Stereotypes and valuations of Peruvian social groups in a sample of wealthy people from Lima = Estereotipos y valoración de grupos sociales peruanos en una muestra de personas de sectores sociales privilegiados de Lima

Peruvian society is characterized by its ethnical, cultural and socioeconomic diversity, which leads to complex intergroup relations. To contribute to understanding this phenomenon, the present study aims to examine the stereotypical representations and prejudice towards different Peruvian social groups by high-socioeconomic-status group members from Lima. The research used a mixed-method design for complementing two different approaches: a quantitative one, where questionnaires were administered to a sample of 90 participants; and a qualitative one, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants. The results showed that the participants identified high- and low-status groups in the Peruvian society, and hold ambivalent stereotypical representations towards them. The participants identified and valued White Peruvians as high-status group members, who are competent and developed but also corrupt. On the other hand, they identified and valued Amazonian and African Peruvians to a lesser extent, who are considered as low-status, undeveloped but joyful groups. The study emphasizes the importance of social class attributes used in the formation of stereotypical representations and prejudice towards different Peruvian social groups

Impacto de la información disonante y consistente sobre la campaña marca Perú en la identidad nacional y el bienestar social.

El impacto de la información disonante y consistente sobre la campaña de la Marca País en la identidad nacional y el bienestar social es estudiado mediante un diseño experimental mixto a partir de una muestra de estudiantes de una universidad de Lima Metropolitana (N = 102). Los resultados muestran que la exposición a información negativa sobre un comercial de tipo Marca País ejerce una influencia negativa sobre los componentes de la identidad nacional, el bienestar social y las emociones vinculadas; mientras que la información positiva produce el efecto inverso. Estos resultados ponen en evidencia la importancia que tiene el manejo adecuado y responsable de los contenidos asociados a las campañas que buscan exaltar el endogrupo nacional, así como de los discursos críticos que las acompañan.The impact of dissonant and consonant information about the national brand campaign on national identity and social welfare is studied using a mixed experimental design from a sample of students from a university of Lima (N = 102). The results show that exposure to negative information about a commercial related to the National Brand exert a negative influence on the components of national identity, social wellbeing and related emotions; while positive information produces the inverse. These results highlight the importance of proper and responsible handling for the content associated with campaigns that seek to exalt the national ingroup and critical discourses that accompany them.Tesi

Weiterhin Ungleichheiten bei der Kita-Nutzung: größter ungedeckter Bedarf in grundsätzlich benachteiligten Familien

Bildungsungleichheiten existieren in vielen Bereichen. Sie beginnen bereits bei der frühkindlichen Bildung und Betreuung und sind auch noch 10 Jahre nach Einführung des Rechtsanspruchs auf einen Platz in einer Kindertagesbetreuung (KiTa) für Kinder ab dem zweiten Lebensjahr zu messen. Dieser Beitrag zeigt in neuen Analysen, dass nach wie vor gerade Kinder aus grundsätzlich benachteiligten Familien seltener eine KiTa besuchen, obschon sie besonders von einem frühen KiTa-Besuch profitieren würden. Dies ist umso bemerkenswerter, als dass die Eltern dieser Kinder sich durchaus einen KiTa-Platz für ihre Kinder wünschen, dieser Bedarf aber seltener als in anderen Familien gedeckt wird. Daraus folgt ein dringender Handlungsbedarf, wenn diese frühen Bildungsungleichheiten abgebaut werden sollen

Dietary calcium concentration and cereals differentially affect mineral balance and tight junction proteins expression in jejunum of weaned pigs

