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In the working notes to The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty uses punctum caecum (physiological blind spot) as a metaphor for the unconscious and the invisible of the visible. I read the punctum caecum alongside Merleau-Ponty’s call in another working note to “[e]laborate a phenomenology of the other world.” I take up a phenomenology of the other world as directed toward the punctum caecum of this world. I begin with a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s unconscious and continue its unfinished thought by drawing in other iterations of the punctum caecum – the involuntary memories in Marcel Proust’s, In Search of Lost Time, the punctum Roland Barthes finds in Camera Lucida and in words that refer to other worlds. Among Merleau-Ponty, Proust, and Barthes I sense something shared – a latent intentionality, and a question about mourning expressed across their disparate texts: the other who existed once, do they exist still? The other who looked at me once, do they look at me still?

BACKGROUND Encouraging older adults to use physical activity monitors can augment efforts to promote increased physical activity. However, little is known about the frequency and type of technical assistance needed during long-term physical activity monitor (PAM) use. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to examine PAM-related technical problems reported and assistance received by a sample of older adults in an 18-month community-based, physical activity trial, Ready Steady 3.0 (RS3). METHODS This was an ad-hoc, longitudinal analysis of process variables representing technical problems reported and assistance received by 113 study participants in the 18 months after their orientation to PAMs. Variables included date of contact, problem(s) reported, mode of technical assistance, and equipment replacement. Analysis was descriptive including frequencies and incidence rates of distinct contacts, types of problems, and modes of technical assistance. RESULTS On average, participants were 77 years old (+ 5.2). Most identified as female (77%), reported experience using smart phones (81.4%), and used the PAM between 2 and 18 months. Eighty-two participants (73%) reported 1 to 9 problems with using PAMs, resulting in a total of 150 technical assistance contacts with a mean of 1.3 (SD=1.3). The incidence rate of new, distinct contact for technical assistance was 99, per 100 persons, per year from 2018 to 2021. The most common problems were wearing the PAM (28.7%), reading its display (15.3%), logging into its app (13.3%), charging the PAM (12%), and synchronizing the PAM to the app (10.7%). The modalities of technical assistance were in-person (35%), telephone (34%), email (17%), and U.S. mail (14%). CONCLUSIONS Results provide a detailed description of the types and quantity of technical assistance needs to expect when planning supportive structures to facilitate the long-term use of PAMs among older adults. Health promotion programs and researchers should further examine technical assistance for PAM problems experienced by older adults, such as proactive and responsive support, variations by PAM models, and expanded assistance strategies, such as the use of short graphics interchange formats and video calls. CLINICALTRIAL Clinical Trials.gov NCT03326141

Past scholarship and college enrollment trends suggest that the transfer process can be challenging, complicated, and even frustrating for many students seeking to obtain a baccalaureate degree. Th...

This study utilizes an extensive panel data set spanning 15 years (2004–2018) and 752 public community colleges to investigate operating costs and persistent cost efficiency at public community colleges in the United States. We employ a generalized true random effects (GTRE) regression model that takes into account spatial correlation of costs among community colleges, to estimate cost efficiency via stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). The results reveal a positive relationship between operating costs and associate degrees and certificates as well both human (part- and full-time faculty) and financial resources (local, state and federal funding and tuition revenue), controlling for other variables. Furthermore, with an average persistent (long-term) efficiency of 87%, few institutions are relatively cost inefficient. Moving forward, campus leaders and policy makers alike may consider yearly data and efficiency calculations to develop strategic plans and funding alternatives. With 40 percent of first-time students transferring at least once within six years and over half of those students transfer from a community college, future research may study cost efficiency of community colleges while accounting for student transfers as an output. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11162-021-09634-y.

The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between pre-transfer advising and the development of transfer student capital (TSC) for students who have transferred from community college to a four-year university. Using TSC as a framework, this qualitative case study seeks to identify the roles that pre-transfer advisors at community colleges and universities have in students' transfer processes. In this study, we find that advisors can play a critical role in building students' TSC and supporting students' self-efficacy. We also find that students indicate that advisors sometimes provide conflicting information or that advising can often be inaccessible to students, which can lead to self-advising. Implications and recommendations are discussed.

Objective: This study seeks to expand understanding of transfer student capital (TSC), including sources of TSC and how TSC is used by community college transfer students to navigate transfer to a public, 4-year institution. Method: Using the TSC framework, a descriptive case study design was employed. Data sources include 17 transfer student interviews, eight observations of pre-transfer meetings between students and advisors, and a review of documents. Data were analyzed inductively and deductively using a pattern matching coding technique. Results: Family and peers appear to be the most common way that students gain TSC to navigate the transfer process. High schools also provide critical transfer information to students. Transfer advisors and faculty either at community colleges or 4-year colleges sometimes provide important transfer information but serve in a critical role of building students’ self-efficacy for transfer rather than merely passing along transfer information. Contributions: This study indicates that high schools, family members, and peers are influential sources of TSC, in addition to previously well-understood sources, such as community college faculty and transfer advisors. This study introduces a new term, self-efficacy for transfer, and offers an expanded TSC conceptual model.

