Search

Most scholars, parents, and educators agree that parental involvement is beneficial for children’s academic and developmental outcomes. However, a small but growing body of scholarship suggests that intensive parental involvement may potentially hinder children’s development. In this study, we examine the “more is less” assumption in parental involvement research and formally test the argument of parental overinvolvement. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 (ECLS-K), we examine whether high levels of involvement are associated with unintended negative child development in elementary school. Analyses based on curvilinear mixed effects models show that elevated parental expectations, intensive participation in extracurricular activities, and increased parental school involvement are associated with diminishing returns to children’s outcomes. The most meaningful parental overinvolvement pattern is found for internalizing problems. These patterns are generally consistent for children from all socioeconomic levels. We conclude with a discussion of the research and policy implications of these findings.

Digital technology has become an indispensable component in education around the world. Despite its growing importance, a gap in students’ digital skills and usage based on their socioeconomic status—known as the second digital divide—has been identified in a wide range of countries. Using data from the 2009 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, we consider two aspects of the second digital divide for 15-year-olds across 55 countries: the gaps in use of educational software at home and Internet literacy. Specifically, we ask whether national income, political freedom, and national investments in research and development (R&D) and secondary education are associated with the second digital divide. We find that national income predicts the digital divide and that national investments have differential effects depending upon a country’s income. R&D spending reduces the socioeconomic gap in educational software use only in low-income countries. Educational expenditures reduce the Internet literacy gap in high-income countries while exacerbating it in low-income ones. Additional analyses suggest that income inequality increases the digital divide, but like political freedom, the effects become non-significant when national income is considered. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for policymakers interested in reducing the digital divide.

Sociological research examines the gender gap reversal in higher education and the gender division in paid and unpaid labor for adult women, especially “the second shift literature,” as two distinct topics. In this study, we extend the insights of the second shift literature to research on youth labor and adolescents’ enrollment in higher education. Using data from the Youth Development Study from 1988 to 1992, we find that the negative association of unpaid labor with adolescents’ college enrollment odds was at least as large as, if not greater than, that of paid labor. Although labor engagement had adverse impacts both for female and male adolescents during this time, the negative associations of youth labor with college enrollment were more pronounced for male students. We discuss the implications of these findings and explain their relevance to more contemporary cohorts of high school students in the conclusion.

Adoptive parents invest more resources into their children than comparable nonadoptive and biological parents, a pattern strongly linked to parental socioeconomic status. But important differences among families related to adoption context (international, private, foster) could affect parental investment and its impact on educational outcomes. Using the National Survey of Children’s Health, our findings indicate that parental investment strategies are contingent on adoption context and partially mitigate the negative direct association between adoption and educational outcomes. Internationally adoptive parents invest significantly more than do other adoptive and nonadoptive families. Without these parental investments, however, internationally adoptive children tend to experience the poorest educational outcomes. Even though parental investments can help mitigate internationally adoptive children’s negative educational outcomes, private domestic adoptive families seem to be more successful at mitigation. Results highlight how social stratification dynamics shape selection into adoption venues while also influencing parents’ efforts to invest and translate investments into educational gains.

We created a new method to automatically generate levels for a commercial-grade tower defense gameKingdom Rush:Frontiers (KRF) by means of Procedural Content Generation(PCG). Our research focuses on path generation and monster sequence generation. Firstly, we designed a mathematical representation of the game’s path using geometric rules, and then we used search algorithms to develop an algorithm, which can generate new paths that are similar to the paths in original games. We implemented monster sequence generation with genetic algorithm in which we designed a representation of genes that reused some human-designed elements. In addition, we also designed a fitness function to make sure the generated level has moderate difficulty and playability. Finally, we automatically generated new levels for KRF with the combine of path generation and monster sequence generation. We used a turing test to show that our PCG levels are hard to be distinguished from the original levels.

