Transformational education ? a contrast or tension | Probe?Create ...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A connection between personal transformation and social change has characterized ?transformative learning? since Mezirow's original 1978 formulation of this approach to adult education. ... assumptions, frames of reference, or self-awareness are called into question and transformed; the resulting, more critical and inclusive perspectives at the personal level are then applied to promote wider change through education, institutions, policy, and social movements.

Source: http://pcrcr.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/transformational-education-a-contrast-or-tension/

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Helping horses come to term

Public release date: 2-Aug-2013
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Contact: Susanna Kautschitsch
susanna.kautschitsch@vetmeduni.ac.at
43-125-077-1153
University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna

As any nervous first-time mother will confirm, the initial three months of pregnancy are the most risky time: many expectant women are reluctant to inform their friends or colleagues that they are pregnant until after this period is past. It is less well known that horses suffer from similar problems, with a considerable number of pregnancies failing to progress beyond the first five weeks. The explanation is still unclear but may relate to a problem with the mare's immune system, as the latest work in the group of Christine Aurich in the Vetmeduni's Centre for Artificial Insemination and Embryo Transfer strongly suggests.

The fertilized egg, or conceptus, obviously contains contributions from the stallion as well as the mare, which means it somehow has to avoid being recognized and attacked by the mare's immune system. Horse breeders talk about maternal tolerance of the conceptus and horses as other animals have a variety of mechanisms to enable fertilization and a successful pregnancy. Maternal tolerance probably depends on wide-ranging changes to the maternal immune response. But what makes some mares better than others at adapting their immune systems?

There are indications from work in humans and mice that a particular class of immune cell, the so-called regulatory T cells or Tregs (pronounced "tea regs"), might somehow be important in maternal tolerance. Aurich and her colleagues have now developed a highly sensitive assay to measure the proportion of Tregs in the blood of horses. They used their new technique to investigate over 100 mares that were presented for artificial insemination, correlating the results with the outcome of the resulting pregnancies.

Of course, not all of the animals conceived. The scientists could find no association between the level of Tregs in the mares' blood with the success of the insemination procedure. However, they did observe clearly lower numbers of Tregs in the blood of horses that suffered an early loss of pregnancy compared with those that either aborted much later (for whatever reason) or gave birth to live foals. The results suggest that high numbers of Tregs might somehow be required to suppress the mare's natural immune reaction against the conceptus. In other words, low levels of Treg cells in mares might cause pregnancy loss in the five weeks after fertilization.

The differences in the levels of Tregs between horses in the "successful pregnancy" and the "unsuccessful" groups were too small to be useful to predict whether an individual mare is likely to suffer early pregnancy failure. Nevertheless, the results may help breeders solve the problem. There is evidence from human medicine that oestradiol may enhance the function of Tregs during pregnancy and treatment with this hormone could possibly benefit mares prone to losing the conceptus. Another possible course would be to expose mares to the stallion's semen before implantation, which might increase the number of Tregs in the blood and the animal's tolerance to the conceptus, thereby helping avoid early pregnancy losses.

Aurich is optimistic: "A number of reasons have been proposed to account for early pregnancy failure in the horse but our work suggests that a low level of Tregs may actually be among the most important factors. It can only be a matter of time before we find out how to solve the problem."

###

The paper "Low levels of naturally occurring regulatory T lymphocytes in blood of mares with early pregnancy loss" by Christine Aurich, Jrgen Weber, Christina Nagel, Maximiliane Merkl, Rony Jude, Sascha Wostmann, Dirk Ollech, Udo Baron, Sven Olek and Thomas Jansen has just been published online in Reproduction, Fertility and Development.

The work was undertaken in collaboration with staff at Certagen GmbH in Rheinbach, Germany and at Epiontis GmbH in Berlin, Germany.

About the Vienna University of Veterinary Medicine

The University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna is the only academic and research institution in Austria that focuses on the veterinary sciences. About 1000 employees and 2300 students work on the campus in the north of Vienna, which also houses the animal hospital and various spin-off-companies. http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at

Scientific Contact

Prof. Christine Aurich
Insemination and embryo transfer station
Vetmeduni Vienna
T +43 664 60257-6400
E christine.aurich@vetmeduni.ac.at

Contact

Susanna Kautschitsch
Public Relations
Vetmeduni Vienna
T +43 1 25077-1153
E susanna.kautschitsch@vetmeduni.ac.at

---

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?

