Stigmatising the Poor Without Negative Images: Images of Extreme Poverty and the Formation of Welfare Attitudes.

In the past two decades, many studies have warned of the role the popular media might play in the stigmatisation of the poor. Media reports about poverty often include references to antisocial behaviour, which make the principle of deservingness particularly conspicuous and could also strengthen the effects of ethnic stereotypes. We argue, however, that it could be misleading to place all the blame for stigmatisation on direct references to 'undeserving' behaviour. Media images of extreme distress themselves could have a selective stigmatising effect. Thus, even benevolent portrayal of the poor could erode sympathy. This paper presents the results of a video-vignette experiment on a sample of Hungarian students. The subjects watched one of four versions of a video interview with a poor person (none of them contained any references to antisocial behaviour) and then expressed their attitudes towards welfare payments. We found that support for welfare was higher where a version highlighted signs of extreme distress. But this was only the case if there were no mention of ethnic minorities. If the video report emphasized that Roma (Gypsies), the largest disadvantaged minority group in Hungary, lived in the neighbourhood, signs of their extreme hardship lowered the support for welfare payments

Biological preservative in whole crop wheat ensilage

Ensilage of whole crop wheat is popular in Europe and America for feeding of ruminant animals, but it is quite rare in Hungary. It can be introduced for replacement of shortage of silomaize silages in drought season. The quality of wheat silage could improve by biological inoculants. Silage additives are expected to ensure a more efficient fermentation phase as well as reduce the risk of aerobic deterioration when silages are exposed to air. Many additives have been developed to improve the ensiling process and nutritive value of silage. Nowadays the 3rd generation biological inoculants –containing lactic acid bacteria and enzymes – are used in order to coordinate the fermentation in such a way that they increase lactic acid production at the beginning of the fermentation and improve the quality and stability of silage during the fermentation and feeding. The quality of raw material (maturity of plant, chop length, spreading of inoculant uniformly) and the proper filling, compacting, covering and wrapping have a great influence on the effectiveness of the inoculant. The mycotoxin content of malfermented silages is an undesirable risk factor. The objective of our research was to determine the effect of two silage inoculant strains Lactobacillus buchneri and Pediococcus acidilactici mixture combined with amilase-, glucanase-, xylanase and galactomannase enzymes on whole crop wheat silage fermentation characteristics, nutritive value and aerobic stability compare to untreated control. Experimental ensilage procedure started with the basic whole crop raw material originated from waxen ripeness of wheat (hard cheddar stage of maturity of seeds) at the time of harvesting. The DM content of chopped raw material was 44%. The LAB inoculants were applied to raw material at 2.5x105 CFU/g fresh material (FM). Because of quite good quality of untreated silages also, the priority of LAB treatment could not proven in the aerobic stability test. The biological preservative (LAB+enzymes) promoted better fermentation and forced back the undesirable butyric acid production in the silages

Simulation of the Three-Dimensional Flow of Blood Using a Shear-Thinning Viscoelastic Fluid Model

This paper is concerned with the numerical simulation of a thermodynamically compatible viscoelastic shear-thinning fluid model, particularly well suited to describe the rheological response of blood, under physiological conditions. Numerical simulations are performed in two idealized three-dimensional geometries, a stenosis and a curved vessel, to investigate the combined effects of flow inertia, viscosity and viscoelasticity in these geometries. The aim of this work is to provide new insights into the modeling and simulation of homogeneous rheological models for blood and a basis for further developments in modeling and prediction

Cell Delivery: Routing Nanomolar Protein Cargoes to Lipid Raft-Mediated/Caveolar Endocytosis through a Ganglioside GM1-Specific Recognition Tag (Adv. Sci. 4/2020)

In article number 1902621, Tamás A. Martinek and co-workers develop a pentapeptidic tag, which reads the glycan code of ganglioside GM1 and triggers lipid raft-mediated endocytosis, avoiding lysosomal entrapment. This carrier molecule can deliver macromolecular cargoes (e.g., IgG complexes) into live cells with the possibility to escape to the cytosol.Peer reviewe

Routing Nanomolar Protein Cargoes to Lipid Raft-Mediated/Caveolar Endocytosis through a Ganglioside GM1‐Specific Recognition Tag

