252 research outputs found
El combatir el terror de estado y la evolución hacía un estado: El movimiento de los Derechos Humanos de Argentina, desde la movilización a la institucionalización
The past decade has seen a seismic shift in Argentine human rights activists’ ability to accomplish long-held goals of bringing perpetrators to justice and preserving the memory of victims of the Civil-State dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s. Theories of courageous resistance to injustice posit that all struggles for justice bring changes to the context, networks and people, which can make future pro-social advocacy more likely. Using a variety of evidence, we assess the impact of nearly 40 years of sustained activism. We argue that there are resulting shifts in the realms of 1) context (newly created and modified legal and state institutions, cultural changes and modification of the physical landscape), 2) relationships between activists, society and the Argentine state, and 3) socialization factors that affect attitudes and behaviors of Argentines (the ways that the era is referenced, taught and memorialized). We contend that each of these enduring legacies of activism make future human rights atrocities in Argentina highly unlikely. Further, we argue that because of these enormous gains, segments of the movement struggle to define themselves relative to the state, trying to avoid being captured by governmental interests and to maintain sufficient independence to effectively pressure the state.La década pasada ha visto un cambio sísmico en la habilidad de activistas argentinos por los derechos humanos de realizar metas largamente sostenidas, como las de llevar ante la justicia a los perpetradores y preservar la memoria de las víctimas de dictadura civil-estatal de los años setenta y ochenta. Las teorías de courageous resistance a la injusticia postulan que toda lucha por justicia produce cambios en el contexto, las redes y las personas, los cuales pueden mejorar la probabilidad de incidencia política prosocial para el futuro. En base a una variedad de evidencia, evaluamos el impacto de casi 40 años de activismo sostenido. Argumentamos que hay cambios resultantes en las esferas de 1) el contexto (instituciones legales y estatales nuevamente creadas y modificadas, cambios culturales y modificaciones al paisaje físico), 2) las relaciones entre activistas, la sociedad y el Estado argentino y 3) factores en la socialización que afectan las actitudes y el comportamiento de argentinos (cambios en las formas de referenciar, enseñar y conmemorar la época). Sostenemos que cada uno de estos importantes y duraderos legados de activismo hace que futuras atrocidades de derechos humanos en la Argentina sean altamente improbables. Además, argumentamos que, a causa de estos logros, sectores del movimiento se definen difícilmente con respecto al Estado, intentando evitar la captura por los intereses gubernamentales y mantener una independencia suficiente para presionar eficazmente al Estado
Divergence in Dialogue
Copyright: 2014 Healey et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC; http://www.esrc.ac.uk/) through the DynDial project (Dynamics of Conversational Dialogue, RES-062-23-0962) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/) through the RISER
project (Robust Incremental Semantic Resources for Dialogue, EP/J010383/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
The Double Flip: Applying a Flipped Learning Approach to Teach the Teacher and Improve Student Satisfaction
This paper describes a professional development (PD) program for academics at an Australian university designed to model good blended curriculum design and effective use of contemporary learning technologies. It evaluates a case study from the pilot of this program involving a postgraduate psychology course to illustrate one of the most challenging examples and in turn the potential impact of the approach developed. Academic developers face known barriers, including time constraints, interdisciplinary miscommunication, and change resistance, when introducing academics to new approaches to learning and teaching. This PD sought to promote change by modelling a shift from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” through use of flipped and blended learning approaches by the academic developer. The case study found the teacher gained confidence in these methods and student satisfaction ratings increased
Do (and say) as I say: Linguistic adaptation in human-computer dialogs
