bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Primary school leadership in Malaysia: The experience of stress among deputy heads
Authors: Tahir Lokman , Musah Mohammed Borhandden , Panatik Siti Aisyah , Ali Mohd Fadzli , Said Mohd Nihra Haruzuan Mohd
Published: January 2018

Unquestionably, studies focusing on school leaders’ stress while managing schools have received extensive attention. However, there is still a lack of research focusing on deputies’ stress, even though deputies play an essential role in a school’s improvement process. Despite deputies’ dual roles, it is an accepted fact that deputies do experience stress while simultaneously dealing with their ‘superiors’, fulfilling their administrative tasks and helping teachers to work at their fullest capacity. Based on these two noteworthy premises, this mixed-methods study was designed to explore and address whether dealing with educational superiors causes stress to primary deputies. Regarding the sample, 120 deputies from across 45 primary public schools in two urban districts were selected as respondents for the study. Regarding the quantitative data, the non-parametric and descriptive statistics were employed in determining deputies’ views of their superiors. Further, eleven deputies were interviewed, and their anonymity was also protected to sustain the ethical considerations of the study. As expected, truculent attitudes and criticisms from school inspectors and parents were highlighted by deputies as contributing to their experiences of stress, with the levels of stress being classified as ‘moderate’ based on their demographic differences. Surprisingly, primary deputies revealed that they do not face much stress when working with their own head teachers; in fact, primary deputies informally revealed that their heads were quite open and understanding of their viewpoints and lenses.
Augmented latissimus dorsi transfer: initial results in patients with massive irreparable posterosuperior rotator cuff tears
Authors: Sidler-Maier Claudia C. , Mutch Jennifer A. , Sidler Martin , Leivadiotou Dimitra , Payandeh Jubin B. , Nam Diane
Published: January 2018

Background

The surgical treatment of irreparable massive rotator cuff tears is challenging. The purpose of the present study was to report the initial outcomes after a modified latissimus dorsi transfer (LDT) augmented by acellular dermal allograft (ADA).

Methods

This retrospective study includes 24 patients managed with LDT using ADA augmentation as a bursal-sided onlay between March 2009 and December 2015.

Results

All patients were men with a mean age of 57 years (range 48 years to 70 years). Seven patients had a previously failed rotator cuff repair and ten patients presented with a deficient subscapularis tendon. At last follow-up (mean 27 months), there was a significant improvement in active forward flexion (mean increase 31°; p = 0.016), and abduction by 25° ( p = 0.059). The acromiohumeral distance remained stable and the failure rate was low (4%). Neither a history of previous rotator cuff surgery, nor the presence of a subscapularis tear had a negative impact on functional outcome.

Conclusions

In our cohort of patients, LDT augmented with ADA was a reasonable option for patients with previously failed rotator cuff repair, as well as in the subgroup of patients with a deficient subscapularis tendon.

Level of evidence

Level IV: Therapeutic study (case series)
Safety of Insulin Lispro and a Biosimilar Insulin Lispro When Administered Through an Insulin Pump
Authors: Thrasher James , Surks Howard , Nowotny Irene , Pierre Suzanne , Rotthaeuser Baerbel , Wernicke-Panten Karin , Garg Satish
Published: January 2018

Background:

SAR342434 (U100; SAR-Lis; insulin lispro) is a biosimilar/follow-on to insulin lispro (U100; Ly-Lis). Similar pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics between the two products has been demonstrated in a hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp study. The current study evaluated the safety of SAR-Lis and Ly-Lis when administered by continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII; insulin pumps).

Methods:

This was a randomized, open-label, 2 × 4-week, two-arm crossover study in 27 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (NCT02603510). The main outcome was the incidence of infusion set occlusions (ISOs), defined as failure to correct hyperglycemia (plasma glucose ≥≥ 300 mg/dl) by 50 mg/dl within 60 minutes by insulin bolus via the pump. Secondary outcomes included intervals between infusion set changes, treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) including infusion site, hypersensitivity reactions and hypoglycemic events, and safety.

Results:

The number of patients reporting at least one ISO was small: 6/25 patients on SAR-Lis reported 14 ISOs and 4/27 on Ly-Lis reported nine ISOs. The estimated difference in ISO risk for SAR-Lis versus Ly-Lis was 7.9% (95% CI, –1.90 to 17.73). Mean interval between infusion set changes for any reason was similar with SAR-Lis (3.09 days) and Ly-Lis (2.95 days). The event rate (events/patient-month) of any hypoglycemia was similar with SAR-Lis (7.15) and Ly-Lis (7.98), as was the percentage of patients who experienced any TEAE (12.0% and 14.8%).

