Knockdown of LRP/LR Induces Apoptosis in breast and oesophageal cancer cells.

Cancer is a global burden due to high incidence and mortality rates and is ranked the second most diagnosed disease amongst non-communicable diseases in South Africa. A high expression level of the 37kDa/67kDa laminin receptor (LRP/LR) is one characteristic of cancer cells. This receptor is implicated in the pathogenesis of cancer cells by supporting tumor angiogenesis, metastasis and especially for this study, the evasion of apoptosis. In the current study, the role of LRP/LR on cellular viability of breast MCF-7, MDA-MB 231 and WHCO1 oesophageal cancer cells was investigated. Western blot analysis revealed that total LRP expression levels of MCF-7, MDA-MB 231 and WHCO1 were significantly downregulated by targeting LRP mRNA using siRNA-LAMR1. This knockdown of LRP/LR resulted in a significant decrease of viability in the breast and oesophageal cancer cells as determined by an MTT assay. Transfection of MDA-MB 231 cells with esiRNA-RPSA directed against a different region of the LRP mRNA had similar effects on LRP/LR expression and cell viability compared to siRNA-LAMR1, excluding an off-target effect of siRNALAMR1. This reduction in cellular viability is as a consequence of apoptosis induction as indicated by the exposure of the phosphatidylserine protein on the surface of breast MCF-7, MDA-MB 231 and oesophageal WHCO1 cancer cells, respectively, detected by an Annexin-V/FITC assay as well as nuclear morphological changes observed post-staining with Hoechst. These observations indicate that LRP/LR is crucial for the maintenance of cellular viability of breast and oesophageal cancer cells and recommend siRNA technology targeting LRP expression as a possible novel alternative technique for breast and oesophageal cancer treatment.This work was supported by the National Research Foundation, the Republic of South Africa, the Republic of South Africa.NCS201

The Cognitive Behavioural Processes Questionnaire: A Preliminary Analysis within Student, Mixed Clinical and Community Samples and the Identification of a Core Transdiagnostic Process

Theorists have highlighted the commonalities in cognitive and behavioural processes across multiple disorders i.e. transdiagnostic approach. We report two studies that tested the psychometric properties of a new scale to assess these processes. The Cognitive and Behavioural Processes Questionnaire (CBP-Q) was developed as a 15- item measure. In Study 1, the CBP-Q was administered to a student (n = 172) sample with a range of standardised measures of the processes and symptom measures. Study 2 repeated the evaluation in a mixed clinical group (n = 161) and a community control group (n = 57). An exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 12-item version of the CBPQ, consisting of a single factor. The measure demonstrated good internal consistency, test-retest stability and satisfactory convergent and divergent validity in both studies. Correlations with symptom-based measures showed increased engagement in these cognitive and behavioural processes to be associated with higher levels of symptomatology. The scale was elevated in the clinical relative to the community group and there were no differences in scores between broad diagnostic groupings (anxiety vs. mood vs. other). The CBP-Q has good psychometric properties. The findings are consistent with the transdiagnostic approach and indicate that a single, as yet unspecified factor may account for the shared variance across cognitive and behavioural maintenance processes

Detecting Sarcasm in Multimodal Social Platforms

Sarcasm is a peculiar form of sentiment expression, where the surface sentiment differs from the implied sentiment. The detection of sarcasm in social media platforms has been applied in the past mainly to textual utterances where lexical indicators (such as interjections and intensifiers), linguistic markers, and contextual information (such as user profiles, or past conversations) were used to detect the sarcastic tone. However, modern social media platforms allow to create multimodal messages where audiovisual content is integrated with the text, making the analysis of a mode in isolation partial. In our work, we first study the relationship between the textual and visual aspects in multimodal posts from three major social media platforms, i.e., Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter, and we run a crowdsourcing task to quantify the extent to which images are perceived as necessary by human annotators. Moreover, we propose two different computational frameworks to detect sarcasm that integrate the textual and visual modalities. The first approach exploits visual semantics trained on an external dataset, and concatenates the semantics features with state-of-the-art textual features. The second method adapts a visual neural network initialized with parameters trained on ImageNet to multimodal sarcastic posts. Results show the positive effect of combining modalities for the detection of sarcasm across platforms and methods.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, final version published in the Proceedings of ACM Multimedia 201

