11 research outputs found
Polarized Fluorescence of NSalicylideneaniline Derivatives Formed by In Situ Exchange from NBenzylideneaniline Side Groups in Photoaligned Liquid Crystalline Copolymer Films
No full textPolarized
fluorescence of oriented N-salicylideneaniline
(SA) derivatives is explored based on the thermally stimulated photoinduced
molecular reorientation of liquid crystalline (LC) copolymethacrylate
with N-benzylideneaniline derivative (NBA2) and benzoic
acid (BA) side groups. The LC copolymer films show significant cooperative
molecular reorientation of the NBA2 and BA side groups (D > 0.7). Subsequent thermal hydrolysis of the NBA2 side groups
yields
free phenylamine moieties. These moieties can form oriented SA derivatives
via in situ condensation with 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde
derivatives. The excited-state intermolecular proton transfer of the
oriented SA molecules induces polarized fluorescence at 510–548
nm with a polarization ratio up to 6.2. Direct in situ exchange from the oriented NBA2 to SA derivatives achieves polarized
fluorescence similar to that of the SA side groups
Performance benchmarking of Australian business regulation: occupational health and safety
No full textWhile OHS regulation plays an important role in promoting safe work practices, excessive regulation can have adverse consequences for productivity and costs for consumers, according to the Commission. This report identifies significant differences in regulation and in the actions of regulators across the jurisdictions.
The report aims to provide governments and the Workplace Relations Ministers Council with further opportunities to reduce the regulatory burden on business through greater harmonisation of the next layers of regulation, such as national codes and guidance material for business. The report also highlights many ways to improve the practices of government regulators across Australia.
Areas where the report identified significant differences in 2008-09, include:
• record keeping for risk management, training, incidents and a range of particular hazards
• worker consultation, participation and representation, including union involvement in OHS consultations and investigations of possible OHS breaches
• dealing with a range of workplaces hazards including asbestos, \u27psychosocial hazards\u27, prevention of falls, manual handling and licences for high risk work
• the resourcing, availability of enforcement tools and key strategies of the regulators
Review to M. Fiore, AngloItalian Relations in the Middle East, 19221940, London, Ashgate, 2010.
No full textHabilidades sociais e bullying: caracterização de dois contextos
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia, Florianópolis, 2014.A necessidade de vinculações interpessoais é um componente essencial da natureza humana e dificuldades na interação social estão comumente atrelados às psicopatologias. Deste modo, identificar uma situação de interação e comportar-se de modo adequado, isto é, possuir habilidades sociais, trata-se de um fator determinante para a qualidade de vida. Entretanto, uma complexa problemática voltada às interações sociais no contexto escolar vem cada vez mais ganhando espaço na mídia: o bullying. Estudos tem demonstrado que pessoas envolvidas em situações de bullying apresentam déficits em alguma de suas habilidades sociais, no entanto, quais seriam especificamente as habilidades envolvidas neste processo ainda não são claras. Partindo daí, a presente pesquisa teve como objetivo principal investigar as relações entre habilidades sociais e bullying junto a estudantes de dois contextos escolares diferentes. Participaram do estudo 98 estudantes com idades entre 8 e 14 anos, sendo 23 deles provenientes de uma escola de caráter privado e as outras 75 de uma escola de caráter público. Para tanto, o estudo recorreu à ótica do próprio indivíduo, a partir de instrumentos de autopercepção (IMHSC-Del Prette e SCAN-Bullying 2005), no sentido de que os resultados auxiliem na compreensão da caracterização e comparação dos fenômenos de modo tanto coletivo, como individual. Além disso, faz-se válido salientar que o estudo também se preocupou em identificar se as estratégias comportamentais adotadas pelo indivíduo são semelhantes ou divergentes nos dois contextos pesquisados (uma escola pequena com número de reduzido de estudantes e uma escola numerosa, com dependências físicas bastante amplas), haja vista que a literatura especializada no assunto vem discorrendo acerca da influência entre o tamanho da escola e da turma no estabelecimento e manutenção de situações de bullying. Por meio de análises estatísticas de qui-quadrado constatou-se que, entre os principais resultados da pesquisa, há maior envolvimento em situações de bullying por parte das crianças que estudam na escola cujo contexto consiste em turmas grandes e amplo espaço físico. Porém, de modo geral, os resultados foram equivalentes, isto é, estudantes de ambas as escolas demonstraram responder de modo parecido às situações que foram apresentadas. A reação habilidosa que os estudantes de ambas as escolas demonstraram melhor desempenho foi a de  autocontrole , contudo, as