230 research outputs found
El legado de Robert A. Brady: OrĂgenes antifascistas de la EconomĂa PolĂtica de la ComunicaciĂłn
During its formative period in the United States, the Political Economy of Communications was profoundly influenced be the teachings of the economist Robert A. Brady. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, within the broader political context of of U.S. anti-fascism, Brady developed a potent analysis of emerging autoritharian economic and cultural practices. This framework was substantially carried over, and further developed, by the two pioneers of the Political Economy approach, Dallas W. Smythe and Herbet I. Schiller.Durante su periodo de formaciĂłn en Estados Unidos, la EconomĂa PolĂtica de la ComunicaciĂłn se vio profundamente influida por las enseñanzas del economista Robert A. Brady. A lo largo de las dĂ©cadas de los 30 y 40, dentro del contexto polĂtico más amplio del antifascismo estadounidense, Brady desarrollĂł un análisis convincente de las nacientes prácticas econĂłmicas y culturales autoritarias. Este proyecto fue en gran medida trasferido, y más tarde desarrollado, por los dos pioneros de la perspectiva de la EconomĂa PolĂtica Dallas W. Smythe y Herbet I. Schiller.Pendant la pĂ©riode de formation des Etats Unis, l’ Économie Politique de la Communication a Ă©tĂ© très influenciĂ©e par les enseignements du Ă©conomiste Robert A. Brady. Au cours des decades des annĂ©es 30 et 40, dans le contexte politique du anti-fascisme nord-amĂ©ricain, Brady developpa son persuadant analyse des nouveaux pratiques authoritaires dans l’ Ă©conomie et la culture. Ce projet fĂ»t en grande mĂ©sure transferĂ©, et plus tard dĂ©vĂ©loppĂ©, par deux pioniers de l’ Economie Politique de la Communication tels que Dallas W. Smythe et Herbert I. Schiller
Systems of information: The long view
In response to the perceived (by some) onset of an information
society, historians have begun to study its roots and antecedents.
The past is replete with the rise, fall, and transformation of systems
of information, which are not to be confused with the narrower computer-
mediated world of information systems. The history of systems
of information—which for digestibility can be labeled information
history—lacks neither scale nor scope. Systems of information have
played a critical role in the transition to, and subsequent development
of, capitalism; the growth of the state, especially the modern,
nation-state; the rise of modernity, science, and the public sphere;
imperialism; and geopolitics. In the context of these epochal shifts
and episodes in human thinking and social organization, this essay
presents a critical bibliographic survey of histories—outside the
well-trodden paths of library and information-science history—that
have foregrounded, or made reference to, a wide variety of systems
of information.published or submitted for publicationOpe
Polypharmacy or medication washout: an old tool revisited
There has been a rapid increase in the use of polypharmacy in psychiatry possibly due to the introduction of newer drugs, greater availability of these newer drugs, excessive confidence in clinical trial results, widespread prescribing of psychotropic medications by primary care, and pressure to augment with additional medications for unresolved side effects or greater efficacy. Even the new generation of medications may not hold significant advantages over older drugs. In fact, there may be additional safety risks with polypharmacy being so widespread. Washout, as a clinical tool, is rarely done in medication management today. Studies have shown that augmenting therapy with additional medications resulted in 9.1%–34.1% dropouts due to intolerance of the augmentation, whereas studies of medication washout demonstrated only 5.9%–7.8% intolerance to the washout procedure. These perils justify reconsideration of medication washout before deciding on augmentation. There are unwarranted fears and resistance in the medical community toward medication washout, especially at the moment a physician is trying to decide whether to washout or add more medications to the treatment regimen. However, medication washout provides unique benefits to the physician: it establishes a new baseline of the disorder, helps identify medication efficacy from their adverse effects, and provides clarity of diagnosis and potential reduction of drug treatments, drug interactions, and costs. It may also reduce overall adverse events, not to mention a potential to reduce liability. After washout, physicians may be able to select the appropriate polypharmacy more effectively and safely, if necessary. Washout, while not for every patient, may be an effective tool for physicians who need to decide on whether to add potentially risky polypharmacy for a given patient. The risks of washout may, in some cases, be lower and the benefits may be clearly helpful for diagnosis, understanding medication effects, the doctor/patient relationship, and safer use of polypharmacy if indicated
Indirect interactions of membrane-adsorbed cylinders
Biological and biomimetic membranes often contain aggregates of embedded or
adsorbed macromolecules. In this article, the indirect interactions of
cylindrical objects adhering to a planar membrane are considered theoretically.
The adhesion of the cylinders causes a local perturbation of the equilibrium
membrane shape, which leads to membrane-mediated interactions. For a planar
membrane under lateral tension, the interaction is repulsive for a pair of
cylinders adhering to the same side of the membrane, and attractive for
cylinders adhering at opposite membrane sides. For a membrane in an external
harmonic potential, the interaction of adsorbed cylinders is always attractive
and increases if forces perpendicular to the membrane act on the cylinders.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures; typos correcte
A Phase 1 study of intravenous infusions of tigecycline in patients with acute myeloid leukemia.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells meet the higher energy, metabolic, and signaling demands of the cell by increasing mitochondrial biogenesis and mitochondrial protein translation. Blocking mitochondrial protein synthesis through genetic and chemical approaches kills human AML cells at all stages of development in vitro and in vivo. Tigecycline is an antimicrobial that we found inhibits mitochondrial protein synthesis in AML cells. Therefore, we conducted a phase 1 dose-escalation study of tigecycline administered intravenously daily 5 of 7Â days for 2Â weeks to patients with AML. A total of 27 adult patients with relapsed and refractory AML were enrolled in this study with 42 cycles being administered over seven dose levels (50-350Â mg/day). Two patients experienced DLTs related to tigecycline at the 350Â mg/day level resulting in a maximal tolerated dose of tigecycline of 300Â mg as a once daily infusion. Pharmacokinetic experiments showed that tigecycline had a markedly shorter half-life in these patients than reported for noncancer patients. No significant pharmacodynamic changes or clinical responses were observed. Thus, we have defined the safety of once daily tigecycline in patients with refractory AML. Future studies should focus on schedules of the drug that permit more sustained target inhibition
Brains studying brains: look before you think in vision
Using our own brains to study our brains is extraordinary. For example, in vision this makes us naturally blind to our own blindness, since our impression of seeing our world clearly is consistent with our ignorance of what we do not see. Our brain employs its 'conscious' part to reason and make logical deductions using familiar rules and past experience. However, human vision employs many 'subconscious' brain parts that follow rules alien to our intuition. Our blindness to our unknown unknowns and our presumptive intuitions easily lead us astray in asking and formulating theoretical questions, as witnessed in many unexpected and counter-intuitive difficulties and failures encountered by generations of scientists. We should therefore pay a more than usual amount of attention and respect to experimental data when studying our brain. I show that this can be productive by reviewing two vision theories that have provided testable predictions and surprising insights
Dynamic phase separation of fluid membranes with rigid inclusions
Membrane shape fluctuations induce attractive interactions between rigid
inclusions. Previous analytical studies showed that the fluctuation-induced
pair interactions are rather small compared to thermal energies, but also that
multi-body interactions cannot be neglected. In this article, it is shown
numerically that shape fluctuations indeed lead to the dynamic separation of
the membrane into phases with different inclusion concentrations. The tendency
of lateral phase separation strongly increases with the inclusion size. Large
inclusions aggregate at very small inclusion concentrations and for relatively
small values of the inclusions' elastic modulus.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
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