For many, the COVID-19 pandemic is the overwhelming, ever-present reality of dying-of loved ones, close family members, dear friends, colleagues, or patients. Fear, avoidance of or lack of time for ...essential conversations, physical separation during final moments, and lack of rituals for these contingencies leave individuals alone with loss, mourning, and grieving. How is leisure relevant during such realities? Historically, leisure has been present across diverse cultural dying and death practices: art, music, dance, theater, play, contemplation, rituals, and somatic practices. These connect individuals with life forces even as some are absent in the flesh. In truth, we are all experiencing dying-death-mourning-beginning again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Josef Pieper's (2017, 2016, 2011,
1999
, 1988) philosophy hints of leisure as context for the meaning, purpose, and comfort in such trying times: contemplating one's place in a changing world/universe and celebrating or affirming that relationship in community.
Charcoal-stripped bovine serum (CSS) is a critical reagent in the study of steroid hormones. However, CSS has high lot-to-lot variability, including residual growth factor and steroid hormone ...content. Assessing and reporting this variability is challenging but may affect experimental outcomes and data reproducibility. We hypothesized that CSS lot variability would affect endocrine response phenotypes in breast cancer cells, and we tested the effects of five individual CSS lots on endocrine response in MCF-7 and MDA MB 134VI (MM134) cells. Based on the effects of antiestrogens on MCF-7 cell proliferation, we defined CSS lots as having complete vs partial hormone deprivation. In partial deprivation CSS, the absolute effects of residual estrogens on cell proliferation were modest, but these effects masked the partial agonist activity of 4-hydroxytamoxifen in MM134 cells. Importantly, this effectively reversed the interpretation of tamoxifen-resistance in MM134 cells. Variable effects of CSS lots on endocrine resistance phenotypes were also observed in MCF-7 cells. In this context, we observed that partial vs complete deprivation CSS allowed for the development of unique early endocrine resistance phenotypes that correlated with the presence or absence of residual estrogenic hormones. We evaluated the methods of CSS preparation and identified factors contributing to the extent of hormone deprivation. Our observations suggest that CSS lot-to-lot variability has substantial effects on endocrine response phenotypes and that this ubiquitous factor in study methodology may confound reproducibility. Renewed vigilance in testing and reporting CSS phenotypes will greatly aid in interpreting and reproducing endocrine response and resistance data by the community.
Recent studies have identified the osteoblast as an insulin responsive cell that participates in global energy homeostasis. Here, we show that glucose transporter-4 (Glut4) is required for ...insulin-dependent uptake and oxidation of glucose in mature osteoblasts. In primary cultures of mouse osteoblasts, insulin increased uptake and oxidation of 14C-glucose in a dose-dependent fashion but did not significantly affect uptake or oxidation of 14C-oleate. In vitro, undifferentiated osteoblasts expressed 3 high-affinity Gluts: Glut1, Glut4, and Glut3. However, although levels of Glut1 and Glut3 remained constant during the course of osteoblast differentiation, Glut4 expression increased by 5-fold in association with enhanced insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. Glut4 ablation in osteoblasts in vitro eliminated insulin-stimulated glucose uptake, reduced proliferation and diminished measures of osteoblast maturation. In vivo, Glut4 expression was observed in osteoblasts, osteocytes, and chondrocytes at a level approaching that observed in adjacent skeletal muscle. To determine the importance of Glut4 in bone in vivo, we generated mice lacking Glut4 in osteoblasts and osteocytes (ΔGlut4). ΔGlut4 mice exhibited normal bone architecture but exhibited an increase in peripheral fat in association with hyperinsulinemia, β-cell islet hypertrophy, and reduced insulin sensitivity. Surprisingly, the expression of insulin target genes in liver, muscle, and adipose from ΔGlut4 mice were unchanged or increased, indicating that alterations in glucose homeostasis were the result of reduced clearance by bone. These findings suggest that Glut4 mediates insulin-stimulated glucose uptake by mature osteoblasts/osteocytes and that the magnitude of glucose use by bone cells is sufficient to impact global glucose disposal in the mouse.
La Diablada Pillareña en la actualidad resulta una de las festividades de más significación en el cantón Píllaro de la provincia de Tungurahua, Ecuador. Es parte del imaginario de las personas que ...habitan el sector, por lo que se hace importante referirse a esta dinámica cultural desde una perspectiva antropológica. El objetivo de la presente investigación es aportar a la valorización de la Diablada Pillareña, desde el análisis del performance. Para el proceso metodológico se utilizó un enfoque cualitativo, con un diseño de la investigación de tipo transversal, etnográfico y descriptivo. En el estudio se concluyó que la Diablada Pillareña, como simbolismo y performance, aborda diversas interpretaciones disciplinares y dinámicas socioculturales, se constituye como un evento performático con características mestizas y que combina diferentes tipos de símbolos y elementos, que hacen de este un evento de orden mestizo.
Esta investigación se presenta como un aporte a los estudios culturales de Rapa Nui a partir de un análisis de caso: la serie de fotografías de 1914 que documentan un evento multitudinario en Rapa ...Nui y donde varias personas aparecen disfrazadas con máscaras de lona. Complementando diversas fuentes y métodos--como fotografías, dibujos, análisis visual, bibliografía y entrevistas-, este artículo busca esclarecer el contexto y los sentidos posibles de lo que hemos denominado como una escena-puzzle, esto es, una escena de la cual se intenta reconstruir una imagen general buscando fragmentos en diferentes fuentes de información. En este trabajo de desenmascaramiento representamos este evento como una fiesta de carácter nacional que incluyó elementos del repertorio cultural contemporáneo de las personas rapanui.
El propósito de este artículo es analizar las ceremonias públicas en la capital del reino de Mallorca destinadas a celebrar los ciclos vitales de la familia real española desde el reinado de Felipe v ...hasta el de Fernando vii. Para ello, se examinan cuáles eran, cómo se celebraban, quiénes las organizaban y participaban, y cuándo tenían lugar, incluyendo los indultos y el perdón general concedidos en ocasión de algunas de estas efemérides. La documentación empleada se encuentra principalmente en las actas municipales del Ayuntamiento de Palma, en el Arxiu Capitular de Mallorca y en el Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, que contienen información de las principales instituciones que organizaron estos eventos.
This study is based on a sub-corpus extracted from the French Corpus Lessico dei Beni Culturali (University of Florence), which contains travel writings of French-speaking authors ranging from the ...16th to the 21th century, with Florence, the cradle of the Rinascimento, as a backdrop. We first analyze the various names that contribute to the discursive construction of this “mecca for tourists” (topographical names, chrononyms, titles of works). Secondly, we focus our attention on the stereotypical representations based on the value of “beauty” attributed to Florentine art works and monuments. Finally, we attempt to identify the discursive modalities that have the function of “desacralizing” these works, a desacralization that is strikingly expressed in the “Stendhal syndrome”, an emotional disorder with oxymoronic discursive characteristics (ethos and pathos)
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