Memes and education: opportunities, approaches and perspectives

Abstract This article presents the results of an international research of using Internet-memes in education process. The writing team set out to explore the reasons and ways of using Internet memes in education in different language spaces – English, Italian, Russian and Chinese. To achieve this goal, a number of tasks were formulated, including: 1. to study the linguistic factor of the use of memes in the educational process, 2. to classify the ways of using memes depending on the purpose, 3. to analyze the content of memes in the liberal, ideological, as well as in the field of exact sciences. The first part of the research made by Alexander Malakhov (PFUR) reveals the basic concepts associated with Internet memes. The second one written by Olga Matys (PFUR) is about using memes in a sphere of Russian liberal education in journalism. The third part of the research made by Ludovico De Serio (University of Genoa) presents an analysis using memes during studying math. The last but not the least part of this article made by Xie Dongqiang (PFUR) and reveals the aspects of an ideological studying using memes. This research was carried out using such scientific methods as analysis, comparison, description. In the course of the study, the authors used the work of such researchers as Susan Blackmore, G. Bini, M. Montagnani, Anna Zagoruyko, Maria Efremova, etc. Also there was used the content of sources such as VK publics "Memology: from antiquity to the present day" and "30 seconds before my expultion", GeoGebra, www.padlet.com, etc

Beyond microarrays: Finding key transcription factors controlling signal transduction pathways

BACKGROUND: Massive gene expression changes in different cellular states measured by microarrays, in fact, reflect just an "echo" of real molecular processes in the cells. Transcription factors constitute a class of the regulatory molecules that typically require posttranscriptional modifications or ligand binding in order to exert their function. Therefore, such important functional changes of transcription factors are not directly visible in the microarray experiments. RESULTS: We developed a novel approach to find key transcription factors that may explain concerted expression changes of specific components of the signal transduction network. The approach aims at revealing evidence of positive feedback loops in the signal transduction circuits through activation of pathway-specific transcription factors. We demonstrate that promoters of genes encoding components of many known signal transduction pathways are enriched by binding sites of those transcription factors that are endpoints of the considered pathways. Application of the approach to the microarray gene expression data on TNF-alpha stimulated primary human endothelial cells helped to reveal novel key transcription factors potentially involved in the regulation of the signal transduction pathways of the cells. CONCLUSION: We developed a novel computational approach for revealing key transcription factors by knowledge-based analysis of gene expression data with the help of databases on gene regulatory networks (TRANSFAC(® )and TRANSPATH(®)). The corresponding software and databases are available at

Simultaneous Genome-Wide Inference of Physical, Genetic, Regulatory, and Functional Pathway Components

Biomolecular pathways are built from diverse types of pairwise interactions, ranging from physical protein-protein interactions and modifications to indirect regulatory relationships. One goal of systems biology is to bridge three aspects of this complexity: the growing body of high-throughput data assaying these interactions; the specific interactions in which individual genes participate; and the genome-wide patterns of interactions in a system of interest. Here, we describe methodology for simultaneously predicting specific types of biomolecular interactions using high-throughput genomic data. This results in a comprehensive compendium of whole-genome networks for yeast, derived from ∼3,500 experimental conditions and describing 30 interaction types, which range from general (e.g. physical or regulatory) to specific (e.g. phosphorylation or transcriptional regulation). We used these networks to investigate molecular pathways in carbon metabolism and cellular transport, proposing a novel connection between glycogen breakdown and glucose utilization supported by recent publications. Additionally, 14 specific predicted interactions in DNA topological change and protein biosynthesis were experimentally validated. We analyzed the systems-level network features within all interactomes, verifying the presence of small-world properties and enrichment for recurring network motifs. This compendium of physical, synthetic, regulatory, and functional interaction networks has been made publicly available through an interactive web interface for investigators to utilize in future research at http://function.princeton.edu/bioweaver/

Literatura popularnonaukowa w ujęciu językoznawczym: kontrastywna analiza współczesnych tekstów w języku angielskim i polskim z dziedziny astrofizyki

