MOTOR CORTEX REGULATION OF THALAMIC-CORTICAL ACTIVITY IN THE SOMATOSENSORY SYSTEM

A prominent feature of thalamocortical circuitry in sensory systems is the extensive and highly organized feedback projection from the cortex to thalamic neurons that provide input to it. Intriguingly, many corticothalamic (CT) neurons are weakly responsive to peripheral stimuli, or silent altogether. Here using the whisker-to-barrel system, we examine whether the responses of CT neurons and their related thalamic neurons are affected by motor cortex, a prominent source of input to deep layers of the somatosensory cortex. Pharmacological facilitation of motor cortex activity produced using focal, microiontophoresis leads to enhanced whisker-evoked firing of topographically aligned layer 6 neurons, including identified CT cells, and of cells in corresponding regions of the thalamic ventral posterior medial nucleus (VPm barreloids). Together, the findings raise the possibility that cortico-thalamo-cortical circuitry in primary sensory areas is engaged by other functionally related cortical centers, providing a means for context-dependent regulation of information processing within thalamocortical circuits.We investigated how vMCx influence activity in thalamic VPm nucleus in a freely behaving rat. We examine afferent-evoked thalamic activity in animals that are either alert but voluntarily relatively motionless or actively whisking in the air without object contact. Afferent activity is evoked in VPm by means of electrical microstimulation of a single whisker follicle. In some experiments, neural processing in brainstem trigeminal nuclei was either by-passed by means of medial lemniscus stimulation, or altered by pharmacological intervention. We found that sensory responses during voluntary whisker movements, when motor cortex is likely to be active, are reduced relative to responses that occur during periods of wakeful quiescence. Enhancement of thalamic activity during whisking can be observed, however, when signal processing in sub-thalamic centers is either by-passed or experimentally altered. Findings suggest that during voluntary movement activity within the lemniscal system is globally diminished, perhaps at early, brainstem levels at the same time that activity within specific thalamocortical neuronal populations is facilitated. Though activity levels are reduced system-wide, activity within some local circuits may be subject to less net suppression. This decrease in suppression may occur on a moment-to-moment basis in a context-dependent manner. Thus, during voluntary whisker movement, sensory transmission in thalamocortical circuits may be modulated according to specific activation patterns distributed across the motor map

Labour market dualisation and social protection in South Korea: searching for a new social contract and growth model

There is little doubt that South Korea needs to develop a new social contract as a matter of urgency. Labour market dualisation and the rise of insecurity have undermined the social fabric of the country in the absence of robust social protection mechanisms that could mitigate job insecurity and corresponding anxiety. Elected on a platform of economic and social justice, the centre-left Moon Jae-in government (2017–2022) started with an ambitious agenda of labour market and unemployment protection reforms, informed by an aspiration to establish an inclusive/wage-led growth model instead of the country’s divisive export-oriented growth strategy, which relies on the exploitation of irregular workers for its economic success. We assess labour market dualisation and recent reform by the Moon Jae-in administration, before considering alternative policy recommendations to address the social polarisation in Korean society

Securing cables through desk holes with customizable locations and sizes

This disclosure describes techniques to create cable holes located anywhere on a desk, with openings customizable to pass through cables with large end-connectors. The lid of the hole is seamlessly closed such that it is flush with the desk surface and passes just the cable. A clean desk is thus provided, with minimal cable clutter and without cables running all the way to the edges. Cables can be run just where needed

Roads and barriers towards social investments: comparing labour market and family policy reforms in Europe and East Asia