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.

Public release date: 2-Aug-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Susanna Kautschitsch
susanna.kautschitsch@vetmeduni.ac.at
43-125-077-1153
University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna

As any nervous first-time mother will confirm, the initial three months of pregnancy are the most risky time: many expectant women are reluctant to inform their friends or colleagues that they are pregnant until after this period is past. It is less well known that horses suffer from similar problems, with a considerable number of pregnancies failing to progress beyond the first five weeks. The explanation is still unclear but may relate to a problem with the mare's immune system, as the latest work in the group of Christine Aurich in the Vetmeduni's Centre for Artificial Insemination and Embryo Transfer strongly suggests.

The fertilized egg, or conceptus, obviously contains contributions from the stallion as well as the mare, which means it somehow has to avoid being recognized and attacked by the mare's immune system. Horse breeders talk about maternal tolerance of the conceptus and horses as other animals have a variety of mechanisms to enable fertilization and a successful pregnancy. Maternal tolerance probably depends on wide-ranging changes to the maternal immune response. But what makes some mares better than others at adapting their immune systems?

There are indications from work in humans and mice that a particular class of immune cell, the so-called regulatory T cells or Tregs (pronounced "tea regs"), might somehow be important in maternal tolerance. Aurich and her colleagues have now developed a highly sensitive assay to measure the proportion of Tregs in the blood of horses. They used their new technique to investigate over 100 mares that were presented for artificial insemination, correlating the results with the outcome of the resulting pregnancies.

Of course, not all of the animals conceived. The scientists could find no association between the level of Tregs in the mares' blood with the success of the insemination procedure. However, they did observe clearly lower numbers of Tregs in the blood of horses that suffered an early loss of pregnancy compared with those that either aborted much later (for whatever reason) or gave birth to live foals. The results suggest that high numbers of Tregs might somehow be required to suppress the mare's natural immune reaction against the conceptus. In other words, low levels of Treg cells in mares might cause pregnancy loss in the five weeks after fertilization.

The differences in the levels of Tregs between horses in the "successful pregnancy" and the "unsuccessful" groups were too small to be useful to predict whether an individual mare is likely to suffer early pregnancy failure. Nevertheless, the results may help breeders solve the problem. There is evidence from human medicine that oestradiol may enhance the function of Tregs during pregnancy and treatment with this hormone could possibly benefit mares prone to losing the conceptus. Another possible course would be to expose mares to the stallion's semen before implantation, which might increase the number of Tregs in the blood and the animal's tolerance to the conceptus, thereby helping avoid early pregnancy losses.

Aurich is optimistic: "A number of reasons have been proposed to account for early pregnancy failure in the horse but our work suggests that a low level of Tregs may actually be among the most important factors. It can only be a matter of time before we find out how to solve the problem."

###

The paper "Low levels of naturally occurring regulatory T lymphocytes in blood of mares with early pregnancy loss" by Christine Aurich, Jrgen Weber, Christina Nagel, Maximiliane Merkl, Rony Jude, Sascha Wostmann, Dirk Ollech, Udo Baron, Sven Olek and Thomas Jansen has just been published online in Reproduction, Fertility and Development.

The work was undertaken in collaboration with staff at Certagen GmbH in Rheinbach, Germany and at Epiontis GmbH in Berlin, Germany.

About the Vienna University of Veterinary Medicine

The University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna is the only academic and research institution in Austria that focuses on the veterinary sciences. About 1000 employees and 2300 students work on the campus in the north of Vienna, which also houses the animal hospital and various spin-off-companies. http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at

Scientific Contact

Prof. Christine Aurich
Insemination and embryo transfer station
Vetmeduni Vienna
T +43 664 60257-6400
E christine.aurich@vetmeduni.ac.at

Contact

Susanna Kautschitsch
Public Relations
Vetmeduni Vienna
T +43 1 25077-1153
E susanna.kautschitsch@vetmeduni.ac.at

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-08/uovm-hhc080213.php

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Microsoft dabbles in more Twitter research with AskyBot

There's a new bot in Twitter town: The AskyBot.

Asky seems to be related to a new Microsoft Research project from the FuSE Labs team.

