Discoveries-through-Prose Nobody home: a parallel process investigation of a child welfare agency

During action research related to the persistent burnout of social workers in a child welfare agency, I discovered that members regularly referred to how the agency was “just like” client families. I explore the possibility that the likeness between the two social systems was not simply coincidental but reflected a parallel process by which client family issues were unconsciously “absorbed” into the agency. Parallel processes related to individuals and groups have been noted anecdotally but have not been examined in organization-environment relations. I collected and analyzed data to uncover key parallels and infer the absorption processes by which they were created. I discuss those parallels as agency reenactments of key client family dynamics—of disconnection, abuse, neglect—and note individual and collective collusions that maintain those dynamics. I thus show how what happened in the agency to enable persistent social worker burnout was intimately related to what happened to the agency at its boundary with key aspects of its environment. This realization expands possibilities for scholars to take seriously the subterranean flow of emotions across organizational-environment boundaries that shape the absorptive capacity of organizations.Accepted manuscrip

Navigating space for personal agency: auxiliary routines as adaptations in toxic organizations

Many workers experience organization dysfunction stemming from leaders. Yet organization members have limited responses; they can directly or indirectly confront senior leaders, engage individual stress coping strategies, or leave the organization. We offer another response by theorizing auxiliary routines as behavioral sequences through which multiple actors coordinate responses to complex and enduring socioemotional dynamics that threaten to undermine the enactment of standard operating task routines. Through a qualitative, inductive study of a consulting firm, we delimit three auxiliary routines—absorption, dissemination, and differentiation—through which people navigate between the destructiveness of organizational toxicity and the need to perform given roles and tasks. We illustrate how these routines emerged in response to role and psychological diminishment originating from senior leaders, how the routines helped manage and sometimes perpetuate diminishment, and the consequences for individuals’ personal agency and the organization-as-a-whole. In doing so, we contribute to knowledge about coping with toxic organizational conditions and on routines as a facet of emotional capability in organizations.Accepted manuscrip

MicroRNA-155 Promotes Autoimmune Inflammation by Enhancing Inflammatory T Cell Development

Mammalian noncoding microRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of gene regulators that have been linked to immune system function. Here, we have investigated the role of miR-155 during an autoimmune inflammatory disease. Consistent with a positive role for miR-155 in mediating inflammatory responses, Mir155^(−/−) mice were highly resistant to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). miR-155 functions in the hematopoietic compartment to promote the development of inflammatory T cells including the T helper 17 (Th17) cell and Th1 cell subsets. Furthermore, the major contribution of miR-155 to EAE was CD4^+ T cell intrinsic, whereas miR-155 was also required for optimum dendritic cell production of cytokines that promoted Th17 cell formation. Our study shows that one aspect of miR-155 function is the promotion of T cell-dependent tissue inflammation, suggesting that miR-155 might be a promising therapeutic target for the treatment of autoimmune disorders

Genetic Predictors of Weight Loss and Weight Regain After Intensive Lifestyle Modification, Metformin Treatment, or Standard Care in the Diabetes Prevention Program

OBJECTIVE: We tested genetic associations with weight loss and weight regain in the Diabetes Prevention Program, a randomized controlled trial of weight loss–inducing interventions (lifestyle and metformin) versus placebo. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Sixteen obesity-predisposing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were tested for association with short-term (baseline to 6 months) and long-term (baseline to 2 years) weight loss and weight regain (6 months to study end). RESULTS: Irrespective of treatment, the Ala12 allele at PPARG associated with short- and long-term weight loss (−0.63 and −0.93 kg/allele, P ≤ 0.005, respectively). Gene–treatment interactions were observed for short-term (LYPLAL1 rs2605100, P$_{lifestyle*SNP}$ = 0.032; GNPDA2 rs10938397, P$_{lifestyle*SNP}$ = 0.016; MTCH2 rs10838738, P$_{lifestyle*SNP}$ = 0.022) and long-term (NEGR1 rs2815752, P$_{metformin*SNP}$ = 0.028; FTO rs9939609, P$_{lifestyle*SNP}$ = 0.044) weight loss. Three of 16 SNPs were associated with weight regain (NEGR1 rs2815752, BDNF rs6265, PPARG rs1801282), irrespective of treatment. TMEM18 rs6548238 and KTCD15 rs29941 showed treatment-specific effects (P$_{lifestyle*SNP}$ < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Genetic information may help identify people who require additional support to maintain reduced weight after clinical intervention

Raft cultures

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43237/1/11022_2004_Article_BF00918296.pd

Human sex hormone-binding globulin gene expression- multiple promoters and complex alternative splicing

Human sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) regulates free sex steroid concentrations in plasma and modulates rapid, membrane based steroid signaling. SHBG is encoded by an eight exon-long transcript whose expression is regulated by a downstream promoter (PL). The SHBG gene was previously shown to express a second major transcript of unknown function, derived from an upstream promoter (PT), and two minor transcripts. We report that transcriptional expression of the human SHBG gene is far more complex than previously described. PL and PT direct the expression of at least six independent transcripts each, resulting from alternative splicing of exons 4, 5, 6, and/or 7. We mapped two transcriptional start sites downstream of PL and PT, and present evidence for a third SHBG gene promoter (PN) within the neighboring FXR2 gene; PN regulates the expression of at least seven independent SHBG gene transcripts, each possessing a novel, 164-nt first exon (1N). Transcriptional expression patterns were generated for human prostate, breast, testis, liver, and brain, and the LNCaP, MCF-7, and HepG2 cell lines. Each expresses the SHBG transcript, albeit in varying abundance. Alternative splicing was more pronounced in the cancer cell lines. PL- PT- and PN-derived transcripts were most abundant in liver, testis, and prostate, respectively. Initial findings reveal the existence of a smaller immunoreactive SHBG species in LNCaP, MCF-7, and HepG2 cells. These results extend our understanding of human SHBG gene transcription, and raise new and important questions regarding the role of novel alternatively spliced transcripts, their function in hormonally responsive tissues including the breast and prostate, and the role that aberrant SHBG gene expression may play in cancer