Introducing spatial information into predictive NF-kappa B modelling - an agent-based approach

Nature is governed by local interactions among lower-level sub-units, whether at the cell, organ, organism, or colony level. Adaptive system behaviour emerges via these interactions, which integrate the activity of the sub-units. To understand the system level it is necessary to understand the underlying local interactions. Successful models of local interactions at different levels of biological organisation, including epithelial tissue and ant colonies, have demonstrated the benefits of such 'agent-based' modelling [1-4]. Here we present an agent-based approach to modelling a crucial biological system the intracellular NF-kappa B signalling pathway. The pathway is vital to immune response regulation, and is fundamental to basic survival in a range of species [5-7]. Alterations in pathway regulation underlie a variety of diseases, including atherosclerosis and arthritis. Our modelling of individual molecules, receptors and genes provides a more comprehensive outline of regulatory network mechanisms than previously possible with equation-based approaches [8]. The method also permits consideration of structural parameters in pathway regulation; here we predict that inhibition of NF-kappa B is directly affected by actin filaments of the cytoskeleton sequestering excess inhibitors, therefore regulating steady-state and feedback behaviour

A Desegregation Study of Public Schools in North Carolina

The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the desegregation of public schools in a selected southern state between the years 1954 and 1974. In developing the research project that described the elimination of legal biracialism in North Carolina\u27s schools, public sentiment emerged as a major factor. North Carolina\u27s public schools were unusual when compared to other states with dual systems because, despite the fact that the state had one of the largest black populations in the nation, the desegregation drama proceeded peacefully and successfully, albeit slowly. Throughout the twenty-year period that was required to completely eliminate the dual school structure that existed at the time of the Brown decision, an abiding commitment to preserve a stable public school system was demonstrated by the people of North Carolina. In the implementation of the Brown ruling, the federal government gave the state ten years to begin and ten more to reach compliance. This judicious application of all deliberate speed allowed North Carolinians an opportunity to adjust to major societal change. The strong stand on law and order by North Carolina\u27s leaders at critical stages of the desegregation process helped to account for the relatively peaceful demise of legal biracialism in the public schools. While most of the people were pro-segregationist and repeatedly elected leaders who advocated the continuance of segregated schools, they ultimately chose to obey the law. State officials, despite their pro-segregationist rhetoric, in almost every case stood firm on law and order issues. What was thought of in the 1950s as a regional problem took on national dimensions, and, by the 20th anniversary year of the Brown decision, North Carolina had some of the best desegregation statistics in the nation. The year 1974 was also the 10th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the law that actually brought about the elimination of dual schools in the state. By 1974, legal biracialism was a dead issue in North Carolina, and the system of dual schools was completely dismantled. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.

Made in America: fictions of genetic industry

This dissertation focuses on contemporary American fiction that explores the intertwined histories of genetics and industrialism. I argue that Jeffrey Eugenides, Louise Erdrich, and Richard Powers interpret industrial and scientific texts from the early twentieth century to tell a previously untold history of the era. Emphasizing the connections between emerging understandings of genetics and new methods of manufacturing, they present the story of how the gene made life seem buildable. These writers trace fantasies of the literal mass production of Americans, exposing how immigrants, Native Americans, and women became particular targets of an industrial impulse toward standardization. Yet the novels in my study also recover an alternative history of the gene, in which it possesses a range of abilities enabling it to resist efforts to industrialize not just social, but also organismal, life. Genes are portrayed in these fictions as agents of transformation as well as replication, thus inspiring optimism about the possibility of unsettling the future of corporate capitalism in American life. Chapter One argues that Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex draws parallels between Henry Ford's factory, Thomas Hunt Morgan's genetic laboratory, and the Stephanides family lineage to show how naturally occurring mutations subvert the pursuit of exact reproduction. Chapter Two examines Louise Erdrich's Tracks, and its portrayal of the Pinkham Medicine Company's commercial hybridization of plants. Pointing to the genetic reversion that often accompanies hybridity, Erdrich undermines Pinkham's efforts to cultivate a uniform American populace from diverse racial roots. Chapter Three discusses Richard Powers' depiction of corporatization in Gain, focusing on Procter and Gamble's pursuit of self-perpetuation by crossing not merely into legal, but also embodied, personhood. Turning to chromosomal chiasmus as a mechanism that makes reproduction a process inherently variable, and therefore unstable, Powers portrays the genetic body as a dubious model for corporate longevity. Taken together, my central texts address the relationship between fiction and history, literature and science, and human and industrial reproduction.2017-11-18T00:00:00

