Journal articles on the topic 'Interrupteur MEMS'

Due to deformation of the cantilever and lock, the MEMS explosion interrupter used in fuze often cannot move properly. An explosion interrupter with improved strength is proposed. The caudal shape of the cantilever is improved and its structure is changing from the straight hook to the bend hook. The thickness and the patulous angle of the lock is enhanced. Simulation results show that the improved caudal shape of the cantilever is not stuck by the baseplate boss and the improved lock could enter into the locker successfully. The explosion interrupter moves in-position under centrifugal force and be locked.

ABSTRACT: This article investigates the reaction, on Twitter, to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation announcement. Specifically, this is a qualitative study in linguistic anthropology of how memes and hashtags circulated on Twitter between the day of the announcement of said resignation and the Pope’s last day in office, and identifies the speech chains created by them. The analysis of the corpus showed that Twitter users' deployment of hashtags serves two purposes: on the one hand, it creates a topic/comment structure that is later reproduced, modified or abandoned by other users. On the other hand, hashtags function as performative acts that create online ad hoc communities. In addition, this article also claims that English and Romance-language users created and circulated image and text-based memes differently, thus establishing two language-based speech chains. In sum, this article contributes to discussions on informational flux on online platforms by demonstrating that said flux does have constraints, and that those constraints are related to language-based communities of practice.KEYWORDS: Twitter. Speech chains. Hashtags. Memes. RESUMO: O presente trabalho investiga a reação, no Twitter, ao anúncio da renúncia do Papa Benedito XVI. Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo, em antropologia linguística, de como memes e hashtags circularam no Twitter entre o anúncio da renúncia e o último dia de trabalho do Papa, com o objetivo de identificar as cadeias de fala criadas por estes memes e hashtags. A análise do corpus mostrou que emprego de hashtags pelos usuários do Twitter serve a dois propósitos: por um lado, cria-se uma estrutura tópico-comentário que é, depois, reproduzida, modificada ou abandonada por outros usuários. Por outro lado, as hashtags funcionam como enunciados performativos que criam comunidades online. Ademais, o presente artigo também afirma que usuários de língua inglesa e de línguas românicas criaram e circularam memes baseados em imagens e textos de maneiras distintas, estabelecendo, consequentemente, duas cadeias de fala baseadas nas suas respectivas línguas. Em resumo, este artigo contribui para as discussões sobre o fluxo informacional em plataformas online, ao demonstrar que há restrições a esse fluxo e que tais restrições estão relacionadas às línguas das diferentes comunidades de prática.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Twitter. Cadeias de fala. Hashtags.Memes.

Il silenzio del Corano nei confronti della contraccezione viene compensato dalle parole risalenti al Profeta Muhammad le quali, in maggioranza, non proibirono il coitus interruptus. Questa: tolleranza è stata ripresa dalla tradizione islamica che ha trovato in al-Ghazali il più apprezzato formulatore dei criteri da rispettare per legittimare la pratica del coitus interruptus e, in seguito, delle moderne tecniche contraccettive. Secondo il pensiero di Ghazali il coitus interruptus è un'azione makruh, vale a dire, per le categorie della Legge islamica, un atto riprovevole, ma, nello stesso tempo, tollerato. Oggi, la gran parte dei giuristi musulmani accettano le pratiche contraccettive pur con sfumature diverse. Più differenziata appare la politica demografica degli stati Arabo-Islamici che oscillano dalla proibizione ad un accoglimento più o meno ampio delle varie tecniche anticoncezionali.

Present land vehicle navigation relies mostly on the Global Positioning System (GPS) that may be interrupted or deteriorated in urban areas. In order to obtain continuous positioning services in all environments, GPS can be integrated with inertial sensors and vehicle odometer using Kalman filtering (KF). For car navigation, low-cost positioning solutions based on MEMS-based inertial sensors are utilized. To further reduce the cost, a reduced inertial sensor system (RISS) consisting of only one gyroscope and speed measurement (obtained from the car odometer) is integrated with GPS. The MEMS-based gyroscope measurement deteriorates over time due to different errors like the bias drift. These errors may lead to large azimuth errors and mitigating the azimuth errors requires robust modeling of both linear and nonlinear effects. Therefore, this paper presents a solution based on Parallel Cascade Identification (PCI) module that models the azimuth errors and is augmented to KF. The proposed augmented KF-PCI method can handle both linear and nonlinear system errors as the linear parts of the errors are modeled inside the KF and the nonlinear and residual parts of the azimuth errors are modeled by PCI. The performance of this method is examined using road test experiments in a land vehicle.

The design and characterization of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based on-chip SAD (Safety and Arming Device) are proposed. An encryption system has been integrated into the device to enhance its reliability during the electromagnetic interference. The conversion between safe status and arm status is reversible due to the bidirectional actuation design of the slider and pawl on the SOI (Silicon on Insulator) chip, being driven by the chevron electrothermal actuators. The width of each tooth on the slider, which contains coding information, is different from that of its adjacent neighbor. Additionally, the different teeth width, respectively 32 μm, 82 μm, requiring different decoding displacement of 100 μm and 150 μm, corresponds to the different decoding voltage of 13.5 V and 14.8 V. The travel range of interrupter in the SAD will only be limited by the chip dimension and be able to cover the motion of ±1 mm in the present research, due to the capability of motion retention. Finally, the SAD is integrated with a copper azide exploding chip to measure the average velocity of the titanium flyer for the application feasibility validation.

