Columbia University College of Dental Medicine receives diversity award

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

16-Sep-2014

Contact: Karin Eskenazi ket2116@columbia.edu 212-342-0508 Columbia University Medical Center @ColumbiaMed

NEW YORK, NY (September 16, 2014) The Columbia University College of Dental Medicine (CDM) has received the 2014 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education. As a recipient of the annual HEED Awarda national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusionCDM will be featured along with 82 other recipients in INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine's November 2014 issue.

"At the College of Dental Medicine, we are very proud of our targeted efforts to foster a student body diverse in thought, background, and experience within an inclusive environment," said Dennis Mitchell, DDS, MPH, senior associate provost for faculty diversity and inclusion, associate professor of dental medicine, and senior associate dean for student development in the CDM. "As a school that strives to be the No. 1 destination for the world's greatest scholars, we understand that we cannot achieve this aspiration without realizing our core values of inclusion and excellence. Accomplishing this requires that diversity be a fundamental academic accountability for our university, our schools, and our departments and evident through equity in recruiting, advancement, retention, and experience."

INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine selected CDM based on its exemplary diversity and inclusion initiatives as well as its ability to embrace a broad definition of diversity, including gender, race, ethnicity, veterans, people with disabilities, members of the LGBT community, and other underrepresented communities. In keeping with the mission set forth by the CDM admissions policy for diversity, which affirms the College's commitment to ensure a "critical mass" of underrepresented students, as well as a student body that is broadly diverse in character, the school has continued to enroll a diverse DDS class. The last two entering classes (2017 and 2018, 20 percent) have included unprecedented numbers of students underrepresented in the dental profession. Excluding the dental schools of Meharry and Howard University (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and the University of Puerto Rico, CDM ranks in the top 10 percent of U.S. dental schools for enrollment of underrepresented minority dental students and first among its peer Northeast private dental schools.

The Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP), funded through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is administered in collaboration with the College of Physicians & Surgeons Office of Diversity. CDM has enrolled a total of 35 graduates of the SMDEP program over the past decade, 19 of whom graduated from the CUMC SMDEP program (including three in the Class of 2017).

The Office of Diversity Affairs sponsors recruitment trips to several conferences targeting promising Underrepresented in Dentistry (UID) students. Various student organizations sponsor recruitment events on campus and participate in CDM's hosting program for UID applicants during interview season.

"We hope the HEED award serves as a way to honor those institutions of higher education that recognize the importance of diversity and inclusion as part of their everyday campus culture," said Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.

Other recipients of the 2014 HEED award are:

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Columbia University College of Dental Medicine receives diversity award

Libertarian to pay penny a vote in campaign fund protest

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CEDAR RAPIDS | Some people might call it a gimmick, but David Snowden Overby, a self-described old liberal from the 60s, prefers to call his Election Day plan to pay people to vote for him guerrilla theater.

Overby, a Libertarian candidate in Iowa House 57 in Dubuque County, said he and his friends plan to stand outside polling places Nov. 4 to give a penny to anyone who promises to vote for him.

I want to make a point that the election system is corrupt, Overby, a former Charles City newspaper editor, said. If faceless PACs and other organizations can pay millions of dollars to buy elections, I can certainly give voters a penny. At least Im honest.

The U.S. Supreme Court has called campaign contributions free speech, Overby said, and this is taking it to its logical conclusions.

Although political action committees pumping millions of dollars into campaigns is legal, paying people at the polls isnt, according to Dubuque County Auditor Denise Dolan and the Iowa Secretary of State Office.

Overby and his friends could face a variety of charges.

Dolan hasnt discussed the situation with the Dubuque County attorney and said she doesnt plan to monitor polling places to see if Overby shows up.

If hes doing it, Ill hear about it from my poll workers, she said.

Overby believes he has a legal defense if he is charged.

There are laws against campaigning in front of the polling site, but no laws against buying votes, he said. Its a fine point.

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Libertarian to pay penny a vote in campaign fund protest

Third parties still fighting for ballot access in Tennessee

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NASHVILLE Four years after the Libertarian Party of Tennessee filed its first lawsuit to get on the ballot, the group is still fighting for access in a state that has some of the most restrictive rules in the country for smaller political parties.

Since 2010, the Libertarians, the Green Party of Tennessee and the Constitution Party of Tennessee have been in near-constant litigation with the state. They have won several victories, and the legislature has changed the law slightly. But the parties say the hurdles for them to get their names on the ballot are still unreasonably high.

A 2010 federal court ruling in one of the cases stated that Tennessee was one of only two states where no third parties had qualified for the ballot over the previous decade.

Individual candidates can appear on Tennessees ballot simply by submitting a petition with 25 signatures, but they will appear as independents unless their parties have qualified to appear on the ballot as well. For a party to appear on the ballot, it must collect more than 40,000 signatures. If the party wants to stay on the ballot, one of its candidates must garner more than 80,000 votes.

A recent opinion from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in one of the cases says the ease with which an independent candidate can get on Tennessees ballot undermines the states argument that too many parties could result in voter confusion.

