Assessment of changes in drinking water quality during distribution: A case study of Area 25 Township in Lilongwe, Malawi

The quality of drinking water at the point of delivery to the consumer is crucial in safeguarding people’s health. This study assesses changes in drinking water quality during distribution at Area 25 Township in Lilongwe, Malawi. Water samples were collected from the exit point of the treatment plant, storage tank and taps at consumers’ households. All samples were tested using standard procedures for pH, turbidity, feacal coliforms, manganese, lead, zinc and residual chlorine. One-way ANOVA showed some significant water quality changes during distribution but the average values fell within World Health Organisation (WHO) and Malawi Bureau of standards (MBS) allowable levels for pH, turbidity, feacal coliforms, manganese, lead, zinc and residual chlorine (p < 0.05). Tap water at Area 25 Township is generally safe for human consumption.Key words: Drinking water, distribution system, biochemical parameters, human health

T cell receptor Vβ staining identifies the malignant clone in adult T cell leukemia and reveals killing of leukemia cells by autologous CD8+ T cells

There is growing evidence that CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses can contribute to long-term remission of many malignancies. The etiological agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL), human T lymphotropic virus type-1 (HTLV-1), contains highly immunogenic CTL epitopes, but ATL patients typically have low frequencies of cytokine-producing HTLV-1-specific CD8+ cells in the circulation. It remains unclear whether patients with ATL possess CTLs that can kill the malignant HTLV-1 infected clone. Here we used flow cytometric staining of TCRVβ and cell adhesion molecule-1 (CADM1) to identify monoclonal populations of HTLV-1-infected T cells in the peripheral blood of patients with ATL. Thus, we quantified the rate of CD8+-mediated killing of the putative malignant clone in ex vivo blood samples. We observed that CD8+ cells from ATL patients were unable to lyse autologous ATL clones when tested directly ex vivo. However, short in vitro culture restored the ability of CD8+ cells to kill ex vivo ATL clones in some donors. The capacity of CD8+ cells to lyse HTLV-1 infected cells which expressed the viral sense strand gene products was significantly enhanced after in vitro culture, and donors with an ATL clone that expressed the HTLV-1 Tax gene were most likely to make a detectable lytic CD8+ response to the ATL cells. We conclude that some patients with ATL possess functional tumour-specific CTLs which could be exploited to contribute to control of the disease

PERAN PERSONAL BRANDING NURDIN ABDULLAH DALAM PEMBENTUKAN TIM RELAWAN

Tujuan Penelitian ini adalah: 1) Mendeskripsikan peran personal branding Nurdin Abdullah dalam pembentukan tim relawan; 2) Mendeskripsikan bentuk personal branding Nurdin Abdullah melalui persepsi relawan. Penelitian dilaksanakan di kota Makassar, dengan observasi langsung dan melakukan wawancara kepada informan. Informan ditentukan dengan cara purposive sampling, dengan menentukan satu informan kunci yang menjelaskan peran Nurdin Abdullah. Tipe penelitian ini bersifat deskriptif menggunakan metode kualitatif. Data primer dikumpulkan dengan melakukan wawancara dan observasi non partisipan, serta data sekunder dikumpulkan melalui referensi buku, jurnal penelitian sebelumnya, dan internet yang terkait dengan penelitian. Hasil Penelitian menunjukkan bahwa : 1) Peran personal branding Nurdin Abdullah dapat menarik perhatian masyarakat untuk menjadi relawan, kekita menjabat sebagai Bupati Bantaeng. Nurdin Abdullah sebagai Bupati Bantaeng, merupakan salah satu aset yang dimiliki untuk meraih kekuasaan yang lebih besar. Tim relawan terbentuk karena melihat keberhasilan yang dilakukan Nurdin Abdullah ketika menjadi Bupati Bantaeng dengan panggilan hati nurani. Tim relawan terbentuk jauh sebelum pemilihan Gubernur, guna untuk meminta Nurdin Abdullah menjadi calon Gubernur, kemudian memenangkan, lalu mengawasi kinerja ketika terpilih. 2) Relawan melihat terdapat delapan konsep personal branding yang dimiliki oleh Nurdin Abdullah ketika sebagai Bupati Bantaeng. Spesialisasi, kepemimpinan, kepribadian, perbedaan, terlihat, kesatuan, keteguhan, dan nama baik diperoleh Nurdin Abdullah ketika menjabat sebagai Bupati Bantaeng