<p>Este documento muestra las funcionalidades de dos tipos de conmutadores ópticos:<br />OXC y OADM, utilizando una herramienta de software que simula el comportamiento de<br />cada uno de estos dispositivos desarrollada en Matlab. Se realiza un análisis comparativo<br />entre los diferentes tipos de interruptores ópticos enfatizando en los interruptores ópticos<br />MEMS (2-D y 3D). Se muestran las diferentes configuraciones para las matrices de conmutación<br />en una sola celda, junto con sus principales características, también se muestran<br />los principales problemas de diseño en relación con las cualidades del interruptor óptico:<br />el rendimiento óptico y las funcionalidades electromecánicas. En el caso del diseño óptico,<br />se analiza la pérdida de inserción inducida por la desalineación de la fibra, la reflexión de<br />Fresnel y aspectos relacionados con el micro-espejo, incluido el material de recubrimiento,<br />el grosor, la rugosidad de la superficie, el efecto del espejo en diferentes longitudes de<br />onda y la pérdida de la polarización-dependiente (PDL).</p>

4622 Background: Patient adherence to oral therapy is a critical issue in cancer treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence and severity of non-adherence to OAD in mRCC and to identify factors predictive of non-adherence. Methods: Prospective observational multicenter trial performed at 11 Belgian academic and non-academic centers. All pts with mRCC starting OADs (sunitinib, pazopanib, everolimus or sorafenib) are eligible for the study. Pts are contacted by phone at baseline and at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months. At each contact, pts are asked to complete questionnaires investigating 1) medication adherence (MMAS), 2) patient satisfaction with treatment (CTSQ) and with treatment education (PS-CaTE), 3) the extent of information desire (EID), 4) quality of life (FACT-G and FKSI) and 5) the role of the pharmacist (SWiP). Adherence is measured using an electronic medication event monitoring system (MEMS, Aardex). Results: Between 02/2011 and 11/2011, 49 pts (m: 33, f: 16) with a median age of 63 years (range 25 - 87) have participated in the IPSOC study. Twenty-nine pts (64%) were treated with an OAD in first-line, 15 pts (33%) in second-line. With a median follow-up of 131 days (range 2 - 313) 45 pts (92%) claimed to be fully adherent to their treatment (based on MMAS and CTSQ data). Four patients indicated to have missed at least one dose, of whom two indicated they occasionally forgot their medication and two others interrupted treatment because of side effects. Based on MEMS data, mean adherence, defined as the percentage of days with at least the prescribed number of dosage taken, was 98.91%. Conclusions: The IPSOC study, the first to examine adherence to OAD among mRCC pts, shows that mRCC pts are almost fully adherent to treatment recommendations. This seems to be in contrast to adherence data for other, long-lasting, anti-cancer treatments. Further investigations will focus on the question whether extensive counseling and participation in side-effect programs contribute to the high percentage of adherence in this study.

The meme ‘BBC Dad’ first emerged in 2017 in response to an ‘embarrassing’ moment where a Professor was interrupted by his family during a live interview with BBC news TV. At the time the incident was circulated around the world as a curiosity, as the worlds of work, domestic (family) life and gender politics combined in a way that was apparently so unacceptable that it was comedic. The expectation was that the ‘victim’, the Professor, should somehow be ashamed of how his two roles as ‘professional’ and ‘parent’ had been shown to be in competition in that moment. Although this competition is often played out, especially by women and working-class workers, it is rarely shown in public, let alone discussed. However, during the global pandemic in 2020 many workers and parents are being placed in this situation and forced to juggle their dual responsibilities often in the same space and in real time. By asking ‘Are we all ‘BBC Dad’ now?’, this article questions how we consider those who conduct paid work and parent simultaneously, noting how previously accepted class and gender divides have shifted culturally as a result of the physical restraints posed by COVID-19 restrictions. The ’comedy’ that the original meme provided, and the way its meaning has shifted, shows how expectations have changed and hopefully how attitudes to normally hidden workers may also shift.

High pressure waterjet drilling (HPWD) as a cutting-edge upstream technology receives considerable attention in horizontal drilling fields. HPWD technology achieves great commercial benefits for the reentry multilateral well drilling in small diameter space where the conventional rotary drill bit needs high-cost tools to implement. The sophisticated waterjet downhole drilling environments are difficult to predict because the temperatures and pressures varied with the depth of the well and the chemical compositions of drilling fluid. Different proportion of waterjet drilling fluid (density or viscosity) may produce different pressures and temperatures for the waterjet drilling bit. Therefore, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the waterjet drilling environments is of crucial significance, especially for the design of downhole navigation apparatus. This paper describes the design details of helix drilling calibration (HIDC) apparatus with MEMS gyroscope based measurement while drilling (MGWD) device in downhole harsh conditions. The design objective of HIDC apparatus is that the determined errors of MGWD device interrupted by scale factor errors and axis non-orthogonal errors can be modulated and the stochastic errors and the bias drift of MGWD device can be reduced. The drilling environments of HIDC apparatus are simulated by ANSYS INFLUENT software and the simulation results demonstrate that the temperature, the pressure and the flow rate of waterjet drilling fluid to HIDC apparatus are 172.85 °C, 4×108 Pa and 704.4823 m/s respectively.

