\u27Dermo\u27 fleece rot and body strike on sheep

Blowfly strike is one of the major problems confronting the sheep industry in Austrsalia, with an estimated totsalcost of control eceeding $100 million each year. Sheep are susceptible to five types of strike: body, breach, poll, pizzle and wound. Body strike, is of greater economic importance because its sporadic occurence from year to year makes it difficult to predict and cintrol. Outbreaks of body strike after rain can affect large numbers of sheep and inflict severe production losses. In eastern Australia fleece rot is generally considered to be the main predisposing factor to blowfly strike, but in Western Australia evidence suggests that dermatophilosis - or \u27dermo\u27 - is the more important factor

Physical interaction between MYCN oncogene and polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) in neuroblastoma: Functional and therapeutic implications

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. © 2013 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.CLU (clusterin) is a tumor suppressor gene that we have previously shown to be negatively modulated by the MYCN proto-oncogene, but the mechanism of repression was unclear. Here, we show that MYCN inhibits the expression of CLU by direct interaction with the non-canonical E box sequence CACGCG in the 5′-flanking region. Binding of MYCN to the CLU gene induces bivalent epigenetic marks and recruitment of repressive proteins such as histone deacetylases and Polycomb members. MYCN physically binds in vitro and in vivo to EZH2, a component of the Polycomb repressive complex 2, required to repress CLU. Notably, EZH2 interacts with the Myc box domain 3, a segment of MYC known to be essential for its transforming effects. The expression of CLU can be restored in MYCN-amplified cells by epigenetic drugs with therapeutic results. Importantly, the anticancer effects of the drugs are ablated if CLU expression is blunted by RNA interference. Our study implies that MYC tumorigenesis can be effectively antagonized by epigenetic drugs that interfere with the recruitment of chromatin modifiers at repressive E boxes of tumor suppressor genes such as CLU.SPARKS, The Neuroblastoma Society, a Wellcome Trust grant (to A. S.), and the Italian Association for Cancer Research

Pastures from Space - Application of Satellite-Derived Pasture Predictions Improve the Profitability of Australian Sheep Producers

Pastures from Space, a collaborative program between CSIRO Livestock Industries and the Western Australian state Departments of Agriculture and Land Information, has developed the capacity to measure both the biomass and growth rate of annual pasture in the winter rainfall regions of southern Australia using satellite images (Edirisinghe et al., 2002). Producer groups were set up to pilot test the delivery of satellitederived pasture growth rate (PGR, kg dry matter/hectare.day) and biomass (feed on offer or FOO, kg dry matter/hectare) predictions for paddocks on individual farms in Western Australia. This paper reports on the value to Australian sheep producers of satellite-derived PGR information on pastures

Criticality and conformality in the random dimer model

In critical systems, the effect of a localized perturbation affects points that are arbitrarily far from the perturbation location. In this paper, we study the effect of localized perturbations on the solution of the random dimer problem in two dimensions. By means of an accurate numerical analysis, we show that a local perturbation of the optimal covering induces an excitation whose size is extensive with finite probability. We compute the fractal dimension of the excitations and scaling exponents. In particular, excitations in random dimer problems on nonbipartite lattices have the same statistical properties of domain walls in spin glass. Excitations produced in bipartite lattices, instead, are compatible with a loop-erased self-avoiding random walk process. In both cases, we find evidence of conformal invariance of the excitations that is compatible with SLEκ with parameter κ depending on the bipartiteness of the underlying lattice onl

Phylogeography of the threatened crayfish (genus Austropotamobius) in Italy: implications for its taxonomy and conservation

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Organizational learning and emotion: constructing collective meaning in support of strategic themes

Missing in the organizational learning literature is an integrative framework that reflects the emotional as well as the cognitive dynamics involved. Here, we take a step in this direction by focusing in depth over time (five years) on a selected organization which manufactures electronic equipment for the office industry. Drawing on personal construct theory, we define organizational learning as the collective re-construal of meaning in the direction of strategically significant themes. We suggest that emotions arise as members reflect on progress or lack of progress in achieving organizational learning. Our evidence suggests that invalidation – where organizational learning fails to correspond with expectations – gives rise to anxiety and frustration, while validation – where organizational learning is aligned with or exceeds expectations – evokes comfort or excitement. Our work aims to capture the key emotions involved as organizational learning proceeds

Clinical validation results of an innovative non-invasive device for colorectal cancer preventive screening through fecal exhalation analysis

Screening is recommended to reduce both incidence and mortality of colorectal cancer. Currently, many countries employ fecal occult blood test (FOBT). In Emilia-Romagna (Italy), since 2005, FOBT immunochemical version (FIT) is performed every two years on people aged between 50 and 69 years. A colonoscopy is then carried out on those who are FIT positive. However, FIT shows approximately 65% false positives (non-tumoral bleedings), leading to many negative colonoscopies. The use of an economic and easy-to-use method to check FOBT-positives will improve screening effectiveness, reducing costs to the national health service. This work illustrates the results of a three-year clinical validation protocol (started in 2016) of a patented device composed of a core of nanostructured gas sensors. This device was designed to identify CRC presence by fecal volatile compounds, with a non-invasive, in vitro and low-cost analysis. Feces are, in fact, affected by tumor-volatile biomarkers, produced by cellular peroxidation and metabolic alterations. The protocol consisted in the analysis of fecal samples of FIT-positive subjects, using colonoscopy as a gold standard. A total of 398 samples were analyzed with machine learning techniques, leading to a sensitivity and specificity of 84.1% and 82.4%, respectively, and a positive predictive value of 72% (25–35% for FIT)

Devices for Screening and Monitoring of Tumors Based on Chemoresistive Sensors

Abstract In this work two devices are presented, named SCENT A1 (A1) and SCENT B1 (B1), composed of chemoresistive sensors. Such devices are capable of discriminating the different compositions of gas mixtures emitted by stools, for colorectal cancer screening (A1), and by blood, for tumors monitoring (B1), according to defined sampling protocols. Results have been acquired by a LabView® software and statistically treated (e.g. quadratic discriminant analysis, QDA) and show to be encouraging with an error of 5% for SCENT A1. Preliminary results of SCENT B1 proved to be promising. Further studies will be carried out for clinically validating the two devices