Rabbit Erythropoiesis in vitro

The erythropoietin (Ep) dose response of erythroid colony-forming units (CFU-e) and erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-e) from rabbit bone were similar to murine erythroid precursor Ep requirements. Bone marrow and peripheral blood contained a continuum of erythroid precursors at differing stages of maturation. The earliest BFU-e were assayed on day 10. CFU-e were observed in bone marrow, but not in peripheral blood. The most mature erythroid precursors observed in peripheral blood were intermediate BFU-e, assayed on day 5. A linear relationship exists between the number of nucleated bone marrow cells plated and the number of 3 day colonies and 10 day bursts observed. The 10 day bursts were composed of erythroid cells at all stages of maturation and these cells contained normal adult hemoglobins. The methylcellulose assay was then used to characterize the hemopoietic tissue in ossicles induced by demineralized allogeneic bone matrix (DBM) and to investigate the mechanisms of action of burst-promoting activity (BPA). DBM, implanted in muscle, induces the formation of an ossicle within which hemopoietic tissue develops. Analyses of ossicle marrow in vitro demonstrated the presence of committed hemopoietic precursors; colony-forming units in culture (CFU-c), CFU-e and BFU-e by 6 weeks postimplantation. The time courses of colony and burst formation by erythroid precursors in ossicle and femoral marrow were similar. Induction of hemolytic anemia by phenylhydrazine hydrochloride at six weeks post DBM implantation showed that the ossicle marrow was responsive to systemic erythropoietic stimuli The DBM implant is a unique model for studying the development of hemopoietic microenvironments within bone. Rabbit bone marrow conditioned media (BMCM) was found to contain potent erythroid BPA. In order to further characterize the mechanisms of action of BPA and to improve the quantitation or BPA, we studied the effects of BMCM on the number of bursts, cells per burst and 59Fe incorporation into heme. Examination of erythroid precursors at different maturational stages revealed that the sensitivity of erythroid precursors to BPA decreases with maturity. Delayed addition of BMCM to cultures demonstrated a requirement for BPA during the early stages of burst formation. BMCM did not enhance granulocyte/macrophage colony formation. The enhancement of heme synthesis by BMCM was routinely much greater (range, 7- to 109-fold) than the increase in burst number (range, 1- to 2-fold). The latter observation suggested that BPA might increase the size of bursts in addition to augmenting burst number. Simultaneous measurement of cell number and 59Fe incorporation in individual bursts showed a strong correlation between these parameters. In this experiment, the total enhancement of cell number and 59Fe incorporation was 6.6- and 8.0-fold, respectively. These results suggest that a major effect of BMCM BPA is to promote cell division during the early phase of burst formation

Reflection on-line or off-line: the role of learning technologies in encouraging students to reflect

This paper presents case studies that describe the experiences of the two authors in trying to use learning technologies to facilitate reflective thinking in their students. At the University of Leicester, a Web-based biology tutorial called ‘How Now Mad Cow’, which covers the topics of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and a new variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (nvCJD). At the University of Southampton, a web-based hyper-mail discussion list to support teaching on a first year psychosocial science module for occupational therapy and physiotherapy students has been established. In both examples, the tutors had attempted to create a learning environment that would engage students in the learning experience and facilitate reflection by helping them to create meaning from the learning experience and see things in a different way. The evaluation data from both case studies provides some evidence that the learning technologies helped to facilitate reflection for some students. However, the evidence for reflection is not overwhelming and the data provides some evidence that four key factors may have influenced how successful the use of learning technologies were in facilitating reflection. These factors are the way the learning technology is used, the nature of the student groups, the role of the tutor and student preferences for ‘off-line reflection’. These are discussed and ways forward are identified