Metasurface coatings on a free-standing SiN thin film membrane are fabricated on a Si substrate using masked lithography and CMOS-compatible surface micromachining. The result is a band-limited absorber for the mid-IR, which is part of a microstructure that is attached to the substrate by long and slender suspension beams to provide thermal isolation. As a residual of the fabrication, the regular pattern of sub-wavelength unit cells of 2.6 μm side length, which defines the metasurface, is interrupted by an equally regular array of sub-wavelength holes of 1–2 μm diameter and at 7.8–15.6 μm of pitch. This array of holes is essential for enabling access of the etchant and attack of the underlying layer during fabrication, which ultimately results in the sacrificial release of the membrane from the underlying substrate. As the plasmonic responses of the two patterns interfere, a maximum is imposed on the hole diameter and a minimum on the hole-to-hole pitch. However, the hole diameter should be sufficiently large to allow access of the etchant, while the maximum spacing between holes is set by the limited selectivity of the different materials to the etchant during sacrificial release. The effect of the parasitic hole pattern on the spectral absorption of a metasurface design is analyzed by simulations of the responses of combined holes–metasurface structures. Arrays of 300 × 180 μm2 Al-Al2O3-Al MIM structures are mask-fabricated on suspended SiN beams. The results show that the effect of the array of holes can be disregarded for a hole-to-hole pitch larger than 6 times the side length of the metamaterial until cell, while the diameter of the hole should remain smaller than about 1.5 μm, and their alignment is critical.

In polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) for fuel cell electric vehicles, cell reversal (CR) at the anode side can occasionally occur—usually when hydrogen supply is interrupted—which results in degradation of the anode. To mitigate this problem, reversal-tolerant anodes (RTAs) using oxygen evolution reaction catalysts have been generally applied. Adding such materials promotes water oxidation and, thus, provides the protons and electrons during CR situation, while minimizing the carbon-oxidation reaction. In this study, we performed a detailed investigation of the sole use of IrxRuy/C catalysts for RTAs in the membrane electrode assembly (MEA)—including the effects of the IrRu alloy composition and the degree of graphitization of the carbon support on the durability under fuel starvation. Supported IrRu alloy catalysts with different Ir/Ru ratios were prepared via a facile impregnation method on carbon supports with differing degrees of graphitization by heat-treatment at a range of high temperatures. X-ray diffraction patterns indicated that the crystal structure of the alloy nanoparticles depended on the alloy composition, showing the development of a hexagonal closely packed structure with increasing Ru content. Raman spectroscopy indicated an increase in the degree of graphitization of carbon with progressively higher processing temperatures. IrxRuy alloys were found to be a suitable replacement for Pt anode from single-cell MEA performance testing. Furthermore, we examined the synergic enhancement of the CR durability of IrRu alloys with different compositions comparing to the Ir and Ru metals by measuring the initial and total voltage change of MEAs under hydrogen starvation. For the same alloy composition, higher CR durability was observed for MEAs with catalysts prepared using a higher degree of graphitization of the carbon support. Based on the results, we concluded that to develop efficient catalysts for RTAs of automotive PEMFCs, it is important to consider both the durability of the carbon support under high voltages and the catalyst composition.

e15631 Background: Bevacizumab (Bev) is a recombinant monoclonal antibody associated with hypertension and proteinuria commonly used in treatment of various malignancies. Often times, treatment is interrupted due to complications. Currently, there are no evidence based medication guidelines for Bev induced hypertension (htn) and proteinuria (pu). ACE inhibitors (ACE-I) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) are known to reduce severity of proteinuria in other disease states. However, no studies on these drugs have been conducted to verify their efficacy for Bev associated htn and pu. This study aims to provide guidance on Bev induced htn and pu management. Methods: This is a retrospective analysis of oncology patients between 2018-2019 at a single community clinic. All patients receiving Bev were selected and the control arm was patients with similar malignancies on chemo without Bev. Data was collected for 10 cycles of treatment. A comparison for htn was done using the Chi-square test between the control and the Bev group. Within the Bev group different classes of meds were studied to determine superiority for htn and pu control with Chi-square tests or independent t-tests as appropriate. Results: The data set has a total of 82 observations. The demographics of the two groups are given in Table 1. In the Bev group, 16 (46%) of the patients were on ACE-I/ARB during treatment (10 [29%] on ARB), 10 [29%] were on a diuretic, 10 [29%] were on calcium channel blocker, and 13 [37%] of patients were on ARB/thiazide (combo). On average, patients receiving Bev had an average 11 point increase in SBP compared to control. ACE-I or ARB (p value 0.028) and CCB ( p value 0.025) had the best htn control . Patients on the ARB/thiazide combo had the least proteinuria. Our study shows a significant improvement in proteinuria in patients on an ARB/thiazide combo in comparison to patients on ACE-I or CCB alone. CCB was shown to be the worst for proteinuria but it did have some benefit with htn (p < 0.05). Conclusions: ACE-I, ARB, and CCB were all equally beneficial in treatment for Bev induced htn. Previous studies have shown the potential benefit of ARB/Thiazide combo in other nephropathies. This study gives us new insight on the combination of ARB/Thiazide for therapeutic benefit in Bev induced proteinuria. Further prospective studies are needed to help us guide with therapy.