It is a puzzling proposition that voters should be less confused by a ballot listing numerous candidates without a party designation than by a similar ballot including party designations. The court goes on to say that a ballot with party designations at least, contains information helpful to distinguishing among lesser-known candidates.

Donn Janes, vice-chair of the Libertarian Party of Tennessee, said he believes the major parties intentionally make it difficult for minor parties.

Libertarians would erode some of the voter base for the Republican party, he said. I can see why they would want to keep us off the ballot.

A state Republican Party spokesman declined to comment. Ken Kollman, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, said it is clear that a strong Libertarian candidate in any state is going to hurt the Republicans.

He said both Republicans and Democrats have traditionally tried to limit the influence of third parties.

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Third parties still fighting for ballot access in Tennessee

Bee Gees " Islands In The Stream" Live in Las Vegas, 1997 SUBTITULADA – Video

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Bee Gees " Islands In The Stream" Live in Las Vegas, 1997 SUBTITULADA
Me encanta esta cancion, ya la habia hecho con otro sistema de fotos que aun esta en youtube el cual era una de mis primeros intentos por subtitular, no quedo bien, pero como con este nuevo...

By: Nora Bianchi

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Bee Gees " Islands In The Stream" Live in Las Vegas, 1997 SUBTITULADA - Video

Ecuador: Take a holiday cruise through the Galapagos Islands

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If youre looking for an adventurous way to spend the winter holidays, Vaya Adventures is offering a Dec. 23 departure for a cruise on the Beagle through the Galapagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The eight-day itinerary begins on Santa Cruz Island with a tour of the Charles Darwin Research Center and the field work being done to preserve the Galapagos ecosystems. Other stops include Espaola Island and its colonies of blue-footed boobies; South Plaza Island, home to one of the largest sea lion colonies in the Galapagos as well as yellow and red land iguanas; and North Seymour Island, the largest nesting ground of frigate birds in the islands.

The Beagle, named for Darwins schooner, is a refurbished 105-foot-long yacht that holds a maximum of 14 passengers in seven air-conditioned cabins with private bath. Dates: Dec 23-30. Price: $4,180 per person. Includes bilingual naturalist guides on daily land expeditions. Does not include park fees (about $110 a person) and international airfare. Info: Vaya Adventures, (800) 342-1796

Follow us on Twitter @latimestravel, like us on Facebook @Los Angeles Times Travel.

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Ecuador: Take a holiday cruise through the Galapagos Islands

The genetics of coping with HIV

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

16-Sep-2014

Contact: PLOS Biology biologypress@plos.org PLOS

We respond to infections in two fundamental ways. One, which has been the subject of intensive research over the years, is "resistance," where the body attacks the invading pathogen and reduces its numbers. Another, which is much less well understood, is "tolerance," where the body tries to minimise the damage done by the pathogen. Now an elegant study using data from a large Swiss cohort of HIV-infected individuals gives us a tantalising glimpse into why some people cope with HIV better than others.

The authors find that tolerance varies substantially between individuals, that it's determined at least partly by the genes that one inherits, and that the genes that influence tolerance of HIV are distinct from those that influence resistance. The team, led by Roland Regoes at ETH Zurich, publishes their work on 16th September in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

HIV offers a unique opportunity to tease apart the way that the human body handles disease. After the initial infection event, the virus takes up residence in a population of white blood cells called CD4+ T cells. The number of viruses a few months after infection, called the "set-point viral load," can be used to measure resistance how well a person is fighting the virus. However, HIV infection also offers a ready measure of tolerance the slower you lose your CD4+ T cells, the better you are tolerating the infection. This situation of cohabitation between human and virus can last many years, but when the number of CD4+ T cells falls below a critical level (fewer than 200 cells per microliter of blood) then the immune system is compromised and the HIV carrier becomes an AIDS patient, with potentially fatal consequences, if not treated.

The key to the study is the existence of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study, started in 1988, this provided the authors with more than 3000 HIV-infected people in whom they could measure both set-point viral load and the rate of CD4+ T cell loss. These two values could be used to simultaneously assess both resistance and tolerance, and combining these with a wealth of demographic and genetic data on the same individuals allowed the authors to start to explore the workings of tolerance.

The first question they asked was whether age and sex matter. On average, they found, men and women tolerated HIV equally well, but older people had a lower tolerance, with the disease progressing almost twice as fast in a 60-year old as in a 20-year old.

The authors then looked at hereditary factors that influence tolerance of HIV. They looked at genetic differences that are known to be associated with resistance to HIV and asked whether these were also associated with tolerance. The answer was an overwhelming "no," confirming the expectation that resistance and tolerance are biologically distinct phenomena.

However, one gene that is involved in resistance also seemed to be involved in tolerance. The HLA-B gene, which encodes a protein involved in recognition of pathogens by the immune system, varies considerably between individuals. Although some of these variants are known to influence a person's resistance to HIV, the authors found that other variants of the same gene correlated with tolerance. So this key player in the immune system seems to influence both tolerance and resistance, but in distinct ways.

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The genetics of coping with HIV