Struggling to survive: orphans and community dependent children in Rwanda

Background: The complexity of the Rwandan situation, charges service providers with the responsibility to engage in reflective practice in order to constantly improve the design of programs and their potential to have a meaningful and sustainable impact at the community level. Therefore, in 1999, the Government of Rwanda, in conjunction with UNICEF, decided that is was necessary to conduct an in-depth analysis into the situation of orphans in the country. The rationale behind this decision was driven by the desire to explore the real situation of orphans and, in particular, the nature of their relationship to the communities in which they live. It is widely accepted that the vulnerability of orphans is likely to increase as a result of the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the Rwandan population. Purpose / Objective: The in-depth analysis into the situation of orphans was designed to explore the social biography of orphans within the wider context of a society balancing peace and reconciliation with the debilitating effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The assessment was concerned with providing information on how this situation could be improved through policy developments, improved co-ordination and the empowerment of local communities. The objectives for the research are as follows: To identify existing and potential forms of community support for orphans; To assess the contemporary definition of 'orphans' in Rwanda (It has been suggested that community perceptions of orphanhood are not static and that a diverse range of children are often referred to as orphans.); To establish and analyze the links between the continuing vulnerability of orphans and the HIV/AIDS pandemic; To outline the policy framework and guidelines for intervention programs in Rwanda and to evaluate these in relation to the existing body of knowledge on the situation of orphans; To evaluate the needs of professionals working with orphans and on HIV/AIDS-related programs; To gather indicators on the nature and scale of the problems facing orphans and, in particular, on community awareness of HIV/AIDS issues -- modes of transmission, methods of prevention, etc.; To reflect upon the types of program responses that have been implemented since 1994 and to provide a summary of the collective experiences of Government and NGOs; To explore the role of the community in supporting orphans. An essential objective of this study will be to assess the role of the community in providing direct and indirect support to orphans. It is also important to assess the attitudes or opinions that manifest themselves as barriers to the improvement of services to orphans

Struggling to survive: orphans and community dependent children in Rwanda

Background: The complexity of the Rwandan situation, charges service providers with the responsibility to engage in reflective practice in order to constantly improve the design of programs and their potential to have a meaningful and sustainable impact at the community level. Therefore, in 1999, the Government of Rwanda, in conjunction with UNICEF, decided that is was necessary to conduct an in-depth analysis into the situation of orphans in the country. The rationale behind this decision was driven by the desire to explore the real situation of orphans and, in particular, the nature of their relationship to the communities in which they live. It is widely accepted that the vulnerability of orphans is likely to increase as a result of the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the Rwandan population. Purpose / Objective: The in-depth analysis into the situation of orphans was designed to explore the social biography of orphans within the wider context of a society balancing peace and reconciliation with the debilitating effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The assessment was concerned with providing information on how this situation could be improved through policy developments, improved co-ordination and the empowerment of local communities. The objectives for the research are as follows: To identify existing and potential forms of community support for orphans; To assess the contemporary definition of 'orphans' in Rwanda (It has been suggested that community perceptions of orphanhood are not static and that a diverse range of children are often referred to as orphans.); To establish and analyze the links between the continuing vulnerability of orphans and the HIV/AIDS pandemic; To outline the policy framework and guidelines for intervention programs in Rwanda and to evaluate these in relation to the existing body of knowledge on the situation of orphans; To evaluate the needs of professionals working with orphans and on HIV/AIDS-related programs; To gather indicators on the nature and scale of the problems facing orphans and, in particular, on community awareness of HIV/AIDS issues -- modes of transmission, methods of prevention, etc.; To reflect upon the types of program responses that have been implemented since 1994 and to provide a summary of the collective experiences of Government and NGOs; To explore the role of the community in supporting orphans. An essential objective of this study will be to assess the role of the community in providing direct and indirect support to orphans. It is also important to assess the attitudes or opinions that manifest themselves as barriers to the improvement of services to orphans