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This study examines responses of educator participants to realities and current experiences of Latinx student educational experiences. Latinx student's counterstories of racialized experiences are used through four distinct teaching formats: frequency charts, student quotes, voice clips, and poetic counterstory. We interrogate how participants responded to youth's experiences and the relationship between the counterstory formats and the development of critical race consciousness. Findings demonstrated the use of voice clips and poetic counterstory were critical in creating empathy needed to move toward racial understanding and action. This transformative study develops future teaching approaches and professional development to increase awareness of student's racialized experiences.

The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is a widely used resource that comprehensively organizes and defines the phenotypic features of human disease, enabling computational inference and supporting genomic and phenotypic analyses through semantic similarity and machine learning algorithms. The HPO has widespread applications in clinical diagnostics and translational research, including genomic diagnostics, gene-disease discovery, and cohort analytics. In recent years, groups around the world have developed translations of the HPO from English to other languages, and the HPO browser has been internationalized, allowing users to view HPO term labels and in many cases synonyms and definitions in ten languages in addition to English. Since our last report, a total of 2239 new HPO terms and 49235 new HPO annotations were developed, many in collaboration with external groups in the fields of psychiatry, arthrogryposis, immunology and cardiology. The Medical Action Ontology (MAxO) is a new effort to model treatments and other measures taken for clinical management. Finally, the HPO consortium is contributing to efforts to integrate the HPO and the GA4GH Phenopacket Schema into electronic health records (EHRs) with the goal of more standardized and computable integration of rare disease data in EHRs.

Abstract VegDischarge v1, which covers over 64,000 river segments in Africa, is a natural river discharge dataset produced by coupled modeling; the agro-hydrologic VegET model and the mizuRoute routing model for the period 2001-2021. Using remote sensing data and hydrological modeling system, the 1-km runoff field simulated by VegET, was routed with mizuRoute. Performance metrics show strong model reliability, with R² of 0.5–0.9, NSE of 0.6–0.9, and KGE of 0.5–0.8 at the continental scale. The total average annual discharge for Africa is quantified at 3271.4 km³·year−1, with contributions to oceanic basins: 1000.0 km³·year−1 to the North Atlantic, primarily from the Senegal, Gambia, Volta, and Niger Rivers; 1327.2 km³·year−1 to the South Atlantic, largely from the Congo River; 214.7 km³·year−1 to the Mediterranean Sea, predominantly from the Nile River; and 729.4 km³·year−1 to the Indian Ocean, with inputs from rivers such as the Zambezi. The dataset is valuable for stakeholders and researchers to understand water availability, its temporal and spatial variations that affect water-related infrastructure planning, sustainable resource allocation, and the development of climate resilience strategies.

Persons with HIV (PWH) on long-term antiretroviral therapy (ART) have a higher incidence and prevalence of cardiometabolic diseases attributed, in part, to persistent inflammation despite viral suppression. In addition to traditional risk factors, immune responses to co-infections such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) may play an unappreciated role in cardiometabolic comorbidities and offer new potential therapeutic targets in a subgroup of individuals. We assessed the relationship of CX3CR1+, GPR56+, and CD57+/- T cells (termed CGC+) with comorbid conditions in a cohort of 134 PWH co-infected with CMV on long-term ART. We found that PWH with cardiometabolic diseases (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, calcified coronary arteries, or diabetes) had higher circulating CGC+CD4+ T cells compared to metabolically healthy PWH. The traditional risk factor most correlated with CGC+CD4+ T cell frequency was fasting blood glucose, as well as starch/sucrose metabolites. While unstimulated CGC+CD4+ T cells, like other memory T cells, depend on oxidative phosphorylation for energy, they exhibited higher expression of carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1A compared to other CD4+ T cell subsets, suggesting a potentially greater capacity for fatty acid β-oxidation. Lastly, we show that CMV-specific T cells against multiple viral epitopes are predominantly CGC+. Together, this study suggests that among PWH, CGC+ CD4+ T cells are frequently CMV-specific and are associated with diabetes, coronary arterial calcium, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Future studies should assess whether anti-CMV therapies could reduce cardiometabolic disease risk in some individuals.

Solid tumors are frequently affected by the presence of hypoxic cells, originating anomalous and disordered cell growth. This subpopulation presents resistance to conventional chemotherapy agents and radiotherapy, due to the difficulties of reaching the target region, the permanence in the G0 phase of cell cycle and the low local concentration of oxygen. The use of hypoxia activated prodrugs becomes, in this scenario, an effective and selective alternative in cancer therapy, though not yet available for clinical use in solid tumor treatment. Twenty years after the publication of the paper intitled “Agentes Antineoplásicos Biorredutíveis: Uma Nova Alternativa para o Tratamento de Tumores Sólidos” in the Química Nova journal (2002), the current essay aims to identify the advances in the pre-clinical and clinical studies regarding the development of new hypoxia-directed drugs and the improvement of the molecules previously studied. Moreover, to clarify the main challenges for the implementation and success of this drug class, in order to identify the hindrances for the preparation of a bioavailable, safe and selective drug.

