Confluence Of Approaches Research Articles

Enhanced marine biofouling and corrosion resistance through springtails-inspired papillate-like micropillar arrays surface modified by antimicrobial peptide

Marine biological fouling has a serious impact on artificial facilities, and traditional antifouling coatings are not beneficial to green development, which lead to the urgent to develop green strategies that can effectively prevent fouling. In this study, an innovative confluence of physical and biological approaches was employed to mitigate the harm caused by biofouling on a material substrate. Firstly, a hierarchical microstructured morphology was prepared on an aluminum surface by reactive ion etching and characterised. The antibacterial peptide, A-2S, was surface modified with dopamine as a coupling agent to produce a physico-biological synergistic antifouling surface. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and electrochemical experiments were then used to analyse the binding effect and corrosion resistance performance. A-2S was successfully modified on the sample surface and exhibited good corrosion resistance with a corrosion inhibition efficiency of 86.57 %. Compared to a bare aluminum plate, the microstructure surface has a certain inhibitory effect on fouling organisms, and the antifouling performance decreases over time. In contrast, the antimicrobial peptide synergistic surfaces demonstrated superior durable antifouling performance. Compared with the 50 % of the antifouling performance on the microstructure surface, the synergistic surface has a unique contact point effect of the microstructure and excellent antibacterial and bactericidal properties of antimicrobial peptides, resulting in a surface antifouling performance of over 80 %. The synergistic modification method enhanced the corrosion resistance of the material and reduced the adhesion of fouling organisms, mitigating the harm caused by biofouling on the marine equipment substrate.

A Holistic Approach to On-Reserve School Transformation: Pursuing Pedagogy, Leadership, Cultural Knowledge, and Mental Health as Paths of Change

The aim of this manuscript is to present and discuss an attempt at transformative change in an on-reserve school in northern Saskatchewan. Myriad studies and government statistics have stated that on- reserve Indigenous students occupy the lowest levels of success in Canada as it relates to almost any recognized metric. In response to the ongoing inequity in education, a 3-year project was undertaken with potential national implications. In this project, a holistic approach was utilized which places an emphasis on leadership development, curriculum, teaching and learning, local Indigenous pedagogies, and mental health support. The confluence of approaches in this project have challenged standard approaches to school transformation by placing an emphasis on the local context and knowledge systems that already place the community in a position of strength. Data collection and project development was primarily focused on document analysis, classroom visits, meetings, and professional development with the faculty, planning sessions, instructional monitoring and student academic, cultural, and mental health assessments, and research projects. This manuscript offers wise practice considerations for diverse on- reserve schools through relationally collaborative interventions rooted in school psychology principles as key agents of change, resulting in: higher teacher retention; more comprehensive and effective lesson planning, implementation, and assessment; enhanced integration of Indigenous values within the classroom (e.g., PISIM); and improved teacher and student mental wellness in the classroom (e.g., teacher utilization of EFSS).

Brief considerations on targeting RNA with small molecules.

For more than three decades, RNA has been known to be a relevant and attractive macromolecule to target but figuring out which RNA should be targeted and how remains challenging. Recent years have seen the confluence of approaches for screening, drug optimization, and target validation that have led to the approval of a few RNA-targeting therapeutics for clinical applications. This focused perspective aims to highlight - but not exhaustively review - key factors accounting for these successes while pointing at crucial aspects worth considering for further breakthroughs.

‘With a minimum of bitterness’: decolonization, the right to self-determination, and the Arab-Asian group

AbstractIn the late 1940s, postcolonial elites expanded the activities of the United Nations (UN) by using it as a platform to advance decolonization and foster Third World solidarity. The Arab-Asian group was the earliest manifestation of institutional cooperation among postcolonial nations after 1945. Initially comprised of twelve Arab and Asian UN member-states, the Arab-Asian group coordinated their diplomatic activities as part of an effort to bring national self-determination to the forefront of international debate. However, the emergence of the Arab-Asian group at the UN revealed a confluence of different political ideologies and approaches to decolonization in the early postwar era. Forging a network of postcolonial elites brought out divergent visions for the postwar international order, illustrated by the frictions within the Arab-Asian group even as it played key roles in the UN debates on the questions of Indonesia, the former Italian colonies in Africa, and the Korean War. The Arab-Asian group, an important antecedent to Afro-Asianism, Third Worldism, and non-alignment, encountered challenges over parallel projects pursued by its members, such as Carlos Romulo’s campaign for a Pacific Pact among non-communist Asian states or Jawaharlal Nehru’s articulation of neutralism. Therefore, while postwar international organizations were a formative setting for the emergence of postcolonial internationalism and South-South solidarity, the common goals pursued by these states did not always translate into uniformity or consensus on decolonization.