98 Background: In 2018, Medicare released a NGS NCD memo which would facilitate reimbursement for NGS tests for patients (pts) with advanced or metastatic cancer who had not been previously tested using NGS for the same cancer and genetic content. We examined the association between the NCD and: a) NGS utilization trends in commercially-insured and Medicare pts and b) repeat NGS testing. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of pts with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC), metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), metastatic breast cancer (mBC) or advanced melanoma (aM), diagnosed 2011 (2013 for mCRC) through Dec. 2019 using the Flatiron Health EHR-derived de-identified database, comprising data from over 280 (largely community based) cancer clinics (~800 sites of care). Pts were classified as Medicare or Commercially insured based on age and insurance type, and grouped into quarters based on their advanced or metastatic diagnosis date. NGS testing rates per quarter were based on evidence of first NGS test within 60 days from diagnosis. We used an interrupted time series analysis to assess NGS utilization trends pre- and post-NCD policy effective date (March 2018). The frequency of repeat NGS testing was assessed among those pts with only 1 primary cancer. Results: The utilization analysis included 70,290 pts while the repeat NGS testing analysis included 51,385 pts. Across the 4 tumors combined, the use of NGS was < 1% in 2011 (both insurance types) and increased to 41% in commercially-insured pts and 37% in Medicare in 2019. In each tumor, NGS utilization was < 6% in Q1 2014; however, the rate of increase varied by tumor, with aNSCLC increasing to 58% in commercial and 48% in Medicare, while mBC and aM remained < 20% in Q4 2019. Among pts with aNSCLC, mCRC, or mBC, the quarterly rate of increase in NGS testing was higher post-NCD compared to pre-NCD (p < 0.05 for pre-post difference in rate of NGS increase within each cancer type). The difference in trends pre- and post-NCD was not significantly different between commercial and Medicare in any of the tumors (p > 0.05 within each cancer type). Repeat NGS testing increased over time from 17.8% (in Q3 2014 to Q2 2016) to 29.6% (in Q2 2018 to Q4 2019). Conclusions: NGS utilization trends significantly changed post-NCD, however the rate of change was not significantly different by insurance, indicating private insurers may also be following the guidance of the NCD. We observed an increase in repeat NGS testing, despite the NCD not covering repeat testing with the same NGS test.

Em seu oitavo ano de publicações semestrais, a Revista Texto Livre: Linguagem e Tecnologia apresenta, neste número, artigos relacionados com educação, tecnologia, linguagem, literatura e redes sociais. O atual contexto do uso das tecnologias digitais na construção do conhecimento inclui diferentes mídias e a análise dos seus diversos usos e respectivas metodologias possibilita excelentes reflexões sobre os limites e as possibilidades nos diferentes níveis de aprendizagem em rede. O primeiro artigo, em inglês, “Pope, interrupted. A qualitative study on memes, hashtags, and speech chains” apresenta a pesquisa de Marcus Vinicius Avelar sobre a reação no Twitter ao anúncio da renúncia do Papa Benedito XVI, utilizando memes e hashtags que circularam no Twitter entre o anúncio da renúncia e o último dia de trabalho do Papa, com o objetivo de identificar as cadeias de fala criadas na perspectiva da antropologia linguística. Com foco em Educação e tecnologia, no artigo “Educação a Distância no Brasil: comentários e desafios pedagógicos no ensino superior”, Pedro Camargo e Valdir Lamim-Guedes se propõem a discutir os rumos da Educação a Distância no ensino superior brasileiro a partir das suas particularidades, considerando o papel do professor, do tutor, do currículo e das plataformas virtuais ao longo desse processo do aluno, ator principal do processo educacional. Ainda dentro do tema Educação e tecnologias, Carlos Fabiano de Souza apresenta as suas considerações sobre os aspectos relevantes do uso da tecnologia digital móvel no ensino de inglês com o artigo “Aprendizagem sem distância: tecnologia digital móvel no ensino de Língua Inglesa”. Talita Miranda Ribeiro e Giovane Nascimento apresentam o seu estudo sobre as questões que se referem ao novo aluno e ao novo professor que a atualidade, com seus avanços tecnológicos, vêm transformando na perspectiva do sujeito pós-moderno contemporâneo e apontam a necessidade de se repensar as práticas educacionais no contexto atual da realidade escolar.As reflexões sobre o ensino e o uso de tecnologias continuam com Vanderlei Padilha Machado, que apresenta o resultado de seus estudos no artigo, em espanhol, “Conocimientos tecnológicos y pedagógicos de profesores de español en el uso de las TIC: una fotografía telemática tomada en centros públicos de enseñanza básica del Distrito Federal de Brasil”, cujo objetivo foi caracterizar o nível de conhecimento tecnológico no uso das ticpor parte dos professores de espanhol como língua estrangeira. No artigo seguinte, “WhatsApp: caracterização do gênero chat em contexto de ensino de línguas estrangeiras”, Natália Costa Leite e Marden Oliveira Silva apresentam uma caracterização do gênero chat por meio do aplicativo WhatsApp na perspectiva bakhtiniana de gêneros textuais, com a expectativa de que a caracterização do gênero possa estimular o uso do aplicativo como ferramenta de apoio ao ensino/aprendizagem de língua estrangeira.As reflexões sobre a existência de novos formatos digitais para a criação e divulgação de textos e sua influência na leitura e na produção textual estão presentes no artigo de Suelen Érica Costa da Silva, “Clássicos da literatura brasileira no formato de livroclip: (re)leitura e interatividade”, com a proposta de discutir como a produção de livroclip, interface interativa proveniente da computação gráfica, pode estimular o processo de (inter)ação entre os aprendizes do Ensino Médio com obras clássicas da literatura brasileira. Continuando com o foco na produção textual e tecnologia, o artigo “Tecnologia e poder semiótico: escrever, hoje”, de Ana Elisa Ribeiro, apresenta uma reflexão sobre aspectos da produção de textos nos dias de hoje com inspiração em ideias de Gunther Kress, pensando a produção de textos em níveis de multimodalidade cada vez mais expressivos, cenário no qual a escola pode participar ao propor a reflexão e a prática sobre a escrita, contribuindo para a ampliação do “poder semiótico” das pessoas.Com uma abordagem prática e reflexiva sobre as políticas oficiais para o ensino de línguas, o artigo “Notas para uma política de ensino de línguas”, de José Carlos Paes de Almeida Filho, propõe uma análise sobre as políticas oficiais no campo das Políticas de Ensino de Línguas (Estrangeiras e Segundas) para responder as diversas questões que encontram-se abertas sobre o assunto. Jose Luiz Foureaux de Souza Junior apresenta a experiência de ensinar Língua Portuguesa como língua estrangeira, sobretudo com a atenção voltada para a apresentação da “variante” brasileira para alunos croatas no artigo “Ensinar língua portuguesa na Croácia: primeiras anotações de uma experiência”.No artigo “Novo do velho: a poesia experimental dos poetas ensaístas Haroldo e Augusto de Campos”, Carolina Tomasi discute a poesia aguda de expressão visual e sonora, que partilha o sentido de renovar o antigo, mas não se desgarra do velho, ou de criar o novo, voltando à origem, tomando como base os poemas “Oportet”, de Haroldo de Campos, e “Novo novelo”, de Augusto de Campos, para discutir uma questão recorrente na literatura: tradição e ruptura, considerando questionável o rótulo “neobarroco” na literatura brasileira.Por fim, esta edição traz a resenha do livro “Sala de aula digital: uma introdução à cultura digital para educadores”, do autor Dilermando Piva Junior, por Carlos Alexandre Rodrigues de Oliveira e José Geraldo Fernandes Oliveira Júnior.Os artigos deste número da Revista Texto Livre: Linguagem e Tecnologia abordaram aspectos relevantes do ensino mediado por tecnologias digitais, a análise do uso de aplicativos das redes sociais para a compreensão de diferentes fenômenos, o ensino de línguas em diversas perspectivas e a leitura e produção de textos em novos contextos. Agradecemos aos autores e autoras por sua contribuição para que pudéssemos publicar este número da Revista Texto Livre: Linguagens e Tecnologia e desejamos que todos tenham uma ótima leitura.

