The art of living in Dutch public schools

Se suponía que las escuelas públicas holandesas eran neutrales. Pero, ¿cómo puedes ser neutral en una sociedad plural religiososa? En la década de 1980 se tomaron dos decisiones importantes. A todos los niños se les debe enseñar sobre las diferentes religiones del mundo y deben ser “pluriformes activos”. Los programas : VOS / ABB quiere llevar esto un paso más allá con el concepto de “el arte de vivir”. Siguiendo esta visión, hay dos conceptos que se están explorando en este momento: “Contar historias y hacer preguntas” y “Escuela de diálogo”.The Dutch public schools were supposed to be neutral. But how can you be neutral in a religiously divers society? In the 1980’s two important decisions were made. All children should be taught about the different world religions and should be “actively pluriform”. VOS/ABB wants to take this a step further with the concept of “the art of living”. Following this vision, there are two concepts that are being explored at this moment: “Telling stories and Asking questions” and “Dialogue School”

El arte de vivir en las escuelas públicas de Dutch

The Dutch public schools were supposed to be neutral. But how can you be neutral in a religiously divers society? In the 1980’s two important decisions were made. All children should be taught about the different world religions and should be “actively pluriform”. VOS/ABB wants to take this a step further with the concept of “the art of  iving”. Following this vision, there are two concepts that are being explored at this moment: “Telling stories and Asking questions” and “Dialogue School”.Se suponía que las escuelas públicas holandesas eran neutrales. Pero, ¿cómo puedes ser neutral en una sociedad plural religiososa? En la década de 1980 se tomaron dos decisiones importantes. A todos los niños se les debe enseñar sobre las diferentes religiones del mundo y deben ser “pluriformes activos”. Los programas : VOS / ABB quiere llevar esto un paso más allá con el concepto de “el arte de vivir”. Siguiendo esta visión, hay dos conceptos que se están explorando en este momento: “Contar historias y hacer preguntas” y “Escuela de diálogo

Carbon Nanofiber Growth Rates on NiCu Catalysts: Quantitative Coupling of Macroscopic and Nanoscale In Situ Studies

Since recently, gas-cell transmission electron microscopy allows for direct, nanoscale imaging of catalysts during reaction. However, often systems are too perturbed by the imaging conditions to be relevant for real-life catalyzed conversions. We followed carbon nanofiber growth from NiCu-catalyzed methane decomposition under working conditions (550 °C, 1 bar of 5% H2, 45% CH4, and 50% Ar), directly comparing the time-resolved overall carbon growth rates in a reactor (measured gravimetrically) and nanometer-scale carbon growth observations (by electron microscopy). Good quantitative agreement in time-dependent growth rates allowed for validation of the electron microscopy measurements and detailed insight into the contribution of individual catalyst nanoparticles in these inherently heterogeneous catalysts to the overall carbon growth. The smallest particles did not contribute significantly to carbon growth, while larger particles (8-16 nm) exhibited high carbon growth rates but deactivated quickly. Even larger particles grew carbon slowly without significant deactivation. This methodology paves the way to understanding macroscopic rates of catalyzed reactions based on nanoscale in situ observations

Carbon nanofiber growth from methane over carbon-supported NiCu catalysts: Two temperature regimes

An alternative route towards COx-free production of hydrogen is the thermal catalytic decomposition of methane. In addition to hydrogen, valuable carbon nanomaterials can be formed. Carbon nanofiber formation from methane decomposition over carbon supported NiCu catalysts was studied in-situ using a Thermogravimetric analyzer. We especially investigated how the carbon yield is influenced by reaction parameters. Based on experiments with varying temperature (450–600 °C), two distinct temperature regimes were identified. Different kinetic parameters were derived for the two regimes. Activation energies of 86 and 45 kJ/mol, and reaction orders in methane of close to 1 and 1.5, were found in the low and high temperature regimes, respectively. We postulate that at lower temperature the methane dissociation is rate limiting, while at higher temperature the carbon formation plays a more critical role. At low temperatures mostly full fishbone fibers are formed, whereas at higher temperatures mainly hollow fibers are formed. The maximum carbon yield is obtained at the transition between the two regimes, when the carbon supply and carbon nanostructure formation are balanced

BRCA2 polymorphic stop codon K3326X and the risk of breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers

