Organizational Culture in Focus of Measurements

In practical sociology the extensive experience of measuring organizational culture is obtained. But, up to now it remains unclear which method of research: either quantitative or qualitative is the most established, valid and reliable regarding an assessment of organizational culture. The authors represent the results of the pilot sociological research conducted on the basis of Cameron and Quinn's method in one of the Russian universities. The problem situation is connected with changing legal, economic conditions, norms and rules in the activity of universities under present reforms of higher education in Russia. Using the example of a researched unit of the university the authors make a hypothesis that such definition as organizational culture will allow to receive a strategic tool by means of which it will be possible to focus organization activity in total and each employee in particular on mobilizing, displaying initiative, searching resources and overcoming problems of adaptation to new conditions of development

Information anomie and “pixilated consciousness” effect

Fighting units - information bits manipulate mass audience in information society for being in its consciousness. Garbled information, obtained as a result of anomie communication, activates mechanisms of human response and becomes a trigger for making actions. We define the phenomenon of information anomie and describe aberration (misrepresentation) of information that becomes an integral feature of political communication in modern information society. This definition has never been used before by scientists. Norms of information exchange in technical communication is the absence of information aberration that Shannon (1948) called as fight against information entropy. We propose a thesis that aberration at all stages of the communication process makes qualitative changes of information, consequently, changes in behavior and information recipient’s actions that lead to irreversible consequences.That is why, struggle with semantic information aberration is important and becomes the most central task for political communication in contemporary society. We claim that consequences of information anomie are irreversible. We denote such communication as anomic political communication. A person lives in a constant shock caused by various crises and information overloading - “information tsunami”. As a result of anomie communication, a “pixilated consciousness” effect occurs. The recipient of information is being in the state of uncertainty. Individuals cannot rationally estimate current events and make a sensible political choice. Information anomie creates the bound of possible and probable changes in the system of social interactions. The put-forward theses mark contours of a concept of information anomie and allow to designate its key attributes

Organizational Culture in Focus of Measurements

AbstractIn practical sociology the extensive experience of measuring organizational culture is obtained. But, up to now it remains unclear which method of research: either quantitative or qualitative is the most established, valid and reliable regarding an assessment of organizational culture. The authors represent the results of the pilot sociological research conducted on the basis of Cameron and Quinn's method in one of the Russian universities. The problem situation is connected with changing legal, economic conditions, norms and rules in the activity of universities under present reforms of higher education in Russia. Using the example of a researched unit of the university the authors make a hypothesis that such definition as organizational culture will allow to receive a strategic tool by means of which it will be possible to focus organization activity in total and each employee in particular on mobilizing, displaying initiative, searching resources and overcoming problems of adaptation to new conditions of development

University as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: the Past and the Present

We carried out the review of the main educational strategies which present the basis of university education in antiquity, in the medieval period and at present. The educational model created during the antique period was based on ideals of beauty and harmony, that assumed an equivalence of spiritual and corporal in personality formation as it is demanded by the nature. In philosophy of education in the medieval period there was an idea of person's transformation through education and belief by means of classical literature which was considered as a timeless knowledge source. The university was thought of as educational institution where it is possible to approach to universal knowledge. We consider that in modern society its development has transitive nature. The foundation of the educational process is not the universal knowledge, but the skill to find bearings in fast-changing knowledge stream, to adapt and find opportunities for self-fulfillment under the conditions of continuous change. In the single information and educational space it became possible to make educational process continuous as a condition of person's improvement. We conceive the idea of continuous or lifelong learning as the necessary and natural process acting as a precondition of forming integral personality and social wellbeing

Information warfare technologies in political discourse

We attempt to examine the technology of "information warfare" in this paper. The dominant theme of the paper is that the outcome of the information warfare is important not only for the future of a state itself but for the future of the world balance of forces. The main task of geopolitical actors in information warfare is to introduce ideas corresponding to their interests into mass consciousness. All participants of political conflicts have common features in technologies of Information warfare. The information anomie is the indicator of the great geopolitical actors’ personified interests on the stage of "information warfare" - the process resulted in destroying the communicative line: report-information understanding and disrupting the social order in society. In this paper authors describe the following Information Warfare technologies: "Political volcano" technology; "SPIN" technology; "Widening media resource" technology; "specific gravity" technology; "Cold War 2.0" technology and Information cleaningup technology. It is assumed that in the future there will be new instructions on applying technologies of information warfare. To impart perspective to the paper we consider examples, opinions and trends

Ideals and principles of common wellbeing under social and humanistic paradigm

We attempt to specify ideals and principles of common wellbeing: saving economy, political attendance, full employment, education, equitable distribution. As a part of the study we have formulated the concept of so-called "other" society under the social-humanistic paradigm. As it was mentioned earlier, social systems can be described as open-end ones, which implies their constant interaction with environment expressed via matter, energy, and information exchange. Because of that, the functional and developmental regulations are characterized by the presence of constant alteration as well, which stipulates the high complexity of structuring valid prognoses. Subject vs. object feedback determines special peculiarities of social prognosis, namely, the ones that are capable of either self-fulfillment of self-destruction of prognostic model. In other words, the predicted future influences the actual future. In the conditions of the increasing instability and dynamics of social processes especially urgent is the problem of adequacy of innovative model. The specific feature of modern innovative processes is the fact that any information about the features of their occurrence is extremely fast becoming obsolete that, in turn, leads to the increase the gap between reality and model

