147 research outputs found
Court chivalry and politics : nominations and elections to the order of the Garter : 1461-83
Cataloged from PDF version of article.This thesis discusses the probable causes behind the nominations and
elections of the knights to the Order of the Garter during the reigns of Henry VI,
Edward IV and Richard III. The Study argues that various considerations played role
in the nominations of particular knights by different companions. The main concern
of the Kings and the knights of the Order was the politics of the time in nominating a
knight to the Order. Parental closeness and previous military success of the knightcandidates
were also important in their decisions. This thesis also suggests that while
Anstis’s edition of Liber Niger is constantly used by the historians as the main
primary source for the Order, another important register, the so-called French
Register must be also taken into account when constructing Order’s history. Chapter
1 is a general introduction to the history of the order, Chapter 2 discusses the main
problems of the primary sources of the Order, Chapter 3 discusses the causes of the
nominations and elections of the knights in Henry VI’s time, Chapter IV discusses
the causes of the nominations and elections of the knights during Edward IV and
Richard III’s time. Chapter V is conclusion.Gümüş, T. TolgaPh.D
The ties that bind : patronage and marriage in fifteenth-century gentry letter collections
Ankara : The Institute for Graduate Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Bilkent Univ., 2000.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2000.Includes bibliographical references leaves 86-89.This thesis investigates the service and patronage relationship and family and
marriage practices of gentry and lesser nobility in later medieval England in the
light of Stonor letters and papers and Paston letters. This study suggests that
service-patronage relationship on the one hand, and family and marriage
practices on the other gave the society an order of its own. In addition to the
history of the Stonor and Paston families, the significance of letter collections as
primary sources is discussed. The service and patronage relationships and family
and marriage practices of gentry and lesser nobility families of the later medieval
England are also investigated.Gümüş, T TolgaM.S
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Neuronal network dysfunction in a model for Kleefstra syndrome mediated by enhanced NMDAR signaling
Kleefstra syndrome (KS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the histone methyltransferase EHMT1. To study the impact of decreased EHMT1 function in human cells, we generated excitatory cortical neurons from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from KS patients. Neuronal networks of patient-derived cells exhibit network bursting with a reduced rate, longer duration, and increased temporal irregularity compared to control networks. We show that these changes are mediated by upregulation of NMDA receptor (NMDAR) subunit 1 correlating with reduced deposition of the repressive H3K9me2 mark, the catalytic product of EHMT1, at the GRIN1 promoter. In mice EHMT1 deficiency leads to similar neuronal network impairments with increased NMDAR function. Finally, we rescue the KS patient-derived neuronal network phenotypes by pharmacological inhibition of NMDARs. Summarized, we demonstrate a direct link between EHMT1 deficiency and NMDAR hyperfunction in human neurons, providing a potential basis for more targeted therapeutic approaches for KS
Cognitive functioning throughout adulthood and illness stages in individuals with psychotic disorders and their unaffected siblings
Important questions remain about the profile of cognitive impairment in psychotic disorders across adulthood and illness stages. The age-associated profile of familial impairments also remains unclear, as well as the effect of factors, such as symptoms, functioning, and medication. Using cross-sectional data from the EU-GEI and GROUP studies, comprising 8455 participants aged 18 to 65, we examined cognitive functioning across adulthood in patients with psychotic disorders (n = 2883), and their unaffected siblings (n = 2271), compared to controls (n = 3301). An abbreviated WAIS-III measured verbal knowledge, working memory, visuospatial processing, processing speed, and IQ. Patients showed medium to large deficits across all functions (ES range = –0.45 to –0.73, p < 0.001), while siblings showed small deficits on IQ, verbal knowledge, and working memory (ES = –0.14 to –0.33, p < 0.001). Magnitude of impairment was not associated with participant age, such that the size of impairment in older and younger patients did not significantly differ. However, first-episode patients performed worse than prodromal patients (ES range = –0.88 to –0.60, p < 0.001). Adjusting for cannabis use, symptom severity, and global functioning attenuated impairments in siblings, while deficits in patients remained statistically significant, albeit reduced by half (ES range = –0.13 to –0.38, p < 0.01). Antipsychotic medication also accounted for around half of the impairment in patients (ES range = –0.21 to –0.43, p < 0.01). Deficits in verbal knowledge, and working memory may specifically index familial, i.e., shared genetic and/or shared environmental, liability for psychotic disorders. Nevertheless, potentially modifiable illness-related factors account for a significant portion of the cognitive impairment in psychotic disorders
Inflammatory Transcriptome Profiling of Human Monocytes Exposed Acutely to Cigarette Smoke
<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Cigarette smoking is responsible for 5 million deaths worldwide each year, and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and lung diseases. Cigarette smoke contains a complex mixture of over 4000 chemicals containing 10<sup>15</sup> free radicals. Studies show smoke is perceived by cells as an inflammatory and xenobiotic stimulus, which activates an immune response. The specific cellular mechanisms driving cigarette smoke-induced inflammation and disease are not fully understood, although the innate immune system is involved in the pathology of smoking related diseases.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principle findings</h3><p>To address the impact of smoke as an inflammagen on the innate immune system, THP-1 cells and Human PBMCs were stimulated with 3 and 10% (v/v) cigarette smoke extract (CSE) for 8 and 24 hours. Total RNA was extracted and the transcriptome analysed using Illumina BeadChip arrays. In THP-1 cells, 10% CSE resulted in 80 genes being upregulated and 37 downregulated by ≥1.5 fold after 8 hours. In PBMCs stimulated with 10% CSE for 8 hours, 199 genes were upregulated and 206 genes downregulated by ≥1.5 fold. After 24 hours, the number of genes activated and repressed by ≥1.5 fold had risen to 311 and 306 respectively. The major pathways that were altered are associated with cell survival, such as inducible antioxidants, protein chaperone and folding proteins, and the ubiquitin/proteosome pathway.</p> <h3>Conclusions</h3><p>Our results suggest that cigarette smoke causes inflammation and has detrimental effects on the metabolism and function of innate immune cells. In addition, THP-1 cells provide a genetically stable alternative to primary cells for the study of the effects of cigarette smoke on human monocytes.</p> </div
A Metaheuristic Framework for Bi-level Programming Problems with Multi-disciplinary Applications
Bi-level programming problems arise in situations when the decision maker has to take into account the responses of the users to his decisions. Several problems arising in engineering and economics can be cast within the bi-level programming framework. The bi-level programming model is also known as a Stackleberg or leader-follower game in which the leader chooses his variables so as to optimise his objective function, taking into account the response of the follower(s) who separately optimise their own objectives, treating the leader’s decisions as exogenous. In this chapter, we present a unified framework fully consistent with the Stackleberg paradigm of bi-level programming that allows for the integration of meta-heuristic algorithms with traditional gradient based optimisation algorithms for the solution of bi-level programming problems. In particular we employ Differential Evolution as the main meta-heuristic in our proposal.We subsequently apply the proposed method (DEBLP) to a range of problems from many fields such as transportation systems management, parameter estimation and game theory. It is demonstrated that DEBLP is a robust and powerful search heuristic for this class of problems characterised by non smoothness and non convexity
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