Reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction reference genes in the spared nerve injury model of neuropathic pain: validation and literature search.

BACKGROUND: The reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is a widely used, highly sensitive laboratory technique to rapidly and easily detect, identify and quantify gene expression. Reliable RT-qPCR data necessitates accurate normalization with validated control genes (reference genes) whose expression is constant in all studied conditions. This stability has to be demonstrated.We performed a literature search for studies using quantitative or semi-quantitative PCR in the rat spared nerve injury (SNI) model of neuropathic pain to verify whether any reference genes had previously been validated. We then analyzed the stability over time of 7 commonly used reference genes in the nervous system - specifically in the spinal cord dorsal horn and the dorsal root ganglion (DRG). These were: Actin beta (Actb), Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), ribosomal proteins 18S (18S), L13a (RPL13a) and L29 (RPL29), hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase 1 (HPRT1) and hydroxymethylbilane synthase (HMBS). We compared the candidate genes and established a stability ranking using the geNorm algorithm. Finally, we assessed the number of reference genes necessary for accurate normalization in this neuropathic pain model. RESULTS: We found GAPDH, HMBS, Actb, HPRT1 and 18S cited as reference genes in literature on studies using the SNI model. Only HPRT1 and 18S had been once previously demonstrated as stable in RT-qPCR arrays. All the genes tested in this study, using the geNorm algorithm, presented gene stability values (M-value) acceptable enough for them to qualify as potential reference genes in both DRG and spinal cord. Using the coefficient of variation, 18S failed the 50% cut-off with a value of 61% in the DRG. The two most stable genes in the dorsal horn were RPL29 and RPL13a; in the DRG they were HPRT1 and Actb. Using a 0.15 cut-off for pairwise variations we found that any pair of stable reference gene was sufficient for the normalization process. CONCLUSIONS: In the rat SNI model, we validated and ranked Actb, RPL29, RPL13a, HMBS, GAPDH, HPRT1 and 18S as good reference genes in the spinal cord. In the DRG, 18S did not fulfill stability criteria. The combination of any two stable reference genes was sufficient to provide an accurate normalization.

Model-Based Tracking Initialization in Ship Building Environment

An augmented reality (AR) device must know observer’s location and orientation, i.e. observer’s pose, to be able to correctly register the virtual content to observer’s view. One possible way to determine and continuously follow-up the pose is model-based visual tracking. It supposes that a 3D model of the surroundings is known and that there is a video camera that is fixed to the device. The pose is tracked by comparing the video camera image to the model. Each new pose estimate is usually based on the previous estimate. However, the first estimate must be found out without a prior estimate, i.e. the tracking must be initialized, which in practice means that some model features must be identified from the image and matched to model features. This is known in literature as model-to-image registration problem or simultaneous pose and correspondence problem. This report reviews visual tracking initialization methods that are suitable for visual tracking in ship building environment when the ship CAD model is available. The environment is complex, which makes the initialization non-trivial. The report has been done as part of MARIN project.

Incorporating Sustainability in Global Sourcing Process, Industry Focus- Apparel / Textile

This is a Master’s thesis research, which mainly aims at identifying the sustainability issues in sourcing process and to identify the core competencies in sourcing process through triple bottom line adaptation. The focus of this thesis is on apparel industry’s sourcing process. The purpose of this thesis is to examine global apparel industry’s reality in their sourcing process and how buyers-suppliers are cooperating with their sourcing process to incorporate sustainability. Other goal of this research paper is to provide recommendation for sustainable sourcing process for companies and how the stakeholders can be benefitted by sustainable sourcing. The literature review part of this paper has presented the research gaps from the earlier researches along with the key concepts, academic purposes and key definitions. Theoretical framework chapter has focused on global sourcing strategies and firm’s competencies and sustainable strategies. From the theoretical framework, author has presented essential theory which establishes the link between research questions and proposed hypotheses. Main results and findings have been presented in empirical findings and in data analysis chapter. This study is an exploratory research followed by deductive method and primary data has been used to evaluate the current situation of apparel industry; which will assist to build the recommendation model. Primary data has been collected through online questionnaires and secondary data has used to cover the literature and theoretical parts. Therefore, the potential outcome of this paper will display the importance of sustainable sourcing from academic point of view and also from the business perspective. As a final point, this paper has followed the research objectives and has generated some new directions for further studies.

