‘Beauty Lies In The Eyes Of The Beholder’: Why And How Island Tourists Look At SMTE Websites

This research examined the information needs of small and medium tourism enterprise (SMTE) customers sampled from two popular island destinations in the Indian Ocean. It also identified their motivations and inhibitions in using the Internet. A study of the website navigation behavior showed that the appeal mix and multimedia mix features were accessed more than the offering mix features. The association between the tourism products bought online and the purchase motivations was mapped using correspondence analysis. The online buyers of „accommodation‟ and „attractions‟ were motivated by transactional objectives while the „access‟ and auxiliary product buyers by informational uses

Skeletal and Cardiac Ryanodine Receptors Exhibit Different Responses to Ca(2+) Overload and Luminal Ca(2+)

Spontaneous Ca(2+) release occurs in cardiac cells during sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) overload, a process we refer to as store-overload-induced Ca(2+) release (SOICR). Unlike cardiac cells, skeletal muscle cells exhibit little SOICR activity. The molecular basis of this difference is not well defined. In this study, we investigated the SOICR properties of HEK293 cells expressing RyR1 or RyR2. We found that HEK293 cells expressing RyR2 exhibited robust SOICR activity, whereas no SOICR activity was observed in HEK293 cells expressing RyR1. However, in the presence of low concentrations of caffeine, SOICR could be triggered in these RyR1-expressing cells. At the single-channel level, we showed that RyR2 is much more sensitive to luminal Ca(2+) than RyR1. To identify the molecular determinants responsible for these differences, we constructed two chimeras between RyR1 and RyR2, N-RyR1(1–4006)/C-RyR2(3962–4968) and N-RyR2(1–3961)/C-RyR1(4007–5037). We found that replacing the C-terminal region of RyR1 with the corresponding region of RyR2 (N-RyR1/C-RyR2) dramatically enhanced the propensity for SOICR and the response to luminal Ca(2+), whereas replacing the C-terminal region of RyR2 with the corresponding region of RyR1 (N-RyR2/C-RyR1) reduced the propensity for SOICR and the luminal Ca(2+) response. These observations indicate that the C-terminal region of RyR is a critical determinant of both SOICR and the response to luminal Ca(2+). These chimeric studies also reveal that the N-terminal region of RyR plays an important role in regulating SOICR and luminal Ca(2+) response. Taken together, our results demonstrate that RyR1 differs markedly from RyR2 with respect to their responses to Ca(2+) overload and luminal Ca(2+), and suggest that the lack of spontaneous Ca(2+) release in skeletal muscle cells is, in part, attributable to the unique intrinsic properties of RyR1

Eastern Canadian Colorectal Cancer Consensus Conference 2017

The annual Eastern Canadian Gastrointestinal Cancer Consensus Conference 2017 was held in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, 28–30 September. Experts in radiation oncology, medical oncology, surgical oncology, and cancer genetics who are involved in the management of patients with gastrointestinal malignancies participated in presentations and discussion sessions for the purpose of developing the recommendations presented here. This consensus statement addresses multiple topics in the management of gastric, rectal, and colon cancer, including (1) identification and management of hereditary gastric and colorectal cancer (CRC); (2) palliative systemic therapy for metastatic gastric cancer; (3) optimum duration of preoperative radiation in rectal cancer—that is, short- compared with long-course radiation; (4) management options for peritoneal carcinomatosis in CRC; (5) implications of tumour location for treatment and prognosis in CRC; and (6) new molecular markers in CRC