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Fetal microchimerism and maternal health: a review and evolutionary analysis of cooperation and conflict beyond the womb.

Amy M Boddy, Angelo Fortunato, Melissa Wilson Sayres, Athena Aktipis

BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology·2015

The presence of fetal cells has been associated with both positive and negative effects on maternal health. These paradoxical effects may be due to the fact that maternal and offspring fitness interests are aligned in certain domains and conflicting in others, which may have led to the evolution of fetal microchimeric phenotypes that can manipulate maternal tissues. We use cooperation and conflict theory to generate testable predictions about domains in which fetal microchimerism may enhance maternal health and those in which it may be detrimental. This framework suggests that fetal cells may function both to contribute to maternal somatic maintenance (e.g. wound healing) and to manipulate maternal physiology to enhance resource transmission to offspring (e.g. enhancing milk production). In this review, we use an evolutionary framework to make testable predictions about the role of fetal microchimerism in lactation, thyroid function, autoimmune disease, cancer and maternal emotional, and psychological health. Also watch the Video Abstract.

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Rethinking rewilding

Dolly Jørgensen

Geoforum·2015·228 citations

The term ‘rewilding’ sounds as if it should have a straightforward meaning ‘to make wild again’. But in truth the term has a complex history and a host of meanings have been ascribed to it. Rewilding as a specific scientific term has its beginnings as a reference to the Wildlands Project, which was founded in 1991 and aimed to create North American core wilderness areas without human activity that would be connected by corridors. Words, however, do not stand still—they change over time and take on new meanings, while sometimes simultaneously retaining the older sense. Employing Foucault’s idea of historical genealogy, this article examines how the term rewilding was historically adopted and modified in ecological scientific discourse over the last two decades. This investigation probes what and, by extension, when and where, rewilding refers to as it has moved into various geographies across the globe. It then examines how the term has moved outside of science and been adopted by environmental activists as a plastic word. Taken as a whole, rewilding discourse seeks to erase human history and involvement with the land and flora and fauna. Such an attempted split between nature and culture may prove unproductive and even harmful. A more inclusive rewilding is a preferable strategy.

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A Dream Best Forgotten

Theodore T. Bartholomew, Brittany E. Gundel, Neeta Kantamneni

The Counseling Psychologist·2015·14 citations

Refugees are often forced into states of imposed vulnerability in which loss is common and migration is normative. Karen refugees from Myanmar have endured a long civil war with the Burmese government, followed by their forced relocation to refugee camps and subsequent global resettlement. This phenomenological study aimed to understand the meanings ascribed to pre-resettlement stress among resettled Karen refugees. We interviewed six participants who were identified through purposeful sampling in a Karen refugee community. Using phenomenological analysis, we identified and interpreted 286 meaning units. The meaning units were then grouped into four themes: (a) Loss From Oppression, (b) Resignation and Acceptance in a Context of Regular Violence, (c) Ongoing Insecurity While Confined in Camps, and (d) Redefined Selfhood. The results provide a contextual understanding of the pre-resettlement stressors experienced by Karen refugees.

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An ecological measure of immune-cancer colocalization as a prognostic factor for breast cancer.

Carlo C Maley, Konrad Koelble, Rachael Natrajan, Athena Aktipis, Yinyin Yuan

Breast cancer research : BCR·2015

Abundance of immune cells has been shown to have prognostic and predictive significance in many tumor types. Beyond abundance, the spatial organization of immune cells in relation to cancer cells may also have significant functional and clinical implications. However there is a lack of systematic methods to quantify spatial associations between immune and cancer cells. We applied ecological measures of species interactions to digital pathology images for investigating the spatial associations of immune and cancer cells in breast cancer. We used the Morisita-Horn similarity index, an ecological measure of community structure and predator-prey interactions, to quantify the extent to which cancer cells and immune cells colocalize in whole-tumor histology sections. We related this index to disease-specific survival of 486 women with breast cancer and validated our findings in a set of 516 patients from different hospitals. Colocalization of immune cells with cancer cells was significantly associated with a disease-specific survival benefit for all breast cancers combined. In HER2-positive subtypes, the prognostic value of immune-cancer cell colocalization was highly significant and exceeded those of known clinical variables. Furthermore, colocalization was a significant predictive factor for long-term outcome following chemotherapy and radiotherapy in HER2 and Luminal A subtypes, independent of and stronger than all known clinical variables. Our study demonstrates how ecological methods applied to the tumor microenvironment using routine histology can provide reproducible, quantitative biomarkers for identifying high-risk breast cancer patients. We found that the clinical value of immune-cancer interaction patterns is highly subtype-specific but substantial and independent to known clinicopathologic variables that mostly focused on cancer itself. Our approach can be developed into computer-assisted prediction based on histology samples that are already routinely collected.