Across the OECD world, social investment policies are on the rise, which Hemerijck describes as a ‘quiet paradigm revolution’. Whilst Nordic countries are typically considered the pioneers in social investment policies, we observe that latecomer countries of not only Europe but also East Asia have made considerable efforts to catch-up with Northern European frontrunners. The rise of social investment policies, especially the expansion of family policy presents an important dimension of the recent transformation of advanced welfare capitalism, which despite the prominence of retrenchment cannot be reduced to welfare state regress. However, we observe great cross-national variation in the speed and scope of family policy expansion. Unlike family policy, labour market policy did not experience a similar social investment turn, but is instead rather characterised by retrenchment with declining efforts to improve the employability of the unemployed and labour market outsiders. In this article, we examine the ‘uneven’ social investment turn in advanced welfare capitalism and argue that family and labour market policies, and their very different outcomes, are underpinned by very different political dynamics, rather than by ‘a politics of social investment’. Not only comparing family and labour market policy but also comparing across countries within each policy domain, we analyse the roads and barriers towards greater social investments

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) - guided ophthalmic therapy

In this work, we demonstrate OCT-based guidance of two ophthalmic therapies, subretinal injection and selective retina therapy (SRT). Firstly, the “SMART,” a hand-held robotic surgical device actively guided by a common-path OCT (CP-OCT) distal sensor, improves in two aspects for being applied to subretinal injection: (i) A high-performance fiber probe based on high index epoxy lensed-fiber to enhance the CP-OCT retinal image quality; (ii) Automated retinal layer identification and tracking : retinal layer boundaries are tracked using convolutional neural network (CNN)-based segmentation for accurate subretinal injection guidance. It is shown that high index epoxy lensed-fiber probe improves the SNR and retinal image quality of the CP-OCT system. We propose and implement real-time retinal boundary tracking of A-scan OCT images using CNNs for accurate localization of a surgical tool tip. Unwanted axial motions of the surgical tools are compensated by a piezo-electric linear motor based on the retinal boundary tracking. A CNN-based CP-OCT distal sensor successfully tracks retinal boundaries, especially the PR/CH boundary for subretinal injection, and automatically guides the needle’s axial position in real-time. The micro-scale depth targeting accuracy of our system shows its promising possibility for clinical application. We also propose and demonstrate SRT monitoring based on speckle variance OCT (svOCT) for dosimetry control. M-scans of a phantom, ex vivo bovine iris, and ex vivo bovine retina are obtained by a swept-source OCT system during laser pulses irradiation. SvOCT images are calculated as interframe intensity variance of the sequence, and they show abrupt speckle variance change induced by laser pulse irradiation. The axially averaged svOCT signals show a sharp peak corresponding to each laser pulse, and the peak values are proportional to irradiated laser pulse energy. For the ex vivo retinal study, microscopic images of treated spots are obtained before and after removing the upper neural retinal layer to assess the damage in both RPE and neural layers. Spatial and temporal temperature distributions in the retina are numerically calculated in a 2D retinal model using COMSOL Multiphysics. We find that the svOCT peak values have a reliable correlation with the degree of retinal lesion formation. The temperature at the neural retina and RPE is estimated from the svOCT peak values using numerically calculated temperature, which is consistent with the observed lesion creation

Genes involved in complex adaptive processes tend to have highly conserved upstream regions in mammalian genomes

BACKGROUND: Recent advances in genome sequencing suggest a remarkable conservation in gene content of mammalian organisms. The similarity in gene repertoire present in different organisms has increased interest in studying regulatory mechanisms of gene expression aimed at elucidating the differences in phenotypes. In particular, a proximal promoter region contains a large number of regulatory elements that control the expression of its downstream gene. Although many studies have focused on identification of these elements, a broader picture on the complexity of transcriptional regulation of different biological processes has not been addressed in mammals. The regulatory complexity may strongly correlate with gene function, as different evolutionary forces must act on the regulatory systems under different biological conditions. We investigate this hypothesis by comparing the conservation of promoters upstream of genes classified in different functional categories. RESULTS: By conducting a rank correlation analysis between functional annotation and upstream sequence alignment scores obtained by human-mouse and human-dog comparison, we found a significantly greater conservation of the upstream sequence of genes involved in development, cell communication, neural functions and signaling processes than those involved in more basic processes shared with unicellular organisms such as metabolism and ribosomal function. This observation persists after controlling for G+C content. Considering conservation as a functional signature, we hypothesize a higher density of cis-regulatory elements upstream of genes participating in complex and adaptive processes. CONCLUSION: We identified a class of functions that are associated with either high or low promoter conservation in mammals. We detected a significant tendency that points to complex and adaptive processes were associated with higher promoter conservation, despite the fact that they have emerged relatively recently during evolution. We described and contrasted several hypotheses that provide a deeper insight into how transcriptional complexity might have been emerged during evolution

