University Of California-Davis Research Articles

Evaluating a Medical School's Climate for Women's Success: Outcomes for Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion.

Women are under-represented in academia. Causative factors include challenges of career-family integration. We evaluated factors reflecting institutional culture (promotion, retention, hiring, and biasing language in promotion letters) as part of an intervention to help shift culture and raise awareness of flexibility policies at the University of California, Davis (UCD). Data on faculty use of family-friendly policies were obtained at baseline, and surveys for policy awareness were conducted pre(2010)/post(2013) an NIH-funded study educational intervention. Data on hires, separations, and promotions were obtained pre(2007-2009, 2234 person-year data points)/post(2010-2012, 2384 person-year data points) intervention and compared by logistic regression and for gender differences. Department promotion letters (53) were also analyzed for biasing language. Policy use was overall low, highest for female assistant professors, and for maternity leave. Awareness significantly increased for all policies postintervention. Promotions decreased, likely because of increases in advancement deferrals or tenure clock extensions. Pre/postintervention, female and male hires were near parity for assistant professors, but female hires were substantially lower than males for associate (54% less likely, p = 0.03) and full professors (70% less likely, p = 0.002). Once hired, women were no more likely to separate than men. Fewer associate/full professors separated than assistant professors (p = 0.002, p < 0.001, respectively), regardless of gender. Language in promotion letters was not gender biased. We demonstrate a shift at UCD toward a culture of work-life flexibility, an environment in which letters of recommendation show very few biased descriptions, and in which assistant professor hiring is gender equitable. At the same time, a decrease in number of faculty members applying for promotion and an imbalance of men over women at senior hires independent of policy awareness may challenge the assumption that family-friendly policies, while promoting flexibility, also have a positive impact on professional advancement.

Population Diversity of Grape Phylloxera in California and Evidence for Sexual Reproduction

Until recently the foliar forms of grape phylloxera have been absent or very rare in California, and nodosities have not been common on resistant rootstocks. Foliar phylloxera are now widely spread in the mothervine plantings of grape rootstock nurseries in Yolo and Solano counties. There have also been frequent observations of nodosities on resistant rootstocks. To determine the genetic relationships within and among these seemingly new types of phylloxera, collections were made across California from 2009 to 2011. Foliar-feeding phylloxera strains were collected from rootstock mothervines at the National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Winters, CA, the University of California, Davis (UCD) vineyards, and six commercial rootstock nursery plantings in Yolo and Solano Counties. Root-feeding samples were collected from a rootstock trial at the UCD Oakville research station vineyard in Napa County, which had previously been sampled in 2006 and 2007. Root-feeding samples were also collected from commercial vineyards in Napa and Sonoma Counties, and the UCD vineyard. All samples were tested and genotyped using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and the genetic structure of the populations was analyzed. The results identified four genetically distinct populations of phylloxera in California, which were named Davis, Foliar, Napa1 and Napa2. Davis, Napa1 and Napa2 were composed of root-feeding samples. Multilocus genotypes (MLG) with identical DNA fingerprint profiles were detected in the 2006–07 samples from the Oakville research station. More genetic divergence was observed in the Davis, Napa1 and Napa2 populations with evidence for sexual reproduction between members of Napa1 and Napa2. The Foliar population consisted of only foliar-feeding samples with MLGs that were not detected prior to 2009 and asexual reproduction was clearly the primary reproductive mode.

The Classic Period Maya transition from an ideal free to an ideal despotic settlement system at the polity of Uxbenká

