Through the Eyes of the Needles: Exploring the Lived Experiences of Filipino Fashion Designers in the State of Qatar, A Phenomenology

Background: Fashion could be dated back as to when humans had started evolving. The history of clothing began when humans had lost their fur and needed to protect themselves from the cold nights and the burning sun. Ever since clothes became in demand, the demand for quality and aesthetically pleasing clothes has never diminished. Looking around the State of Qatar, one can find numerous tailoring stores run by foreign designers or tailors, mostly Indians. The number of Filipino Fashion Designers in the country may even be less than a hundred. Different research studies regarding Filipino Fashion Designers are mostly rare as well. With much thought, the researchers have focused on the lived experiences of the Filipino Fashion Designers in the State of Qatar. Methods: This study made use of the qualitative approach focusing on phenomenology to fully understand the story of the unsung heroes of fashion designing with the central question, how Filipino fashion designers deal with challenges when it comes to providing designs. An in-depth was conducted among the participants to get what one designer has gone through in his/her day-to-day life. Findings: With the gathered data, the researchers were able to come up with three (3) main themes with three (3) sub themes; (1) Fashion Literacy: (1.1) Academics (1.2) Experience (1.3) Capabilities; (2) Stress and Mitigation: (2.1) Challenges (2.2) Adjustments (2.3) Fulfillment; (3) Fame and Association: (3.1) Collaboration (3.2) Recognition (3.3) Simulation. Recommendation: The results of this research study may be beneficial to students and other people with an interest with the topic being discussed in this paper. With the results of this phenomenology, one may continue an in depth analysis of the life of the Filipino designers, proposing new studies related to this paper.. One may also gather information that can be used in studying the life of other nationalities when it comes to fashion designing as the results may differ for other people

The art and science of using quality control to understand and improve fMRI data

Designing and executing a good quality control (QC) process is vital to robust and reproducible science and is often taught through hands on training. As FMRI research trends toward studies with larger sample sizes and highly automated processing pipelines, the people who analyze data are often distinct from those who collect and preprocess the data. While there are good reasons for this trend, it also means that important information about how data were acquired, and their quality, may be missed by those working at later stages of these workflows. Similarly, an abundance of publicly available datasets, where people (not always correctly) assume others already validated data quality, makes it easier for trainees to advance in the field without learning how to identify problematic data. This manuscript is designed as an introduction for researchers who are already familiar with fMRI, but who did not get hands on QC training or who want to think more deeply about QC. This could be someone who has analyzed fMRI data but is planning to personally acquire data for the first time, or someone who regularly uses openly shared data and wants to learn how to better assess data quality. We describe why good QC processes are important, explain key priorities and steps for fMRI QC, and as part of the FMRI Open QC Project, we demonstrate some of these steps by using AFNI software and AFNI’s QC reports on an openly shared dataset. A good QC process is context dependent and should address whether data have the potential to answer a scientific question, whether any variation in the data has the potential to skew or hide key results, and whether any problems can potentially be addressed through changes in acquisition or data processing. Automated metrics are essential and can often highlight a possible problem, but human interpretation at every stage of a study is vital for understanding causes and potential solutions

Chimeric Rnas Reveal Putative Neoantigen Peptides for Developing Tumor Vaccines for Breast Cancer

INTRODUCTION: We present here a strategy to identify immunogenic neoantigen candidates from unique amino acid sequences at the junctions of fusion proteins which can serve as targets in the development of tumor vaccines for the treatment of breastcancer. METHOD: We mined the sequence reads of breast tumor tissue that are usually discarded as discordant paired-end reads and discovered cancer specific fusion transcripts using tissue from cancer free controls as reference. Binding affinity predictions of novel peptide sequences crossing the fusion junction were analyzed by the MHC Class I binding predictor, MHCnuggets. CD8+ T cell responses against the 15 peptides were assessed through in vitro Enzyme Linked Immunospot (ELISpot). RESULTS: We uncovered 20 novel fusion transcripts from 75 breast tumors of 3 subtypes: TNBC, HER2+, and HR+. Of these, the NSFP1-LRRC37A2 fusion transcript was selected for further study. The 3833 bp chimeric RNA predicted by the consensus fusion junction sequence is consistent with a read-through transcription of the 5\u27-gene NSFP1-Pseudo gene NSFP1 (NSFtruncation at exon 12/13) followed by trans-splicing to connect withLRRC37A2 located immediately 3\u27 through exon 1/2. A total of 15 different 8-mer neoantigen peptides discovered from the NSFP1 and LRRC37A2 truncations were predicted to bind to a total of 35 unique MHC class I alleles with a binding affinity of IC50 CONCLUSION: Our data provides a framework to identify immunogenic neoantigen candidates from fusion transcripts and suggests a potential vaccine strategy to target the immunogenic neopeptides in patients with tumors carrying the NSFP1-LRRC37A2 fusion