Conclusion:

Both SAR-Lis and Ly-Lis were well tolerated by patients using insulin pumps. The results do not suggest a clinically significant difference in the risk of ISO between SAR-Lis and Ly-Lis when used in CSII.
Can Rotational Grouping Be Determined by the Initial Conditions?
Authors: Dobbins Allan C. , Grossmann Jon K.
Published: January 2018

Objects rotating in depth with an ambiguous rotation direction frequently appear to rotate together. Corotation is especially strong when the objects are interpretable as having a shared axis. We manipulated the initial conditions of the experiment by having pairs of objects initially appear to be unambiguous, and then make either a sudden or gradual transition to ambiguous spin. We find that in neither case do coaxial counter-rotating objects persist in being perceived as counter-rotating. This implies that the perceptual constraint that favors coaxial corotation overrides the initial perceptual state of the objects.
Vascular affection in relation to oxidative DNA damage in metabolic syndrome
Authors: Abd El Aziz Rokayaa , Fawzy Mary Wadie , Khalil Noha , Abdel Atty Sahar , Sabra Zainab
Published: January 2018

Introduction:

Obesity has become an important issue affecting both males and females. Obesity is now regarded as an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis-related diseases. Metabolic syndrome is associated with increased risk for development of cardiovascular disease. Urinary 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2′-deoxyguanosine concentration has been used to express oxidation status.

Methods:

Twenty-seven obese patients with metabolic syndrome, 25 obese patients without metabolic syndrome and 31 healthy subjects were included in our study. They were subjected to full history and clinical examination; fasting blood sugar (FBS), 2 hour post prandial blood sugar (2HPP), lipid profile, urinary 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2′-deoxyguanosine and carotid duplex, A/B index and tibial diameters were all assessed.

Results:

There was a statistically significant difference ( p = 0.027) in diameter of the right anterior tibial artery among the studied groups, with decreased diameter of the right anterior tibial artery in obese patients with metabolic syndrome compared to those without metabolic syndrome; the ankle brachial index revealed a lower index in obese patients with metabolic syndrome compared to those without metabolic syndrome. There was a statistically insignificant difference ( p = 0.668) in the 8-oxodG in the studied groups. In obese patients with metabolic syndrome there was a positive correlation between 8-oxodG and total cholesterol and LDL.

Conclusion:

Urinary 8-oxodG is correlated to total cholesterol and LDL in obese patients with metabolic syndrome; signifying its role in the mechanism of dyslipidemia in those patients. Our study highlights the importance of anterior tibial artery diameter measurement and ankle brachial index as an early marker of atherosclerosis, and how it may be an earlier marker than carotid intima-media thickness.
A methodological pilot for gathering data through text-messaging to study question-asking in everyday life
Authors: Gergle Darren , Hargittai Eszter
Published: January 2018

How do people find answers to questions they encounter in everyday life? While extensive research has examined how people go about finding answers to questions online, there has been little work investigating the issue from a more holistic, in situ perspective that covers the various devices, resources, and contextual factors that influence everyday question-asking experiences. To address this, we developed a text-messaging-based data-collection framework. This paper details our approach including reflections on both the benefits and challenges of the methodology for researchers seeking to apply similar approaches to social science research. In doing so, we demonstrate how our methodology helps establish a contextually rich understanding of information-seeking processes. We also demonstrate our approach to analyzing data from a small but diverse group of adults across the United States about their everyday question-asking experiences.
Movement measurements at home for multiple sclerosis: walking speed measured by a novel ambient measurement system
Authors: Smith Victoria MJ , Varsanik Jonathan S , Walker Rachel A , Russo Andrew W , Patel Kevin R , Gabel Wendy , Phillips Glenn A , Kimmel Zebadiah M , Klawiter Eric C
Published: January 2018

Background

Gait disturbance is a major contributor to clinical disability in multiple sclerosis (MS). A sensor was developed to assess walking speed at home for people with MS using infrared technology in real-time without the use of wearables.

Objective

To develop continuous in-home outcome measures to assess gait in adults with MS.

Methods

Movement measurements were collected continuously for 8 months from six people with MS. Average walking speed and peak walking speed were calculated from movement data, then analyzed for variability over time, by room (location), and over the course of the day. In-home continuous gait outcomes and variability were correlated with standard in-clinic gait outcomes.

Results

Measured in-home average walking speed of participants ranged from 0.33 m/s to 0.96 m/s and peak walking speed ranged from 0.89 m/s to 1.51 m/s. Mean total within-participant coefficient of variation for daily average walking speed and peak walking speed were 10.75% and 10.93%, respectively. Average walking speed demonstrated a moderately strong correlation with baseline Timed 25-Foot Walk (rs = 0.714, P = 0.111).

