Social Change and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique: A Study of the Charismatic Author-Leader

In this thesis I explore the significance of the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) to the emergence of the second wave Women's Liberation Movement in the US in the late 1960s. To this end, I deploy key concepts provided through social movement theory (eg collective identity, collective action frames, social problem construction). I also incorporate Max Weber and Antonio Gramsci's insights on the indispensable role played by leaders who demonstrate a clear and effective political will. Weber's three part model of pure charisma is used as a general template for understanding the impact of Friedan's text. I critique aspects of Weber's theory of charisma, in particular his failure to appreciate that the written word can mark the initial emergence phase of charisma rather than its routinisation. I augment Weber's insights on charismatic leadership by attending to Gramsci's emphasis on the necessity of winning the 'war of ideas' that must be waged at the level of civil society within advanced capitalist societies. I examine Gramsci's understanding of the power available to the organic intellectual who is aligned with the interests of subaltern groups and who succeeds in revealing the hegemonic commitments of accepted 'common sense'. In the latter part of this thesis, I apply these many useful concepts to my case study analysis of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. I argue that Friedan's accessible, middlebrow text gave birth to a new discursive politics which was critically important not only for older women, but for a younger generation of more radicalised women. I emphasise how Friedan's text mounted a concerted attack on the discursive construction of femininity under patriarchal capitalism. I question Friedan's diagnostic claim that the problems American women faced were adequately captured by the terminology of the trapped housewife syndrome. I conclude by arguing that social movement researchers have to date failed to appreciate the leadership potential of the charismatic author-leader who succeeds in addressing and offering a solution to a pressing social problem through the medium of a best-selling, middlebrow text

Multicolor flow cytometry for evaluation of platelet surface antigens and activation markers.

INTRODUCTION: Flow cytometry allows the analysis of multiple antigens in a single tube at a single cell level. We present a rapid and sensitive two tube flow cytometric protocol for the detection of multiple platelet antigens and activation markers gated on a pure platelet population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The presence of platelet specific antigens was analyzed in citrated whole blood of normal platelets and from patients diagnosed with platelet abnormalities. Quiescent platelets as well as stimulated platelets were analyzed using a gating strategy based on ubiquitously expressed platelet membrane markers. A ubiquitously expressed platelet marker was combined with antibodies against the activated alpha2b-beta3 (PAC-1), Lysosomal Activated Membrane Protein (CD63) and P-selectin (CD62P). RESULTS: We were able to detect the platelet antigens CD36, CD41, CD42a, CD42b and CD61 in one single tube. Our approach allowed the single tube determination of PAC-1, CD63 and CD62P after activation of platelets by thrombin, collagen, ADP and PAR-1, and determination of platelet abnormalities. CONCLUSIONS: Our two tube multi-parameter screening protocol is suited for the analysis of platelet antigens expressed on quiescent and activated platelets and allows the detection of aberrancies as found in blood of patients with thrombocytopathy such as Glanzmann Thrombasthenia, storage pool disease with diminished granule content and patients treated with clopidogrel and acetylsalicylic acid

Annotating Transcriptional Effects of Genetic Variants in Disease-Relevant Tissue: Transcriptome-Wide Allelic Imbalance in Osteoarthritic Cartilage

OBJECTIVE: Multiple single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) conferring susceptibility to osteoarthritis (OA) mark imbalanced expression of positional genes in articular cartilage, reflected by unequally expressed alleles among heterozygotes (allelic imbalance [AI]). We undertook this study to explore the articular cartilage transcriptome from OA patients for AI events to identify putative disease-driving genetic variation. METHODS: AI was assessed in 42 preserved and 5 lesioned OA cartilage samples (from the Research Arthritis and Articular Cartilage study) for which RNA sequencing data were available. The count fraction of the alternative alleles among the alternative and reference alleles together (phi) was determined for heterozygous individuals. A meta-analysis was performed to generate a meta-phi and P value for each SNP with a false discovery rate (FDR) correction for multiple comparisons. To further validate AI events, we explored them as a function of multiple additional OA features. RESULTS: We observed a total of 2,070 SNPs that consistently marked AI of 1,031 unique genes in articular cartilage. Of these genes, 49 were found to be significantly differentially expressed (fold change 2, FDR <0.05) between preserved and paired lesioned cartilage, and 18 had previously been reported to confer susceptibility to OA and/or related phenotypes. Moreover, we identified notable highly significant AI SNPs in the CRLF1, WWP2, and RPS3 genes that were related to multiple OA features. CONCLUSION: We present a framework and resulting data set for researchers in the OA research field to probe for disease-relevant genetic variation that affects gene expression in pivotal disease-affected tissue. This likely includes putative novel compelling OA risk genes such as CRLF1, WWP2, and RPS3

