151 research outputs found

    Reciprocal Associations between Parenting Challenges and Parents' Personality Development in Young and Middle Adulthood

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    Having children affects many aspects of people's lives. However, it remains unclear to what degree the challenges that come along with having children are associated with parents' personality development. We addressed this question in two studies by investigating the relationship between parenting challenges and personality development in mothers of newborns (Study 1, N = 556) and the reciprocal associations between (mastering) parenting challenges and personality development in parents of adolescents (Study 2, N = 548 mothers and 460 fathers). In Study 1, we found the stress of having a newborn baby to be associated with declines in maternal Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability. Parenting challenges were also related to personality development in parents of adolescent children in Study 2, with parent–child conflict being reciprocally associated with decreases in Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability. Mastering parenting challenges in the form of high parenting self-efficacy, on the other hand, was found to be associated with increases in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability, and vice versa. In sum, our results suggest that mastering the challenges associated with the social role of parenthood is one of the mechanisms underlying personality development in young and middle adulthood

    Understanding Technology as Situated Practice: Everyday use of Voice User Interfaces Among Diverse Groups of Users in Urban India

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    Abstract: As smartphones have become ubiquitous across urban India, voice user interfaces (VUIs) are increasingly becoming part of diverse groups of users’ daily experiences. These technologies are now generally accessible as a result of improvements in mobile Internet access, [-8.5pc]Biography is Required. Please provide. introduction of low-cost smartphones and the ongoing process of their localisation into Indian languages. However, when people engage with technologies in their everyday lives, they not only enact the material attributes of the artifact but also draw on their skills, social positions, prior experience and societal norms and expectations to make use of the artifact. Drawing on Orlikowski’s analytical framework of “technologies-in-practice” we engage in an interview-based exploratory study among diverse groups of users in urban India to understand use of VUIs as situated practice. We identify three technologies-in-practice emerging through enactment of VUIs on users’ smartphones: looking up, learning and leisure. We argue that – instead of asking why and how users appropriate VUIs – identifying different kinds of enactments of VUIs present researchers and practitioners with a more nuanced understanding of existing and potential use of VUIs across varied contexts

    Economic Beliefs and Party Preference

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    This paper reports the results of a questionnaire study used to explore the economic understanding, normative positions along the egalitarian-libertarian spectrum, and the party preferences of a large student sample. The aim of the study is both to find socio-economic determinants of normative and positive beliefs and to explore how beliefs about the economy influence party support. We find that positive beliefs of lay people differ systematically from those of economic experts. Positive beliefs can be explained by high school grades, field of study, reasons for the choice of subject, personality traits, and - in part - by gender. Normative beliefs are self-serving in the sense that students whose father have high-status jobs and who seek high incomes are more libertarian than others. Party preferences are explained by the professional status of the father, religion, gender, and economic beliefs. Normative beliefs are more important for party support than positive beliefs. While there is a clear positive relation between libertarianism and support for right-leaning parties, positive beliefs only matter for some parties. A parochialism bias in positive beliefs seems to reinforce libertarian views favoring the most conservative party.Dieser Artikel berichtet die Resultate einer Umfrage, die genutzt wurde, um das ökonomische Verständnis, die normative Einstellung entlang des egalitär-libertären Spektrums und die Parteipräferenzen eines großen studentischen Samples zu untersuchen. Das Ziel der Studie ist es, sowohl die sozioökonomischen Determinanten der normativen und positiven Beliefs zu ermitteln, als auch zu untersuchen, wie diese Beliefs über die Wirtschaft die Parteipräferenz beeinflussen. Wir finden, dass die positiven Beliefs von Laien sich signifikant von denen der ökonomischen Experten unterscheiden. Die positiven Beliefs können durch Abiturnoten, Studienfachwahl, die Gründe für die Wahl des Studienfachs, Persönlichkeitsmerkmale und - zum Teil - durch das Geschlecht erklärt werden. Normative Beliefs sind einer selbstwertdienlichen Verzerrung in dem Sinne unterworfen, dass Studierende, deren Vater einer Beschäftigung mit hohem Status nachgeht und die ein hohes Einkommen anstreben, libertärer als andere sind. Parteipräferenzen werden durch den Beschäftigungsstatus des Vaters, die Religionszugehörigkeit, das Geschlecht und die ökonomischen Beliefs erklärt. Normative Beliefs sind für die Parteipräferenz wichtiger als positive Beliefs. Während es eine klare positive Beziehung zwischen Libertarismus und der Unterstützung nach rechts tendierender Parteien gibt, sind positive Beliefs nur für einige Parteien wichtig. Ein Parochialismus-Bias der positiven Beliefs scheint die libertären Ansichten zu verstärken und die konservativste Partei zu begünstigen

