CLEMSON More than 3,200 students are expected to receive degrees when Clemson University hosts its spring graduation ceremonies Friday at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Three ceremonies will be held that day: the first at 9:30 a.m. for the colleges of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences, and Engineering and Science; the second at 2:30 p.m. for the colleges of Architecture, Arts and Humanities, and Health, Education and Human Development; and the last at 6:30 p.m. for the College of Business and Behavioral Science.

The academic ceremonies are the first ones that James P. Clements will preside over. Clements, who took office on Dec. 31, 2013, will also be installed as the 15th president of Clemson University throughout the day, giving a special and unique twist to the ceremonies, as university presidential inaugurations typically are standalone events.

Clements will deliver his inaugural address in three short segments at each of the graduation ceremonies Friday.

During the 9:30 a.m. ceremony, Clements will receive the Clemson University presidential chain, seal and robe.

At 2:30 p.m., Clements will receive a framed copy of the will of university founder Thomas Green Clemson.

In the 6:30 p.m. ceremony, he will be given the states Act of Acceptance.

Clements was named Clemson president this past November. He joined the Clemson family following four and a half years as president of West Virginia University. Previously, he was provost and vice president for academic affairs at Marylands Towson University, as well as Robert W. Deutsch Distinguished Professor and vice president for economic and community outreach.

Clements is a nationally recognized voice in higher education who currently serves as chairman-elect of the board of directors of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. He co-chairs APLUs Energy Forum; chairs the American Council on Educations Commission on Leadership and is a member of the Business Higher Education Forum that includes Fortune 500 CEOs and higher education executives. He previously served on the U.S. Department of Commerce Innovation Advisory Board.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science and Master of Science and Ph.D. in operations analysis from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and a Master of Science in computer science from Johns Hopkins University. He has published or presented more than 75 papers on computer science, higher education, information technology, project management or strategic planning. He has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than $15 million in grant funding.

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More than 3,200 Clemson students to receive degrees Friday

Subjects were taught to suppress their immune responses using physical conditioning

The results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that people can learn to modulate their immune responses a finding that has raised hopes for patients who have chronic inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. Credit: Thinkstock

Dutch celebrity daredevil Wim Hof has endured lengthy ice-water baths, hiked to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts and made his mark inGuinness World Recordswith his ability to withstand cold.

Now he has made a mark on science as well. Researchers have used Hofs methods of mental and physical conditioning to train 12 volunteers to fend off inflammation.

The results, published today in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that people can learn to modulate their immune responses a finding that has raised hopes for patients who have chronic inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

The results are only preliminary, warns study first author Matthijs Kox, who investigates immune responses at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Kox says that people with inflammatory disorders sometimes hear about his experiments and call to ask whether the training would enable them to reduce their medication. We simply do not yet know that, he says.

Still, the work stands out as an illustration of the interactions between the nervous system and the immune system, says Guiseppe Matarese, an immunologist at the University of Salerno in Italy, who was not involved with the study. This study is a nice way to show that link, he says. Orthodox neurobiologists and orthodox immunologists have been sceptical. They think the study of the interactions between the nervous and immune systems is a field in the shadows, he says.

Cold blooded In 2010, as a graduate student, Kox was exploring how the nervous system influences immune responses. That's when he first learned that Hof had said that he could regulate not only his own body temperature, but also his immune system. We thought, Alright, lets give him a chance, says Kox. But we thought it would be a negative result.

Kox, and his adviser, physician and study co-author Peter Pickkers, also at Radboud University Medical Center, invited Hof to their lab to investigate how he would react to their standard inflammation test. It involves exposure to a bacterial toxin, made byEscherichia coli, to induce temporary fever, headache and shivering.

To Koxs surprise, Hofs response to the toxin was milder than that of most people he had less severe flu-like symptoms, for example, and lower levels of inflammatory proteins in his blood.

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Inflammation Reduced with Behavioral Training