Collagen XII, a fibril-associated collagen with interrupted triple helices (FACIT), influences fibrillogenesis in numerous tissues. In addition to this extracellular function, collagen XII also directly regulates cellular function. Collagen XII is widely expressed in connective tissues, particularly tendons, ligaments, and the periodontium and periosteum, where it is enriched in the pericellular regions. Mutations in the collagen XII gene cause myopathic Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (mEDS), an early-onset disease characterized by overlapping connective tissue abnormalities and muscle weakness. Patients with mEDS exhibit delayed motor development, muscle weakness, joint laxity, hypermobility, joint contractures, and abnormal wound healing. A mEDS mouse model was generated by deletion of the Col12a1 gene, resulting in skeletal and muscle abnormalities with disorganized tissue structures and altered mechanical properties. Extracellularly, collagen XII interacts with collagen I fibrils and regulates collagen fibril spacing and assembly during fibrillogenesis. Evidence for the binding of collagen XII to other EDS-related molecules (e.g., decorin and tenascin X) suggests that disruption of ECM molecular interactions is one of the causes of connective tissue pathology in mEDS. Collagen XII also has been shown to influence cell behavior, such as cell shape and cell-cell communication, by providing physical connection between adjacent cells during tissue development and regeneration. The focus of this review is on the functions of collagen XII in development, regeneration, and disease.

Rheb is a small GTPase member of the Ras superfamily and an activator of mTORC1, a protein complex master regulator of cell metabolism, growth, and proliferation. Rheb/mTORC1 pathway is hyperactivated in proliferative diseases, such as Tuberous Sclerosis Complex syndrome and cancer. Therefore, targeting Rheb-dependent signaling is a rational strategy for developing new drug therapies. Rheb activates mTORC1 in the cytosolic surface of lysosomal membranes. Rheb’s farnesylation allows its anchorage on membranes, while its proper localization depends on the prenyl-binding chaperone PDEδ. Recently, the use of PDEδ inhibitors has been proposed as anticancer agents because they interrupted KRas signaling leading to antiproliferative effects in KRas-dependent pancreatic cancer cells. However, the effect of PDEδ inhibition on the Rheb/mTORC1 pathway has been poorly investigated. Here, we evaluated the impact of a new PDEδ inhibitor, called Deltasonamide 1, in Tsc2-null MEFs, a Rheb-dependent overactivated mTORC1 cell line. By using a yeast two-hybrid assay, we first validated that Deltasonamide 1 disrupts Rheb-PDEδ interaction. Accordingly, we found that Deltasonamide 1 reduces mTORC1 targets activation. In addition, our results showed that Deltasonamide 1 has antiproliferative and cytotoxic effects on Tsc2-null MEFs but has less effect on Tsc2-wild type MEFs viability. This work proposes the pharmacological PDEδ inhibition as a new approach to target the abnormal Rheb/mTORC1 activation in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex cells.

