1,721,179 research outputs found
Diabetes management strategies: Can nanoparticles be used to therapeutically deliver insulin?
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La conciliazione tra lavoro, famiglia e altre sfere della vita : una sfida di società
No full textLa conciliazione tra lavoro, famiglia e altre sfere dell’esistenza è una sfida sempre più avvertita, ma anche un terreno contrastato. Nel caso italiano, diversi indicatori statistici come i bassi livelli di occupazione femminile, il declino della natalità, l’ampio ricorso a lavoro salariato per l’accudimento di persone fragili, indicano che le famiglie, e soprattutto le donne adulte, devono affrontare un severo sovraccarico funzionale. La composizione desiderata dalle famiglie incontra tuttora ostacoli seri, malgrado una crescente sensibilità nei confronti del tema.
Tra le acquisizioni più importanti del dibattito, ne vanno qui ricordate alcune. Anzitutto il problema della conciliazione sembra superare un’ottica di genere, ossia di problema tipicamente femminile, per essere visto come una questione di società, che riguarda l’organizzazione del lavoro, dei servizi, dei rapporti tra i generi e le generazioni. S’intreccia quindi con una maggiore sensibilità da parte maschile per la cura dei figli e la condivisione delle incombenze familiari.
Una seconda acquisizione riguarda il fatto che la sfida della ricomposizione tra gli ambiti dell’esistenza non riguarda soltanto i genitori con figli piccoli (e tantomeno le sole madri), ma assume sfaccettature diverse nell’arco del ciclo di vita familiare, con un peso crescente in modo particolare delle cure nei confronti degli anziani fragili. Diventa così un fattore di ridefinizione del significato e del peso del lavoro nei confronti di altre sfere di significato e d’impegno personale. Per un verso il sovraccarico del lavoro, per altri la diffusione di orari atipici e contrastanti con la vita familiare (turni serali, notturni, festivi), la precarietà e la casualità di molte forme di lavoro, la stessa stagnazione dei salari, complicano la costruzione di rapporti equilibrati tra il lavoro e la vita extra-lavorativa.
Un terzo tema riguarda il superamento di quella forma di nazionalismo metodologico che pensa la famiglia, implicitamente, come formata da soli cittadini nazionali, senza cogliere la complessità crescente dell’origine delle famiglie. Da questo punto di vista gli immigrati, sia come fornitori di servizi alle famiglie nazionali in situazioni che li obbligano a tenere a distanza le proprie famiglie, sia come componenti di famiglie ricongiunte in Italia, sono a loro volta impegnati in compiti di conciliazione ancora più ardui.
Le famiglie sono infine, come è noto, compagini sociali sempre più complesse e differenziate. Per citare un solo caso, le madri sole con figli affrontano spesso difficoltà aggiuntive nel ricomporre un lavoro quanto mai necessario con compiti educativi che non possono condividere in modo equo con il padre dei loro figli.
La nuova presidente della Commissione europea, Ursula van der Leyen, ha indicato il tema della conciliazione come una delle priorità del suo mandato, e le forze che la sostengono sembrano propense a maggiori investimenti in campo sociale. C’è da sperare che gli impegni programmatici siano seguiti da politiche coerenti e incisive
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
PKC induces internalization and retention of the EAAC1 glutamate transporter in recycling endosomes of MDCK cells
No full textHere we show that stimulation of protein kinase C (PKC) by phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) treatment induces a time-dependent decrease in glutamate transport activity due to relocalization of the excitatory amino acid carrier 1 (EAAC1) glutamate transporter from the apical surface of polarized epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells to intracellular compartments. The PKC-induced internalization of EAAC1 is negatively regulated by the calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporine A and by the expression of a dominant-negative mutant of the endocytic protein dynamin 1, a well-known target of the phosphatase activity of calcineurin. Using 32P-metabolic labeling experiments, we found unchanged levels of phosphorylated EAAC1, indicating that EAAC1 relocalization does not depend on PKC and calcineurin modification of the transporter, while we found that a target of these modifications was the serine778 residue of dynamin, a calcineurin substrate that in its dephosphorylated form activates the endocytic functions of dynamin. These data suggest that PMA stimulates endogenous dynamin and that this activation is required to mediate internalization of EAAC1 in MDCK cells. By immunofluorescence experiments with endosomal markers we demonstrated that internalized EAAC1 accumulates in endosomes also containing the basolateral betaine-GABA transporter BGT1 and activated PKCalpha. The sustained activation of PKC was required to maintain the transporters in the endosomal compartment, while a posttreatment with a PKC-specific inhibitor induced the recycling of the transporters to their appropriate surfaces. Taken together, our data indicate that PKC activity regulates EAAC1 surface density in MDCK cells by inducing its internalization and retention in PKCalpha-labeled recycling endosomes common to apical and basolateral proteins
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Differential regulation of EAAC1 and GLT1 glutamate transporters by calcineurin
No full textGlutamate transporters play a fundamental role in maintaining extracellular glutamate below neurotoxic levels, and decreased glutamate transport activity is involved in neurodegenerative diseases [such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)]. The transport activity and surface expression of neurotransmitter transporters are often dynamically regulated through modulation of their intracellular trafficking. In the Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cell line, we have shown that PKC activation induces a time-dependent decrease in glutamate transport activity associated with clathrin dependent internalization of the transporter and relocation to recycling endosomes within 20 minutes. Using 32P-metabolic labeling experiments, we showed that PKC activation induces an early transitory peak of phosphorylation of a surface transporter otherwise dephosphorylated (5-10 minutes), and that accumulation in recycling compartments coincides with dephosphorylation of EAAC1 to its basal level. In addition, we found that PKC-induced decrease in transport activity and intracellular relocation of surface EAAC1 also depended on calcineurin phosphatase activity. In sharp contrast, we found that internalization and relocation of the GLT1 astroglial glutamate transporter to EAAC1 containing recycling compartments was dependent on PKC activation but independent of calcineurin activity. Moreover, an analysis of GLT1 and EAAC1 chimeras revealed that the cytosolic tail of EAAC1 (last 91 cytosolic C-terminal residues) containing sequences for regulated trafficking of this transporter (Cheng et al., 2002; Sheldon et al., 2006) was sufficient to confer calcineurin dependence to PKC induced internalization of GLT1. We are currently investigating the possibility that the tail of EAAC1 targets the protein to specific pathways of endocytosis sensitive to calcineurin activity. The existence of different mechanisms to modulate the trafficking of a specific glutamate transporter may explain the exclusive reduction of GLT1 in ALS
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