Celem niniejszej pracy jest zbadanie charakterystycznych cech współczesnej literatury popularnonaukowej oraz porównanie konwencji przyjmowanych przez autorów anglosaskich i polskich. Przyjęta metoda badawcza łączy w sobie elementy analizy literackiej i językoznawczej opartej na pojęciach gatunku, rejestru i stylu. Analizowany materiał obejmuje próbki z oryginalnych dzieł napisanych w języku angielskim i polskim oraz jedną próbkę publikacji przetłumaczonej na język polski z języka angielskiego. Wszystkie analizowane teksty dotyczą astronomii i astrofizyki. Wyniki badań pokazały, że pomiędzy tekstami angielskimi, zorientowanymi na czytelnika, a tekstami polskimi, zorientowanymi na przedmiot, występują znaczne różnice. Tekst tłumaczony zdaje się dzielić wybrane cechy z obiema konwencjami. Analiza pokazała również, że przedstawione w niniejszej pracy zagadnienie warte jest zbadania z perspektywy translatoryki.The aim of the present thesis is to examine the characteristic features of contemporary popular scientific writing and compare conventions adopted by Anglo-Saxon and Polish authors. The adopted research method combines the elements of literary and linguistic analysis based on the concepts of genre, register, and style. The analysed material includes samples from original works written in English and Polish, as well as one sample from a Polish translation of an English text. All of the analysed texts revolve around astronomy and astrophysics. The results of the study showed that there are major differences between English texts, which are reader-oriented, and Polish texts, which focus on the subject matter. The translated work appeared to share selected features with both conventions. The study also proved that the subject-matter of the present thesis is worth exploring from the perspective of translation studies

MatrixCatch - a novel tool for the recognition of composite regulatory elements in promoters

Accurate recognition of regulatory elements in promoters is an essential prerequisite for understanding the mechanisms of gene regulation at the level of transcription. Composite regulatory elements represent a particular type of such transcriptional regulatory elements consisting of pairs of individual DNA motifs. In contrast to the present approach, most available recognition techniques are based purely on statistical evaluation of the occurrence of single motifs. Such methods are limited in application, since the accuracy of recognition is greatly dependent on the size and quality of the sequence dataset. Methods that exploit available knowledge and have broad applicability are evidently needed.We developed a novel method to identify composite regulatory elements in promoters using a library of known examples. In depth investigation of regularities encoded in known composite elements allowed us to introduce a new characteristic measure and to improve the specificity compared with other methods. Tests on an established benchmark and real genomic data show that our method outperforms other available methods based either on known examples or statistical evaluations. In addition to better recognition, a practical advantage of this method is first the ability to detect a high number of different types of composite elements, and second direct biological interpretation of the identified results. The program is available at http://gnaweb.helmholtz-hzi.de/cgi-bin/MCatch/MatrixCatch.pl and includes an option to extend the provided library by user supplied data.The novel algorithm for the identification of composite regulatory elements presented in this paper was proved to be superior to existing methods. Its application to tissue specific promoters identified several highly specific composite elements with relevance to their biological function. This approach together with other methods will further advance the understanding of transcriptional regulation of genes.peerReviewe

Lack of a site-specific phosphorylation of Presenilin 1 disrupts microglial gene networks and progenitors during development

Microglial cells play a key role in brain homeostasis from development to adulthood. Here we show the involvement of a site-specific phosphorylation of Presenilin 1 (PS1) in microglial development. Profiles of microglia-specific transcripts in different temporal stages of development, combined with multiple systematic transcriptomic analysis and quantitative determination of microglia progenitors, indicate that the phosphorylation of PS1 at serine 367 is involved in the temporal dynamics of microglial development, specifically in the developing brain rudiment during embryonic microgliogenesis. We constructed a developing brain-specific microglial network to identify transcription factors linked to PS1 during development. Our data showed that PS1 functional connections appear through interaction hubs at Pu.1, Irf8 and Rela-p65 transcription factors. Finally, we showed that the total number of microglia progenitors was markedly reduced in the developing brain rudiment of embryos lacking PS1 phosphorylation compared to WT. Our work identifies a novel role for PS1 in microglial development