Low cost ablative heat shields for space shuttles

Development of low cost ablative heat shields for space shuttle

Truth in science and medicine : the hope and hype of stem cell therapies

The article examines the practice of cell therapies, often named as stem cell therapies. For the general public this is recognized as promising treatment for many diseases, offering hope for many people to restore health to themselves or their loved ones. However, despite the enormous potential that this type of treatment holds, it has its limitations. The tension between hope, science, truth and deception can come to the fore especially when someone is fighting for their life. Moral and ethical issues play a key role in such cases, serving as guideposts obscured, however, by information noise

Effectiveness of the Polish, Danish and Cypriot presidencies in the field of enlargement policy : "a project assessment perspective"

This article concerns the evaluation of the Polish, Danish and Cypriot presidencies in the field of the European Union enlargement policy. In order to assess an effectiveness of both countries he uses a project assessment perspective, which theoretical model was initially developed in the book Skuteczność polskiej prezydencji w Unii Europejskiej (trans.: The effectiveness of the Polish presidency in the European Union). A thesis standing behind this approach says that after the treaty of Lisbon has come into force, and has changed crucial functions of each presidency, we can’t any more consider a country chairing the Council neither as honest broker nor as representative of own national interests. A project assessment perspective delivers more adequate categories based on project management theory and practice. In the empirical part of the study the author focuses on the effects of Polish, Danish and Cypriot activities in the field of relations with six candidate countries since 1 July 2011 till 31 December 2012

How to govern the city in a complex reality?

In an article the authors try to find an answer on the question: how to efficiently govern a city in nowadays complex and multidimensional reality of social sciences. The solution is to create an "adaptive public administration". It should have the ability to recognize the public needs and socioeconomic conditions, and to flexibly adjust the public policy to the complex situation, learning continuously from this process at the same time. It is time to finish with vertical logic of public administration. The priorities while dealing with public policy's issues should focus on simplifying the public problem, and immediately after that the decision makers ought to re-composite in a new mode using a patchwork style of policy and management

Economic and institutional urban resilience to COVID-19 : case of Poland

This article aims to investigate the institutional and economical resilience of Polish cities with poviat rights to COVID-19 between spring 2020 and autumn 2020. Institutional resilience was researched using surveys among crisis management units and economic resilience with K-means clustering method and stepwise regression. Cities demonstrated a large recovery potential in the areas which lay directly under their supervision. Problems arose in the areas coordinated by central government, i.e. access to respirators, or hospital beds. The size of the city and large number of medium-sized companies were the factors of city’s immunity. Tourist cities turned out to be less resilient

Redox signaling, Nox5 and vascular remodeling in hypertension

Purpose of review: Extensive data indicate a role for reactive oxygen species (ROS) and redox signaling in vascular damage in hypertension. However, molecular mechanisms underlying these processes remain unclear, but oxidative post-translational modification of vascular proteins is critical. This review discusses how proteins are oxidatively modified and how redox signaling influences vascular smooth muscle cell growth and vascular remodeling in hypertension. We also highlight Nox5 as a novel vascular ROS-generating oxidase. Recent findings: Oxidative stress in hypertension leads to oxidative imbalance that affects vascular cell function through redox signaling. Many Nox isoforms produce ROS in the vascular wall, and recent findings show that Nox5 may be important in humans. ROS regulate signaling by numerous processes including cysteine oxidative post-translational modification such as S-nitrosylation, S-glutathionylation and sulfydration. In vascular smooth muscle cells, this influences cellular responses to oxidative stimuli promoting changes from a contractile to a proliferative phenotype. Summary: In hypertension, Nox-induced ROS production is increased, leading to perturbed redox signaling through oxidative modifications of vascular proteins. This influences mitogenic signaling and cell cycle regulation, leading to altered cell growth and vascular remodeling in hypertension

Generation of miR-15a/16-1 cluster-deficient human induced pluripotent stem cell line (DMBi001-A-2) using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing

miR-15a/16-1 cluster, composed of MIR15A and MIR16-1 genes located in close proximity on chromosome 13 was described to regulate post-natal cell cycle withdrawal of cardiomyocytes in mice. In humans, on the other hand, the level of miR-15a-5p and miR-16-p was negatively associated with the severity of cardiac hypertrophy. Therefore, to better understand the role of these microRNAs in human cardiomyocytes in regard to their proliferative potential and hypertrophic growth, we generated hiPSC line with complete deletion of miR-15a/16-1 cluster using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. Obtained cells demonstrate expression of pluripotency markers, differentiation capacity into all three germ layers and normal karyotype