Analisis strategi dan sistem informasi manajemen dengan menggunakan Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) pada Kantor Pos Malang 65100

This study analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats posed by Post Office Malang 65100 to achieve maximum results in services offered by PT. Pos Indonesian, by identifying all the resources and supporting services of PT. Pos Indonesia and analyze the strategic plan that must be done Post Office Malang 65100 in achieving organizational goals that have been specified. The research categorized as qualitative descriptive uses researchers as a key instrument in this study. Data collection techniques used include interview techniques and documentation of archives and other secondary data published by PT. Pos Indonesian.The result of data analysis with external internal matrix has illustrated the position of Post Office Malang 65100 in position of growth and stability and in SWOT quadrant diagram assessed that Post Office Malang 65100 has opportunity and strength which means can support aggressive growth policy so that it is possible that postal service offered can be expanded its market share, especially to start taking into account the growing development of micro, small and medium enterprises as a new market share of postal services. Capacity building of the employees as one of the main elements for the company and interinstitutional cooperation relationships that have been done or will be done need special attention to maximize the performance of Post Office Malang 65100

Illusory Stimuli Can Be Used to Identify Retinal Blind Spots

Background. Identification of visual field loss in people with retinal disease is not straightforward as people with eye disease are frequently unaware of substantial deficits in their visual field, as a consequence of perceptual completion ("filling-in'') of affected areas. Methodology. We attempted to induce a compelling visual illusion known as the induced twinkle after-effect (TwAE) in eight patients with retinal scotomas. Half of these patients experience filling-in of their scotomas such that they are unaware of the presence of their scotoma, and conventional campimetric techniques can not be used to identify their vision loss. The region of the TwAE was compared to microperimetry maps of the retinal lesion. Principal Findings. Six of our eight participants experienced the TwAE. This effect occurred in three of the four people who filled-in their scotoma. The boundary of the TwAE showed good agreement with the boundary of lesion, as determined by microperimetry. Conclusion. For the first time, we have determined vision loss by asking patients to report the presence of an illusory percept in blind areas, rather than the absence of a real stimulus. This illusory technique is quick, accurate and not subject to the effects of filling-in

Over-Expression of DSCAM and COL6A2 Cooperatively Generates Congenital Heart Defects

A significant current challenge in human genetics is the identification of interacting genetic loci mediating complex polygenic disorders. One of the best characterized polygenic diseases is Down syndrome (DS), which results from an extra copy of part or all of chromosome 21. A short interval near the distal tip of chromosome 21 contributes to congenital heart defects (CHD), and a variety of indirect genetic evidence suggests that multiple candidate genes in this region may contribute to this phenotype. We devised a tiered genetic approach to identify interacting CHD candidate genes. We first used the well vetted Drosophila heart as an assay to identify interacting CHD candidate genes by expressing them alone and in all possible pairwise combinations and testing for effects on rhythmicity or heart failure following stress. This comprehensive analysis identified DSCAM and COL6A2 as the most strongly interacting pair of genes. We then over-expressed these two genes alone or in combination in the mouse heart. While over-expression of either gene alone did not affect viability and had little or no effect on heart physiology or morphology, co-expression of the two genes resulted in ≈50% mortality and severe physiological and morphological defects, including atrial septal defects and cardiac hypertrophy. Cooperative interactions between DSCAM and COL6A2 were also observed in the H9C2 cardiac cell line and transcriptional analysis of this interaction points to genes involved in adhesion and cardiac hypertrophy. Our success in defining a cooperative interaction between DSCAM and COL6A2 suggests that the multi-tiered genetic approach we have taken involving human mapping data, comprehensive combinatorial screening in Drosophila, and validation in vivo in mice and in mammalian cells lines should be applicable to identifying specific loci mediating a broad variety of other polygenic disorders

The interpretations and uses of fitness landscapes in the social sciences

__Abstract__ This working paper precedes our full article entitled “The evolution of Wright’s (1932) adaptive field to contemporary interpretations and uses of fitness landscapes in the social sciences” as published in the journal Biology & Philosophy (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-014-9450-2). The working paper features an extended literature overview of the ways in which fitness landscapes have been interpreted and used in the social sciences, for which there was not enough space in the full article. The article features an in-depth philosophical discussion about the added value of the various ways in which fitness landscapes are used in the social sciences. This discussion is absent in the current working paper. Th

International Society of Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM)-ITS reference DNA barcoding database - the quality controlled standard tool for routine identification of human and animal pathogenic fungi

