5,997 research outputs found

    On the Sherlocks, Jane Coleman and County Kildare in the Eighteen Forties

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    In the late 1980s and early 1990s the author acquired about 30,000 letters written mainly in the 1840s. These pertained to estates throughout Ireland managed by the firm of James Robert Stewart and Joseph Kincaid, hereafter denoted SK. Until the letters – called the SK correspondence in what follows – became the author’s property, they had not seen light of day since the 1840s. Addressed mainly to the firm’s office in Dublin, they were written by landlords, tenants, the partners in SK, local agents, etc. After about 200 years in operation as a land agency, the firm in which members of the Stewart family were the principal partners – Messrs J. R. Stewart & Son(s) from the mid- 1880s onwards – ceased operations in the mid-1980s. Since 1994 the author has been researching the SK correspondence of the 1840s. It gives many new insights into economic and social conditions in Ireland during the decade of the great famine, and into the operation of Ireland’s most important land agency during those years. It is intended ultimately to publish details on several of the estates managed by SK in a study more comprehensive than the present article, in book form. The proposed title is Landlords, tenants, famine: business of an Irish land agency in the 1840s, a draft of which has now been completed. A majority of the letters in that study are on themes some of which one might expect - rents, distraint (seizure of assets in lieu of rent); ‘voluntary’ surrender of land in return for ‘compensation’ upon quitting quietly; formal ejectment (a matter of last resort on estates managed by SK); landlordassisted emigration (on a scale much more extensive than most historians of Ireland in the 1840s appear to believe); petitions from tenants; complaints by tenants, both about other tenants and about local agents; landlord-financed and other relief of distress both before and during the great famine; major works of improvement (on almost all of the estates managed by SK which have been investigated in detail in the draft book); applications by SK, on behalf of landlords, for government loans to finance improvements; recommendations of agricultural advisers hired by SK, etc. Thus, most of the SK correspondence is about aspects of estate management. But the firm of SK was not only a manager of land. The correspondence reveals only two estates in Kildare, each of them relatively small, managed by SK in the 1840s. These were the lands of the Sherlocks near Naas and of Jane Coleman in the Kilcullen district. The correspondence on these properties differs substantively from most of those discussed in detail in the draft of Landlords, tenants, famine: first, it is relatively small in quantity, and secondly, it contains relatively little on the core aspects of estate management indicated above. Much of that on the Sherlocks focuses on misfortunes among family members, while the correspondence on Jane Coleman highlights the benevolence of that proprietor.

    The stem cell E3-ligase Lin-41 promotes liver cancer progression through inhibition of microRNA-mediated gene silencing

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    Lin-41 is a stem cell-specific E3 ligase and a known target of the tumour suppressor microRNA (miRNA) let-7. Lin-41 was recently reported to mediate ubiquitylation and degradation of the miRNA pathway protein Ago2. We demonstrate that Lin-41 is over-expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Lin-41 over-expression correlates with high a-fetoprotein level, high tumour grade and high tumour stage and predicts early tumour recurrence. Lin-41 is a strong predictor of poor long-term survival for patients with HCC. Lin-41 knock-down by RNA interference in HCC cell lines Huh7 and Hep3B suppressed proliferation in vitro and reduced in vivo tumour growth in NOD/SCID mice. On the other hand, over-expression of Lin-41 in the HCC cell line SK-Hep1 enhanced tumourigenicity. Over-expression and knock-down of Lin-41 led to inverse changes in the levels of Ago1 and Ago2 proteins. Over-expression of Ago1 and Ago2 reduced in vivo tumour growth. Lin-41 over-expression suppressed let-7 activity in HCC cell lines and expression of Lin-41 enhanced the expression of let-7-regulated oncogenes c-Myc, Lin-28B, HMGA2 and type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF1R). Expression of Lin-28B and c-Myc enhanced the expression of Lin-41. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and reporter assays revealed direct association of c-Myc with the Lin-41 promoter, resulting in transcriptional transactivation. Our results indicate that Lin-41 plays an important role in the growth of HCC by regulating RISC complex proteins Ago1 and Ago2 to inhibit miRNA-mediated gene silencing and promote the expression of oncogenic proteins. Lin-41 is also a strong prognostic factor for patients with HCC. Copyright (C) 2012 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