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 45 (2017) 53–68 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa The Classic Period Maya transition from an ideal free to an ideal despotic settlement system at the polity of Uxbenka Keith M. Prufer a, ⇑ , Amy E. Thompson a , Clayton R. Meredith a , Brendan J. Culleton b , Jillian M. Jordan a , Claire E. Ebert b , Bruce Winterhalder c , Douglas J. Kennett b a b c Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, United States Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, United States Department of Anthropology, University of California-Davis, United States 1. Introduction More than eleven hundred years of settlement history at Uxbenka, a Classic Period Maya polity (ca. 300 BC to AD 900) located in southern Belize (Fig. 1), conform to a patterned shift from an ideal free to a despotic distribution, coincident with a change toward habitat suitability increasingly dependent on anthropogenic features of the landscape. To demonstrate this claim, we document the development and geospatial organization of the settlement systems at Uxbenka using differential GPS and LiDAR data associated with extensive survey and excavations (Prufer et al., 2015). We also chronicle the development of the built landscape; a major trade corridor, neighborhoods, districts, and the ceremonial center being the prime features under consideration. Finally, we assess the relationships between the spatial patterns as populations in-fill to political developments within the frame- work of two population ecology models: the Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) and Ideal Despotic Distribution (IDD). 1.1. Setting, objectives and questions Uxbenka (Fig. 1) was a moderately sized Maya center during the Classic Period (AD 250–900), comparable to nearby sites such as Pusilha and Lubaantun but small when compared to the major cen- ters of Tikal and Caracol to the northwest. Since 2005 the Uxbenka Archaeological Project (UAP) has conducted extensive survey and excavations in the settlement zone surrounding Uxbenka, with a focus on building a precise absolute chronology for the develop- ment of the community and its environmental context (Culleton et al., 2012; Prufer et al., 2011, 2015; Prufer and Thompson, 2016). Cultural ecological studies conducted in parallel are docu- menting the agro-ecology of contemporary subsistence tactics in the nearby community of Santa Cruz (Baines, 2015; Culleton, 2012). We draw on both sources of information in our analysis. In agrarian communities, residential settlements are the pri- mary social unit and location of human interactions that articulate with broader economic and political processes (Ashmore, 1981; ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: kmp@unm.edu (K.M. Prufer). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2016.11.003 0278-4165/Published by Elsevier Inc. Willey, 1968). Despite their importance they remain understudied and poorly dated in the Maya area (See Supplement S-1). For instance, little research has examined the precise chronological histories of settlements surrounding Classic Period Maya centers. This leaves us unable to answer basic anthropological questions: Why were people more successful in some locations compared to others on a landscape? How did population growth, the natural environment, and the built environment influence status dispari- ties of settlements through time? What are the relationships between settlements, which generate agricultural and other resources, and the consolidation and differential control of those resources by emerging political elites? We explore fundamental questions in the development of set- tlement systems in the Maya Lowlands and beyond: What organiz- ing principles and socio-environmental factors guide residential settlement decisions in agricultural societies when the environ- ment is an open access frontier? How do these initial choices change with the growth and development of low-density urban environments? And, what are the long-term consequences of these initially open but increasingly constrained settlement options? We identify and assess the relative importance of social and environ- mental variables that may have been important to human decision-making in a bounded, community-centered landscape. Furthermore, we examine how those decisions were reflected in the relative success of residential compounds over centuries of growth. In pursuit of answers to these and related questions, we (a) pre- sent a high precision AMS 14 C chronology for the development of the Uxbenka settlement system; (b) identify and describe neigh- borhoods (loci of daily household interactions) and districts (local seats of power and authority) as organizing principles for the dis- tribution of households and local economic and political control across the landscape; (c) develop population estimates and a model of demographic growth; (d) analyze factors affecting deci- sions about household location; and (e) offer an evolutionary anthropology model, drawing on behavioral ecology, to help explain why some households and neighborhoods were larger, longer-occupied, and apparently more successful over the 1150 year occupation of the polity. Our evidence and interpreta- tion together document an increasingly stratified relationship

A Novel Mycoplasma sp. Associated with Phallus Disease in Goose Breeders: Pathological and Bacteriological Findings.

In April 2014, poor fertility in a major commercial goose breeder operation in California triggered the submission of six live affected Toulouse ganders ( Anser anser ) to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory, Turlock branch (University of California-Davis). Toulouse were principally affected among all breeds, and their egg fertility dropped from 65.7% to less than 33.9% in the first 40 days of the 2014 breeding season. The flock consisted of 410 adult birds, 90 males and 320 females, between 2 and 5 yr of age. Inspection of the flock revealed that 44.4% of the Toulouse ganders had severe phallic deformities that prevented them from mating. At postmortem examination, severe yellowish fibrocaseous exudate disrupted the architecture of the phallus and occasionally produced fistulating tracts through the wall of the organ. Microscopically, multifocal lymphoid nodules were noted in the mucosa and submucosa of the phallus and were associated with extensive granulomatous reaction, intralesional bacteria, and spermatozoa. Mycoplasma spp. were isolated from the phallus of affected and nonaffected birds, and PCR protocols targeting the 16S-23S ribosomal RNA intergenic spacer regions and the RNA polymerase beta subunit gene were performed to identify the isolates. Three distinct species were identified on sequencing and analysis using the National Center for Biotechnology Information basic local alignment search tool: Mycoplasma cloacale , Mycoplasma anseris , and an unknown novel Mycoplasma sp. Additionally, Pasteurella multocida , in combination with other bacteria, was also isolated from the phallic lesions and identified as serotype 3 with a DNA profile of 1511 (National Veterinary Service Laboratory). This is the first report of these Mycoplasma spp. and other bacteria associated with reproductive disease in ganders in the United States.