On its Twitter profile, AskyBot is self-described as being "curious about how people find answers on Twitter." The bot profile also says that AskyBot is "part of a Microsoft Research project" by a handful of researchers working at Microsoft and with connections outside the company. Askybot's first and only tweet (so far) was posted on July 25.

It says: "Although I am a bot, I tweet with love and I hope not to bother people."

On the Microsoft Research page, AskyBot is described as being part of a project about "(u)nderstanding people's motivations and satisfaction when they ask questions using Twitter hashtags."

On July 31, Microsoft updated the AskyBot profile page to say:

The rules associated with our study's prize sweepstakes are available here (coming soon).

You can find AskyBot on Twitter at https://twitter.com/askybot. The tweets from @askybot are not spam; they are part of our research team's data collection effort.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, you can contact us at askybot@microsoft.com.

I asked Microsoft Research for more information about the project(s) with which Askybot is affiliated. I received the following response from a spokesperson:

"This is actually a very common vehicle they use to gather data for social science research. (Askybot) is not a project, but simply a Twitter bot that gathers data for research projects. At this point, they just started their data gathering for a research project."

Microsoft Research has a number of research projects around social media. Microsoft Research's NeXus team, in particular, is doing a lot of work in this space. Microsoft Researchers have been looking into mood detection using Twitter hashtags. Researchers also recently have been looking into "friend-sourcing" answers to questions via Twitter.?

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-dabbles-in-more-twitter-research-with-askybot-7000018818/

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The Most Expensive Apartments in the World's Most Expensive Cities

A few days ago Mercer, the global human resources consulting firm, published its current list of the most expensive cities in the world. According to their survey, the most expensive place to station an employee isn't New York or Tokyo. It's Luanda, Angola.

Read more...

Source: http://gizmodo.com/10-astronomically-expensive-apartments-in-the-worlds-p-978324429

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Mali: Nigerian troops withdrawal begins today

Published on July 31, 2013 by pmnews ????? No Comments

Nigeria will today begin withdrawal of some of its troops from Mali because they are needed back home, where the country is battling Boko Haram insurgency, spokesman of the defence headquarters, Brigadier General Chris Olukolade said in a statement.

It was not clear how many troops would be pulled from the west African nation, where Nigeria currently has some 1,000 troops.

?The defence headquarters will tomorrow (Wednesday) commence the withdrawal of some Nigerian troops from the Peace Support Operations in Mali,? it said.

Nigerian soldiers in Bamako

?The troops are mainly those not accommodated in the structures of the newly formed United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). They are to join the ongoing internal security operations in the country.?

The action followed ?the rehatting and takeover? by the UN of the mission from African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA),? it stated.

?Some of the soldiers will be redeployed immediately,? it added.

Nigeria will sustain its commitment and contribution to the Mali operation in other forms, such as input of ?sizeable men and materials? to the mission, it said, without giving further details.

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, chair of the 15-nation west African bloc ECOWAS, told reporters earlier this month that the withdrawal was because Nigeria needed its soldiers back home.

?It?s because of the domestic situation,? Ouattara said after an ECOWAS summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

However, a military source had said troops would pull out because the country, which has the biggest military in west Africa, felt ?shabbily treated? under the new UN force in Mali.

A Nigerian commanded the previous African-led force in the country, but the UN mission is being headed by a Rwandan.

The UN mission integrates more than 6,000 west African soldiers into its ranks and is charged with ensuring security during and after July 28 elections in Mali.

It is to grow to 11,200 troops, plus 1,400 police, by the end of the year.

Nigeria approved the deployment of 900 troops with the capacity to increase to 1,200 under the previous African-led force.

Nigeria?s military has been stretched thin back home.

Bomb blasts late Monday ripped through a mainly Christian area of Kano, the largest city in the north, killing 24 people, an official said, and shattering a recent lull in insurgent attacks there.

The military blamed the attack on suspected members of Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.

Violence linked to an insurgency by the Islamist extremist group, mainly in Nigeria?s north, has left some 3,600 people dead since 2009, including killings by the security forces.

Posted by pmnews on July 31, 2013, 5:52 am. Filed under National, News, Today's Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PmNewsNigeria/~3/zuvONdxwEc4/

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Judge orders state to pay PETA's legal fees | MyFOX8.com

RALEIGH, N.C. ? A Superior Court judge has ordered the state Wildlife Resources Commission to pay almost $75,000 in attorney fees to PETA in the legal challenge to the annual New Year?s Eve Possum Drop in Brasstown, according to WRAL.

