Beyond Language

The authors of this paper invite you to imagine you are holding a kaleidoscope. As you put it against the light, an orderly pattern of pieces of glass creates a design pleasing to the eye; but when you give it a shake, the design changes completely. The colours are still the same but the design has reconfigured itself into a different pattern. In the same way, at strategic points in time, history shakes up the world and our perceptions of it. The evolution of globalisation and the rapid growth of computer technology have created precisely one of those strategic points and the world of education is no less shaken-up than any other aspect of our lives(Thurlow, Lengel and Tomic, 2004). Perhaps there is a need to remind ourselves, every now and then, that the world our students inhabit is very different to the one lived in by previous generations

Trust Capital is an Important Component of Moral Capital

The paper argues that whilst it is important to appreciate the contribution of technical, theoretical, tangible types of knowledge to education it is also important to appreciate that without the intangible aspects of reflection, mentoring, practice based initiatives and opportunities for character building, education will not fulfil its true potentials and will fall short in giving the support that current and future generations are looking for. The authors base their discussion on the work of Kopatsy, the Hungarian economist, who claims that the multiplication of the four components of knowledge, morality, talent and effort show the size of the Intellectual Capital of the individual. It is argued that one’s level of trusting is an important part of one’s morality and as such can influence the Intellectual Capital of the individual and of the community

Formulating MEDLINE queries for article retrieval based on PubMed exemplars

Bibliographic search engines allow endless possibilities for building queries based on specific words or phrases in article titles and abstracts, indexing terms, and other attributes. Unfortunately, deciding which attributes to use in a methodologically sound query is a non-trivial process. In this paper, we describe a system to help with this task, given an example set of PubMed articles to retrieve and a corresponding set of articles to exclude. The system provides the users with unigram and bigram features from the title, abstract, MeSH terms, and MeSH qualifier terms in decreasing order of precision, given a recall threshold. From this information and their knowledge of the domain, users can formulate a query and evaluate its performance. We apply the system to the task of distinguishing original research articles of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of sensorimotor function from fMRI studies of higher cognitive functions

Patterns of gene expression in schistosomes: localization by whole mount in situ hybridization

rom the identification of genes to the characterization of their functions and interactions. Developmental biologists have long used whole mount in situ hybridization (WISH) to determine gene expression patterns, as a vital tool for formulating and testing hypotheses about function. This paper describes the application of WISH to the study of gene expression in larval and adult schistosomes. Fixed worms were permeablized by proteinase K treatment for hybridization with digoxygenin-labelled RNA probes, with binding being detected by alkaline phosphatase-coupled anti-digoxygenin antibodies, and BM Purple substrate. Discrete staining patterns for the transcripts of the molecules Sm29, cathepsin L, antigen 10.3 and chorion were observed in the tegument cell bodies, gut epithelium, oesophageal gland and vitelline lobules, respectively, of adult worms. Transcripts of the molecules SGTP4, GP18-22 and cathepsin L were localized to tegument cell bodies and embryonic gut, respectively, of lung schistosomula. We also showed that Fast Red TR fluorescent substrate can refine the pattern of localization permitting use of confocal microscopy. We believe that method of WISH will find broad application, in synergy with other emerging post-genomic techniques, such as RNA interference, to studies focused at increasing our molecular understanding of schistosomes

Nonlinear photoluminescence spectra from a quantum dot-cavity system: Direct evidence of pump-induced stimulated emission and anharmonic cavity-QED

We investigate the power-dependent photoluminescence spectra from a strongly coupled quantum dot-cavity system using a quantum master equation technique that accounts for incoherent pumping, pure dephasing, and fermion or boson statistics. Analytical spectra at the one-photon correlation level and the numerically exact multi-photon spectra for fermions are presented. We compare to recent experiments on a quantum dot-micropiller cavity system and show that an excellent fit to the data can be obtained by varying only the incoherent pump rates in direct correspondence with the experiments. Our theory and experiments together show a clear and systematic way of studying stimulated-emission induced broadening and anharmonic cavity-QED.Comment: We have reworked our previous arXiv paper and submitted this latest version for peer revie

Reducing Barriers to Ethics in Neuroscience

Ethics is a growing interest for neuroscientists, but rather than signifying a commitment to the protection of human subjects, care of animals, and public understanding to which the professional community is engaged in a fundamental way, interest has been consumed by administrative overhead and the mission creep of institutional ethics reviews. Faculty, trainees, and staff (n = 605) in North America whose work involves brain imaging and brain stimulation completed an online survey about ethics in their research. Using factor analysis and linear regression, we found significant effects for invasiveness of imaging technique, professional position, gender, and local presence of bioethics centers. We propose strategies for improving communication between the neuroscience community and ethics review boards, collaborations between neuroscientists and biomedical ethicists, and ethics training in graduate neuroscience programs to revitalize mutual goals and interests

Amyloid-β(1-42) aggregation initiates its cellular uptake and cytotoxicity

The accumulation of amyloid beta peptide(1-42) (Abeta(1-42)) in extracellular plaques is one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer disease (AD). Several studies have suggested that cellular reuptake of Abeta(1-42) may be a crucial step in its cytotoxicity, but the uptake mechanism is not yet understood. Abeta may be present in an aggregated form prior to cellular uptake. Alternatively, monomeric peptide may enter the endocytic pathway and conditions in the endocytic compartments may induce the aggregation process. Our study aims to answer the question whether aggregate formation is a prerequisite or a consequence of Abeta endocytosis. We visualized aggregate formation of fluorescently labeled Abeta(1-42) and tracked its internalization by human neuroblastoma cells and neurons. beta-Sheet-rich Abeta(1-42) aggregates entered the cells at low nanomolar concentration of Abeta(1-42). In contrast, monomer uptake faced a concentration threshold and occurred only at concentrations and time scales that allowed Abeta(1-42) aggregates to form. By uncoupling membrane binding from internalization, we found that Abeta(1-42) monomers bound rapidly to the plasma membrane and formed aggregates there. These structures were subsequently taken up and accumulated in endocytic vesicles. This process correlated with metabolic inhibition. Our data therefore imply that the formation of beta-sheet-rich aggregates is a prerequisite for Abeta(1-42) uptake and cytotoxicity

Neuromodulation via the Cerebrospinal Fluid: Insights from Recent in Vitro Studies

The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) occupies the brain’s ventricles and subarachnoid space and, together with the interstitial fluid (ISF), forms a continuous fluidic network that bathes all cells of the central nervous system (CNS). As such, the CSF is well positioned to actively distribute neuromodulators to neural circuits in vivo via volume transmission. Recent in vitro experimental work in brain slices and neuronal cultures has shown that human CSF indeed contains neuromodulators that strongly influence neuronal activity. Here we briefly summarize these new findings and discuss their potential relevance to neural circuits in health and disease