Ca plays an essential role in bone development; however, little is known about its effect on intestinal gene expression in juvenile animals. In the present study, thirty-two weaned pigs (9·5 (sem 0·11) kg) were assigned to four diets that differed in Ca concentration (adequate v. high) and cereal composition (wheat–barley v. maize) to assess the jejunal and colonic gene expression of nutrient transporters, tight junction proteins, cytokines and pathogen-associated molecular patterns, nutrient digestibility, Ca balance and serum acute-phase response. To estimate the impact of mucosal bacteria on colonic gene expression, Spearman's correlations between colonic gene expression and bacterial abundance were computed. Faecal Ca excretion indicated that more Ca was available along the intestinal tract of the pigs fed high Ca diets as compared to the pigs fed adequate Ca diets (P0·35; P< 0·05) indicated an association between operational taxonomic units assigned to the phyla Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Proteobacteria and bacterial metabolites and mucosal gene expression in the colon. The present results indicate that high Ca diets have the potential to modify the jejunal and colonic mucosal gene expression response which, in turn, interacts with the composition of the basal diet and mucosa-associated bacteria in weaned pigs

The Chloroplast RNA Binding Protein CP31A Has a Preference for mRNAs Encoding the Subunits of the Chloroplast NAD(P)H Dehydrogenase Complex and Is Required for Their Accumulation

Chloroplast RNA processing requires a large number of nuclear-encoded RNA binding proteins (RBPs) that are imported post-translationally into the organelle. Most of these RBPs are highly specific for one or few target RNAs. By contrast, members of the chloroplast ribonucleoprotein family (cpRNPs) have a wider RNA target range. We here present a quantitative analysis of RNA targets of the cpRNP CP31A using digestion-optimized RNA co-immunoprecipitation with deep sequencing (DO-RIP-seq). This identifies the mRNAs coding for subunits of the chloroplast NAD(P)H dehydrogenase (NDH) complex as main targets for CP31A. We demonstrate using whole-genome gene expression analysis and targeted RNA gel blot hybridization that the ndh mRNAs are all down-regulated in cp31a mutants. This diminishes the activity of the NDH complex. Our findings demonstrate how a chloroplast RNA binding protein can combine functionally related RNAs into one post-transcriptional operon.Peer Reviewe

Rituximab Maintenance for the Treatment of Patients With Follicular Lymphoma: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Trials

In a previous systematic review and meta-analysis of five randomized controlled trials comparing rituximab maintenance with no maintenance (observation or rituximab at progression) for patients with follicular lymphoma, we reported that rituximab maintenance treatment improved the overall survival of patients. In this study, we did a similar search of the electronic databases updated through December 31, 2010, and included nine trials and 2586 follicular lymphoma patients. Hazard ratios (HRs) for time-to-event data were estimated and pooled using the inverse variance method. Risk ratios for dichotomous data were pooled using a fixed effect model. Patients treated with rituximab maintenance had improved overall survival (pooled HR of death = 0.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.62 to 0.92) compared with patients in the no maintenance group. Patients with refractory or relapsed (ie, previously treated) follicular lymphoma treated with rituximab maintenance had improved overall survival (pooled HR of death = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.57 to 0.91), whereas previously untreated patients had no survival benefit (pooled HR of death = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.60 to 1.25). The rate of infection-related adverse events was higher in the rituximab maintenance group (pooled risk ratio = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.40 to 2.00). These results further support the use of rituximab maintenance in the standard of care for refractory or relapsed follicular lymphom

SFPQ and Tau: critical factors contributing to rapid progression of Alzheimer's disease

Dysfunctional RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) have been implicated in several neurodegenerative disorders. Recently, this paradigm of RBPs has been extended to pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we identified disease subtype specific variations in the RNA-binding proteome (RBPome) of sporadic AD (spAD), rapidly progressive AD (rpAD), and sporadic Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (sCJD), as well as control cases using RNA pull-down assay in combination with proteomics. We show that one of these identified proteins, splicing factor proline and glutamine rich (SFPQ), is downregulated in the post-mortem brains of rapidly progressive AD patients, sCJD patients and 3xTg mice brain at terminal stage of the disease. In contrast, the expression of SFPQ was elevated at early stage of the disease in the 3xTg mice, and in vitro after oxidative stress stimuli. Strikingly, in rpAD patients' brains SFPQ showed a significant dislocation from the nucleus and cytoplasmic colocalization with TIA-1. Furthermore, in rpAD brain lesions, SFPQ and p-tau showed extranuclear colocalization. Of note, association between SFPQ and tau-oligomers in rpAD brains suggests a possible role of SFPQ in oligomerization and subsequent misfolding of tau protein. In line with the findings from the human brain, our in vitro study showed that SFPQ is recruited into TIA-1-positive stress granules (SGs) after oxidative stress induction, and colocalizes with tau/p-tau in these granules, providing a possible mechanism of SFPQ dislocation through pathological SGs. Furthermore, the expression of human tau in vitro induced significant downregulation of SFPQ, suggesting a causal role of tau in the downregulation of SFPQ. The findings from the current study indicate that the dysregulation and dislocation of SFPQ, the subsequent DNA-related anomalies and aberrant dynamics of SGs in association with pathological tau represents a critical pathway which contributes to rapid progression of AD