Moving lessons: teaching sociology through embodied learning in the HE classroom

This chapter outlines an approach to classroom teaching that makes use of physical movement alongside more traditional lecturing methods when delivering lessons on abstract theoretical material. It develops the notion of embodied learning as a 'physical metaphor', outlining some examples of this practice that we have used in our recent work with a class of first year undergraduates. We argue that conceptualising students as embodied subjects, whose capacity to learn extends through and beyond their physical selves, educators are able to enhance classroom delivery by diversifying teaching activities and creating opportunities for enjoyable and memorable learning experiences. We advocate the reflexive, contextually-sensitive and level- appropriate use of this method, arguing that despite some limitations it can animate students' understanding of academic ideas in uniquely personalised ways

Enriching the values of micro and small business research projects: co-creation service provision as perceived by academic, business and student

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Studies in Higher Education, first published online 3 September 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2014.942273.The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (1996) chaired by Lord Dearing envisioned a university sector central to the UK’s knowledge-based economy. With successive government support the university-business partnership ideology has been put into practice. Widening participation has increased in emphasis over recent years, providing key innovations and skills to support business growth. Yet business schools activities in business growth is marginal against other university schools. The paper reports on an empirical study analyzing the university/business values derived from one small business engagement project. Data collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, memos, and discussions were coupled with critical evaluation of work and action-based learning (ABL) literature. Analysis reveals evidence of multiple value adding factors; it emerged that the existence of knowledge, present or generated through blended learning techniques, was a key value adding element. The findings enabled the construction of a universal process model providing a project framework, detailing areas of collaborative efforts and associated recompenses; this included ease in project advancements and a noticeably advanced project outcome. The study highlights these values in terms of individual and organizational learning, originality and quality of outputs. Given the growing importance of Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to the UK economy, understanding the value co-created by collaborative projects in delivering both work-based and ABL for graduates/students, academics and enterprise management is important.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Stress in frictionless granular material: Adaptive Network Simulations

We present a minimalistic approach to simulations of force transmission through granular systems. We start from a configuration containing cohesive (tensile) contact forces and use an adaptive procedure to find the stable configuration with no tensile contact forces. The procedure works by sequentially removing and adding individual contacts between adjacent beads, while the bead positions are not modified. In a series of two-dimensional realizations, the resulting force networks are shown to satisfy a linear constraint among the three components of average stress, as anticipated by recent theories. The coefficients in the linear constraint remain nearly constant for a range of shear loadings up to about .6 of the normal loading. The spatial distribution of contact forces shows strong concentration along ``force chains". The probability of contact forces of magnitude f shows an exponential falloff with f. The response to a local perturbing force is concentrated along two characteristic rays directed downward and laterally.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Characterization of disease course and remission in early seropositive rheumatoid arthritis: results from the TACERA longitudinal cohort study

Background: To characterise disease course and remission in a longitudinal observational study of newly diagnosed, initially treatment-naïve patients with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: Patients with early untreated seropositive RA were recruited from 28 UK centres. Multiple clinical and laboratory measures were collected every 3 months for up to 18 months. Disease activity was measured using the 28-joint Disease Activity Score with C-reactive protein (DAS28-CRP) and Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI). Logistic regression models examined clinical predictors of 6-month remission and latent class mixed models characterised disease course. Results: We enrolled 275 patients of whom 267 met full eligibility and provided baseline data. According to SDAI definition, 24.3% attained 6-month remission. Lower baseline Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and SDAI predicted 6-month remission (p = 0.013 and 0.011). Alcohol intake and baseline prescribing of methotrexate with a second disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD; vs monotherapy without glucocorticoids) were also predictive. Three distinct SDAI trajectory subpopulations emerged; corresponding to an inadequate responder group (6.5%), and higher and lower baseline activity responder groups (22.4% and 71.1%). Baseline HAQ and Short Form-36 Health Survey – Mental Component Score (SF-36 MCS) distinguished these groups. In addition, a number of baseline clinical predictors correlated with disease activity severity within subpopulations. Beneficial effects of alcohol intake were found across subpopulations. Conclusion: Three distinct disease trajectory subpopulations were identified. Differential effects of functional and mental well-being, alcohol consumption, and baseline RA medication prescribing on disease activity severity were found across subpopulations. Heterogeneity across trajectories cannot be fully explained by baseline clinical predictors. We hypothesise that biological markers collected early in disease course (within 6 months) may help patient management and better targeting of existing and novel therapies