    A closer look at neuron interaction with track-etched microporous membranes

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    Microporous membranes support the growth of neurites into and through micro-channels, providing a different type of neural growth platform to conventional dish cultures. Microporous membranes are used to support various types of culture, however, the role of pore diameter in relation to neurite growth through the membrane has not been well characterised. In this study, the human cell line (SH-SY5Y) was differentiated into neuron-like cells and cultured on track-etched microporous membranes with pore and channel diameters selected to accommodate neurite width (0.8 µm to 5 µm). Whilst neurites extended through all pore diameters, the extent of neurite coverage on the non-seeded side of the membranes after 5 days in culture was found to be directly proportional to channel diameter. Neurite growth through membrane pores reduced significantly when neural cultures were non-confluent. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that neurites bridged pores and circumnavigated pore edges – such that the overall likelihood of a neurite entering a pore channel was decreased. These findings highlight the role of pore diameter, cell sheet confluence and contact guidance in directing neurite growth through pores and may be useful in applications that seek to use physical substrates to maintain separate neural populations whilst permitting neurite contact between cultures

    Regional Selection Acting on the OFD1 Gene Family

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    The OFD1 (oral-facial-digital, type 1) gene is implicated in several developmental disorders in humans. The X-linked OFD1 (OFD1X) is conserved in Eutheria. Knowledge about the Y-linked paralog (OFD1Y) is limited. In this study, we identified an OFD1Y on the bovine Y chromosome, which is expressed differentially from the bovine OFD1X. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that: a) the eutherian OFD1X and OFD1Y were derived from the pair of ancestral autosomes during sex chromosome evolution; b) the autosomal OFD1 pseudogenes, present in Catarrhini and Murinae, were derived from retropositions of OFD1X after the divergence of primates and rodents; and c) the presence of OFD1Y in the ampliconic region of the primate Y chromosome is an indication that the expansion of the ampliconic region may initiate from the X-degenerated sequence. In addition, we found that different regions of OFD1/OFD1X/OFD1Y are under differential selection pressures. The C-terminal half of OFD1 is under relaxed selection with an elevated Ka/Ks ratio and clustered positively selected sites, whereas the N-terminal half is under stronger constraints. This study provides some insights into why the OFD1X gene causes OFD1 (male-lethal X-linked dominant) and SGBS2 & JSRDs (X-linked recessive) syndromes in humans, and reveals the origin and evolution of the OFD1 family, which will facilitate further clinical investigation of the OFD1-related syndromes

    Combined clinical and genomic signatures for the prognosis of early stage non-small cell lung cancer based on gene copy number alterations

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    BACKGROUND: The development of a more refined prognostic methodology for early non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is an unmet clinical need. An accurate prognostic tool might help to select patients at early stages for adjuvant therapies. RESULTS: A new integrated bioinformatics searching strategy, that combines gene copy number alterations and expression, together with clinical parameters was applied to derive two prognostic genomic signatures. The proposed methodology combines data from patients with and without clinical data with a priori information on the ability of a gene to be a prognostic marker. Two initial candidate sets of 513 and 150 genes for lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), respectively, were generated by identifying genes which have both: a) significant correlation between copy number and gene expression, and b) significant prognostic value at the gene expression level in external databases. From these candidates, two panels of 7 (ADC) and 5 (SCC) genes were further identified via semi-supervised learning. These panels, together with clinical data (stage, age and sex), were used to construct the ADC and SCC hazard scores combining clinical and genomic data. The signatures were validated in two independent datasets (n = 73 for ADC, n = 97 for SCC), confirming that the prognostic value of both clinical-genomic models is robust, statistically significant (P = 0.008 for ADC and P = 0.019 for SCC) and outperforms both the clinical models (P = 0.060 for ADC and P = 0.121 for SCC) and the genomic models applied separately (P = 0.350 for ADC and P = 0.269 for SCC). CONCLUSION: The present work provides a methodology to generate a robust signature using copy number data that can be potentially used to any cancer. Using it, we found new prognostic scores based on tumor DNA that, jointly with clinical information, are able to predict overall survival (OS) in patients with early-stage ADC and SCC

    The Polycomb Protein and E3 Ubiquitin Ligase Ring1B Harbors an IRES in its Highly Conserved 5′ UTR

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    Ring1B is an essential member of the highly conserved Polycomb group proteins, which orchestrate developmental processes, cell growth and stem cell fate by modifying local chromatin structure. Ring1B was found to be the E3 ligase that monoubiquitinates histone H2A, which adds a new level of chromatin modification to Polycomb group proteins. Here we report that Ring1B belongs to the exclusive group of proteins that for their translation depend on a stable 5′ UTR sequence in their mRNA known as an Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES). In cell transfection assays the Ring1B IRES confers significantly higher expression levels of Ring1B than a Ring1B cDNA without the IRES. Also, dual luciferase assays show strong activity of the Ring1B IRES. Although our findings indicate Ring1B can be translated under conditions where cap-dependent translation is impaired, we found the Ring1B IRES to be cap-dependent. This raises the possibility that translational control of Ring1B is a multi-layered process and that translation of Ring1B needs to be maintained under varying conditions, which is in line with its essential role as an E3 ligase for monoubiquitination of histone H2A in the PRC1 Polycomb protein complex
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