Fatty Acid Derivatization and Cyclization of the Immunomodulatory Peptide RP-182 Targeting CD206high Macrophages Improve Antitumor Activity.

As tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) exercise a plethora of protumor and immune evasive functions, novel strategies targeting TAMs to inhibit tumor progression have emerged within the current arena of cancer immunotherapy. Activation of the mannose receptor 1 (CD206) is a recent approach that recognizes immunosuppressive CD206high M2-like TAMs as a drug target. Ligation of CD206 both induces reprogramming of CD206high TAMs toward a proinflammatory phenotype and selectively triggers apoptosis in these cells.

Systemic advantage has a meaningful relationship with grade outcomes in students' early STEM courses at six research universities.

Background: Large introductory lecture courses are frequently post-secondary students' first formal interaction with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Grade outcomes in these courses are often disparate across student populations, which, in turn, has implications for student retention. This study positions such disparities as a manifestation of systemic inequities along the dimensions of sex, race/ethnicity, income, and first-generation status and investigates the extent to which they are similar across peer institutions.

Adaptations to comprehensive abortion care during the COVID-19 pandemic: case studies of provision in Bolivia, Mali, Nepal, and the occupied Palestinian territory.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted comprehensive abortion care provision. To maintain access to services while keeping individuals safe from infection, many organisations adapted their programmes. We conducted a programme evaluation to examine service adaptations implemented in Bolivia, Mali, Nepal, and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Abiotic and Biotic Drivers of Soil Fungal Communities in Response to Dairy Manure Amendment.

Modern agriculture often relies on large inputs of synthetic fertilizers to maximize crop yield potential, yet their intensive use has led to nutrient losses and impaired soil health. Alternatively, manure amendments provide plant available nutrients, build organic carbon, and enhance soil health. However, we lack a clear understanding of how consistently manure impacts fungal communities, the mechanisms via which manure impacts soil fungi, and the fate of manure-borne fungi in soils.

Community perspectives on family planning service quality among users and non-users: a qualitative study from two cities in Burkina Faso.

Background: Most studies that focus on quality of family planning (FP) services collect data from facilities. These studies miss the perspectives of quality from women who do not visit a facility and for whom perceived quality may be a barrier to service utilization.

Methods: This qualitative study from two cities in Burkina Faso examines perceived quality of FP services from women who were recruited at the community level to avoid potential biases based on recruiting women at facilities.

Evidence for the impacts of agroforestry on ecosystem services and human well-being in high-income countries: a systematic map.

Background: Agroforestry bridges the gap that often separates agriculture and forestry by building integrated systems to address both environmental and socio-economic objectives. Existing empirical research has suggested that agroforestry-the integration of trees with crops and/or livestock-can prevent environmental degradation, improve agricultural productivity, increase carbon sequestration, and support healthy soil and healthy ecosystems while providing stable incomes and other benefits to human welfare. However, the extent of the literature supporting or refuting these claims has not been well documented.

Integrating Critical Approaches into Quantitative STEM Equity Work.

The recent anti-racist movements in the United States have inspired a national call for more research on the experiences of racially marginalized and minoritized students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. As researchers focused on promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, we contend that STEM education must, as a discipline, grapple with how analytic approaches may not fully support equity efforts. We discuss how researchers and educational practitioners should more critically approach STEM equity analyses and why modifying our approaches matters for STEM equity goals.

The impacts of agroforestry interventions on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.

Background: Agroforestry, the intentional integration of trees or other woody perennials with crops or livestock in production systems, is being widely promoted as a conservation and development tool to help meet the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Donors, governments, and nongovernmental organizations have invested significant time and resources into developing and promoting agroforestry policies and programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) worldwide. While a large body of literature on the impacts of agroforestry in LMICs is available, the social-ecological impacts of agroforestry is less well-studied.

Carbon Amendments Influence Composition and Functional Capacities of Indigenous Soil Microbiomes.

Soil nutrient amendments are recognized for their potential to improve microbial activity and biomass in the soil. However, the specific selective impacts of carbon amendments on indigenous microbiomes and their metabolic functions in agricultural soils remain poorly understood. We investigated the changes in soil chemical characteristics and phenotypes of communities following carbon amendments to soil.

Successful programmatic approaches to facilitating IUD uptake: CARE's experience in DRC.

Background: Achieving the unfinished agenda towards sexual and reproductive health and rights requires overcoming remaining barriers to contraceptive uptake, which can be method-specific. Women's uptake of the IUD is poor across sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this paper is to identify the reasons for comparatively high IUD use observed in a CARE project in DRC, together with the programmatic characteristics which facilitated uptake.

Impacts of Sampling Design on Estimates of Microbial Community Diversity and Composition in Agricultural Soils.

Soil microbiota play important and diverse roles in agricultural crop nutrition and productivity. Yet, despite increasing efforts to characterize soil bacterial and fungal assemblages, it is challenging to disentangle the influences of sampling design on assessments of communities. Here, we sought to determine whether composite samples-often analyzed as a low cost and effort alternative to replicated individual samples-provide representative summary estimates of microbial communities.

