Linking ER Stress to Autophagy: Potential Implications for Cancer Therapy

Different physiological and pathological conditions can perturb protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum, leading to a condition known as ER stress. ER stress activates a complex intracellular signal transduction pathway, called unfolded protein response (UPR). The UPR is tailored essentially to reestablish ER homeostasis also through adaptive mechanisms involving the stimulation of autophagy. However, when persistent, ER stress can switch the cytoprotective functions of UPR and autophagy into cell death promoting mechanisms. Recently, a variety of anticancer therapies have been linked to the induction of ER stress in cancer cells, suggesting that strategies devised to stimulate its prodeath function or block its prosurvival function, could be envisaged to improve their tumoricidial action. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that determine the final outcome of UPR and autophagy activation by chemotherapeutic agents, will offer new opportunities to improve existing cancer therapies as well as unravel novel targets for cancer treatment

Interesting times: European criminal markets in 2015

Contemporary policing and the control of organized crime increasingly involve priority setting and planning. Criminal policymakers no longer focus on repressive aspects of organized crime, but want to be informed about coming challenges and threats in order to take appropriate preventive action. For that reason, there is a growing demand to change the traditional assessments of organized crime into analyses that include more prospective elements about current and potential future organized crime situations to identify specific risks or threats to society. Given the high degree of uncertainty that characterizes our understanding of organized crime, we suggest that scenario thinking can contribute to the strategic planning process of public and private security actors. We intend to advance this claim by means of an application of this technique to the organized crime involvement in criminal markets in Europe

Proactive policing and the assessment of organised crime

Purpose - Contemporary policing and the control of (organised) crime involve priority setting, strategic planning and the use of strategic planning tools. The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to the fast-growing body of literature on intelligence-led policing, and explore new concepts and methods to aid the strategic decision making of actors involved in policing organised crime. Design/methodology/approach - This paper argues that priority setting and strategic planning in the field of organised crime is inherently characterised by uncertainty. The authors examine to what extent policymakers can plan and anticipate coming organised crime threats. It is argued that, while predicting such issues is impossible, policymakers can prepare for them. It is suggested that the field of scenario studies can provide tools that can support strategic planning and the assessment of security challenges in the field of organised crime control. A scenario study is presented on the vulnerability of economic sectors to illustrate and develop this claim. Findings - Scenario studies do not predict the future of organised crime, nor do they replace information-gathering methodologies and crime intelligence applications that support concrete criminal investigations. Scenario studies are sensitising tools that force strategic planners to examine the assumptions and knowledge base on which they base their decisions. To that end, scenario studies combine the analysis of law enforcement data and scientific analysis of organised crime with analysis of issues most vital to societies, regions, cities, etc. The analytical focus shifts from targeting concrete offenders to detecting opportunities and weaknesses in structural processes that may not always be visible to police organizations, but pose significant security risks if left unattended. The scenario study that is presented on the vulnerability of economic sectors in the EU illustrates that scenario studies can amend traditional crime intelligence in this manner. Research limitations/implications - The paper is limited to a conceptual study and a concrete scenario study. Future research might shed more light on implementation/evaluation issues of scenario-based planning. Practical implications - The paper offers a conceptual and methodological framework for scenario-based strategic planning. Originality/value - The paper intends to advance the debate on organized crime assessments in light of the development towards intelligence-led policing strategies. To that end, new concepts and a different methodological framework are suggested

Assessing European futures in an age of reflexive security

The past decade, European assessments of organised crime have evolved into strategic future-oriented intelligence systems. Policymakers want to be informed about coming organised crime threats and challenges. We use the concepts of reflexive government (Dean, 1999) and reflexive security (Rasmussen, 2001, 2004) to explore this shift in EU policing, and suggest that strategic planning in the field of organised crime control might benefit from the use of scenario methodologies. We focus on the assumptions that underpin scenario exercises and we outline how they might be developed

Developmental prosopagnosia and elastic versus static face recognition in an incidental learning task

Previous research on the beneficial effect of motion has postulated that learning a face in motion provides additional cues to recognition. Surprisingly, however, few studies have examined the beneficial effect of motion in an incidental learning task and developmental prosopagnosia (DP) even though such studies could provide more valuable information about everyday face recognition compared to the perception of static faces. In the current study, 18 young adults (Experiment 1) and five DPs and 10 age-matched controls (Experiment 2) participated in an incidental learning task during which both static and elastically moving unfamiliar faces were sequentially presented and were to be recognized in a delayed visual search task during which the faces could either keep their original presentation or switch (from static to elastically moving or vice versa). In Experiment 1, performance in the elastic-elastic condition reached a significant improvement relative to the elastic-static and static-elastic condition, however, no significant difference could be detected relative to the static-static condition. Except for higher scores in the elastic-elastic compared to the static-elastic condition in the age-matched group, no other significant differences were detected between conditions for both the DPs and the age-matched controls. The current study could not provide compelling evidence for a general beneficial effect of motion. Age-matched controls performed generally worse than DPs, which may potentially be explained by their higher rates of false alarms. Factors that could have influenced the results are discussed.status: publishe