Temporal-spatial changes in Sonic Hedgehog expression and signaling reveal different potentials of ventral mesencephalic progenitors to populate distinct ventral midbrain nuclei

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ventral midbrain contains a diverse array of neurons, including dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra (SN) and neurons of the red nucleus (RN). Dopaminergic and RN neurons have been shown to arise from ventral mesencephalic precursors that express <it>Sonic Hedgehog </it>(<it>Shh</it>). However, <it>Shh </it>expression, which is initially confined to the mesencephalic ventral midline, expands laterally and is then downregulated in the ventral midline. In contrast, expression of the Hedgehog target gene <it>Gli1 </it>initiates in the ventral midline prior to <it>Shh </it>expression, but after the onset of <it>Shh </it>expression it is expressed in precursors lateral to <it>Shh</it>-positive cells. Given these dynamic gene expression patterns, <it>Shh </it>and <it>Gli1 </it>expression could delineate different progenitor populations at distinct embryonic time points.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We employed genetic inducible fate mapping (GIFM) to investigate whether precursors that express <it>Shh </it>(Shh-GIFM) or transduce Shh signaling (Gli1-GIFM) at different time points give rise to different ventral midbrain cell types. We find that precursors restricted to the ventral midline are labeled at embryonic day (E)7.5 with Gli1-GIFM, and with Shh-GIFM at E8.5. These precursors give rise to all subtypes of midbrain dopaminergic neurons and the anterior RN. A broader domain of progenitors that includes the ventral midline is marked with Gli1-GIFM at E8.5 and with Shh-GIFM at E9.5; these fate-mapped cells also contribute to all midbrain dopaminergic subtypes and to the entire RN. In contrast, a lateral progenitor domain that is labeled with Gli1-GIFM at E9.5 and with Shh-GIFM at E11.5 has a markedly reduced potential to give rise to the RN and to SN dopaminergic neurons, and preferentially gives rise to the ventral-medial VTA. In addition, cells derived from <it>Shh</it>- and <it>Gli1</it>-expressing progenitors located outside of the ventral midline give rise to astrocytes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We define a ventral midbrain precursor map based on the timing of <it>Gli1 </it>and <it>Shh </it>expression, and suggest that the diversity of midbrain dopaminergic neurons is at least partially determined during their precursor stage when their medial-lateral position, differential gene expression and the time when they leave the ventricular zone influence their fate decisions.</p

BLENDED LEARNING AND SYSTEMATIC WORK OF STUDENTS

The use of blended learning for the biology students, which combines a module-rating system of learning with an e-training scheme, has proved to enhance the learning quality byencouraging systematic independent work of students

Fetal human cytomegalovirus transmission correlates with delayed maternal antibodies to gH/gL/pUL128-130-131 complex during primary infection

Primary human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infections during pregnancy are associated with a high risk of virus transmission to the fetus. To identify correlates of intrauterine HCMV transmission, serial serum samples from HCMV transmitter and non-transmitter pregnant women with primary HCMV infection were analyzed for the presence of neutralizing antibodies against different glycoproteins and glycoprotein complexes, which are known to mediate entry into distinct types of host cells. Neutralizing activity was detected in the sera early after primary infection; absorption with a soluble pentameric complex formed by gH/gL/pUL128-131, but not with gH/gL dimer or with gB, abolished the capacity of sera to neutralize infection of epithelial cells. Importantly, an early, high antibody response to pentamer antigenic sites was associated with a significantly reduced risk of HCMV transmission to the fetus. This association is consistent with the high in vitro inhibition of HCMV infection of epithelial/endothelial cells as well as cell- to-cell spreading and virus transfer to leukocytes by anti-pentamer antibodies. Taken together, these findings indicate that the HCMV pentamer complex is a major target of the antibody-mediated maternal immunity

p66Shc deficiency in the Eμ-TCL1 mouse model of chronic lymphocytic leukemia enhances leukemogenesis by altering the chemokine receptor landscape

The Shc family adaptor p66Shc acts as a negative regulator of proliferative and survival signals triggered by the B Cell Receptor and, by enhancing the production of reactive oxygen species, promotes oxidative stress-dependent apoptosis. Additionally, p66Shc controls the expression and function of chemokine receptors that regulate lymphocyte traffic. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells have a p66Shc expression defect which contributes to their extended survival and correlates with poor prognosis. We have analyzed the impact of p66Shc ablation on disease severity and progression in the mouse model of chronic lymphocytic leukemia Eμ-TCL1. We show that Eμ-TCL1/p66Shc-/- mice develop an aggressive disease that has an earlier onset, a higher incidence and leads to earlier death compared to Eμ-TCL1 mice. Eμ-TCL1/p66Shc-/- mice display substantial leukemic cell accumulation in both nodal and extranodal sites. The target organ selectivity correlates with an upregulation of chemokine receptors whose ligands are expressed therein. This also applies to chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells, where chemokine receptor expression and extent of organ infiltration were found to inversely correlate with their p66Shc expression levels. p66Shc expression declined with disease progression in Eμ-TCL1 mice and could be restored by treatment with the Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor Ibrutinib. Our results highlight p66Shc deficiency as an important factor in chronic lymphocytic leukemia progression and severity and underscore p66Shc expression as a relevant therapeutic target