Members of the African Studies Association may be interested to know something about the Department of African Studies at the University of Delhi, which I visited last fall. This is the only African studies program in India; it was established in 1955 at the instance of the Government of India following a rapid increase in interest among Indians in political ana racial affairs in Africa. The prospectus for the Department states that it was established “in order that India might have a centre for the study of Africa—her history and culture and arts, her social institutions and her languages, her politics, her race relations and her other problems, her economics and her geography. It is intended that at this centre facilities shall be provided for research as well as for the stuay of particular courses leading to tne conferment of certificates, diplomas and aegrees.

Hepatitis B virus vaccination is currently recommended in Australia for adults at an increased risk of acquiring infection or at high risk of complications from infection. This retrospective cohort study used data from an Australian sentinel surveillance system to assess the proportion of individuals who had a recorded test that indicated being susceptible to hepatitis B infection in six priority populations, as well as the proportion who were then subsequently vaccinated within six months of being identified as susceptible. Priority populations included in this analysis were people born overseas in a hepatitis B endemic country, people living with HIV, people with a recent hepatitis C infection, gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, people who have ever injected drugs, and sex workers. Results of the study found that in the overall cohort of 43,335 individuals, 14,140 (33%) were identified as susceptible to hepatitis B, and 5,255 (37%) were subsequently vaccinated. Between 26% and 33% of individuals from priority populations were identified as susceptible to hepatitis B infection, and the proportion of these subsequently vaccinated within six months was between 28% and 42% across the groups. These findings suggest further efforts are needed to increase the identification and subsequent vaccination of susceptible individuals among priority populations recommended for hepatitis B vaccination, including among people who are already engaged in hepatitis B care.

This article examines working-class views of the Tammany Hall political machine and its main opposition parties between 1870 and 1924. Previous historians, relying mostly on accounts from machine politicians like George Washington Plunkitt, have tended to argue that Tammany Hall enjoyed popularity among working-class New Yorkers in this period because it offered them effective forms of material aid through the practice of job patronage and informal acts of charity. This article complicates that assertion by examining accounts and voting records from working-class individuals themselves. It finds that, while patronage and informal charity were indeed popular with working-class voters in this period, they were often dissatisfied with most other aspects of Tammany Hall governance, such as its reputation for corruption or inefficient delivering of city services. Working-class voters only continued to vote for Tammany Hall because the machine’s political rivals were generally led by wealthy reformers who repeatedly and openly disparaged members of the working class in their speeches and supported policies that were even more unpopular with working-class voters than Tammany Hall’s governance.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established a separate Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) in December 2018 to promote more consistent quality and use of economic analysis in its decisions. The agency’s reorganization concentrated economists who previously were dispersed across different offices and bureaus. This paper describes key organizational choices that were made in the period preceding and soon after the establishment of OEA. We show how these decisions – which relate to decision rights, formal control systems, and informal practices and procedures – are consistent with organizational theory and practice. We also draw lessons from the FCC’s experience that may apply to those tasked with managing economists and other specialized or technical staff in large and/or complex organizations.

As accusations and denials swirl regarding the burial of herbicides employed by the U.S. military in Vietnam during that war, there are irrefutable facts that seem not to have been considered in their true context. Denials of such burials by the U.S. military on land that was then part of Kadena Air Base on Okinawa by Dr. Alvin Young, a hired consultant and purported expert on military herbicides, and the U.S. Department of Defense are disingenuous at the very least, and at worst a blatant cover-up of historical realities.