There is a pressing need to develop ways to deliver therapeutic macromolecules to their intracellular targets. Certain viral and bacterial proteins are readily internalized in functional form through lipid raft-mediated/caveolar endocytosis, but mimicking this process with protein cargoes at therapeutically relevant concentrations is a great challenge. Targeting ganglioside GM1 in the caveolar pits triggers endocytosis. A pentapeptide sequence WYKYW is presented, which specifically captures the glycan moiety of GM1 (K-D = 24 nm). The WYKYW-tag facilitates the GM1-dependent endocytosis of proteins in which the cargo-loaded caveosomes do not fuse with lysosomes. A structurally intact immunoglobulin G complex (580 kDa) is successfully delivered into live HeLa cells at extracellular concentrations ranging from 20 to 160 nm, and escape of the cargo proteins to the cytosol is observed. The short peptidic WYKYW-tag is an advantageous endocytosis routing sequence for lipid raft-mediated/caveolar cell delivery of therapeutic macromolecules, especially for cancer cells that overexpress GM1.Peer reviewe

Chronic kidney disease may evoke anxiety by altering CRH expression in the amygdala and tryptophan metabolism in rats

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with anxiety; however, its exact mechanism is not well understood. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess the effect of moderate CKD on anxiety in rats. 5/6 nephrectomy was performed in male Wistar rats. 7 weeks after, anxiety-like behavior was assessed by elevated plus maze (EPM), open field (OF), and marble burying (MB) tests. At weeks 8 and 9, urinalysis was performed, and blood and amygdala samples were collected, respectively. In the amygdala, the gene expression of Avp and the gene and protein expression of Crh , Crhr1 , and Crhr2 were analyzed. Furthermore, the plasma concentration of corticosterone, uremic toxins, and tryptophan metabolites was measured by UHPLC-MS/MS. Laboratory tests confirmed the development of CKD. In the CKD group, the closed arm time increased; the central time and the total number of entries decreased in the EPM. There was a reduction in rearing, central distance and time in the OF, and fewer interactions with marbles were detected during MB. CKD evoked an upregulation of gene expression of Crh , Crhr1 , and Crhr2 , but not Avp , in the amygdala. However, there was no alteration in protein expression. In the CKD group, plasma concentrations of p-cresyl-sulfate, indoxyl-sulfate, kynurenine, kynurenic acid, 3-hydroxykynurenine, anthranilic acid, xanthurenic acid, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, picolinic acid, and quinolinic acid increased. However, the levels of tryptophan, tryptamine, 5-hydroxytryptophan, serotonin, and tyrosine decreased. In conclusion, moderate CKD evoked anxiety-like behavior that might be mediated by the accumulation of uremic toxins and metabolites of the kynurenine pathway, but the contribution of the amygdalar CRH system to the development of anxiety seems to be negligible at this stage

Macromolecular theory of solvation and structure in mixtures of colloids and polymers

The structural and thermodynamic properties of mixtures of colloidal spheres and non-adsorbing polymer chains are studied within a novel general two-component macromolecular liquid state approach applicable for all size asymmetry ratios. The dilute limits, when one of the components is at infinite dilution but the other concentrated, are presented and compared to field theory and models which replace polymer coils with spheres. Whereas the derived analytical results compare well, qualitatively and quantitatively, with mean-field scaling laws where available, important differences from ``effective sphere'' approaches are found for large polymer sizes or semi-dilute concentrations.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figure

The kisspeptin-1 receptor antagonist peptide-234 aggravates uremic cardiomyopathy in a rat model

Uremic cardiomyopathy is characterized by diastolic dysfunction, left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), and fibrosis. Dysregulation of the kisspeptin receptor (KISS1R)-mediated pathways are associated with the development of fibrosis in cancerous diseases. Here, we investigated the effects of the KISS1R antagonist peptide-234 (P234) on the development of uremic cardiomyopathy. Male Wistar rats (300–350 g) were randomized into four groups: (i) Sham, (ii) chronic kidney disease (CKD) induced by 5/6 nephrectomy, (iii) CKD treated with a lower dose of P234 ( ip. 13 µg/day), (iv) CKD treated with a higher dose of P234 ( ip. 26 µg/day). Treatments were administered daily from week 3 for 10 days. At week 13, the P234 administration did not influence the creatinine clearance and urinary protein excretion. However, the higher dose of P234 led to reduced anterior and posterior wall thicknesses, more severe interstitial fibrosis, and overexpression of genes associated with left ventricular remodeling ( Ctgf, Tgfb, Col3a1, Mmp9 ), stretch ( Nppa ), and apoptosis ( Bax, Bcl2, Casp7 ) compared to the CKD group. In contrast, no significant differences were found in the expressions of apoptosis-associated proteins between the groups. Our results suggest that the higher dose of P234 hastens the development and pathophysiology of uremic cardiomyopathy by activating the fibrotic TGF-β-mediated pathways