Previous studies have documented student–faculty interaction in STEM, but fewer studies have specifically studied negative forms of interaction such as discrimination from faculty. Using a sample of 562 STEM undergraduates from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, we use hierarchical generalized linear modeling to investigate various types of student–faculty interaction in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and in particular, the link between discrimination from faculty and retention in STEM. While Black students interacted more frequently with faculty, they were also most likely to report experiencing racial/ethnic discrimination. Overall, female, Black, and Latinx students were more likely to leave STEM by the fourth year of college than male, White, and Asian American peers. Feeling that professors made a student feel uncomfortable due to race/ethnicity was negatively linked with STEM retention. None of the traditional forms of student–faculty interaction (i.e., non-discriminatory) predicted retention. Variation in patterns by race, gender, and income are discussed, as well as implications for research, policy, and practice.

This article explores the relationship between the historical materialism of Walter Benjamin and the poetics of Paul Celan, and claims that within Celan’s poetics, we find a form for thinking Benja...

The Gram-negative bacterium Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, commonly associated with localized aggressive periodontitis (LAP), secretes an RTX (repeats-in-toxin) protein leukotoxin (LtxA) that targets human white blood cells, an interaction that is driven by its recognition of the lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1) integrin. In this study, we report on the inhibition of LtxA-LFA-1 binding as an antivirulence strategy to inhibit LtxA-mediated cytotoxicity. Specifically, we designed and synthesized peptides corresponding to the reported LtxA binding domain on LFA-1 and characterized their capability to inhibit LtxA binding to LFA-1 and subsequent cytotoxic activity in human immune cells. We found that several of these peptides, corresponding to sequential β-strands in the LtxA-binding domain of LFA-1, inhibit LtxA activity, demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach. Further investigations into the mechanism by which these peptides inhibit LtxA binding to LFA-1 reveal a correlation between toxin-peptide affinity and LtxA-mediated cytotoxicity, leading to a diminished association between LtxA and LFA-1 on the cell membrane. Our results demonstrate the possibility of using target-based peptides to inhibit LtxA activity, and we expect that a similar approach could be used to hinder the activity of other RTX toxins.

Grassroots women in poor communities are creating their own innovative social protection mechanisms, and often moving beyond this to foster economic growth and prosperity. In this article, we propose an expansion of common understandings of social protection to include these activities initiated by citizens themselves. In this article, we describe strategies being led by grassroots women's community-based organisations in Kenya, Brazil and Peru, where women's self-help groups, networks, federations, and supporting NGOs, have been leading and organising livelihoods, health and food security initiatives for the benefit of their members and communities. Many of the objectives of social protection can best be met by creating a social protection framework that recognises and builds on grassroots women's own initiatives. This would reposition poor women in the social protection debate: recasting them from ‘beneficiaries’, to become active agents of change, and formal partners with government and development age...

We are happy to feature four invited submissions by Lisa Guenther, Kym Maclaren, Bonnie Mann, and Gayle Salamon, all of whom respond to the questions motivating our inaugural issue. Both Salamon and Maclaren offer a response to the question “What is critical phenomenology?” by exploring the productive relationship between critical theory and phenomenology. Salamon does this by tracing the history of the term critical phenomenology. Maclaren further explores the productive relationship between critical theory and phenomenology en route to her analysis of intimacy. Focusing on the phenomena of shame and long-term solitary confinement, Mann and Guenther take up that question by performing the work of critical phenomenology. Mann also offers suggestions regarding critical or, as she calls it, feminist phenomenology’s relation to the tradition—both of classical phenomenology and feminist philosophy. Guenther shows how the work of critical phenomenology is already at play in the practices of resistance among prisoners in the Security Housing Unit of Pelican Bay State Prison in California.

The tensile creep properties of an interpenetrating networks (IPN) system containing polyanionic ethylenediaminetetraacetic dianhydride (EDTAD)-modified gelatin and poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGdA) of 600 or 2000 Da at various weight ratios were determined under different pH and load levels. A computerized creep testing device was designed following ASTM D2990 and validated to establish the environment-dependent structure-function relationship of IPNs. IPNs containing PEGdA 2000 Da or EDTAD-modified gelatin showed less strain than those formulated with PEGdA 600 Da or unmodified gelatin, respectively. IPN formulated with 40 wt% gelatin showed higher strain than those with 50 or 30 wt% gelatin. Increasing strain in IPN was observed with increasing load level. IPN strain was higher at pH 7 when compared to pH 4 or 10. The creep characteristics of this complex macromolecular system are dependent on both environmental and composition factors.