Human and animal fungal pathogens are a growing threat worldwide leading to emerging infections and creating new risks for established ones. There is a growing need for a rapid and accurate identification of pathogens to enable early diagnosis and targeted antifungal therapy. Morphological and biochemical identification methods are time-consuming and require trained experts. Alternatively, molecular methods, such as DNA barcoding, a powerful and easy tool for rapid monophasic identification, offer a practical approach for species identification and less demanding in terms of taxonomical expertise. However, its wide-spread use is still limited by a lack of quality-controlled reference databases and the evolving recognition and definition of new fungal species/complexes. An international consortium of medical mycology laboratories was formed aiming to establish a quality controlled ITS database under the umbrella of the ISHAM working group on "DNA barcoding of human and animal pathogenic fungi." A new database, containing 2800 ITS sequences representing 421 fungal species, providing the medical community with a freely accessible tool at http://www.isham.org and http://its.mycologylab.org/ to rapidly and reliably identify most agents of mycoses, was established. The generated sequences included in the new database were used to evaluate the variation and overall utility of the ITS region for the identification of pathogenic fungi at intra-and interspecies level. The average intraspecies variation ranged from 0 to 2.25%. This highlighted selected pathogenic fungal species, such as the dermatophytes and emerging yeast, for which additional molecular methods/genetic markers are required for their reliable identification from clinical and veterinary specimens.This study was supported by an National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NH&MRC) grant [#APP1031952] to W Meyer, S Chen, V Robert, and D Ellis; CNPq [350338/2000-0] and FAPERJ [E-26/103.157/2011] grants to RM Zancope-Oliveira; CNPq [308011/2010-4] and FAPESP [2007/08575-1] Fundacao de Amparo Pesquisa do Estado de So Paulo (FAPESP) grants to AL Colombo; PEst-OE/BIA/UI4050/2014 from Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) to C Pais; the Belgian Science Policy Office (Belspo) to BCCM/IHEM; the MEXBOL program of CONACyT-Mexico, [ref. number: 1228961 to ML Taylor and [122481] to C Toriello; the Institut Pasteur and Institut de Veil le Sanitaire to F Dromer and D Garcia-Hermoso; and the grants from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) and the Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Goias (FAPEG) to CM de Almeida Soares and JA Parente Rocha. I Arthur would like to thank G Cherian, A Higgins and the staff of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Path West, QEII Medial Centre. Dromer would like to thank for the technical help of the sequencing facility and specifically that of I, Diancourt, A-S Delannoy-Vieillard, J-M Thiberge (Genotyping of Pathogens and Public Health, Institut Pasteur). RM Zancope-Oliveira would like to thank the Genomic/DNA Sequencing Platform at Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz-PDTIS/FIOCRUZ [RPT01A], Brazil for the sequencing. B Robbertse and CL Schoch acknowledge support from the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Library of Medicine. T Sorrell's work is funded by the NH&MRC of Australia; she is a Sydney Medical School Foundation Fellow.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Circulating microparticles: square the circle

Background: The present review summarizes current knowledge about microparticles (MPs) and provides a systematic overview of last 20 years of research on circulating MPs, with particular focus on their clinical relevance. Results: MPs are a heterogeneous population of cell-derived vesicles, with sizes ranging between 50 and 1000 nm. MPs are capable of transferring peptides, proteins, lipid components, microRNA, mRNA, and DNA from one cell to another without direct cell-to-cell contact. Growing evidence suggests that MPs present in peripheral blood and body fluids contribute to the development and progression of cancer, and are of pathophysiological relevance for autoimmune, inflammatory, infectious, cardiovascular, hematological, and other diseases. MPs have large diagnostic potential as biomarkers; however, due to current technological limitations in purification of MPs and an absence of standardized methods of MP detection, challenges remain in validating the potential of MPs as a non-invasive and early diagnostic platform. Conclusions: Improvements in the effective deciphering of MP molecular signatures will be critical not only for diagnostics, but also for the evaluation of treatment regimens and predicting disease outcomes

Identification of regulatory variants associated with genetic susceptibility to meningococcal disease.

Non-coding genetic variants play an important role in driving susceptibility to complex diseases but their characterization remains challenging. Here, we employed a novel approach to interrogate the genetic risk of such polymorphisms in a more systematic way by targeting specific regulatory regions relevant for the phenotype studied. We applied this method to meningococcal disease susceptibility, using the DNA binding pattern of RELA - a NF-kB subunit, master regulator of the response to infection - under bacterial stimuli in nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. We designed a custom panel to cover these RELA binding sites and used it for targeted sequencing in cases and controls. Variant calling and association analysis were performed followed by validation of candidate polymorphisms by genotyping in three independent cohorts. We identified two new polymorphisms, rs4823231 and rs11913168, showing signs of association with meningococcal disease susceptibility. In addition, using our genomic data as well as publicly available resources, we found evidences for these SNPs to have potential regulatory effects on ATXN10 and LIF genes respectively. The variants and related candidate genes are relevant for infectious diseases and may have important contribution for meningococcal disease pathology. Finally, we described a novel genetic association approach that could be applied to other phenotypes

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection are often non-specific, and there is no definitive test for the accurate diagnosis of infection. The 'omics' approaches to identifying biomarkers from the host-response to bacterial infection are promising. In this study, lipidomic analysis was carried out with plasma samples obtained from febrile children with confirmed bacterial infection (n = 20) and confirmed viral infection (n = 20). We show for the first time that bacterial and viral infection produces distinct profile in the host lipidome. Some species of glycerophosphoinositol, sphingomyelin, lysophosphatidylcholine and cholesterol sulfate were higher in the confirmed virus infected group, while some species of fatty acids, glycerophosphocholine, glycerophosphoserine, lactosylceramide and bilirubin were lower in the confirmed virus infected group when compared with confirmed bacterial infected group. A combination of three lipids achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.911 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.98). This pilot study demonstrates the potential of metabolic biomarkers to assist clinicians in distinguishing bacterial from viral infection in febrile children, to facilitate effective clinical management and to the limit inappropriate use of antibiotics