Book Review: Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora by Pelaud, I. T., Duong, L., Lam, M. B., & Nguyen, K. L. (Eds.)

Book review of Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora by Pelaud, I. T., Duong, L., Lam, M. B., & Nguyen, K. L. (Eds.

Development of AJAX – Based Inverse Auction Website

When a person is superfluous of something and another is lack of something, there is a need of exchanging. That was the time when commerce was born to act as a useful platform to satisfy the needs from both the sellers and buyers. Nowadays, with the rapid increase of Internet and all of its applications, E-commerce has no longer been an unfamiliar term to most of the world. E-commerce has been gaining more and more recognition and positive support from its users. There are various kinds of e-commerce scheme to be developed to meet the changing needs in this globalizing world. The purpose of this report is to introduce a platform for the sellers and buyers to exchange goods effectively with the new mechanism applied, which is called “Inverse Auction”, or in specific, “lowest unique bid auction”. This “new-invented” mechanism is being developed as a new feature in the online shopping website to attract more user participations by bringing them more values and conveniences. The report presents how the system works, how better the proposing website can deliver the products, services to the users, as well as the methodology, tools, techniques needed to implement the project successfully within the timeframe. This paper also shows some researches on the existing websites that are applying the same concept into their business to help bring the deeper understand on lowest unique bid auction and contribute to the improvement in the project design and implementation

Tropical Forest Fire Susceptibility Mapping at the Cat Ba National Park Area, the Hai Phong city (Vietnam) using GIS-Based Kernel Logistic Regression

-The Cat Ba National Park area (Vietnam) with the tropical forest is recognized to be part of the world biodiversity conservation by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Oranization (UNESCO) and is a well-known destination for tourist with around 500,000 travellers per year. This area has been the site for many research projects; however no project has been carried out for the forest fire susceptibility assessment. Thus, protection of the forest including fire prevention is one of the main concerns of the local authority. This work aims to produce a tropical forest fire susceptibility map for the Cat Ba National Park area, which may be helpful for the local authority in the forest fire protection management. To obtain this purpose, first, historical forest fires and related factors were collected from various sources to construct a GIS database. Then a forest fire susceptibility model was developed using Kernel logistic regression. The quality of the model was assessed using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve, area under the ROC curve (AUC), and five statistical evaluation measures. The usability of the resulting model is further compared with a benchmark model, the Support vector machine. The results show that the Kernel logistic regression model has high performance on both the training and validation dataset with a prediction capability of 92.2%. Since the Kernel logistic regression model outperform the benchmark model, we conclude that the proposed model is a promising alternative tool that should be considered for forest fire susceptibility mapping also for other areas. The result in this study is useful for the local authority in forest planning and management

Nudging student recycling behaviour: An experimental study in Kazakhstan and UK higher education

We study the effects of influencing the recycling decisions of young people in the UK and Kazakhstan Universities using a public good experiment with an information nudge (through a video) and a peer effect nudge. Kazakhstan recycles approximately 15% of its municipal waste, compared to almost half in the UK; however, surprisingly, overall contributions are significantly higher from Kazakh students compared to those from UK students. An information video on recycling prompts Kazakh students to contribute more while no such effect is found with the UK students. This suggests that Kazakh students may perceive themselves to be more capable of recycling despite a less sophisticated recycling system compared to the UK. A strong peer effect is seen across both countries. The study highlights the importance of subjective norms through peer nudge and the likelihood of higher contributions from students with siblings. A wider implication is that emerging economies’ educational institutions may have latent positive environmental and recycling practices that developed nations could learn from. The study has implications for educational development as well as national recycling policy frameworks

Mathematical modeling for 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate photopolymerization in presence of oxygen

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Functional characterization of Schistosoma mansoni fucosyltransferases in Nicotiana benthamiana plants

Helminth parasites secrete a wide variety of immunomodulatory proteins and lipids to dampen host immune responses. Many of these immunomodulatory compounds are modified with complex sugar structures (or glycans), which play an important role at the host–parasite interface. As an example, the human blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni produces highly fucosylated glycan structures on glycoproteins and glycolipids. Up to 20 different S. mansoni fucosyltransferase (SmFucT) genes can be found in genome databases, but thus far only one enzyme has been functionally characterized. To unravel the synthesis of highly fucosylated N-glycans by S. mansoni, we examined the ability of ten selected SmFucTs to modify N-glycans upon transient expression in Nicotiana benthamiana plants. All enzymes were localized in the plant Golgi apparatus, which allowed us to identify the SmFucTs involved in core fucosylation and the synthesis of complex antennary glycan motifs. This knowledge provides a starting point for investigations into the role of specific fucosylated glycan motifs of schistosomes in parasite-host interactions. The functionally characterized SmFucTs can also be applied to synthesize complex N-glycan structures on recombinant proteins to study their contribution to immunomodulation. Furthermore, this plant expression system will fuel the development of helminth glycoproteins for pharmaceutical applications or novel anti-helminth vaccines

