Analysis and characterisation of human chorionic gonadotropin glycoforms in pregnancy and trophoblastic disorders

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a heterogeneous glycoprotein hormone with a varying degree of carbohydrate moieties. Its glycosylation arrangements are increasingly recognized as a common and important element of disease pathophysiology and are associated with many disorders including gestational trophoblastic diseases (GTDs). This study aimed to optimise methodologies to permit the characterisation of hCG N-linked glycans from urine samples collected throughout normal pregnancy and GTD using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). hCG isolated from pooled pregnancy urine was used in this study. All the stages in pregnancy urine preparation were optimised; including conditions for hCG immunopurification, deglycosylation, solid-phase extraction of resulting glycan:protein mixture and application of N-glycans for MALDI-TOF MS analysis. GlycoQuest software was used to characterise specific N-glycans configurations from the resulting MALDI-TOF MS spectra. This methodology was then applied to urine samples collected throughout normal singleton pregnancy and urine collected from patients with choriocarcinoma. The relative abundance of glycans of different molecular weights and specific types (i.e. fucosylated, sialylated, bisected and sulphated) at each stage of normal pregnancy and in GTD were compared. Each stage of optimisation increased the number of N-glycans detected such that we were ultimately able to detect 50 different glycans in normal pregnancy urine. In these samples, advancing gestation was associated with an increase in the proportion of branched N-glycans and multi-fucosylated N-glycans. Also, a significant increase in the proportion of high molecular weight glycans (>2100 Da) between choriocarcinoma and first-trimester normal pregnancy was observed. Further striking differences in the repertoire of glycan expression were also seen in choriocarcinoma urine compared with first-trimester pregnancy urine. The proportion of multi-fucosylated and tri-and tetra antennal, glycans was increased 3 and 2 fold respectively. In addition, 14 unique N-linked glycan structures were identified in choriocarcinoma samples. These included hyperfucosylated (7 fucose groups) and hypersialylated (4 sialic acid groups) glycans. A feature of this unique set of glycans was that they contained a combination of multiple branching, fucosylation, sialylation, sulphation and glycans with Lewis X terminal epitopes. In summary, we have successfully developed a methodology for the detection of a diverse range of N-linked glycans from hCG. These results suggest that this approach can be successfully used for the detection of novel glyco-biomarkers for the early detection of choriocarcinoma and may be applied to other GTDs associated with a dysregulation of hCG expression

C-FAR - Carbon footprinting of archaeological research: Data collection methodology and interim report

Carbon Footprinting of Archaeology Research (C-FAR) focused on developing a method of determining the carbon footprint of university-led archaeological training expeditions.British Academ

Konzeptualisierung der Emotionen auf der Mikrotextebene (am Beispiel von Sprichwörtern mit der Komponente Zorn)

In this paper I would like to present the emotionality and emotions in German proverbs on the example of proverbs with the component anger. I am focused not on theoretical considerations about the proverb but on the analysis of the collected language material. The component anger is one of the highly productive proverbial components, it has been found in over four hundred units. It should be noted that most of the proverbs feature the negative effects of this emotion. The analysis of the material allowed for the extraction of nine main groups which show how anger is perceived and described in German proverbs. For example: anger blinds people, makes them lose self-control and brings about serious consequences. Although currently proverbs are often negatively labelled as simple wisdom of ordinary people, I think that they have not entirely lost their social and educational content

Creativity and intentionality: a philosophical attempt at reconstructing a creative process

The paper presents a philosophical proposition of elucidating creativity by means of distinguishing the category of intentionality. The intentional dimension of cognitive content encompasses predispositions for constructing sign systems. Such an intellectual modification of sign systems forms the foundation of dynamic creative acts. However, creative processes are not restricted to the sphere of intellectual operations, but also remain under the influence of object categories. For this reason, the results of creative processes must allow for the potential determinants of sensual matter. A transition between the subjective sphere of possibility and the objective sphere of potency indicates the dynamism of the process. A crucial component of the emergence of intentional relations is formulating the criterion of a creative process. It determines the rules of constructing sign systems, the forms of acceptable transformations as well as the possible modes of allowing for the results of this process

Alien Registration- Gondek, Ludwick (Wilton, Franklin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/19486/thumbnail.jp

A.I.R. Gallery: Enterprising Machines

Jessica Gondek\u27s recent drawings consider the relationship between human beings and machines - a theme she has explored since the early days of her career. In the complex world Gondek sets before her viewers, machines are not simply friend or foe, but tools contributing to the quality of human life while at the same time challenging and even threatening human beings\u27 central position in the universe. Today, this problematic relationship remains as important for understanding the modern human condition as it was a century ago when such concerns were taken up by Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Hoch, Francis Picabia and Man Ray. In fact, Gondek acknowledges the influence of these early twentieth-century artists, and just as they frequently incorporated found objects - two­dimensional images of machines or machine parts - in their collages and photomontages, she, too, has turned to popular culture for her sources. In the works on view in the current exhibition, her source images also date from the beginning of the last century. At one level her incorporation of materials from this period reinforces her connections to the artists whose examples have influenced her, yet, at the same time, her choices carry with them the patina of history and cannot escape a certain nostalgia owing to the relatively uncomplicated nature of the machines parts - for example, simple gear wheels and hand­operated cranks -- she has chosen to reproduce. This historical gulf is intensified by her manipulation of the source objects via computer-aided design and the digital printer; a process made possible by machines far more sophisticated than those elements depicted in the drawings themselves. Finishing the works with hand additions in charcoal and pastel, Gondek employs a range of artistic tools, commenting on the artist as intermediary between tradition and innovation

Jewish Women’s Transracial Epistemological Networks: Representations of Black Women in the African Diaspora, 1930-1980

This dissertation investigates how Jewish women social scientists relationally established their gendered-racialized subjectivities and theories about race-gender-sexuality-class through their portrayals of black women’s sexuality and family structures in the African Diaspora: the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Swaziland, and the U.K. The central women in this study: Ellen Hellmann, Ruth Landes, Hilda Kuper, and Ruth Glass, were part of the same “political generation,” born in 1908-1912, coming of age when Jews of European descent experienced an ambivalent and conditional assimilation into whiteness, a form of internal colonization. I demonstrate how each woman’s familial origin point in Europe, parental class and political orientations, were important factors influencing her later personal/professional networks and social science theorizing about women of color. However, other important factors included the national racial context, the political affiliations of her partners, her marital status and her transracial fieldwork experiences. One of the main problems my work addresses is how the internal colonization process in differing nations within the Jewish diaspora differently affected and positioned Jewish social scientists from divergent class and political affiliations. Gendering Aamir Mufti’s primarily male-oriented argument, I demonstrate how Jewish internal divergences serve as an example that highlights the lack of uniformity within any “identity” group, and the ways that minority groups, like Jews, use measures of “abnormal” gender and sexuality, to create internal exiled minorities in order to try to assimilate into the majority colonizing culture. My dissertation addresses three problems within previous studies of Jewish social scientists by creating a gendered analysis of the history of Jews in social science, an analysis of Jewish subjectivity within histories of women (who were Jewish) in social science, and a critique of the either-or assumption that Jewishness necessarily equated with a “radical” anti-racist approach or a “colonizing” stance toward black communities. The data collection followed a mixed methods approach, incorporating archival research, ethnographic object analysis, site visits in Brazil and South Africa, consultations with library, archive and museum professionals, and interviews with scholars connected to the core women in the study