University of North Carolina at Greensboro

About: University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a education organization based out in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 5481 authors who have published 13715 publications receiving 456239 citations. The organization is also known as: UNCG & UNC Greensboro.

Racial Identity and Well-Being among African Americans:

Abstract: How racial identity influences self-esteem and psychological well-being among African Americans remains unresolved due to unexplained inconsistencies in theoretical predictions and empirical findings. Using data from the National Survey of American Life (N = 3,570), we tested hypotheses derived from social identity theory and the internalized racism perspective. Findings support social identity theory in showing that African Americans strongly identify with their group and view it very positively. In addition, those who identify more with their group and evaluate it more positively have greater self-esteem, greater mastery, and fewer depressive symptoms. However, findings also support the internalized racism perspective by showing that when group evaluation is relatively negative, racial identification is related to lower mastery and higher depressive symptoms. We conclude that both social identity theory and the internalized racism perspective are necessary for understanding how racial identity is related to self-attitudes and mental health among African Americans.

Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination

Abstract: Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination JULIE CRUIKSHANK UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA PRESS, VANCOUVER, BC, 2005 328 PP. $32.95 PAPERBACK REVIEWED BY REBECCA K. ZARGER This fascinating book weaves together a study of memory, oral history and transformations through a series of encounters between people and glaciers in the region where the Saint Elias Mountains and the Alsek River converge in the southwest Yukon Territory and Alaska. I recently selected Cruikshank's award winning book (winner of the 2006 Julian Steward Award, given by the American Anthropological Association's Anthropology and Environment section, a 2007 Clio Award from the Canadian Historical Association and the 2006 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, awarded by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology) for required reading in a graduate seminar in environmental anthropology. This review is framed within the discussion and critique that emerged from the seminar, with the aim of providing not just a synopsis of the intellectual and practical contributions of the book, but its pedagogical value as well. One compelling illustration of the impact of this book is the attention that has been paid to it across a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history, and science and area studies. Clearly Cruikshank is speaking across chasms of inquiry as she writes about stories of glaciers' connections to human communities and oral traditions as local people, explorers and scientists negotiate meanings in a particular, out-of-the way cultural landscape. Another reason this book was chosen for the graduate seminar was the way the author engages with the topics of local (or traditional) environmental knowledge, environmental change, and social memory. Historical documents, carefully presented Tlingit and Athapaskan oral histories, 19th century explorer's accounts, and the current politics of conservation, identities and territories are analyzed with equal intensity. As the author links these lines of evidence together (in some chapters more seamlessly than others), bridges are created between types of inquiry, voices of local elders, the human-nature divide, and local and global histories. Do Glaciers Listen? is divided into three sections. Part one, "Matters of Locality" situates the reader in time and space (during the Little Ice Age) as well as within current theories of the nature of knowledge and its representations. The three chapters in the first section convey, through tales of the actions of both glaciers and humans in response to one another, the distinctions between narratives of Athapaskan/Tlingit elders and geophysical scientists. Extensive passages from "glacier stories" of three women, including excerpts from thirteen different stories shared by Kitty Smith, Annie Ned and Angela Sidney, tell us of the dangers of falling through glaciers, traveling under glacier bridges, and the imaginative power of glaciers. The second section of the book is devoted to "Practices of Exploration," where the author considers the ways scientific and territorial exploration shaped alternative narratives of the Saint Elias glaciers-stories that were told around the globe in addition to local communities. The diaries and journal accounts of La Perouse, Muir, and Glave, contextualized with local oral histories of the same events, provide the opportunity to examine what the author terms the "epistemological consequences of such encounters. …

The MLL1-H3K4me3 Axis-Mediated PD-L1 Expression and Pancreatic Cancer Immune Evasion.

Abstract: Background: Pancreatic cancer is one of the cancers where anti-PD-L1/PD-1 immunotherapy has been unsuccessful. What confers pancreatic cancer resistance to checkpoint immunotherapy is unknown. The aim of this study is to elucidate the underlying mechanism of PD-L1 expression regulation in the context of pancreatic cancer immune evasion. Methods: Pancreatic cancer mouse models and human specimens were used to determine PD-L1 and PD-1 expression and cancer immune evasion. Histone methyltransferase inhibitors, RNAi, and overexpression were used to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanism of PD-L1 expression regulation. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: PD-L1 is expressed in 60% to 90% of tumor cells in human pancreatic carcinomas and in nine of 10 human pancreatic cancer cell lines. PD-1 is expressed in 51.2% to 52.1% of pancreatic tumor–infiltrating cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). Tumors grow statistically significantly faster in FasL-deficient mice than in wild-type mice (P = .03–.001) and when CTLs are neutralized (P = .03– Conclusions: The Fas-FasL/CTLs and the MLL1-H3K4me3-PD-L1 axis play contrasting roles in pancreatic cancer immune surveillance and evasion. Targeting the MLL1-H3K4me3 axis is an effective approach to enhance the efficacy of checkpoint immunotherapy against pancreatic cancer.

The Short-Run Effects of Time-Varying Prices in Competitive Electricity Markets

Abstract: We analyze the efficiency, distributional, and environmental effects of real-time pricing (RTP) adoption in the short run. Consistent with theory, our simulations of the PJM electricity market show that RTP adoption improves efficiency and compresses the distributions of loads and prices. Adoption increases average load but decreases operating profits with the largest decrease for oil-fired generation (59% when all customers adopt). Consumer surplus and welfare gains are modest (2.5% and 0.24% of the energy bill), and emissions of SO 2 and NO, increase but CO 2 emissions decrease. Approximately 30% of these efficiency gains could be captured by varying flat rates monthly instead of annually. Monthly flat rate adjustment has many of the same effects as RTP adoption, captures more of the deadweight loss than time of use (TOU) rates, and requires no new metering technology.

Psychological skills for enhancing performance: arousal regulation strategies.

Abstract: This review summarizes and integrates current empirical and theoretical research on arousal regulation strategies for enhancing athletic performance. The need to view arousal as a multifaceted construct made up of both cognitive and physiological components was emphasized, as well as the importance of understanding arousal-performance relationship theories that go beyond a simple inverted-U notion. Categories of arousal regulation strategies were discussed and included: arousal energizing techniques, biofeedback techniques, relaxation response strategies, cognitive behavioral interventions, and mental preparation routines. It was concluded that these techniques can be effective in influencing arousal and facilitating performance. However, additional research (especially evaluation research) using more rigorous methods, determining how and why interventions work, using case study methodologies, identifying personality and situational factors influencing arousal regulation effectiveness, and identifying the most effective means of teaching arousal regulation is needed.