Conclusion

New non-wearable technology provides reliable and continuous in-home assessment of walking speed.
Book Review: Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams (2017), Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation
Authors: Krithi S.
Published: January 2018

Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams (2017), Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. Paperback, ISBN: 781583676295, pp. 388, US$25.00.
Grain Financialization and Food Security: A Chinese Perspective
Authors: Tsui Sit , Chi Lau Kin , Jiansheng Qiu , Xiaohui Yan , Han Ji , Tiejun Wen
Published: January 2018

The globalization led by financial capital has already resulted in ‘grain financialization’ (or grain dollarization), which is the most important factor giving rise to the grave situation in global food security, as well as turmoil in developing countries that rely heavily on grain imports.* This article analyzes food security issues in the twenty-first century in the context of international financial globalization. In particular, it pays attention to developing countries’ discontents and crises due to grain financialization, as well as China’s strategies in dealing with the dual risks existing in grain and financial markets.
Long-Term Trends in Private School Enrollments by Family Income
Authors: Murnane Richard J. , Reardon Sean F.
Published: January 2018

We use data from multiple national surveys to describe trends in private elementary school enrollment by family income from 1968 to 2013. We find several important trends. First, the private school enrollment rate of middle-income families declined substantially over the past five decades while that of high-income families remained quite stable. Second, there are notable differences in private school enrollment trends by race/ethnicity, urbanicity, and region of the country. Although racial/ethnic differences in private school enrollment are to a large extent explained by income differences, the urban/suburban and regional differences in private school enrollment patterns are large even among families with similar incomes. Factors contributing to these patterns may include trends in income inequality, private school costs and availability, and the perceived relative quality of local schooling options.
An Exercise to Integrate Strategic and Financial Analysis
Authors: Norman Patricia M.
Published: January 2018

Many students ignore or underappreciate the important role that financial and accounting considerations have on the formulation and implementation of realistic and ultimately effective strategies. This article describes an exercise that helps build the ability to integrate strategic thinking with financial analysis. Its purpose is to help students connect financial outcomes to underlying strategic causes. It also demonstrates that financial outcomes are the result of many interdependent actions as well as sometimes uncontrollable external factors. The exercise is designed to be used early in a strategic management course to set the stage for a more in-depth and holistic consideration of later strategic management topics. This exercise involves an analysis of Target Corporation and is appropriate for MBA students.
Supporting the Sustainable Growth of SMEs with Content- and Collaboration-based Personal Knowledge Management Systems
Authors: Schmitt Ulrich
Published: January 2018

Personal knowledge management (PKM) has been envisaged as a decentralising revolution and as the most important educational concern. Its root objective aims for highly knowledgeable individuals acting competently in their daily lives, as part of the workforce, and as public citizens. However, such a promising state of knowledge management (KM) has not emerged yet.

Over the past four years, the ongoing development of a PKM concept and prototype system has been accompanied by over 30 multidisciplinary peer-reviewed publications. To verify the undertaking, dedicated articles have applied accepted general design science research (DSR) guidelines aimed at creating innovative IT artefacts (that extend human and social capabilities and meet desired outcomes), at validating design processes (as evidence of their relevance, utility, rigor, resonance and publishability) and at ensuring theory effectiveness (a matter of purposeful utility, content, communication and presentation).

Based on the formation of individuals’ autonomous PKM capacities and personal devices nourished by networked creative conversations, the novel PKM approach, on the one hand, aims at advancing lifelong PKM support and academic and professional growth benefiting individuals as contributors and beneficiaries of institutional and societal performance. On the other hand, the scope of anticipated outcomes also offers appealing opportunities for further stakeholders engaged in the context of curation, education, research, development and business. In the latter context, prior papers have looked at the impact for large enterprises in regard to organizational knowledge management (OKM) system generations, the potential of a fruitful OKM–PKM–Co-evolution, and the promises for strengthening organisational capabilities of innovativeness and leadership.

The focus of this article shifts to the collaborative and growth-related challenges of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It pinpoints the entrepreneurial barriers of organisational development, and how the PKM concept and its technological and educational devices are able—as any SME moves through its dynamic stages of growth, predicaments or decline—to guide and rectify the associated tasks and problems. These demands necessitate performing effectively under growing pressures and communicating with rising numbers of internal and external stakeholders, as affirmed in Garnsey’s resource-based notion of new firm growth, Greiner’s evolution–revolution-based stage-growth model, and Levie’s and Lichtenstein’s dynamic states approach to entrepreneurship.
Supporting Parents and Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in Rural Settings: Administrator Perspectives
Authors: Huscroft-D’Angelo Jacqueline , January Stacy-Ann A. , Duppong Hurley Kristin L.
Published: January 2018

One strategy to improve outcomes for students with emotional and behavioral disorders and their families in rural settings is providing parental support. Through interviews with special education administrators and student services personnel representing several rural regions, this exploratory study sought to identify the needs of youth with emotional and behavioral challenges and their families, potential barriers to accessing school and community services, and the feasibility of implementing a phone-based parent-to-parent support program in rural communities. Findings indicated increased efforts in providing mental health services in the school, several service access barriers, and strategies for improving parent support in rural settings.
Low Incidence of Osteonecrosis in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Treated With ALL-97 and ALL-02 Study of Japan Association of Childhood Leukemia Study Group
Authors: Sakamoto Kenichi , Imamura Toshihiko , Kihira Kentaro , Suzuki Koji , Ishida Hisashi , Morita Hiromi , Kanno Miyako , Mori Takeshi , Hiramatsu Hidefumi , Matsubara Kousaku , Terui Kiminori , Takahashi Yoshihiro , Suenobu So-ichi , Hasegawa Daiichiro , Kosaka Yoshiyuki , Kato Koji , Moriya-Saito Akiko , Sato Atsushi , Kawasaki Hirohide , Yumura-Yagi Keiko , Hara Junichi , Hori Hiroki , Horibe Keizo
Published: January 2018

Purpose

Osteonecrosis (ON) is a serious complication of the treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL); however, data relating to ON in Asian pediatric patients with ALL are scarce. Therefore, we performed a retrospective analysis of cohorts of Japanese patients with ALL to clarify the incidence, clinical characteristics, and risk factors of ON.

