A banalidade das desordens antrópicas: uma tomada de consciência prévia à salvaguarda da «casa comum»

Understanding what is happening to our “common home”, Planet Earth, presupposes that we have perceived the profound mechanisms that have determined the behavior of the actors of the Anthropocene. The register of accusations of ecocide and guilt-tripping is not relevant to account for the goodwill shown by those who believed in development, progress, and the advancement of science and the economy during the period known as the “great transformation” in the second half of the 20th century. Borrowing from Hannah Arendt’s idea of the banality of evil, the article aims to show how this pernicious evil that is destroying the Planet has taken the form of an obedience to the prevailing conformism, the ideology of work, the path of least resistance, and sentimentality.Comprendre ce qui arrive à notre « maison commune » qu’est la planète Terre, suppose que l’on a perçu les mécanismes profonds qui ont déterminé le comportement des acteurs de l’Anthropocène. Le registre de l’accusation d’écocide et de la culpabilisation n’est pas pertinent pour rendre compte de la bonne volonté affichée de ceux et celles qui ont cru au développement, au progrès, à l’avancée des sciences et de l’économie durant la période que l’on appelle la « grande transformation » dans la seconde partie du XXe siècle. En empruntant à Hannah Arendt l’idée de banalité du mal, l’article entend montrer comment ce mal pernicieux qui détruit la planète a pris la forme de l’obéissance au conformisme ambiant, de l’idéologie du travail, de la pente de la plus grande facilité et de la sensiblerie.Entender o que está a acontecer com nossa «casa comum», que é o planeta Terra, pressupõe que tenhamos percebido os mecanismos profundos que determinaram o comportamento dos atores do Antropoceno. O registo da acusação de ecocídio e da culpabilização não é relevante para dar conta da boa vontade demonstrada por aqueles que acreditaram no desenvolvimento, no progresso, no avanço da ciência e da economia durante o período conhecido como a «grande transformação» na segunda metade do séc. xx. Tomando emprestada de Hannah Arendt a ideia da banalidade do mal, o artigo pretende mostrar como esse mal pernicioso que está destruindo o planeta tomou a forma da obediência ao conformismo ambiental, da ideologia do trabalho, da vertente da maior facilidade e do sentimentalismo

Stress assignment in the development of reading aloud: Nonword priming effects on Italian children.

Two experiments investigated the development of two aspects related to stress assignment in reading. First, we tested whether the role of distributional knowledge concerning stress changes with the development of the reading system; second, we tested whether stress information is computed independently of phonemic information since the first stages of reading acquisition. We ran two identical experiments in Italian, one with children of two age levels (second and fourth grades) and one with adults. Results showed that older children behave similarly to adults, but younger children do not. Differently from the advanced readers, younger children use more general distributional knowledge about stress and are not able to compute stress information apart from phonemes. Taken together, our results suggest that the stress subsystem, and in particular the mechanisms working at the level of the phonological buffer are not fully developed during the first stages of reading

Temporal and causal reasoning in deaf and hearing novice readers

Temporal and causal information in text are crucial in helping the reader form a coherent representation of a narrative. Deaf novice readers are generally poor at processing linguistic markers of causal/temporal information (i.e., connectives), but what is unclear is whether this is indicative of a more general deficit in reasoning about temporal/causal information. In Study 1, 10 deaf and 63 hearing children, matched for comprehension ability and age, were compared on a range of tasks tapping temporal/causal reasoning skills. In Study 2, 20 deaf and 32 hearing children, matched for age but not reading comprehension ability, were compared on revised versions of the tasks. The pattern of performance of the deaf was different from that of the hearing; they had difficulties when temporal and causal reasoning was text-based, but not when it was nonverbal, indicating that their global temporal/causal reasoning skills are comparable with those of their hearing counterparts

Using reads to annotate the genome: influence of length, background distribution, and sequence errors on prediction capacity

Ultra high-throughput sequencing is used to analyse the transcriptome or interactome at unprecedented depth on a genome-wide scale. These techniques yield short sequence reads that are then mapped on a genome sequence to predict putatively transcribed or protein-interacting regions. We argue that factors such as background distribution, sequence errors, and read length impact on the prediction capacity of sequence census experiments. Here we suggest a computational approach to measure these factors and analyse their influence on both transcriptomic and epigenomic assays. This investigation provides new clues on both methodological and biological issues. For instance, by analysing chromatin immunoprecipitation read sets, we estimate that 4.6% of reads are affected by SNPs. We show that, although the nucleotide error probability is low, it significantly increases with the position in the sequence. Choosing a read length above 19 bp practically eliminates the risk of finding irrelevant positions, while above 20 bp the number of uniquely mapped reads decreases. With our procedure, we obtain 0.6% false positives among genomic locations. Hence, even rare signatures should identify biologically relevant regions, if they are mapped on the genome. This indicates that digital transcriptomics may help to characterize the wealth of yet undiscovered, low-abundance transcripts