Social solidarity for all? Trade union strategies, labour market dualisation and the welfare state in Italy and South Korea

Political-economic analyses of trade unions in post-industrial societies have shifted away from traditional class-analytic approaches to embrace insider/outsider and producer coalition arguments based on the assumption that unions hold on to the defence of their core constituencies in the face of labour market deregulation and dualisation. Challenging this conventional wisdom, we provide an analysis of union strategies in Italy and South Korea, two most-different union movements perceived as unlikely cases for the pursuit of broader social solidarity, and we argue that in both countries unions have successively moved away from insider-focussed strategies. We show a movement towards “solidarity for all” in the industrial relations arena as well as in their social policy preferences. Furthermore, unions also explored new avenues of political agency, often in alliance with civil society organisations. We ascribe this convergent trend towards a social model of unionism to a response of unions to a “double crisis”; that is a socio-economic crisis, which takes the form of a growing periphery of the labour market associated with growing social exclusion, and a socio-political crisis, which takes the form of a increasing marginalisation of the unions from the political process pursued by right- and left-wing parties alike

The Bright and Dark Sides of Upward Social Comparison: Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Hiding Directed at High Performers

The present research investigated when and why employees might share or hide their work information from coworkers who perform better than themselves. Drawing from social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) and social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), I predicted that upward social comparison would lead to both pleasant reactions (inspiration, perceived gain of work resources) and unpleasant reactions (envy, perceived loss of work resources), which in turn would differentially affect knowledge sharing/hiding behaviors targeting high-performing coworkers. I further predicted that individual differences in directing behaviors toward goals (goal orientation) and task structures requiring reliance on coworkers (task interdependence) would moderate the relationships between upward social comparison and knowledge sharing/hiding behaviors. Two studies were conducted to test these ideas. In Study 1, full-time knowledge workers reflected on their coworkers who performed higher than or similar to themselves at work and recalled their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors toward the coworkers. In Study 2, undergraduate students were paired up with high- or average-performing students and performed a business simulation that required high or low interdependence with the experiment partners. Across two studies, I found a significant indirect effect of a coworker’s performance on knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding via envy. In other words, participants shared less and withheld more knowledge from high-performing coworkers than from average-performing coworkers due to feelings of envy. Goal orientation and task interdependence did not moderate such links. The current research not only advances the existing social comparison literature but also the knowledge management literature by integrating emotion into knowledge exchange behaviors

Bioinformatics Protocol for Assessing Contamination Level and Quality on Genomics Data of Ensifer meliloti

Nitrogen (N) fixing bacteria have a symbiotic relationship with host plants. The legume plants provide sugar, a product of its photosynthesis, to rhizobacteria. Rhizobacteria, one of the various N fixing bacteria, utilize the sugar for its energy source needed for conversion of N2into NH4+. The rhizobacteria would provide fixed nitrogen to legume plant for its growth in exchange of energy source. There are various symbiotic relationships between microbes and plants, and the Heath Lab is especially interested in relationship between rhizobacteria and legume plants. Various genomic methods to study rhizobacteria require sequence data in Heath Lab. However, there is high possibility of contamination in the sequence data, which may lead to false result in research. Possible non-rhizobacteria that reside within the legume nodules, which don’t participate in N fixation but in survival of the legume plant, could affect the research as well. It was recently found that rhizobacteria other than Ensifer meliloti reside within the legume nodules. Due to the existence of other rhizobacteria, we need a protocol to differentiate between these bacteria. Here, we designed a protocol based on comparing the sequences of E.meliloti from the Heath Lab against public database to determine the level of contamination