AbstractWe recorded spontaneous extracellular action potentials (eAPs) from rat chromaffin cells (CCs) at 37 °C using microelectrode arrays (MEAs) and compared them with intracellularly recorded APs (iAPs) through conventional patch clamp recordings at 22 °C. We show the existence of two distinct firing modes on MEAs: a ~ 4 Hz irregular continuous firing and a frequent intermittent firing mode where periods of high-intraburst frequency (~ 8 Hz) of ~ 7 s duration are interrupted by silent periods of ~ 12 s. eAPs occurred either as negative- or positive-going signals depending on the contact between cell and microelectrode: either predominantly controlled by junction-membrane ion channels (negative-going) or capacitive/ohmic coupling (positive-going). Negative-going eAPs were found to represent the trajectory of the Na+, Ca2+, and K+ currents passing through the cell area in tight contact with the microelectrode during an AP (point-contact junction). The inward Nav component of eAPs was blocked by TTX in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 ~ 10 nM) while the outward component was strongly attenuated by the BK channel blocker paxilline (200 nM) or TEA (5 mM). The SK channel blocker apamin (200 nM) had no effect on eAPs. Inward Nav and Cav currents were well-resolved after block of Kv and BK channels or in cells showing no evident outward K+ currents. Unexpectedly, on the same type of cells, we could also resolve inward L-type currents after adding nifedipine (3 μM). In conclusion, MEAs provide a direct way to record different firing modes of rat CCs and to estimate the Na+, Ca2+, and K+ currents that sustain cell firing and spontaneous catecholamines secretion.

The structure of eukaryotic genes is generally a combination of exons interrupted by intragenic non-coding DNA regions (introns) removed by RNA splicing to generate the mature mRNA. A fraction of genes, however, comprise a single coding exon with introns in their untranslated regions or are intronless genes (IGs), lacking introns entirely. The latter code for essential proteins involved in development, growth, and cell proliferation and their expression has been proposed to be highly specialized for neuro-specific functions and linked to cancer, neuropathies, and developmental disorders. The abundant presence of introns in eukaryotic genomes is pivotal for the precise control of gene expression. Notwithstanding, IGs exempting splicing events entail a higher transcriptional fidelity, making them even more valuable for regulatory roles. This work aimed to infer the functional role and evolutionary history of IGs centered on the mouse genome. IGs consist of a subgroup of genes with one exon including coding genes, non-coding genes, and pseudogenes, which conform approximately 6% of a total of 21,527 genes. To understand their prevalence, biological relevance, and evolution, we identified and studied 1,116 IG functional proteins validating their differential expression in transcriptomic data of embryonic mouse telencephalon. Our results showed that overall expression levels of IGs are lower than those of MEGs. However, strongly up-regulated IGs include transcription factors (TFs) such as the class 3 of POU (HMG Box), Neurog1, Olig1, and BHLHe22, BHLHe23, among other essential genes including the β-cluster of protocadherins. Most striking was the finding that IG-encoded BHLH TFs fit the criteria to be classified as microproteins. Finally, predicted protein orthologs in other six genomes confirmed high conservation of IGs associated with regulating neural processes and with chromatin organization and epigenetic regulation in Vertebrata. Moreover, this study highlights that IGs are essential modulators of regulatory processes, such as the Wnt signaling pathway and biological processes as pivotal as sensory organ developing at a transcriptional and post-translational level. Overall, our results suggest that IG proteins have specialized, prevalent, and unique biological roles and that functional divergence between IGs and MEGs is likely to be the result of specific evolutionary constraints.