Objectives/Goals: Our lab’s novel adoptive cellular therapy (ACT) significantly improves survival in brain tumor models. However, there is a lack of biomarkers to assess immunotherapy responses. Our objective is to use gold nanorods to track hematopoietic stem cell migration, a critical arm of ACT, and validate it as a prognostic biomarker. Methods/Study Population: Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) were isolated from the bone marrow of 6-week-old C57BL/6J mice and co-cultured with varying gold nanorod (GNR) concentrations and time points. GNR uptake in HSCs was evaluated with inductive coupled plasma mass spectrometry, two-photon luminescence, and tissue histology. After GNR co-culture, HSC viability and differentiation were quantified with flow cytometry and colony forming unit assays. To evaluate the impact of GNRs on HSC reconstitution, mice received myeloablative total body irradiation and intravenously received GNR-labeled HSCs. Computed tomography (CT) contrast of GNRs will be confirmed through microCT. Lastly, mice will intracranially receive KR158b glioma and GNR-labeled HSC bio-distribution will be measured after ACT and correlated with survival outcomes. Results/Anticipated Results: We have demonstrated that GNRs are readily taken up by HSCs within 30 minutes, and retained within intracellular compartments, via TPL. Incubation of GNRs with HSCs did not significantly alter cell viability or differentiation, supporting the GNR’s favorable biosafety profile. Colony-forming unit assays revealed that GNR incubation did not significantly disrupt the total number of colonies formed and qualitatively, colonies did not demonstrate significant lineage differences. GNR-labeled HSCs demonstrated significant reconstitution after myeloablative total body irradiation in mice. We expect that GNR-labeled HSCs will distribute to the glioma microenvironment and draining lymph nodes, positively correlating with long-term survival after ACT. Discussion/Significance of Impact: GNRs harbored high biosafety and feasibility for tracking HSC migration after ACT. We seek to translate this theranostic tool into the current first-in-human clinical trials at our institution for patients diagnosed with neuroblastoma and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma to improve immunotherapies against brain malignancies.

In recent years, virtue epistemology has been criticized for its individualism. Correspondingly, some attempts have been made to make it more social. However, there is some confusion about what it means for virtue epistemology to be individualistic, and how it should be socialized in the face of this. The current paper proposes a systematic answer to these questions. We distinguish elements of theories of virtue that might give rise to different forms of individualism: “subject individualism,” “faculty/trait individualism,” and “value individualism.” Then we show what specific challenges these elements might pose for virtue reliabilism and responsibilism. We focus on two challenges: the epistemic value of other-regarding intellectual virtues, and the problem of “epistemic outsourcing.” In both cases, we identify and evaluate possible strategies for socializing these elements of virtue epistemology.

Indigenous Peoples in Canada are comprised of First Nations, Inuit and Métis and are the youngest and fastest growing population in the country. However, there is limited knowledge of how they are affected by multiple sclerosis (MS), the most common nontraumatic neurological disease of young adults, with Canada having one of the highest prevalences in the world. In this narrative review, we outline the limited studies conducted with Indigenous Peoples living with MS in Canada and the gaps in the literature. From the limited data we have, the prevalence of MS in Indigenous Peoples is lower, but the disease appears to be more aggressive. Given the dearth of Canadian data, we explore the worldwide MS studies of Indigenous populations. Lastly, we explore ways in which we can improve our understanding of MS among Indigenous Peoples in Canada, which entails building trust and meaningful relationships with these communities and acknowledging past and ongoing injustices. Furthermore, healthcare professionals conducting research with Indigenous Peoples should undergo training in cultural safety and data sovereignty, including principles of ownership, control, access and possession to have greater engagement with Indigenous communities to conduct more relevant research. With joint efforts between healthcare professionals and Indigenous communities, the scientific research community can be positioned to conduct better, more appropriate and desperately needed research, ultimately with improvements in the delivery of care to Indigenous Peoples living with MS in Canada.

Stochastic generators are essential to produce synthetic realizations that preserve target statistical properties. We propose GenFormer, a stochastic generator for spatio-temporal multivariate stochastic processes. It is constructed using a Transformer-based deep learning model that learns a mapping between a Markov state sequence and time series values. The synthetic data generated by the GenFormer model preserve the target marginal distributions and approximately capture other desired statistical properties even in challenging applications involving a large number of spatial locations and a long simulation horizon. The GenFormer model is applied to simulate synthetic wind speed data at various stations in Florida to calculate exceedance probabilities for risk management.

On 24 February 2011 the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced proposals for introduction of a ‘carbon price mechanism’ to commence as early as 1 July 2012. This announcement follows the establishment of a Multi-Party Climate Change Committee on 27 September 2010 with instructions to ‘explore options for the implementation of a carbon price [and] help to build consensus on how Australia will tackle the challenge of climate change’, starting from the position that ‘a carbon price is a necessary economic reform required to reduce carbon pollution’. Earlier in 2010 a major review of the Australian taxation system by Dr Ken Henry was released, providing extensive insights into how the tax system should be restructured ‘to deal with the … environmental challenges of the 21st century’, and its ‘interrelationships [with] … the proposed emissions trading system’. These developments are largely driven by the need for Australia to develop a credible climate change agenda once the Kyoto Protocol arrangements come to an end in 2012.