Inclusive leadership : realizing positive outcomes through belongingness and being valued for uniqueness

We introduce a theoretically-grounded conceptualization of inclusive leadership and present a framework for understanding factors that contribute to and follow from inclusive leadership within work groups. We conceptualize inclusive leadership as a set of positive leader behaviors that facilitate group members perceiving belongingness in the work group while maintaining their uniqueness within the group as they fully contribute to group processes and outcomes. We propose that leader pro-diversity beliefs, humility, and cognitive complexity increase the propensity of inclusive leader behaviors. We identify five categories of inclusive leadership behaviors that facilitate group members' perceptions of inclusion, which in turn lead to member work group identification, psychological empowerment, and behavioral outcomes (creativity, job performance, and reduced turnover) in the pursuit of group goals. This framework provides theoretical grounding for the construct of inclusive leadership while advancing our understanding of how leaders can increase diverse work group effectiveness

Reclaiming the fairy tale as a feminist genre among contemporary British women writers: a discussion of motherhood, economics, and marriage

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-59).A considerable number of British women writers have drawn on fairy tale narratives or themes in contemporary works from the late 1970's to the early 1990's. This trend is surprising because fairy tales have been criticized for idealizing limited gender roles and stressing the importance of marriage as a means to reaching happiness. Why are prominent writers such as Angela Carter, Carolyn Steedman, Fay Weldon, and Jeanette Winterson returning to the prescriptive and limiting texts of fairy tales, and how are they utilizing them? These writers are reclaiming a domain of storytelling that historically originates with women, as well as challenging the narrow moral direction the tales have taken since the seventeenth century. Carter, Steedman, Weldon, and Winterson are adopting this female realm of storytelling and using it to develop a body of feminist writing. There is a striking similarity in the concerns among these writers, who are universally revising the terms of motherhood in fairy tales, and simultaneously addressing issues of economic status that force women to marry. Because the publications in this study occur within a thirteen-year time period (1977-90), they suggest a cultural motivation for the uniformity of the revisions. The value in understanding feminist revisions of fairy tales lies in the inherent function of the fairy tale itself, which is to provide a model of cultural expectations. The examination of fairy tales affords us an opportunity to identity our cultural values, and to change those that do not suit us best, as these writers demonstrate with their works

Supplementary information on early-stage floating offshore wind platform designs

This document serves as supplementary information to the authors' review paper on early-stage floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) platform designs. The review paper is the second part in a study on FOWT platform designs, following a review of FOWT platforms which currently have or have previously had a prototype, demonstration, or farm scale project at-sea. The present review covers 86 past and current early-stage platform designs, ranging from early conceptual designs to platforms which have undergone lab tests simulating extreme conditions. In this supplementary information document, more details are provided about all 86 platforms reviewed. For each device, the following is included (if available): (i) a description of the platform and its unique features, (ii) a rough timeline of development, (iii) design goals and constraints, (iv) evolution of the design, (v) lab testing information, and (vi) published dimensions. Two sections are included: one section contains the platforms that are no longer in development (i.e., there has been no new development since 2018), and the other section contains the platforms still in development today. Within each sub-section, platforms designed to hold a single turbine are presented first, then platforms designed to hold multiple turbines, and finally hybrid platforms

Enabling Proactive Adaptation through Just-in-time Testing of Conversational Services

Service-based applications (SBAs) will increasingly be composed of third-party services available over the Internet. Reacting to failures of those third-party services by dynamically adapting the SBAs will become a key enabler for ensuring reliability. Determining when to adapt an SBA is especially challenging in the presence of conversational (aka. stateful) services. A conversational service might fail in the middle of an invocation sequence, in which case adapting the SBA might be costly; e.g., due to the necessary state transfer to an alternative service. In this paper we propose just-in-time testing of conversational services as a novel approach to detect potential problems and to proactively trigger adaptations, thereby preventing costly compensation activities. The approach is based on a framework for online testing and a formal test-generation method which guarantees functional correctness for conversational services. The applicability of the approach is discussed with respect to its underlying assumptions and its performance. The benefits of the approach are demonstrated using a realistic example