Patients and Methods

The incidence and characteristics of ON were determined in patients with ALL (n = 1,662) enrolled in two studies from the Japan Association of Childhood Leukemia Study (JACLS) group (n = 635 and n = 1,027 patients treated with the ALL-97 and ALL-02 protocols, respectively).

Results

In total, 24 of 1,662 patients suffered from ON, of which 12 of 635 and 12 of 1,027 patients were treated with the ALL-97 and the ALL-02 protocol, respectively. Of the 24 patients, 23 were older than 10 years. In multivariate analysis, age (≥ 10 years) was the sole significant risk factor for ON ( P < .001). Separate evaluation of patients ≥ 10 years of age indicated a 5-year cumulative incidence of ON of 7.2% (95% CI, 4.0% to 12.6%) and 5.9% (95% CI, 3.3% to 10.4%) in the ALL-97 and the ALL-02 protocol, respectively, which was lower than reported previously, despite an administration of dexamethasone (DEX) similar to that in comparable studies; however, concomitant administration of DEX and l-asparaginase was reduced in the JACLS protocols.

Conclusion

We identified a low frequency of ON in the JACLS ALL-97 and ALL-02 studies. Although the sole risk factor for ON was age (≥ 10 years), even among high-risk patients, ON incidence was significantly lower than that reported in previous studies. These results suggest that, not only the total amount of DEX, but also how DEX and l-asparaginase are administered, which affects the clearance of DEX, may be associated with ON incidence in patients with ALL.
Prenatal Dexamethasone Exposure Induced Ovarian Developmental Toxicity and Transgenerational Effect in Rat Offspring
Authors: Lv Feng , Wan Yang , Chen Yunxi , Pei Linguo , Luo Daji , Fan Guanlan , Luo Mengcheng , Xu Dan , Wang Hui
Published: January 2018

Prenatal dexamethasone exposure (PDE) induces multiorgan developmental toxicities in offspring. Here we verified the transgenerational inheritance effect of ovarian developmental toxicity by PDE and explored its intrauterine programming mechanism. Pregnant rats subcutaneously received 0.2 mg/kg/d dexamethasone from gestational day (GD) 9 to GD20. A subgroup was euthanized for fetuses on GD20, and the other group went on to spontaneous labor to produce F1 offspring. The adult F1 females were mated with normal males to produce the F2 and F3 generations. The PDE fetal rats exhibited ovarian mitochondrial structural abnormalities, decreased serum estradiol (E2) levels, and lower expression levels of ovarian steroidogenic factor 1 (SF1), steroidal synthetases, and insulinlike growth factor 1 (IGF1). On postnatal week (PW) 6 and PW12, the PDE F1 offspring showed altered reproductive behavior and ovarian morphology. The serum E2 level and ovarian expression of SF1, steroidal synthetases, and IGF1 were also decreased. The adult F3 offspring showed alterations in reproductive phenotype and ovarian IGF1, SF1, and steroidal synthetase expression similar to those of F1. PDE induces ovarian developmental toxicity and transgenerational inheritance effects. The mechanism by which this toxicity occurs may be related to PDE-induced low-functional programming of fetal ovarian IGF1/SF1 and steroidal synthetases.
Comparative analysis of mouse and human placentae across gestation reveals species-specific regulators of placental development
Authors: Soncin Francesca , Khater Marwa , To Cuong , Pizzo Donald , Farah Omar , Wakeland Anna , Arul Nambi Rajan Kanaga , Nelson Katharine K. , Chang Ching-Wen , Moretto-Zita Matteo , Natale David R. , Laurent Louise C. , Parast Mana M.
Published: January 2018

An increasing body of evidence points to significant spatio-temporal differences in early placental development between mouse and human, but a detailed comparison of placentae in these two species is missing. We set out to compare placentae from both species across gestation, with a focus on trophoblast progenitor markers. We found that CDX2 and ELF5, but not EOMES, are expressed in early post-implantation trophoblast subpopulations in both species. Genome-wide expression profiling of mouse and human placentae revealed clusters of genes with distinct co-expression patterns across gestation. Overall, there was a closer fit between patterns observed in the placentae when the inter-species comparison was restricted to human placentae through gestational week 16 (thus, excluding full-term samples), suggesting that the developmental timeline in mouse runs parallel to the first half of human placental development. In addition, we identified VGLL1 as a human-specific marker of proliferative cytotrophoblast, where it is co-expressed with the transcription factor TEAD4. As TEAD4 is involved in trophectoderm specification in the mouse, we posit a regulatory role for VGLL1 in early events during human placental development.
The reluctant visitor: an alkaloid in toxic nectar can reduce olfactory learning and memory in Asian honey bees
Authors: Zhang Junjun , Wang Zhengwei , Wen Ping , Qu Yufeng , Tan Ken , Nieh James C.
Published: January 2018