© Theodora Koulouri, Stanislao Lauria, and Robert D. Macredie. This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.There is strong research evidence showing that people naturally align to each other’s vocabulary, sentence structure, and acoustic features in dialog, yet little is known about how the alignment mechanism operates in the interaction between users and computer systems let alone how it may be exploited to improve the efficiency of the interaction. This article provides an account of lexical alignment in human–computer dialogs, based on empirical data collected in a simulated human–computer interaction scenario. The results indicate that alignment is present, resulting in the gradual reduction and stabilization of the vocabulary-in-use, and that it is also reciprocal. Further, the results suggest that when system and user errors occur, the development of alignment is temporarily disrupted and users tend to introduce novel words to the dialog. The results also indicate that alignment in human–computer interaction may have a strong strategic component and is used as a resource to compensate for less optimal (visually impoverished) interaction conditions. Moreover, lower alignment is associated with less successful interaction, as measured by user perceptions. The article distills the results of the study into design recommendations for human–computer dialog systems and uses them to outline a model of dialog management that supports and exploits alignment through mechanisms for in-use adaptation of the system’s grammar and lexicon
Photocrosslinking Activity-Based Probes for Ubiquitin RING E3 Ligases
Summary: Activity-based protein profiling is an invaluable technique for studying enzyme biology and facilitating the development of therapeutics. Ubiquitin E3 ligases (E3s) are one of the largest enzyme families and regulate a host of (patho)physiological processes. The largest subtype are the RING E3s of which there are >600 members. RING E3s have adaptor-like activity that can be subject to diverse regulatory mechanisms and have become attractive drug targets. Activity-based probes (ABPs) for measuring RING E3 activity do not exist. Here we re-engineer ubiquitin-charged E2 conjugating enzymes to produce photocrosslinking ABPs. We demonstrate activity-dependent profiling of two divergent cancer-associated RING E3s, RNF4 and c-Cbl, in response to their native activation signals. We also demonstrate profiling of endogenous RING E3 ligase activation in response to epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulation. These photocrosslinking ABPs should advance E3 ligase research and the development of selective modulators against this important class of enzymes
Identification of SUMO Targets Associated with the Pluripotent State in Human Stem Cells
To investigate the role of SUMO modification in the maintenance of pluripotent stem cells, we used ML792, a potent and selective inhibitor of SUMO Activating Enzyme. Treatment of human induced pluripotent stem cells with ML792 resulted in the loss of key pluripotency markers. To identify putative effector proteins and establish sites of SUMO modification, cells were engineered to stably express either SUMO1 or SUMO2 with C-terminal TGG to KGG mutations that facilitate GlyGly-K peptide immunoprecipitation and identification. A total of 976 SUMO sites were identified in 427 proteins. STRING enrichment created three networks of proteins with functions in regulation of gene expression, ribosome biogenesis, and RNA splicing, although the latter two categories represented only 5% of the total GGK peptide intensity. The rest have roles in transcription and the regulation of chromatin structure. Many of the most heavily SUMOylated proteins form a network of zinc-finger transcription factors centered on TRIM28 and associated with silencing of retroviral elements. At the level of whole proteins, there was only limited evidence for SUMO paralogue-specific modification, although at the site level there appears to be a preference for SUMO2 modification over SUMO1 in acidic domains. We show that SUMO influences the pluripotent state in hiPSCs and identify many chromatin-associated proteins as bona fide SUMO substrates in human induced pluripotent stem cells.</p
Relationship between the loss of neutralizing antibody binding and fusion activity of the F protein of human respiratory syncytial virus
To elucidate the relationship between resistance to HRSV neutralizing antibodies directed against the F protein and the fusion activity of the F protein, a recombinant approach was used to generate a panel of mutations in the major antigenic sites of the F protein. These mutant proteins were assayed for neutralizing mAb binding (ch101F, palivizumab, and MAb19), level of expression, post-translational processing, cell surface expression, and fusion activity. Functional analysis of the fusion activity of the panel of mutations revealed that the fusion activity of the F protein is tolerant to multiple changes in the site II and IV/V/VI region in contrast with the somewhat limited spectrum of changes in the F protein identified from the isolation of HRSV neutralizing antibody virus escape mutants. This finding suggests that aspects other than fusion activity may limit the spectrum of changes tolerated within the F protein that are selected for by neutralizing antibodies
