Paxillin facilitates timely neurite initiation on soft-substrate environments by interacting with the endocytic machinery.

Neurite initiation is the first step in neuronal development and occurs spontaneously in soft tissue environments. Although the mechanisms regulating the morphology of migratory cells on rigid substrates in cell culture are widely known, how soft environments modulate neurite initiation remains elusive. Using hydrogel cultures, pharmacologic inhibition, and genetic approaches, we reveal that paxillin-linked endocytosis and adhesion are components of a bistable switch controlling neurite initiation in a substrate modulus-dependent manner. On soft substrates, most paxillin binds to endocytic factors and facilitates vesicle invagination, elevating neuritogenic Rac1 activity and expression of genes encoding the endocytic machinery. By contrast, on rigid substrates, cells develop extensive adhesions, increase RhoA activity and sequester paxillin from the endocytic machinery, thereby delaying neurite initiation. Our results highlight paxillin as a core molecule in substrate modulus-controlled morphogenesis and define a mechanism whereby neuronal cells respond to environments exhibiting varying mechanical properties

From Ethnocentrism to Intercultural Communication: The Hundred-Foot Journey

This study intends to use the lens of ethnocentrism to analyze how people from different ethnic cultures—in this case, the French culture and Indian culture—fail to communicate with each other and experience a collision of culture related to ethnocentrism. The hundred-foot journey is not just the distance between two restaurants. It is the distance of two ethnic groups and two cultures. To be more culturally relative, there is a need for intercultural communication competence to help people transform themselves from being ethnocentric to culturally relativistic, a journey to remove one’s own cultural superiority and to understand the cultural practices of other ethnic groups in terms of their own ethnic cultural contexts. Keywords: ethnocentrism; cultural-relativism; intercultural communication; intercultural sensitivity DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/56-05 Publication date:May 31st 201

Institutionalization, Organizational Commitment, and Hope for Personal Fulfillment in The Shawshank Redemption

Institutionalization is a socialization process through which the values, beliefs, policies, and practices of an organization are instilled within the members of that organization that they might collectively adopt these values or rules and commit themselves to that organization. However, those being institutionalized under authoritarian discipline may lose the freedom of their soul and a personal level of self. In order to raise readers’ awareness of the impact of institutionalization and commitment on the individual or collective actors, this study intends to use the film The Shawshank Redemption as a case study, using content analysis as a qualitative research technique to analyze the symbolic scenes in the film in order to reveal how commitment and stability via institutionalization can be brought into the organization. To achieve this goal, the study uses Scott’s institutional theory and Meyer and Allen’s organizational commitment model to demonstrate how commitment may greatly impact people. Those being institutionalized, like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption, may lose their ability to think and act independently and thus lose their hope for fulfillment. However, those like Andy and, later, Red, choosing to hold on to freedom of the soul and a personal level of self, can deinstitutionalize themselves; break free of the shackles, either physically or spiritually, of the organization; and make a commitment toward their own inner development

Fabrication of a microresonator-fiber assembly maintaining a high-quality factor by CO2 laser welding

We demonstrate fabrication of a microtoroid resonator of a high-quality (high-Q) factor using femtosecond laser three-dimensional (3D) micromachining. A fiber taper is reliably assembled to the microtoroid using CO2 laser welding. Specifically, we achieve a high Q-factor of 2.12*10^6 in the microresonator-fiber assembly by optimizing the contact position between the fiber taper and the microtoroid.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

A second ortho­rhom­bic polymorph of 3,5-diphenyl-4H-1,2,4-triazol-4-amine

The present crystal structure is the second ortho­rhom­bic polymorph of the title compound, C14H12N4. Whereas the structure in Pnma with Z′ = 0.5 is already known [Ikemi et al. (2002 ▶). Heterocycl. Commun. 8, 439–442], the present structure crystallizes in the space group Pbca with Z′ = 1. The dihedral angle between the two phenyl rings is 23.5 (4)° and the dihedral angles between central ring and the phenyl rings are 41.0 (3) and 26.3 (5)°. In the 4-amino-1,2,4-trizole fragment, the C=N distances are 1.321 (3) and 1.315 (3) Å, which are much shorter than the C—N distances of 1.367 (3) and 1.357 (3) Å. In the crystal, adjacent mol­ecules are linked by N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds