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Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are responsible for tumorigenesis, therapeutic resistance, and metastasis in hepatocellular cancer (HCC). Cancer/testis antigen Maelstrom (MAEL) is implicated in the formation of CSC phenotypes, while the exact role and underlying mechanism remain unclear. Here, we found the upregulation of MAEL in HCC, with its expression negatively correlated with survival outcome. Functionally, MAEL promoted tumor cell aggressiveness, tumor stem-like potentials, and resistance to sorafenib in HCC cell lines. Transcriptional profiling indicated the dysregulation of stemness in MAEL knockout cells and identified PTGS2 as a critical downstream target transactivated by MAEL. The suppression effect of MAEL knockout in tumor aggressiveness was rescued in PTGS2 overexpression HCC cells. A molecular mechanism study revealed that the upregulation of PTGS2 by MAEL subsequently resulted in IL-8 secretion and the activation of AKT/NF-κB/STAT3 signaling. Collectively, our work identifies MAEL as an important stemness regulation gene in HCC. Targeting MAEL or its downstream molecules may provide a novel possibility for the elimination of CSC to enhance therapeutic efficacy for HCC patients in the future.

Slides of presentation of first results of MAELSTROM Application Benchmarks, as presented at ISC22.

I held an HPC introduction lecture at the MAELSTROM Boot Camp.

Chromatin of male and female gametes undergoes a number of reprogramming events during the transition from germ cell to embryonic developmental programs. Although the rearrangement of DNA methylation patterns occurring in the zygote has been extensively characterized, little is known about the dynamics of DNA modifications during spermatid maturation. Here, we demonstrate that the dynamics of 5-carboxylcytosine (5caC) correlate with active transcription of LINE-1 retroelements during murine spermiogenesis. We show that the open reading frames of active and evolutionary young LINE-1s are 5caC-enriched in round spermatids and 5caC is eliminated from LINE-1s and spermiogenesis-specific genes during spermatid maturation, being simultaneously retained at promoters and introns of developmental genes. Our results reveal an association of 5caC with activity of LINE-1 retrotransposons suggesting a potential direct role for this DNA modification in fine regulation of their transcription., Blythe et al investigate the patterns of oxidized forms of the 5-methylcytosine DNA modification during spermatogenesis. They find that open reading frames of evolutionarily young and transcriptionally active LINE-1 retrotransposons are enriched in 5-carboxylcytosine (5caC) during spermatid maturation, suggesting a link between 5cac and LINE-1 activity.

Letter to the Editor COVID-19 has spread around the globe, with massive impacts on global human health, national economies and conservation activities. In the timely editorial about conservation in the maelstrom of COVID-19, Evans et al. (2020) urged the conservation community to collaborate with other relevant sectors of society in the search for solutions to the challenges posed by the current pandemic, as well as future zoonotic outbreaks. Considering the association of COVID 19 with bats (Zhou et al., 2020), bat conservationists will undoubtedly be key actors in this dialogue, and thus an action plan on how best to adjust bat conservation to this new reality, alongside a transdisciplinary research agenda, are clear priorities info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Creative Arts Educ Ther (2018) 4(2):153–157 DOI: 10.15212/CAET/2018/4/24 Embracing the Maelstrom: Arts Therapy Training from the Edges of the Whirlpool Abstract This piece of arts-based writing explores my personal transition from Arts Therapy student to Arts Therapy lecturer. Further, the roles and relationships between student and lecturer are explored and related to the Māori concept of ako, the idea of reciprocal learning and teaching. This exploration is held by the tenet that the arts process is integral to the teaching environment at Whitecliffe College, with the argument being that trusting in the poietic process supports and facilitates embodied knowledge. The piece further provides a contemplation of students’ experiences of their individual maelstrom (their deep journeys into themselves), the roles of the lecturers as those who help hold those journeys, and the learning gems that can be found along the way.

