Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism by Paul Hollander

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The origins of the Gorbachev revolution: Industrialization, social structural change and Soviet elite value transformation, 1917-1985.

The Soviet democratic revolution began with the initiation of a reform process by the ruling elite of the Communist Party in the absence of any immediate danger to the continuation of its rule or to the existence of the state. The absence of pressing threat suggests that perestroika was the expression of values held by at least some sectors of the ruling elite. It is thus necessary to explain the formation of these values in the pre-1985 period. The central hypothesis of the dissertation is that long-term change in the educational profile of the political elite, and altered relations between elite and sub-elite groups, brought about by the demands of managing a huge and complex system, culminated in elite-level support for fundamental reform of the existing order. Utilizing the data from the Soviet Interview Project (SIP) survey of emigres and 1988 surveys of the Moscow public, the political values and attitudes of elite versus non-elite groups are compared. Analysis of the data reveals that higher education is negatively associated with authoritarian values, and positively associated with a critical orientation toward the Soviet system, dissatisfaction with life, and a propensity to engage in implicitly regime-challenging behaviors. Further analysis reveals the strong correlation between education and income and, in the SIP sample, between education and a measure of citizen "eliteness." Higher education is particularly concentrated among two elite groups in the SIP sample, political leaders and high-level professionals. These two groups are quite similar attitudinally, although authoritarianism appears significantly stronger among the group of political leaders. The attitudinal similarity can perhaps be accounted for by the increasing educational similarity of the party elite to the intelligentsia in the post-war period. It can be hypothesized that the decision of the Party to enhance the professional qualification of its cadres resulted in the absorption of the critical political orientations of the intelligentsia into the Party. These intelligentsia views eroded the political elite's belief in orthodox ideology and in the superiority of the system, and provided "solutions" to the Party elite for the perceived political and economic problems.Ph.D.Political ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/103097/1/9303764.pdfDescription of 9303764.pdf : Restricted to UM users only

Role of Dectin-2 for Host Defense against Systemic Infection with Candida glabrata

International audienceAlthough Candida glabrata is an important pathogenic Candida species, relatively little is known about its innate immune recognition. Here, we explore the potential role of Dectin-2 for host defense against C. glabrata. Dectin-2-deficient (Dectin-2(-/-)) mice were found to be more susceptible to C. glabrata infections, showing a defective fungal clearance in kidneys but not in the liver. The increased susceptibility to infection was accompanied by lower production of T helper 1 (Th1) and Th17-derived cytokines by splenocytes of Dectin-2(-/-) mice, while macrophage-derived cytokines were less affected. These defects were associated with a moderate yet significant decrease in phagocytosis of the fungus by the Dectin-2(-/-) macrophages and neutrophils. Neutrophils of Dectin-2(-/-) mice also displayed lower production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon challenge with opsonized C. glabrata or C. albicans. This study suggests that Dectin-2 is important in host defense against C. glabrata and provides new insights into the host defense mechanisms against this important fungal pathogen

The role of Dectin-2 for host defense against systemic infection with Candida glabrata

We thank A. Whittington for the useful discussion and H. M. J. Roelofs and E. D. Olthof for the assistance with ROS production. We thank the University of Aberdeen Animal Facility and Microscopy Facility and also D. MacCallum and R. Drummond for technical assistance. This work was supported by European Union ALLFUN (FP7/2007 2013, HEALTH-2010-260338) (Fungi in the setting of inflammation, allergy and autoimmune diseases: Translating basic science into clinical practices ALLFUN) to D.C.I., M.G.N., and N.A.R.G. M.G.N and J.Q. were also supported by a Vici grant of the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (to M.G.N.). N.A.R.G. was also supported by the Wellcome Trust (080088, 086827, 075470, and 097377). L.P.E. is a CSO Senior Clinical Fellow and supported by WT project, programme, and equipment grants (089930 and 094847). G.D.B. was funded by the Wellcome Trust (086558 and 097377).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Transcriptional and functional insights into the host immune response against the emerging fungal pathogen Candida auris

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We would like to thank Trees Jansen for performing the initial pilot experiments and Ilse Curfs-Breuker and Dirk Faro for their support at the CWZ hospital. We thank Charlotte Kaffa, BSc. for her technical assistance. We would like to thank Vinod Kumar for his input during the transcriptomic data analysis, Mark Gresnigt for the in vitro experimental suggestions and Anouk Becker for the help during the revision experiments. AJPB and NARG thank the MRC (MR/M026663/1) and Wellcome for support and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Aberdeen (MR/N006364/1). A.H. and S.K. were supported by the Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences. Part of the study was supported by the Hellenic Institute for the Study of Sepsis. D.L.W. was supported by National Institutes of Health grants NIH GM083016, GM119197 and C06RR0306551. M.G.N. was supported by an ERC Advanced Grant (no. 833247) and a Spinoza Grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.Peer reviewedPostprin