The nectar of the thunder god vine, Tripterygium hypoglaucum, contains a terpenoid, triptolide (TRP), that may be toxic to the sympatric Asian honey bee, Apis cerana, because honey produced from this nectar is toxic to bees. However, these bees will forage on, recruit for, and pollinate this plant during a seasonal dearth of preferred food sources. Olfactory learning plays a key role in forager constancy and pollination, and we therefore tested the effects of acute and chronic TRP feeding on forager olfactory learning, using proboscis extension reflex conditioning. At concentrations of 0.5-10 µg TRP/ml, there were no learning effects of acute exposure. However, memory retention (1 h after the last learning trial) significantly decreased by 56% following acute consumption of 0.5 µg TRP/ml. Chronic exposure did not alter learning or memory, except at high concentrations (5 and 10 µg TRP/ml). TRP concentrations in nectar may therefore not significantly harm plant pollination. Surprisingly, TRP slightly increased bee survival, and thus other components in T. hypoglaucum honey may be toxic. Long term exposure to TRP could have colony effects, but these may be ameliorated by the bees’ aversion to T. hypoglaucum nectar when other food sources are available and, perhaps, by detoxification mechanisms. The co-evolution of this plant and its reluctant visitor may therefore likely illustrate a classic compromise between the interests of both actors.
Renoguanylin stimulates apical CFTR translocation and decreases HCO3− secretion through PKA activity in the Gulf toadfish (Opsanus beta)
Authors: Ruhr Ilan M. , Schauer Kevin L. , Takei Yoshio , Grosell Martin
Published: January 2018

The guanylin peptides – guanylin, uroguanylin, and renoguanylin (RGN) – are endogenously produced hormones in teleost fish enterocytes that are activators of guanylyl cyclase-C (GC-C) and are potent modulators of intestinal physiology, particularly in seawater teleosts. Most notably, they reverse normal net ion-absorbing mechanisms that are vital to water absorption, an important process for seawater teleost survival. The role of guanylin-peptide stimulation of the intestine remains unclear, but it is hypothesized to facilitate the removal of solids from the intestine by providing fluid to enable their removal by peristalsis. The present study uses one member of these peptides – RGN – to provide evidence for the prominent role that protein kinase A (PKA) plays in mediating the effects of guanylin-peptide stimulation in the posterior intestine of the Gulf toadfish (Opsanus beta). Protein kinase G is shown to not mediate the intracellular effects of RGN, despite previous evidence showing that GC-C activation leads to higher cyclic guanosine monophosphate formation. RGN is shown to reverse the absorptive short-circuit current and increase conductance in the Gulf toadfish intestine. These effects are correlated to increased trafficking of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) Cl− channel to the apical membrane, which are negated by PKA inhibition. Moreover, RGN decreases HCO3− secretion, likely by limiting the exchange activity of SLC26a6 (a HCO3−/Cl− antiporter), a reduction that is enhanced by PKA inhibition. RGN seems to alter PKA activity in the posterior intestine to recruit CFTR to the apical membrane and reduce HCO3− secretion.
Recent advances in understanding vertebrate segmentation
Authors: Pais-de-Azevedo Tomás , Magno Ramiro , Duarte Isabel , Palmeirim Isabel
Published: January 2018

Segmentation is the partitioning of the body axis into a series of repeating units or segments. This widespread body plan is found in annelids, arthropods, and chordates, showing it to be a successful developmental strategy for growing and generating diverse morphology and anatomy. Segmentation has been extensively studied over the years. Forty years ago, Cooke and Zeeman published the Clock and Wavefront model, creating a theoretical framework of how developing cells could acquire and keep temporal and spatial information in order to generate a segmented pattern. Twenty years later, in 1997, Palmeirim and co-workers found the first clock gene whose oscillatory expression pattern fitted within Cooke and Zeeman’s model. Currently, in 2017, new experimental techniques, such as new ex vivo experimental models, real-time imaging of gene expression, live single cell tracking, and simplified transgenics approaches, are revealing some of the fine details of the molecular processes underlying the inner workings of the segmentation mechanisms, bringing new insights into this fundamental process. Here we review and discuss new emerging views that further our understanding of the vertebrate segmentation clock, with a particular emphasis on recent publications that challenge and/or complement the currently accepted Clock and Wavefront model.
New insights in chemokine signaling
Authors: Legler Daniel F. , Thelen Marcus
Published: January 2018

