Today, a group of over 300 business leaders representing 44 states signed a letter calling on President Obama and Congress to invest in early learning programs. These CEOs, chambers of commerce and business roundtables represent large companies like Delta Airlines and PNC Financial Services Group and smaller companies like Scope View Strategic Advantage in Charlotte, NC and C.H. Briggs Company in Reading, PA. Regardless of their location, size or scope of business, all agreed on one thing; investing in early childhood education is the right thing to do for our nation?s children.
?We rarely have the luxury,? their letter says, ?of making business investment decisions with as much evidence as we have to support the economic value of investing in early care and education.?
Earlier this year, President Obama put forth a ?Preschool for All? proposal in his Fiscal Year 2014 budget, and the Department is currently seeking input from stakeholders on the president?s plan for the federal government to partner with states in making access to high-quality early learning a reality for every four-year-old in America.
The President?s proposal is for a deficit-neutral investment of $75 billion over 10 years to create new partnerships with states to provide high-quality preschool for all 4-year olds. An additional $750 million will provide competitive grants to states to strengthen their early learning systems. Combined, the proposal will raise the quality of all early learning programs and will align current investments, including home visitation, creating a birth to age 5 pipeline of services and support that prepares children for kindergarten and beyond.
This plan is entirely consistent with the business leaders? declaration that, ?Early care and education is not a partisan issue. It is an American competitiveness issue that impacts all of us,? and with their support for the adoption of policies that ?give all children the chance to fulfill their potential and create the best workforce and economy in the world.?
Studies prove that children who have rich early learning experiences are better prepared to thrive in school. And because behavioral skills highly valued by employers, such as self-discipline, persistence and cooperation, start in the youngest years and last a lifetime, President Obama and Secretary Duncan agree that quality early childhood programs have a significant and positive impact on the American workforce, customer base, economy and nation we need in a 21st century environment.
For more information and to read the full text of the letter, please visit: www.readynation.org/signatories-business-letter
Cameron French is the Deputy Press Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education
Surges in latent infections: Mathematical analysis of viral blipsPublic release date: 31-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy karthika@siam.org 267-350-6383 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Philadelphia, PARecurrent infection is a common feature of persistent viral diseases. It includes episodes of high viral production interspersed by periods of relative quiescence. These quiescent or silent stages are hard to study with experimental models. Mathematical analysis can help fill in the gaps.
In a paper titled Conditions for Transient Viremia in Deterministic in-Host Models: Viral Blips Need No Exogenous Trigger, published last month in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, authors Wenjing Zhang, Lindi M. Wahl, and Pei Yu present a model to study persistent infections.
In latent infections (a type of persistent infection), no infectious cells can be observed during the silent or quiescent stages, which involve low-level viral replication. These silent periods are often interrupted by unexplained intermittent episodes of active viral production and release. "Viral blips" associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are a good example of such active periods.
"Mathematical modeling has been critical to our understanding of HIV, particularly during the clinically latent stage of infection," says author Pei Yu. "The extremely rapid turnover of the viral population during this quiescent stage of infection was first demonstrated through modeling (David Ho, Nature, 1995), and came as a surprise to the clinical community. This was seen as one of the major triumphs of mathematical immunology: an extremely important result through the coupling of patient data and an appropriate modeling approach."
Recurrent infections also often occur due to drug treatment. For example, active antiretroviral therapy for HIV can suppress the levels of the virus to below-detection limits for months. Though much research has focused on these viral blips, their causes are not well understood.
Previous mathematical models have analyzed the reasons behind such viral blips, and have proposed various possible explanations. An early model considered the activation of T cells, a type of immune cell, in response to antigens. Later models attributed blips to recurrent activation of latently-infected lymphocytes, which are a broader class of immune cells that include T-cells. Asymmetric division of such latently-infected cells, resulting in activated cells and latently-infected daughter cells were seen to elicit blips in another study.
These previous models have used exogenous triggers such as stochastic or transient stimulation of the immune system in order to generate viral blips.
In this paper, the authors use dynamical systems theory to reinvestigate in-host infection models that exhibit viral blips. They demonstrate that no such exogenous triggers are needed to generate viral blips, and propose that blips are produced as part of the natural behavior of the dynamical system. The key factor for this behavior is an infection rate which increases but saturates with the extent of infection. The authors show that such an increasing, saturating infection rate alone is sufficient to produce long periods of quiescence interrupted by rapid replication, or viral blips.
