Expression of proliferation-dependent antigens during cellular ageing of normal and progeroid human fibroblasts

Normal human fibroblasts display a limited lifespan in culture, which is due to a steadily decreasing fraction of cells that are able to proliferate. Using antibodies that react with antigens present in proliferating cells only, in an indirect immunofluorescence assay, we have estimated the fraction of proliferating cells in cultures of normal human fibroblasts. Furthermore, we have estimated the rate of decline in the fraction of proliferating cells during the process of cellular ageing by application of the assay to normal human fibroblasts throughout their lifespan in culture. Werner’s Syndrome is an autosomal recessive disease in which individuals display symptoms of ageing prematurely. Werner’s Syndrome fibroblasts display a reduced lifespan in culture compared with normal human fibroblasts. Like normal human fibroblasts, the growth of Werner’s Syndrome fibroblasts is characterised by a decreasing fraction of cells reacting with the proliferationassociated antibodies throughout their lifespan in culture. However, the rate of loss of proliferating cells in Werner’s Syndrome fibroblasts during the process of cellular ageing is accelerated 5- to 6-fold compared with the rate determined for normal human fibroblasts

Beacons of Excellence in Stress Prevention

NoThis report describes the work of Robertson Cooper Ltd and UMIST to identify good practice in stress prevention and then identify organisations within the UK that could be called beacons of excellence in comparison to this model. Part one of this report summarises and draws conclusions from all of the substantive academic studies on stress prevention over the last decade and uses this information, as well as advice gained from a panel of international experts, to develop a comprehensive stress prevention model. Part two of the report uses this model to describe examples of stress prevention practices that Robertson Cooper Ltd has identified within a wide range of UK organisations. Case studies are presented for each aspect of the good practice model. Examples of real documentation and organisational practice are presented.Health and Safety Executive (HSE

Sustainable water governance: An incremental approach towards a decentralised, hybrid water system

Cape Town is experiencing its worst drought in recorded history. Notwithstanding that the Western Cape has always been a water scarce region, it is this current drought that has brought home the area’s inherent vulnerability and highlighted the governance issues. The world wherein South Africa’s water governance was created is very different to the world we find ourselves in today. It is a world of uncertainty and unpredictability not contemplated in water governance comprised of legislation, policy, guidelines and practice. The current water governance constructs a conventional approach based upon predictability and certainty and is no longer appropriate to meet today’s new challenges. Consistent with this conventional approach, Cape Town’s municipal water supply is almost completely dependent upon surface water which makes it even more vulnerable to drought than if its supply was comprised of a variety of water supply options. With surface water sources fully exploited and storage opportunities within the urban edge limited alternative water supply options must be more seriously considered and the water governance reformed to accommodate its use. Water governance is the focus of reform because it is the framework for infrastructure planning and therefore controls the resultant system, infrastructure and management. This thesis interrogates the current water governance as the starting point before firstly discussing the proposed incremental approach towards a decentralised, hybrid system for water infrastructure and secondly, identifying specific areas where intervention is necessary for implementation

Review of \u3ci\u3eWestering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915\u3c/i\u3e By Sandra L. Myres

When Professor Myres began the research for this survey of women in the American West, many historians believed that there were few manuscript collections documenting the experiences of nineteenth-century women, Such is not the case, Myres concludes. Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800- 1915, the first volume of the Histories of the American Frontier Series devoted to the history of women, treats us to what the late Ray Allen Billington called one of the most remarkable bibliographies to materials in this new area. Myres summarizes her extensive reading in these documents in topical chapters: western women\u27s views of the land; women\u27s views of Indians, Afro-Americans, and Mexicans; their views of classes and religions; homemaking on the frontier; women in western communities; the feminist and woman\u27s movement in the West; and occupations of western women. It is arguable that the primary job of a survey is to broadly introduce topics and materials, and this Myres does well, but these intentions make extended and precise historical argument more difficult to sustain. Myres does, however, have an argument to make, laid out in an opening chapter reviewing images and stereotypes of fronder women. The frontier experience, she believes, provided women with opportunities for economic importance as well as legal and political power. Western migration and frontier conditions seriously threatened to undermine [the] carefully constructed separation of the sexes of Victorian convention, because women had to undertake new tasks and assume new roles. There are serious difficulties with this argument. These tasks and roles, in fact, turn out to be extentions into the late nineteenth century of the gender division of labor and the household economy that prevailed in the colonial period. According to Myres, many women considered their marriages a cooperative economic enterprise, and they certainly did not view their position as \u27second class.\u27\u27\u27 Perhaps not, but many certainly considered themselves the second sex. Myres dismisses the considerable body of material in which rural women complained bitterly about their working roles and their marriages. She sees western women violating and overturning the eastern norm of not participating in public life, but she fails to provide any sustained evidence on this important point and admits that the western woman\u27s movement was extremely weak. Myres is able to point to provocative studies that suggest a greater concentration of western women in certain occupations, but her own work here does not offer much more than some interesting individual cases. Differences of interpretation aside, however, Myres taps a rich store of more than four hundred collections of women\u27s documents-letters, diaries, reminiscences, even interviews conducted by the Federal Writers\u27 Project-and demonstrates that frontier women left an ample archive that will provide historians with the materials for many future controversies

Dirty Deeds: Land, Violence, And The 1856 San Francisco Vigilance Committee

Public Lands, Coercion, and the Revival of San Francisco Vigilance Committee This book originated in a fortuitous discovery. In 2006, while researching another project in the papers of nineteenth-century journalist and historian Theodore S. Hittell (archived at the Sutro Library, a branch of the C...

Exploring evidence of higher order thinking skills in the writing of first year undergraduates

Research indicates that concern is often expressed about the language and discourse skills new students bring with them when they first enrol at university, which leads to assumptions being made about their academic abilities. In this paper, an argument is developed through detailed analysis of student writing, that many new first year students have nascent Higher Order Thinking Skills and the potential to be successful in their studies. The work of Robert Marzano and his associates (Marzano, 2001; Marzano & Kendall, 2007, 2008) is applied to student writing

Exploring transition pedagogy at the tertiary level: a case study of newly enrolled first year education students’ experience in writing and thinking within the genre of the persuasive essay in a comparative analysis of literacy pedagogy

The widespread policy of inclusion in higher education institutions in the western world has enabled an increasingly wide range of entrants to gain access to university. Many of these entrants come from backgrounds where they would not have had preparation for the culture and demands of university study. One of the areas much foregrounded is their supposed lack of appropriate linguistic skills. In the case of Australia that implies English language skills. It is often assumed by academics that poor language skills mean that they do not have the necessary intellectual and thinking skills either. A case study was designed in which a sample of first year education student writing and interviews was analysed according to the taxonomy of higher order thinking skills developed by Marzano and Kendall, and Costa. Integrative Research, strongly influenced by the principles of bricolage, was used to provide a theoretical framework for the study. The higher order thinking and academic literacy skills they used were identified and conclusions drawn based on this analysis. It is argued in this thesis that if that information is used in curriculum planning in the future that Higher Education progression statistics could be enhanced