Indymedia and the long story of rebellion against neoliberal capitalism

Indymedia was born of the anti-globalisation movement of the late 1990s and quickly spread to become a social movement in its own right. This article reflects on how prescient the claims of the anti-globalisation movement have proven to be and how 20 years ago Indymedia and the anti-globalisation movement predicted there was trouble ahead and that neoliberalism was a central part of the problem. It notes how a history of struggle and protest emanating from the days of Indymedia has developed over time building a counter-politics that is becoming ever wiser about the multiple intersectional harms of capitalism and ever more sophisticated in its political response. The challenge is what comes next

Identifying the geographical potential of rooftop systems: space competition and synergy

Industrial EcologyEnvironmental Biolog

Plasma NGAL levels in stable kidney transplant recipients and the risk of allograft loss

BACKGROUND: The object of this study was to investigate the utility of Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and Calprotectin (CPT) to predict long-term graft survival in stable kidney transplant recipients (KTR). METHODS: 709 stable outpatient KTR were enrolled >2 months post-transplant. The utility of plasma and urinary NGAL (pNGAL, uNGAL) and plasma and urinary CPT at enrollment to predict death-censored graft loss (GL) was evaluated during a 58-month follow-up. RESULTS: Among biomarkers, pNGAL showed best predictive ability for graft loss and was the only biomarker with an AUC > 0.7 for GL within 5 years. Patients with GL within 5 years (n=49) had a median pNGAL of 304[IQR 235-358] versus 182[IQR 128 -246]ng/ml with surviving grafts (p<0.001). Time-dependent Receiver operating characteristic analyses at 58 months indicated an Area-Under-the-Curve (AUC) for pNGAL of 0.795, serum creatinine (sCr) based estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) CKD EPI had an AUC of 0.866. pNGAL added to a model based on conventional risk factors for GL with death as competing risk (age, transplant age, presence of donor specific antibodies, presence of proteinuria, history of delayed graft function) had a strong independent association with GL (subdistribution Hazard ratio (sHR) for binary log transfomed pNGAL (log2 (pNGAL)) (3.4 95% CI 2.24-5.15), p<0.0001). This association was substantially attenuated when eGFR was added to the model (sHR for log2 (pNGAL) 1.63 95% CI 0.92-2.88, p=0.095). Category-free net reclassification improvement of a risk model including log2(pNGAL) additionally to conventional risk factors and eGFR was 54.3% (95% CI 9.2 to 99.3%) but C-statistic did not improve significantly. CONCLUSIONS: pNGAL was an independent predictor of renal allograft loss in stable KTR from one transplant center but did not show consistent added value when compared to baseline predictors including the conventional marker eGFR. Future studies in larger cohorts are warranted

P-Type ATPase TAT-2 Negatively Regulates Monomethyl Branched-Chain Fatty Acid Mediated Function in Post-Embryonic Growth and Development in C. elegans

Monomethyl branched-chain fatty acids (mmBCFAs) are essential for Caenorhabditis elegans growth and development. To identify factors acting downstream of mmBCFAs for their function in growth regulation, we conducted a genetic screen for suppressors of the L1 arrest that occurs in animals depleted of the 17-carbon mmBCFA C17ISO. Three of the suppressor mutations defined an unexpected player, the P-type ATPase TAT-2, which belongs to the flippase family of proteins that are implicated in mediating phospholipid bilayer asymmetry. We provide evidence that TAT-2, but not other TAT genes, has a specific role in antagonizing the regulatory activity of mmBCFAs in intestinal cells. Interestingly, we found that mutations in tat-2 also suppress the lethality caused by inhibition of the first step in sphingolipid biosynthesis. We further showed that the fatty acid side-chains of glycosylceramides contain 20%–30% mmBCFAs and that this fraction is greatly diminished in the absence of mmBCFA biosynthesis. These results suggest a model in which a C17ISO-containing sphingolipid may mediate the regulatory functions of mmBCFAs and is negatively regulated by TAT-2 in intestinal cells. This work indicates a novel connection between a P-type ATPase and the critical regulatory function of a specific fatty acid

Expanding the role of supervision in child psychiatric education

Despite the burgeoning of available therapeutic interventions, the sparse literature devoted to child psychiatric supervision concentrates on individual psychotherapy. The non-cognitive aspects of the expanding supervisory challenge continues to converge on the clinician's personality, which is a focus of educational attention only in sequestered or haphazard parts of programs. The unidimensional supervisory literature addresses this issue by questioning the extent to which supervision should resemble traditional pedagogy or personal psychotherapy. In contrast to this emphasis on elusive unconscious influences on clinical work, scant attention has been devoted to other influences stemming from the clinician's current experiences, affiliations, identifications, aspirations and similar more easily modifiable factors that exert considerable leverage and tend to be more accessible to rational scrutiny in supervision. The latter half of this paper discusses these factors.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43974/1/10578_2005_Article_BF01463219.pd

Host-specific pit-forming epizoans on Silurian crinoids

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75404/1/j.1502-3931.1978.tb01229.x.pd

Four challenges in the field of alternative, radical and citizens’ media research

