93 research outputs found
Time's Up: Homeless New Yorkers Demand Alternatives to Bloomberg's Failed Five-Year Plan
More people are living in homeless shelters now than when Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002. On June 24th, 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled his Five Year Plan to reduce homelessness in New York City by two-thirds. The failure of Bloomberg's plan is evidence that what is needed are fundamental changes to housing policy in NYC, which is at the root of what is falsely portrayed as a homeless crisis.New York Magazine has said that his homeless policies are "the single biggest failure of the Bloomberg administration." The 2009 Mayor's Management Report found an across-the-board increase in the shelter census. As the five years of Bloomberg's plan comes to a close, this report focuses on the failures of one of its cornerstones, the Rental Subsidies Programs. Family and child homelessness have increased under these programs, even with thousands of households receiving vouchers, the rental subsidies have built-in obstacles to employment and self-sufficiency so crucial to making the transition out of the shelter system possible
The matricellular protein CCN3 regulates NOTCH1 signalling in chronic myeloid leukaemia
Deregulated NOTCH1 has been reported in lymphoid leukaemia, although its role in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is not well established. We previously reported BCR-ABL down-regulation of a novel haematopoietic regulator, CCN3, in CML; CCN3 is a non-canonical NOTCH1 ligand. This study characterizes the NOTCH1âCCN3 signalling axis in CML. In K562 cells, BCR-ABL silencing reduced full-length NOTCH1 (NOTCH1-FL) and inhibited the cleavage of NOTCH1 intracellular domain (NOTCH1-ICD), resulting in decreased expression of the NOTCH1 targets c-MYC and HES1. K562 cells stably overexpressing CCN3 (K562/CCN3) or treated with recombinant CCN3 (rCCN3) showed a significant reduction in NOTCH1 signalling (> 50% reduction in NOTCH1-ICD, p < 0.05). Gamma secretase inhibitor (GSI), which blocks NOTCH1 signalling, reduced K562/CCN3 colony formation but increased that of K562/control cells. GSI combined with either rCCN3 or imatinib reduced K562 colony formation with enhanced reduction of NOTCH1 signalling observed with combination treatments. We demonstrate an oncogenic role for NOTCH1 in CML and suggest that BCR-ABL disruption of NOTCH1âCCN3 signalling contributes to the pathogenesis of CML
A rapid and sensitive method for measuring cell adhesion
We have adapted the CyQuantÂŽ assay to provide a simple, rapid, sensitive and highly reproducible method for measuring cell adhesion. The modified CyQuantÂŽ assay eliminates the requirement for labour intensive fluorescent labelling protocols prior to experimentation and has the sensitivity to measure small numbers (>1000) of adherent cells
Interplay between Fe and Nd magnetism in NdFeAsO single crystals
The structural and magnetic phase transitions have been studied on NdFeAsO
single crystals by neutron and x-ray diffraction complemented by resistivity
and specific heat measurements. Two low-temperature phase transitions have been
observed in addition to the tetragonal-to-orthorhombic transition at T_S = 142
K and the onset of antiferromagnetic (AFM) Fe order below T_N = 137 K. The Fe
moments order AFM in the well-known stripe-like structure in the (ab) plane,
but change from AFM to ferromagnetic (FM) arrangement along the c direction
below T* = 15 K accompanied by the onset of Nd AFM order below T_Nd = 6 K with
this same AFM configuration. The iron magnetic order-order transition in
NdFeAsO accentuates the Nd-Fe interaction and the delicate balance of c-axis
exchange couplings that results in AFM in LaFeAsO and FM in CeFeAsO and
PrFeAsO.Comment: revised; 4 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Listen up! Listening skills in accounting education : gaps and proposed new research and teaching agendas
Utilising a systematic literature review, this paper synthesises alternative theoretical perspectives on listening and studies of accounting studentsâ listening skills. It identifies gaps in the conceptualisation of listening within accounting education research. Research and teaching agendas are then developed which provide a framework for more effectively fostering the development of listening skills in accounting education. We identify the need for research and teaching around: why listening matters; the elements of effective listening; and developing listening skills. Greater focus on the interpersonal, social, and reflexive aspects of listening is needed, going beyond an existing focus on comprehension and information acquisition. There is also a need to explicitly address the role and benefits of listening in facilitating an ethical organisational culture, recognising the ethical dimensions of professional responsibility and active listening as part of empathetic leadership
Listen up! Listening skills in accounting education: gaps and proposed new research and teaching agendas
Utilising a systematic literature review, this paper synthesises alternative theoretical perspectives on listening and studies of accounting studentsâ listening skills. It identifies gaps in the conceptualisation of listening within accounting education research. Research and teaching agendas are then developed which provide a framework for more effectively fostering the development of listening skills in accounting education. We identify the need for research and teaching around: why listening matters; the elements of effective listening; and developing listening skills. Greater focus on the interpersonal, social, and reflexive aspects of listening is needed, going beyond an existing focus on comprehension and information acquisition. There is also a need to explicitly address the role and benefits of listening in facilitating an ethical organisational culture, recognising the ethical dimensions of professional responsibility and active listening as part of empathetic leadership
Tweaking the spin-wave dispersion and suppressing the incommensurate phase in LiNiPO4 by iron substitution