It has been fifteen months since the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic and the first lockdowns went into effect, dramatically changing the social landscape for millions of individuals worldwide. Overnight, it seemed, Zoom became the default platform for video conferencing, rapidly morphing from brand name to eponymous generic—a verb and a place and mode of being all at once. This nearly ubiquitous transition to remote work and remote play was both unprecedented and entirely anticipated. While teleworking, digital commerce, online learning, and social networking were common fare by 2020, in March of that year telepresence shifted from option to mandate, and Zooming became a daily practice for tens of millions of individuals worldwide. In an era of COVID-19, our relationships and experiences are deeply intertwined with our ability to “Zoom”. This shift resulted in new forms of artistic practice, new modes of pedagogy, and new ways of social organising, but it has also created new forms (and exacerbated existing forms) of exploitation, inequity, social isolation, and precarity. For millions, of course, lockdowns and restrictions had a profound impact that could not be mitigated by the mediated presence offered by way of Zoom and other video conferencing platforms. For those of us fortunate enough to maintain a paycheck and engage in work remotely, Zoom in part highlighted the degree to which a network logic already governed our work and our labour within a neoliberal economy long before the first lockdowns began. In the introduction to The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Lyotard identifies a “logic of maximum performance” that regulates the contemporary moment: a cybernetic framework for understanding what it means to communicate—one that ultimately frames all political, social, and personal interactions within matrices of power laid out in terms of performativity and optimisation (xxiv.) Performativity serves as a foundation for not only how a system operates, but for how all other elements within that system express themselves. Lyotard writes, “even when its rules are in the process of changing and innovations are occurring, even when its dysfunctions (such as strikes, crises, unemployment, or political revolutions) inspire hope and lead to a belief in an alternative, even then what is actually taking place is only an internal readjustment, and its results can be no more than an increase in the system’s ‘viability’” (11-12). One may well add to this list of dysfunctions global pandemics. Zoom, in effect, offered universities, corporations, mass media outlets, and other organisations a platform to “innovate” within an ongoing network logic of performativity: to maintain business as usual in a moment in which nothing was usual, normal, or functional. Zoom foregrounds performativity in other senses as well, to the extent that it provides a space and context for social performance. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman explores how social actors move through their social environments, managing their identities in response to the space in which they find themselves and the audience (who are also social actors) within those spaces. For Goffman, the social environment provides the primary context for how and why social actors behave the way that they do. Goffman further denotes different spaces where our performances may shift: from public settings to smaller audiences, to private spaces where we can inhabit ourselves without any performance demands. The advent of social media, however, has added new layers to how we understand performance, audience, and public and private social spaces. Indeed, Goffman’s assertion that we are constantly managing our impressions feels particularly accurate when considering the added pressures of managing our identities in multiple social spaces, both face to face and online. Thus, when the world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, and all forms of social interactions shifted to digital spaces, the performative demands of working from home became all the more complex in the sharp merging of private and public spaces. Thus, discussions and debates arose regarding proper “Zoom etiquette”, for different settings, and what constituted work-appropriate attire when working from home (a debate that, unsurprisingly, became particularly gendered in nature). Privacy management was a near constant narrative as we began asking, who can be in our spaces? How much of our homes are we required to put on display to other classmates, co-workers, and even our friends? In many ways, the hyper-dependence on Zoom interactions forced an entry into the spaces that we so often kept private, leaving our social performances permanently on display. Prior to COVID-19, the networks of everyday life had already produced rather porous boundaries between public and private life, but for the most part, individuals managed to maintain some sort of partition between domestic, intimate spaces, and their public performances of their professional and civic selves. It was an exception in The Before Times, for example, for a college professor to be interrupted in the midst of his BBC News interview by his children wandering into the room; the suspended possibility of the private erupting in the midst of a public social space (or vice versa) haunts all of our network interactions, yet the exceptionality of these moments speaks to the degree to which we sustained an illusion of two distinct stages for performance in a pre-pandemic era. Now, what was once the exception has become the rule. As millions of individuals found themselves Zooming from home while engaging co-workers, clients, patients, and students in professional interactions, the interpenetration of the public and private became a matter of daily fare. And yes, while early on in the pandemic several newsworthy (or at least meme-worthy) stories circulated widely on mass media and social media alike, serving as teleconferencing cautionary tales—usually involving sex, drugs, or bowel movements—moments of transgressive privacy very much became the norm: we found ourselves, in the midst of the workday, peering into backgrounds of bedrooms and kitchens, examining decorations and personal effects, and sharing in the comings and goings of pets and other family members entering and leaving the frame. Some users opted for background images or made use of blurring effects to “hide the mess” of their daily lives. Others, however, seemed to embrace the blur itself, implicitly or explicitly accepting the everydayness of this new liminality between public and private life. And while we acknowledge the transgressive nature of the incursions of the domestic and the intimate into workplace activities, it is worth noting as well that this incursion likewise takes place in the opposite direction, as spaces once designated as private became de facto workplace settings, and fell under the purview of a whole range of workplace policies that dictated appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. Not least of these intrusions are the literal and ideological apparatuses of surveillance that Zoom and other video conferencing platforms set into motion. In the original conception of the Panopticon, the observer could see the observed, but those being observed could not see their observers. This was meant to instill a sense of constant surveillance, whether the observer was there or not. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault considered those observed through the Panopticon as objects to be observed, with no power to turn the gaze back towards the structures of power that infiltrated their existence with such invasive intent. With Zoom, however, as much as private spaces have been infiltrated by work, school, and even family and friends, those leading classes or meetings may also feel a penetrative gaze by those who observe their professional performances, as many online participants have pushed back against these intrusions with cameras and audio turned off, leaving the performer with an audience of black screens and no indication of real observers behind them or not. In these unstable digital spaces, we vacillate between observed and observer, with the lines between private and public, visible and invisible, utterly blurred. Yet we should not lose sight of the fact that the panoptic power of the platform itself is hardly optic and remains one degree removed from its users, at the level of data extraction, collection, and exchange. In an already data-dependent era, more privacy and personal data has become available than ever before through online monitoring and the constant use of Zoom in work and social interactions. Such incursions of informatic biopower require further consideration within an emerging discussion of digital capital. There has also been the opportunity for these transformative, digital spaces to be used for an invited gaze into artistic and imaginative spaces. The global pandemic hit many industries hard, but in particular, artists and performers, as well as their performance venues, saw a massive loss of space, audiences, and income. Many artists developed performance spaces through online video conferencing in order to maintain their practice and their connection to their audiences, while others developed new curriculums and worked to find accessible ways for community members to