Reenvisioning Christian Ethics: An Introduction and Invitation

This article by the guest editor introduces the theme of this special issue of Religions, reveals some of his underlying convictions and assumptions regarding the task of reenvisioning Christian ethics, and introduces each of the eight articles in this collection. Rather than a discipline, Christian ethics might more accurately be described as a field of scholarly endeavor engaging a range of partner disciplines. Each contributor was invited to offer a distinct perspective on this task, contributing to a collective reenvisioning of the field. The guest editor describes his underlying convictions, that the task of reenvisioning Christian ethics is real, perspectival, dialogical, collaborative, and purposeful. Correspondingly, he sees the task as awe-filled, discerning, responsive, participatory, and hopeful. Envisioned is a confluence of intersectional, interdisciplinary, and intercultural approaches expanding beyond the academy and even beyond the Christian in order to partner with all members of global society for the common good, shared justice, and full flourishing of all of creation.

Occupational health and safety division of responsibility: A conceptual model for the implementation of the OHSAS 18001:2007 standard1

BACKGROUND: The recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) to the forefront of governmental and organizational preoccupations. Empirical research has pointed that OHS responsibility is diffused within organizations, and there is no apparent reference on whom it falls upon; even the OHSAS 18001:2007 (OHSAS 18001, 2007) standard framework generates the same confusion among organizational stakeholders. OBJECTIVE: When constituting an internal chain of responsibility, which organizational stakeholder should be responsible for each item of the OHSAS 18001:2007? The article considers how OHS tasks can be addressed from the perspective of stakeholder management. The objective is to consider the internal division of OHS responsibility between the hierarchical strata and to introduce an OHS Responsibility Multilevel Model for an organization’s internal responsibility system for the implementation of the OHSAS 18001:2007 standard. METHODS: The paper presents a qualitative assessment of the literature on the concepts of responsibility and accountability regarding OHS. First method applied was the literature review on the concepts of responsibility and accountability regarding OHS, while briefly discussing their impacts on the voluntary implementation of OHSAS 18001:2007 standard. Second, the OHS and the conditions of the COVID-19 period were synthesised to underline the research motivation and importance. Further the conceptual framework for the internal division of OHS responsibility based on a Multilevel Model for OHS stakeholders was developed based on a creative designed approach considering recent conclusions on safety leadership (OHS being situated at the confluence of top-down and bottom-up approaches in organization). RESULTS: The research results underline the relative complexity of the items in the OHSAS 18001:2007 framework; from the 68 items that are comprised under the six themes, the authors have identified 304 distinct actions. The application of the proposed OHS Responsibility Multilevel Model to the OHSAS 18001:2007 supports the interest that research literature has had for the role of top management in OHS. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the research results propose a novel approach for improving stakeholders’ involvement (commitment) and responsibility regarding OHS practices in organization. The research findings highlight that the OHSAS 18001:2007 standard proposes the organization as primary repository of OHS responsibility.

Crafting Critical Echoes in Sport Organizations: Oral Histories of, and Possibilities for, the New Zealand Olympic Committee

Sport organizations’ digital spaces (e.g. organizational websites, fanzines, blogs, electronic repositories and social media) are, potentially, rich empirical terrain in which sport narratives may be (re)presented, mobilised and challenged, and content disseminated to wider audiences. Drawing on New Zealand’s participation in the Olympic movement, and the national Olympic Committee’s efforts to embrace historical thinking, we consider the confluence of oral and digital approaches. More widely, we examine how sport organizations might utilise oral histories and digital spaces to engage audiences more effectively with critical understanding of the past. To note, progressive shifts in museum and heritage studies have advocated ideological and institutional redirection, critical reflection and radical departures from traditional representational practices. In these processes, oral histories have been identified as a key means to these ends. Presenting vignettes constructed from interviews with sport participants, we interrogate connections between oral history, narrative making and public heritage praxis.

An experimental evaluation tool for the Public Innovation Lab of the Uruguayan government

In many parts of the world, governments are building new platforms, methods, and innovative experimental spaces to better respond to current complex problems. Laboratories in the public sector have emerged as experimental spaces that incorporate co-creation approaches to promote public innovation and social transformation. Although there is abundant literature about public innovation and reports on innovative practices, little progress has been made on how to evaluate these. In this paper, we describe the process that led to the development of an experimental evaluation tool for public innovation as part of an action-research process in a laboratory within the Uruguayan Government. The pilot prototype, the ‘Roadmap’ as we named it, seeks to provide a timely and purposeful means to learn from the co-creation processes and be accountable to public authorities and society. Aiming to build a learning system within the organisation to communicate results, we designed the Roadmap based on the confluence of various approaches, namely, development evaluation, organisational learning and reflexive monitoring. Other relevant approaches to public innovation and evaluation were also considered, such as public design evaluative thinking, social innovation evaluation, and systemic evaluation of learning.

