Ensuring Research Integrity

In the field of research, integrity and trust are two of the essential attributes of quality research. Any report of research misconduct creates a clear and present danger to the research field, academic institutions, and their faculty, residents, students, and staff. We can see the rise in research misconduct, most simply through the rising number of article retractions. Throughout this chapter, the authors go into the various methods with which researchers overtly fabricate, falsify, and plagiarize their research and the more covert methods of research misconduct, including reshaping data, withholding unfavorable analyses, and other situations that toe the line.

Looking Backward to Charter Schools

Charter schools are promoted as a contemporary American invention. But the documented history reveals that charter schools actually evolved over the centuries in England, structured to reflect the highly stratified British class system. The last stand to hold onto the charter-school system in England was waged by Margaret Thatcher under the banner of “parental choice.” But her campaign went down to defeat as the British public opted for the American-style, inclusive and comprehensive secondary school. The charter-school movement raises the clear and present danger of splitting up the American unitary, comprehensive school system at cost to the American democratic experience.

Genetic Diversity in Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolates and Resulting Outcomes of Tuberculosis Infection and Disease

Tuberculosis claims more human lives than any other bacterial infectious disease and represents a clear and present danger to global health as new tools for vaccination, treatment, and interruption of transmission have been slow to emerge. Additionally, tuberculosis presents with notable clinical heterogeneity, which complicates diagnosis, treatment, and the establishment of nonrelapsing cure. How this heterogeneity is driven by the diversity ofclinical isolates of the causative agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has recently garnered attention. Herein, we review advances in the understanding of how naturally occurring variation in clinical isolates affects transmissibility, pathogenesis, immune modulation, and drug resistance. We also summarize how specific changes in transcriptional responses can modulate infection or disease outcome, together with strain-specific effects on gene essentiality. Further understanding of how this diversity of M. tuberculosis isolates affects disease and treatment outcomes will enable the development of more effective therapeutic options and vaccines for this dreaded disease.