Social Justice, The Common Weal and Children and Young People in Scotland

This paper argues that: • Scotland should organise itself around social justice, which addresses entitlements, redistribution, recognition and respect. • Children and young people have particular views on what social justice means for them. • Rights have a particular contribution to make to social justice in term of entitlements, claims and minimal standards. • The combination of piecemeal incorporation of children’s rights, an apolitical wellbeing framework and a lack of strong legislation to hold local authorities and other public services, private sector organisations and the third sector to account, results in children and young people encountering discrimination on an everyday basis. • To achieve social justice, a change is needed in how adults perceive children and childhood, young people and youth. Children and young people need to be recognised as contributors to their families, institutions and communities now – and not just in the future. • For children and young people to be included in the Common Weal, it needs to be concerned with the full and diverse range of structural, cultural and individual barriers that they encounter in their lives

Returning to Learning: Adults' Success in College Is Key to America's Future

Provides an overview of research on adult learners' characteristics, risk factors, and needs at four-year institutions and in for-credit and non-credit courses, and what changes institutions and governments can implement to help adult students succeed

Ontogenetic relationships between cranium and mandible in coyotes and hyenas

Developing animals must resolve the conflicting demands of survival and growth, ensuring that they can function as infants or juveniles while developing toward their adult form. In the case of the mammalian skull, the cranium and mandible must maintain functional integrity to meet the feeding needs of a juvenile even as the relationship between parts must change to meet the demands imposed on adults. We examine growth and development of the cranium and mandible, using a unique ontogenetic series of known-age coyotes ( Canis latrans ), analyzing ontogenetic changes in the shapes of each part, and the relationship between them, relative to key life-history events. Both cranial and mandibular development conform to general mammalian patterns, but each also exhibits temporally and spatially localized maturational transformations, yielding a complex relationship between growth and development of each part as well as complex patterns of synchronous growth and asynchronous development between parts. One major difference between cranium and mandible is that the cranium changes dramatically in both size and shape over ontogeny, whereas the mandible undergoes only modest shape change. Cranium and mandible are synchronous in growth, reaching adult size at the same life-history stage; growth and development are synchronous for the cranium but not for the mandible. This synchrony of growth between cranium and mandible, and asynchrony of mandibular development, is also characteristic of a highly specialized carnivore, the spotted hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ), but coyotes have a much less protracted development, being handicapped relative to adults for a much shorter time. Morphological development does not predict life-history events in these two carnivores, which is contrary to what has been reported for two rodent species. The changes seen in skull shape in successive life-history stages suggest that adult functional demands cannot be satisfied by the morphology characterizing earlier life-history stages. J. Morphol. 2011. © 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/84382/1/10934_ftp.pd

Phosphorylation of the actin binding protein Drebrin at S647 and is regulated by neuronal activity and PTEN

Defects in actin dynamics affect activity-dependent modulation of synaptic transmission and neuronal plasticity, and can cause cognitive impairment. A salient candidate actin-binding protein linking synaptic dysfunction to cognitive deficits is Drebrin (DBN). However, the specific mode of how DBN is regulated at the central synapse is largely unknown. In this study we identify and characterize the interaction of the PTEN tumor suppressor with DBN. Our results demonstrate that PTEN binds DBN and that this interaction results in the dephosphorylation of a site present in the DBN C-terminus - serine 647. PTEN and pS647-DBN segregate into distinct and complimentary compartments in neurons, supporting the idea that PTEN negatively regulates DBN phosphorylation at this site. We further demonstrate that neuronal activity increases phosphorylation of DBN at S647 in hippocampal neurons in vitro and in ex vivo hippocampus slices exhibiting seizure activity, potentially by inducing rapid dissociation of the PTEN:DBN complex. Our results identify a novel mechanism by which PTEN is required to maintain DBN phosphorylation at dynamic range and signifies an unusual regulation of an actin-binding protein linked to cognitive decline and degenerative conditions at the CNS synapse

Reviews

Review of The working class and welfare: reflections on the political development of the welfare state in Australia and New Zealand 1890- 1980, Dismissed, The new working class? White-collar workers and their organisations, White-collar unionism, Full employment without inflation : Manifesto for a governed economy, Labour relations: a student handbook, Dismissal and redundancy procedures, Comparative industrial relations: an introduction to cross/national perspectives, and The Mediator

Molecular cloning and nucleotide sequence of cDNA encoding the entire precursor of rat liver medium chain acyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase.

cDNA encoding the precursor of rat liver medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (EC 1.3.99.3) was cloned and sequenced. The longest cDNA insert isolated was 1866 bases in length. This cDNA encodes the entire protein of 421-amino acids including a 25-amino acid leader peptide and a 396-amino acid mature polypeptide. The identity of the medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase clone was confirmed by matching the amino acid sequence predicted from the cDNA to the NH2-terminal and nine internal tryptic peptide sequences derived from pure rat liver medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase. The calculated molecular masses of the precursor medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, the mature medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, and the leader peptide are 46,600, 43,700, and 2,900 daltons, respectively. The leader peptide contains five basic amino acids and only one acidic amino acid; thus, it is positively charged, overall. Cysteine residues are unevenly distributed in the mature portion of the protein; five of six are found within the NH2-terminal half of the polypeptide. Comparison of medium chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase sequence to other flavoproteins and enzymes which act on coenzyme A ester substrates did not lead to unambiguous identification of a possible FAD-binding site nor a coenzyme A-binding domain. The sequencing of other homologous acyl-CoA dehydrogenases will be informative in this regard