Genetic deletion of osteopontin in TRAMP mice skews prostate carcinogenesis from adenocarcinoma to aggressive human-like neuroendocrine cancers

Osteopontin (OPN) is a secreted glycoprotein, that belongs to the non-structural extracellular matrix (ECM), and its over expression in human prostate cancer has been associated with disease progression, androgen independence and metastatic ability. Nevertheless, the pathophysiology of OPN in prostate tumorigenesis has never been studied. We crossed TRansgenic Adenocarcinoma of the Mouse Prostate (TRAMP) mice with OPN deficient (OPN-/-) mice and followed tumor onset and progression in these double mutants. Ultrasound examination detected the early onset of a rapidly growing, homogeneous and spherical tumor in about 60% of OPN-/- TRAMP mice. Such neoplasms seldom occurred in parental TRAMP mice otherwise prone to adenocarcinomas and were characterized for being androgen receptor negative, highly proliferative and endowed with neuroendocrine (NE) features. Gene expression profiling showed up-regulation of genes involved in tumor progression, cell cycle and neuronal differentiation in OPN-deficient versus wild type TRAMP tumors. Downregulated genes included key genes of TGFa pathway, including SMAD3 and Filamin, which were confirmed at the protein level. Furthermore, NE genes and particularly those characterizing early prostatic lesions of OPN-deficient mice were found to correlate with those of human prostate NE tumours. These data underscore a novel role of OPN in the early stages of prostate cancer growth, protecting against the development of aggressive NE tumors

{\AA}ngstr\"om-resolved Interfacial Structure in Organic-Inorganic Junctions

Charge transport processes at interfaces which are governed by complex interfacial electronic structure play a crucial role in catalytic reactions, energy storage, photovoltaics, and many biological processes. Here, the first soft X-ray second harmonic generation (SXR-SHG) interfacial spectrum of a buried interface (boron/Parylene-N) is reported. SXR-SHG shows distinct spectral features that are not observed in X-ray absorption spectra, demonstrating its extraordinary interfacial sensitivity. Comparison to electronic structure calculations indicates a boron-organic separation distance of 1.9 {\AA}, wherein changes as small as 0.1 {\AA} result in easily detectable SXR-SHG spectral shifts (ca. 100s of meV). As SXR-SHG is inherently ultrafast and sensitive to individual atomic layers, it creates the possibility to study a variety of interfacial processes, e.g. catalysis, with ultrafast time resolution and bond specificity.Comment: 19 page

PRESENCE OF Listeria monocytogenes IN HEALTHY CATTLE AT SLAUGHTERING: FIRST RESULTS

Listeria monocytogenes is an ubiquitous pathogen occasionally present in the intestinal tract of various animal species. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of Listeria spp. and Listeria monocytogenes in faeces of healthy cattle at slaughtering. Listeria spp. was isolated in 18 out of 220 (8.2%) faecal samples, and Listeria monocytogenes was isolated in 3 faecal samples (1.4%). From the 220 faecal samples were also isolated 9 strains of L. grayi, 4 strains of L. innocua and 2 strains of L. ivanovii. Although limited, our results show that animal faeces can represent a source of L. monocytogenes contamination of carcasses in abattoirs and can be a potential hazard to human health

Opinions, positions and experiences of members of the Argentine Anthropology Society concerning the impact of mega-mining on society and heritage

Entre el 23 de febrero y el 20 de abril de 2012, la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología abrió una convocatoria a sus 700 socios para conocer sus opiniones, posiciones y experiencias acerca de los megaproyectos de minería. La iniciativa surgió como producto de la solicitud de uno de los miembros de la SAA, preocupado por los conflictos ocurridos en las provincias cordilleranas de La Rioja, Catamarca y Tucumán a raíz de la instalación de grandes emprendimientos mineros. Las discusiones en torno a este tema tienen larga data en la ciudadanía, pero en esta última década y, en especial, en estos últimos meses, habían cobrado un lugar destacado tanto por la magnitud e implicancia de aquellos eventos como por el alcance mediático que tuvo la problemática a escala nacional. En ese marco, quienes conformamos la Comisión Directiva expresamos públicamente nuestro repudio a los hechos de violencia y represión acaecidos ante las manifestaciones de protesta ocurridas sobre poblaciones del Noroeste argentino y reconocimos las transformaciones que sobre la vida social, económica, cultural, ecológica y política generan estos emprendimientos. Pero además, consideramos oportuna aquella solicitud y decidimos invitar a todos los socios a manifestar sus opiniones al respecto.Sociedad Argentina de Antropologí