Phosphorus, not nitrogen, limits plants and microbial primary producers following glacial retreat.

Current models of ecosystem development hold that low nitrogen availability limits the earliest stages of primary succession, but these models were developed from studies conducted in areas with temperate or wet climates. Global warming is now causing rapid glacial retreat even in inland areas with cold, dry climates, areas where ecological succession has not been adequately studied. We combine field and microcosm studies of both plant and microbial primary producers and show that phosphorus, not nitrogen, is the nutrient most limiting to the earliest stages of primary succession along glacial chronosequences in the Central Andes and central Alaska.

Nutrient limitation of soil microbial activity during the earliest stages of ecosystem development.

A dominant paradigm in ecology is that plants are limited by nitrogen (N) during primary succession. Whether generalizable patterns of nutrient limitation are also applicable to metabolically and phylogenetically diverse soil microbial communities, however, is not well understood. We investigated if measures of N and phosphorus (P) pools inform our understanding of the nutrient(s) most limiting to soil microbial community activities during primary succession.

Microbes as Engines of Ecosystem Function: When Does Community Structure Enhance Predictions of Ecosystem Processes?

Microorganisms are vital in mediating the earth's biogeochemical cycles; yet, despite our rapidly increasing ability to explore complex environmental microbial communities, the relationship between microbial community structure and ecosystem processes remains poorly understood. Here, we address a fundamental and unanswered question in microbial ecology: 'When do we need to understand microbial community structure to accurately predict function?' We present a statistical analysis investigating the value of environmental data and microbial community structure independently and in combination for explaining rates of carbon and nitrogen cycling processes within 82 global datasets. Environmental variables were the strongest predictors of process rates but left 44% of variation unexplained on average, suggesting the potential for microbial data to increase model accuracy.

Nutrient addition dramatically accelerates microbial community succession.

The ecological mechanisms driving community succession are widely debated, particularly for microorganisms. While successional soil microbial communities are known to undergo predictable changes in structure concomitant with shifts in a variety of edaphic properties, the causal mechanisms underlying these patterns are poorly understood. Thus, to specifically isolate how nutrients--important drivers of plant succession--affect soil microbial succession, we established a full factorial nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilization plot experiment in recently deglaciated (∼3 years since exposure), unvegetated soils of the Puca Glacier forefield in Southeastern Peru.

Assessing nutrient limitation in complex forested ecosystems: alternatives to large-scale fertilization experiments.

Quantifying nutrient limitation of primary productivity is a fundamental task of terrestrial ecosystem ecology, but in a high carbon dioxide environment it is even more critical that we understand potential nutrient constraints on plant growth. Ecologists often manipulate nutrients with fertilizer to assess nutrient limitation, yet for a variety of reasons, nutrient fertilization experiments are either impractical or incapable of resolving ecosystem responses to some global changes. The challenges of conducting large, in situ fertilization experiments are magnified in forests, especially the high-diversity forests common throughout the lowland tropics.

Trafficking and health.

Attempts to prevent trafficking are increasing the problems of those who migrate voluntarily

Rural children's attitudes to people with HIV/AIDS in Mali: the causes of stigma.

Qualitative research among young people and other community members in rural Mali elicited knowledge and attitudes with regard to HIV/AIDS. Findings indicated that rumours concerning methods of infection are likely to increase the stigmatization of those with the disease. The most frequently stated mode of transmission involved urinating in a place where someone with AIDS had already urinated.

Factors influencing young Malians' reluctance to use hormonal contraceptives.

During a qualitative evaluation of three peer-education programs in urban Mali, young people stated that they were wary of using either the pill or injectable contraceptives because they believed that these methods would make them sterile. Unmarried women's contraceptive decisionmaking was not primarily driven by a current need to limit fertility, but rather by a future need to maximize it in order to gain status through childbearing in their marital households. Further interviews explored notions of conception, menstruation, and the perceived action of hormonal methods on the reproductive system.

Doubting the existence of AIDS: a barrier to voluntary HIV testing and counselling in urban Mali.

Qualitative research was carried out in the Malian cities of Sikasso and Bamako with a view to setting up HIV voluntary testing and counselling (VCT) services and a separate programme to enable young people to improve their sexual health. The most striking finding was that a large number of respondents said they did not believe in the existence of AIDS. Reasons for disbelief were related to the perceived lack of AIDS cases in China, the inability of the virus to be transmitted by mosquitoes and confusion about mother-to-child transmission.

(Re)defining reproductive health with and for the community: an example of participatory research from Mali.

Qualitative research was carried out in central Mali to inform the development of curricula for an intervention to improve young people's reproductive health. Both the young people and 'societal gatekeepers' (including religious leaders and traditional healers) perceived reproductive health to comprise the social dynamics in which reproductive health decision-making is embedded and not just the biological aspects of sexual relations and fertility. Their definitions of reproductive health reflected social taboos about pre-marital sex, infidelity and illegitimate children, and comprised holistic notions of bodily and spiritual cleanliness.