Response: Metakomentaryo sa Pagkakataon ng Kolokyum Ukol sa “The Places of E. San Juan, Jr.”

In a provisional synthesis of his lifework, E. San Juan, Jr. surveys the issues and aporias that define his critical oeuvre. He warns at the outset against the narcissism of autobiographical acts, or what he calls the selfie mode. In locating himself, San Juan uses instead the historicizing lens. In this metacommentary, San Juan locates his life project between his birth in 1938, which saw the defeat of the Republican forces in Spain and the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, and the new millennium marked by 9/11 and imperialist terrorism. He begins with the class background of his parents and moves on to discuss his years as an undergraduate at the University of the Philippines-Diliman; his graduate education at Harvard; his collaboration with Tagalog writers; his radicalization as a professor at the University of California-Davis, and at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, in the midst of the nationalist movements, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights era; and his late engagement with the question of racism. San Juan also names the sources of his radical politics as well as the aporias in his thinking, including his oversight of the historical genealogy of local cultures in Philippine vernacular literature, folklore, ecology, and mass media. He ends by reiterating the need to develop the discourse of critique in the hope of reinscribing the ideal kingdom of the Categorical Imperative into the immanent adventure of humanity in its reflexive history.

Sulfation Part of Rice Defenses; Plant Hormones Sculpt Root Microbiomes

Rice plants defend against the agriculturally important bacterial pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae (Xoo) with XA21— the first characterized of more than 350 predicted rice immune receptors, according to Pamela Ronald at the University of California, Davis (UCD). Last year, she and her collaborators identified three Xoo rax genes required for activating XA21-mediated immunity in the plants that this pathogen infects. These genes suggest that tyrosine sulfation plays “a key functional role in the process,” they say, calling the newly identified tyrosine-sulfated protein that they encode “RaxX.” Details appeared in 24 July 2015 in Science Advances (2015:1:e 1500245).

Evert Irving Schlinger

Following a long and difficult battle with Alzheimer's disease, Evert Irving Schlinger passed away during a spectacular lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of Wednesday, 8 October 2014. Ev was peacefully resting at the home of his daughter Jane and son-in-law Brad Omick in Lafayette, California. He is survived by his brother Warren and sister-in-law Katie Schlinger, his four children, Pete, Mathew, Jane, and Brian, and his 11 grandchildren. Ev was a giant of a man in both stature and accomplishment. He had a noble heart, held a deep, abiding trust in people, and participated fully in life. Over his career, Ev was instrumental in advancing the sciences of biology, agriculture, biodiversity, and sustainability. His research focused on two diverse areas of science: an innovative approach to biological control of agricultural pests, and the biology, taxonomy, and evolutionary ecology of parasitic flies belonging to the dipterous family Acroceridae, commonly referred to as spider flies, small-headed flies, or, as Ev preferred to call them, “Acros.” From left to right: Peter Rauch, Robert van den Bosch, Michael Irwin, Paul Estes, Vernon Stern, and Evert Schlinger loading up the vehicle for a collecting trip to Mexico in 1964. Ev earned a B.S. degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1950 and, under the mentorships of Richard Bohart, Harry Lange, and others, a Ph.D. from the University of California-Davis in 1957. Among his numerous awards and honors, Ev was an Honorary Member of the Council of the International Congresses of Dipterology; a recipient of the Award of Distinction by the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis; and a Fellow and Trustee of the California Academy of Sciences. Evert Irving Schlinger (1928-2014). Photo by Gail E. Kampmeier. His research into biological control began after receiving his Ph.D., when he accepted a position …

Abstract 5137: IQGAP1, an ERK1/2 MAPK scaffold, is an oncogenic target in canine melanoma