In this article, we will highlight an overview of a project that we facilitated with colleagues that encouraged immigrant youth and members of their families to share photographs that they took and stories that they wrote with fellow students in their school, their teachers, with members of their own student and cultural communities, and with members of the larger community that they were a part of. Using Photovoice as a primary organising mode of research, we sought to move from the paradigm that positions researchers to stand at a distance from those that they work with but instead work as on-the-ground facilitators of a process that encourages students and their family members to share their own stories about their lives, their truths about the ways in which they were treated at school and in their local communities, and their hopes and dreams for their education outcomes in the U.S. This article ends with a focus on one part of the overall project -- our work with Spanish-speaking immigrant parents -- and implications of this Photovoice project for educational researchers and educators working in the field of education.

One of the fastest growing segments of the student population in the U.S. includes students from immigrant backgrounds. However, there is a lack of research about how school counselors can access and listen to the voices of these youth. This article seeks to add to the existing research on multicultural school counseling for immigrant youth with a focus on students in middle school and proposes photovoice as a culturally responsive method of working with students. Photovoice is a participatory action research method used with marginalized youth that serves to empower participants to represent their point of view and everyday lived realities. The findings from the study include three themes which school counselors can learn from and act upon in their daily work with immigrant youth: middle school immigrant students' feelings of discrimination, the strengths and assets of their immigrant families, and the need for more support from school counselors.

Let FG be the group algebra of a residually torsion free nilpotent group G over a field F of characteristic 0. If (x,y) is any pair of noncommuting elements of G, we show that for any rational number r with r≠0,±1, the subgroup 〈1 + rx, 1 + ry, 1 + rxy〉 is free of rank 3 in the Malcev–Neumann field of fractions of FG. This result comes from a method of producing free groups of rank three in rational quaternions. In general, if a division ring D has dimension d2 over its center Z, and if the transcendence degree of Z over its prime field 픽p is ≥ d2 + 3, we present a method to construct free subgroups of rank three. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neste artigo descrevemos uma das plataformas mais promissoras para a construção de um computador quântico universal, que consiste em uma cadeia de N íons aprisionados em um potencial harmônico, cujos estados internos funcionam como qubits e são acoplados a modos vibracionais coletivos da cadeia. A partir de tal acoplamento, é possível construir interações entre diferentes íons, isto é, interações qubit-qubit que, juntamente com operações individuais sobre os íons, permitem construir um computador quântico como primeiramente proposto por Cirac e Zoller na década de 90 [Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4091 (1995)]. Aqui discutimos desde a física envolvida no aprisionamento de íons em armadilhas eletromagnéticas até a engenharia de hamiltonianos necessária para gerar um conjunto universal de portas lógicas, fundamental para a execução de algoritmos quânticos mais complexos. Por último, apresentamos o atual estado da arte da computação quântica em sistemas de íons aprisionados, destacando os recentes avanços obtidos por empresas e projetos governamentais que utilizam tal arquitetura, como IonQ e AQTION.

Abstract When handling metallic centers of higher coordination numbers, one is commonly deluded with the presumption that any assembled metal complex geometry (including a crystallographic one) is good enough as a starting structure for computational chemistry calculations; all oblivious to the fact that such a structure is nothing short of just one out of several, sometimes dozens, or even thousands of other stereoisomers. Moreover, coordination chirality, so frequently present in complexes of higher coordination numbers, is another often overlooked property, rarely recognized as such. The Complex Build algorithm advanced in this article has been designed with the purpose of generating starting structures for molecular modeling calculations with full stereochemical control, including stereoisomer complete identification and coordination chirality recognition. Besides being in the chosen correct stereochemistry, the ligands are positioned by the Complex Build algorithm in a very unobstructed and unclogged manner, so that their degrees of freedom do not hinder or even choke one another, something that would otherwise tend to lead to negative force constants after further geometry optimizations by more advanced computational model chemistries. The Complex Build algorithm has been conceived for any metallic center, but at present is targeting primarily lanthanoids whose coordination numbers range mostly from 5 to 12 and often lead to a combinatorial explosion of stereoisomers.

We enhanced the agro-hydrologic VegET model to include snow accumulation and melt processes and the separation of runoff into surface runoff and deep drainage. Driven by global weather datasets and parameterized by land surface phenology (LSP), the enhanced VegET model was implemented in the cloud to simulate daily soil moisture (SM), actual evapotranspiration (ETa), and runoff (R) for the conterminous United States (CONUS) and the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). Evaluation of the VegET model with independent data showed satisfactory performance, capturing the temporal variability of SM (Pearson correlation r: 0.22–0.97), snowpack (r: 0.86–0.88), ETa (r: 0.41–0.97), and spatial variability of R (r: 0.81–0.90). Absolute magnitudes showed some biases, indicating the need of calibrating the model for water budget analysis. The seasonal Landscape Water Requirement Satisfaction Index (L-WRSI) for CONUS and GHA showed realistic depictions of drought hazard extent and severity, indicating the usefulness of the L-WRSI for the convergence of an evidence toolkit used by the Famine Early Warning System Network to monitor potential food insecurity conditions in different parts of the world. Using projected weather datasets and landcover-based LSP, the VegET model can be used not only for global monitoring of drought conditions, but also for evaluating scenarios on the effect of a changing climate and land cover on agriculture and water resources.

