To date there has been very little research regarding the relationship between women's personal experience of expressing anger and societal perception of that expression. Yet as Kippax et al (1988) note "the duality between the individual and the social structure must be recognised and incorporated into any successful theory of emotions" (p20). The relationship between these factors of the personal (discourse about self being angry) and the social (discourse about how society views women being angry) was scrutinised. This was achieved by the participation of sixty-five Scottish women in a three phase research project. The first phase involved nine focus groups, phase two involved using a two tier (self and society) Q-sort and the third phase involved qualitative interviews with the exemplars of six factors. These methods offered a way of elucidating and articulating women's accounts of their anger experiences. A thematic discourse analysis of the focus group material uncovered several discourses notably 'relationships mediate women's experiences of anger' and 'society constructs women's anger as unfeminine'. Other discourses highlighted were: 'control & aggression'; 'angry but guilty'; 'anger as a positive experience'; 'gender similarities and differences' and 'crying when angry' . These discourses were fed into a two tier Q-sort which produced 14 factors (8 of which are qualitatively analysed) emphasising the paradoxes and complexities of the different subject positions that the participants occupied. However, anger was frequently constructed as a passion - an 'all or nothing' event. The majority of parti~ipants constructed a society which opposed their right to express their anger. Discourses taken up by the participants demonstrate that there are several constructs that remain important for feminist psychologists to pursue, namely: power relations; context; and stereotyping

Knowledge of successful Business English as a lingua franca (BELF) has been recognized to be an essential element in overall business know-how (Kankaanranta & Louhiala-Salminen, 2010). In line with this notion, research has found that professionals use BELF and exploit a variety of discourse and pragmatic strategies that aid the process of cooperation and agreement so that mutual understanding can be reached (Firth, 1996; Kankaanranta & Planken, 2010; Pitzl, 2005). However, research has reported situations where business negotiators need to handle discord while maintaining a working rapport with the opposing party (e.g. Bjørge, 2012), indicating that the ability to produce the appropriate expression of disagreement is an imperative skill. Nonetheless, while there is now a better understanding of how business professionals establish common ground through using BELF, little work has been carried out on the subject on how professionals express disagreement in the same aspect (but see e.g. Bjørge, 2012; Stalpers, 1995). The present study aims to address this gap and expand the current knowledge on how business professionals express and handle disagreement in naturally-occurring face-to-face negotiations. The collected material consists of approximately 4 hours of BELF discourse recorded at a business convention in Germany. Fifteen disagreement episodes were identified, transcribed and analyzed using Conversation Analytic (CA) procedures. The present paper seeks to explore two aspects of the current topic, namely how business professionals (using BELF) express disagreement during business negotiations, and whether mitigation strategies are used when disagreement is expressed. The findings suggest that disagreements are solely content-related and are expressed in a variety of ways as they are coupled with a varied use of mitigation devices (i.e. delay and added support). Furthermore, there were instances of unmitigated expressions in the form of blunt contradictions. It is suggested that disagreements in BELF negotiations are required actions and may serve a dual purpose. The main goal of expressing disagreement is to increase clarity in cases where essential information may be misinterpreted or misguided; additionally, it indicates the speaker’s stance in the argument. Lastly, as there is a need for better knowledge of successful BELF, the present study is likely to be of interest for those who are engaged in the global business discourse community as well as researchers studying international business settings.

In recent years, Zika virus (ZIKV) has garnered worldwide attention due to its epidemic spread throughout the Americas and due to the newly recognized link between ZIKV infection and neurological diseases, including microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome. ZIKV is a mosquito-borne member of the genus Flavivirus, which includes the other prominent human pathogens Japanese encephalitis virus, West Nile virus, dengue virus, and yellow fever virus. Many questions about the biology of ZIKV and how it causes disease remain unanswered. Furthermore, there currently are no vaccines or licensed antiviral drugs available to treat ZIKV infection. The goal of this study was to create new tools to aid in ZIKV research and in the creation of new therapies for ZIKV infection. To accomplish this, we created two recombinant ZIKVs–one expressing a green fluorescent protein reporter gene and the other expressing a luciferase reporter gene. These additional genes will allow us to easily visualize infected cells and to precisely track levels of viral replication over time, thereby facilitating new experimental approaches and providing a means to gain insights about ZIKV. We believe that these two new versions of ZIKV will prove to be useful tools in the urgent task of better understanding how ZIKV causes disease and its links to other complications, as well as in the process of developing and testing new treatments to combat ZIKV infection.