This paper explores what it means to do a sociology of families, that is, one that acknowledges and considers a wider array of family forms than typically has been explored. We begin by reviewing the existing sociological research on a range of alternative family forms, ultimately focusing on older-parent, adoptive, same-sex, and multiracial families. We describe and critically assess four theoretical approaches to examining family forms—family structure, evolutionary, characteristics, and context—and their implications for children, and we discuss the utility of an approach that views family characteristics in social context. We also recommend that instead of using alternative family forms primarily or solely as counterfactuals to the so-called traditional family, researchers should compare alternative family forms to each other, noting theoretical implications for commonalities and differences found among these groups. We call for additional research on alternative families, noting its importance for sociology, family studies, and public policy.

Scholars have noted that survey analysis of small subsamples—for example, same-sex parent families—is sensitive to researchers’ analytical decisions, and even small differences in coding can profoundly shape empirical patterns. As an illustration, we reassess the findings of a recent article by Regnerus regarding the implications of being raised by gay and lesbian parents. Taking a close look at the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), we demonstrate the potential for misclassifying a non-negligible number of respondents as having been raised by parents who had a same-sex romantic relationship. We assess the implications of these possible misclassifications, along with other methodological considerations, by reanalyzing the NFSS in seven steps. The reanalysis offers evidence that the empirical patterns showcased in the original Regnerus article are fragile—so fragile that they appear largely a function of these possible misclassifications and other methodological choices. Our replication and reanalysis of Regnerus’s study offer a cautionary illustration of the importance of double checking and critically assessing the implications of measurement and other methodological decisions in our and others’ research.

A risk framework characterizing teenage sexual activities as dangerous, especially for girls, has dominated research on teenage sexuality. Consequently, girls’ sexual subjectivity has been virtually unexamined by large-scale quantitative research. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine teenage girls’ expectations of pleasure during intercourse and sexual self-efficacy, reflecting two key components of sexual subjectivity. Our findings indicate that youth from less socioeconomically privileged families report lower expectations than their privileged peers. There are also racial/ethnic disparities: Black-white differences can be explained by class, religion, and regional sexual education variation, but Latina and Asian girls display disadvantages even after controlling for these factors. Using a life-course approach, we show that dimensions of sexual subjectivity offer widereaching benefits in young adulthood, spanning multiple domains—including future sexual health, mental and physical health, and socioeconomic standing. We address the implications of our findings for the reproduction of inequality and conceptualizations of sexual risk and well-being.

Internet use and digital networking are increasingly an integral part of adolescents’ social lives. This study examines the influences of Internet use in Taiwan on two important adolescent social behaviors: first romantic relationship and sexual debut. Using data from the Taiwan Youth Project (TYP), 2000–2009, the results of event history analyses suggest that adolescents’ Internet use for educational purposes reduces the rates of having a first romantic relationship and a sexual debut in adolescence, whereas using the Internet for social networking, visiting internet cafés, and surfing pornographic websites increase the rates. There are gender differences in the effects of these Internet activities on adolescents’ intimate experiences. Logistic analyses further show that Internet activities also affect the likelihood of whether adolescents have a sexual debut before a first romantic relationship. The implications of these findings are discussed in the conclusion.

We use data from a national survey of likely voters conducted before the 2008 election to study the association between Obama’s perceived racial identity and voters’ choices. Voters who saw Obama as biracial were substantially more likely to vote for him, suggesting that many Americans regard a biracial identity more favorably than a black identity. The relationship was stronger among Democrats than among Republicans. The potential implications of our findings for the future of race in American politics are discussed.

