SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY AND DECENTRALIZED SOCIETIES: The Swiss Cantons and The Rise of The Social Sciences

The productivity of a country in science as for as the numerical output of its scientific papers is concerned ls, in large measure, a by-product of its industrial producfivi ry, Such a purely quantitative approach may lead one to overlook however9 that some of the greatest qua Ii tative advances in modern sci ence have been made in the towns of countries relatively less developed in industry, Zurich, Berne, Louscnne, and Copenhagen have been such centers of the highest scientific originalityo Among the decentralized Swiss cantonal towns, Lausanne was especially noteworthy for affording a university base for the work of Vi lfredo Pareto and Leon Walrasu pioneers in scientific sociology and mathematical economlcs, Pareto regarded the Swiss dernocrcrlc, decentralized towns as providing the ideal setting for the development of his logico-experimental method, whi Ie Wclros, debarred from a post in bureaucratic Fronce, was able at Lausanne to found the most original school in economic thouqht, DecentTalized communifies, as Kropotkin offirmed, may have an especial role in the preservation of scientific creativity in bureoucrcflc, industrial soclefies.http://web.ku.edu/~starjrn

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field

The conflict of generations : the character and significance of student movements /

Includes bibliographies