The Two Faces Of Peace Building

Excerpt Terminology, if not precisely defined, can lead to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. This has been the case in the way in which the United Nations has been using peacemaking, peacekeeping and, more recently, peacebuilding. Agenda for Peace, produced by the UN Secretary General in 1992 suffers from some ambiguity in this respect. For example, it refers to the military performing a peacemaking role. The military cannot make peace, that is the role of the diplomat or politician. All that the military can do is to allay, defuse and help to end the manifest violence so that the peacemaking process can better proceed in a stable and calm atmosphere

F98RS SGB No. 11 (Alpha Epsilon Lambda)

A BILL To appropriate one hundred fifty dollars ($150) to the LSU Graduate Student Association to help pay for the chartering of the Louisiana State University Chapter of Alpha Epsilon Lambda, The Honor Society of Graduate and Professional Students

The circular geoenvironment - maximising geoenvironmental services to minimize environmental harm

The environment provides services that can be harnessed or engineered to achieve the needs of society in a manner that can reduce or eliminate the need for intensive interventions, for example bio/phytoremediation and passive mine-water treatment. The geoenvironment contains the resources, the energy and the genetic capability necessary to provide a much wider range of services than is currently the case. It is the aim here to draw on recent research to demonstrate the potential for geoenvironmental services to contribute to society in ways which extend and go beyond the traditional view of the geoenvironment as a source of raw material and a sink for waste, but little in between, including in resource supply and infrastructure provision

Investigations into DNA vaccination against Channel Catfish Virus

The leading viral killer of commercially produced channel catfish is Channel Catfish Virus (CCV). Studies conducted to evaluate DNA vaccination against CCV compared encoded gene, dose, multiple DNA vaccines, and immune response to vaccination. Genes were selected (ORFs 1 and 3 [immediate early genes], ORFs 6, 19, and 46 [membrane genes], and ORF59 [putative major envelope glycoprotein gene], cloned into a plasmid, and expressed in mammalian and fish cell culture to detect predicted molecular weight proteins. Plasmid vaccines were injected into fish muscle in doses of 50 μg, 25 μg, 5 μg, or 1 μg and efficacy was evaluated upon challenge. Immune responses were measured by Mx gene expression (α/β interferon indicator), serum neutralization, specific antibody stimulation (ELISA), and DNA vaccine specific expression. Comparisons were made between published live attenuated CCVTK-, DNA vaccines (KN59 and KN6), and DNA vaccines tested in this study. In all experiments, no protection was observed. Multiple groups of vaccines delivered per fish were tested for efficacy and protection was not observed. The live attenuated CCVTK- and published CCV DNA vaccines (KN59 and KN6) were not protective. Mx gene expression in response to DNA vaccination showed positive expression profiles at all time points, but most often at day 3 in all experiments. In the multiple group vaccination, Mx gene expression was detected at a higher level overall and at day 35, indicating that multiple antigens induce a stronger innate response with longer duration. In all experiments, serum neutralizing titers were low in most treatments (\u3c 10), but weakly reactive in the multiple group vaccination (3 groups with titers \u3e 10) and the comparison vaccination (4 groups with titers \u3e 10). ELISA of vaccinated fish sera detected low reactivity, but significant levels of reactivity were observed between sera from pORF46 and pORF3 and the negative control. In the comparison vaccination, DNA vaccine specific gene expression was detected in all groups and at most time points, indicating the DNA vaccines were transcriptionally functional. A protective vaccine against CCV is a goal to be striven for, because currently available vaccines may not be suitable for commercial use

LDLR-Gene therapy for familial hypercholesterolaemia: Problems, progress, and perspectives

Coronary artery diseases (CAD) inflict a heavy economical and social burden on most populations and contribute significantly to their morbidity and mortality rates. Low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) associated familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is the most frequent Mendelian disorder and is a major risk factor for the development of CAD. To date there is no cure for FH. The primary goal of clinical management is to control hypercholesterolaemia in order to decrease the risk of atherosclerosis and to prevent CAD. Permanent phenotypic correction with single administration of a gene therapeutic vector is a goal still needing to be achieved. The first ex vivo clinical trial of gene therapy in FH was conducted nearly 18 years ago. Patients who had inherited LDLR gene mutations were subjected to an aggressive surgical intervention involving partial hepatectomy to obtain the patient's own hepatocytes for ex vivo gene transfer with a replication deficient LDLR-retroviral vector. After successful re-infusion of transduced cells through a catheter placed in the inferior mesenteric vein at the time of liver resection, only low-level expression of the transferred LDLR gene was observed in the five patients enrolled in the trial. In contrast, full reversal of hypercholesterolaemia was later demonstrated in in vivo preclinical studies using LDLR-adenovirus mediated gene transfer. However, the high efficiency of cell division independent gene transfer by adenovirus vectors is limited by their short-term persistence due to episomal maintenance and the cytotoxicity of these highly immunogenic viruses. Novel long-term persisting vectors derived from adeno-associated viruses and lentiviruses, are now available and investigations are underway to determine their safety and efficiency in preparation for clinical application for a variety of diseases. Several novel non-viral based therapies have also been developed recently to lower LDL-C serum levels in FH patients. This article reviews the progress made in the 18 years since the first clinical trial for gene therapy of FH, with emphasis on the development, design, performance and limitations of viral based gene transfer vectors used in studies to ameliorate the effects of LDLR deficiency

Children's play space and safety management: rethinking the role of play equipment standards

The provision of stimulating and engaging play space for children and young people is increasingly recognized as an important societal goal, not the least because it provides the young with opportunities to develop and gain experience in experimenting with risk. Research in several disciplines now suggests that achievement of this goal has however been impeded in recent decades, and reasons commonly cited have included fear of injury and avoidance of litigation. International standards on play equipment have also been promulgated and justified in terms of securing young people’s “safety,” most usually narrowly defined as injury reduction. There appears to be a widespread presumption that measures aimed at injury prevention are necessarily beneficial overall for young people’s welfare. In this article, we subject European standards for play equipment and surfacing to scrutiny. In particular, we examine underlying motives, consistency of purpose, use of evidence, philosophical leanings, scope, practicalities of application, systems of management, and legal ramifications. From this, we identify a number of fundamental issues that suggest that as a consequence of compartmentalized thinking and misunderstandings, these standards have invaded areas of decision making beyond their legitimate territory. The consequence of this is that play provision is skewed away from what are properly play provision objectives. In such circumstances, local decision makers are often disempowered, and their ability to provide optimal play spaces thereby circumscribed