Mansaram is an Indo-Canadian artist who immigrated to Canada in 1966 with a prior interest in the media ideas of Marshall McLuhan, sparked by reading about him in LIFE Magazine. In Toronto the media guru soon introduced him to Av Isaacs at his Yonge Street gallery, which led to a 1967 Happening there called East-West Intersect, influenced by McLuhan’s ideas. Between 1966 and 1972 Mansaram worked on his Rear View Mirror series of paintings and collages, to one of which McLuhan contributed several items of textual content. Collage with its mosaic structures appealed to McLuhan because he thought it better represented the post-literate “allatonceness” of electronic media and acoustic space, which better integrated the full human sensorium and called for pattern recognition for comprehension. McLuhan had a high regard for artists for their integral awareness and sensitivity to changes in sense perception, enabling them to act as a distant early warning (DEW) line against potentially harmful effects of technology. He viewed their art as anti-environments to the electronic media maelstrom. Mansaram has enjoyed increasing recognition through recent exhibitions, but some of Canada’s premier art galleries have yet to acquire or recognize his art, although the Royal Ontario Museum is planning to do so. Résumé | Mansaram est un artiste indo-canadien qui a immigré au Canada en 1966 possédant un intérêt antérieur pour les idées médiatiques de Marshall McLuhan, suscité par la lecture d’articles à son sujet dans LIFE Magazine. À Toronto, le gourou des médias l’a rapidement présenté à Av Isaacs à sa galerie de Yonge Street, ce qui a mené à un « happening » en 1967 appelé East-West Intersect influencé par les idées de McLuhan. Entre 1966 et 1972, Mansaram a travaillé sur sa série de peintures et de collages Rear View Mirror, dont une à laquelle McLuhan a apporté plusieurs éléments textuels. Le collage, avec ses structures en mosaïque, plaisait à McLuhan parce qu’il trouvait qu’il représentait mieux la « concordance » postlittéraire des médias électroniques et de l’espace acoustique, qui intégrait mieux l’ensemble du sensorium humain et appelait à la reconnaissance des formes pour la compréhension. McLuhan avait un grand respect pour les artistes en raison de leur conscience intégrale et leur sensibilité aux changements dans la perception des sens, leur permettant d’agir en tant que réseau d’alerte avancé (DEW, pour « Distant Early Warning ») contre les effets potentiellement néfastes de la technologie. Il considérait leur art comme des antienvironnements au tourbillon des médias électroniques. Mansaram est de plus en plus reconnu à travers les expositions récentes, mais certaines des plus grandes galeries d’art du Canada n’ont pas encore acquis ou reconnu son art, bien que le Musée royal de l’Ontario ait l’intention de le faire.

This paper discusses the current state of thought amongst the Sustainability Indicator (SI) community, what has been achieved and where we are succeeding and failing. Recent years have witnessed the rise of “alternative facts” and “fake news” and this paper discusses how SIs fit into this maelstrom, especially as they are themselves designed to encapsulate complexity into condensed signals and it has long been known that SIs can be selectively used to support polarized sides of a debate. This paper draws from chapters in a new edited volume, the “Routledge Handbook of Sustainability Indicators and Indices”, edited by the authors. The book has 34 chapters written by a total of 59 SI experts from a wide range of backgrounds, and attempts to provide a picture of the past and present, strengths and weaknesses of SI development today. This paper is an “analysis of those analyses”—a mindful reflection on reflection, and an assessment of the malign and benign forces at work in 2018 within the SI arena. Finally, we seek to identify where SIs may be going over the coming, unpredictable years.

Length and complexity of illness and treatment in early breast cancer mean that the acute phase may extend over months. Employing concepts of “trajectory” and “work” from chronic illness, we explored the temporality of the illness experience for women as it unfolded from diagnosis through acute treatment. We performed multiple, qualitative interviews with 14 women at critical points in their first year postdiagnosis. We differentiated between subphases of the acute breast cancer trajectory: becoming a person with breast cancer: a turning point; first steps in treatment: struggling to protect self-concept; being and feeling ill: “cure” as suffering; and conditional “recovering”: an uncertain future. Each subphase represented the distinctive context in which illness management took place with consequences for the work women and those close to them engaged in, to manage the practical, emotional, relational, and existential demands of an illness that intruded every aspect of their lives.

En plena vorágine revolucionaria, México fue el escenario de animados debates de opinión que se centraban en las implicaciones directas que la Primera Guerra Mundial pudiera tener sobre los derroteros de la nación. Si bien su estudio ha sido en gran parte ignorado, su análisis es crucial para la comprensión del pensamiento mexicano durante y después del conflicto. Tras un balance historiográfico, este trabajo define el escenario de dichos debates de opinión, identifica su punto más álgido durante el año 1917 y analiza su evolución en tres de sus principales foros: la prensa, el Poder Legislativo y las asambleas estudiantiles. While in the thick of a revolutionary maelstrom, Mexico was the setting for animated debates centered on the direct implications that World War I might have on the nation’s future. Although its study has been largely ignored, analysis of the Great War is crucial for understanding Mexican thought during and after the conflict. In addition to offering a historiographical assessment, this work elaborates the scenes of said debates, identifies their most decisive moment during the year 1917, and analyzes their evolution in three of their principle forums: the press, the Legislative Branch, and student assemblies.

