The role of autophagy and lncRNAs in the maintenance of cancer stem cells

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) possess properties such as self-renewal, resistance to apoptotic cues, quiescence, and DNA-damage repair capacity. Moreover, CSCs strongly influence the tumour microenvironment (TME) and may account for cancer progression, recurrence, and relapse. CSCs represent a distinct subpopulation in tumours and the detection, characterisation, and understanding the regulatory landscape and cellular processes that govern their maintenance may pave the way to improving prognosis, selective targeted therapy, and therapy outcomes. In this review, we have discussed the characteristics of CSCs identified in various cancer types and the role of autophagy and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in maintaining the homeostasis of CSCs. Further, we have discussed methods to detect CSCs and strategies for treatment and relapse, taking into account the requirement to inhibit CSC growth and survival within the complex backdrop of cellular processes, microenvironmental interactions, and regulatory networks associated with cancer. Finally, we critique the computationally-reinforced triangle of factors inclusive of CSC properties, the process of autophagy, and lncRNA and their associated networks with respect to hypoxia, EMT, and signalling pathways

An exploration into the origins and pathogenesis of anaplastic large cell lymphoma, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive

T cell Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a heterogeneous disease ranging from malignancies arising from thymic T cells halted in development, through to mature, circulating peripheral T cells. The latter cases are diagnostically problematic with many entering the category of peripheral T cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified (PTCL, NOS). Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma is one of the exceptions to this whereby aberrant expression of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase and distinctive presence of cell surface CD30 places this entity in its own class. Besides expression of a well-studied oncogenic translocation, ALCL, ALK+ may also have a unique pathogenesis with a thymic origin like T lymphoblastic lymphoma but a peripheral presentation akin to PTCL. This review discusses evidence towards the potential origin of ALCL, ALK+ and mechanisms that may give rise to its unique phenotype

Understanding Home Environments of Graduate Students Raised in Poverty

This dissertation examined the home environments of graduate students raised in poverty. Present literature has demonstrated that there is a growing achievement gap experienced by students raised in poverty. However, students from poverty are still able to defeat the odds and succeed academically with advanced degrees. Research focusing on the home environments of students raised in poverty and their academic success through graduate school is limited. To understand the home environments of academically successful students raised in poverty, nine graduate students who self-identified as being raised in poverty were participants in this study to examine their experiences that led to academic success. This study applied basic qualitative inquiry and utilized constructivist narrative analysis as a framework. Data collection methods included face-to-face and telephone interviews. Data transcriptions were coded and analyzed using the constant comparative method. Two major themes emerged from the data: there was a broad support system available, and academics became an escape. All participants described factors that contributed to their academic success. The graduate students raised in poverty identified a broad support system inside and outside of the home. They also indicated that activities and routines were critical to their continued academic success

Understanding Home Environments of Graduate Students Raised in Poverty

This dissertation examined the home environments of graduate students raised in poverty. Present literature has demonstrated that there is a growing achievement gap experienced by students raised in poverty. However, students from poverty are still able to defeat the odds and succeed academically with advanced degrees. Research focusing on the home environments of students raised in poverty and their academic success through graduate school is limited. To understand the home environments of academically successful students raised in poverty, nine graduate students who self-identified as being raised in poverty were participants in this study to examine their experiences that led to academic success. This study applied basic qualitative inquiry and utilized constructivist narrative analysis as a framework. Data collection methods included face-to-face and telephone interviews. Data transcriptions were coded and analyzed using the constant comparative method. Two major themes emerged from the data: there was a broad support system available, and academics became an escape. All participants described factors that contributed to their academic success. The graduate students raised in poverty identified a broad support system inside and outside of the home. They also indicated that activities and routines were critical to their continued academic success

Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma

Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL) describes a distinct group of T cell lymphomas characterized by cell surface expression of CD30. At least 3 entities of ALCL exist, with similar cellular morphology but varying clinical courses and pathology: systemic ALCL, Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK)-positive, systemic ALCL ALK- and primary cutaneous ALCL. A fourth provisional entity associated with breast implants has been proposed, named breast implant-associated (BIA)-ALCL. ALCL have varying clinical outcomes, affect both children and adults, and range from being well-characterised at the genetic level to relatively unknown, predominantly due to the relative rarity of this group of malignancies. Current therapeutic approaches include standard chemotherapeutic agents as well as novel drugs including monoclonal antibodies and kinase inhibitors