participate in online art programming. Thus, though performers may still be faced with black squares as their audience, the invited gaze allows for artistic performances to continue, whether as digital shorts, live streamed music sets, or isolated cast members performing many roles with a reduced cast list. Though the issue of access to the technology and bandwidth needed to partake in these performances and programming is still front of mind, the presentation of artistic performances through Zoom has allowed in many other ways for a larger audience reach, from those who may not live near a performance centre, to others who may not be able to access physical spaces comfortably or safely. The ideology of ongoing productivity and expanded, remote access baked into video conferencing platforms like Zoom is perhaps most apparent in the assumptions of access that accompanied the widespread use of these platforms, particularly in the context of public institutions such as schools. In the United States, free market libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute have pointed to the end of “Net Neutrality” as a boon for infrastructure investment that led to greater broadband access nationwide (compared to a more heavily regulated industry in Europe). Yet even policy think tanks such as the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation—with its mission to “formulate, evaluate, and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress”—acknowledged that although the U.S. infrastructure supported the massive increase in bandwidth demands as schools and businesses went online, gaps in rural access and affordability barriers for low income users mean that more needs to be done to bring about “a more just and effective broadband network for all Americans”. But calls for greater access are, in effect, supporting this same ideological framework in which greater access presumably equates with greater equity. What the COVID-19 pandemic revealed, we would argue, is the degree to which those most in need of services and support experience the greatest degree of digital precarity, a point that Jenny Kennedy, Indigo Holcombe-James, and Kate Mannell foreground in their piece “Access Denied: How Barriers to Participate on Zoom Impact on Research Opportunity”. As they note, access to data and devices provide a basic threshold for participation, but the ability to deploy these tools and orient oneself toward these sorts of engagements suggests a level of fluency beyond what many high-risk/high-need populations may already possess. Access reveals a disposition toward global networks, and as such signals one’s degree of social capital within a network society—a “state nobility” for the digital age (Bourdieu.) While Zoom became the default platform for a wide range of official and institutional practices, from corporate meetings to college class sessions, we have seen over the past year unanticipated engagements with the platform as well. Zoombombing offers one form of evil media practice that disrupts the dominant performativity logic of Zoom and undermines the assumptions of rational exchange that still drive much of how we understand “effective” communication (Fuller and Goffey). While we may be tempted to dismiss Zoombombing and other forms of “shitposting” as “mere” trollish distractions, doing so does not address the political agency of strategic actions on these platforms that refuse to abide by “an intersubjective recognition that is based on a consensus about values or on mutual understanding” (Habermas 12). Kawsar Ali takes up these tactical uses in “Zoom-ing in on White Supremacy: Zoom-Bombing Anti-Racism Efforts” and explores how alt-right and white supremacist groups have exploited these strategies not only as a means of disruption but as a form of violence against participants. A cluster of articles in this issue take up the question of creative practice and how video conferencing technologies can be adapted to performative uses that were perhaps not intended or foreseen by the platform’s creators. xtine burrough and Sabrina Starnaman offer up one such project in “Epic Hand Washing: Synchronous Participation and Lost Narratives”, which paired live performances of handwashing in domestic spaces with readings from literary texts that commented upon earlier pandemics and plagues. While Zoom presents itself as a tool to keep a neoliberal economy flowing, we see modes of use such as burrough’s and Starnaman’s performative piece that are intentionally playful, at the same time that they attempt to address the lived experiences of lockdown, confinement, and hygienic hypervigilance. Claire Parnell, Andrea Anne Trinidad, and Jodi McAlister explore another form of playful performance through their examination of the #RomanceClass community in the Philippines, and how they adapted their biannual reading and performance events of their community-produced English-language romance fiction. While we may still use comparative terms such as “face-to-face” and “virtual” to distinguish between digitally-mediated and (relatively) unmediated interactions, Parnell et al.’s work highlights the degree to which these technologies of mediation were already a part of this community’s attempt to support and sustain itself. Zoom, then, became the vehicle to produce and share community-oriented kilig, a Filipino term for embodied, romantic affective response. Shaun Wilson’s “Creative Practice through Teleconferencing in the Era of COVID-19” provides another direct reflection on the contemporary moment and the framing aesthetics of Zoom. Through an examination of three works of art produced for screen during the COVID-19 pandemic, including his own project “Fading Light”, Wilson examines how video conferencing platforms create “oscillating” frames that speak to and comment on each other at the same time that they remain discrete and untouched. We have opened and closed this issue with bookends of sorts, bringing to the fore a range of theoretical considerations alongside personal reflections. In our feature article, “Room without Room: Affect and Abjection in the Circuit of Self-Regard”, Ricky Crano examines the degree to which the aesthetics of Zoom, from its glitches to its default self-view, create modes of interaction that drain affect from discourse, leaving its users with an impoverished sense of co-presence. His focus is explicitly on the normative uses of the platform, not the many artistic and experimental misappropriations that the platform likewise offers. He concludes, “it is left to artists and other experimenters to expose and undermine the workings of power in the standard corporate, neoliberal modes of engagement”, which several of the following essays in this issue then take up. And we close with “Embracing Liminality and ‘Staying with the Trouble’ on (and off) Screen”, in which Tania Lewis, Annette Markham, and Indigo Holcombe-James explore two autoethnographic studies, Massive and Microscopic Sensemaking and The Shut-In Worker, to discuss the liminality of our experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, on and off—and in between—Zoom screens. Rather than suggesting a “return to normal” as mask mandates, social distancing, and lockdown restrictions ease, they attempt to “challenge the assumption that stability and certainty is what we now need as a global community … . How can we use the discomfort of liminality to imagine global futures that have radically transformative possibilities?” This final piece in the collection we take to heart, as we consider how we, too, can stay in the trouble, and consider transformative futures. Each of these pieces offers a thoughtful contribution to a burgeoning discussion on what Zooming means to us as academics, teachers, researchers, and community members. Though investigations into the social effects of digital spaces are not new, this moment in time requires careful and critical investigation through the lens of a global pandemic as it intersects with a world that has never been more digital in its presence and social interactions. The articles in this volume bring us to a starting point, but there is much more to cover: issues of disability and accessibility, gender and physical representations, the political economy of digital accessibility, the transformation of learning styles and experiences through a year of online learning, and still more areas of investigation to come. It is our hope that this volume provides a blueprint of sorts for other critical engagements and explorations of how our lives and our digital landscapes have been impacted by COVID-19, regardless of the instability of our connections. We would like to thank all of the contributors and peer reviewers who made this fascinating issue possible, with a special thanks to the Cultural Studies Association New Media and Digital Cultures Working Group, where these conversations started … on Zoom, of course. References Bourdieu, Pierre. The State Nobility. Stanford UP, 1998. Brake, Doug. “Lessons from the Pandemic: Broadband Policy after COVID-19.” Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 13 July 2020. <http://itif.org/publications/2020/07/13/lessons-pandemic-broadband-policy-after-covid-19>. “Children Interrupt BBC News Interview – BBC News.” BBC News, 10 Mar. 2017. <http://youtu.be/Mh4f9AYRCZY>. Firey, Thomas A. “Telecommuting to Avoid COVID-19? 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