How personality traits shape our tendency to engage in political consumerism

Many people choose to consciously purchase or boycott products for political and ethical reasons. Indeed, as Kathrin Ackermann and Birte Gundelach explain, political consumerism now ranks as one of the most frequently used forms of political participation in western democracies. Drawing on new evidence from Switzerland, they examine the role of personality traits in shaping ... Continue

A la Carte Community: Identity and values in the open source software project TYPO3

The exchange of open source software is a phenomenon that is becoming in- creasingly significant to IT users. This article presents the results of a study of the TYPO3 community, a community related to an open source CMS software. The article explores the community, identity and values of TYPO3 and shows that there are high levels of virtual as well as face-to-face interaction among the members. The participants feel that they belong to the community and many also feel that they are recognised as part of the community. However, the members do not share common values neither in relation to software pro- duction nor generally. Instead, they stress that you are free to choose your own values. Against this background, the authors introduce the notion of an ‘a la carte community’, i.e. a community where individuals pick and choose their degree of participation and integra- tion into the community and its values

The promoter regions of the Myb-regulated Adora2B and Mcm4 genes co-localize with origins of DNA replication

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The retroviral oncogene <it>v-myb </it>encodes a transcription factor (v-Myb) which is responsible for the transformation of myelomonocytic cells by avian myeloblastosis virus (AMV). v-Myb is thought to exert its biological effects by deregulating the expression of specific target genes. We have recently demonstrated that the chicken <it>Gas41 </it>gene, whose promoter co-localizes with an origin of DNA replication, is a bona fide Myb target gene. Because of this finding we have asked whether other Myb-regulated genes are also associated with DNA replication origins.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that the promoter region of the chicken adenosine receptor 2B gene (<it>Adora2B</it>), a known Myb-target gene, acts as a DNA replication origin. Furthermore, we have examined known replication origins for the presence of Myb binding sites. We found that the intergenic region between the genes for the minichromosome maintenance 4 protein (<it>Mcm4</it>) and the catalytic subunit of DNA-dependent protein kinase (<it>Prkdc</it>), whose human counterpart has been identified as a replication origin, contains a number of Myb binding sites. Our data show that this region also acts as an origin of replication in chicken cells. Interestingly, we found that the chicken <it>Mcm4 </it>gene is also Myb-regulated.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our work identifies the chicken <it>Mcm4 </it>gene as a novel Myb target gene and presents evidence for the co-localization of two novel origins of DNA replication with Myb-regulated genes. Our work raises the possibility that a fraction of Myb target gene promoters is associated with DNA replication origins.</p