reações de  assertividade de enfrentamento e de  empatia e civilidade (sejam elas habilidosas ou não habilidosas) foram as que predominantemente apresentaram estar atreladas às variáveis do bullying. Por fim, mais do que constatar a relação entre habilidades sociais e bullying, destaca-se que algumas delas (principalmente a de  assertividade de enfrentamento ) demonstram-se mais presentes do que outras no auxílio em estratégias de enfrentamento, sendo válido assinalar a importância de programas de intervenção enfocando o treinamento de tais habilidades como formas de prevenção ao bullying.Abstract : The necessity of interpersonal binding is an essential component of the human nature, and the difficulties in social interaction are generally interconnected to psychopathology. Thereby, identifying an interaction and behaving properly, that is, possessing social skills is a determining factor for quality of life. However, a complex issue regarding social school interactions has been gaining the media s attention: bullying. It is known how people affected by bullying show deficit related to some of their social skills. Therefore, the skills involved in this process are still not sufficient clear. Based on that, the following research aimed to investigate the relation between social skill and bullying within two different school environments. The total number of 98 students between 8 and 14 years old had been part of this study, 23 of them were from a private school whereas 75 was from a public school. Thus, the etude pinpointed the subject s point of view based on self-consciousness tools (IMHSC-Del Prette e SCAN-Bullying 2005), regarding the results to help the comprehension of the phenomena relations within a group or individually. Apart from that, the etude s concern is relevant to identify whether the subject s behavior is similar to the two different scenarios (a small school with a reduced number of students x a large school with many students). Recent studies show that there is a relation between the school and group sizes and the bullying occurrences. Among the results, it was found that children from large groups, correlated with a large physical space, are easily involved in bullying situations. However, in both scenarios, children behaved in a similar pattern. The reaction of  self-control has showed the best response among the students of both schools. Nonetheless, considering the variables of bullying, the reactions of  assertive confrontation and  empathy and civility were the ones that related the most. Finally, besides relating social skills and bullying, we underline some of those skills (mainly  assertive confrontation ) as being more present than others in the confrontation strategies. It is relevant to remark the importance of intervention programs, which must be focused on such skills as a way to prevent bullying
Trans-ancestry meta-analyses identify rare and common variants associated with blood pressure and hypertension
No full textHigh blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. However, there is limited knowledge on specific causal genes and pathways. To better understand the genetics of blood pressure, we genotyped 242,296 rare, low-frequency and common genetic variants in up to 192,763 individuals and used -1/4155,063 samples for independent replication. We identified 30 new blood pressure- or hypertension-associated genetic regions in the general population, including 3 rare missense variants in RBM47, COL21A1 and RRAS with larger effects (>1.5 mm Hg/allele) than common variants. Multiple rare nonsense and missense variant associations were found in A2ML1, and a low-frequency nonsense variant in ENPEP was identified. Our data extend the spectrum of allelic variation underlying blood pressure traits and hypertension, provide new insights into the pathophysiology of hypertension and indicate new targets for clinical intervention. © 2016 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.</p
Trans-ancestry meta-analyses identify rare and common variants associated with blood pressure and hypertension
No full textHigh blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. However, there is limited knowledge on specific causal genes and pathways. To better understand the genetics of blood pressure, we genotyped 242,296 rare, low-frequency and common genetic variants in up to 192,763 individuals and used -1/4155,063 samples for independent replication. We identified 30 new blood pressure- or hypertension-associated genetic regions in the general population, including 3 rare missense variants in RBM47, COL21A1 and RRAS with larger effects (>1.5 mm Hg/allele) than common variants. Multiple rare nonsense and missense variant associations were found in A2ML1, and a low-frequency nonsense variant in ENPEP was identified. Our data extend the spectrum of allelic variation underlying blood pressure traits and hypertension, provide new insights into the pathophysiology of hypertension and indicate new targets for clinical intervention. © 2016 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.</p
Refining the accuracy of validated target identification through coding variant fine-mapping in type 2 diabetes article
