Cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) not only modulate the extracellular matrix under physiological conditions, but also have the ability to sense local injury and respond with a phenotypic change and increased paracrine communication to distal cells. While a myriad of studies have focused on identifying the paracrine signals involved in recruitment and activation of CFs, the manner by which CF paracrine communication networks are tuned in response to chronic stress remains unclear. Previously, our lab found that stress-induced loss of the cytoskeletal protein, β IV -spectrin, regulates the CF phenotype and fibrosis. Therefore, we hypothesized that degradation of β IV -spectrin is a critical step in stress-induced communication involved in recruitment of distal CFs. In this study, we first collected conditioned media from WT and β IV -spectrin deficient (qv 4J ) CFs to test the effects on quiescent WT CFs. We found that the CFs treated with qv 4J -conditioned media showed increased proliferation and compaction rates, as well as altered gene expression in the recipient cells compared to those treated with WT-conditioned media. To further explore the role of β IV -spectrin in paracrine signaling, we isolated exosomes from WT- and qv 4J -conditioned media. We found that loss of β IV -spectrin in CFs resulted in an increased concentration of exosomes in conditioned media, that also induced increased proliferation in quiescent CFs. Furthermore, we found that genetic mice expressing degradation-resistant β IV -spectrin ( qv 3J mice) showed impaired CF recruitment and activation following myocardial infarction (MI) together with increased mortality and impaired fibrotic remodeling compared to WT. Finally, we demonstrate that exosomes from a WT-MI heart can improve fibrotic remodeling in qv 3J mice following MI. Our work identifies a novel role of the spectrin-based pathway in facilitating long-range communication in response to chronic stress.

Background The research literature finds a positive relationship between couple religiosity and relationship quality, but because public discourse highlights religious victims of domestic violence, we questioned whether couple religiosity prevents negative relationship outcomes as well as it promotes positive ones. Purpose This article compares rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) and infidelity among couples with different levels of religious commitment. We further interrogated whether the belief that the man is the head of the household increased couples’ risk of IPV or infidelity. Methods We used Global Family and Gender Survey data from eleven countries. This was an online survey of adults ages 18 to 50 that used a representative panel for the United States, but used opt-in panels in Australia, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. We limited our analytic sample to the 9920 men and women in heterosexual relationships (6791 married and 3128 cohabiting). We also analyzed the United States probability sample separately from our pooled sample. Results Couples with nominal or unequal religiosity ( less/mixed religious couples) had higher rates of infidelity than either highly religious couples or couples in which neither partner exhibited much religiosity ( shared secular couples). Infidelity was generally similar between highly religious couples and shared secular couples, but in the US women in highly religious couples did cheat less. We found no differences in IPV—measured by both women's reports of victimization and men's reports of perpetration—according to couple religiosity. Further, the belief that the man is the head of the household did not influence couples’ risk of either IPV or infidelity across the entire sample. In Latin America, however, patriarchal men in shared secular couples perpetrated IPV significantly more often than their egalitarian or more religious counterparts. Conclusions and Implications Our Latin American evidence hints that patriarchy may be a more dangerous ideology for secular couples than for religious couples. Our more general conclusion is that even though negative relationship outcomes are not more common among religious couples, the resources religious traditions have at their disposal to discourage violence within intimate partnerships seem tragically underutilized.

In recent years, public-public and public-private partnerships have become a topic of increasing interest in efforts to establish and implement holistic community revitalization initiatives. One example of this effort is Indiana’s Stellar Communities program. The program is a multi-agency partnership designed to fund comprehensive community development projects in Indiana’s smaller communities. This innovative program entails three participating state agencies, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, and Indiana Department of Transportation. This research paper explores the progress, issues, and impacts of the Indiana Stellar Communities Program. It focuses specifically on describing program goals, planning, and implementation in the first four communities designated as “Stellar” between 2011 and 2012. In doing so, it highlights community context, best practices, and lessons learned (to date), while providing an assessment of current economic and social impacts to local communities, as well as regional implications.

Without a plan for marketing the convenience, ease, and safety of online services, the goal of achieving an 80 percent adoption rate by citizens for certain e-government services (e.g., tax filing and vehicle registration) will remain a dream. Although states realize benefits from implementing online applications that reduce processing time and costs, the rate of growth in citizen e-government adoption rates seems to have leveled off. This chapter examines, from the state’s perspective, successful techniques for increasing citizen use of electronic applications for two common activities – vehicle registration renewal and income tax filing – in four Midwestern states (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio). Usage patterns depend in part on an individual citizen’s technological sophistication, whether digital naïf, digital immigrant, or digital native. Usage can be influenced, however, by state government investments to market electronic services (through awareness campaigns or financial incentives), establish alternative access points, and incorporate human use factors in applications.