Background: The K3326X variant in BRCA2 (BRCA2*c.9976A>T; p.Lys3326*; rs11571833) has been found to be associated with small increased risks of breast cancer. However, it is not clear to what extent linkage disequilibrium with fully pathogenic mutations might account for this association. There is scant information about the effect of K3326X in other hormone-related cancers. Methods: Using weighted logistic regression, we analyzed data from the large iCOGS study including 76 637 cancer case patients and 83 796 control patients to estimate odds ratios (ORw) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for K3326X variant carriers in relation to breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer risks, with weights defined as probability of not having a pathogenic BRCA2 variant. Using Cox proportional hazards modeling, we also examined the associations of K3326X with breast and ovarian cancer risks among 7183 BRCA1 variant carriers. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: The K3326X variant was associated with breast (ORw = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.17 to 1.40, P = 5.9x10- 6) and invasive ovarian cancer (ORw = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.10 to 1.43, P = 3.8x10-3). These associations were stronger for serous ovarian cancer and for estrogen receptor–negative breast cancer (ORw = 1.46, 95% CI = 1.2 to 1.70, P = 3.4x10-5 and ORw = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.28 to 1.76, P = 4.1x10-5, respectively). For BRCA1 mutation carriers, there was a statistically significant inverse association of the K3326X variant with risk of ovarian cancer (HR = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.22 to 0.84, P = .013) but no association with breast cancer. No association with prostate cancer was observed. Conclusions: Our study provides evidence that the K3326X variant is associated with risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers independent of other pathogenic variants in BRCA2. Further studies are needed to determine the biological mechanism of action responsible for these associations

Polygenic Risk Scores for Prediction of Breast Cancer and Breast Cancer Subtypes

Stratification of women according to their risk of breast cancer based on polygenic risk scores (PRSs) could improve screening and prevention strategies. Our aim was to develop PRSs, optimized for prediction of estrogen receptor (ER)-specific disease, from the largest available genome-wide association dataset and to empirically validate the PRSs in prospective studies. The development dataset comprised 94,075 case subjects and 75,017 control subjects of European ancestry from 69 studies, divided into training and validation sets. Samples were genotyped using genome-wide arrays, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected by stepwise regression or lasso penalized regression. The best performing PRSs were validated in an independent test set comprising 11,428 case subjects and 18,323 control subjects from 10 prospective studies and 190,040 women from UK Biobank (3,215 incident breast cancers). For the best PRSs (313 SNPs), the odds ratio for overall disease per 1 standard deviation in ten prospective studies was 1.61 (95%CI: 1.57-1.65) with area under receiver-operator curve (AUC) = 0.630 (95%CI: 0.628-0.651). The lifetime risk of overall breast cancer in the top centile of the PRSs was 32.6%. Compared with women in the middle quintile, those in the highest 1% of risk had 4.37- and 2.78-fold risks, and those in the lowest 1% of risk had 0.16- and 0.27-fold risks, of developing ER-positive and ER-negative disease, respectively. Goodness-of-fit tests indicated that this PRS was well calibrated and predicts disease risk accurately in the tails of the distribution. This PRS is a powerful and reliable predictor of breast cancer risk that may improve breast cancer prevention programs.NovartisEli Lilly and CompanyAstraZenecaAbbViePfizer UKCelgeneEisaiGenentechMerck Sharp and DohmeRocheCancer Research UKGovernment of CanadaArray BioPharmaGenome CanadaNational Institutes of HealthEuropean CommissionMinistère de l'Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations du QuébecSeventh Framework ProgrammeCanadian Institutes of Health Researc

Genome-wide association study of germline variants and breast cancer-specific mortality

BACKGROUND: We examined the associations between germline variants and breast cancer mortality using a large meta-analysis of women of European ancestry. METHODS: Meta-analyses included summary estimates based on Cox models of twelve datasets using ~10

The art of living in Dutch public schools

Se suponía que las escuelas públicas holandesas eran neutrales. Pero, ¿cómo puedes ser neutral en una sociedad plural religiososa? En la década de 1980 se tomaron dos decisiones importantes. A todos los niños se les debe enseñar sobre las diferentes religiones del mundo y deben ser “pluriformes activos”. Los programas : VOS / ABB quiere llevar esto un paso más allá con el concepto de “el arte de vivir”. Siguiendo esta visión, hay dos conceptos que se están explorando en este momento: “Contar historias y hacer preguntas” y “Escuela de diálogo”.The Dutch public schools were supposed to be neutral. But how can you be neutral in a religiously divers society? In the 1980’s two important decisions were made. All children should be taught about the different world religions and should be “actively pluriform”. VOS/ABB wants to take this a step further with the concept of “the art of living”. Following this vision, there are two concepts that are being explored at this moment: “Telling stories and Asking questions” and “Dialogue School”

Genomic and nongenomic effects of aldosterone in the rat heart: why is spironolactone cardioprotective?

1. Mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonism with spironolactone reduces mortality in heart failure on top of ACE inhibition. To investigate the underlying mechanism, we compared the actions of both aldosterone and spironolactone to those of angiotensin (Ang) II in the rat heart. 2. Hearts of male Wistar rats were perfused according to Langendorff. Ang II and aldosterone increased left ventricular pressure (LVP) by maximally 11+/-4 and 9+/-2%, and decreased coronary flow (CF) by maximally 36+/-7 and 20+/-4%, respectively. Sp