Loops Rescue the No-Boundary Proposal.

New and nontrivial properties of off-shell instantons in loop quantum cosmology show that dynamical signature change naturally cures recently observed problems in the semiclassical path integral of quantum gravity. If left unsolved, these problems would doom any theory of smooth initial conditions of the Universe. The no-boundary proposal, as a specific example of such a theory, is rescued by loops, presenting a rare instance of a fruitful confluence of different approaches to quantum cosmology.

Fatty-acyl chain profiles of cellular phosphoinositides

Phosphoinositides are rapidly turning-over phospholipids that play key roles in intracellular signaling and modulation of membrane effectors. Through technical refinements we have improved sensitivity in the analysis of the phosphoinositide PI, PIP, and PIP2 pools from living cells using mass spectrometry. This has permitted further resolution in phosphoinositide lipidomics from cell cultures and small samples of tissue. The technique includes butanol extraction, derivatization of the lipids, post-column infusion of sodium to stabilize formation of sodiated adducts, and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry in multiple reaction monitoring mode, achieving a detection limit of 20pg. We describe the spectrum of fatty-acyl chains in the cellular phosphoinositides. Consistent with previous work in other mammalian primary cells, the 38:4 fatty-acyl chains dominate in the phosphoinositides of the pineal gland and of superior cervical ganglia, and many additional fatty acid combinations are found at low abundance. However, Chinese hamster ovary cells and human embryonic kidney cells (tsA201) in culture have different fatty-acyl chain profiles that change with growth state. Their 38:4 lipids lose their dominance as cultures approach confluence. The method has good time resolution and follows well the depletion in <20s of both PIP2 and PIP that results from strong activation of Gq-coupled receptors. The receptor-activated phospholipase C exhibits no substrate selectivity among the various fatty-acyl chain combinations.

La formación inicial del profesorado de educación primaria y secundaria en Alemania, España, Finlandia, Francia y Reino Unido

The initial teacher training provides the skills and tools necessary for this confronted with the transformations of a changing and dynamic society. In Europe, the inicial training teachers for primary and secondary education is characterized by diversity in their approaches. Taking as reference the countries of Germany, Spain, Finland, France and the UK, we have analyzed different issues which can obtain a European panorama in relation to initial teacher training. Although the trend towards internationalization and standardization of university education, the confluence of different approaches depending on the idiosyncrasy of the regions where are inserted.

Creating and maintaining chemical artificial life by robotic symbiosis.

We present a robotic platform based on the open source RepRap 3D printer that can print and maintain chemical artificial life in the form of a dynamic, chemical droplet. The robot uses computer vision, a self-organizing map, and a learning program to automatically categorize the behavior of the droplet that it creates. The robot can then use this categorization to autonomously detect the current state of the droplet and respond. The robot is programmed to visually track the droplet and either inject more chemical fuel to sustain a motile state or introduce a new chemical component that results in a state change (e.g., division). Coupling inexpensive open source hardware with sensing and feedback allows for replicable real-time manipulation and monitoring of nonequilibrium systems that would be otherwise tedious, expensive, and error-prone. This system is a first step towards the practical confluence of chemical, artificial intelligence, and robotic approaches to artificial life.

Picornavirus--host interactions to construct viral secretory membranes.

Picornaviruses are positive-stranded RNA viruses of significant disease burden and ubiquitous global reach. Microscopic examination of picornavirus-infected cells has long revealed a drastic reordering of intracellular membranes. Through a confluence of candidate-based approaches and genomic and proteomic screens, the past decade has seen great leaps in understanding how picornaviruses usurp intracellular membranes for their own replication. The growing cast of assembled characters allows for a rich plot in the upcoming years. With their widespread genomic divergence, the number of potential mechanisms for RNA virus vesicogenesis for driving membrane formation and lipid synthesis required for viral replication is broad, but the overall story arch remains surprisingly recognizable. This chapter reviews the major discoveries associating picornavirus pathogenic interactions with the secretory system and highlights important questions and opportunities for future study.