Memory mixed with desire : a preliminary study of philosophy and literature in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Milan Kundera

Memory Mixed with Desire: A preliminary study of Philosophy and Literature in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Milan Kundera Robert Spinelli Brock University, Department of Philosophy This thesis studies intertextuality in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Milan Kundera through the primary themes of memory and forgetting. The thesis starts with two introductory chapters that delineate memory according to Nietzsche and Kundera respectively. From here, I move into a discussion of Nietzsche's Ubermensch as an example of the type of forgetting that Nietzsche sees as a cure for the overabundance of memory that has led to Christian morality. Next, I explore the Kunderan concept of kitsch as the polar opposite of what Nietzsche has sought in his philosophy, finishing the chapter by tying the two thinkers together in a Kunderan critique of Nietzsche. The thesis ends with a chapter devoted to the Eternal Return beginning with an exegesis of Nietzsche's idea and ending with a similar exegesis of Kundera's treatment of this thought. What I suggest in this chapter is that the Eternal Return might itself be a form of kitsch even in its attempt to revalue existence.

Reality status evaluations in mediated experiences /

This paper explores the cognitive functions of the Reality Status Evaluation (RSE) system in our experiences of narrative mediated messages (NMM) (fictional, narrative, audio-visual one-way input and moving picture messages), such as fictional TV programs and films. We regard reality in mediated experiences as a special mental and emotional construction and a multi-dimensional concept. We argue that viewers' reality sense in NMM is influenced by many factors with "real - on" as the default value. Some of these factors function as primary mental processes, including the content realism factors of those messages such as Factuality (F), Social Realism (SR), Life Relevance (LR), and Perceptual Realism - involvement (PR), which would have direct impacts on reality evaluations. Other factors, such as Narrative Meaning (NM), Emotional Responses, and personality trait Absorption (AB), will influence the reality evaluations directly or through the mediations of these main dimensions. I designed a questionnaire to study this theoretical construction. I developed items to form scales and sub-scales measuring viewers' subjective experiences of reality evaluations and these factors. Pertinent statistical techniques, such as internal consistency and factorial analysis, were employed to make revisions and improve the quality of the questionnaire. In the formal experiment, after viewing two short films, which were selected as high or low narrative structure messages from previous experiments, participants were required to answer the questionnaire, Absorption questionnaire, and SAM (Self-Assessment Manikin, measuring immediate emotional responses). Results were analyzed using the EQS, structural equation modeling (SEM), and discussed in terms oflatent relations among these subjective factors in mediated experience. The present results supported most of my theoretical hypotheses. In NMM, three main jactors, or dimensions, could be extracted in viewers' subjective reality evaluations: Social Realism (combining with Factuality), Life Relevance and Perceptual Realism. I designed two ways to assess viewers' understanding of na"ative meanings in mediated messages, questionnaire (NM-Q) and rating (NM-R) measurement, and its significant influences on reality evaluations was supported in the final EQS models. Particularly in high story stnlcture messages, the effect of Narrative Meaning (NM) can rarely be explained by only these dimensions of reality evaluations. Also, Empathy seems to playa more important role in RSE of low story structure messages. Also, I focused on two other factors that were pertinent to RSE in NMM, the personality trait Absorption, and Emotional Responses (including two dimensions: Valence and Intensity). Final model results partly supported my theoretical hypotheses about the relationships among Absorption (AB), Social Realism (SR) and Life Relevance (LR); and the immediate impact of Emotional Responses on Perceptual Realism cPR).

Wirklichkeit und Fiktion : Alfred Döblins „Tatsachenphantasie“ in seinem historischen Roman „November 1918“

Thèse réalisée en co-tutelle avec l'Université Libre de Berlin, Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie

Causal volumes in distributed virtual reality

Research to date has tended to concentrate on bandwidth considerations to increase scalability in distributed interactive simulation and virtual reality systems. This paper proposes that the major concern for latency in user interaction is that of the fundamental limit of communication rate due to the speed of light. Causal volumes and surfaces are introduced as a model of the limitations of causality caused by this fundamental delay. The concept of virtual world critical speed is introduced, which can be determined from the causal surface. The implications of the critical speed are discussed, and relativistic dynamics are used to constrain the object speed, in the same way speeds are bounded in the real world.