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Discovering governing equations from data: Sparse identification of nonlinear dynamical systems

Steven L. Brunton, Joshua L. Proctor, J. Nathan Kutz

arXiv·2015

The ability to discover physical laws and governing equations from data is one of humankind's greatest intellectual achievements. A quantitative understanding of dynamic constraints and balances in nature has facilitated rapid development of knowledge and enabled advanced technological achievements, including aircraft, combustion engines, satellites, and electrical power. In this work, we combine sparsity-promoting techniques and machine learning with nonlinear dynamical systems to discover governing physical equations from measurement data. The only assumption about the structure of the model is that there are only a few important terms that govern the dynamics, so that the equations are sparse in the space of possible functions; this assumption holds for many physical systems. In particular, we use sparse regression to determine the fewest terms in the dynamic governing equations required to accurately represent the data. The resulting models are parsimonious, balancing model complexity with descriptive ability while avoiding overfitting. We demonstrate the algorithm on a wide range of problems, from simple canonical systems, including linear and nonlinear oscillators and the chaotic Lorenz system, to the fluid vortex shedding behind an obstacle. The fluid example illustrates the ability of this method to discover the underlying dynamics of a system that took experts in the community nearly 30 years to resolve. We also show that this method generalizes to parameterized, time-varying, or externally forced systems.

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The ‘Greenization’ of Chinese Bits: An Empirical Study of the Environmental Provisions in Chinese Bits and its Implications for China’s Future Bit-Making

Manjiao Chi

Journal of International Economic Law·2015·6 citations

Incorporating environmental provisions (EPs) in International investment agreements is an important way for states to confront grave environmental challenges through the discourse of international investment law. An empirical study of the EPs incorporated in all 104 Chinese BITs in force shows that only a limited number of Chinese BITs contain EPs and that the generational and regional distribution of the EPs are imbal- anced. The overall lack and low quality of the EPs make Chinese BITs as a whole in- sufficiently environmentally friendly. This study reveals that Chinese BITs are getting increasingly ‘green’, especially the recent decade. Mere incorporation of EPs in BITs does not necessarily make BITs ‘green’. Whether and to what extent EPs can play a constructive role in environmental protection depends on how they are applied and how the two seemingly conflicting purposes of BITs, i.e. investment protection and en- vironmental protection, are reconciled in international investment arbitration. China has an urgent need to ‘greenize’ its BITs. Toward this end, China should, first, enhance the availability and effectiveness of EPs in its BITs; second, make consorted efforts to incorporate certain EP-related provisions in its BITs and relevant national laws; third, change its current dichotomic BIT-making strategy.

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All Papers

Fetal microchimerism and maternal health: a review and evolutionary analysis of cooperation and conflict beyond the womb.

Rethinking rewilding

A Dream Best Forgotten

An ecological measure of immune-cancer colocalization as a prognostic factor for breast cancer.

Two Concerns about the Medicalization of Love

Discovering governing equations from data: Sparse identification of nonlinear dynamical systems

Metabolites of arachidonic acid and linoleic acid in early stages of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease—A pilot study

Do Animals Need Rights?

The ‘Greenization’ of Chinese Bits: An Empirical Study of the Environmental Provisions in Chinese Bits and its Implications for China’s Future Bit-Making

Compulsory Sexuality: Evaluating an Emerging Concept

El mundo funerario celtibérico como expresión de un ethos agonístico

Genome Sequence and Annotation of <i>Trichoderma parareesei</i> , the Ancestor of the Cellulase Producer <i>Trichoderma reesei</i>