How does institutional context shape the way family dynamics, especially ethnic background and parental resources, affect track placement? We contrast the track placement patterns of immigrants and ethnic majority students in two countries marked by drastic differences in the social organization of schooling. Drawing on German (GSOEP) and U.S. (NELS) data, we find that, in general, more family resources pull students from lower to higher tracks, but ethnic inequalities in these resources favor the ethnic majority groups in both countries. In addition, institutional context conditions which parental resources shape educational outcomes, and how they do so. We find that the effects of parental ties exacerbate ethnic inequalities between whites and Latinos in the U.S.; whereas in Germany, parents’ community ties play a compensatory role for immigrants, who benefit from interactions with secular and ethno-religious groups. Our findings confirm previous cross-national research, but they also highlight the need to elaborate the relationship between institutional context and ethnically specific reproduction mechanisms within countries.

racial identity and perceptions by others. Using a creative research design that relies primarily on the third wave in-home inter views of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), CT indeed, the pattern is nonsignificant or only marginally significant among self-reported American Indians who are classified as White. This is a very important article. Its theoretical arguments are highly persuasive, and its empirical evidence, if corroborated under closer scrutiny, identifies a critical mechanism by which racial categorization shapes individuals' experiences. It also cau tions us from automatically assuming that racial self-identifications accurately reflect others' perceptions of individuals and from considering others' reports of race as fully objective indicators. Although C&T offer a convincing theoret ical rationale to believe that misclassification

BACKGROUND: Although gastrostomy tube insertion – whether endoscopic or open – is generally safe, procedure-related complications have been reported.OBJECTIVE: To compare gastrostomy tube insertion-related complications between percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy and open gastrostomy at a single pediatric centre.METHODS: The charts of children (younger than 17 years of age at the time of tube insertion) who underwent endoscopic or open gastrostomy tube insertion from January 2005 to December 2007 at the Stollery Children’s Hospital (Edmonton, Alberta) were examined.RESULTS: A total of 298 children underwent gastrostomy tube insertion over a period of three years. After excluding patients with incomplete charts, 160 children (91 boys, mean [± SD] age 3.18±4.73 years) were included. Eighty-five children (mean age 4.50±5.40 years) had their gastrostomy tube inserted endoscopically, while the remaining 75 (mean age 1.68±3.27 years; PCONCLUSION: Although the rate of major complications was similar between the endoscopic and open tube insertion groups, major infections were more common among children who underwent endoscopic gastrostomy. The decision for gastrostomy tube insertion was primarily based on clinical background.

In this study, we compare federal government influence on abstinence-only programs in 1999 and 2003 to better see how shifts in the federal government's sex education polices impacted other government and community actors. Using data from the Sex Education in America Surveys (SEAS), we find that changes in federal policy, particularly after the year 2000, significantly altered the influence of state and local governments and the involvement of other community actors on school sex education programs. As federal influence increased, the number of abstinence-only programs continued to grow. The influence and involvement of other key actors declined, changing the face of sex education.

Despite extensive research on multiracial youth in recent years, to date, no empirical studies have analyzed how racial context may affect biracial adolescents' sense of belonging in a social institution beyond families. In this study, we examine how the racial makeup of the student body affects self-identified biracial adolescents' school attachment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that the proportions of white or black students in school significantly affect the school attachment of Hispanic/black, Asian/black, and American Indian/black biracial adolescents, but school racial composition in general has little influence on biracial adolescents with a partial-white identification (i.e., black/white, Hispanic/white, Asian/white, and American Indian/white). Our analyses also show that on average, students of most biracial groups display lower school attachment than their corresponding monoracial groups, but the differences from the monoracial groups with the low...

Recent public health research has consistently reported that self-identified multiracial adolescents tend to display more problem behaviors and psychological difficulties than monoracial adolescents. Relying on insights from qualitative analyses using small or clinical samples to interpret these empirical patterns, these studies implicitly assume a pejorative stance toward adolescents’ multiracial self-identification. Building on the social psychological arguments underlying Park’s and Stonequist’s seminal discussions of the “marginal man,” we derive hypotheses indicating that self-identified multiracial adolescents may show more psychological difficulties, but are also likely to have more active social interaction and participation than monoracial groups. We also incorporate later elaborations of the marginal man theory to develop alternative hypotheses regarding multiracial youth’s school and behavioral outcomes. Based on a nationally representative sample of racially self-identified youth, the results suggest that patterns of multiracial-monoracial differences are generally consistent with the hypotheses derived closely from the marginal man theory or its subsequent elaborations. We examine the heterogeneities within these general patterns across different multiracial categories and discuss the implications of these findings.