Regulating higher education: Quality assurance and neo-liberal managerialism in higher education—A critical introduction

Quality assurance (QA) regimes have become an increasingly dominant regulatory tool in the management of higher education sectors around the world. By one estimate, nearly half the countries in the world now have quality assurance systems or QA regulatory bodies for higher education. This paper explores the emergence and spread of QA regimes, the coalescence of regulatory logics around qualifications frameworks, and the broad confluence of such approaches in terms of their impact on the historically contested relationship between the state and university. By focusing on the interlocking regulatory logics provided by QA, the article explores how such approaches impose quasi-market, competitive based rationalities premised on neo-liberal managerialism using a policy discourse that is often informed by conviction rather than evidence.

Contributions and challenges for network models in cognitive neuroscience

The confluence of new approaches in recording patterns of brain connectivity and quantitative analytic tools from network science has opened new avenues toward understanding the organization and function of brain networks. Descriptive network models of brain structural and functional connectivity have made several important contributions; for example, in the mapping of putative network hubs and network communities. Building on the importance of anatomical and functional interactions, network models have provided insight into the basic structures and mechanisms that enable integrative neural processes. Network models have also been instrumental in understanding the role of structural brain networks in generating spatially and temporally organized brain activity. Despite these contributions, network models are subject to limitations in methodology and interpretation, and they face many challenges as brain connectivity data sets continue to increase in detail and complexity.

The Perils of the "Digital Humanities": New Positivisms and the Fate of Literary Theory

This essay situates the rise of the so-called digital humanities within earlier theoretical trends and methodologies. Taking as its focus the impact of digital techniques on literary studies, the essay argues that advocates for the new digital methods often lapse into an uncritical positivism at the moment that they espouse an apparently critical historicism. In assessing the shortcomings of the confluence of digital and historical approaches, the author outlines an alternative critical epistemology of the humanities through an engagement with the writings of Louis Althusser, gesturing toward a renewed, "speculative" formalism that may account for the mutabilities of form and history alike.

Dynamic formation of oriented patches in chondrocyte cell cultures

Growth factors have a significant impact not only on the growth dynamics but also on the phenotype of chondrocytes (Barbero etal. in J. Cell. Phys. 204:830-838, 2005). In particular, as chondrocytes approach confluence, the cells tend to align and form coherent patches. Starting from a mathematical model for fibroblast populations at equilibrium (Mogilner etal. in Physica D 89:346-367, 1996), a dynamic continuum model with logistic growth is developed. Both linear stability analysis and numerical solutions of the time-dependent nonlinear integro-partial differential equation are used to identify the key parameters that lead to pattern formation in the model. The numerical results are compared quantitatively to experimental data by extracting statistical information on orientation, density and patch size through Gabor filters.

Teachers, policymakers and project learning: The questionable use of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ policy instruments to influence the implementation of curriculum reform in Hong Kong

Following the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region developed wide-ranging curriculum reforms, including project learning. A recent survey has indicated that over 80% of Hong Kong primary and secondary schools have adopted project learning as a curriculum task. Such an outcome is hard to reconcile both with the culture of Hong Kong schools and the generally bleak picture that pervades the literature on educational change. &#x0D; &#x0D; In seeking an explanation for this apparent success we focus attention on the policy instruments that were used by government agencies to facilitate the process of implementation. Our analysis revealed that teachers were caught in a pincer movement that involved voluntary activities promoting project learning and coercive measures that monitored and evaluated successful implementation. Teachers’ views of these policy instruments differed markedly from those of policymakers. This confluence of mixed approaches, while apparently successful, is also shown to be problematic. Finally, the paper is located in a theoretical framework with its origins in recent policy theory that to date has not been applied to educational contexts.

Reverse Transcribing the Code for Chromosome Stability

The linearity of eukaryotic chromosomes presents challenges to cells, as the presence of DNA "ends" poses problems for the DNA replication machinery and the cell's damage response systems. This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recognized groundbreaking studies establishing the telomere field as a crucial area of biomedical research.

Cholesterol regulation of rab-mediated sphingolipid endocytosis

Despite a tight regulation of its intracellular content, cholesterol is found accumulated in pathological conditions such as sphingolipidosis as well as after cell treatment with drugs like hydrophobic amines. Furthermore, cellular cholesterol increases when cultured cells approach confluence. Under these conditions, the endocytic pathways of plasma membrane sphingolipids are differently affected. In this short review, we will summarize recent results from our laboratory as well as those of other groups, indicating that the intracellular accumulation of cholesterol inhibits the dissociation of rab GTPases from the target membranes, causing the alteration of rab-mediated membrane traffic.