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in the Americas is a chronic systemic disease caused by infection with Leishmania infantum parasites. The toxicity of antileishmanial drugs, long treatment course and limited efficacy are significant concerns that hamper adequate treatment against the disease. Studies have shown the promise of an immunotherapeutics approach, combining antileishmanial drugs to reduce the parasitism and vaccine immunogens to activate the host immune system. In the current study, we developed an immunotherapy using a recombinant T cell epitope-based chimeric protein, ChimT, previously shown to be protective against Leishmania infantum, with the adjuvant monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA) and amphotericin B (AmpB) as the antileishmanial drug. BALB/c mice were infected with L. infantum stationary promastigotes and later they received saline or were treated with AmpB, MPLA, ChimT/Amp, ChimT/MPLA or ChimT/MPLA/AmpB. The combination of ChimT/MPLA/AmpB significantly reduced the parasite load in mouse organs (p < 0.05) and induced a Th1-type immune response, which was characterized by higher ratios of anti-ChimT and anti-parasite IgG2a:IgG1 antibodies, increased IFN-γ mRNA and IFN-γ and IL-12 cytokines and accompanied by lower levels of IL-4 and IL-10 cytokines, when compared to other treatments and controls (all p < 0.05). Organ toxicity was also lower with the ChimT/MPLA/AmpB immunotherapy, suggesting that the inclusion of the vaccine and adjuvant ameliorated the toxicity of AmpB to some degree. In addition, the ChimT vaccine alone stimulated in vitro murine macrophages to significantly kill three different internalized species of Leishmania parasites and to produce Th1-type cytokines into the culture supernatants. To conclude, our data suggest that the combination of ChimT/MPLA/AmpB could be considered for further studies as an immunotherapy for L. infantum infection.

Cyclopent‐2‐enone bearing natural products possess anti‐inflammatory, cytotoxic, antiproliferative, and antimicrobial activities attributed to the presence of a Michael acceptor enone group acting as a bait for protein targets. To explore the biological activity of synthetic small molecules bearing the cyclopent‐2‐enone moiety, a collection of 4‐substituted cyclopent‐2‐enones (3 a–3 i) was prepared synthetically using Lewis acid‐catalyzed Mukaiyama‐Michael reaction (MMR) in modest to high yields. These derivatives were screened for their effect on inflammatory response mediators, namely Nrf2, NF‐κB, and IL‐6 through cell‐based reporter assays. The results show that 5‐(4‐oxocyclopent‐2‐en‐1‐yl)furan‐2(5H)‐one (3 g) is a potent Nrf2 activator in HaCaT cells. The mechanism of Nrf2 activation by 3 g was investigated through an MS/MS‐directed proteomic analysis and have shown the formation of a Michael adduct via cysteine‐613 on Keap1, an inhibitor of Nrf2. Density functional theory calculations show favorable Michael adduct formation between 3 g and the truncated Keap1 tripeptide Pro‐Cys613‐Ala at the β‐carbon of the cyclopent‐2‐enone moiety. On the other hand, the derivative 4‐(2‐oxo‐2‐phenylethyl)cyclopent‐2‐en‐1‐one (3 a) exhibited selective Nrf2 inhibition in the cancer cell line Huh7, and inhibitory activity along with 3 g against NF‐κB, and IL‐6 in RAW 264.7 cells. This points to the cyclopent‐2‐enone group being an effective scaffold for anti‐inflammatory drug designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of this study was to identify the transcriptional landscape of insulin resistance (IR) in subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) in humans across the spectrum of obesity. Methods: We used SAT RNA sequencing in 220 individuals with metabolic phenotyping. Results: We identified a 35‐gene signature with high predictive accuracy for homeostatic model of IR that was expressed across a variety of non‐immune cell populations. We observed primarily "protective" IR associations for adipocyte transcripts and "deleterious" associations for macrophage transcripts, as well as a high concordance between SAT and visceral adipose tissue (VAT). Multiple SAT genes exhibited dynamic expression 5 years after weight loss surgery and with insulin stimulation. Using available expression quantitative trait loci in SAT and/or VAT, we demonstrated similar genetic effect sizes of SAT and VAT on type 2 diabetes and BMI. Conclusions: SAT is conventionally viewed as a metabolic buffer for lipid deposition during positive energy balance, whereas VAT is viewed as a dominant contributor to and prime mediator of IR and cardiometabolic disease risk. Our results implicate a dynamic transcriptional architecture of IR that resides in both immune and non‐immune populations in SAT and is shared with VAT, nuancing the current VAT‐centric concept of IR in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]