Writing with our limbs: bodies and tongues

Performing Arts Dance, Music and Poetry are expressions of human feelings; methods for communicating and telling stories of myths, legends, genealogies and histories that are the collective memories and conscience of Pacific Culture. Despite vast research that supports the significance of the Performing Arts; dance, music and poetry, in education and human development among other things, little institutional level, is evident in the Pacific island countries. The overall images that emerge from literature are seen to be the kinds of activities strictly relegated to the realm of culture (with the exception of film), entertainment (for tourism, for example) or the privileged west and those with access to it. This panel presentation will show how Performing Arts – Dance, Music & Poetry today not only reflect people’s history and culture, but also explore society. They provide opportunity for critical examination of complex islander identities, modernity and development in the struggles against 1: tensions; 2: misinterpretations; and 3: globalization and climate change. First, tensions will highlight the notions of cultural and spiritual silence concerning taboos surrounding sex education and the effect that has on the spread of the HIV virus that is threatening entire Pacific cultures. Second, the fa’afafine journey has been recorded extensively in numerous ways by anthropologists, religious practitioners, psychologists, and film-makers with few attempts to appreciate how fa’afafine themselves understand their lives and identities hence, misinterpretations and misconstrued information about sexuality and fa’afafine phenomenology has been the norm in western constructs. Third, Globalization and climate change have had devastating impacts on Pacific island nations

Strategic Techniques for Enhancing Web Services Security in Cloud Computing Model

The 21st century has witnessed an integration of enterprise business process with emerging techniques in a quest to maximize opportunities and organisational strength. In spite of these, vulnerabilities and risks still abound due to the integration for an effective operational mechanism. Mitigating against these requires strategic techniques for enhancing web services security. It is on this background that this paper has been presented. A critical study of web services architecture and cloud computing model as an emerging technology has been given a succinct digest. Furthermore, an evaluation of recent trends in web services and cloud computing model security issues were x-rayed. The threat to web services application deployed in cloud computing were identified hence presenting strategic techniques for enhancing web services security as a proactive measure to enhancing enterprise success. This paper concludes by re-iterating the need to understanding various security threats and proactively and dynamically reacting to them. Keywords: Web Services, Cloud Computing, Cross Site Scripting, SQL Injection and Web Securit

Comparative Analysis of Pre and Post-migration Livelihood Outcomes of Households with Absentee Heads in Osun State, Nigeria

Migration is often linked with a deleterious impact on rural area production and development. Although, the change of location for better opportunities also affect the lives and livelihoods of the migrant households’ in the rural communities. The study was a comparative analysis of the pre and post-migration living outcomes of absentee households’ heads in Osun State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure involving the simple random sampling was used to select 120 absentee household heads. Data collected with interview schedule was subjected to descriptive statistics, t-test and correlation analyses. Findings showed that more men (76.7%) migrated, leaving women to become the interim household heads. It was found that migrants have a higher average monthly income level (₦44,400). Prior to migration, most families were in the lower financial well-being category (83.3%), while only 55% remained in that category after migration. This follows the result of the t-test which revealed that a significant difference (t=0.00; p<0.05) exists between the well-being of migrant’s household before and after migration. Thus, it was concluded that unless the rural push factors are removed, rural-urban migration will continue at an increasing rate because benefits and opportunities acquired in the process influence the well-being of the rural households. The study recommends that enabling environment, facilities and opportunities should be created in the rural communities to transform livelihoods and improve the wellbeing of the people via interventions by national and international agencies

Testosterone response to competition in males is unrelated to opponent familiarity or threat appraisal

It has been proposed in the literature that the testosterone (T) response to competition in humans may be modulated by cognitive variables. In a previous experiment with a female sample we have reported that opponent familiarity and threat appraisal moderated the T response to competition in women. With this experiment we aim to investigate if these variables have the same impact on males T response to competition, extending the previous findings in our lab. Forty male participants (20 dyads) were recruited to engage in a same sex, face to face competition using the Number Tracking Test as a competitive task. Levels of T, cortisol (C) and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) were measured before and 20 min after the competition. Results show that losers report higher levels of threat than winners and increased their T levels after the competition, however this T change was not predicted by opponent familiarity or threat appraisal. No variation was detected for C and DHEA levels. These findings suggest that there could be sex differences for the moderators/mediators of the T response to competition in humans.FCT fellowship: SFRH/BD/68528/2010, FCT strategic grant: (PEst-OE/MAR/UI0331/2011)