Retrieving Learning Resources over the Cloud

Reusing resources has been on the rise recently in the ICT sector. In fact, this trend is expanding into other areas such as the educational sector. Learning objects have made it possible to create digital resources that can be reused in various didactic units. These resources are stored in repositories, and thus require a search process that allows them to be located and retrieved. The present study proposes the AIREH tool, which was deployed into a cloud environment and facilitates the retrieval of learning objects by integrating virtual organizations and agents with CBR systems that implement collaborative filtering techniques

14-3-3 Proteins Interact with a Hybrid Prenyl-Phosphorylation Motif to Inhibit G Proteins

Signaling through G proteins normally involves conformational switching between GTP- and GDP-bound states. Several Rho GTPases are also regulated by RhoGDI binding and sequestering in the cytosol. Rnd proteins are atypical constitutively GTP-bound Rho proteins, whose regulation remains elusive. Here, we report a high-affinity 14-3-3-binding site at the C terminus of Rnd3 consisting of both the Cys241-farnesyl moiety and a Rho-associated coiled coil containing protein kinase (ROCK)-dependent Ser240 phosphorylation site. 14-3-3 binding to Rnd3 also involves phosphorylation of Ser218 by ROCK and/or Ser210 by protein kinase C (PKC). The crystal structure of a phosphorylated, farnesylated Rnd3 peptide with 14-3-3 reveals a hydrophobic groove in 14-3-3 proteins accommodating the farnesyl moiety. Functionally, 14-3-3 inhibits Rnd3-induced cell rounding by translocating it from the plasma membrane to the cytosol. Rnd1, Rnd2, and geranylgeranylated Rap1A interact similarly with 14-3-3. In contrast to the canonical GTP/GDP switch that regulates most Ras superfamily members, our results reveal an unprecedented mechanism for G protein inhibition by 14-3-3 proteins

Retrieving Learning Resources over the Cloud

Reusing resources has been on the rise recently in the ICT sector. In fact, this trend is expanding into other areas such as the educational sector. Learning objects have made it possible to create digital resources that can be reused in various didactic units. These resources are stored in repositories, and thus require a search process that allows them to be located and retrieved. The present study proposes the AIREH tool, which was deployed into a cloud environment and facilitates the retrieval of learning objects by integrating virtual organizations and agents with CBR systems that implement collaborative filtering techniques. Workshop on Learning Technology for Education in Cloud (LTEC'12) Workshop on Learning Technology for Education in Cloud (LTEC'12) Look Inside MyCopy Softcover Edition 24.99 EUR/USD/GBP/CHFEuropean Commision (EC). Funding FP7/SP1/ICT. Project Code: 25741

Transcriptome annotation using tandem SAGE tags

Analysis of several million expressed gene signatures (tags) revealed an increasing number of different sequences, largely exceeding that of annotated genes in mammalian genomes. Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) can reveal new Poly(A) RNAs transcribed from previously unrecognized chromosomal regions. However, conventional SAGE tags are too short to identify unambiguously unique sites in large genomes. Here, we design a novel strategy with tags anchored on two different restrictions sites of cDNAs. New transcripts are then tentatively defined by the two SAGE tags in tandem and by the spanning sequence read on the genome between these tagged sites. Having developed a new algorithm to locate these tag-delimited genomic sequences (TDGS), we first validated its capacity to recognize known genes and its ability to reveal new transcripts with two SAGE libraries built in parallel from a single RNA sample. Our algorithm proves fast enough to experiment this strategy at a large scale. We then collected and processed the complete sets of human SAGE tags to predict yet unknown transcripts. A cross-validation with tiling arrays data shows that 47% of these TDGS overlap transcriptional active regions. Our method provides a new and complementary approach for complex transcriptome annotation

RhoA and RhoC have distinct roles in migration and invasion by acting through different targets

Although closely related, RhoA and RhoC have distinct molecular targets and functional roles in cell migration and invasion

Coordinated RhoA signaling at the leading edge and uropod is required for T cell transendothelial migration

A biosensor for the RhoA GTPase illustrates its activation patterns in both the front and rear of migrating lymphocytes