Emerging intra-urban geographies of the cognitive-cultural economy:evidence from residential neighbourhoods in Dutch cities

Most existing research on advanced economic activities focuses on either inner city milieus or suburban industrial parks. We contend, however, that residential neighbourhoods constitute a milieu for economic activities which require the input of high-skilled labour or, to follow Allen Scott, cognitive-cultural activities which are characteristic for contemporary urban economies. Based on a longitudinal data set of company-level data, we show that a significant share of economic activities in urban residential neighbourhoods can indeed be classified as cognitive-cultural and that this share has been growing over the period 1999–2008. We present an analysis of the spatiality of the embeddedness of these activities. In particular, we focus on their traded and untraded interdependencies. For this part of the analysis, we use survey data of 370 businesses based in Dutch residential neighbourhoods. Overall, cognitive-cultural activities maintain many untraded interdependencies on a local level, whereas they maintain most traded interdependencies on a supra-local level. They appear to be making frequent use of both local buzz as well as of supralocal ‘pipelines’, and are thus embedded on various spatial scales. Residential neighbourhoods, then, have to be taken more seriously not just as places of consumption but also as milieus of production for more advanced economic activities

Polycentric puzzles – emerging mega-city regions seen through the lens of advanced producer services

Polycentric puzzles – emerging mega-city regions seen through the lens of advanced producer service

Time Multiplexed Active Neural Probe with 678 Parallel Recording Sites

We present a high density CMOS neural probe with active electrodes (pixels), consisting of dedicated in-situ circuits for signal source amplification. The complete probe contains 1356 neuron size (20x20 μm2) pixels densely packed on a 50 μm thick, 100 μm wide and 8 mm long shank. It allows simultaneous highperformance recording from 678 electrodes and a possibility to simultaneously observe all of the 1356 electrodes with increased noise. This considerably surpasses the state of the art active neural probes in electrode count and flexibility. The measured action potential band noise is 12.4 μVrms, with just 3 μW power dissipation per electrode amplifier and 45 μW per channel (including data transmission)

Non-Coding RNAs in Retinal Development

Retinal development is dependent on an accurately functioning network of transcriptional and translational regulators. Among the diverse classes of molecules involved, non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) play a significant role. Members of this family are present in the cell as transcripts, but are not translated into proteins. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small ncRNAs that act as post-transcriptional regulators. During the last decade, they have been implicated in a variety of biological processes, including the development of the nervous system. On the other hand, long-ncRNAs (lncRNAs) represent a different class of ncRNAs that act mainly through processes involving chromatin remodeling and epigenetic mechanisms. The visual system is a prominent model to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying neurogenesis or circuit formation and function, including the differentiation of retinal progenitor cells to generate the seven principal cell classes in the retina, pathfinding decisions of retinal ganglion cell axons in order to establish the correct connectivity from the eye to the brain proper, and activity-dependent mechanisms for the functionality of visual circuits. Recent findings have associated ncRNAs in several of these processes and uncovered a new level of complexity for the existing regulatory mechanisms. This review summarizes and highlights the impact of ncRNAs during the development of the vertebrate visual system, with a specific focus on the role of miRNAs and a synopsis regarding recent findings on lncRNAs in the retina

Identificaçao da Via Lenta na Reentrada Nodal Atrioventricular Usando o Intervalo Atrioventricular Mais Curto

Em 10 pacientes consecutivos, realizou-se o mapeamento da parede septal do átrio direito durante taquicardia supraventricular por reentrada nodal AV, para comprovar a hipótese de que o intervalo AV mais curto identificava a área de conduçao da via lenta. O septo atrial foi dividido em quatro zonas distintas. Em sete dos pacientes o intervalo AV anterógrado mais curto foi encontrado na zona 3; em dois, na zona 4; no último, na zona 2. A modificaçao por radiofreqüência da via lenta foi obtida com sucesso, em todos os pacientes, na área de conduçao AV mais curta. O intervalo AV durante ritmo sinusal permaneceu inalterado antes e após a ablaçao. Após um seguimento de 21 ±4 meses, nenhum deles teve recorrência dos sintomas

Identificaçao da Via Lenta na Reentrada Nodal Atrioventricular Usando o Intervalo Atrioventricular Mais Curto

Em 10 pacientes consecutivos, realizou-se o mapeamento da parede septal do átrio direito durante taquicardia supraventricular por reentrada nodal AV, para comprovar a hipótese de que o intervalo AV mais curto identificava a área de conduçao da via lenta. O septo atrial foi dividido em quatro zonas distintas. Em sete dos pacientes o intervalo AV anterógrado mais curto foi encontrado na zona 3; em dois, na zona 4; no último, na zona 2. A modificaçao por radiofreqüência da via lenta foi obtida com sucesso, em todos os pacientes, na área de conduçao AV mais curta. O intervalo AV durante ritmo sinusal permaneceu inalterado antes e após a ablaçao. Após um seguimento de 21 ±4 meses, nenhum deles teve recorrência dos sintomas