Chimeric RNAs reveal putative neoantigen peptides for developing tumor vaccines for breast cancer

IntroductionWe present here a strategy to identify immunogenic neoantigen candidates from unique amino acid sequences at the junctions of fusion proteins which can serve as targets in the development of tumor vaccines for the treatment of breastcancer.MethodWe mined the sequence reads of breast tumor tissue that are usually discarded as discordant paired-end reads and discovered cancer specific fusion transcripts using tissue from cancer free controls as reference. Binding affinity predictions of novel peptide sequences crossing the fusion junction were analyzed by the MHC Class I binding predictor, MHCnuggets. CD8+ T cell responses against the 15 peptides were assessed through in vitro Enzyme Linked Immunospot (ELISpot).ResultsWe uncovered 20 novel fusion transcripts from 75 breast tumors of 3 subtypes: TNBC, HER2+, and HR+. Of these, the NSFP1-LRRC37A2 fusion transcript was selected for further study. The 3833 bp chimeric RNA predicted by the consensus fusion junction sequence is consistent with a read-through transcription of the 5’-gene NSFP1-Pseudo gene NSFP1 (NSFtruncation at exon 12/13) followed by trans-splicing to connect withLRRC37A2 located immediately 3’ through exon 1/2. A total of 15 different 8-mer neoantigen peptides discovered from the NSFP1 and LRRC37A2 truncations were predicted to bind to a total of 35 unique MHC class I alleles with a binding affinity of IC50<500nM.); 1 of which elicited a robust immune response.ConclusionOur data provides a framework to identify immunogenic neoantigen candidates from fusion transcripts and suggests a potential vaccine strategy to target the immunogenic neopeptides in patients with tumors carrying the NSFP1-LRRC37A2 fusion

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Past experiences as a catalyst to the gay identity development of Filipino gay men aged 18-22

Past experiences as a catalyst to gay development. Gay identity has been explored on the different fields of social sciences. This was supported by Cass (1979) who stated that being gay can be partially explained through their childhood developmental processes and through their environment. However, past researchers were unable to tackle personal narratives from gay men and their past experiences, which can help further explain how it contributes to forming sexuality. Through thematic analysis, the current study explored the personal narratives of Filipino gay men agreed 18-22. Experiences with family, nonfamilial experiences, and experiences with doing opposite sex activites transpired to be significant past experiences that contributed to the development of the said participants\u27 gay identity. Peers depict a great impact on gay identity development but there are other experiences to be considered with or without its influence. This appears to be new information considering that literature indicates that peers is a sole contributor to the development of gay identity

Comparison of antibacterial activity and phytochemical screening of Avicennia marina (Gray Mangrove) leaf, stem, and combined lead and stem extracts against Klebsiella pneumoniae

The leaves and stems of A. marina were extracted with ethanol using soxhlet extraction method. Crude ethanolic extracts were loaded on a silica gel column and eluted with five (5) concentrations of chloroform and methanol. Thin layer chromatography was performed as basis for pooling fractions using the solvent system chloroform: methanol ethyl acetate. Antibacterial assay was carried out using disc diffusion method and was compared to a standard antibiotic, Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole to evaluate their antibacterial activity against Klebsiella pneumoniae. The research showed that none of leaf and stem fractions were unable to show antimicrobial activity against K. pneumoniae

Causes of death among people with myelomeningocele: A multi-institutional 47-year retrospective study

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze organ system-based causes and non-organ system-based mechanisms of death (COD, MOD) in people with myelomeningocele (MMC), comparing urological to other COD. Methods: A retrospective review was performed of 16 institutions in Canada/United States of non-random convenience sample of people with MMC (born > = 1972) using non-parametric statistics. Results: Of 293 deaths (89% shunted hydrocephalus), 12% occurred in infancy, 35% in childhood, and 53% in adulthood (documented COD: 74%). For 261 shunted individuals, leading COD were neurological (21%) and pulmonary (17%), and leading MOD were infections (34%, including shunt infections: 4%) and non-infectious shunt malfunctions (14%). For 32 unshunted individuals, leading COD were pulmonary (34%) and cardiovascular (13%), and leading MOD were infections (38%) and non-infectious pulmonary (16%). COD and MOD varied by shunt status and age (p = 0.16). Urology-related deaths (urosepsis, renal failure, hematuria, bladder perforation/cancer: 10%) were more likely in females (p = 0.01), independent of age, shunt, or ambulatory status (p > = 0.40). COD/MOD were independent of bladder augmentation (p = >0.11). Unexplained deaths while asleep (4%) were independent of age, shunt status, and epilepsy (p >= 0.47). Conclusion: COD varied by shunt status. Leading MOD were infectious. Urology-related deaths (10%) were independent of shunt status; 26% of COD were unknown. Life-long multidisciplinary care and accurate mortality documentation are needed