Abstract BACKGROUND: Human cutaneous melanoma is primarily driven by activating mutations in Braf (60%) or Nras (20%). However, human oral melanoma harbors these mutations much less frequently. Similarly, canine oral mucosal melanomas have not been found to have activating Braf or Nras mutations. This makes them an ideal model to study alternative means of ERK1/2 MAPK pathway activation as these tumors are still reliant on MAPK signaling. We have previously studied IQGAP1 as a tumor specific ERK1/2 MAPK scaffold and shown that it is required for cancer progression. METHODS: In this study, we utilized canine oral melanoma cell lines obtained from the University of California-Davis. We examined the expression and localization of IQGAP1, a signaling scaffold that regulates oncogenic ERK1/2 MAPK signaling in human cancer, and validate it as an oncogenic target in the canine melanoma model. Using a CRISPR/Cas9 knockout of IQGAP1, we examined effects on downstream pathway activation. Additionally, we assayed proliferation of these cell lines when treated with a peptide that blocks the interaction between IQGAP1 and ERK1/2. RESULTS: We observed that canine IQGAP1 is expressed and localizes to a similar extent in human and canine melanoma by qPCR, Western blot and immunofluorescence. Deletion of IQGAP1 from two canine oral melanoma cell lines using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing reduces MAPK pathway activation, similar to effects seen in human BrafV600E cell lines. Additionally, we demonstrated reduced proliferation when these cells are treated with the WW blocking peptide in-vitro. We are currently investigating the expression and localization of IQGAP1 in primary canine oral melanoma compared to normal oral mucosa. CONCLUSION: Building on the above findings to explore alternative MAPK signaling in melanoma using the canine melanoma model may yield novel therapeutic strategies and novel means to target canine and human tumors that are resistant to current Braf and MEK targeted therapies. Citation Format: Ashley Zehnder, Becky Lee, Poornima Neela, Paul Khavari. IQGAP1, an ERK1/2 MAPK scaffold, is an oncogenic target in canine melanoma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 5137. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-5137

Survey Evaluating Sleep Education Catalyzed Change in Residency Training

Background: Despite the high prevalence and negative effects of sleep disorders, sleep issues often remain unexplored during medical encounters. Research has shown that primary care physicians regard their knowledge as inadequate. Objective: We investigated residents’ perceived adequacy of sleep education and level of competency in diagnosing and treating sleep disorders. Methods: A questionnaire via Survey Monkey was administered to senior residents in University of California, Davis (UCD) from family medicine, internal medicine, neurology, and psychiatry to assess perception of their knowledge and training of sleep disorders. Likert scale ratings were used, from 1 (not adequate/competent) to 5 (extremely adequate/competent). Non-parametric statistical methods were used to evaluate differences in survey responses among specialties and assess the correlation between survey responses. Results: Only 33 residents responded with a 29.5% response rate. Neurology residents routinely rotate with a sleep medicine attending and subsequently reported the highest self-competency, adequacy of training, hours of didactics received and frequency of asking patients about sleep. All other residents reported receiving insufficient sleep medicine education. The combined mean score was 1.5 across the specialties regarding adequacy of sleep education in their respective medical schools with 31.3% reporting no sleep medicine training. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that there is a perceived deficit in most residents’ training and competency regarding sleep disorders. These results prompted 2 of the 4 residency programs to change their educational structure with electives in clinical sleep medicine. We believe that this paper illuminates potential need for increasing sleep medicine education throughout various levels of training. Nationwide educational research is needed to promote ACGME to incorporate the fundamentals of sleep medicine into core curriculum. Current Knowledge/Study Rationale: There are no studies, to our knowledge, directly measuring residents’ perceived adequacy of sleep medicine education provided and their perceived level of competency in diagnosing and treating sleep disorders. The aim of this study was to evaluate both the amount of time and quality of sleep education provided to residents as insufficient knowledge in addressing sleep problems may reflect gaps in educational requirements and standards within residency training. Study Impact: This study revealed a perceived deficit in most residents’ training and competency regarding sleep disorders. This study stimulated half of the UC Davis residency programs evaluated to offer electives in clinical sleep medicine suggesting that the study highlighted need for additional educational opportunities in sleep medicine.

