4 research outputs found
Women engineers' lack of precedence: The 'virgin territory' of robotics
No full textIn recent history, information and communications technologies (ICTs) have been radically advanced and largely infiltrated daily routine. Additionally, modern educational methods encourage the use of ICTs in the learning processes. Especially in the education of hard sciences like Physics, the use of ICTs is favored because the students can more easily understand the natural laws and observe in real time the results of the experimental process. Women engineers approach this kind of educational process better as they combine a variety of traits due to their feminine nature that gives them precedence. It is widely accepted that females outperform males in verbal ability, are raised to be more sensitive, have maternal instincts, and can be extremely supportive not only to same sex peers but also to both genders. These inherent genetic traits result in women's ability to be naturally tuned into the world around them. In a man's world - more importantly when ICTs are concerned - women are often discouraged and need to work a lot harder than men to achieve a favorable situation. This pressure makes women more active and persistent. According to the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research report for 2010 to 2011, only 3.7% of the entrepreneurs between 18 and 64 years old are women (Ioannidis and Chatzichristou http://www.iobe.gr/index.asp?a_id=853 webcite, 2012). In the last two decades, the field of robotics has been advancing more radically than ever. Many distinctive robotic mechanisms have been implemented due to the innovative ideas and the outburst of technology. During author MT's PhD research, she noticed that few women participate actively in state-of-the-art educational methods including ICTs. More distinctively, women involved in robotics seem to have been excluded from the productive or research process. The absence of contributions by women engineers in robotics and in the assistive educational tools it provides has led to a more masculine approach in the field that may result in more stiff, plain design, or even less imaginative functionalities. Generally, the stereotypes and biases that exist with regard to gender have hatched and produced the behavior of women and the way they are encountered and treated by the society
Heterogeneous effects in the international transmission of the US monetary policy: a factor-augmented VAR perspective
No full text© 2018, The Author(s). This paper analyses the international transmission of US monetary policy shocks. We use a time-varying, factor-augmented VAR framework to examine how and to what extent the propagation of US policy shocks affects the South East Asian (SEA) and European Union (EU) economies, through various transmission channels. We find that in the SEA economies, the income absorption effect is the most pronounced channel as indicated by the significant worsening of the trade balance of these countries, which provokes a reduction in their output. In addition, wealth effects and the balance sheet channel have an important contribution in the transmission of the shock to these economies. In the EU, the initial rise observed in output as a result of the shock is driven more by exchange rate movements rather than movements in the trade balance. In terms of changes in the magnitude of the effect of the shock over time, we find that the deepening of global integration dampens the effect of the shock on the foreign economies in core macroeconomic and financial variables. Moreover, the impact of the shock on the foreign economies has increased in the post-crisis period
Placental DEPTOR as a stress sensor during pregnancy
No full textThe author(s) has paid for this article to be freely available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Copyright @ 2012 Portland Press. The article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.DEPTOR [DEP-domain-containing and mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin)-interacting protein] is a modulator of mTOR signalling that binds to mTORC (mTOR complex) 1 and mTORC2. However, to date, the precise functions of DEPTOR are not fully elucidated, particularly in reproductive tissues where mTOR acts as a placental nutrient sensor. Pregnancy is associated with major physiological and psychosocial changes and adaptation to these changes is crucial for normal fetal development. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that maternal stress can affect mTOR signalling at term, and, as a result, influence placental growth. We first investigated the expression of DEPTOR, mTOR, rictor (rapamycin-insensitive companion of mTOR) and raptor (regulatory associated protein of mTOR) from human placentas (n=23) using Q-PCR (quantitative PCR), and correlated these data to days of pregnancy and maternal stress, as well as placental and fetal weight. Maternal and fetal cortisol levels were also measured. JEG-3 and BeWo cells, used as placental in vitro models, were treated with cortisol and DEPTOR expression was assessed using Q-PCR. DEPTOR appears to be the predominant transcript in the human placenta compared with mTOR, rictor and raptor in both term (n=13) and preterm (n=10) placentas as assessed by Q-PCR. There was a significantly lower level only of log-DEPTOR gene expression in the high stress group (-1.34) than in the low stress group (0.07; t₂₀=2.41, P=0.026). Interestingly, mothers with high stress had significantly elevated levels of cortisol (8555 pg/ml) compared with those with low stress (4900 pg/ml). We then tested the hypothesis that cortisol can directly affect DEPTOR expression. When BeWo cells were treated with cortisol 10, 100 and 1000 nM, the expression of DEPTOR was significantly down-regulated by 50, 41 and 39% (all P<0.05) respectively when compared with basal levels. Treatment of JEG-3 cells with cortisol, led to a significant decrease of DEPTOR expression at 100 nM (39%, P<0.05) and at 1000 nM (73%, P<0.01). These novel findings are indicative of a higher order of complexity of DEPTOR signalling in the human placenta that is affected by maternal stress, which could affect pregnancy outcome
User needs for mobility improvement for people with functional limitations
No full textInfrastructures, Systems and ServicesTechnology, Policy and Managemen
