3,538 research outputs found
The 'Prehistory' of Gregory of Tours: An Analysis of Books I-IV of Gregory's Histories
No full textThis thesis is concerned with the structure and agenda of the first four books of Gregory of Tours� Histories. Building on the idea that it was the death of Gregory�s patron, king Sigibert, at the end of Book IV, that stimulated the writing of the Histories, I argue that the agenda of the first four books, the �Prehistory�, relates directly to the events that brought about the Civil War that resulted in Sigibert�s death. This focus has previously gone unrecognised. I suggest that there is a strong structural framework to this section of the Histories, designed to promote the author�s agenda. This confirms that Books I-IV were conceived as one unit, and also heightens the level at which modern scholarship should view Gregory�s literary achievement. This in turn should illuminate the state of Merovingian education and society as a whole.
The message behind Gregory�s carefully structured �Prehistory� is an expansion of the Preface to Book V, in which Gregory pleads with his audience, his contemporary kings, to follow the path of God, like their ancestor, Clovis. This will bring peace and an end to greed and Civil War. This path, continually espoused by the agents of the Lord, His bishops, would lead to a successful reign and a healthy kingdom. Failure to listen to Gregory and his colleagues, would lead only to ruin, a message reiterated throughout the Prehistory, and highlighted in the death of king Sigibert
Therapeutic guidelines: Palliative care. Version 3
No full textExpert Group: Peter Ravenscroft (chairman), Meera Agar, Mark Boughey, Will Cairns, Richard Chye, Gregory Crawford, Karen Glaetzer, Jenny Hynson, Geoff Mitchell, John Scally and Sandy ScholesPalliative Care Expert Grouphttp://trove.nla.gov.au/work/1240180
Language and theology in St Gregory of Nyssa
No full textThis MA thesis focuses on the work of one of the most influential and authoritative theologians of the early Church: St Gregory of Nyssa (†396). My topic of research consists in the relationship between language and theology, as it shaped in Gregory’s polemical works against the radical Arians, in particular against Eunomius of Cyzicus (†395).The first chapter tackles the historical side of the controversy and provides the chronology of the dogmatic disputes on the dogma of Trinity following the Council of Nicaea (325). The second chapters illustrate the conflict being at stake between two theological methodologies: Gregory's grammar of thought is scriptural, whereas Eunomius' theology is much more philosophical and inflexible in its terms. Eunomius claimed that one can know God by his essence in the concept of 'ingenerate'. On the contrary, for Gregory of Nyssa, God 'is above all names'. For him, language and sexuality are realitites of the post-lapsarian world, which made human mind opaque and the exercise of interpretation indispensable. Gregory included also the episode of Babel in the genealogy of our linguistic finitude. The third and the fourth chapters focus on the relationship between language and theological knowledge in St Gregory's third book Contra Eunomium. All words used in human language - including Eunomius' concept of agennetos – have complementary meanings, since no one can describe the essence of an object or of any part of reality. On this basis, Gregory develops his 'theory of relativity' of names, which can never befit God's majesty and glory. In the last chapter, under the heading 'Pragmatics of Language', I investigate the immediate consequences of Gregory's 'theory of relativity'. Speech is treated as a sphere, which resembles the creative power of the hypostatic Word. Therefore, rhetoric becomes the perfect tool for his pastoral concern in doing theology. By choosing rhetoric, Gregory is free to start his theological argument from anywhere, since theology is a discourse about God's redemptive economy. In conclusion, I try to emphasise the actuality of Gregory's theory of names and its importance for the contemporary debates in the Church on thorny issues as Trinitarian theology or gender. I also evaluate Gregory of Nyssa's self-consistency in positive terms
Mitchell County Club Show, Colorado City, Texas
No full textWhen 40 farm club boys of Mitchell County brought their baby beeves to the Fort Worth market their cattle scored further honors by topping the beef prices for the day. Shown in the picture is, left to right, top row, W. B. Babinson, A. B. Hackfelt, R. E. Gregory, Clay Smith Senior, Tom Burrus and F. C. Shillingburg. Bottom row, left to right, C. V. Cox , Ed F. Brown, Ed Strain, Jack Helton, and G. W. Plaster.https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/specialcollections_startelegram1940s/2123/thumbnail.jp
Impact of chemotherapy on the release and function of extracellular vesicles in the pre-pubertal testis
No full textINTRODUCTION:
Childhood cancer affects nearly 2,000 children in the UK each year and encompasses a range of pathologies. The incidence of childhood cancer is rising, and the peak age of onset occurs between 0 - 4 years old. Despite more children being diagnosed with cancer year after year, advances in diagnostics and therapeutics mean five-year survivorship is over 80% and rising. This means that approximately 1 in 500 young adults in the UK today is a survivor of childhood cancer.