These findings are consistent with clinical observations where even patients on the best currently-available HIV therapy periodically exhibit transient episodes of viremia (high viral load in the blood). A number of reasons have been proposed for this phenomenon, such as poor adherence to therapy or the activation of a hidden reservoir of HIV-infected cells. "If adherence is the underlying factor, viral blips are triggered when the patient misses a dose or several doses of the prescribed drugs," explains Yu. "If activation is the cause, blips may be triggered by exposure to other pathogens, which activate the immune system. Our work demonstrates that viral blips might simply occur as a natural cycle of the underlying dynamical system, without the need for any special trigger."
The authors propose simple 2- and 3-dimensional models that can produce viral blips. Linear or constant infection rates do not lead to blips in 2-, 3- or 4-dimensional models studied by the authors. However, a 5-dimensional immunological model reveals that a system with a constant infection rate can generate blips as well.
The models proposed in the paper can be used to study a variety of viral diseases that exhibit recurrent infections. "We are currently extending this approach to other infections, and more broadly to other diseases that display recurrence," says Yu. "For example, many autoimmune diseases recur and relapse over a timescale of years, and once again, the 'triggers' for episodes of recurrence are unknown. We would like to understand more fully what factors of the underlying dynamical system might be driving these episodic patterns."
###
Read another nugget article from the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics last month that uses mathematical models to help understand HIV dynamics, and proposes a design for prevention and treatment strategies:
http://connect.siam.org/mathematical-models-to-better-combat-hiv/.
Source Article for above nugget:
Conditions for Transient Viremia in Deterministic in-Host Models: Viral Blips Need No Exogenous Trigger
Wenjing Zhang, Lindi M. Wahl, and Pei Yu
SIAM Journal on Applied Matematics, 73(2), 853 (Online publish date: April 20, 2013). The source article is available for free access at the link below until until August 31, 2013.
http://epubs.siam.org/doi/abs/10.1137/120884535
About the authors:
Wenjing Zhang is a graduate student and Lindi M. Wahl and Pei Yu are professors in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
About SIAM
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of over 14,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians and computer scientists, as well as other scientists and engineers. Members from 85 countries are researchers, educators, students, and practitioners in industry, government, laboratories, and academia. The Society, which also includes nearly 500 academic and corporate institutional members, serves and advances the disciplines of applied mathematics and computational science by publishing a variety of books and prestigious peer-reviewed research journals, by conducting conferences, and by hosting activity groups in various areas of mathematics. SIAM provides many opportunities for students including regional sections and student chapters. Further information is available at http://www.siam.org.
[Reporters are free to use this text as long as they acknowledge SIAM]
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Surges in latent infections: Mathematical analysis of viral blipsPublic release date: 31-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karthika Muthukumaraswamy karthika@siam.org 267-350-6383 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Philadelphia, PARecurrent infection is a common feature of persistent viral diseases. It includes episodes of high viral production interspersed by periods of relative quiescence. These quiescent or silent stages are hard to study with experimental models. Mathematical analysis can help fill in the gaps.
In a paper titled Conditions for Transient Viremia in Deterministic in-Host Models: Viral Blips Need No Exogenous Trigger, published last month in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, authors Wenjing Zhang, Lindi M. Wahl, and Pei Yu present a model to study persistent infections.
In latent infections (a type of persistent infection), no infectious cells can be observed during the silent or quiescent stages, which involve low-level viral replication. These silent periods are often interrupted by unexplained intermittent episodes of active viral production and release. "Viral blips" associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are a good example of such active periods.
"Mathematical modeling has been critical to our understanding of HIV, particularly during the clinically latent stage of infection," says author Pei Yu. "The extremely rapid turnover of the viral population during this quiescent stage of infection was first demonstrated through modeling (David Ho, Nature, 1995), and came as a surprise to the clinical community. This was seen as one of the major triumphs of mathematical immunology: an extremely important result through the coupling of patient data and an appropriate modeling approach."
Recurrent infections also often occur due to drug treatment. For example, active antiretroviral therapy for HIV can suppress the levels of the virus to below-detection limits for months. Though much research has focused on these viral blips, their causes are not well understood.
Previous mathematical models have analyzed the reasons behind such viral blips, and have proposed various possible explanations. An early model considered the activation of T cells, a type of immune cell, in response to antigens. Later models attributed blips to recurrent activation of latently-infected lymphocytes, which are a broader class of immune cells that include T-cells. Asymmetric division of such latently-infected cells, resulting in activated cells and latently-infected daughter cells were seen to elicit blips in another study.
These previous models have used exogenous triggers such as stochastic or transient stimulation of the immune system in order to generate viral blips.