An undergraduate's experience in interdisciplinary research

A s an undergraduate student at Northern Kentucky University, I never strongly considered participating in research. My impression was that it took place indoors sitting in front of computers or in labs, and as an environmental science major and outdoor enthusiast I was concerned that research would conflict with my passion for the outdoors. However, I began to consider undergraduate research when I learned about its many experiential and personal benefits. I wanted to be better suited for a career in environmental science, and I wanted to gain further life experience through travel. I applied for a summer research position with my professor to work at the University of California, Davis (UCD) on an existing research project and was accepted. As I learned from this experience, research is in fact very diverse. The overarching goal of the project is to gain an understanding of how elevated soil lead levels may affect urban gardening activities in Sacramento, CA. With more people interested in access to healthy foods, many have turned to urban gardening as an affordable solution. Lead, which has accumulated in urban soils from historic sources, is sometimes viewed as a barrier to urban gardening. Renewed interest in urban gardening and concern over elevated soil lead levels has created the dual opportunity to 1) investigate the distribution of soil lead levels in the city, and 2) inquire into how knowledge of that information may affect the local community. In partnership with Ubuntu Green, a Sacramento non-profit aimed at increasing access to healthy food, researchers working with UCD addressed questions from a combined biogeophysical and social science perspective. Since this research involves more than one discipline it is considered interdisciplinary research, defined as research that involves the use of multiple academic disciplines in order to develop a deeper understanding of scientific questions (Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, 2004). The social science team is investigating how knowledge of elevated soil lead may influence an individual’s sense of place and empowerment. The biogeophysical team is interested in identifying the spatial distribution of lead at multiple scales, including the garden, home, and city scale. Collectively, the group is working to increase opportunities for healthy urban gardening in Sacramento. Project goals have been advanced through the joint development of research questions, shared methodology, and sustained feedback throughout the project between both teams as well as community partners. There are many benefits that undergraduates can gain from participating in research, especially interdisciplinary work. Science that diCorrespondence to: koenigd1@nku.edu

A Rehearsal of Revolution: Salvadorean New Theatre and Politics in the 1970s

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsRicardo Roque-BaldovinosRicardo Roque Baldovinos received his bachelor in Letters from Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (El Salvador), and his M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Minnesota. He is a Professor in the Department of Communications and Culture at the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of California-Davis, University of Richmond, as well as the Universidad Rafael Landivar (Guatemala), Universidad de Costa Rica and Universidad de Chile. He was editor of Cultura, the official journal of El Salvador's Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y el Arte. He is the author of Arte y parte (2001) and Niños de un planeta extraño (2012) and has written numerous articles on Central American Literature and Cultural Studies. He is a co-editor of Tensiones de la modernidad (2010), the second volume of a History of Central American Literatures. Email: rroqueb@yahoo.com

Editors' Notes

Editors' Notes

Identifying PM2.5 and PM0.1 Sources for Epidemiological Studies in California

The University of California-Davis_Primary (UCD_P) model was applied to simultaneously track ∼ 900 source contributions to primary particulate matter (PM) in California for seven continuous years (January 1st, 2000 to December 31st, 2006). Predicted source contributions to primary PM2.5 mass, PM1.8 elemental carbon (EC), PM1.8 organic carbon (OC), PM0.1 EC, and PM0.1 OC were in general agreement with the results from previous source apportionment studies using receptor-based techniques. All sources were further subjected to a constraint check based on model performance for PM trace elemental composition. A total of 151 PM2.5 sources and 71 PM0.1 sources contained PM elements that were predicted at concentrations in general agreement with measured values at nearby monitoring sites. Significant spatial heterogeneity was predicted among the 151 PM2.5 and 71 PM0.1 source concentrations, and significantly different seasonal profiles were predicted for PM2.5 and PM0.1 in central California vs southern California. Population-weighted concentrations of PM emitted from various sources calculated using the UCD_P model spatial information differed from the central monitor estimates by up to 77% for primary PM2.5 mass and 148% for PM2.5 EC because the central monitor concentration is not representative of exposure for nearby population. The results from the UCD_P model provide enhanced source apportionment information for epidemiological studies to examine the relationship between health effects and concentrations of primary PM from individual sources.