Rising incidence coupled with increasing survivorship means there is a growing population of childhood cancer survivors with unmet health needs secondary to the unwanted off-target effects of cancer treatment. One such treatment modality is chemotherapy, particularly cisplatin, which is used in a range of childhood and adult cancers.
One known impact of cisplatin treatment in boys is reduced fertility, as it damages the spermatogonial stem cell (SSC) niche within the testis. This niche is essential for future fertility as these SSCs will differentiate into sperm following the onset of puberty. In post-pubertal males, this can be somewhat mitigated by the use of sperm cryopreservation for future fertility treatment. However, in pre-pubertal males, there are currently no viable fertility preservation options. As such, there is a need to reduce the impact of cisplatin-mediated damage within the testis. One unexplored area is how cisplatin alters intercellular communication in the testis: specifically, how it impacts the release of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and what the impact of these EVs have on other cell populations in the testis and how this may impact fertility.
EVs are small lipid-bound structures released by all cells within the body and are a method of cell-to-cell communication. They mediate their effects on recipient cells through the delivery of cargoes and interaction with cell surface receptor ligands. The cargoes of EVs are numerous and include RNA, DNA, lipids, proteins, metabolites, and organelles. Cargo loading within EVs is a dynamic process and is influenced by the state of the parent cell with cargoes capable of being loaded at a greater magnitude than identified free within the cell of origin, suggestive of a highly regulated process. Little is known about the release of EVs within the testis, and what is known is focused on the adult testis.
I hypothesise that cisplatin alters EVs in the testis, and these EVs negatively impact the remaining SSCs and their supporting somatic Sertoli cells.
METHODS:
Human SSCs and Sertoli cells are challenging to culture. Mouse cell lines were used as surrogates including GC1-spg cells (mouse type B spermatogonia) and TM4 cells (mouse pre-pubertal Sertoli). Cells were cultured in EV-depleted cell culture media and treated with cisplatin at a range of doses. The EVs released by these cells were then isolated from cell culture media using size exclusion chromatography.
EV characterisation from GC1-spg and TM4 cells was undertaken, comparing those released by cisplatin-treated cells and controls. Change in EV number was quantified using nanoparticle tracking analysis and impact on treatment-naïve recipient cells was assessed using in vivo cell imaging and detection of cleaved caspase-3 to identify apoptotic cells. EV uptake and movement within target cells were examined using super-resolution microscopy. Individual EVs were assessed for common EV surface markers CD9, CD63 and CD81 using dSTORM imaging and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) while bulk assessment of EVs for another common EV marker, TSG-101, was undertaken using Western blotting.
Assessment of EV release and impact of cisplatin-induced EVs on tissues were assessed using human fetal testis tissues as they represent a surrogate model for human pre-pubertal testis. Tissues were obtained from fetuses between 13 and 18 weeks gestation and cultured using a hanging drop culture system established in our laboratory previously.
Incubation of cisplatin-derived and control EVs were undertaken for eight days and immunofluorescence was undertaken to quantify Sertoli cell number and the number of apoptotic cells. EV release from human fetal testis tissues in response to cisplatin treatment was also undertaken, and the number of EVs released from these tissues was characterised.
Analysis of the protein cargoes of TM4 EVs was undertaken using mass spectrometry to compare EVs released by cells treated with cisplatin and control EVs. A focused assessment of pathways involved in apoptosis and reproduction was undertaken.
RESULTS:
EV size assessed using NTA fell within the 50-250 nm range expected to be classified as small EVs and confirmed using TEM EV imaging for both GC1 and TM4 cells. dSTORM imaging of single EVs for CD9, CD63 and CD81 demonstrated EVs shared some of these markers, but not all EVs were positive for these tetraspanins. Bulk assessment of EVs for TSG-101 identified both GC1 and TM4 EVs expressed this marker.
Mouse Type-B spermatogonia (GC1) and Sertoli (TM4) cells treated with cisplatin release approximately twice as many EVs as control cells, (GC1, 7.2x108 / mL vs 16.4x108 / mL, p=0.0002; TM4, 2.8x108 / mL vs 6.5x108 / mL, p=0.0001). EVs released by cisplatin-treated cells were taken up at a higher rate by treatment-naïve cells, compared to control EVs, when assessed using the IncucyteZOOM system, with GC1 cisplatin-derived EVs being taken up 5.2 x compared to control EVs, p=0.007, and TM4 cisplatin-derived EVs being taken up 4.9 x compared to control EVs, p=0.006. However, this difference was not observed when using a different methodology to quantify individual EVs within cells.
Once internalised, tracking individual EV movements within the cell demonstrated peri-nuclear localisation in both TM4 and GC1 cells. We identified EVs released by cisplatin-treated TM4 cells induced a higher rate (2.4 x increase) of apoptosis in treatment-naïve TM4 cells as compared to control EVs, p=0.007. Increasing the concentration of cisplatin-derived TM4 EVs did not lead to a dose-response effect but did continue to show a significant increase in apoptotic cells.