Improving reading achievements of struggling learners

In The Netherlands, the percentage of struggling readers in the 1st year of formal reading instruction is about 25%. This problem inspired us to develop the Reading Acceleration Programme. To evaluate the effectiveness of this programme, a quasi-experiment is carried out. The teachers in the experimental group have been trained to improve their core instruction, to broaden their instruction for struggling learners, and to implement special measures for pupils who do not respond sufficiently to these interventions. A significant difference was found on the post-tests for measuring reading of single words and reading whole sentences, after correcting for pre-test, age, intelligence, socioeconomic status, and ethnic minority. Furthermore, the programme turned out to reduce the percentage of struggling readers in the experimental group from over 28% to less than 6%. In the follow-up study, the overall effects remained to a moderate degree

The effects of pre-enrolment emotions and peer group interaction on students’ satisfaction

Higher education institutions are increasingly involved in measuring students' satisfaction and communicating messages to prospective, current, and previous students. A review of the literature suggests that institutions have traditionally focused on cognitive rather than affective measures, and have communicated messages in a media environment that could be dominated by the institution. This paper seeks to contribute by investigating the role of peer-to-peer social network media in evoking emotions about attending university prior to enrolment and subsequent satisfaction with it. A two-stage study involving 519 prospective students from a UK higher education institution were asked about their cognition and emotions one month prior to enrolment and again one month after. Hypotheses related their involvement in online peer-to-peer media to their perceived level of satisfaction, emotions evoked, and likelihood of recommending the institution. It was found that emotions were a better predictor of likelihood of recommendation than cognitive measures of satisfaction. Positive emotions evoked during the pre-enrolment phase led to positive emotions post-enrolment. There was an association between prospective students' level of involvement with online communities prior to enrolment and their level of evoked positive emotions

Integrated clinical and omics approach to rare diseases: novel genes and oligogenic inheritance in holoprosencephaly

Kim et al. identify novel genes and disease pathways in the forebrain developmental disorder holoprosencephaly, and show that many cases involve oligogenic inheritance. The findings underline the roles of Sonic Hedgehog and primary cilia in forebrain development, and show that integrating clinical phenotyping into genetic studies can uncover relevant mutations.Holoprosencephaly is a pathology of forebrain development characterized by high phenotypic heterogeneity. The disease presents with various clinical manifestations at the cerebral or facial levels. Several genes have been implicated in holoprosencephaly but its genetic basis remains unclear: different transmission patterns have been described including autosomal dominant, recessive and digenic inheritance. Conventional molecular testing approaches result in a very low diagnostic yield and most cases remain unsolved. In our study, we address the possibility that genetically unsolved cases of holoprosencephaly present an oligogenic origin and result from combined inherited mutations in several genes. Twenty-six unrelated families, for whom no genetic cause of holoprosencephaly could be identified in clinical settings [whole exome sequencing and comparative genomic hybridization (CGH)-array analyses], were reanalysed under the hypothesis of oligogenic inheritance. Standard variant analysis was improved with a gene prioritization strategy based on clinical ontologies and gene co-expression networks. Clinical phenotyping and exploration of cross-species similarities were further performed on a family-by-family basis. Statistical validation was performed on 248 ancestrally similar control trios provided by the Genome of the Netherlands project and on 574 ancestrally matched controls provided by the French Exome Project. Variants of clinical interest were identified in 180 genes significantly associated with key pathways of forebrain development including sonic hedgehog (SHH) and primary cilia. Oligogenic events were observed in 10 families and involved both known and novel holoprosencephaly genes including recurrently mutated FAT1, NDST1, COL2A1 and SCUBE2. The incidence of oligogenic combinations was significantly higher in holoprosencephaly patients compared to two control populations (P < 10(9)). We also show that depending on the affected genes, patients present with particular clinical features. This study reports novel disease genes and supports oligogenicity as clinically relevant model in holoprosencephaly. It also highlights key roles of SHH signalling and primary cilia in forebrain development. We hypothesize that distinction between different clinical manifestations of holoprosencephaly lies in the degree of overall functional impact on SHH signalling. Finally, we underline that integrating clinical phenotyping in genetic studies is a powerful tool to specify the clinical relevance of certain mutations.Molecular Technology and Informatics for Personalised Medicine and Healt

Skewed X-inactivation is common in the general female population

Pathophysiology, epidemiology and therapy of agein