RPB4 and pathogenesis of diabetes

Obesity is an important risk factor for a number of chronic diseases that impose a huge burden on individuals and society. Recently it has become clear that adipose tissue-secreted products may play a significant role in mediating many obesity-related diseases including diabetes. Thus, in addition to being an energy depot, the adipocyte is a highly active cell, secreting a plethora of factors with profound effects on a number of organs and systems. The study of these factors and their endocrine effects has become a rapidly evolving and dynamic area of endocrinology. One paradigm for explaining the deleterious effects of adipokines is related to the sheer increase in adipose tissue mass in obesity. When preadipocytes differentiate to become mature adipocytes, they acquire the ability to synthesize numerous proteins, including cytokines, growth factors, and hormones that are involved in overall energy homeostasis and various paracrine effects. In health, these proteins do not spill over significantly into the circulation. In obesity, the massive increase in fat mass leads to a significant increase in circulation of many adipose tissue secreted factors that may have pathogenic effects. For example, the increase in circulating angiotensin II in obesity is related at least in part due to excess adiposity and may mediate hypertension (1). In recent years, adipose tissue has been found to be a major source of many proteins that may directly contribute to vascular injury, diabetes, and atherogenesis (2). These proinflammatory adipokines include TNF-α, IL-6, leptin, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, angiotensinogen, and resistin, among many others. In contrast, the adipokine adiponectin confers protection against inflammation, atherogenesis, and obesity-linked insulin resistance

Welfare and labour market conflicts have made it increasingly difficult for Europe’s centre-left parties to survive as ‘catch all’ movements

Mainstream centre-left parties in Europe have traditionally relied on broad appeals to a wide section of the electorate. As Michael McTernan argues, however, this model of ‘catch all’ centre-left parties has increasingly come under strain due to the emergence of a diverse range of interests in modern European states. Centre-left parties must now balance competing interests, such as between young voters and the elderly, or between public and private sector workers. He writes that with society becoming more heterogeneous, the era of large centre-left parties capable of governing alone may be coming to an end

The Committee on Public Information and the Four Minute Men: How the United States Sold a European War to American People

Shortly after America’s entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson created the Committee on Public Information to garner public support for the War. This committee was created not only to drum up support for the war, but to ease a public frustrated by an isolationist president’s entry into such a conflict. Notable reporter and writer George Creel served as its chairman, and together with countless others created a massive propaganda campaign. The Committee was incredibly successful in its mission of “selling the war.” This was largely due to the fact that Creel and his men revolutionized the way propaganda and news was distributed to the American people. This paper pulls from monographs and journal articles by World War I historians, as well as Creel’s personal writings to explain the various means of propagandizing

Should the state pay for you to have kids?

Emily McTernan argues against the state funding of infertility treatmen

Moral Character, Liberal States, and Civic Education

Ensuring a functioning and stable liberal society requires a variety of behaviours and attitudes from individual citizens, from paying taxes to tolerating diversity. Political philosophers largely accept that these cannot be achieved through the arrangement of institutions alone, and so propose the cultivation of civic virtues. Meanwhile, in moral philosophy, much has been written about the challenging implications of psychology for theories of moral virtue. This chapter examines what political philosophers might draw from the findings of psychology. I begin by presenting the challenge from psychology to the traditional model of civic education. However, this chapter’s focus is on what political philosophers have to gain from psychological research: namely, a set of empirically superior alternatives to civic education as usual. I will outline three such alternatives—local traits, situational factors, and social norms—sketching their relative merits and the significant changes to civic education as usual that they would require.</p