Chemokine signaling is essential for coordinated cell migration in health and disease to specifically govern cell positioning in space and time. Typically, chemokines signal through heptahelical, G protein-coupled receptors to orchestrate cell migration. Notably, chemokine receptors are highly dynamic structures and signaling efficiency largely depends on the discrete contact with the ligand. Promiscuity of both chemokines and chemokine receptors, combined with biased signaling and allosteric modulation of receptor activation, guarantees a tightly controlled recruitment and positioning of individual cells within the local environment at a given time. Here, we discuss recent insights in understanding chemokine gradient formation by atypical chemokine receptors and how typical chemokine receptors can transmit distinct signals to translate guidance cues into coordinated cell locomotion in space and time.
Positive Mental Health from the perspective of Iranian society: A qualitative study
Authors: Mirabzadeh Arash , Baradaran Eftekhari Monir , Falahat Katayoun , Sajjadi Homeira , Vameghi Meroe , Ghaedamini Harouni Gholamreza
Published: January 2018

Background: According to the World Health Organization, mental health relates, not only to the absence of mental disorder, but also to Positive Mental Health. Studies have shown that promoting positive mental health, not only reduces the prevalence and incidence of mental disorders, but also affects the process of treatment and reduces related burden. However, this concept has different interpretations in different cultures, and in many societies, mental health is still considered the absence of mental illness. Thus, the present study was conducted to provide an in-depth understanding of Iranian adults` perspective towards the concept of positive mental health.

Materials and Methods: In the present qualitative study, eight focus group discussions (6 to 8 adults in each session) were held consisting of 30 to 60 year-old men and women from Tehran. Data were analyzed in "DeDoose" qualitative software using content analysis.

Results: According to the data obtained, participants found no difference between positive mental health and mental health, mostly equating it to the absence of mental disorders and having positive energy, peace in and satisfaction with life. According to the results, positive mental health has four domains of emotional/psychological, spiritual, social, and life skills.

Conclusion: Understanding an individual’s positive mental health concepts culturally and providing appropriate community based programs can significantly promote the mental health of the community.
A host subtraction database for virus discovery in human cell line sequencing data
Authors: Miller Jason R. , Dilley Kari A. , Harkins Derek M. , Stockwell Timothy B. , Shabman Reed S. , Sutton Granger G.
Published: January 2018

The human cell lines HepG2, HuH-7, and Jurkat are commonly used for amplification of the RNA viruses present in environmental samples. To assist with assays by RNAseq, we sequenced these cell lines and developed a subtraction database that contains sequences expected in sequence data from uninfected cells. RNAseq data from cell lines infected with Sendai virus were analyzed to test host subtraction. The process of mapping RNAseq reads to our subtraction database vastly reduced the number non-viral reads in the dataset to allow for efficient secondary analyses.
A fruit fly model for studying paclitaxel-induced pain
Authors: Hamoudi Zina , Khuong Thang Manh , Cole Tiffany , Neely G. Gregory
Published: January 2018

Background: Paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy is a common and limiting side effect of an approved and effective chemotherapeutic agent. The cause of this nociception is still unknown.

Methods: To uncover the mechanism involved in paclitaxel-induced pain, we developed a Drosophila thermal nociceptive model to show the effects of paclitaxel exposure on third instar larvae.

Results: We found that paclitaxel increases pain perception in a dose-dependent manner, without overt morphological changes.

Conclusions: Our simple, high throughput model can be combined with genomics approaches to identify regulators of chemotherapy-induced pain to eliminate its adverse side effects.
The Individual and the Social
Authors: Erikson Kai
Published: January 2018

This chapter considers a second approach to the sociological perspective, which has to do with the effort to make clear that the social scene and the individual persons who compose it can be viewed as quite different entities. Sociologists know how to approach their subject matter as an assembly of parts. At the same time, they are cognizant of the fact that the social world, in essence, is a continuous field of force—a thing of drifts and tides and currents and flows. Human beings are all caught up in those drifts and flows, often without knowing that to be so. Autonomy is not a quality gained by asserting it to be so (“we believe in free will”). It is a quality to be gained by becoming aware of and coping with the social forces that make up the world in which we live.
Knowing the Place for the First Time
Authors: Erikson Kai
Published: January 2018

This chapter considers a third approach to the sociological perspective, which has to do with viewing a wholly familiar social reality in the way a newcomer, a stranger, might. It may be assumed that sociologists know more about the lay of their land than most others do. After all, they spend a significant amount of time investigating various corners of the social world, and to that extent they can be thought of as seasoned, knowing, and experienced about human life. At the same time, however, sociologists can be viewed as strangers to the lands they study, for it is one of their tasks to look at the social world almost as if they were seeing it for the first time. The chapter explains how sociologists may be newcomers to the locations they study and discusses the ways that they deal with deviant behavior.
City
Authors: Erikson Kai
Published: January 2018

