Viral advertising and new pathways to engagement with the British National Party

This paper identifies and analyses the use of social media by the British National Party (BNP) – a far-right party based in the UK. The analysis centres on changing forms of political participation, suggesting that the BNP, as well as other political parties both on the far-right and in the political mainstream, are using social media to provide the opportunity for casual or even accidental engagement by sharing or engaging with material over social networks. To illustrate this point, the author draws on an extensive sample of visual material posted by the BNP on the social network Facebook. Engaging with material produced by far-right groups such as the BNP potentially opens audience members up to a number of personal, professional and legal risks. The paper concludes by linking the potential for casual or accidental far-right engagement online to wider calls to support more rounded and digitally literate citizenship education

Childhood correlates of adult TV viewing time: a 32-year follow-up of the 1970 British Cohort Study

BACKGROUND: To identify, using a longitudinal data set, parental and childhood correlates of adult television (TV) viewing time at 32-year follow-up. METHOD: Data were derived from the 1970 British Cohort Study, a longitudinal observational study of 17 248 British people born in a single week of 1970. The present analyses incorporated data from the age 10 and 42-year surveys. When participants were aged 10 years, their mothers provided information on how often participants watched TV and played sports (never/sometimes/often), and parents' own occupation, as well as height and weight. A health visitor objectively assessed participants' height and weight at age 10. Thirty-two years later, when participants were aged 42 years, they reported their daily TV viewing hours (none/0≤1/1<3/3<5/≥5), physical activity and health status. Associations between putative childhood and parental correlates and adult TV viewing time were investigated using logistic regression. RESULTS: Valid data at both time points were available for 6188 participants. Logistic regression models showed that those who reported 'often' watching TV at baseline were significantly more likely to watch >3 h/days of TV at follow-up (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.65), as were those whose father was from a lower socio-occupational class (intermediate, routine/manual) compared with managerial (OR 1.55, 95% CI 1.14 to 2.11; OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.47 to 2.87). Body mass index (BMI) at age 10 was inversely associated with high TV in adulthood (per unit increase; OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.90 to 0.96) although fathers BMI when the child was aged 10 was positively associated with high TV in adulthood (per unit increase; OR 1.04, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.06). CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that childhood TV viewing time tracks into adulthood. Parents' health behaviours and social position appear to be associated with their children's viewing habits, which may have important implications for the direction of future policy and practice. Specifically, findings support the case for early life interventions, particularly on socioeconomic inequalities, as a way of preventing sedentary behaviour in later life

Biochemical and structural characterization of Cdc14 phosphatases from pathogenic fungi

Cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdk) drive cell cycle progression and reversal of Cdk phosphorylation is essential for mitotic exit. Cdc14 is a widely conserved family of protein phosphatases that reverse Cdk phosphorylation. Recently, Cdc14 was also found to be essential for pathogenicity of some fungal plant pathogens. Fungal pathogens, like Ustilago maydis, decrease agricultural crop yield costing global agriculture by some accounts $60 billion per year. Since Cdc14 is absent in plants, a fungi specific Cdc14 inhibitor could be made to reduce the pathogenicity of U. maydis and other fungal plant pathogens to increase crop yields. To guide inhibitor development, a three-dimensional structural model of fungal Cdc14 is needed. Therefore, we recombinantly expressed Ustilago maydis Cdc14 (UmCdc14) and a catalytically inactive substrate trapping mutant (UmCdc14C318S) with N-terminal hexa-histidine tags in E. coli. Recombinant UmCdc14 and UmCdc14C318S were successfully purified using immobilized metal affinity chromatography. We screened the purified proteins by sitting drop crystallography. Two conditions yielded small crystals for UmCdc14. One condition yielded a crystal for UmCdc14C318S. These conditions were used for large scale crystal growth by hanging drop crystallography. If ideal conditions are found, UmCdc14C318S will be crystallized bound to a peptide substrate to capture the molecular binding determinants that will help guide inhibitor design. Wild-type UmCdc14 will be crystallized bound to small molecule inhibitors identified by a previous high throughput library screen. In the future, we will also explore crystallization of Cdc14 orthologs from other plant pathogens

Adjuvant immunotherapy increases β cell regenerative factor Reg2 in the pancreas of diabetic mice

Insulin-producing β cells can partially regenerate in adult pancreatic tissues, both in human and animal models of type 1 diabetes (T1D). Previous studies have shown that treatment with mycobacterial adjuvants such as CFA and bacillus Calmette-Guérin prevents induction and recurrence of T1D in NOD mice with partial recovery of β cell mass. In this study, we investigated factors involved in the regeneration of β cells in the pancreas of NOD mice during diabetes development and after treatment with adjuvants. The Regeneration (Reg) gene family is known to be involved in regeneration of various tissues including β cells. Reg2 expression was found to be upregulated in pancreatic islets both during diabetes development and as a result of adjuvant treatment in diabetic NOD mice and in C57BL/6 mice made diabetic by streptozotocin treatment. The upregulation of Reg2 by adjuvant treatment was independent of signaling through MyD88 and IL-6 because it was not altered in MyD88 or IL-6 knockout mice. We also observed upregulation of Reg2 in the pancreas of diabetic mice undergoing β cell regenerative therapy with exendin-4 or with islet neogenesis-associated protein. Reg2 expression following adjuvant treatment correlated with a reduction in insulitis, an increase in insulin secretion, and an increase in the number of small islets in the pancreas of diabetic NOD mice and with improved glucose tolerance tests in streptozotocin-treated diabetic C57BL/6 mice. In conclusion, adjuvant immunotherapy regulates T1D in diabetic mice and induces Reg2-mediated regeneration of β cells. Copyright © 2010 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc

Quo vadis digitalis homine?Digitalna filozofija i svemir

To think about the metaphysics of our digital era – who are we? where do we come from? but, first of all, where are we going? – we have to notice that the majority of people, instead of interacting with the boring surroundings, is deeply focused on a neverending and nervous human-machine interaction, which has become a universal human trait. Unluckily, the discussion here will be about an anthropology of the homo digitalis, that is, about the possibilities/dangers of the undefined boundaries between the online and the offline life that unavoidably changes the same vision of the world, which finds in Descartes (ratio), and not in Bacon (experientia), its predecessor.Da bi razložno razmišljali o metafizici naše digitalne ere - tko smo mi? odakle dolazimo? ali prije svega: kamo idemo? – treba primijetiti da većina ljudi umjesto interakcije s dosadnom okolinom, udubljuje se u neprestanoj i nervoznoj interakciji čovjek-stroj, što je postala univerzalna osobina čovječanstva. Radi se naime o antropologiji ‘homo digitalisa’ o kojoj će se ovdje raspravljati, tj o mogućnostima / opasnostima sve neodređenijih granica između online i offline života što neumoljivo mijenja i samu viziju svijeta, koja u Descartesa (ratio) a ne u Bacona (experientia) ima svoj presedan. O tim mogućnostima / opasnostima bit će ovdje riječ

SAIGE-GENE plus improves the efficiency and accuracy of set-based rare variant association tests

Several biobanks, including UK Biobank (UKBB), are generating large-scale sequencing data. An existing method, SAIGE-GENE, performs well when testing variants with minor allele frequency (MAF) SAIGE-GENE+ performs set-based rare variant association tests with improved type 1 error control and computational efficiency by collapsing ultra-rare variants and conducting multiple tests corresponding to different minor allele frequency cutoffs and annotations.Peer reviewe