3,930 research outputs found
Cardiac Specific Gene Expression Changes in Long Term Culture of Murine Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Murine MSCs are a readily available source of adult stem cells enabling extensive in vitro study of this cell population. MSCs have been described as multipotent, and have been proven capable of differentiation into several connective tissue types. Furthermore some studies have suggested an ability to differentiate into non-connective tissue cell types such as the cardiomyocyte. The aim of this study was to differentiate murine MSCs toward cardiac lineage with the commonly used method of culture with 5ā Azacytidine. Critically, baseline analysis of gene expression of passage four MSCs demonstrated expression of key cardiac markers including cardiac troponin T and I, and the ryanodine receptor. Furthermore, expression analysis of these genes changed with time in culture and passage number. However, there was no significant alteration when cells were subjected to a differentiation protocol. This study therefore highlights the importance of analyzing baseline cells extensively, and indicates the limitations in extrapolating data for comparison between species. Furthermore this data brings into question the efficacy of cardiac differentiation using MSCs
Value creation and change in social structures: the role of entrepreneurial innovation from an emergence perspective
Aim:
Our aim is to develop a more complete understanding of how processes that entrepreneurs perform interact with wider society and the causal effects of society on entrepreneurial behaviour and vice versa. We aim to show how entrepreneurial agency is put into effect in relation to the disruption of social structure and social change. This has implications for innovation and entrepreneurship policy and practice, and for entrepreneurship theory. We also investigate the role of āvalueā in these processes.
Contribution to the literature
Our central argument is that emergent forms (or āemergentsā) may be short lived (ephemeral) but have causal power on the performance of the actors in the system of inter-relationships in the innovation ecosystem. The emphasis on inter-related social processes and ontological stratification provides theoretical development of extant entrepreneurship theory on new venture creation (by explaining process), effectuation (by linking individualism and holism) and opportunity recognition (by deconstructing opportunity into anticipation, ontology and process).
Methodology
The paper takes an 'emergence' perspective as a way to understand entrepreneurial processes that give rise to innovation. The anticipation of value and the inter-relationship with social and organisational structures are fundamental to this perspective. A longitudinal analysis of a case study of the development of a new business model within an entrepreneurial firm is described. The case is followed through seven phases in which the relationship between process and emergent ontological status is shown to have destabilising and stabilising effects which produce emergent properties.
Results and Implications
One methodological contribution is framing how to conceptualise the empirical evidence. Emergents have causal effects on the anticipations of value inherent in their particular system of innovation. This causality is manifest as the attraction of resource in the firm; the stabilisation of the emergent constitutes strategy in the enterprise. A key role of the entrepreneurs in our case study was the creation and maintenance of evolving ontological materiality, as meaningful to themselves and to those with whom they interacted. In simple terms, they made things meaningful to people who mattered
Poverty, caring and older age
Due to the high incidence of disability amongst their contemporaries, older people are likely to be involved in informal caring relationships. Due to the limited nature of post-retirement incomes, such carers are also likely to be relatively poor. In spite of this, little attention has been given to the role of older carers of disabled people or to the influence of poverty upon this role. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to help to redress this neglect by examining the influence of material circumstances on the role of older carers aged over sixty. With this aim in mind a sample of 34 older co-resident carers were asked a series of questions relating to their access to resources and their caring role
The psychological perspective on religious experience
It might be expected that those concerned with psychology and religion would have a lot in
common: both are concerned with understanding human life and finding how to live it
better. However, it turns out that each side knows very little about the other, and what they
think they know is often wrong. Some kinds of psychology in the past have been definitely
anti-religious, as in the case of ābehaviourism', which is now extinct since all psychologists
now recognise the importance of cognitive processes and even consciousness. There is also
the fear that psychology will try to explain religion away in entirely human terms
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