The Mediterranean Solar Plan through the Prism of External Governance

Through the prism of external governance, this paper investigates the emergence of the Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP) as an external mode of sectoral governance and its actual capacity to cope with the regulatory gapproblem between the European Union (EU) and Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs). Although network forms of energy governance generally prevail in the EU and the Mediterranean region, the solar plan emerges as a very loosely institutionalized form of market governance in which political interaction and outcomes are the result of inter-MPCs competition over external funding. This paper shows that competitive pressure at best unleashes a reform dynamic in which individual MPCs undertake partial regulatory and institutional reforms in order to ‘lock in’ funding and longterm power purchase agreements. But, market governance under the Mediterranean Solar Plan is far to provoke a region-wide renewable energy transition. The discontinuity between the internal-external mode of energy governance and external governance under the Mediterranean Solar Plan is attributed to early choices of key member states (France and Germany) within the making of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) - facts that ultimately impacted on the resulting sectoral patterns of external governance, thus constraining the potential and limits of the Mediterranean Solar Plan to reduce the EU-MPCs regulatory gap

Milk metagenomics and cheese-making properties as affected by indoor farming and summer highland grazing

The study of the complex relationships between milk metagenomics and milk composition and cheese-making efficiency as affected by indoor farming and summer highland grazing was the aim of the present work. The experimental design considered monthly sampling (over 5 mo) of the milk produced by 12 Brown Swiss cows divided into 2 groups: the first remained on a lowland indoor farm from June to October, and the second was moved to highland pastures in July and then returned to the lowland farm in September. The resulting 60 milk samples (2 kg each) were used to analyze milk composition, milk coagulation, curd firming, and syneresis processes, and to make individual model cheeses to measure cheese yields and nutrient recoveries in the cheese. After DNA extraction and Illumina Miseq sequencing, milk microbiota amplicons were also processed by means of an open-source pipeline called Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology (Qiime2, version 2018.2; https://qiime2.org). Out of a total of 44 taxa analyzed, 13 bacterial taxa were considered important for the dairy industry (lactic acid bacteria, LAB, 5 taxa; and spoilage bacteria, 4) and for human (other probiotics, 2) and animal health (pathogenic bacteria, 2). The results revealed the transhumant group of cows transferred to summer highland pastures showed an increase in almost all the LAB taxa, bifidobacteria, and propionibacteria, and a reduction in spoilage taxa. All the metagenomic changes disappeared when the transhumant cows were moved back to the permanent indoor farm. The relationships between 17 microbial traits and 30 compositional and technological milk traits were investigated through analysis of correlation and latent explanatory factor analysis. Eight latent factors were identified, explaining 75.3% of the total variance, 2 of which were mainly based on microbial traits: pro-dairy bacteria (14% of total variance, improving during summer pasturing) and pathogenic bacteria (6.0% of total variance). Some bacterial traits contributed to other compositional-technological latent factors (gelation, udder health, and caseins)

Anticancer activities of anthocyanin extract from genotyped Solanum tuberosum L. "Vitelotte"

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The role of HMGA1 protein in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are neoplasms derived from neuroendocrine cells. One of their main features is to often remain asymptomatic and clinically undetectable. High Mobility Group A (HMGA) proteins belong to a family of non-histone chromatinic proteins able to modulate gene expression through the interaction with DNA and transcription factors. They are overexpressed in most of the human malignancies, playing a critical role in carcinogenesis. However, their expression levels and their role in neuroendocrine carcinogenesis has not been exhaustively evaluated until now. Therefore, in this study, we have addressed the validity of using the expression of HMGA1 as a diagnostic marker and have investigated its role in NET carcinogenesis. The expression of HMGA1 has been evaluated by qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry, using NET tissue microarrays, in a cohort of gastroenteropancreatic (GEP)-NET samples. The expression levels of HMGA1 have been then correlated with the main clinical features of NET samples. Finally, the contribution of HMGA1 overexpression to NET development has been addressed as far as the modulation of proliferation and migration abilities of NET cells is concerned. Here, we report that HMGA1 is overexpressed in GEP-NET samples, at both mRNA and protein levels, and that the silencing of HMGA1 protein expression interferes with the ability of NET cells to proliferate and migrate through the downregulation of Cyclin E, Cyclin B1 and EZH2. These results propose the HMGA proteins as new diagnostic and prognostic markers

