplification, while the empirical models provide little insight and are difficult to tailor to specific reactants. Results We directly estimate the initial amount of amplicon using a simplified mechanistic model based on chemical reactions in the annealing step of the PCR. The basic model includes the duplication of DNA with the digestion of Taqman probe and the re-annealing between previously synthesized DNA strands of opposite orientation. By modelling the amount of Taqman probe digested and matching that with the observed fluorescence, the conversion factor between the number of fluorescing dye molecules and observed fluorescent emission can be estimated, along with the absolute initial amount of amplicon and the rate parameter for re-annealing. The model is applied to several PCR reactions with known amounts of amplicon and is shown to work reasonably well. An expanded version of the model allows duplication of amplicon without release of fluorescent dye, by adding 1 more parameter to the model. The additional process is helpful in most cases where the initial primer concentration exceeds the initial probe concentration. Software for applying the algorithm to data may be downloaded at http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/software/pcranalyzer/ Conclusion We present proof of the principle that a mechanistically based model can be fit to observations from a single PCR amplification. Initial amounts of amplicon are well estimated without using a standard solution. Using the ratio of the predicted initial amounts of amplicon from 2 PCRs is shown to work well even when the absolute amounts of amplicon are underestimated in the individual PCRs.

Adult animated television shows such as South Park may come across as crude, juvenile humour, but they also reveal mainstream society's disposition in regards to different social institutions. Building on the understanding that such programs offer viewers a sense of the "cultural climate," this essay examines two South Park episodes--"712" and 912"--that parodied Mormons and Scientologists, respectively, in order to understand how these religions are depicted and interrogate what separates the marginal from the mainstream. In recognition of Mormonism's comparatively positive portrayal, this essay suggests that the group may no longer be profitably studied alongside other new religious movements such as Scientology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]