IRX-2, a Novel Immunotherapeutic, Enhances Functions of Human Dendritic Cells

Background: In a recent phase II clinical trial for HNSCC patients, IRX-2, a cell-derived biologic, promoted T-cell infiltration into the tumor and prolonged overall survival. Mechanisms responsible for these IRX-2-mediated effects are unknown. We hypothesized that IRX-2 enhanced tumor antigen-(TA)-specific immunity by up-regulating functions of dendritic cells (DC). Methodology/Principal Findings: Monocyte-derived DC obtained from 18 HNSCC patients and 12 healthy donors were matured using IRX-2 or a mix of TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 ("conv. mix"). Multicolor flow cytometry was used to study the DC phenotype and antigen processing machinery (APM) component expression. ELISPOT and cytotoxicity assays were used to evaluate tumor-reactive cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). IL-12p70 and IL-10 production by DC was measured by Luminex® and DC migration toward CCL21 was tested in transwell migration assays. IRX-2-matured DC functions were compared with those of conv. mix-matured DC. IRX-2-matured DC expressed higher levels (p<0.05) of CD11c, CD40, CCR7 as well as LMP2, TAP1, TAP2 and tapasin than conv. mix-matured DC. IRX-2-matured DC migrated significantly better towards CCL21, produced more IL-12p70 and had a higher IL12p70/IL-10 ratio than conv. mix-matured DC (p<0.05 for all). IRX-2-matured DC carried a higher density of tumor antigen-derived peptides, and CTL primed with these DC mediated higher cytotoxicity against tumor targets (p<0.05) compared to the conv. mix-matured DC. Conclusion: Excellent ability of IRX-2 to induce ex vivo DC maturation in HNSCC patients explains, in part, its clinical benefits and emphasizes its utility in ex vivo maturation of DC generated for therapy. © 2013 Schilling et al

Chemical profiles and antibacterial activity of acetone extract of two Curcuma species from Vietnam

Curcuma thorelii Gagnep. and Curcuma cotuana Luu, Škorni?k. &amp; H.?.Tr?n are the rare species only found in Southeast Asia. The present study was the first to explore the chemical compositions and antibacterial effects of the whole plant acetone extracts of these 2 species. Altogether 41 and 31 compounds have been identified in C. thorelii and C. cotuana extracts by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Accordingly, the C. thorelii extract contained (E)-labda-8(17),12-diene-15,16-dial (33.37%), vitamin E (12.33%), phytol (9.83%) as the major compounds while C. cotuana extract contained predominantly (E)-labda-8(17),12-diene-15,16-dial (14.58%), n-hexadecanoic acid (10.96%), 3,7,11,15-tetramethylhexadec-2-en-1-yl acetate (8.13%), ?-sitosterol (7.97%). In addition, results from disc diffusion assay have shown that C. thorelii acetone extract had inhibitory effects on 5 out of 10 pathogenic bacterial strains such as Bacillus cereus (ATCC 11778), Listeria monocytogenes (ATCC 19111), Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), S. aureus (ATCC 29213) and S. saprophyticus (BAA750) while C. cotuana acetone extract was found to be effective only against B. cereus. The obtained results showed that the acetone extracts of C. thorelii and C. cotuana possessed several valuable bioactive compounds as well as promising antibacterial activity, which place a good foundation for future pharmaceutical product development

Lymphotoxin α/β and Tumor Necrosis Factor Are Required for Stromal Cell Expression of Homing Chemokines in B and T Cell Areas of the Spleen

Mice deficient in the cytokines tumor necrosis factor (TNF) or lymphotoxin (LT) α/β lack polarized B cell follicles in the spleen. Deficiency in CXC chemokine receptor 5 (CXCR5), a receptor for B lymphocyte chemoattractant (BLC), also causes loss of splenic follicles. Here we report that BLC expression by follicular stromal cells is defective in TNF-, TNF receptor 1 (TNFR1)-, LTα- and LTβ-deficient mice. Treatment of adult mice with antagonists of LTα1β2 also leads to decreased BLC expression. These findings indicate that LTα1β2 and TNF have a role upstream of BLC/CXCR5 in the process of follicle formation. In addition to disrupted follicles, LT-deficient animals have disorganized T zones. Expression of the T cell attractant, secondary lymphoid tissue chemokine (SLC), by T zone stromal cells is found to be markedly depressed in LTα-, and LTβ-deficient mice. Expression of the SLC-related chemokine, Epstein Barr virus–induced molecule 1 ligand chemokine (ELC), is also reduced. Exploring the basis for the reduced SLC expression led to identification of further disruptions in T zone stromal cells. Together these findings indicate that LTα1β2 and TNF are required for the development and function of B and T zone stromal cells that make chemokines necessary for lymphocyte compartmentalization in the spleen