Social scientists often rely on survey data to examine group differences. A problem with survey data is the potential misclassification of group membership due to poorly trained interviewers, inconsistent responses, or errors in marking questions. In data containing unequal subsample sizes, the consequences of misclassification can be considerable, especially for groups with small sample sizes. In this study, the authors develop a new mixture model that allows researchers to address the problem using the data they have. By supplying additional information from the data, this two-stage model is estimated using a Bayesian method. The method is illustrated with the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data. As anticipated, the more information supplied to adjust for group membership, the better the model performs. Even when small amounts of information are supplied, the model produces reasonably robust estimates and improves the fit compared to the no-adjustment model. Sensitivity analyses are conducted on choices of priors.

The dictum that “context matters” notwithstanding, few researchers have focused on how social capital affects educational outcomes for ethnic groups outside of the United States. Using German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP) data, analyses highlight the group‐specific effects of parental social capital on track placement among 11–16‐year‐old German and non‐German students. For both groups, parents’ family ties fail to affect track placement. Parents’ community ties have mixed effects. Among Germans, parental involvement in sports affects children’s tracking positively. Among non‐Germans, parental socializing with peers affects track placement negatively, while parental involvement in religion‐based community groups and interethnic ties with Germans improve track placement chances. We relate these findings to different strands of social capital theory.

The multinomial logit model is perhaps the most commonly used regression model for nominal outcomes in the social sciences. A concern raised by many researchers, however, is the assumption of the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) that is implicit in the model. In this article, the authors undertake a series of Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the three most commonly discussed tests of IIA. Results suggest that the size properties of the most common IIA tests depend on the data structure for the independent variables. These findings are consistent with an earlier impression that, even in well-specified models, IIA tests often reject the assumption when the alternatives seem distinct and often fail to reject IIA when the alternatives can reasonably be viewed as close substitutes. The authors conclude that tests of the IIA assumption that are based on the estimation of a restricted choice set are unsatisfactory for applied work.

Nodal signals induce mesodermal and endodermal progenitors during vertebrate development. To determine the role of Nodal signaling at a genomic level, we isolated Nodal-regulated genes by expression profiling using macroarrays and gene expression databases. Putative Nodal-regulated genes were validated by in situ hybridization screening in wild type and Nodal signaling mutants. 46 genes were identified, raising the currently known number of Nodal-regulated genes to 72. Based on their expression patterns along the dorsoventral axis, most of these genes can be classified into two groups. One group is expressed in the dorsal margin, whereas the other group is expressed throughout the margin. In addition to transcription factors and signaling components, the screens identified several new functional classes of Nodal-regulated genes, including cytoskeletal components and molecules involved in protein secretion or endoplasmic reticulum stress. We found that x-box binding protein-1 (xbp1) is a direct target of Nodal signaling and required for the terminal differentiation of the hatching gland, a specialized secretory organ whose specification is also dependent on Nodal signaling. These results indicate that Nodal signaling regulates not only specification genes but also differentiation genes.

Contemporary legal and scholarly debates emphasize the importance of biological parents for children's well-being. Scholarship in this vein often relies on stepparent families even though adoptive families provide an ideal opportunity to explore the role of biology in family life. In this study, we compare two-adoptive-parent families with other families on one key characteristic—parental investment. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten-First Grade Waves (ECLS-K), basic group comparisons reveal an adoptive advantage over all family types. This advantage is due in part to the socioeconomic differences between adoptive and other families. Once we control for these factors, two-adoptive-parent families invest at similar levels as two-biological-parent families but still at significantly higher levels in most resources than other types of families. These findings are inconsistent with the expectations of sociological family structure explanations, which highlight barriers to parental investment in nontraditional families, and evolutionary science's kin selection theory, which maintains that parents are genetically predisposed to invest in biological children. Instead, these patterns suggest that adoptive parents enrich their children's lives to compensate for the lack of biological ties and the extra challenges of adoption.

