Candil de calle... y de la casa

Estudio sobre los Premios Nacionales otorgados por el estado mexicano durante el periodo 1945-1984. Se analiza la lista de premiados según la entidad federativa de nacimiento, lo que revela las desigualdades de la sociedad mexicana. Se presentan bioviñetas de los 16 jaliscienses premiados durante ese periodo: José Clemente Orozco, Mariano Azuela, Gerardo Murillo "Dr. Atl", Blas Galindo, Roberto Montenegro, Jorge González Camarena, Juan Rulfo, Antonio González Ochoa, Agustín Yáñez, Luis Barragán, Antonio Gómez Robledo, Juan José Arreola, José Luis Martínez, Carlos Orozco Romero, Elías Nandino y Manuel Enríquez

Modern Malaysian-based students perceive Southeast Asian jungle environments as places of high risk and discomfort

While the interaction between people and their environments has long been a focus of psychological research, there is need for more understanding of how non-Westerners relate to natural and urban environments, including areas of dense jungle. For this study we conducted focus group discussions with 19 individuals from the urban Southeast Asian city of Kuala Lumpur and 19 individuals from the rural Malaysian state of Terengganu centered on their experiences of both urban and natural environments. Three themes relating to the natural and urban settings' potential to promote a sense of restoration emerged, namely: "risk perception," "comfort," and "place attachment." While individual preferences varied, participants from both settings described a strong sense of dependence on the conveniences of the modern world. Elements from within each environment, sociocultural factors, and the temporal dimension seemed important for determining whether the environment was considered restorative. In this regard, these participants' views of the natural environment seem broadly analogous to those of people living in major Western metropolises such as Chicago, New York City, or London. A new nonlinear approach to understanding restoration in tropical environments is proposed. Key Words: Urban environments - Natural environments - Preference - Restoration - Place attachment - Risk perception - Comfort. © Copyright 2016, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2016

Variation of DNA damage levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated in different laboratories

This study investigated the levels of DNA strand breaks and formamidopyrimidine DNA glycosylase (FPG) sensitive sites, as assessed by the comet assay, in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy women from five different countries in Europe. The laboratory in each country (referred to as 'centre') collected and cryopreserved PBMC samples from three donors, using a standardised cell isolation protocol. The samples were analysed in 13 different laboratories for DNA damage, which is measured by the comet assay. The study aim was to assess variation in DNA damage in PBMC samples that were collected in the same way and processed using the same blood isolation procedure. The inter-laboratory variation was the prominent contributor to the overall variation. The inter-laboratory coefficient of variation decreased for both DNA strand breaks (from 68 to 26%) and FPG sensitive sites (from 57 to 12%) by standardisation of the primary comet assay endpoint with calibration curve samples. The level of DNA strand breaks in the samples from two of the centres (0.56-0.61 lesions/10(6) bp) was significantly higher compared with the other three centres (0.41-0.45 lesions/10(6) bp). In contrast, there was no difference between the levels of FPG sensitive sites in PBMC samples from healthy donors in the different centres (0.41-0.52 lesion/10(6) bp)

Inter-laboratory variation in DNA damage using a standard comet assay protocol

There are substantial inter-laboratory variations in the levels of DNA damage measured by the comet assay. The aim of this study was to investigate whether adherence to a standard comet assay protocol would reduce inter-laboratory variation in reported values of DNA damage. Fourteen laboratories determined the baseline level of DNA strand breaks (SBs)/alkaline labile sites and formamidopyrimidine DNA glycosylase (FPG)-sensitive sites in coded samples of mononuclear blood cells (MNBCs) from healthy volunteers. There were technical problems in seven laboratories in adopting the standard protocol, which were not related to the level of experience. Therefore, the inter-laboratory variation in DNA damage was only analysed using the results from laboratories that had obtained complete data with the standard comet assay protocol. This analysis showed that the differences between reported levels of DNA SBs/alkaline labile sites in MNBCs were not reduced by applying the standard assay protocol as compared with the laboratory's own protocol. There was large inter-laboratory variation in FPG-sensitive sites by the laboratory-specific protocol and the variation was reduced when the samples were analysed by the standard protocol. The SBs and FPG-sensitive sites were measured in the same experiment, indicating that the large spread in the latter lesions was the main reason for the reduced inter-laboratory variation. However, it remains worrying that half of the participating laboratories obtained poor results using the standard procedure. This study indicates that future comet assay validation trials should take steps to evaluate the implementation of standard procedures in participating laboratories