Design and Production of a Recombinant FliC-Antigen Co-Expression Platform for Increased Vaccine Efficacy

The protein monomer of bacterial flagella, FliC, is known to stimulate human innate immunity through activation of Toll-like receptor five. Linking native Salmonella FliC with various antigens has demonstrated an increased immune response as compared to single antigen presentation. To drastically reduce production time and allow for a more cost effective recombinant vaccine adjuvant, a synthetic construct was created that enables genetic linkage of FliC to other known antigens. The construct contains the necessary components for immune system stimulation while the non-essential regions were replaced with commonly used restriction enzyme recognition sites to aid in ligation with other antigens and cloning into various expression vectors and hosts. After synthesis in the inducible expression vector pJ404, the construct was transformed into competent BL21 E. coli and expression was confirmed through SDS-PAGE, Western blot, and MALDI MS/MS. The cells were adapted to fermentation media and re-screened for expression, and upon confirmation a 20-liter fermentation was conducted. The resulting samples were analyzed for expression within the insoluble and soluble cellular fractions to further optimize fermentation conditions. Once purified, this synthetic FliC will serve as a platform technology for the standardized co-expression of the TRL5 activator with a variety of antigens in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems

Canadian homesharing match-up agencies : five year follow-up

The primary purpose of this study was to update a Canadian homesharing agency study conducted in 1988 (see Gutman, Doyle, Melliship & Baldwin, 1989). Additionally, we wished to see howCanadian homesharing agencies had developed over the five year period in terms of approximating I trends reported in the US literature on homesharing. Comparisons will be made between datacollected in 1988 and 1993. The specific objectives of the study were to: 1) Update the original homesharing study, and describe similarities and differences of Canadian homesharing agencies between the two time periods. 2) Compare American and Canadian research findings. 3) Determine if Canadian homesharing agencies now have had experience with the development of homesharing with a care component and/or group shared residences

Self-service reservations: a review of a pilot at Anglia Ruskin University

This article describes the pilot of self-service reservations in the Chelmsford site University Library and the issues that arose and how they were dealt with in order to provide a service to match the longer self-service opening hours

Supporting university students with socially challenging behaviours through professional development for teaching staff

In Australia and globally there is an increase in the numbers of university students presenting with diagnosed and undiagnosed equity and social inclusion issues related to disability and medical conditions, including mental health concerns and learning impairments. This paper discusses the collaboration between Learning Support, Equity and Social Inclusion, and Counselling to develop an introductory workshop for teaching staff. The workshop includes a specific focus on staff responses to what may be perceived as students’ socially challenging behaviours. This social dynamic sits within, and either reflects or collides with, the institution’s culture of inclusion. Our aim in this paper is to situate the importance of social relationships in the broader context of inclusive university education. We suggest that this is the grassroots level of institution and sector-wide cultural change that leads to staff engagement with universal learning design and curriculum reform. Our focus on the importance of social relationships between staff and students as a prerequisite of inclusive teaching and learning in higher education has implications for understanding the work that university teachers actually do, and highlights the complexity of university teaching as more than teaching discipline content. The paper argues for greater recognition of inclusive practice in teaching and learning in higher education

The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Coverage of Carbon Pricing Instruments for Canadian Provinces

In this paper we provide a comparison of the coverage of Canadian carbon pricing systems. We define coverage as the proportion and types of emissions priced under the various systems, by emissions source. We compare provincially announced pricing systems to the federal benchmark (the minimum coverage provinces must meet) and the federal backstop, the pricing system that will be imposed on provinces with insufficient coverage or who opt to not develop their own policies. For those provinces that have not yet introduced a carbon price we look only at coverage under the federal benchmark and the federal backstop. We find the majority of provincial pricing systems meet or exceed the federal benchmark. Our results also point to the importance of additional complementary policies to address significant sources of unpriced emissions, primarily in agriculture and fugitive sources

A U-Pb zircon age for the Råna intrusion, N. Norway : new evidence of basic magmatism in the Scandinavian Caledonides in Early Silurian time

Four morphologically distinctive zircon types from quartz-bearing gabbronorite in the Rana intrusion in the Narvik Nappe Complex yield coincident and concordant U-Pb analyses indicating a crystallization age of 437+1-2 Ma. The age of the Rana intrusion, together with other zircon ages from similar layered mafic intrusions and ophiolites in Norway, provide evidence for a distinct and possible short-lived period of back-arc spreading and mafic plutonism in the upper part of the Upper Allochthon and in the Uppermost Allochthon of the Scandinavian Caledonides in Early Silurian time. The intrusion was emplaced during a period of regional crust extension that post-dates the local D1 deformational phase and pre-dates phases D2-D6. The main period of regional metamorphism (and D2-6) in the Narvik Nappe Complex post-dates emplacement of the Rana intrusion, and it is concluded that these latest deformational phases are probably related to the medial Silurian Scandian orogeny and not the Cambrian-Early Ordovician (?) "Finnmarkian' orogeny, as previously supposed