Implantation and early pregnancy, and the potential effects of the reproductive-hormone relaxin, were examined in the cynomolgus macaque (Macaca fascicularis) following in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. Mature oocytes were collected from regularly cycling, female cynomolgus monkeys subjected to ovarian superovulation using recombinant human FSH and hCG. Oocytes fertilized in vitro were cultured to the 4- to 8-cell stage, slow-cooled, and stored in liquid nitrogen before thawing and embryo transfer. Regularly cycling recipients were administered recombinant human relaxin or vehicle for 21 days through the peri-implantation period (Day 0 = pump implantation), during which time the thawed embryos were transferred (Day 7). Endometrial thickness and the number of gestational sacs were monitored by ultrasound at three time points (Days 7, 21, and 28). The number of days of placental sign (implantation bleeding) in pregnant females and menses in nonpregnant females were also recorded. Implantation (gestational sacs/embryo transferred) and multiple pregnancy (multiple gestations/ pregnant recipient) rates were slightly higher in relaxin-treated recipients compared to vehicle-treated recipients. Administration of relaxin was associated with increased implantation bleeding in pregnant females. Endometrial thickness was increased in relaxin-treated recipients at Days 7 and 28 compared to Day 0, but these differences were not observed at the same time points in vehicle-treated females. Systemic administration of recombinant human relaxin in an in vitro fertilization/embryo transfer setting was associated with effects consistent with a role for this hormone in endometrial physiology in primates.

The leukotoxin (LtxA), secreted by the bacterium Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, is a member of the RTX family of toxins which targets leukocytes through several mechanisms. The toxin's specificity for human white blood cells is driven by its recognition of the lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1) integrin. This project investigates inhibition of LtxA-LFA-1 binding on living cells as an anti-virulence strategy to inhibit LtxA cytotoxicity. Specifically, we are investigating using small peptides to block (A) LFA-1 binding sites on LtxA and (B) LtxA-binding sites on LFA-1. Several LtxA binding sites on LFA-1, including a region on the αL β-propeller, have been proposed. Therefore, we have synthesized peptides corresponding to these domains and characterized their capability to inhibit LtxA binding to LFA-1 and subsequent cytotoxicity in human immune cells. We found that four of the five peptides, specifically those corresponding to sequential β-strands in the β-propeller domain, inhibited LtxA activity, demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach. The LFA-1 binding sites on LtxA are less established, but three monoclonal antibodies have previously been identified based on their inhibition of LtxA activity. We hypothesized that the epitopes to at least some of the antibodies are involved in this essential recognition process and synthesized peptides based on these epitopes to block the LtxA binding site on LFA-1. We are currently applying biophysical methods to investigate the mechanism by which these peptides inhibit LtxA binding to LFA-1 to fully characterize this protein-protein interaction. The results of our investigations will facilitate the development of peptides to inhibit LtxA activity and can have broader implications through applying a similar approach to hinder the cytotoxic activity of other RTX toxins.

The Schoharie County Local Agri-Preneurship Project for Next Generation Farmers (hereafter, the SCHOCO-LOCA project) was initiated to determine the opportunities and barriers facing that locale's new agriculturists. Using data collected from a series of focus groups including area high school students, farmers, and agricultural, financial, educational and human service professionals, the study identifies a set of barriers named by the acronym TACS (Technical problems, Assumptions, Community concerns and Social issues) that is threatening the health and future of Schoharie County's agricultural industry. After examining the changing structure of U.S. agriculture and the concomitant impact on Schoharie County, the study explains the problems that collectively create the barrier of TACS. Technical problems included a lack of custom services, lack of knowledge about farm transfers, an unfulfilled demand for information about alternative agriculture, and a need for improved business management skills....

The present study examines the handling, activation, and micromanipulation of rat eggs in an attempt to produce live young using nuclear transfer (NT) of adult and genetically modified rat fetal cells. Mature rat eggs cultured in calcium-free medium showed reduced rates (24%) of chromosomal dispersion (“spontaneous activation” characteristic of this species) compared with eggs cultured in calcium-containing medium (47%), but failed to survive micromanipulation procedures. High rates of parthenogenetic cleavage were obtained with chemical activation using ethanol/cycloheximide (65%) compared with other standard chemical activation methods (4–28%). This type of activation was also effective in reestablishing cleavage capability (19–71%), in a time-dependent manner, of spontaneously activated eggs arrested at a second prophase-like state. At most, two of four tested micromanipulation procedures were effective in producing NT embryos capable of morula or blastocyst development (14–16%) in vivo following transfer to mouse oviducts. NT blastocysts produced from cumulus cells and transfected rat fetal fibroblasts appeared morphologically and karyotypically normal (2 n = 42). Nocodazole-assisted metaphase enucleation and piezoelectric-assisted donor cell injection produced significant and equivocal effects on survival and cleavage rates of reconstructed embryos but failed to significantly improve in vivo morula/blastocyst development rates (16–28%) compared with unassisted micromanipulation (16%). Live births have not yet been obtained from early cleavage stage embryos ( n = 269) transferred to pseudopregnant recipient rat oviducts. Improvements in reconstituted NT embryo culture and transfer are required for these methods to be an effective means of transgenic rat production.