Planning and governance under the LGA: Lessons from the RMA experience.

The purpose of this report is to identify ways in which experiences gained from the RMA as a devolved and co-operative planning mandate can enable local and central government and other stakeholders to more effectively implement the LGA. The report is based on findings from the FRST-funded research programme on Planning under Co-operative Mandates (PUCM). We argue in this report that the experiences gained from the RMA can inform effective implementation of the LGA in three important respects: Preparation and implementation of LTCCPs; The community consultation process for formulating community outcomes; and Māori participation in planning and governance

A classification of RE papers:(A)re we researching or designing RE techniques?

Discussion of a paper in RE program committees is often\ud complicated by lack of agreement about evaluation criteria\ud to be applied to the paper. For some years now, successive\ud program chairs have attempted to increase clarity by\ud including a paper classification in their CFP, and making the\ud evaluation criteria per paper class explicit. This short note\ud presents a paper classification based on this experience. It\ud can be used as guide by program chairs. It can also be used\ud by authors as well as reviewers to understand what kind of\ud paper they are writing or reviewing, and what criteria should\ud be applied in evaluating the paper

Reversible Masking Using Low-Molecular-Weight Neutral Lipids to Achieve Optimal-Targeted Delivery

Intravenous injection of therapeutics is required to effectively treat or cure metastatic cancer, certain cardiovascular diseases, and other acquired or inherited diseases. Using this route of delivery allows potential uptake in all disease targets that are accessed by the bloodstream. However, normal tissues and organs also have the potential for uptake of therapeutic agents. Therefore, investigators have used targeted delivery to attempt delivery solely to the target cells; however, use of ligands on the surface of delivery vehicles to target specific cell surface receptors is not sufficient to avoid nonspecific uptake. PEGylation has been used for decades to try to avoid nonspecific uptake but suffers from many problems known as “The PEGylation Dilemma.” We have solved this dilemma by replacing PEGylation with reversible masking using low-molecular-weight neutral lipids in order to achieve optimal-targeted delivery solely to target cells. Our paper will focus on this topic

An Investigation Of Factors Impacting The Use Of Technology In A Home School Environment

Home school populations have been studied for socialization and academic preparedness, but there are few studies on the use of technology among home schooled families.  One researcher, in studying technology use among home school families in the greater Albany, New York area, found that the use of technology had a positive influence on the decision to home school and to allow home school families to create and maintain groups of like-minded home schoolers in their quest to educate their children. The objectives of this study are to understand what technologies are being used by home school families and about perception of technology in four areas of technology usage: 1) to build social networks, 2) acquire and share knowledge, 3) administrative actions and 4) instructional activities.  This research shows that when technology is perceived as easier to use, it will lead to perceived usefulness, at a higher significance than leading to actual use.  Further, it was surprising that the models did not show perceived usefulness leading to actual use, which is indicated in the literature

Citizens’ Juries: When Older Adults Deliberate on the Benefits and Risks of Smart Health and Smart Homes

open access articleBackground: Technology-enabled healthcare or smart health has provided a wealth of products and services to enable older people to monitor and manage their own health conditions at home, thereby maintaining independence, whilst also reducing healthcare costs. However, despite the growing ubiquity of smart health, innovations are often technically driven, and the older user does not often have input into design. The purpose of the current study was to facilitate a debate about the positive and negative perceptions and attitudes towards digital health technologies. Methods: We conducted citizens’ juries to enable a deliberative inquiry into the benefits and risks of smart health technologies and systems. Transcriptions of group discussions were interpreted from a perspective of life-worlds versus systems-worlds. Results: Twenty-three participants of diverse demographics contributed to the debate. Views of older people were felt to be frequently ignored by organisations implementing systems and technologies. Participants demonstrated diverse levels of digital literacy and a range of concerns about misuse of technology. Conclusion: Our interpretation contrasted the life-world of experiences, hopes, and fears with the systems-world of surveillance, e ciencies, and risks. This interpretation o ers new perspectives on involving older people in co-design and governance of smart health and smart homes

The Ballpark podcast episode 2.6: racism towards Latinos: past, present, and future

The current US president is not the first American leader to use inflammatory rhetoric about Latinos and push anti-immigration policies, but Donald Trump's presidency has certainly brought these issue to the forefront of American politics. This episode we're diving into the fear, resentment, and history behind racism towards Latinos, and in doing so, we'll see that this is far from ..

Generation of a restriction minus enteropathogenic Escherichia coli E2348/69 strain that is efficiently transformed with large, low copy plasmids

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many microbes possess restriction-modification systems that protect them from parasitic DNA molecules. Unfortunately, the presence of a restriction-modification system in a given microbe also hampers genetic analysis. Although plasmids can be successfully conjugated into the enteropathogenic <it>Escherichia coli </it>strain E2348/69 and optimized protocols for competent cell preparation have been developed, we found that a large, low copy (~15) bioluminescent reporter plasmid, pJW15, that we modified for use in EPEC, was exceedingly difficult to transform into E2348/69. We reasoned that a restriction-modification system could be responsible for the low transformation efficiency of E2348/69 and sought to identify and inactivate the responsible gene(s), with the goal of creating an easily transformable strain of EPEC that could complement existing protocols for genetic manipulation of this important pathogen.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using bioinformatics, we identified genes in the unfinished enteropathogenic <it>Escherichia coli </it>(EPEC) strain E2348/69 genome whose predicted products bear homology to the HsdM methyltransferases, HsdS specificity subunits, and HsdR restriction endonucleases of type I restriction-modification systems. We constructed a strain carrying a deletion of the conserved enzymatic domain of the EPEC HsdR homologue, NH4, and showed that its transformation efficiency was up to four orders of magnitude higher than that of the parent strain. Further, the modification capacity of NH4 remained intact, since plasmids that were normally recalcitrant to transformation into E2348/69 could be transformed upon passage through NH4. NH4 was unaffected in virulence factor production, since bundle forming pilus (BFP) subunits and type III secreted (T3S) proteins were present at equivalent levels to those seen in E2348/69. Further, NH4 was indistinguishable from E2348/69 in tissue culture infection model assays of localized adherence and T3S.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We have shown that EPEC strain E2348/69 utilizes a type I restriction-modification system to limit entry of new DNA. This restriction-modification system does not appear to be involved in virulence determinant expression or infection phenotypes. The <it>hsdR </it>mutant strain should prove useful in genetic analysis of the important diarrheal pathogen EPEC.</p

Postattachment Neutralization of Papillomaviruses by Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies

AbstractPostattachment neutralization of papillomaviruses (PVs) was analyzed in three PV-infectivity models: (i) the BPV-1-induced focus-forming assay using C127 cells; (ii) in vitro abortive infection of rabbit RK-13 and Sf1Ep cells with CRPV; and (iii) HPV11-induced morphological transformation of human foreskin chips in the athymic mouse xenograft system. In each assay system, aliquots of infectious virus were added to the appropriate target cells and incubated at 37°, followed at various postinfection time intervals with neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (N-MAbs) that target surface conformational epitopes. In all three model systems, the N-MAbs were able to neutralize PV infection when added as late as 8 hr after addition of infectious PV to host cells. These results imply that papillomaviruses attach to but do not penetrate inside host cells for a significant period of time and that the bound virus is thus still susceptible to neutralization by neutralizing antibodies