Small changes in bone structure of female a7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor knockout mice

BACKGROUND: Recently, analysis of bone from knockout mice identified muscarinic acetylcholine receptor subtype M3 (mAChR M3) and nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subunit a2 as positive regulator of bone mass accrual whereas of male mice deficient for a7-nAChR (a7KO) did not reveal impact in regulation of bone remodeling. Since female sex hormones are involved in fair coordination of osteoblast bone formation and osteoclast bone degradation we assigned the current study to analyze bone strength, composition and microarchitecture of female a7KO compared to their corresponding wild-type mice (a7WT). METHODS: Vertebrae and long bones of female 16-week-old a7KO (n = 10) and a7WT (n = 8) were extracted and analyzed by means of histological, radiological, biomechanical, cell- and molecular methods as well as time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). RESULTS: Bone of female a7KO revealed a significant increase in bending stiffness (p<0.05) and cortical thickness (p<0.05) compared to a7WT, whereas gene expression of osteoclast marker cathepsin K was declined. ToF-SIMS analysis detected a decrease in trabecular calcium content and an increase in C4H6N+ (p<0.05) and C4H8N+ (p<0.001) collagen fragments whereas a loss of osteoid was found by means of TEM. CONCLUSIONS: Our results on female a7KO bone identified differences in bone strength and composition. In addition, we could demonstrate that a7-nAChRs are involved in regulation of bone remodelling. In contrast to mAChR M3 and nAChR subunit a2 the a7-nAChR favours reduction of bone strength thereby showing similar effects as a7ß2-nAChR in male mice. nAChR are able to form heteropentameric receptors containing a- and ß-subunits as well as the subunits a7 can be arranged as homopentameric cation channel. The different effects of homopentameric and heteropentameric a7-nAChR on bone need to be analysed in future studies as well as gender effects of cholinergic receptors on bone homeostasis

Implementation of Dual-Source RF Excitation in 3 T MR-Scanners Allows for Nearly Identical ADC Values Compared to 1.5 T MR Scanners in the Abdomen

Background: To retrospectively and prospectively compare abdominal apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values obtained within in a 1.5 T system and 3 T systems with and without dual-source parallel RF excitation techniques. Methodology/Principal Findings: After IRB approval, diffusion-weighted (DW) images of the abdomen were obtained on three different MR systems (1.5 T, a first generation 3 T, and a second generation 3 T which incorporates dual-source parallel RF excitation) on 150 patients retrospectively and 19 volunteers (57 examinations total) prospectively. Seven regions of interest (ROI) were throughout the abdomen were selected to measure the ADC. Statistical analysis included independent two-sided t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests and correlation analysis. In the DW images of the abdomen, mean ADC values were nearly identical with nonsignificant differences when comparing the 1.5 T and second generation 3 T systems in all seven anatomical regions in the patient population and six of the seven in the volunteer population (p.0.05 in all distributions). The strength of correlation measured in the volunteer population between the two scanners in the kidneys ranged from r = 0.64–0.88 and in the remaining regions (besides the spleen), r.0.85. In the patient population the first generation 3 T scanner had different mean ADC values with significant differences (p,0.05) compared to the other two scanners in each of the seven distributions. In the volunteer population, the kidneys shared similar ADC mean values in comparison to the other two scanners with nonsignificant differences