“Ce n’est pas elle qu’on voit”: the photograph in the work of Annie Saumont

The incorporation of ekphrastic evocations of photographs into fictional works is a growing trend charted by (mostly) literary and (occasionally) art critics interested in the effect of their inclusion in a narrative. What has emerged as a veritable affinity of photography with literature has produced a fertile interdisciplinary critical discourse around areas of intersection between visual and verbal. With regard to short fiction, the photograph is often subject to investigation as analogy, the photograph and the short story being considered metonymically related with regard to form and effect. This notion of a structural equivalence between short story and photograph is one stressed by author/photographer Julio Cortàzar, concerned to highlight the quality of intensity he ascribes to both forms, which he saw as ‘cutting out a piece of reality’ in order to ‘breaking out’ into a wider one. Given Annie Saumont’s oft-cited admiration of Cortàzar’s work it is unsurprising that in her own writing – of stories themselves often classed, in their elliptical density, as verbal snapshots – she should take an interest in photographs and/or photographers. This article seeks to explore and analyse different values Saumont ascribes to what was paradoxically described by Barthes as ‘invisible’, in that what we see when viewing a photograph is, (often treacherously), ‘ pas elle qu’on voit’: never, or never solely, the actual object itself …

Rhetoric in international standard setting process: constructing accounting reality

The paper seeks to explore in depth the ways in which rhetorical strategies are employed in the international accounting standard setting process. The study proposes that rather than simply detailing new accounting requirements, the texts and drafts of accounting standards are artefacts, i.e. deliberately and carefully crafted products, that construct, persuade and encourage certain beliefs and behaviours. The persuasive and constructive strategies are also employed by the constituents submitting comment letters on the regulatory proposals. Consequently, the international accounting standard setting process is an ‘interactive process of meaning making’ (Fairclough, 1989). The study regards accounting as a social construct based on intersubjectivity (Searle, 1995; Davidson, 1990, 1994) and posits language as a constitutive factor in the process (Saussure, 1916; Peirce, 1931-58). This approach to the use of language and the role of rhetoric as a persuasive tool to convince others to our perception of ‘accounting reality’ is supported by the sociological work of Bourdieu (1990, 1991). Bourdieu has drawn our attention to how language becomes used, controlled, reformed and reconstituted by the social agents for the purposes of establishing their dominance. In our study we explore in particular the joint IASB and FASB proposals and subsequent regulations on the scope of consolidation and relevant disclosures that address issues of off-balance sheet financing, a subject that is very timely and of great topical importance. The analysis has revealed sophisticated rhetorical devices used by both the Boards and by the lobbyists. These reflect Aristotelian ethos, pathos and logos. The research demonstrates that those using accounting standards as well as those reading comment letters on the proposals for new standards should be aware of the normative nature of these documents and the subjectivity inherent in the nature of the text.

Foucauldian Panopticism: The Gaze in Selected 19th Century Literature

Throughout history, women have often been perceived as hysterical and weak. This perception has been reflected through the representation of women in literature which has resulted in a limited scope of female normality and morality creating characteristics fundamentally different than male characters. Though these characteristics have been contributed as natural female characteristics, the theories of Jeremy Bentham, a 18th and 19th century Englishman, can be applied as a possible reason for these reactions. Bentham’s Panopticon, the theory of punishment wherein a constant unseen gaze peers at inmates theoretically creating paranoia and psychological breakdown, creates characteristics similar to those that women in literature seem to exhibit. In this paper, I will outline the characteristics of three various characters in novels. First, I will review the Panoptic literature that has been written on The Woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, then I will conduct my own analysis on The Governess in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Jane Eyre in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre . In this analysis, I will consider the “gaze,” the symbolic Panopticon implemented by society, and argue how characteristics present in stereotypical representations of women are not inherent in women due to gender or sex, but because women are most objectified and thereby most affected by the Panoptic gaze of society.

Dopaminergic modulation of rapid reality adaptation in thinking

Dopamine has long held a prominent role in the interpretation of schizophrenia and other psychoses. Clinical studies on confabulation and disorientation, disorders marked by a confusion of reality in thinking, indicated that the ability to keep thinking in phase with reality depends on a process suppressing the interference of upcoming memories that do not refer to ongoing reality. A host of animal studies and a recent clinical study suggested that this suppression might correspond to the phasic inhibition of dopaminergic neurons in response to the absence of expected outcomes. In this study, we tested healthy subjects with a difficult version of a memory paradigm on which confabulating patients had failed. Subjects participated in three test sessions, in which they received in double-blind, randomized fashion L-dopa, risperidone, or placebo. We found that l-dopa, in comparison with risperidone, impaired performance in a highly specific way, which corresponded to the pattern of patients with reality confusion. Specifically, they had an increase of false positive responses, while overall memory performance and reaction times were unaffected. We conclude that dopaminergic transmission influences the ability to rapidly adapt thinking to ongoing reality.

