Serial Cultivation of Single Keratinocytes from the Outer Root Sheath of Human Scalp Hair Follicles

A method for the isolation of outer root sheath keratinocytes from plucked human hair follicles and for their subsequent cultivation has been developed. The selective trypsinization of outer root sheath keratinocytes provided a single cell suspension of defined origin within the hair follicle. The 3T3 feeder layer technique supports sustained growth of these cells in that as little as one single plucked hair follicle (yielding approximately 1.5 × 104 cells) consistently gave rise to a confluent 35-mm culture dish (with approximately 1.5 × 106 cells) within about 2 weeks. The outer root sheath keratinocytes can be serially passaged for up to 3 times and also cryopreserved

Spitefulness and moral values

a b s t r a c t The relationship between spitefulness and an individual's sense of morality or lack thereof has been neglected in studies of personality. It seems probable that individuals with higher levels of spitefulness exhibit fewer moral concerns relative to those with lower levels of spite. To examine associations between spitefulness and moral concerns, 436 community participants completed self-report measures concerning their spitefulness, basic personality dimensions, and moral concerns. Spitefulness was negatively associated with individualizing values (i.e., sensitivity to harm and fairness) such that spiteful individuals were less concerned about issues related to avoiding harm or injustice to others when making moral judgments. However, spitefulness was not simply associated with a general reduction in moral concerns as it was not significantly associated with binding values (i.e., concerns about ingroup loyalty, authority, and purity)

Spitefulness and moral values

a b s t r a c t The relationship between spitefulness and an individual's sense of morality or lack thereof has been neglected in studies of personality. It seems probable that individuals with higher levels of spitefulness exhibit fewer moral concerns relative to those with lower levels of spite. To examine associations between spitefulness and moral concerns, 436 community participants completed self-report measures concerning their spitefulness, basic personality dimensions, and moral concerns. Spitefulness was negatively associated with individualizing values (i.e., sensitivity to harm and fairness) such that spiteful individuals were less concerned about issues related to avoiding harm or injustice to others when making moral judgments. However, spitefulness was not simply associated with a general reduction in moral concerns as it was not significantly associated with binding values (i.e., concerns about ingroup loyalty, authority, and purity)

A Simple Iterative Model Accurately Captures Complex Trapline Formation by Bumblebees Across Spatial Scales and Flower Arrangements

PMCID: PMC3591286This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) remember single foraging episodes

This study was supported by grants from Zürcher Hochschulverein, Schweizerische Akademie für Naturwissenschaften, Stiftung Thyll-Dürr, and Stiftung Annemarie Schindler, to R.N.Understanding animal episodic-like memory is important for tracing the evolution of the human mind. However, our knowledge about the existence and nature of episodic-like memory in non-human primates is minimal. We observed the behaviour of a wild male chacma baboon faced with a trade-off between protecting his stationary group from aggressive extra-group males and foraging among five out-of-sight platforms. These contained high-priority food at a time of natural food shortage. In 10 morning and eight evening trials, the male spontaneously visited the platforms in five and four different sequences, respectively. In addition, he interrupted foraging sequences at virtually any point on eight occasions, returning to the group for up to 2 h. He then visited some or all of the remaining platforms and prevented revisits to already depleted ones, apparently based on his memory for the previous foraging episode about food value, location, and time. Efficient use of memory allowed him to keep minimal time absent from his group while keeping food intake high. These findings support the idea that episodic-like memory offers an all-purpose solution to a wide variety of problems that require flexible, quick, yet precise decisions in situations arising from competition for food and mates in wild primates.PostprintPeer reviewe

Anticancer Gene Transfer for Cancer Gene Therapy

Gene therapy vectors are among the treatments currently used to treat malignant tumors. Gene therapy vectors use a specific therapeutic transgene that causes death in cancer cells. In early attempts at gene therapy, therapeutic transgenes were driven by non-specific vectors which induced toxicity to normal cells in addition to the cancer cells. Recently, novel cancer specific viral vectors have been developed that target cancer cells leaving normal cells unharmed. Here we review such cancer specific gene therapy systems currently used in the treatment of cancer and discuss the major challenges and future directions in this field

A Non-Lévy Random Walk in Chacma Baboons: What Does It Mean?

The Lévy walk is found from amoebas to humans and has been described as the optimal strategy for food research. Recent results, however, have generated controversy about this conclusion since animals also display alternatives to the Lévy walk such as the Brownian walk or mental maps and because movement patterns found in some species only seem to depend on food patches distribution. Here I show that movement patterns of chacma baboons do not follow a Lévy walk but a Brownian process. Moreover this Brownian walk is not the main process responsible for movement patterns of baboons. Findings about their speed and trajectories show that baboons use metal maps and memory to find resources. Thus the Brownian process found in this species appears to be more dependent on the environment or might be an alternative when known food patches are depleted and when animals have to find new resources

Aplicación de modelos de mejoramiento de procesos utilizando estudios de tiempos en el área de licitaciones de la empresa Mapfre Seguros

Trabajo de InvestigaciónEl trabajo va orientado a la elaboración de un plan de mejoramiento en un área específica de la empresa Mapfre Seguros. Este objetivo se logró después de hacer un análisis de la situación actual del área a través de varias herramientas de calidad, diagnóstico del proceso del área mediante un estudio de tiempos, y finalmente se realiza el diseño del plan de mejoramiento que permite perfeccionar el proceso del área investigadaINTRODUCCIÓN 1. GENERALIDADES 2. RECOPILACIÓN Y ANÁLISIS DE LA INFORMACIÓN 3. DIAGNÓSTICO DEL ÁREA DE LICITACIONES 4. PROPUESTA DE MEJORAMIENTO 5. CONCLUSIONES 6. RECOMENDACIONES BIBLIOGRAFÍA ANEXOSPregradoIngeniero Industria