Differing attitudes for various population groups towards homeless people

Introduction: People who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, secure, and adequate housing, or they lack a “fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence”. Purpose: To assess the attitude of secondaryschool students, high-school students, university students, and working adults towards homeless people. Materials and methods: A survey of 420 randomly selected middle school students (n=120), high school students (n=100), university students (n=100), and working adults (n=100) was conducted. Nearly half of the participants reported a fear of homeless people. Results: According to the majority of respondents, a homeless person collects scrap metal and waste paper, and also begs. The first words that come to mind when a majority of people think of the homeless were: poor, unhappy, dirty, lonely, and smelly. The participants reported the main reasons for homelessness to be: joblessness, family problems, alcohol, helplessness, and avoiding work. The majority of respondents argued that social and legal problems are the main reasons that it is difficult for homeless people to extricate themselves from their situation. The groups surveyed had a variety of opinions about homelessness. According to most respondents, a homeless person is a poor, miserable, lonely, childless man with a vocational education who begs, collects scrap metal and waste paper, and is also usually dirty and smelly. Conclusions: In the survey groups, respondents’ opinions about homelessness varied

Caspase-2 promotes cytoskeleton protein degradation during apoptotic cell death

The caspase family of proteases cleaves large number of proteins resulting in major morphological and biochemical changes during apoptosis. Yet, only a few of these proteins have been reported to selectively cleaved by caspase-2. Numerous observations link caspase-2 to the disruption of the cytoskeleton, although it remains elusive whether any of the cytoskeleton proteins serve as bona fide substrates for caspase-2. Here, we undertook an unbiased proteomic approach to address this question. By differential proteome analysis using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, we identified four cytoskeleton proteins that were degraded upon treatment with active recombinant caspase-2 in vitro. These proteins were degraded in a caspase-2-dependent manner during apoptosis induced by DNA damage, cytoskeleton disruption or endoplasmic reticulum stress. Hence, degradation of these cytoskeleton proteins was blunted by siRNA targeting of caspase-2 and when caspase-2 activity was pharmacologically inhibited. However, none of these proteins was cleaved directly by caspase-2. Instead, we provide evidence that in cells exposed to apoptotic stimuli, caspase-2 probed these proteins for proteasomal degradation. Taken together, our results depict a new role for caspase-2 in the regulation of the level of cytoskeleton proteins during apoptosis