This chapter examines the ways of life in the city. The world is now moving into an age when the vast majority of people will live in (or around) cities. This is already the case in Europe and the United States, and it is becoming a reality in Latin America. The chapter first describes the early cities before discussing the sociology of cities in the United States, focusing on immigration and migration. It then considers the emergence of suburbs and how they are related to the American inner cities. It also discusses the people of the inner city that are referred to as an “underclass,” living in what Oscar Lewis called a “culture of poverty.” Finally, it looks at new developments that are shaping what may well be the urban landscape of the future, including the new downtowns and sunbelt cities.
War Comes to Pakrac
Authors: Erikson Kai
Published: January 2018

This chapter examines the impact of the civil war in Yugoslavia on the people of a town in Croatia called Pakrac. Croatia and Serbia went to war in the summer of 1991 after the former, home to hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs, seceded from what was left of the original Yugoslavia. The chapter first describes the events and developments that let to the collapse of Yugoslavia before discussing how neighbors got dragged in the conflict in Pakrac and elsewhere in Yugoslavia in a way that is peculiar to civil war. It then considers how the people who had once shared a countryside in relative harmony descended into bitterness and hatred and even acts of slaughter. It also explores the role played by the media in stirring up national resentments across Yugoslavia and concludes with an overview of what Pakrac was like in the years after the war.
Introduction
Authors: Burch William R. , Machlis Gary E. , Force Jo Ellen
Published: January 2018

This introductory chapter discusses how environmental scientists, managers, and other professionals need to intensify their search for cross-cultural models of resource systems that include the forces driving human desires. Socio-cultural variables as both cause and consequence of system change will need to be joined to the traditional biophysical concerns of the ecologist, forester, conservationist, range manager, park superintendent, and rural agriculturalist. Worldwide, disparate indicators of ecosystem stress abound. Some of these challenges include geochemical flux due to pollution, the accumulating inventory of toxic chemicals, a collapsing world fishery, biotic mixing, accelerating loss of coral reefs, desertification, and more. The chapter then introduces the Human Ecosystem Model (HEM) as a possible solution to these problems.
Revitalizing Human Communities and Reclaiming Biological Communities
Authors: Burch William R. , Machlis Gary E. , Force Jo Ellen
Published: January 2018

This chapter demonstrates how the Human Ecosystem Model (HEM) offers a unity of understanding with shared concepts, a framework, and a model for resolving complex human ecosystem problems. With it, decision-makers from different organizations—public and private—may coordinate their work with that of local citizens. The emphasis is on the whole system, which combines issues such as trends in crime, housing, education, health, natural resources, and community stability into an integrated network. The chapter illustrates how the framework and model was applied in a major city in the United States: Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore story emphasizes that certain universal problems and solutions confront all human societies. The universality of problems and the search for integrated solutions required a framework like the HEM to identify, apply, and store learning.
Shaping History in the 1st and 2nd Centuries CE in Its Literary Culture
Authors: Becker Eve-Marie
Published: January 2018

This chapter studies the interrelation of history-writing and literary culture. It considers the function of history-writing within the context of Hellenistic literary culture, as historiography at the time can be seen as a literary phenomenon. History-writing represents a substantial contribution to ancient literature; it circulates within the sphere of the ancient literary canon. Chronologically speaking, Mark and Luke follow in the literary tradition set by the earliest in Western history-writing, yet literary tradition among the earliest Christian authors also differs from the Greco-Roman world. Where historiographical topics and concepts vary significantly from one author to the next, in Mark and Luke, the subject of the narrative, namely, the gospel, remains surprisingly constant.
Heretics and Believers
Authors: Marshall Peter
Published: January 2018

Centuries on, what the Reformation was and what it accomplished remain deeply contentious. This new history argues that sixteenth-century England was a society neither desperate for nor allergic to change, but one open to ideas of reform in various competing guises. King Henry VIII wanted an orderly, uniform Reformation, but his actions opened a Pandora's Box from which pluralism and diversity flowed and rooted themselves in English life. With sensitivity to individual experience as well as masterfully synthesizing historical and institutional developments, the book frames the perceptions and actions of people great and small, from monarchs and bishops to ordinary families and ecclesiastics, against a backdrop of profound change that altered the meanings of religion itself. This engaging history reveals what was really at stake in the overthrow of Catholic culture and the reshaping of the Church of England.
Converts
Authors: Marshall Peter
Published: January 2018

This chapter examines the religious conversions in sixteenth-century England. Some historians have rightly warned us that there was more to the Reformation than a succession of individual religious conversions, noting that most people didn't undergo one. But without such conversions there could have been no Reformation, and attempting to untangle them draws us to the mysterious seed beds in which change first took root. For historians have to make sense of a paradox: that a convert's radical rejection of the old and familiar could not come out of nowhere; that it must somehow be grounded in earlier attitudes and experiences. The chapter first considers the English authorities' response to the Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther and to ‘Lutheran’ heresy before discussing William Tyndale's Worms New Testament and the public abjuration of heresy. It also analyses the deep and bitter divisions between heretics and Catholics over religion.
Time of Trial
Authors: Marshall Peter
Published: January 2018