Inability of immunohistochemistry to predict clinical outcomes of endometrial cancer patients

Gossett DR, Alo P, Bristow RE, Galati M, Kyshtoobayeva A, Fruehauf J, Montz FJ. Inability of immunohistochemistry to predict clinical outcomes of endometrial cancer patients. Introduction: Despite optimal surgery, some patients with early endometrial carcinoma develop recurrence and die of disease. A number of immunohistochemical (IHC)-identified cell products (markers) have been proposed as predictors of recurrence. This study characterizes a large series of endometrial carcinomas with previously described markers as well as markers that have not been investigated in endometrial carcinoma. Patients and methods: Women who had undergone surgery for endometrial carcinoma were identified and specimens accessed. Tissue blocks were evaluated for ten IHC markers. Results were correlated with last known clinical status. Results: Mean follow-up was 43 months; complete data were available on 117 patients. Two women died of other causes; of the remaining 115, eight died of disease and six were alive with recurrence at last follow-up (12%). Vascular endothelial growth factor staining independently predicted recurrence and death. However, in multivariate analyses, only FIGO stage predicted outcome. Discussion: Our goal was to identify markers to predict which women with endometrial carcinoma were likely to have disease recurrence. We evaluated cell-cycle regulatory proteins, growth factors, hormone receptors, and angiogenic factors, but did not identify any marker that independently predicted outcome in multivariate analysis. This may reflect the few negative outcomes in our population.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72601/1/j.1048-891x.2004.014028.x.pd

Knowledge and Attitude towards Ebola Virus Disease among Secondary School Students in Abakaliki, South-east, Nigeria

Introduction: Ebola virus disease (EVD) is an acute haemorrhagic fever. It is also a zoonotic disease which has posed a serious public health problem in the West African Sub-Region. The study was conducted to determine the level of knowledge and attitude towards EVD among Secondary School Students in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out among 318 secondary school students in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, selected through multistage sampling method. Information and permission were obtained from the State Ministry of Education, Informed consent from the principals of the schools and their class teachers. Assent was obtained from selected students prior to the study. Data was collected with pre-tested semi-structured questionnaires and analyzed using statistical package for the social science (SPSS) version 20. Results were treated with strict confidentiality. Results: Majority of the respondents (85.5%) were between 15 to 19 years. Students in SSS 2 constituted the greatest proportion of respondents, 57.0% and 48.8% for public and private schools respectively. One hundred percent of the respondents had heard about EVD. Knowledge of EVD was generally poor for majority of the students in both schools, the proportion being higher in the public (65.8%), compared to the private schools (40.6%). Greater proportion (70.6%) of those in private schools had positive attitude to EVD compared to 53.8% in public schools. Conclusion: Respondents from private schools were more knowledgeable and exhibited more positive attitude than respondents from public schools. Recommendation: Sensitisation and health education of secondary school students on EVD

The sudden change phenomenon of quantum discord

Even if the parameters determining a system's state are varied smoothly, the behavior of quantum correlations alike to quantum discord, and of its classical counterparts, can be very peculiar, with the appearance of non-analyticities in its rate of change. Here we review this sudden change phenomenon (SCP) discussing some important points related to it: Its uncovering, interpretations, and experimental verifications, its use in the context of the emergence of the pointer basis in a quantum measurement process, its appearance and universality under Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics, its theoretical and experimental investigation in some other physical scenarios, and the related phenomenon of double sudden change of trace distance discord. Several open questions are identified, and we envisage that in answering them we will gain significant further insight about the relation between the SCP and the symmetry-geometric aspects of the quantum state space.Comment: Lectures on General Quantum Correlations and their Applications, F. F. Fanchini, D. O. Soares Pinto, and G. Adesso (Eds.), Springer (2017), pp 309-33

Evapotranspiração e coeficientes de cultivo da beterraba orgânica sob cobertura morta de leguminosa e gramínea.