In January 1994 the Zapatista movement in southern Mexico inaugurated a new era of media use for dissent. Since that time, an array of dissenting collectives and individuals have appropriated media technologies in order to make their voices heard or to articulate alternative identities. From Zapatista media to the Arab Spring, social movements throughout the world are taking over, hybridizing, recycling, and adapting media technologies. This new era poses a new set of challenges for academics and researchers in the field of Communication for Social Change (CfSC). Based on examples from Mexico, Lebanon, and Colombia, this article highlights and discusses four such research challenges: accounting for historical context; acknowledging the complexity of communication processes; anchoring analysis in a political economy of information and communication technologies; and positioning new research in relation to existing knowledge and literature within the field of communication and social change.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

The Caravan Rolls On

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68409/2/10.1177_107554707900100103.pd

Transbilayer Phospholipid Movements in ABCA1-Deficient Cells

Tangier disease is an inherited disorder that results in a deficiency in circulating levels of HDL. Although the disease is known to be caused by mutations in the ABCA1 gene, the mechanism by which lesions in the ABCA1 ATPase effect this outcome is not known. The inability of ABCA1 knockout mice (ABCA1−/−) to load cholesterol and phospholipids onto apoA1 led to a proposal that ABCA1 mediates the transbilayer externalization of phospholipids, an activity integral not only to the formation of HDL particles but also to another, distinct process: the recognition and clearance of apoptotic cells by macrophages. Expression of phosphatidylserine (PS) on the surface of both macrophages and their apoptotic targets is required for efficient engulfment of the apoptotic cells, and it has been proposed that ABCA1 is required for transbilayer externalization of PS to the surface of both cell types. To determine whether ABCA1 is responsible for any of the catalytic activities known to control transbilayer phospholipid movements, these activities were measured in cells from ABCA1−/− mice and from Tangier individuals as well as ABCA1-expressing HeLa cells. Phospholipid movements in either normal or apoptotic lymphocytes or in macrophages were not inhibited when cells from knockout and wildtype mice or immortalized cells from Tangier individuals vs normal individuals were compared. Exposure of PS on the surface of normal thymocytes, apoptotic thymocytes and elicited peritoneal macrophages from wildtype and knockout mice or B lymphocytes from normal and Tangier individuals, as measured by annexin V binding, was also unchanged. No evidence was found of ABCA1-stimulated active PS export, and spontaneous PS movement to the outer leaflet in the presence or absence of apoA1 was unaffected by the presence or absence of ABCA1. Normal or Tangier B lymphocytes and macrophages were also identical in their ability to serve as targets or phagocytes, respectively, in apoptotic cell clearance assays. No evidence was found to support the suggestion that ABCA1 is involved in transport to the macrophage cell surface of annexins I and II, known to enhance phagocytosis of apoptotic cells. These results show that mutations in ABCA1 do not measurably reduce the rate of transbilayer movements of phospholipids in either the engulfing macrophage or the apoptotic target, thus discounting catalysis of transbilayer movements of phospholipids as the mechanism by which ABCA1 facilitates loading of phospholipids and cholesterol onto apoA1

Identification of Common Differentially Expressed Genes in Urinary Bladder Cancer

BACKGROUND: Current diagnosis and treatment of urinary bladder cancer (BC) has shown great progress with the utilization of microarrays. PURPOSE: Our goal was to identify common differentially expressed (DE) genes among clinically relevant subclasses of BC using microarrays. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: BC samples and controls, both experimental and publicly available datasets, were analyzed by whole genome microarrays. We grouped the samples according to their histology and defined the DE genes in each sample individually, as well as in each tumor group. A dual analysis strategy was followed. First, experimental samples were analyzed and conclusions were formulated; and second, experimental sets were combined with publicly available microarray datasets and were further analyzed in search of common DE genes. The experimental dataset identified 831 genes that were DE in all tumor samples, simultaneously. Moreover, 33 genes were up-regulated and 85 genes were down-regulated in all 10 BC samples compared to the 5 normal tissues, simultaneously. Hierarchical clustering partitioned tumor groups in accordance to their histology. K-means clustering of all genes and all samples, as well as clustering of tumor groups, presented 49 clusters. K-means clustering of common DE genes in all samples revealed 24 clusters. Genes manifested various differential patterns of expression, based on PCA. YY1 and NFκB were among the most common transcription factors that regulated the expression of the identified DE genes. Chromosome 1 contained 32 DE genes, followed by chromosomes 2 and 11, which contained 25 and 23 DE genes, respectively. Chromosome 21 had the least number of DE genes. GO analysis revealed the prevalence of transport and binding genes in the common down-regulated DE genes; the prevalence of RNA metabolism and processing genes in the up-regulated DE genes; as well as the prevalence of genes responsible for cell communication and signal transduction in the DE genes that were down-regulated in T1-Grade III tumors and up-regulated in T2/T3-Grade III tumors. Combination of samples from all microarray platforms revealed 17 common DE genes, (BMP4, CRYGD, DBH, GJB1, KRT83, MPZ, NHLH1, TACR3, ACTC1, MFAP4, SPARCL1, TAGLN, TPM2, CDC20, LHCGR, TM9SF1 and HCCS) 4 of which participate in numerous pathways. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The identification of the common DE genes among BC samples of different histology can provide further insight into the discovery of new putative markers