Texto disponible en español e inglés El ecosistema comunicativo crece y se produce en la sociedad tecnológica actual, donde prima la hipercomunicación; en este ambiente, una ingente cantidad de pantallas difunde contenidos audiovisuales que conforman la opinión y comportamiento de los receptores. Las distintas formas de interacción presencial y virtual, así como la vorágine mediática, requieren de la formación y alfabetización, no sólo comunicativa sino igualmente audiovisual, que pretende el alcance de la actitud crítica a través del desarrollo del conjunto de habilidades necesarias para la comunicación presencial y virtual. En este sentido, la presente investigación trata de justificar el interés y necesidad del crecimiento de la competencia mediática como forma de expresión autónoma y crítica. Esta temática centra el interés de diferentes organismos e instituciones de carácter nacional e internacional y guarda estrecha relación con la educación mediática que debe llevarse a cabo por los formadores y también por los profesionales de la comunicación The communicative ecosystem develops and takes place in today’s technological society where hypercommunication is prioritized. Within this context, an enormous number of screens broadcast audiovisual contents that shape the recipients’ opinion and behavior. The different types of face-to-face and virtual interaction, as well as the media maelstrom, require training and literacy, not only communicative but also audiovisual, aimed at the attainment of a critical attitude through the development of the skills necessary for face-to-face and virtual communication. In this sense, this research intends to justify the interest and need for growth of media competence as a form of autonomous and critical expression. This topic attracts the interest of different national and international organizations and institutions, and is closely related to the media education that should be carried out by trainers and communication professionals O ecossistema comunicativo cresce e ocorre na sociedade tecnológica de hoje, onde a hipercomunicação é o fator principal. Neste ambiente, uma enorme quantidade de telas de conteúdo de transmissão audiovisual formam a opinião e o comportamento dos destinatários. As diferentes formas de interação presencial e virtual, bem como o turbilhão da mídia, requerem treinamento e alfabetização, não só comunicativa, mas também audiovisual, o que pretende alcançar uma atitude crítica através do desenvolvimento das habilidades necessárias para enfrentar a comunicação presencial e virtual. Neste sentido, o presente estudo tenta justificar o interesse e a necessidade do crescimento da competência mediática como forma de expressão autónoma e crítica. Este tema concentra o interesse de diversas organizações e instituições nacionais e internacionais, e tem estreita relação com a educação mediática que deve ser realizada pelos treinadores e também pelos profissionais da comunicação SI

Postgraduate medical education in the UK has gone through a maelstrom of change in the last 20 years; many components have disadvantaged clinical academic training in particular. In this article we summarise some of the changes and describe the advantages of the creation of a dedicated clinical academic graduate school as a response to these changes. © Royal College of Physicians 2014. All rights reserved.

Between 1967 and 1973 Barbara Weinberger and Charles Madge undertook a longitudinal study of art students at Coventry and Birmingham Colleges of Art, incorporating pre-diploma to final year students and their teachers, with a focus on fine art students. This article revisits the study in light of accounts from participants, archival documents and reviews. It also looks at the study's value both as an accurate description of art school socialisation and its effectiveness as a piece of sociology. It then looks at some of the main issues raised by the study and how they have influenced writing since and their value today. The article aims to clarify some of the obscurities of the study and offer a critical context within which it can be read as a now unique historical document.

The authors draw attention to certain salient features of the process, which has combined elements of freedom and bondage, playing out largely on the terrain of employment-systems that have combined for four centuries the free trafficking of slaves and indentured servants with the contested liberty of wage-workers to abandon their employer. One of the most significant episodes in the history of European migration was just playing out: a migratory movement destined to continue until the outbreak of the war of 1914-1918. On the eve of the war of 1914-1918, industrial capital was already beginning to understand that it could not continue to rely on purely local recruitment of its assembly-line workers. In certain cases, the transition from sugar plantations to export-processing zones (EPZs) was remarkably smooth. In the case of Mexico's EPZs, the maelstrom is markedly more turbulent than elsewhere in the country. Keywords: assembly-line workers; European migration; maelstrom; sugar plantations

Unhappily, there has been a maelstrom of problems for dark matter theories over the last few years and many serious difficulties still have no resolution in sight. This article reviews the evidence for dark matter in galaxies. The haloes built up by hierarchical merging in dark matter cosmogonies are cusped and dominated by dark matter at the center. Evidence from the microlensing optical depth towards Baade's Window and from dynamical modelling of the Galactic bar already suggests that the Galactic halo is not cusped. Similarly, evidence from the stability of unbarred disk galaxies, as well as the survival of fast bars in barred galaxies, suggests that the this result holds good more generally. Judged on the data from galactic scales alone, the case for dark matter is weak and non-standard theories of gravity provide a better description. Of course, non-standard theories of gravity have their own problems, but not on galactic scales., 8 pages, invited review for "IDM 2000: Third International Workshop on the Identification of Dark Matter", ed. N. Spooner (World Scientific)

The music industry is [still] in a genuine maelstrom. Globalization is affecting this industry more than many other industries and it is primarily induced by developments in Information Technology. The foremost avenue for change is through the institution providing the foundation of the industry - copyright, which [may] be largely disabled. The oddly global and local structure of the music industry [,premised on copyrights, might] be undergoing some fundamental changes. The roles of music publishers and record companies especially [may be] about to alter. In an institutional economic analysis, I will analyze the present situation in this industry, where Information Technology impacts on this system, and how in general the industry is likely to change. [The original article was featured in the May of 2000 issue of First Monday - much has changed since then, but much of my original text still seems to have some validity. What may have changed, however, are the likely prospects for this industry, especially for incumbent firms.]

PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) is a germline-specific class of small non-coding RNAs that repress transposons in the gonads. Mael, which comprises a high mobility group box and a MAEL domain, is one of the key players in piRNA-mediated transposon silencing. However, the mechanism whereby Mael is involved in this pathway remains unknown. Recent biochemical and structural studies, along with bioinformatic analyses of Mael-associating RNAs in vivo, have shed light on the functional aspects of Mael in the piRNA pathway. We summarize the current understanding of Mael functions in the piRNA pathway, particularly in Drosophila and in mice.