In this paper, the authors use dynamical systems theory to reinvestigate in-host infection models that exhibit viral blips. They demonstrate that no such exogenous triggers are needed to generate viral blips, and propose that blips are produced as part of the natural behavior of the dynamical system. The key factor for this behavior is an infection rate which increases but saturates with the extent of infection. The authors show that such an increasing, saturating infection rate alone is sufficient to produce long periods of quiescence interrupted by rapid replication, or viral blips.
These findings are consistent with clinical observations where even patients on the best currently-available HIV therapy periodically exhibit transient episodes of viremia (high viral load in the blood). A number of reasons have been proposed for this phenomenon, such as poor adherence to therapy or the activation of a hidden reservoir of HIV-infected cells. "If adherence is the underlying factor, viral blips are triggered when the patient misses a dose or several doses of the prescribed drugs," explains Yu. "If activation is the cause, blips may be triggered by exposure to other pathogens, which activate the immune system. Our work demonstrates that viral blips might simply occur as a natural cycle of the underlying dynamical system, without the need for any special trigger."
The authors propose simple 2- and 3-dimensional models that can produce viral blips. Linear or constant infection rates do not lead to blips in 2-, 3- or 4-dimensional models studied by the authors. However, a 5-dimensional immunological model reveals that a system with a constant infection rate can generate blips as well.
The models proposed in the paper can be used to study a variety of viral diseases that exhibit recurrent infections. "We are currently extending this approach to other infections, and more broadly to other diseases that display recurrence," says Yu. "For example, many autoimmune diseases recur and relapse over a timescale of years, and once again, the 'triggers' for episodes of recurrence are unknown. We would like to understand more fully what factors of the underlying dynamical system might be driving these episodic patterns."
###
Read another nugget article from the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics last month that uses mathematical models to help understand HIV dynamics, and proposes a design for prevention and treatment strategies:
http://connect.siam.org/mathematical-models-to-better-combat-hiv/.
Source Article for above nugget:
Conditions for Transient Viremia in Deterministic in-Host Models: Viral Blips Need No Exogenous Trigger
Wenjing Zhang, Lindi M. Wahl, and Pei Yu
SIAM Journal on Applied Matematics, 73(2), 853 (Online publish date: April 20, 2013). The source article is available for free access at the link below until until August 31, 2013.
http://epubs.siam.org/doi/abs/10.1137/120884535
About the authors:
Wenjing Zhang is a graduate student and Lindi M. Wahl and Pei Yu are professors in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
About SIAM
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of over 14,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians and computer scientists, as well as other scientists and engineers. Members from 85 countries are researchers, educators, students, and practitioners in industry, government, laboratories, and academia. The Society, which also includes nearly 500 academic and corporate institutional members, serves and advances the disciplines of applied mathematics and computational science by publishing a variety of books and prestigious peer-reviewed research journals, by conducting conferences, and by hosting activity groups in various areas of mathematics. SIAM provides many opportunities for students including regional sections and student chapters. Further information is available at http://www.siam.org.
[Reporters are free to use this text as long as they acknowledge SIAM]
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
That's mostly a risk if you're using a virus vector which integrates the DNA into an existing chromosome (which this one doesn't, I believe), AND you can't control the site of insertion. That is, unless the specific gene (in this case, the antibody gene) itself can cause a persistent change in the function of the cell - maybe causing the body to produce a compound which itself promotes cell growth or the like. (That's well outside my area of expertise.)
The great thing about inserting into an existing chromosome (which this does not do) is that then cell replication *does* propagate the gene. The downside is the risk of incorrect insertion which can lead to cancer, among other things.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iranian-born used car salesman from Texas was sentenced to 25 years in a U.S. prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to participating in a plot with an Iranian military unit to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.
Manssor Arbabsiar, 58, received the sentence at a hearing before U.S. District Judge John Keenan in Manhattan. He had pleaded guilty in October last year to charges related to his seeking to hire Mexican drug traffickers to kill the ambassador. The plot was vehemently denied by Tehran.
He pleaded guilty to one count of murder-for hire, one count of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and one count of conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries.
The supposed member of the international drug trafficking cartel who Arbabsiar offered to pay $1.5 million to carry out the plot was in reality a confidential informant of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
No weapons were obtained and the scheme to kill Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir was not fulfilled.
"I can't change what I did," Arbabsiar said in a brief statement in court.
U.S. authorities also brought charges against Gholam Shakuri, who prosecutors say was a member of the Quds Force, the covert unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Shakuri has not been arrested.
U.S. prosecutors sought the statutory maximum sentence of 25 years for Arbabsiar, saying in a court filing on May 2 that the "seriousness of this offense and importance of deterrence in this context cannot be overstated."