An administrative judge ruled last November that the commission lacked the authority to permit the event, in which a possum is lowered in a Plexiglas box during the countdown to midnight.

The commission appealed the ruling but dropped its appeal after two days.

Judge William Pittman ruled the agency ?acted without substantial justification in pressing its claims? and said it must pay PETA?s legal costs by Sept. 1, according to the report.

?This decision backs up PETA?s position that the Wildlife Resources Commission issued the permit for this crude and cruel activity illegally in the first place,? PETA general counsel Jeffrey Kerr said in a statement. ?The WRC compounded its unlawful conduct by filing a baseless appeal and sticking taxpayers with the bill.?

State lawmakers passed legislation allowing the Possum Drop to continue in February, and Gov. Pat McCrory signed it into law.

Source: WRAL

Source: http://myfox8.com/2013/07/30/judge-orders-state-to-pay-petas-legal-fees/

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Student loan compromise heads toward final vote

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A deal that gives college students and their parents lower interest rates for loans is heading toward its final vote.

The House was expected Wednesday to take up a bipartisan compromise that links student loan interest rates to the financial markets. Immediately, most borrowers would see lower rates for classes this year than last, although the costs are expected to climb in coming years if the economy improves as expected.

"This is a victory for students and taxpayers, and I look forward to the bill's swift passage in the House," said Rep. John Kline, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Undergraduates this fall would borrow at a 3.9 percent interest rate for subsidized and unsubsidized loans. Graduate students would have access to loans at 5.4 percent, and parents would borrow at 6.4 percent. The rates would be locked in for that year's loan, but each year's loan could be more expensive than the last. Rates would rise as the economy picks up and it becomes more expensive for the government to borrow money.

But for now, interest payments for tuition, housing and books would be less expensive if the House passes the bill, as expected.

The chamber earlier this year passed legislation that is similar to what the Senate later passed. Both link interest rates to 10-year Treasury notes and remove Congress' annual role in determining rates.

Negotiators of the Senate compromise were mindful of the House-passed version, as well as the White House preference to shift responsibility for interest rates to the financial markets. The resulting bipartisan bill passed the Senate 81-18.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has signaled his caucus should support Senate changes to the earlier bill. So, too, has Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House education panel.

The House-written student loan bill passed the GOP-led chamber 221-198, largely along party lines. Eight Republicans crossed party lines to vote against it; four Democrats voted in favor of it.

With changes made in the Senate ? most notably a cap on how interest rates could climb and locking in interest rates for the life of each year's loan ? Democrats were expected to join Republicans and back the bill.

Interest rates would not top 8.25 percent for undergraduates. Graduate students would not pay rates higher than 9.5 percent, and parents' rates would top out at 10.5 percent. Using Congressional Budget Office estimates, rates would not reach those limits in the next 10 years.

Even with those protections not all Democrats will back it, cautioned House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. She said this "isn't the bill we would have written, but it is a bill that can pass and will have Democrats voting for and against."

The White House has endorsed the deal and President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill into law, despite objections from consumer advocates that the outline could cost future students.

"The bottom line is that students will pay more under this bill than if Congress did nothing, and low rates will soon give way to rates that are even higher than the 6.8 percent rate that Congress is trying to avoid," said Chris Lindstrom, higher education program director for the consumer group US PIRG.

Rates on new subsidized Stafford loans doubled to 6.8 percent July 1 because Congress could not agree on a way to keep them at 3.4 percent. Without congressional action, rates would stay at 6.8 percent ? a reality most lawmakers called unacceptable.

The compromise that came together during the last month would be a good deal for all students through the 2015 academic year. After that, interest rates are expected to climb above where they were when students left campus in the spring, if congressional estimates prove correct.

The White House and its allies said the new loan structure would offer lower rates to 11 million borrowers right away and save the average undergraduate $1,500 in interest charges.

Democratic senators were already talking about changing the deal when they take up a rewrite of the Higher Education Act this fall. As a condition of his support, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin won a Government Accountability Office report on the costs of colleges. That document was expected to guide an overhaul of the deal just negotiated.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill as written would reduce the deficit by $715 million over the next decade. During that same time, federal loans would be a $1.4 trillion program.

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/student-loan-compromise-heads-toward-final-vote-072756908.html

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