The German Miracle Keeps Running: How Germany's Hidden Champions Stay Ahead in the Global Economy

Despite mediocre macro-economic performance of the German economy, German companies are successful players in global trade. This article explores the strategies of one of the pillars of this export success, the Hidden Champions, Our empirical analysis focuses on leading medium size companies identified by Hermann Simon in the early 1990s, and investigates their long-term progress over one decade. We show that these companies continue to prosper with family ownership combined with professional external management, strategies of market leadership in global niches and a persistent focus on operational effectiveness. Scholars and business leaders, in particular of companies based in other high-cost countries, therefore ought to consider German companies as source for lessons on how to succeed in the global economy

Pain shared, pain halved? Cooperation as a coping strategy for innovation barriers

The paper analyses the relationship between the perception of barriers to innovation and the firm’s propensity to cooperate to mitigate their effect. First, we look at whether cooperation with research organizations or private firms is associated with experiencing different types of barriers, for example, financial constraints, lack of human capital or uncertain market demand. Second, we test whether experiencing several types of barriers simultaneously has a super-modular effect on the propensity to cooperate tout court, and the choice of cooperation partner. We find that having to face a single, specific constraint leads to firms ‘sharing the pain’ with cooperation partners—both research organization and other firms. However, the results of a super-modularity test show that having to cope with different barriers is a deterrent to establishing cooperation agreements, especially when firms lack finance, adequate skills and information on technology or markets. The paper adds to the innovation literature by identifying the factors associated with firms’ coping with different barriers by applying a selective cooperation strategy

Agregação do solo cultivado com gramíneas e leguminosas solteiras e consorciadas na região de Rolim de Moura - Ro.

O trabalho objetivou avaliar a estabilidade de agregados em Latossolo Vermelho Amarelo com textura franco argilosa, utilizado com gramíneas e leguminosas em cultivo solteiro e consorciado. O delineamento experimental foi blocos ao acaso em parcela subdividida contento oito tratamentos principais e três secundários em 04 repetições. Os parâmetros analisados foram, diâmetro médio ponderado dos agregados via úmida (DMPAu) e via seca (DMPAs), índice de estabilidade de agregados (IEA) através da relação DMPAu/DMPAs e niveis de matéria orgânica do solo. O Consórcio Brachiaria brizantha + amendoim é mais eficiente na formação de agregados estáveis em água nos primeiros 10 cm de profundidade e o milho solteiro, nos outros 20 cm a Brachiaria brizantha, amendoim, Panicum maximum em cultivo solteiro e o consórcio Panicum maximum + amendoim foram pouco influentes na formação de agregados estáveis em água

How Do Different Motives for R&D Cooperation Affect Firm Performance? An Analysis Based on Swiss Micro Data

Starting point of our analysis is the empirical fact that firms pursue different goals when getting engaged in R&D collaborations, often more than one goal at the same time. Given that firms are driven by different motives for R&D cooperation, the aim of this article is to investigate the differences related to different motives with respect (a) to the factors influencing the likelihood of R&D cooperation as postulated by theory; and (b) to the impact of R&D cooperation on firm innovativeness and firm productivity. On the whole, distinguishing various cooperation motives appears to be fruitful because it allows more differentiated insights with respect to the importance of factors determining cooperation that would remain hidden behind the overall variable R&D cooperation yes/no. Not only R&D cooperation in general but also cooperation driven by each of the seven motives considered in this paper correlate positively with the sales share of innovative products. With respect to innovativeness the characterization of cooperation by the driving motive did not add much more insights that it could be gained through the overall variable R&D cooperation yes/no. Technology-motivated collaborative activities show a weaker tendency to positive direct effects on productivity than cost-motivated cooperation. In this case, the distinction of several cooperation motives yields some additional insights as compared to the overall cooperation variable