Lawyers for Arbabsiar had sought a lower sentence of 10 years, contending he had provided assistance to U.S. authorities after his arrest and citing purported mental health issues.
But Keenan emphasized the need to send a message to those who might consider violent acts against U.S. interests "must learn the lesson that such conduct will not be tolerated."
"In a case like this, deterrence is of supreme import," Keenan said.
In addition to his prison sentence, Arbabsiar was ordered to forfeit $125,000.
In a statement, the Saudi embassy in Washington said the sentencing was "another step along the road to justice and sends a message of determination against those who seek to disrupt order in the international community through flagrant violations of international laws, human values and ethics."
'ENEMY AMONG US'
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement called Arbabsiar "an enemy among us" and a "key conduit for, and facilitator of, a nefarious international plot" to kill the ambassador and as many innocent bystanders as needed to finish the job.
According to prosecutors, the plot had its origins in a spring 2011 trip by Arbabsiar to Iran to visit his family.
A cousin who was a high-ranking member of the Quds Force told Arbabsiar he wanted him to find someone he could hire to kidnap al-Jubeir, prosecutors said in the May 2 filing. The cousin subsequently put Arbabsiar in touch with Shakuri, his deputy, who would be in charge of the mission, the filing said.
After returning to Texas, Arbabsiar in May 2011 went to Mexico and met with the DEA source, who Arbabsiar met through someone he knew in Texas.
As part of the deal with the DEA source, Arbabsiar wired $100,000 as a down-payment for the $1.5 million offered to carry out the plot, which by then had evolved to murdering the ambassador, prosecutors said.
Arbabsiar had several further meetings with the DEA source, who recorded conversations. In a July 2011 one, Arbabsiar said it would be okay to carry out the assassination even if up to 100 bystanders were hurt in the process, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said for his role in the plot, the Quds Force gave him $25,000 in operational expenses. Arbabsiar said after his arrest that he had demanded an additional payment of at least $1 million, prosecutors said.
In September 2011, Arbabsiar met with Shakuri in Tehran to discuss the plot. Arbabsiar flew to Mexico then from Iran via Germany, but was re-routed back to Germany through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where he was arrested, prosecutors said.
Following his arrest, Arbabsiar agreed to place a call to Shakuri, which became part of the basis for charging him in the plot, the May 2 filing said.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Chris Reese and Vicki Allen)
It took three hackers less than a day?to decipher the majority of a list of 16,000 encrypted passwords, all?because of the laughably easy-to-crack More??
The Atlantic Wire - 13 hrs ago
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Adam Levine doesn't really hate America -- they just had a lover's quarrel. During Tuesday's episode of The Voice, the Maroon 5 frontman muttered "I hate this country" after two members of his team were voted off by viewers. A Twitter backlash immediately followed, and the next day, Levine felt the need to explain himself to Us Weekly.
SEATTLE (AP) ? The Army staff sergeant charged with slaughtering 16 villagers during one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war has agreed to plead guilty in a deal to avoid the death penalty, his attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is scheduled to enter guilty pleas to charges of premeditated murder June 5 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, said lawyer John Henry Browne. A sentencing-phase trial set for September will determine whether he is sentenced to life in prison with or life without the possibility of parole. The judge and commanding general must approve a plea deal.
Browne previously indicated Bales remembered little from the night of the massacre, but he said the soldier will give a full account of what happened before the judge decides whether to accept the plea.
Bales, an Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Wash., slipped away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost at Camp Belambay early on March 11, 2012, and attacked mud-walled compounds in two slumbering villages nearby.
Most of the victims were women and children, and some of the bodies were piled and burned. The slayings drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan. It was three weeks before American investigators could reach the crime scenes.
Bales was serving his fourth tour in a combat zone, and the allegations against him raised questions about the toll multiple deployments were taking on American troops. For that reason, many legal experts believed it that it was unlikely that he would receive the death penalty, as Army prosecutors were seeking. The military justice system hasn't executed anyone since 1961.
Nevertheless, the plea deal could inflame tensions in Afghanistan. In interviews with the AP in Kandahar in April, relatives of the victims became outraged at the notion Bales might escape the death penalty and even vowed revenge.
"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," said Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.
"A prison sentence doesn't mean anything," said Said Jan, whose wife and three other relatives died. "I know we have no power now. But I will become stronger, and if he does not hang, I will have my revenge."
Three of Jan's other family members were wounded, including his 7-year-old granddaughter, who was shot in the head.
___
Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
___
AP's special regional correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kathy Gannon, contributed from Kandahar.
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Public release date: 31-May-2013
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