As práticas agrícolas que maximizam a produtividade e o uso da água são de vital importância para a agricultura. Assim, foram testados três tipos de manejo do solo com objetivo de determinar a evapotranspiração (ETc) e os coeficientes de cultivo (kc) da beterraba. Os tipos de manejo foram a utilização de coberturas mortas vegetais, denominadas capim cameroon (Pennisetum purpureum), gliricídia (Gliricidia sepium) e solo sem cobertura morta em área experimental do SIPA (Sistema Integrado de Produção Orgânica) localizado em Seropédica, Brasil. A lâmina de irrigação foi estimada com base no balanço de água no solo, cujo monitoramento foi realizado com a técnica da TDR. As ETc acumuladas para a cultura da beterraba foram 59,41; 55,31 e 119,62 mm, respectivamente, para capim cameroon, gliricídia e solo sem cobertura morta. A evapotranspiração de referência (ETo) foi obtida por meio do modelo de Penamn-Monteith. Os valores médios de kc obtidos para as fases inicial, média e final de desenvolvimento foram de 0,39; 0,42 e 1,02; 0,79; 0,76 e 1,18; e 0,56; 0,61 e 0,84, respectivamente, para capim cameroon, gliricídia e solo sem cobertura morta. O uso da cobertura do solo com gramínea ou leguminosa minimizou de forma expressiva a demanda hídrica da cultura da beterraba (Beta vulgaris)

Dissociation of CAK from Core TFIIH Reveals a Functional Link between XP-G/CS and the TFIIH Disassembly State

Transcription factor II H (TFIIH) is comprised of core TFIIH and Cdk-activating kinase (CAK) complexes. Here, we investigated the molecular and cellular manifestation of the TFIIH compositional changes by XPG truncation mutations. We showed that both core TFIIH and CAK are rapidly recruited to damage sites in repair-proficient cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation against TFIIH and CAK components revealed a physical engagement of CAK in nucleotide excision repair (NER). While XPD recruitment to DNA damage was normal, CAK was not recruited in severe XP-G and XP-G/CS cells, indicating that the associations of CAK and XPD to core TFIIH are differentially affected. A CAK inhibition approach showed that CAK activity is not required for assembling pre-incision machinery in vivo or for removing genomic photolesions. Instead, CAK is involved in Ser5-phosphorylation and UV-induced degradation of RNA polymerase II. The CAK inhibition impaired transcription from undamaged and UV-damaged reporter, and partially decreased transcription of p53-dependent genes. The overall results demonstrated that a) XP-G/CS mutations affect the disassembly state of TFIIH resulting in the dissociation of CAK, but not XPD from core TFIIH, and b) CAK activity is not essential for global genomic repair but involved in general transcription and damage-induced RNA polymerase II degradation

Oxidized LDL Receptor 1 (OLR1) as a Possible Link between Obesity, Dyslipidemia and Cancer

Recent studies have linked expression of lectin-like ox-LDL receptor 1 (OLR1) to tumorigenesis. We analyzed microarray data from Olr1 knockout (KO) and wild type (WT) mice for genes involved in cellular transformation and evaluated effects of OLR1 over-expression in normal mammary epithelial cells (MCF10A) and breast cancer cells (HCC1143) in terms of gene expression, migration, adhesion and transendothelial migration. Twenty-six out of 238 genes were inhibited in tissues of OLR1 KO mice; the vast majority of OLR1 sensitive genes contained NF-κB binding sites in their promoters. Further studies revealed broad inhibition of NF-kB target genes outside of the transformation-associated gene pool, with enrichment themes of defense response, immune response, apoptosis, proliferation, and wound healing. Transcriptome of Olr1 KO mice also revealed inhibition of de novo lipogenesis, rate-limiting enzymes fatty acid synthase (Fasn), stearoyl-CoA desaturase (Scd1) and ELOVL family member 6 (Elovl6), as well as lipolytic phospholipase A2 group IVB (Pla2g4b). In studies comparing MCF10A and HCC1143, the latter displayed 60% higher OLR1 expression. Forced over-expression of OLR1 resulted in upregulation of NF-κB (p65) and its target pro-oncogenes involved in inhibition of apoptosis (BCL2, BCL2A1, TNFAIP3) and regulation of cell cycle (CCND2) in both cell lines. Basal expression of FASN, SCD1 and PLA2G4B, as well as lipogenesis transcription factors PPARA, SREBF2 and CREM, was higher in HCC1143 cells. Over-expression of OLR1 in HCC1143 cells also enhanced cell migration, without affecting their adherence to TNFα-activated endothelium or transendothelial migration. On the other hand, OLR1 neutralizing antibody inhibited both adhesion and transmigration of untreated HCC1143 cells. We conclude that OLR1 may act as an oncogene by activation of NF-kB target genes responsible for proliferation, migration and inhibition of apoptosis and de novo lipogenesis genes