    NLINLS: a Differential Evolution based nonlinear least squares Fortran 77 program

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    This paper provides the list of Fortran 77 codes of nonlinear least squares using Differential Evolution as the minimizer algorithm. It has been tested on a number of difficult nonlinear least squares problems (taken from NIST, USA including CPC-X Software challenge problems). Help on how to use the program also is provided.Nonlinear least squares; Differential Evolution; Fortran 77

    Progress and Distress on the Stratford Estate in Clare during the Eighteen Forties

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    In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the author acquired about 30,000 letters written mainly in the 1840s. These pertained to estates throughout Ireland managed by James Robert Stewart and Joseph Kincaid, hereafter denoted SK. Until the letters - called the SK correspondence in what follows - became the author’s property, they had not seen light of day since the 1840s. Addressed mainly to the SK office in Dublin, they were written mainly by landlords, tenants, the partners in SK, local agents, etc. After about 200 years in operation as a land agency, the firm in which members of the Stewart family were the principal partners - Messrs J. R. Stewart & Son(s) from the mid-1880s onwards -- ceased business in the mid-1980s. Since 1994 the author has been researching the SK correspondence of the 1840s. It gives many new insights into economic and social conditions in Ireland during the decade of the great famine, and into the operation of Ireland’s most important land agency during those years. It is intended ultimately to publish details on several of the estates managed by SK in book form. The proposed title is Landlords, Tenants, Famine: Business of an Irish Land Agency in the 1840s, a draft of which has now been completed. A majority of the letters in the larger study from which the present article is drawn are on themes some of which one might expect - rents, distraint (seizure of assets in lieu of rent) ; ‘voluntary’ surrender of land in return for ‘compensation’ upon peacefully quitting; formal ejectment (a matter of last resort on estates managed by SK); landlord-assisted emigration (on a scale much more extensive than most historians of Ireland in the 1840s appear to believe); petitions from tenants; complaints by tenants, both about other tenants and local agents; major works of improvement (on almost all of the estates managed by SK); applications by SK, on behalf of proprietors, for government loans to finance improvements; recommendations of agricultural advisers hired by SK, ete. Thus, most of the SK correspondence is about aspects of estate management. It seems, in the 1840s, that the only estate in Clare managed by SK was that of the elderly Col. Stratford. Although the files on the relatively small Stratford estate are much less extensive than those on some of the estates investigated in detail in the draft of Landlords, Tenants, Famine, they do refer to most of the core aspects of estate management mentioned above. But in the case of the Clare estate, the material on some of those themes is extremely thin.

    Quantification of miRNAs and Their Networks in the light of Integral Value Transformations

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    MicroRNAs (miRNAs) which are on average only 21-25 nucleotides long are key post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in metazoans and plants. A proper quantitative understanding of miRNAs is required to comprehend their structures, functions, evolutions etc. In this paper, the nucleotide strings of miRNAs of three organisms namely Homo sapiens (hsa), Macaca mulatta (mml) and Pan troglodytes (ptr) have been quantified and classified based on some characterizing features. A network has been built up among the miRNAs for these three organisms through a class of discrete transformations namely Integral Value Transformations (IVTs), proposed by Sk. S. Hassan et al [1, 2]. Through this study we have been able to nullify or justify one given nucleotide string as a miRNA. This study will help us to recognize a given nucleotide string as a probable miRNA, without the requirement of any conventional biological experiment. This method can be amalgamated with the existing analysis pipelines, for small RNA sequencing data (designed for finding novel miRNA). This method would provide more confidence and would make the current analysis pipeline more efficient in predicting the probable candidates of miRNA for biological validation and filter out the improbable candidates

    SK Penguji Proposal - Chun Fu Lin

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    SK Penguji Proposal - Chun Fu Li
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