Gene length corrected trimmed mean of M-values (GeTMM) processing of RNA-seq data performs similarly in intersample analyses while improving intrasample comparisons

Background: Current normalization methods for RNA-sequencing data allow either for intersample comparison to identify differentially expressed (DE) genes or for intrasample comparison for the discovery and validation of gene signatures. Most studies on optimization of normalization methods typically use simulated data to validate methodologies. We describe a new method, GeTMM, which allows for both inter- and intrasample analyses with the same normalized data set. We used actual (i.e. not simulated) RNA-seq data from 263 colon cancers (no biological replicates) and used the same read count data to compare GeTMM with the most commonly used normalization methods (i.e. TMM (used by edgeR), RLE (used by DESeq2) and TPM) with respect to distributions, effect of RNA quality, subtype-classification, recurrence score, recall of DE genes and correlation to RT-qPCR data. Results: We observed a clear benefit for GeTMM and TPM with regard to intrasample comparison while GeTMM performed similar to TMM and RLE normalized data in intersample comparisons. Regarding DE genes, recall was found comparable among the normalization methods, while GeTMM showed the lowest number of false-positive DE genes. Remarkably, we observed limited detrimental effects in samples with low RNA quality. Conclusions: We show that GeTMM outperforms established methods with regard to intrasample comparison while performing equivalent with regard to intersample normalization using the same normalized data. These combined properties enhance the general usefulness of RNA-seq but also the comparability to the many array-based gene expression data in the public domain

Urban markets and diversity: towards a research agenda

In this paper we advocate the study of local street markets to explore fundamental issues about the relationship between economy and society. This relationship evolves over time and we believe that it has been recast in an age of increasing cultural diversity and neo-liberal state regulatory structures. In street markets we can see how diversity and the nature of economic transactions become mutually constitutive. We argue that cultural diversity propels local markets, while everyday interactions in markets influence intercultural relationships. These complex processes are affected by the spatiality of markets and the regulatory environments within which they operate. We conclude by framing a research programme on street markets and discuss a number of methodological complications that would need to be addressed in this endeavour

Confirmation of a metastasis-specific microRNA signature in primary colon cancer

The identification of patients with high-risk stage II colon cancer who may benefit from adjuvant therapy may allow the clinical approach to be tailored for these patients based on an understanding of tumour biology. MicroRNAs have been proposed as markers of the prognosis or treatment response in colorectal cancer. Recently, a 2-microRNA signature (l et-7i and miR-10b) was proposed to identify colorectal cancer patients at risk of developing distant metastasis. We assessed the prognostic value of this signature and additional candidate microRNAs in an independent, clinically well-defined, prospectively collected cohort of primary colon cancer patients including stage I-II colon cancer without and stage III colon cancer with adjuvant treatment. The 2-microRNA signature specifically predicted hepatic recurrence in the stage I-II group, but not the overall ability to develop distant metastasis. The addition of miR-30b to the 2-microRNA signature allowed the prediction of both distant metastasis and hepatic recurrence in patients with stage I-II colon cancer who did not receive adjuvant chemotherapy. Available gene expression data allowed us to associate m iR-30b expression with axon guidance and l et-7i expression with cell adhesion, migration, and motility

A Negative Regulatory Loop between MicroRNA and Hox Gene Controls Posterior Identities in Caenorhabditis elegans

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to regulate gene expression across eukaryotic species, but the function of most miRNA genes remains unknown. Here we describe how the analysis of the expression patterns of a well-conserved miRNA gene, mir-57, at cellular resolution for every minute during early development of Caenorhabditis elegans provided key insights in understanding its function. Remarkably, mir-57 expression shows strong positional bias but little tissue specificity, a pattern reminiscent of Hox gene function. Despite the minor defects produced by a loss of function mutation, overexpression of mir-57 causes dramatic posterior defects, which also mimic the phenotypes of mutant alleles of a posterior Hox gene, nob-1, an Abd homolog. More importantly, nob-1 expression is found in the same two posterior AB sublineages as those expressing mir-57 but with an earlier onset. Intriguingly, nob-1 functions as an activator for mir-57 expression; it is also a direct target of mir-57. In agreement with this, loss of mir-57 function partially rescues the nob-1 allele defects, indicating a negative feedback regulatory loop between the miRNA and Hox gene to provide positional cues. Given the conservation of the miRNA and Hox gene, the regulatory mechanism might be broadly used across species. The strategy used here to explore mir-57 function provides a path to dissect the regulatory relationship between genes