This note is a contribution to the continuing debates and analyses about what can and should be done to make public data “open.” In this note, I share some observations about current practices surrounding public data. In general, these observations lead to the insight that “absolutely open” public data is and will continue to be rare. Instead, various types of data are apt to be more or less open, and the reasons for the degree of openness may vary from one situation to another, that is type of data, by country, by type of institution, etc.

This article summarizes how the Office of the Surgeon General can leverage faith-based resources to fulfill its mission and that of the Surgeon General of the United States. Such resources, personal and institutional, have been utilized historically in health promotion and disease prevention efforts and are a valuable ally for public health, an alliance that continues under the Obama Administration. This paper outlines the history and mission of the Office; details the recent history of federal faith-based initiatives; and advocates an expanded alliance between the faith-based and public health sectors sensitive to legal and professional boundaries.

In this chapter the authors explore the risks, challenges, and remediation efforts encountered in community-based residential broadband implementation efforts. The authors first summarize current research about efforts across the US, to show hot spots of activity and identify projects that have achieved a certain critical mass. The chapter reviews the literature in this area and examines communities that are implementing FTTH projects to understand the patterns of risks and challenges encountered. The authors identify a set of communities whose experiences have been the subject of case studies, to capture how they’ve addressed risks and challenges. In addition to frequently cited communities in the literature (e.g., Lafayette, LA; Bristol, VA; and Glasgow, KY), the authors highlight others that also display innovation and persistence in deploying FTTH to their citizens and encouraging subsequent adoption of broadband use, particularly as it pertains to e-government activities. Finally, the chapter suggests performance metrics for evaluating the risk and success of residential broadband projects, and recommends topics for further research.

BackgroundIt is well established that PD-1 is expressed by follicular T cells but its function in regulation of human T helper cells has been unclear. We investigated the expression modality and function of PD-1 expressed by human T cells specialized in helping B cells.ResultsWe found that PD-1-expressing T cells are heterogeneous in PD-1 expression. We identified three different PD-1-expressing memory T cell subsets (i.e. PD-1low (+), PD-1medium (++), and PD-1high (+++) cells). PD-1+++ T cells expressed CXCR5 and CXCR4 and were localized in the rim of germinal centers. PD-1+ or PD-1++ cells expressed CCR7 and were present mainly in the T cell area or other parts of the B cell follicles. Utilizing a novel antigen density-dependent magnetic sorting (ADD-MS) method, we isolated the three T cell subsets for functional characterization. The germinal center-located PD-1+++ T cells were most efficient in helping B cells and in producing IL-21 and CXCL13. Other PD-1-expressing T cells, enriched with Th1 and Th17 cells, were less efficient than PD-1+++ T cells in these capacities. PD-1+++ T cells highly expressed Ki-67 and therefore appear active in cell activation and proliferation in vivo. IL-2 is a cytokine important for proliferation and survival of the PD-1+++ T cells. In contrast, IL-21, while a major effector cytokine produced by the PD-1-expressing T helper cells, had no function in generation, survival, or proliferation of the PD-1-expressing helper T cells at least in vitro. PD-1 triggering has a suppressive effect on the proliferation and B cell-helping function of PD-1+++ germinal center T cells.ConclusionOur results revealed the phenotype and effector function of PD-1-expressing T helper cell subsets and indicate that PD-1 restrains the B cell-helping function of germinal center-localized T cells to prevent excessive antibody response.

The key reason for including this chapter in this book is that the development of more advanced forms of e-government requires that residences have high-speed broadband. Without such connectivity, the advanced forms of service provision and exchange are simply not feasible. The potential benefit of delivering e-government services to entities outside government–in particular, individuals, households, or small organizations–is at least equal to the benefits that can be realized by performing governmentto- government processes electronically. Meeting citizen and small business expectations for efficiently performing electronic transactions over the Internet, however, depends on the design of the e-government application (which government can control), as well as the speed and throughput capacity of the digital communications connection (which government may influence but does not control). This chapter discusses issues surrounding municipal promotion of residential broadband, and the authors’ proposed resolution of such issues, along with suggestions for further research.