<p> While much scholarly attention has been given to the benefits of expressing gratitude, a paucity of research exists in the competent communication of gratitude. The current dissertation employs three studies to ascertain qualities of gratitude communication that are favored in message recipients, establish criteria for competent gratitude communication, and identify the extent to which features of gratitude messages corresponds to the competency criteria. The first study investigated various aspects of gratitude communication that message recipients characterized as ideal, such as verbal, nonverbal, and contextual factors. Building upon these findings, Study 2 developed and validated two scales: one measuring benefactor perceptions of the extent to which gratitude messages convey meaningful impact, thoughtfulness, and sincerity (the gratitude assessment scale, or GAS); and another measuring the presence of salient features of explicitness, elaboration, and affirmation in gratitude messages (the gratitude message features, or GMF, scale). Finally, participants in Study 3 were randomly exposed to a hypothetical gratitude message that contained one of the three features, all three features, or none of the features and responded to the GAS to evaluate their perceptions of the message. Findings established the skills-competence link, in which explicitness, elaboration, and affirmation all predict benefactor perceptions of the message’s meaningful impact, thoughtfulness, and sincerity. The findings of the dissertation reveal four significant contributions to gratitude communication research: (1) the identification of salient message features and benefactor evaluations of the message that reflect competent gratitude communication, (2) the development of statistically sound instrumentation pertaining to gratitude communication competence, (3) the establishment of the skills-competence link, which associates the features of a gratitude message to message perceptions that are essential to gratitude communication, and (4) the beginnings of a model of the process of gratitude communication.  </p>

5 Abstract Tolerance to "self" is the fundamental property of the immune system and its breakdown can lead to autoimmune diseases. In order to eliminate self-reactive T- cells during their development in thymus (central tolerance), Aire promotes the expression of peripheral self-antigens in medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs). Recently, Aire was suggested to fulfil a similar function in rare lymph node and spleen cells (peripheral tolerance). However, the detection, characterization and function of these extrathymic Aire-expressing cells is still obscure. The main objective of presented thesis was to investigate if Aire positive cells are also present in other lymphoid as well as non-lymphoid tissues. Using two independent mouse transgenic models we identified the Aire-reporter expressing cells in several lymphoid tissues such as Peyer's patches, spleen and bone marrow as well as in one non-lymphoid organ, the lungs. We show here that based on the expression of B220, EpCAM and CD11c markers these heterogenic cells consist of at least five phenotypically distinct subpopulations, and with the exception of those from lungs, all of them are strictly of hematopoietic origin. This study also demonstrates that Aire on protein level is predominantly expressed by one of these subpopulations with CD45+ MHCII+...

<p>The following paper has been dedicated to the verb like, which is one of the verbs in the English language that can take either a to-infinitive or an -ing participle as a complement. The purpose of the paper is to examine if there are any differences in distribution and meaning between the two complements. The focus also lies on the different verbs occurring as complements, and the contrast between the verbs occurring as to-infinitives and as -ing participles. There are many theories which have been proposed on the subject that lie as a basis for the investigation.</p><p>The analysis was carried out by means of an investigation of sentences taken from the COBUILDDIRECT corpus, and includes both spoken and written British and American English. The outcome of the analysis has demonstrated that there is usually agreement between the theories and the results; however, there is not always a difference of meaning between the two complements. Moreover, the analysis suggests that there is a difference of verbs occurring as to-infinitives and -ing participles; the would like to construction represents a fixed expression and often occurs together with performative verbs. Finally, the conclusion has been drawn that there is a small but visible difference between the occurrences of the spoken and the written subcorpora when discussing both meaning and verbs occurring as complements. Since the to-infinitive complement is more common than the -ing participle in newspapers, books, and spoken English, the difference includes both detached and involved style as well as a regional difference between British and American English.</p>