We discuss the challenges of small-subsample sizes that family scholars often encounter when studying nontraditional or less common family types. We begin by identifying the general difficulties of using existing data in this line of research and then discuss potential solutions that may help researchers to avoid these problems. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, we use the example of monoracial White, monoracial Asian, and Asian/White interracial families to illustrate these problems and available, albeit imperfect, solutions.

EGF-CFC proteins are membrane-bound extracellular factors with essential roles during vertebrate development. Members of the EGF-CFC family consist of One-eyed pinhead (Oep) in zebrafish, FRL1 in Xenopus, Cryptic in chick, and Cripto and Cryptic in mouse and human (for review, see Shen and Schier 2000). Genetic studies in zebrafish and mouse have shown that EGF-CFC proteins are required for mesoderm and endoderm induction and left-right axis formation. Zebrafish embryos lacking both the maternal and zygotic contribution of Oep (MZoep) are defective in mesendoderm induction (Gritsman et al. 1999). Similarly, mouse cripto mutants fail to form a primitive streak and lack embryonic mesoderm (Ding et al. 1998). During later stages of development, EGF-CFC genes are required for proper left-right axis formation. Loss of late Oep activity results in embryos that lack expression of left-side-specific genes and display randomization of left-right laterality (Yan et al. 1999). Similarly, mouse cryptic mutants do not express left-side-specific genes and have left-right defects such as heterotaxia and right isomerism (Gaio et al. 1999; Yan et al. 1999). In addition, mutations in cryptic/CFC1 are associated with laterality defects in humans (Bamford et al. 2000). Genetic studies have shown that EGF-CFC proteins are essential for signaling by TGF-β signals of the Nodal family (Gritsman et al. 1999). Double mutants for the zebrafish nodal-related genes cyclops and squint are phenotypically identical to MZoep mutants (Feldman et al. 1998; Gritsman et al. 1999). Moreover, Nodal signals are inactive in MZoep mutants (Gritsman et al. 1999). Biochemically, the EGF-CFC protein Cripto can act as a coreceptor for Nodal signaling (Reissmann et al. 2001; Yeo and Whitman 2001; Bianco et al. 2002; Sakuma et al. 2002; Yan et al. 2002). Current evidence suggests that Cripto binds to the Activin type I receptor Alk4 and forms a complex with Nodal and the type II Activin receptor ActRIIB (for review, see Whitman 2001). Upon receptor activation, the intracellular kinase domain of the type I receptor phosphorylates the signal transducers Smad2 and/or Smad3 (for review, see Massague and Chen 2000). During mesoderm induction, this leads to the expression of downstream genes such as goosecoid and brachyury/T/no tail (for review, see Schier and Shen 2000; Whitman 2001). Further support for an essential role of EGF-CFC proteins in Nodal signaling is provided by the observations that some hypomorphic or conditional mouse nodal mutants display left-right defects resembling cryptic mutants (Lowe et al. 2001; Brennan et al. 2002; Norris et al. 2002), and strong nodal mutants share aspects of the cripto phenotype (Conlon et al. 1994; Lowe et al. 2001; Norris et al. 2002). In light of analyses of other TGF-β signals, the requirement for EGF-CFC proteins as Nodal coreceptors has appeared unusual (Massague and Chen 2000). With the exception of the TGF-β type III receptor in TGF-β2 