Meta-All: a system for managing metabolic pathway information

BACKGROUND: Many attempts are being made to understand biological subjects at a systems level. A major resource for these approaches are biological databases, storing manifold information about DNA, RNA and protein sequences including their functional and structural motifs, molecular markers, mRNA expression levels, metabolite concentrations, protein-protein interactions, phenotypic traits or taxonomic relationships. The use of these databases is often hampered by the fact that they are designed for special application areas and thus lack universality. Databases on metabolic pathways, which provide an increasingly important foundation for many analyses of biochemical processes at a systems level, are no exception from the rule. Data stored in central databases such as KEGG, BRENDA or SABIO-RK is often limited to read-only access. If experimentalists want to store their own data, possibly still under investigation, there are two possibilities. They can either develop their own information system for managing that own data, which is very time-consuming and costly, or they can try to store their data in existing systems, which is often restricted. Hence, an out-of-the-box information system for managing metabolic pathway data is needed. RESULTS: We have designed META-ALL, an information system that allows the management of metabolic pathways, including reaction kinetics, detailed locations, environmental factors and taxonomic information. Data can be stored together with quality tags and in different parallel versions. META-ALL uses Oracle DBMS and Oracle Application Express. We provide the META-ALL information system for download and use. In this paper, we describe the database structure and give information about the tools for submitting and accessing the data. As a first application of META-ALL, we show how the information contained in a detailed kinetic model can be stored and accessed. CONCLUSION: META-ALL is a system for managing information about metabolic pathways. It facilitates the handling of pathway-related data and is designed to help biochemists and molecular biologists in their daily research. It is available on the Web at and can be downloaded free of charge and installed locally

The multifunctional roles of vegetated strips around and within agricultural fields : A systematic map protocol.

Background: Agriculture and agricultural intensification can have significant negative impacts on the environment, including nutrient and pesticide leaching, spreading of pathogens, soil erosion and reduction of ecosystem services provided by terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. The establishment and management of vegetated strips adjacent to farmed fields (including various field margins, buffer strips and hedgerows) are key mitigation measures for these negative environmental impacts and environmental managers and other stakeholders must often make decisions about how best to design and implement vegetated strips for a variety of different outcomes. However, it may be difficult to obtain relevant, accurate and summarised information on the effects of implementation and management of vegetated strips, even though a vast body of evidence exists on multipurpose vegetated strip interventions within and around fields. To improve the situation, we describe a method for assembling a database of relevant research relating to vegetated strips undertaken in boreo-temperate farming systems (arable, pasture, horticulture, orchards and viticulture). Methods: We will search 13 bibliographic databases, 1 search engine and 37 websites for stakeholder organisations using a predefined and tested search string that focuses on a comprehensive list of vegetated strip synonyms. Non-English language searches in Danish, Finnish, German, Spanish, and Swedish will also be undertaken using a web-based search engine. We will screen search results at title, abstract and full text levels, recording the number of studies deemed non-relevant (with reasons at full text). A systematic map database that displays the meta-data (i.e. descriptive summary information about settings and methods) of relevant studies will be produced following full text assessment. The systematic map database will be displayed as a web-based geographical information system (GIS). The nature and extent of the evidence base will be discussed

Loop Diuretics Have Anxiolytic Effects in Rat Models of Conditioned Anxiety

A number of antiepileptic medications that modulate GABAA mediated synaptic transmission are anxiolytic. The loop diuretics furosemide (Lasix) and bumetanide (Bumex) are thought to have antiepileptic properties. These drugs also modulate GABAA mediated signalling through their antagonism of cation-chloride cotransporters. Given that loop diuretics may act as antiepileptic drugs that modulate GABAergic signalling, we sought to investigate whether they also mediate anxiolytic effects. Here we report the first investigation of the anxiolytic effects of these drugs in rat models of anxiety. Furosemide and bumetanide were tested in adult rats for their anxiolytic effects using four standard anxiety models: 1) contextual fear conditioning; 2) fear-potentiated startle; 3) elevated plus maze, and 4) open-field test. Furosemide and bumetanide significantly reduced conditioned anxiety in the contextual fear-conditioning and fear-potentiated startle models. At the tested doses, neither compound had significant anxiolytic effects on unconditioned anxiety in the elevated plus maze and open-field test models. These observations suggest that loop diuretics elicit significant anxiolytic effects in rat models of conditioned anxiety. Since loop diuretics are antagonists of the NKCC1 and KCC2 cotransporters, these results implicate the cation-chloride cotransport system as possible molecular mechanism involved in anxiety, and as novel pharmacological target for the development of anxiolytics. In view of these findings, and since furosemide and bumetanide are safe and well tolerated drugs, the clinical potential of loop diuretics for treating some types of anxiety disorders deserves further investigation