The mechanism by which glucocorticoids induce various cellular responses in different tissues is only partially understood. Here we demonstrate that glucocorticoids stabilize the actin cytoskeleton of several cell types, as revealed by increased resistance of actin filaments to the disrupting effect of cytochalasin and by visible thickening of actin filament bundles. These effects require several hours to develop, require protein synthesis, and are accompanied by increased expression of the actin-binding protein caldesmon. These data may help to explain why glucocorticoids inhibit corticotropin release from pituitary cells, if interpreted in terms of the current idea that an actin filament "barrier" modulates exocytotic secretion in various cell types. In support of this idea, we find that in "model" corticotrophs (AtT-20 cells), glucocorticoids stabilize actin filaments and inhibit corticotropin release with similar potencies. Furthermore, we show here that glucocorticoid inhibition is overcome by exposing AtT-20 cells to concentrations of cytochalasin B or D that disrupt their stabilized actin filaments. On the other hand, our freeze-etch electron microscopy of AtT-20 cells has shown that actin rilaments do not, in fact, create a dense submembranous barrier that might prevent corticotropin secretory droplets from discharging; instead, they form open networks near the membrane that appear to hold secretory droplets in their interstices. We propose that the delicate physical crosslinks maintaining this actin-mediated membrane "docking" of secretory droplets may need to disconnect in order to permit corticotropin discharge and that these crosslinks may be stabilized along with the actin filaments in dexamethasonetreated cells.Glucocorticoids act by transcriptionally activating certain sets of genes in susceptible cells, but the subsequent steps that link this altered gene expression to the various cellular changes induced by glucocorticoids are generally unknown (1). In this report, we analyze the inhibitory effect of glucocorticoids on corticotropin (ACTH) release from pituitary cells. Studies of primary pituitary cultures and of pituitary tumor cells have shown that glucocorticoid-induced inhibition of ACTH secretion has two phases, one appearing in a few hours and the other requiring days of exposure to steroids. The latter, long-term effect is known to involve a decrease in ACTH synthesis, but the former, rapid-onset suppression of exocytotic release of hormone is less well understood (2, 3). Primary pituitary cell cultures are unsuitable for studying this effect because corticotrophs comprise only 2-5% of the total cell population, so we used instead a clonal cell line derived from a mouse tumor, which is well characterized and maintains several differentiated characteristics (4). As in normal corticotrophs, corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) stimulates ACTH release from AtT-20 cells (4), and it does so by raising cAMP levels, leading to protein kinase A-mediated opening of voltage-dependent calci...

Recent developments in western Europe show that for-profit companies of different sizes, including large multinational firms, are increasingly investing in care and buying significant shares within the ongoing privatization of the care and health national systems. Reflecting upon these developments this article argues that the current reconfiguration of care is driven not only by processes of commodification and marketization, but also by complex mechanisms of "corporatization." To substantiate this argument we undertake an overview of the transformations investing elder and childcare in some European countries and provide a "typology of care" in order to clarify our concept of care corporatization.

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This article contributes to the understanding of the westward migration of Eastern European women, by comparing Moldovan and Ukrainian women in Italy – the most popular destination for both groups – where they are mainly employed as domestic workers and home carers. Focusing on the differences in their trajectories in this labour sector, we discuss the significance of their age at emigration and their role within their families of origin. These have an impact not only on their mobility patterns, but also on their choices of employment and general socio‐cultural integration in the host country.

The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), created in 1992 and directed by Brigid Laffan since September 2013, aims to develop inter-disciplinary and comparative research and to promote work on the major issues facing the process of integration and European society.The Centre is home to a large post-doctoral programme and hosts major research programmes and projects, and a range of working groups and ad hoc initiatives. The research agenda is organised around a set of core themes and is continuously evolving, reflecting the changing agenda of European integration and the expanding membership of the European Union. The Global Governance Programme at the EUIThe Global Governance Programme (GGP) is research turned into action. It provides a European setting to conduct research at the highest level and promote synergies between the worlds of research and policy-making, to generate ideas and identify creative and innovative solutions to global challenges.The GGP comprises three core dimensions: research, policy and training. Diverse global governance issues are investigated in research strands and projects coordinated by senior scholars, both from the EUI and from other internationally recognized top institutions. The policy dimension is developed throughout the programme, but is highlighted in the GGP High-Level Policy Seminars, which bring together policy-makers and academics at the highest level to discuss issues of current global importance.The Academy of Global Governance (AGG) is a unique executive training programme where theory and "real world" experience meet. Young executives, policy makers, diplomats, officials, private sector professionals and junior academics, have the opportunity to meet, share views and debate with leading academics, top-level officials, heads of international organisations and senior executives, on topical issues relating to governance.For more information: http://globalgovernanceprogramme.eui.eu AbstractScholarship on migrant care work argued that we need to broaden our understanding of the international division of reproductive labour by incorporating into the analysis other agents of social reproduction besides the household such as the non-profit sector, the market and the State. In response to these debates, the article focuses on migrant labour within the bureaucratised care sector, by comparing Latin American and Eastern European women employed in social cooperatives proving home-based elderly care services in Italy. Ethnographic data are used to show how both the workers and the cooperatives' managers negotiate racialised and gendered constructions of care work and skill. We argue that the dominant gendered and racialised perceptions of paid care as non-skilled 'feminine' work, which are at play in private employment, are activated in specific ways in the bureaucratised sector too. Bureaucratised care thus comes into sight as being in strong continuity with the traditional forms of care work, as far as the social construction of the job is concerned. However, it ...