signaling, and of endoglin in Alk1-mediated signaling, no coreceptors have been implicated in TGF-β signaling (Massague and Chen 2000). The use of EGF-CFC coreceptors also seems uncommon because genetic and biochemical studies have shown that Activin utilizes the same receptors, Alk4 and ActRIIB, as Nodal but does not require EGF-CFC coreceptors (Massague and Chen 2000; Schier and Shen 2000; Whitman 2001). In contrast to Nodal, Activin can activate downstream signaling and induce mesoderm formation in both wild-type and MZoep mutant embryos (Gritsman et al. 1999). Moreover, Activin can bind to Alk4 and ActRIIB in the absence of EGF-CFC proteins (Massague and Chen 2000). It has thus been unclear whether the Nodal/EGF-CFC interaction is unusual or whether other TGF-β signals rely on coreceptors such as EGF-CFC. A third class of TGF-β ligands exhibits similar biological activities as members of the Nodal and Activin families. Signals belonging to the Vg1/GDF1 family (Vg1 in Xenopus, zebrafish and chick; GDF1 in mouse) share only 35%–55% identity with Nodal or Activin in the mature domain, but can also act as mesoderm inducers (Schier and Shen 2000; Whitman 2001). Processed bVg1 and bGDF1 (chimeras between the N-terminal prodomain of BMP and the C-terminal mature domains of Vg1 and GDF1) induce mesodermal markers in Xenopus (Thomsen and Melton 1993; Kessler and Melton 1995; Wall et al. 2000). Similarly, grafts of cells expressing native cVg1 or chimeric BMP-cVg1 initiate formation of ectopic primitive streaks in chick (Seleiro et al. 1996; Skromne and Stern 2002). It has been proposed that Vg1 acts upstream of Nodal signals in this process (Wall et al. 2000; Skromne and Stern 2002). Xenopus Vg1 is expressed maternally before the transcription of nodal genes (Weeks and Melton 1987) and misexpression of bVg1 induces ectopic Xnr1 (Xenopus nodal related 1) expression (Hyatt et al. 1996; Hyatt and Yost 1998; Wall et al. 2000). Similarly, cVg1 is expressed before nodal during chick embryogenesis and misexpression of cVg1 in the anterior marginal zone during gastrulation induces ectopic nodal expression (Skromne and Stern 2002). GDF1 and Vg1 have also been implicated upstream of Nodal signals during left-right axis formation. GDF1 mouse mutants have left-right laterality defects and lack nodal expression in the left lateral plate (Rankin et al. 2000). Moreover, bVg1 can induce leftness in Xenopus upstream of Nodal signals (Hyatt et al. 1996; Hyatt and Yost 1998; Ramsdell and Yost 1999). Despite the pivotal roles of Vg1/GDF1 during embryogenesis, the signaling pathway activated by these TGF-β signals has not been defined molecularly. Several lines of evidence suggest that Vg1 and GDF1 may activate the same or related pathways as Activin and Nodal. First, Vg1 signaling results in the phosphorylation of Smad2 (Lee et al. 2001). Second, mesoderm induction by bGDF1 and bVg1 can be inhibited by the Smad2-interaction domain (SID) of FAST1, which blocks formation of Smad2–Smad4 complexes (Wall et al. 2000). Third, a truncated form of ActRIIB (ΔXAR1; Hemmati-Brivanlou and Melton 1992) missing the cytoplasmic kinase domain, can block Vg1 and GDF1 signaling (Kessler and Melton 1995; Wall et al. 2000). However, direct binding of Vg1 to ActRIIB has not been detected (Kessler and Melton 1995). Here, we present genetic and biochemical studies in zebrafish and Xenopus that indicate that Vg1 and GDF1 act similarly to Nodal and depend on EGF-CFC coreceptors for the interaction with and activation of Activin receptors.