No full textWe aggregated coding variant data for 81,412 type 2 diabetes cases and 370,832 controls of diverse ancestry, identifying 40 coding variant association signals (P < 2.2 × 10-7); of these, 16 map outside known risk-associated loci. We make two important observations. First, only five of these signals are driven by low-frequency variants: even for these, effect sizes are modest (odds ratio ≤1.29). Second, when we used large-scale genome-wide association data to fine-map the associated variants in their regional context, accounting for the global enrichment of complex trait associations in coding sequence, compelling evidence for coding variant causality was obtained for only 16 signals. At 13 others, the associated coding variants clearly represent 'false leads' with potential to generate erroneous mechanistic inference. Coding variant associations offer a direct route to biological insight for complex diseases and identification of validated therapeutic targets; however, appropriate mechanistic inference requires careful specification of their causal contribution to disease predisposition. © 2018 The Author(s).</p
Protein-coding variants implicate novel genes related to lipid homeostasis contributing to body-fat distribution
No full textBody-fat distribution is a risk factor for adverse cardiovascular health consequences. We analyzed the association of body-fat distribution, assessed by waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index, with 228,985 predicted coding and splice site variants available on exome arrays in up to 344,369 individuals from five major ancestries (discovery) and 132,177 European-ancestry individuals (validation). We identified 15 common (minor allele frequency, MAF ≥5%) and nine low-frequency or rare (MAF <5%) coding novel variants. Pathway/gene set enrichment analyses identified lipid particle, adiponectin, abnormal white adipose tissue physiology and bone development and morphology as important contributors to fat distribution, while cross-trait associations highlight cardiometabolic traits. In functional follow-up analyses, specifically in Drosophila RNAi-knockdowns, we observed a significant increase in the total body triglyceride levels for two genes (DNAH10 and PLXND1). We implicate novel genes in fat distribution, stressing the importance of interrogating low-frequency and protein-coding variants. © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.</p
Protein-altering variants associated with body mass index implicate pathways that control energy intake and expenditure in obesity
No full textGenome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified >250 loci for body mass index (BMI), implicating pathways related to neuronal biology. Most GWAS loci represent clusters of common, noncoding variants from which pinpointing causal genes remains challenging. Here we combined data from 718,734 individuals to discover rare and low-frequency (minor allele frequency (MAF) < 5%) coding variants associated with BMI. We identified 14 coding variants in 13 genes, of which 8 variants were in genes (ZBTB7B, ACHE, RAPGEF3, RAB21, ZFHX3, ENTPD6, ZFR2 and ZNF169) newly implicated in human obesity, 2 variants were in genes (MC4R and KSR2) previously observed to be mutated in extreme obesity and 2 variants were in GIPR. The effect sizes of rare variants are ~10 times larger than those of common variants, with the largest effect observed in carriers of an MC4R mutation introducing a stop codon (p.Tyr35Ter, MAF = 0.01%), who weighed ~7 kg more than non-carriers. Pathway analyses based on the variants associated with BMI confirm enrichment of neuronal genes and provide new evidence for adipocyte and energy expenditure biology, widening the potential of genetically supported therapeutic targets in obesity. © 2017 The Author(s).</p
Rare and low-frequency coding variants alter human adult height
No full textHeight is a highly heritable, classic polygenic trait with approximately 700 common associated variants identified through genome-wide association studies so far. Here, we report 83 height-associated coding variants with lower minor-allele frequencies (in the range of 0.1-4.8%) and effects of up to 2 centimetres per allele (such as those in IHH, STC2, AR and CRISPLD2), greater than ten times the average effect of common variants. In functional follow-up studies, rare height-increasing alleles of STC2 (giving an increase of 1-2 centimetres per allele) compromised proteolytic inhibition of PAPP-A and increased cleavage of IGFBP-4 in vitro, resulting in higher bioavailability of insulin-like growth factors. These 83 height-associated variants overlap genes that are mutated in monogenic growth disorders and highlight new biological candidates (such as ADAMTS3, IL11RA and NOX4) and pathways (such as proteoglycan and glycosaminoglycan synthesis) involved in growth. Our results demonstrate that sufficiently large sample sizes can uncover rare and low-frequency variants of moderate-to-large effect associated with polygenic human phenotypes, and that these variants implicate relevant genes and pathways. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.</p