When cisplatin-derived EVs from TM4 cells were incubated with treatment-naïve GC1 cells, they resulted in lower rates of apoptosis vs control EVs (0.6x the rate of apoptosis, p
Human fetal testis tissues treated with cisplatin did release EVs. However, there was no significant difference in the number of EVs released between cisplatin-treated and control tissue. TM4 cisplatin-derived EVs, which induced apoptosis in treatment naïve TM4 cells, were incubated with human fetal testis tissues. However, immunofluorescence did not reveal any significant increase in apoptosis or reduction in Sertoli cell number compared to tissues incubated with control EVs
Battling to a draw: Defense expert rebuttal can neutralize prosecution fingerprint evidence
No full textThe present study examined whether a defense rebuttal expert can effectively educate jurors on the risk that the prosecution's fingerprint expert made an error. Using a sample of 1716 jury-eligible adults, we examined the impact of three types of rebuttal testimony in a mock trial: (a) a methodological rebuttal explaining the general risk of error in the fingerprint-comparison process; (b) a new-evidence rebuttal concluding the latent fingerprint recovered in this case was not suitable for use in a comparison; and (c) a new-evidence rebuttal excluding the defendant as the source of the latent fingerprint. All three rebuttals significantly altered perceptions of the prosecution's fingerprint evidence, but new-evidence rebuttals proved most effective. The effectiveness of the rebuttals depended, however, on whether jurors were more concerned about false acquittals or false convictions.This article is published as Mitchell, Gregory, and Brandon L. Garrett. "Battling to a draw: Defense expert rebuttal can neutralize prosecution fingerprint evidence." Applied Cognitive Psychology (2021). Posted with permission of CSAFE.All experimental materials and data connected with this research are publicly available at https://osf.io/hxr3g/?view_only=16e3c8160b6a4a63a56df8e241c8b5d9.</p
Grounded Theory and Autopoietic Social Systems: Are They Methodologically Compatible?
No full textThe paper offers a secondary analysis from a grounded theory doctoral study that reconsiders its “grounded systemic design” (Mitchell, 2005, 2007). While theorists across multiple disciplines fiercely debate the ontological implications of Niklas Luhmann’s autopoietic systems theory (Deflem 1998; Graber and Teubner 1998; King and Thornhill 2003; Mingers 2002; Neves 2001; O’Byrne 2003; Verschraegen 2002, for example), few investigators have yet to adopt his core constructs empirically (see Gregory, Gibson and Robinson 2005 for an exception). Glaser’s (1992, 2005) repeated concerns for grounded theorists to elucidate a “theoretical code” has provided an additional entry point into this project of integrating grounded theory with Luhmann’s abstract conceptual thinking about how global society operates. The author argues that this integration of methodology and systems thinking provides an evolution of grounded theory – rather than its ongoing “erosion” as Greckhamer and Koro-Ljungberg (2005) have feared – and a transportable set of methodological and analytical constructs is presented as a basis for further grounded study
sj-pdf-1-pmj-10.1177_02692163231186177 – Supplemental material for An evidence-base for the implementation of hospital-based palliative care programs in routine cancer practice: A systematic review
No full textSupplemental material, sj-pdf-1-pmj-10.1177_02692163231186177 for An evidence-base for the implementation of hospital-based palliative care programs in routine cancer practice: A systematic review by Farwa Rizvi, Helen Elizabeth Wilding, Nicole M Rankin, Roslyn Le Gautier, Lorna Gurren, Vijaya Sundararajan, Kylee Bellingham, Joyce Chua, Gregory B Crawford, Anna K Nowak, Brian Le, Geoff Mitchell, Sue-Anne McLachlan, Tanara Vieira Sousa, Robyn Hudson, Maarten IJzerman, Anna Collins and Jennifer Philip in Palliative Medicine</p
sj-pdf-2-pmj-10.1177_02692163231186177 – Supplemental material for An evidence-base for the implementation of hospital-based palliative care programs in routine cancer practice: A systematic review
No full textSupplemental material, sj-pdf-2-pmj-10.1177_02692163231186177 for An evidence-base for the implementation of hospital-based palliative care programs in routine cancer practice: A systematic review by Farwa Rizvi, Helen Elizabeth Wilding, Nicole M Rankin, Roslyn Le Gautier, Lorna Gurren, Vijaya Sundararajan, Kylee Bellingham, Joyce Chua, Gregory B Crawford, Anna K Nowak, Brian Le, Geoff Mitchell, Sue-Anne McLachlan, Tanara Vieira Sousa, Robyn Hudson, Maarten IJzerman, Anna Collins and Jennifer Philip in Palliative Medicine</p
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