Elastic and inelastic neutron scattering studies of
Li(NiFe)PO single crystals reveal anomalous spin-wave
dispersions along the crystallographic direction parallel to the characteristic
wave vector of the magnetic incommensurate phase. The anomalous spin-wave
dispersion ({\it magnetic soft mode}) indicates the instability of the
Ising-like ground state that eventually evolves into the incommensurate phase
as the temperature is raised. The pure LiNiPO system (), undergoes a
first-order magnetic phase transition from a long-range incommensurate phase to
an antiferromagnetic ground state at {\it T} = 20.8 K. At 20% Fe
concentrations, although the AFM ground state is to a large extent preserved as
that of the pure system, the phase transition is second-order, and the
incommensurate phase is completely suppressed. Analysis of the dispersion
curves using a Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian that includes inter- and in-plane
nearest and next-nearest neighbor couplings reveals frustration due to strong
competing interactions between nearest- and a next-nearest neighbor site,
consistent with the observed incommensurate structure. The Fe substitution only
slightly lowers the extent of the frustration, sufficient to suppress the IC
phase. An energy gap in the dispersion curves gradually decreases with the
increase of Fe content from 2 meV for the pure system () to
0.9 meV for
CCN3: a key growth regulator in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia
Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) is characterized by expression of the constitutively active Bcr-Abl tyrosine kinase. We have shown previously that the negative growth regulator, CCN3, is down-regulated as a result of Bcr-Abl kinase activity and that CCN3 has a reciprocal relationship of expression with BCR-ABL. We now show that CCN3 confers growth regulation in CML cells by causing growth inhibition and regaining sensitivity to the induction of apoptosis. The mode of CCN3 induced growth regulation was investigated in K562 CML cells using gene transfection and treatment with recombinant CCN3. Both strategies showed CCN3 regulated CML cell growth by reducing colony formation capacity, increasing apoptosis and reducing ERK phosphorylation. K562 cells stably transfected to express CCN3 showed enhanced apoptosis in response to treatment with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor, imatinib. Whilst CCN3 expression was low or undetectable in CML stem cells, primary CD34+ CML progenitors were responsive to treatment with recombinant CCN3. This study shows that CCN3 is an important growth regulator in haematopoiesis, abrogation of CCN3 expression enhances BCR-ABL dependent leukaemogenesis. CCN3 restores growth regulation, regains sensitivity to the induction of apoptosis and enhances imatinib cell kill in CML cells. CCN3 may provide an additional therapeutic strategy in the management of CML
Neutron-scattering measurements of the spin excitations in LaFeAsO and Ba(FeCo)As: Evidence for a sharp enhancement of spin fluctuations by nematic order
Inelastic neutron scattering was employed to investigate the impact of
electronic nematic order on the magnetic spectra of LaFeAsO and
Ba(FeCo)As. These materials are ideal to study
the paramagnetic-nematic state, since the nematic order, signaled by the
tetragonal-to-orthorhombic transition at , sets in well above the
stripe antiferromagnetic ordering at . We find that the
temperature-dependent dynamic susceptibility displays an anomaly at followed by a sharp enhancement in the spin-spin correlation length,
revealing a strong feedback effect of nematic order on the low-energy magnetic
spectrum. Our findings can be consistently described by a model that attributes
the structural/nematic transition to magnetic fluctuations, and unveils the key
role played by nematic order in promoting the long-range stripe
antiferromagnetic order in iron pnictides.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 66 references, plus one Supplemental Material.
Physical Review Letters, Accepted and in productio
Withdrawal of life-support in paediatric intensive care - a study of time intervals between discussion, decision and death
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Scant information exists about the time-course of events during withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. We investigated the time required for end-of-life decisions, subsequent withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment and the time to death.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Prospective, observational study in the ICU of a tertiary paediatric hospital.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Data on 38 cases of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment were recorded over a 12-month period (75% of PICU deaths). The time from the first discussion between medical staff and parents of the subject of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment to parents and medical staff making the decision varied widely from immediate to 457 hours (19 days) with a median time of 67.8 hours (2.8 days). Large variations were subsequently also observed from the time of decision to actual commencement of the process ranging from 30 minutes to 47.3 hrs (2 days) with a median requirement of 4.7 hours. Death was apparent to staff at a median time of 10 minutes following withdrawal of life support varying from immediate to a maximum of 6.4 hours. Twenty-one per cent of children died more than 1 hour after withdrawal of treatment. Medical confirmation of death occurred at 0 to 35 minutes thereafter with the physician having left the bedside during withdrawal in 18 cases (48%) to attend other patients or to allow privacy for the family.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Wide case-by-case variation in timeframes occurs at every step of the process of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment until death. This knowledge may facilitate medical management, clinical leadership, guidance of parents and inform organ procurement after cardiac death.</p
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