Control of Bone Mass and Remodeling by PTH Receptor Signaling in Osteocytes

Osteocytes, former osteoblasts buried within bone, are thought to orchestrate skeletal adaptation to mechanical stimuli. However, it remains unknown whether hormones control skeletal homeostasis through actions on osteocytes. Parathyroid hormone (PTH) stimulates bone remodeling and may cause bone loss or bone gain depending on the balance between bone resorption and formation. Herein, we demonstrate that transgenic mice expressing a constitutively active PTH receptor exclusively in osteocytes exhibit increased bone mass and bone remodeling, as well as reduced expression of the osteocyte-derived Wnt antagonist sclerostin, increased Wnt signaling, increased osteoclast and osteoblast number, and decreased osteoblast apoptosis. Deletion of the Wnt co-receptor LDL related receptor 5 (LRP5) attenuates the high bone mass phenotype but not the increase in bone remodeling induced by the transgene. These findings demonstrate that PTH receptor signaling in osteocytes increases bone mass and the rate of bone remodeling through LRP5-dependent and -independent mechanisms, respectively

Place, borderland and elective affinities: Contemporary Polish identity in Lviv in post-1945 historical context. Between 'minority' and 'sub-culture'.

This article examines the identity of people who self-define as Poles living in Lviv today, where they were the dominant majority before 1945. Based on archival research and 39 oral history interviews, it focuses on the problematics of defining the group as a classical ‘ethnic minority’ in this specific, historically freighted borderland context. With ethnicity relativized by respondents, cultural practices and narratives of place instead constitute cohesive features. If ‘minority’ is no longer a fully adequate category, I suggest these features might better be examined, and the group’s wider identity described, using a specific (new) definition of the term ‘subculture’

Place, borderland and elective affinities: Contemporary Polish identity in Lviv in post-1945 historical context. Between 'minority' and 'sub-culture'.

This article examines the identity of people who self-define as Poles living in Lviv today, where they were the dominant majority before 1945. Based on archival research and 39 oral history interviews, it focuses on the problematics of defining the group as a classical ‘ethnic minority’ in this specific, historically freighted borderland context. With ethnicity relativized by respondents, cultural practices and narratives of place instead constitute cohesive features. If ‘minority’ is no longer a fully adequate category, I suggest these features might better be examined, and the group’s wider identity described, using a specific (new) definition of the term ‘subculture’

Germans in Wrocław: “Ethnic minority” versus hybrid identity. Historical context and urban milieu

After 1945, German Breslau was transformed into Ur-Polish Wrocław at Stalin’s behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and salient narratives of identity as shaping forces, which include the suppression of German culture under Communism, prevalent intermarriage between Germans and Poles, and the city’s qualified reinvention as “multicultural” after Polish independence in 1989. Together with the group’s relatively small numbers, these narratives play out in their hybrid approach to ethnicity, often invoking blended cultural practices or the ambiguous geographical status of the Silesian region, to avoid choosing between “national” antipodes of “German” and “Polish.” The results follow Rogers Brubaker’s insight into ethnicity as an essentializing category used to construct groups where individual self-perception may differ; and the concept of “national indifference,” previously applied to rural populations. It also suggests we might better approach circumscribed “minority” identities such as these, by seeing them as a form of “sub-culture.

Germans in Wrocław: “Ethnic minority” versus hybrid identity. Historical context and urban milieu

After 1945, German Breslau was transformed into Ur-Polish Wrocław at Stalin’s behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and salient narratives of identity as shaping forces, which include the suppression of German culture under Communism, prevalent intermarriage between Germans and Poles, and the city’s qualified reinvention as “multicultural” after Polish independence in 1989. Together with the group’s relatively small numbers, these narratives play out in their hybrid approach to ethnicity, often invoking blended cultural practices or the ambiguous geographical status of the Silesian region, to avoid choosing between “national” antipodes of “German” and “Polish.” The results follow Rogers Brubaker’s insight into ethnicity as an essentializing category used to construct groups where individual self-perception may differ; and the concept of “national indifference,” previously applied to rural populations. It also suggests we might better approach circumscribed “minority” identities such as these, by seeing them as a form of “sub-culture.

Identities under Threat

East Central Europe has an exceptionally broad, deep and centuries-long legacy of ethnic mixing, one that was shattered by radical and often violent ‘unmixing’, along theoretically sharper ethnic lines after 1945, on Stalin’s instructions. These legacies mean categories of belonging are especially freighted, and politically scrutinised right into the present. It also makes the region particuarly relevant to the study of complex, hybrid phenomena that result, but that are hard to categorise in strict ethno-national terms as ‘German’, ‘Polish’, ‘Romanian’ and so on. This talk presents case studies drawn from the speakerandapos;s recent research on the region; however they are presented in the light of 2016's political events and their wider ramifications for identity politics right across Europe, including the United Kingdom following the so-called "Brexit" vote.</p

Phase relations for decomposable soils

Expressions describing the phase composition and interphase relations for a decomposable soil are derived by distinguishing between inert and decomposable fractions. A relationship between void volume changes and decomposition of the solid fraction, effectively a constitutive relationship, is derived and described by a single parameter. Key patterns of volumetric response to decomposition are highlighted. The decomposition-induced void change parameter is shown to be capable of interpreting the sometimes episodic process of volumetric strain in a decomposable soil-like material