The following paper has been dedicated to the verb like, which is one of the verbs in the English language that can take either a to-infinitive or an -ing participle as a complement. The purpose of the paper is to examine if there are any differences in distribution and meaning between the two complements. The focus also lies on the different verbs occurring as complements, and the contrast between the verbs occurring as to-infinitives and as -ing participles. There are many theories which have been proposed on the subject that lie as a basis for the investigation. The analysis was carried out by means of an investigation of sentences taken from the COBUILDDIRECT corpus, and includes both spoken and written British and American English. The outcome of the analysis has demonstrated that there is usually agreement between the theories and the results; however, there is not always a difference of meaning between the two complements. Moreover, the analysis suggests that there is a difference of verbs occurring as to-infinitives and -ing participles; the would like to construction represents a fixed expression and often occurs together with performative verbs. Finally, the conclusion has been drawn that there is a small but visible difference between the occurrences of the spoken and the written subcorpora when discussing both meaning and verbs occurring as complements. Since the to-infinitive complement is more common than the -ing participle in newspapers, books, and spoken English, the difference includes both detached and involved style as well as a regional difference between British and American English.

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How do circuits in the mammalian cerebral cortex encode properties of the sensory environment in a way that can drive adaptive behavior? This question is fundamental to neuroscience, but it has been very difficult to approach directly. Various computational and theoretical models can explain a wide range of phenomena observed in the primary visual cortex (V1), including the anatomical organization of its circuits, the development of functional properties like orientation tuning, and behavioral effects like surround modulation. However, so far no model has been able to bridge these levels of description to explain how the machinery that develops directly affects behavior. Bridging these levels is important, because phenomena at any one specific level can have many possible explanations, but there are far fewer possibilities to consider once all of the available evidence is taken into account. In this thesis we integrate the information gleaned about cortical development, circuit and cell-type specific interactions, and anatomical, behavioral and electrophysiological measurements, to develop a computational model of V1 that is constrained enough to make predictions across multiple levels of description. Through a series of models incorporating increasing levels of biophysical detail and becoming increasingly better constrained, we are able to make detailed predictions for the types of mechanistic interactions required for robust development of cortical maps that have a realistic anatomical organization, and thereby gain insight into the computations performed by the primary visual cortex. The initial models focus on how existing anatomical and electrophysiological knowledge can be integrated into previously abstract models to give a well-grounded and highly constrained account of the emergence of pattern-specific tuning in the primary visual cortex. More detailed models then address the interactions between specific excitatory and inhibitory cell classes in V1, and what role each cell type may play during development and function. Finally, we demonstrate how these cell classes come together to form a circuit that gives rise not only to robust development but also the development of realistic lateral connectivity patterns. Crucially, these patterns reflect the statistics of the visual environment to which the model was exposed during development. This property allows us to explore how the model is able to capture higher-order information about the environment and use that information to optimize neural coding and aid the processing of complex visual tasks. Using this model we can make a number of very specific predictions about the mechanistic workings of the brain. Specifically, the model predicts a crucial role of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons in robust development and divisive normalization, while it implicates somatostatin immunoreactive neurons in mediating longer range and feature-selective suppression. The model also makes predictions about the role of these cell classes in efficient neural coding and under what conditions the model fails to organize. In particular, we show that a tight coupling of activity between the principal excitatory population and the parvalbumin population is central to robust and stable responses and organization, which may have implications for a variety of diseases where parvalbumin interneuron function is impaired, such as schizophrenia and autism. Further the model explains the switch from facilitatory to suppressive surround modulation effects as a simple by-product of the facilitating response function of long-range excitatory connections targeting a specialized class of inhibitory interneurons. Finally, the model allows us to make predictions about the statistics that are encoded in the extensive network of long-range intra-areal connectivity in V1, suggesting that even V1 can capture high-level statistical dependencies in the visual environment. The final model represents a comprehensive and well constrained model of the primary visual cortex, which for the first time can relate the physiological properties of individual cell classes to their role in development, learning and function. While the model is specifically tuned for V1, all mechanisms introduced are completely general, and can be used as a general cortical model, useful for studying phenomena across the visual cortex and even the cortex as a whole. This work is also highly relevant for clinical neuroscience, as the cell types studied here have been implicated in neurological disorders as wide ranging as autism, schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.