No trend in U.S. public opinion has elicited more enduring concern among scholars, political commentators, and politicians than declining levels of public confidence in the federal government. Motivated by the possibility that this decline signals a crisis of legitimacy or growing dissatisfaction with the overall direction of public policy, two generations of scholarly debates have yielded three competing theoretical interpretations of this phenomenon. While they provide divergent answers to important questions about the devolution of policy-making from the federal government to subnational levels of government, competing hypotheses implied by these interpretations have not been successfully evaluated. We seek to advance theory and research by investigating whether governmental confidence affects the public's willingness to support federal involvement within specific policy domains such as health care and education. Evaluating hypotheses implied by competing interpretations of declining government confidence, we find that the relationship between government confidence and policy preferences is small and shows no evidence of trends. We discuss implications for competing interpretations of government confidence and the possible role of declining confidence in explaining contemporary patterns of welfare state retrenchment.

The linkage between family structure, language, and ethnic identity is investigated to find out the effects of two major socialization mechanisms: one, family cultural transmission, and the other, structural symbolic interaction. The data on Chinese-American children indicates that family language proficiency is retained mainly through parental teaching; thus, first-born children and those with fewer siblings were favored. The construction of ethnic identity by children has followed a different process. Volition and social construction by children themselves, as predicted by structural interactionists, were found to have some influence in determining their version of ethnicity. The evidence further suggests that children reacted negatively to parental pressure to retain Chinese identity and that family structure, e.g. sibling size or birth order, also delimits a range for these children’s reactions and identity formation.

HuD is a human neuronal specific RNA-binding protein. In this study we have purified HuD and examined its RNA binding properties in detail. HuD binds to mRNAs that contain an AU-rich element with high affinity. In the case of the c-fos AU-rich element, HuD binds to a 27-nucleotide core element comprising AUUUA, AUUUUA, and AUUUUUA motifs. Mutation in any two of these motifs abrogates binding. HuD contains two tandem RNA recognition motifs (RRM), a basic domain, and a third RRM. Deletion analysis has shown that only the first and second RRMs are essential for RNA binding. Thus, these specific RNA binding properties support the idea that the HuD regulates gene expression at the posttranscriptional level.

The pervasive connectivity of the Internet and the powerful architecture of the WWW are changing many market conventions and creating a tremendous opportunity for conducting business on the Internet. Digital marketplace business models and the advancement of Web related standards are tearing down walls within and between different business artifacts and entities at all granularities and at all levels, from devices, operating systems and middleware to directory, data, information, application, and finally the business processes. As a matter of fact, business process integration (BPI), which entails the integration of all the facets of business artifacts and entities, is emerging as a key IT challenge. In this paper, we describe our effort in exploring a new approach to address the complexities of BPI. More specifically, we study how to use a solution template based approach for BPI and explore the validity of this approach with a frequently encountered integration problem, the item synchronization problem for large enterprises. The proposed approach can greatly reduce the complexities of the business integration task and reduce the time and amount of effort of the system integrators. Different customers are deploying the described Item Synchronization system.

Members of the EGF-CFC family play essential roles in embryonic development and have been implicated in tumorigenesis. The TGFβ signals Nodal and Vg1/GDF1, but not Activin, require EGF-CFC coreceptors to activate Activin receptors. We report that the TGFβ signaling antagonist Lefty also acts through an EGF-CFC-dependent mechanism. Lefty inhibits Nodal and Vg1 signaling, but not Activin signaling. Lefty genetically interacts with EGF-CFC proteins and competes with Nodal for binding to these coreceptors. Chimeras between Activin and Nodal or Vg1 identify a 14 amino acid region that confers independence from EGF-CFC coreceptors and resistance to Lefty. These results indicate that coreceptors are targets for both TGFβ agonists and antagonists and suggest that subtle sequence variations in TGFβ signals result in greater ligand diversity., TGFβ family members and their receptors are involved in setting up the left-right body axis early in development. This article clarifies the role of Lefty and elucidates the molecular basis for signaling diversity between the family members