Differential cell cycle and proliferation marker expression in ductal pancreatic adenocarcinoma and pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN)

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive tumour following a multistep progression model through precursors called pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN). Identification of reliable prognostic markers would help in improving survival. The aim of this study was to investigate the role as well as the prognostic significance of different cell cycle and proliferation markers, namely p21, p27, p53 and Ki-67, in pancreatic carcinogenesis

Re-Punching Tissue Microarrays Is Possible: Why Can This Be Useful and How to Do It

Tissue microarray (TMA) methodology allows the concomitant analysis of hundreds of tissue specimens arrayed in the same manner on a recipient block. Subsequently, all samples can be processed under identical conditions, such as antigen retrieval procedure, reagent concentrations, incubation times with antibodies/probes, and escaping the inter-assays variability. Therefore, the use of TMA has revolutionized histopathology translational research projects and has become a tool very often used for putative biomarker investigations. TMAs are particularly relevant for large scale analysis of a defined disease entity. In the course of these exploratory studies, rare subpopulations can be discovered or identified. This can refer to subsets of patients with more particular phenotypic or genotypic disease with low incidence or to patients receiving a particular treatment. Such rare cohorts should be collected for more specific investigations at a later time, when, possibly, more samples of a rare identity will be available as well as more knowledge derived from concomitant, e.g., genetic, investigations will have been acquired. In this article we analyze for the first time the limits and opportunities to construct new TMA blocks using tissues from older available arrays and supplementary donor blocks. In summary, we describe the reasons and technical details for the construction of rare disease entities arrays

Nasaruni Academy for Maasai Girls

Dr. Michelle Cude, Associate Professor of Middle, Secondary, and Mathematics Department, was recently granted a 17-18 Fulbright Scholarship for her work in Narok, Kenya. Fueled by having an international exchange teacher, Alice Sayo, in her Methods of Teaching Social Studies course, Dr. Cude’s work began in 2011 when Alice shared her dream of opening a school in her community. Dr. Cude helped to raise $7,000 to buy 5 acres of land, and she did not stop there. Since its opening in 2012, The Nasaruni Academy for Maasai Girls, has grown from 13 students to 80 students as of January \u2717. Nasaruni, meaning “haven” in the Maasai language, is a place for Maasai girls to learn English, Swahili, math, social studies, geography and sciences in the standard curriculum required by the Kenyan government. Dr. Cude serves as the faculty advisor for JMU’s Future Social Studies Educators, a campus club that often fundraises for the Academy through events like Empty Bowls, which made just over$9,000 on March 31, 2017 for necessary improvements at the school

The loss of the CBX7 gene expression represents an adverse prognostic marker for survival of colon carcinoma patients

We have previously shown that CBX7 expression is associated with a more malignant phenotype in thyroid cancer. On this basis, we decided to investigate its possible prognostic value in colorectal cancer (CRC). CBX7 expression has been analysed by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarray (TMA) specimens obtained from a large series of sporadic CRC resections (n=1420). The CBX7 expression data have been correlated with several clinico-pathological parameters. CBX7 expression is reduced or absent in a significant number of CRC samples in comparison to the normal colonic mucosa and the loss of CBX7 expression correlates with a poor outcome of CRC (p>0.001). The block of CBX7 expression seems to occur at a transcriptional level since quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed a reduced CBX7-specific mRNA levels in CRC samples versus normal counterpart tissue (up to more than 50-fold). Finally, the restoration of CBX7 expression in two CRC cell lines reduces their proliferation rate suggesting a role of the loss of CBX7 expression in the progression step of colon carcinogenesis. Therefore, the data reported here indicate that the evaluation of CBX7 expression may represent a valid tool in the prognosis of colon cancer since a reduced survival of CRC patients is associated with the loss of CBX7 expression