Transnationalism and Identity: the Concept of Community in Ghanaian Literature and Contemporary Ghanaian Culture

In my thesis, I use anthropology, literature, and adinkra, an indigenous art, to study Ghanaian concepts of community from an interactive standpoint. While each of these disciplines has individually been used to study the concept of community, the three have not previously been discussed in relation to one another. I explore the major findings of each field—mainly that in anthropology, transnational informants find communities upheld; in literature, transnational characters find the opposite; and in adinkra, there are elements of both continuity and dissolution—to discuss Ghanaian constructs of community in the transnational world. Throughout time, there have always been transnational individuals and concepts, but as globalization continues, transnationalism has become an ever-more vital topic, and combined with the common anthropological discussion of tradition and modernity, its influence on developing countries, like Ghana, is significant. Therefore, in my thesis, I explore how differing conceptions of community present themselves in each discipline, and how those divergences create a new understanding of place and identity.

Projector-based augmented reality for intuitive intraoperative guidance in image-guided 3D interstitial brachytherapy

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to implement augmented reality in real-time image-guided interstitial brachytherapy to allow an intuitive real-time intraoperative orientation. METHODS AND MATERIALS: The developed system consists of a common video projector, two high-resolution charge coupled device cameras, and an off-the-shelf notebook. The projector was used as a scanning device by projecting coded-light patterns to register the patient and superimpose the operating field with planning data and additional information in arbitrary colors. Subsequent movements of the nonfixed patient were detected by means of stereoscopically tracking passive markers attached to the patient. RESULTS: In a first clinical study, we evaluated the whole process chain from image acquisition to data projection and determined overall accuracy with 10 patients undergoing implantation. The described method enabled the surgeon to visualize planning data on top of any preoperatively segmented and triangulated surface (skin) with direct line of sight during the operation. Furthermore, the tracking system allowed dynamic adjustment of the data to the patient's current position and therefore eliminated the need for rigid fixation. Because of soft-part displacement, we obtained an average deviation of 1.1 mm by moving the patient, whereas changing the projector's position resulted in an average deviation of 0.9 mm. Mean deviation of all needles of an implant was 1.4 mm (range, 0.3-2.7 mm). CONCLUSIONS: The developed low-cost augmented-reality system proved to be accurate and feasible in interstitial brachytherapy. The system meets clinical demands and enables intuitive real-time intraoperative orientation and monitoring of needle implantation.

Qualitative study: Understanding Mexican American women's experience in intimate partner violence

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain an understanding of the experiences of Mexican American women living with intimate partner abuse relevant to the process of disclosure of abuse. Limited research exists on the experiences of women who are of Mexican descent living with intimate partner abuse and their disclosure of abuse. Factors that influence disclosure for other populations are well articulated in the literature however, these factors have not been adequately verified in persons of Mexican descent. Data are reported from in-depth interviews with 26 clients at a shelter and an outreach agency in a south Texas-Mexico border community. Semi-structured interview guide was used to elicit information over an 11 month period. A grounded theory ethnography approach was used to analyze data. Verification strategies and constant comparison techniques (e.g. investigator responsiveness, methodological coherence, sampling adequacy, an active analytic stance, and saturation) enhanced rigor of analysis. Nineteen Mexican immigrant women and seven Mexican American women participated in the study. Several themes were discerned related to women's experiences in abuse: painful living, questioning endurance, and confronting reality. In almost every participant's account there was a description of repeated victimization by her intimate partner or partners, and again, by others within and outside her network. The participants discussed several cultural factors (e.g. embarrassment, concerns for family, avoidance of causing pain to family, protection of partner, avoidance of being judged) that hindered their decisions whether or not to disclose. Participants noted that healthcare workers rarely asked probing questions regarding abuse. The timing and process of disclosure took many turns for women in this study. Some of the factors hindering women from disclosing were found to be influenced by cultural practices. The consequences of disclosure for many of the women led them to re-victimization. Implications for practice to avoid missed opportunities with women living in abuse are to: ask questions routinely to encourage disclosure of abuse and offer community resource information for women living in abuse or both.^

With the ears of strangers; the Mexican in American literature.

Rev. ed. (c1977) published under title: Mexico and the Hispanic Southwest in American literature.