Omtvedt Innovation Awards Presented to Chris Calkins, Steven Jones, Rodger Johnson, and Sheila Scheideler

It's a great pleasure to welcome you to this very first recognition ceremony for the Omtvedt Innovation Awards. We are present here to honor innovation strengths of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and certainly the four faculty members receiving today's awards are greatly deserving of this recognition. Just hearing about their work is gratifying!

Tradurre il fantasy per giovani lettori: "The Explorers' gate" di Chris Grabenstein

The purpose of this thesis is, on the one hand, to illustrate the peculiarities of children’s literature, fantasy fiction and their translation and, on the other hand, to propose a translation from English to Italian of some chapters of the e-book The Explorers’ Gate by American author Chris Grabenstein. The first chapters of this work offer an analysis of different critical studies on children’s literature and fantasy fiction and illustrate the characteristics of these two literary expressions. I will also discuss the different approaches to their translation in order to produce a translated text that is consistent with its literary genre and with translation theories. The third chapter is about the author and includes an interview on his idea of children’s literature and his opinions about translation. The second part of this thesis is represented by the actual translation of the e-book. Firstly, I will analyze the source text, dividing the analysis in extra-textual and intra- textual and focusing on sender, addressee, time and space, function of the text, plot, structure, narrator, style and language used by the author. I will also highlight those elements that probably would be challenging during the translation phase. Secondly, I will explain the macro-strategy that I adopted during the process of translation, which can be defined as child-oriented. In the last chapter I will highlight those passages that represented translation challenges and I will show how I tackled them.

Mitochondrial preprotein translocase of trypanosomatids has a bacterial origin

Mitochondria are found in all eukaryotic cells and derive from a bacterial endosymbiont [1, 2]. The evolution of a protein import system was a prerequisite for the conversion of the endosymbiont into a true organelle. Tom40, the essential component of the protein translocase of the outer membrane, is conserved in mitochondria of almost all eukaryotes but lacks bacterial orthologs [3-6]. It serves as the gateway through which all mitochondrial proteins are imported. The parasitic protozoa Trypanosoma brucei and its relatives do not have a Tom40-like protein, which raises the question of how proteins are imported by their mitochondria [7, 8]. Using a combination of bioinformatics and in vivo and in vitro studies, we have discovered that T. brucei likely employs a different import channel, termed ATOM (archaic translocase of the outer mitochondria! membrane). ATOM mediates the import of nuclear-encoded proteins into mitochondria and is essential for viability of trypanosomes. It is not related to Tom40 but is instead an ortholog of a subgroup of the 0mp85 protein superfamily that is involved in membrane translocation and insertion of bacterial outer membrane proteins [9]. This suggests that the protein import channel in trypanosomes is a relic of an archaic protein transport system that was operational in the ancestor of all eukaryotes.

George Perry, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G04301

News media coverage of policies surrounding the HPV vaccine before and after Texas Governor Rick Perry's executive order, February 2006-February 2008

Objective. In June 2006, the first vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV) was approved by the FDA and shortly after approval, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to recommend the HPV vaccine for young girls. As a result of ACIP recommendations, state legislators introduced bills to mandate the vaccine. Policies related to public health issues, such as vaccination mandates, are often influenced by news coverage of these issues. News media, particularly in times of controversies, reinforce specific messages and plays an essential role in framing issues for the public. The objective of this study is to examine the quality, content, and scope of policies for the HPV vaccine before and after Texas Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order mandating the vaccine for middle school girls.^ Methods. The Lexis-Nexis database was used to identify 335 articles on HPV vaccination mandate policies that were published in U.S. newspapers from February 1, 2006 to February 2, 2008. The coding instrument captured information about article type, main news story concern, general information about HPV, HPV vaccine mandate policies, arguments for and against HPV vaccination mandates, arguments for and against the HPV vaccine, and sources of information.^ Results. Most news articles (82.4%) occurred after Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order mandating the HPV vaccine. Most articles mentioned that HPV is sexually transmitted (90.7%) and linked HPV infection to cervical cancer (96.1%). Only 63.9% of the articles reported that the HPV vaccine protects against types of HPV that cause cervical cancer and 18.8% of the articles reported that the vaccine protects against genital warts. Only 18.2% of the news articles presented a balanced argument regarding mandatory HPV vaccinations, and only 39.4% of the news articles presented a balanced argument for the HPV vaccine.^ Conclusions. Our study revealed that news coverage regarding mandating the HPV vaccine and issues related to the vaccine itself is biased, unbalanced, and incomplete. Since the public pays a great deal of attention to health in the media, it is essential that news stories are balanced, complete, and accurate. In order to ensure that future vaccination mandates are not covered in the same way the HPV vaccination was, public health officials, health care providers and scientists should work effectively with the media to ensure that balanced information is provided.^