The Polar Bear Management Agreement for the Southern Beaufort Sea : An Evaluation of the First Ten Years of a Unique Conservation Agreement
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) of the southern Beaufort Sea population, distributed from approximately Icy Cape, west of Point Barrow, Alaska, to Pearce Point, east of Paulatuk in Canada, are harvested by hunters from both countries. In Canada, quotas to control polar bear hunting have been in place, with periodic modifications, since 1968. In Alaska, passage of the United Sates Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972 banned polar bear hunting unless done by Alaska Natives for subsistence hunt, leaving open the potential for an overharvest with no possible legal management response until the population was declared depleted. Recognizing that as a threat to the conservation of the shared polar bear population, the Inuvialuit Game Council from Canada and the North Slope Borough from Alaska negotiated and signed a user-to-user agreement, the Polar Bear Management Agreement for the Southern Beaufort Sea, in 1988. We reviewed the functioning of the agreement through its first 10 years and concluded that, overall, it has been successful because both the total harvest and the proportion of females in the harvest have been contained within sustainable limits. However, harvest monitoring needs to be improved in Alaska, and awareness of the need to prevent overharvest of females needs to be increased in both countries. This agreement is a useful model for other user-to-user conservation agreements.Les ours polaires (Ursus maritimus) constituant la population de la mer de Beaufort méridionale sont répartis d'environ Icy Cape, à l'ouest de Point Barrow (Alaska), à Pearce Point, à l'est de Paulatuk (Canada). Ils sont prélevés par des chasseurs des deux pays. Au Canada, les quotas visant le contrôle de la chasse à l'ours polaire sont en vigueur - avec des modifications périodiques - depuis 1968. En Alaska, l'adoption en 1972 de la loi américaine (MMPA) visant la protection des mammifères marins a interdit la chasse à l'ours polaire sauf la chasse de subsistance pratiquée par les Autochtones alaskiens. La MMPA n'a toutefois placé aucune restriction sur le nombre ou la composition de la chasse de subsistance, laissant la porte ouverte à une éventuelle surexploitation sans possibilité d'une réaction de gestion sur le plan légal jusqu'à ce que la population soit déclarée décimée. Reconnaissant en cela une menace à la conservation de la population commune d'ours polaires, le Conseil canadien de gestion du gibier et le North Slope Borough de l'Alaska ont négocié et signé en 1988 une entente entre usagers, le Polar Bear Management Agreement pour la mer de Beaufort méridionale. On a examiné le fonctionnement de l'entente durant sa première décennie pour conclure que, dans l'ensemble, elle a porté fruit car le total des prises et la proportion de femelles prélevées ont été maintenus dans des limites viables. Il faut toutefois améliorer le contrôle du prélèvement en Alaska et accroître dans les deux pays la sensibilisation à la nécessité de prévenir une surexploitation des femelles. Cette entente constitue un modèle pour d'autres accords entre usagers en matière de conservation
Contribution of cysteine residues in the extracellular domain of the F protein of human respiratory syncytial virus to its function
The mature F protein of all known isolates of human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) contains fifteen absolutely conserved cysteine (C) residues that are highly conserved among the F proteins of other pneumoviruses as well as the paramyxoviruses. To explore the contribution of the cysteines in the extracellular domain to the fusion activity of HRSV F protein, each cysteine was changed to serine. Mutation of cysteines 37, 313, 322, 333, 343, 358, 367, 393, 416, and 439 abolished or greatly reduced cell surface expression suggesting these residues are critical for proper protein folding and transport to the cell surface. As expected, the fusion activity of these mutations was greatly reduced or abolished. Mutation of cysteine residues 212, 382, and 422 had little to no effect upon cell surface expression or fusion activity at 32°C, 37°C, or 39.5°C. Mutation of C37 and C69 in the F2 subunit either abolished or reduced cell surface expression by 75% respectively. None of the mutations displayed a temperature sensitive phenotype
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