Effectiveness of 1:1 speech and language therapy for older children with (developmental) language disorder

BACKGROUND: Evidence of the effectiveness of therapy for older children with (developmental) language disorder (DLD), and particularly those with receptive language impairments, is very limited. The few existing studies have focused on particular target areas, but none has looked at a whole area of a service. AIMS: To establish whether for students with (developmental) language disorder attending a specialist school, 1:1 intervention with an SLT during one school term improves performance on targeted areas, compared with untreated control areas. Also, to investigate whether gender, receptive language status, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) status, or educational Key Stage affected their response to this intervention. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Seventy-two students (aged 9–17 years, 88% of whom had receptive language impairments) and all speech and language therapists (SLTs) in our specialist school for children with Language Disorder, most of whom have DLD participated in this study over one school term. During this term, the SLTs devised pre- and post-therapy measures for every student for each target they planned to treat 1:1. In addition, for each target area, a control measure was devised. The targets covered a wide range of speech, language and communication areas, both receptive and expressive. Post-therapy tests were administered ‘blind’. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: During the term, SLTs and students worked 1:1 on 120 targets, the majority in the areas of expressive and receptive language. Targets and controls did not differ pre-therapy. Significant progress was seen both on targets (d = 1.33) and controls (d = 0.36), but the targeted areas improved significantly more than the controls with a large and clinically significant effect size (d = 1.06). There was no effect of language area targeted (targets improved more than their controls for all areas). Participants with versus those without receptive language difficulties, co-occurring ASD diagnosis or participants in different educational Key Stages did not differ significantly in terms of the progress they made on target areas. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Direct 1:1 intervention with an SLT can be effective for all areas of language for older children with (D)LD, regardless of their gender, receptive language or ASD status, or age. This adds to the relatively limited evidence base regarding the effectiveness of direct SLT intervention for school-aged children with (D)LD and for children with receptive language impairments. If direct 1:1 intervention can be effective with this hard-to-treat group, it may well also be effective with younger children with (D)LD. Thus, direct SLT services should be available for school-aged children with (D)LD, including older children and adolescents with pervasive difficulties

Review of Flywheel based Internal Combustion Engine Hybrid Vehicles

Hybrid vehicles of different configurations and utilizing different energy storage systems have existed in development for many decades and more recently in limited production. They can be grouped as parallel, series or complex hybrids. Another classification is micro, mild and full hybrids which makes the distinction on the basis of functionality. The common energy storage systems in hybrid vehicles are batteries, supercapacitors and high speed flywheels. This paper aims to review a specific type of hybrid vehicle which involves the internal combustion engine (ICE) as the prime mover and the high speed flywheel as an energy storage device. Such hybrids are now attracting considerable interest given their potential for low cost. It is hence timely to produce a review of research and development in this subject. The flywheel is coupled to the drive line with a continuous variable transmission (CVT). The CVT can be of various types such as electrical, hydraulic or mechanical but usually in this case it is a non-electrical one. Different configurations are possible and the paper provides a timeline of the development of such powertrains with various examples. These types of hybrid vehicles have existed as prototypes for many decades and the authors believe that their development has reached levels where they can be considered serious contenders for production vehicles

Do Human Resource Departments Act as Strategic Partners? Strategic Human Capital Management Adoption by County Governments

Drawing on qualitative data from forty counties in New York and North Carolina, this article examines the adoption of strategic human capital management (SHCM) principles and practices at the county level and presents a typology of five levels of SHCM adoption. The level of SHCM implementation in a county depends on: the view of the HR function by executive county leadership, the capacity of the county to engage in strategic planning and management, and the capacity of the HR director to think strategically about the role of HR in the government. The article concludes with recommendations for practice, which focus on educating a diverse set of actors about SHCM, building executive level support, developing HR skill and competencies, and applying basic change management practices