Réseau de recherche E-Inclusion, thème 3 : Audiovision interactive et adaptable, projet 3.1, rapport final

Le Réseau de recherche E-Inclusion a pour but de permettre à tous les Canadiens d’accéder au contenu informationnel de documents audiovisuels. Le thème 3 du projet, Audiovision interactive et adaptable, avait pour but d'offrir des lignes directrices à l'intention de producteurs de films et d'émissions de télévision concernant le contenu de textes d'audiovision, et de mesurer l'utilité potentielle, pour la production de textes d'audiovision à partir de mots-clés générés dans d'autres contextes.The E-Inclusion Research Network aims to create tools to permit all Canadians to experience the richness of audiovisual productions. Theme 3 of the project, entitled Interactive Adaptable Descriptive Video, had a goal of creating guidelines for those who produce described movies and television programmes, and to measure the potential usefulness of producing audio description text of keywords derived from other contexts.Patrimoine canadien ; CRIM ; INCA ; Office national du film du Canada ; AudioVision. Canadian Heritage; CRIM; CNIB; National Film Board of Canada; AudioVisio

Creative Community Activism in Global Contexts

In this introduction to this special issue about creative community activism in global contexts, we draw together key conceptual and methodological principles of this collection. We begin from the standpoint that equality is a cultural artefact, a socio-cultural and political product specifically located in time and space and as such subject to creation and re-creation. Creative activism offers us a medium to both engage with and take action on issues of culture and gender in/equality. Through the creative activisms explored here, communities, researchers, and artists combine social action with creativity and arts to challenge inequalities, promote positive futures, and enable socio-cultural wellbeing in innovative ways that can be simultaneously engaging and participatory, and decolonising and democratising. They underscore how through creative activism hierarchies of power and knowledge production and lived experiences of in/equalities can be explored, understood, and contested

Time Traces: Cultural Memory and World War II in Pohnpei

While conducting fieldwork in Pohnpei, Micronesia, in the 1980s and 1990s, Suzanne Falgout heard poignant accounts of the Islanders’ experiences during World War II. The stories and songs that she recorded reveal that for Pohnpeians the effects of the war were local and personal—a catastrophe visited on a landscape that they know in intimate terms. In this paper we discuss not only the content of these memories but also the broader role of memory in human culture. First, we critique common understandings of memory. We highlight the ability of memory to transcend time, the diversity of forms that memory can take, and the active role of humans as agents in the process of remembering. Next, we examine the similarities and diff e rences between personal and cultural memory and the p rocesses of transformation from individual experience to collective identity. F i n a l l y, we discuss the nature of Pohnpeian experiences in World War II and what has made them such enduring and compelling cultural memories sixty years after the war. We relate these wartime memories to traditional Pohnpeian understandings of historical knowledge and to the genres, tropes, characters, concerns, and contexts used by Pohnpeians to remember and to articulate the past. We also examine the changing nature and use of war memories as a strategic resource in the context of contemporary Micronesia

Development of an Inertial Measurement-Based Assessment of Disease Severity in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

While myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is relatively new and poorly understood, a recent upsurge in research has identified the disease’s core symptoms, including post-exertional malaise and orthostatic intolerance. The FDA has yet to approve any treatments for ME/CFS, partially due to a lack of validated efficacy endpoints. The central focus of this research is to develop ME/CFS efficacy endpoints using a non-invasive, inertial measurement-based approach. Accessible endpoints will provide a way to properly evaluate potential treatments for ME/CFS. Using a Kalman filter, inertial measurement unit (IMU) data can be converted to optimized leg angle estimates. These angle estimates can then be converted to personalized daily measurements of upright activity, referred to as uptime. In a six-day, case-control study conducted by the Bateman Horne Center, uptime was measured for 15 subjects (five controls, five moderate-level ME/CFS, and five severe-level ME/CFS). Analysis of these uptime scores indicated that each group spends different proportions of their days upright and active. This result shows that uptime can accurately determine disease severity and is, therefore, a reliable endpoint for evaluating ME/CFS treatment efficacy