Surgical insertion of transmitters and telemetry methods in fisheries research

Received June 25, 2013. Accepted November 11, 2013. From the Fish Ecology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2725 Montlake Blvd East, Seattle, WA 98112 (Rub, Moser); the Section for Freshwater Fisheries Ecology, Institute of Aquatic Resources, Danish Technical University, 8600 Silkeborg, Denmark (Jepsen); the Columbia River Research Laboratory, Western Fisheries Research Center, US Geological Survey, 5501A Cook-Underwood Rd, Cook, WA 98605 (Liedtke); and the Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA 95616 (Weber). The authors thank Dr. Adrian Smith and JoAnne Butzerin for technical assistance. Address correspondence to Dr. Rub (michelle.rub@noaa.gov). U of electronic transmitter and monitoring systems to track movements of aquatic animals has increased continuously since the inception of these systems in the mid-1950s. The purpose of the present report is to provide information about veterinary principles and their incorporation into surgical implantation procedures for fish. We also intend to provide insight into the unique challenges of field-based aquatic surgical studies. Within this context, 4 aspects of the process for surgical implantation of transmitters in fish (ie, handling, aseptic technique, anesthesia, and implantation) will be described. Effects of surgical insertion of transmitters (ie, tagging) and aspects of the surgical implantation process where collaboration and professional exchanges among nonveterinarian researchers and veterinarians may be most fruitful will be discussed. Although this report focuses on surgical implantation, the principles and protocols described here (other than incision and suture placement) are also applicable to studies that involve injection of transmitters into fish.

Celebrating A Decade of Middle East Gender Studies

This special issue celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (JMEWS)—a joyful decade marked by the dramatic expansion of path-breaking new scholarship in Middle East gender studies. In this Introduction, I briefly trace the history of JMEWS and its parent organization, the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS), to mark some important historical milestones and to recognize those who have helped AMEWS and JMEWS to flourish. JMEWS is the professional journal of AMEWS, one of the major affiliate organizations of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) of North America. AMEWS was founded thirty years ago in 1984. Suad Joseph of the University of California-Davis led the way as the organization’s founder and first president. She was supported in her efforts by a dedicated group of Middle East feminist scholars from a wide variety of institutions and fields. Early on and in the days before the Internet, AMEWS hosted a lively newsletter. The AMEWS newsletter was edited for some time by Middle East historian Eleanor Doumato and later by Middle East economist Jennifer Olmsted and was sent by mail to all AMEWS members. However, over the years, it was recognized that a newsletter alone could not meet the needs of the growing community of Middle East feminist scholars. Thus, in the early 2000s, a team of senior AMEWS members, including miriam cooke, Sondra Hale, and Suad Joseph, formed an AMEWS publication committee, headed by Hale. Together, they drafted a proposal for an AMEWS-affiliated journal, to be called the Journal of

Newly Recognized Components in the Innate Immune Response

A newly recognized multiprotein complex plays a crucial role in recognizing one class of bacterial pathogens and then signaling other components of the innate immune system, according to Andreas Baumler of the University of California, Davis (UCD), and his collaborators. These findings “considerably change our understanding of the mechanisms that trigger this pathway,” he says. Details appear in the April 11, 2013 Nature (doi:10.1038/nature12025).

Acceptance Speech of Arthur J. Krener for the 2012 Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award [People in Control

In this issue of IEEE Control Systems Magazine (CSM), this column ends with Arthur Krener's acceptance speech for the 2012 Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award given in Montréal, Canada, in June 2012. He is a mathematician whose research interests are in developing methods for the control and estimation of nonlinear dynamical systems and stochastic processes. In 1971 he received the Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, and joined the faculty of the University of California, Davis (UCD). He retired from UCD in 2006 as a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and he currently is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. He has also held visiting positions at Harvard University, Imperial College, NASA Ames Research Center, the University of Paris, the University of Maryland, the University of Padua, North Carolina State University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Honors and awards include Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), Life Fellow of the IEEE, the W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize in Mathematics from SIAM, the IEEE Control System Society Bode Prize Lecture, and the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award from the American Automatic Control Council.

High accuracy mantle convection simulation through modern numerical methods

The first author was supported by the Graduate School in Mathematics and Computing (FMB) at Uppsala University, Sweden. The second and third authors are supported in part through the Computational Infrastructure in Geodynamics initiative (CIG), through the National Science Foundation under Award No. EAR-0949446 and The University of California-Davis. This publication is based in part on work supported by Award No. KUS-C1-016-04, made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The third author is also supported in part by an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.Some computations for this paper were performed on the 'Ranger' and 'Lonestar' clusters at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), and the 'Brazos' and 'Hurr' clusters at the Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (IAMCS) at Texas A&M University. Ranger was funded by NSF award OCI-0622780, and we used an allocation obtained under NSF award TG-MCA04N026. The authors acknowledge the Texas A&M Supercomputing Facility for providing computing resources on 'Lonestar' useful in conducting the research reported in this paper. Part of Brazos was supported by NSF award DMS-0922866. Hurr is supported by Award No. KUS-C1-016-04 made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Some computations were performed on resources provided by SNIC through Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) under project p2010002.