This chapter examines England's reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church. In an oration in 1554, Reginald Pole, cardinal legate and Plantagenet prince, begged Parliament to remove impediments standing in the way of England taking its rightful place at the heart of a united Christendom. A bill repealing no fewer than nineteen Henrician acts, and nullifying the royal supremacy, was introduced into Parliament in late December and passed on 3 January. The chapter considers how the restoration of capital punishment for heresy led to judicial burning of heretics such as John Hooper, who wrote in one of his last letters from prison: ‘Now is the time of trial to see whether we fear more God or man’. It also discusses the book entitled A Profitable and Necessary Doctrine and concludes with an analysis of the campaign to reclaim the universities for Catholicism.
Hitler's Monsters
Authors: Kurlander Eric
Published: January 2018

This book is the definitive history of the supernatural in Nazi Germany, exploring the occult ideas, esoteric sciences, and pagan religions touted by the Third Reich in the service of power. The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler's personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. This eye-opening history reveals how the Third Reich's relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire.
Introduction
Authors: Neal Valerie
Published: January 2018

According to public opinion polls, Americans are rather fickle about space exploration. In open-ended questions—“Do you think the United States should explore space?”—most eagerly say yes. To more focused questions—“Do you think the United States should explore space or tackle [insert any social issue here]?”—many supporters defect. This suggests that people generally do not have a firm commitment to the meaning or value of space exploration, and particularly not to its higher-risk, higher-cost mode: human spaceflight. Yet most do carry around some kind of mental construct—a metaphor, a meme, a cliché—that gives spaceflight meaning in their own intellectual domains....
Using Books
Authors: Williams Abigail
Published: January 2018

This chapter attempts to recover the history of how and why we read communally. While increasing literacy and access to books undoubtedly made solitary reading possible for some, there were many reasons why individuals continued to read together. Some of these had to do with control over what was being read, and how: the perceived social benefits of being together, of the book as the basis for communal entertainment, performance, and discussion. But there were also straightforwardly practical reasons—light and sight. Up until the advent of the Argand oil lamp, and cheap supplies of North American mineral oil in the early nineteenth century, domestic lighting was primitive, and prohibitively expensive. Another technical obstacle to easy reading was limited ophthalmology. Reading aloud gave those with failing vision access to books and letters, and many read with others' eyes.
Access to Reading
Authors: Williams Abigail
Published: January 2018

This chapter considers where readers got books from. Recent studies of the eighteenth-century book trade have emphasised how expensive books were—and thus should be regarded as luxury objects of that time. In addition, literacy was limited, and had not changed very much in half a century. Nonetheless, there were multiple points of access: alongside booksellers and their new books, there were newspapers and periodicals, second-hand stalls and shops, circulating libraries, abridgements, adaptations, books sold in numbers, and old-fashioned sharing, borrowing, and lending. Books, newspapers, pamphlets, and letters could be and were read aloud, in the home, in groups, in public places. All of this created ways into literature for a broader reading public, and offered alternative models for literary consumption.
Afterword
Authors: Williams Abigail
Published: January 2018

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. This book offered a series of vignettes of reading lives and practices. It presented a cluster of historical figures and a range of historical books, and used them to try to reconstruct what literature has meant and what it has been used for. It showed that the way in which people used the books they read are closely bound up with other aspects of amateur, domestic culture. This book also showed that anxieties about forms of reading are not new. Eighteenth-century commentators worried about learning bought too easily and readers who could no longer engage with whole texts. Families encouraged reading together because they feared that young people were losing their sense of reality through their immersion in addictive imaginative fictions. The world of eighteenth-century reading was a very different land, but in some ways, perhaps not so far from our own as we like to think.
Introduction
Authors: du Rivage Justin
Published: January 2018

This introductory chapter briefly considers why the British American colonists had broken away from an empire that they had long revered. Americans like to think of themselves as fundamentally different from Europeans—both more democratic and more libertarian. But during the eighteenth century, Britain and its North American colonies were actually becoming more alike. However, the United States followed a different path from the dramatic transformation that painted the globe French blue and British red. That path reflected the fact that the American Revolution was a revolution not for or against monarchy, but against the authoritarian transformation of the British Empire.
The Rise and Fall of the Stamp Act
Authors: du Rivage Justin
Published: January 2018

This chapter shows why the same politicians who concluded that Pitt's war was an expensive boondoggle also pushed for the taxation of the American colonies. The Stamp Act was part of their broader program of authoritarian reform, which promised to restore Britain's finances and trade through fiscal retrenchment and moral improvement. But it prompted angry denunciations on both sides of the Atlantic. Radical and establishment Whigs accused their leaders of abandoning both the British constitution and the mutually beneficial relationship that had long sustained the empire. When Grenville's ministry fell in July 1765, Britain's new establishment Whig prime minister, the Marquess of Rockingham, seized on the postwar recession to denounce the economic consequences of authoritarian reform. Forging a broad and popular coalition with radical Whigs, Rockingham's administration rolled back Grenville's program, including the Stamp Act.