Three cases of identity (re)construction through art interventions: the dialogical and the 'sensible'

Identity construction (IC) cannot be reduced to discourses, nor to individual responsibility. Alvesson & Wilmott (2002) suggest two main processes of identity construction : identity regulation (IR, the discursive practices of identity definition) and identity work (IW, the interpretive activities involved in reproduction of self-identity). Based on this dialogic conception of IC, we wonder whether artistic interventions could play a significant role in the IC process, especially through its ability to address the relational, sensible, emotional, and affective dimensions. In other words, our paper intends to better understand the role of experience and the embodiment of sensemaking in the dialogic process of identity construction. In this perspective, we will focus on cases where art interventions take place in working situations at some crucial moments of IC. Exploring the dimension of the sensible encapsulated in artworks and art interventions allows in particular to better grasp how collective understanding of organizations and their transformations hinge on subjectivity (Abrir 2012). This knowledge is generally recognized as disruptive, because of the heterogeneity of the two words of art and organization, the ability of art for ―not-knowing or more generally the ability of art and aesthetics for promoting contradictory emotions. The dimension of the sensible brought by art is characterized by its subjectification power and by its value sharing (the role of emotions and affects, the construction of subjectivity) and value-adding. Our argument is that art, by organizing the co-creation of work-related sensible forms, triggers and performs - in ways we strive at investigating - a collective and dialogic process between IR and IW

An Art-Based, Collective and Dialogic Ethnographic method -Unveiling corporate restructuring practices

Restructuring practices belong to today's organizational life. Even if the phenomenon is not new it significantly evolved over time, both in terms of motives and in terms of expressions, from major events to permanent practices, from crisis to competitiveness restructurings, from reactive to more proactive decisions, from highly visible to more silent decisions. Much debated in popular medias, restructuring issues have been also inspiring scholars from various fields (sociology, economics, management, law...) for now three decades. But at the same time, academic literature, especially in management, has hardly contributed in understanding the deep complexity and the multiple hidden dimensions of restructuring situations. We suggest ethnographic studies could open the " black box " of restructuring issues, thus complementing the inevitably over-simplified models testing the explanatory relationships between a set of variables or constructs. Traditional ethnographic method is scarcely chosen by scholars analyzing restructuring issues, mainly for reasons related to practical access to fieldwork: restructuring is a hot issue, and it remains difficult to access information and informants in a restructuring organization. In order to overcome these issues, we developed a specific research method what we call an Art-Based, Collective and Dialogic Ethnographic method (1.), both in its deliberate choices (1.1.) and its emergent dimensions (1.2.). Then we describe the outputs of the method (2.), in terms of creating new knowledge about restructuring issues (2.1.), but also in terms of fostering new ways of teaching, thinking or practicing restructurings (2.2.). In the final section, we discuss the basic principles of the method as well as its outcomes, especially in terms of creating "vicarious experiential knowledge" (3.). This method is based on three main features. First, we suggest investigate restructuring issues through artworks. Second, as restructurings are multi-actor situations and multi-dimensional phenomena, research on restructurings could benefit from a heterogeneous and multi-disciplinary group of actors as a community of inquirers confronting their points of view and reflecting together about the complexity and the heterogeneity of restructuring phenomena in a dialogical process of investigation. Third, combining in the same research design a heterogeneous group of actors and a series of artworks about restructurings can lead to innovative research methods: collective comments about artworks and indirect analysis of restructuring, reflexive analysis of actors' involvement, comments and discussions used as data, what we propose here as a new form of organizational ethnographic research

CD1d-antibody fusion proteins target iNKT cells to the tumor and trigger long-term therapeutic responses

Despite the well-established antitumor activity of CD1d-restricted invariant natural killer T lymphocytes (iNKT), their use for cancer therapy has remained challenging. This appears to be due to their strong but short-lived activation followed by long-term anergy after a single administration of the CD1d agonist ligand alpha-galactosylceramide (αGC). As a promising alternative, we obtained sustained mouse iNKT cell responses associated with prolonged antitumor effects through repeated administrations of tumor-targeted recombinant sCD1d-antitumor scFv fusion proteins loaded with αGC. Here, we demonstrate that CD1d fusion proteins bound to tumor cells via the antibody fragment specific for a tumor-associated antigen, efficiently activate human iNKT cell lines leading to potent tumor cell lysis. The importance of CD1d tumor targeting was confirmed in tumor-bearing mice in which only the specific tumor-targeted CD1d fusion protein resulted in tumor inhibition of well-established aggressive tumor grafts. The therapeutic efficacy correlated with the repeated activation of iNKT and natural killer cells marked by their release of TH1 cytokines, despite the up-regulation of the co-inhibitory receptor PD-1. Our results demonstrate the superiority of providing the superagonist αGC loaded on recombinant CD1d proteins and support the use of αGC/sCD1d-antitumor fusion proteins to secure a sustained human and mouse iNKT cell activation, while targeting their cytotoxic activity and cytokine release to the tumor sit

The peptide agonist-binding site of the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor based on site-directed mutagenesis and knowledge-based modelling

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (7–36)amide (GLP-1) plays a central role in regulating blood sugar levels and its receptor, GLP-1R, is a target for anti-diabetic agents such as the peptide agonist drugs exenatide and liraglutide. In order to understand the molecular nature of the peptide–receptor interaction, we used site-directed mutagenesis and pharmacological profiling to highlight nine sites as being important for peptide agonist binding and/or activation. Using a knowledge-based approach, we constructed a 3D model of agonist-bound GLP-1R, basing the conformation of the N-terminal region on that of the receptor-bound NMR structure of the related peptide pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating protein (PACAP21). The relative position of the extracellular to the transmembrane (TM) domain, as well as the molecular details of the agonist-binding site itself, were found to be different from the model that was published alongside the crystal structure of the TM domain of the glucagon receptor, but were nevertheless more compatible with published mutagenesis data. Furthermore, the NMR-determined structure of a high-potency cyclic conformationally-constrained 11-residue analogue of GLP-1 was also docked into the receptor-binding site. Despite having a different main chain conformation to that seen in the PACAP21 structure, four conserved residues (equivalent to His-7, Glu-9, Ser-14 and Asp-15 in GLP-1) could be structurally aligned and made similar interactions with the receptor as their equivalents in the GLP-1-docked model, suggesting the basis of a pharmacophore for GLP-1R peptide agonists. In this way, the model not only explains current mutagenesis and molecular pharmacological data but also provides a basis for further experimental design

A Fluorescent Glycolipid-Binding Peptide Probe Traces Cholesterol Dependent Microdomain-Derived Trafficking Pathways

10.1371/journal.pone.0002933PLoS ONE38

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level