Social Media Force Leaders to Get the Message Out—Now

Do you tweet or blog? Are you LinkedIn? If you're one of the estimated 845 million people on Facebook, you know that events and actions that once could be controlled or even hidden now are immediately wide open to scrutiny. Very little is private anymore. At the University of California-Davis, President Dr. Linda P.B. Katehi scrambled over an incident with the Occupy UC-Davis movement on campus. A student bystander shot a photo of a police officer dousing pepper spray on protestors who were sitting in a circle with their arms linked; within seconds it appeared on her Facebook wall worldwide. A decade ago, the event would not have gained worldwide attention as quickly. Katehi would have had time to carefully craft her message and deliver it before the outrage. The speed of communications directly affects leaders, said Evan Zeppos, the president of Zeppos & Associates, a Wisconsin-based public relations firm. He spoke at the Wisconsin Women in Higher Education Leadership (WWHEL) conference held at the Waukesha County Technical College in October 2011. Zeppos, who has worked with higher education leaders to craft PR strategies, calls the industry women-friendly. “Women can break through the glass ceiling in PR easier than in other fields,” he said. Public relations is much more than putting lipstick on a pig or working on warm and fluffy issues. It addresses ethics, social responsibility, management, corporate governance and people as a central management function. Remember former BP CEO Tony Hayward, who was shown wearing an ascot aboard a 52-foot yacht while oil from BP's well continued to spew in the Gulf of Mexico? That image—and his comment about wanting his life back—caused BP even more bad PR. Alasdair Thompson, the ex-CEO of New Zealand's Employers’ and Manufacturers’ Association, was quoted as saying “Women are paid 12% less because they get sick once a month.” Leaders acknowledge the reality and prepare for the worst. “Politics is a game of addition, not subtraction,” Zeppos said. Leaders must serve all of their constituencies. Talk radio hosts depend on popularity with listeners, not the truth. Classified as entertainers and not reporters, they have a lot more freedom over what they can say and don't need to verify the facts. Examples of crisis communication abound: the Virginia Tech University massacres, Tyler Clementi's suicide at Rutgers, the hazing death at Florida A&M University. Zeppos cautioned to never judge that bad things have happened. How you respond to the crisis is most important. You've got to get your message out as soon as possible, to set a tone and to show you care. He instructs clients to have crisis risk assessments in place and be ready to put a plan into action immediately. What are the five emergencies most likely to happen on your campus? Plan for them and be ready to act. If an explosion on your campus may result in a death, you can't wait for half an hour to get your message out. “Get your oar in the water and manage things,” said Zeppos. “Be the rider or the horse. The rider kicks the horse and controls things.“ He added: “You've got to be at the table or if you're not fast enough, you'll be on the menu.” Blogs are the new water cooler, with a reach that goes beyond the faculty, staff and students. Some bloggers, “Don't let the facts stand in the way of a good story.” When you see an inaccuracy about your school, staff or students in a blog, engage it appropriately, saying, “I appreciate the comment, but …” and make your three points as to why the comment is wrong. Respond in the blog's comment section. Respond when you hear it, or you'll lose the opportunity to give your side of the issue. It's a brave new communications world out there. Leaders must learn to control it before it controls them.

Integrin-mediated Membrane Blebbing Is Dependent on Sodium-Proton Exchanger 1 and Sodium-Calcium Exchanger 1 Activity

Integrin signaling and membrane blebbing modulate cell adhesion, spreading, and migration. However, the relationship between integrin signaling and membrane blebbing is unclear. Here, we show that an integrin-ligand interaction induces both membrane blebbing and changes in membrane permeability. Sodium-proton exchanger 1 (NHE1) and sodium-calcium exchanger 1 (NCX1) are membrane proteins located on the bleb membrane. Inhibition of NHE1 disrupts membrane blebbing and decreases changes in membrane permeability. However, inhibition of NCX1 enhances cell blebbing; cells become swollen because of NHE1 induced intracellular sodium accumulation. Our study found that NHE1 induced sodium influx is a driving force for membrane bleb growth, while sodium efflux (and calcium influx) induced by NCX1 in a reverse mode results in membrane bleb retraction. Together, these findings reveal a novel function for NHE1 and NCX1 in membrane blebbing and permeability, and establish a link between membrane blebbing and integrin signaling.