Fort San Domingo's Place in the Making of the First Chinese English Dictionary

Biography of Herbert Allen Giles, author of the first Chinese-English dictionaryText of a speech and accompanying picture

Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia of life

In his 2003 essay E O Wilson outlined his vision for an “encyclopaedia of life” comprising “an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth”, each page containing “the scientific name of the species, a pictorial or genomic presentation of the primary type specimen on which its name is based, and a summary of its diagnostic traits.” Although the “quiet revolution” in biodiversity informatics has generated numerous online resources, including some directly inspired by Wilson's essay (e.g., "http://ispecies.org":http://ispecies.org, "http://www.eol.org":http://www.eol.org), we are still some way from the goal of having available online all relevant information about a species, such as its taxonomy, evolutionary history, genomics, morphology, ecology, and behaviour. While the biodiversity community has been developing a plethora of databases, some with overlapping goals and duplicated content, Wikipedia has been slowly growing to the point where it now has over 100,000 pages on biological taxa. My goal in this essay is to explore the idea that, largely independent of the efforts of biodiversity informatics and well-funded international efforts, Wikipedia ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) has emerged as potentially the best platform for fulfilling E O Wilson’s vision

The Muse as I Hear Her

This volume, The Muse as I Hear Her, has been compiled at the urging of ANU Emeritus Faculty to honour Giles Pickford, an admired colleague of long standing. Giles began his appointment in the ANU Public Affairs Division on the 21st of November 1988 and retired on the 8th of May 1998. At that time, a group of colleagues had formed an association that was to become the ANU Emeritus Faculty. From 1998 to the end of 2012, Giles was Secretary to the Emeritus Faculty. He served the Emeritus Faculty for a longer period than he was officially employed at ANU, and continued in the role of Corresponding Secretary until health intervened at the age of 73. The Emeritus Faculty wanted to honour Giles for his good fellowship and for the many services he rendered to the Faculty by highlighting one of Giles' special interests: his close involvement in the ANU Poets' Lunch. This volume is a token of recognition from friends and colleagues to Giles Pickford for his multiple contributions to the life of the University and its community

Giles Pickford - academic manager and epicure

Giles Pickford was born in Bombay in 1941 then soon after moved with his family to Albany, WA. He was educated at Albany High School and the University of Western Australia, graduating with first class honours in English in 1963. After a traineeship in the Commonwealth Public Service in Canberra, Giles worked in management at a number of universities in NSW and with the Australia Cancer Council. While at Wollongong University as Public Relations Manager, he was elected an alderman in the Wollongong City Council. In 1988, Giles joined ANU’s public relations unit where his brief was to promote relations between ‘town’ and ‘gown’. Since retirement from ANU in 1998, Giles has been a founder member of the university’s Emeritus Faculty (and is its secretary), and an active member of the secretariat of the national Association for Tertiary Education Managers. He continues his interest in ANU cultural matters as arts patron and philanthropist, and helped initiate revival of the ANU Poets’ Lunch, an annual poetry festival. He is an active poet and inveterate writer-to-newspapers on matters political and educational

Glucocorticoids:the mode of action in bullous pemphigoid

Abstract Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is the most common of pemphigoid diseases caused by autoantibodies against the structures of dermoepidermal junction followed by complement activation, innate immune cell infiltration, neutrophil proteinase secretion and subepidermal blister formation. The first‐line treatment of BP is topical and systemic glucocorticoids (GC). Regulation of the immune system and inflammatory cells is the main target of GC actions. GCs act through genomic and non‐genomic mechanisms. The human glucocorticoid receptor (GR) mediates most of the biologic effects of GC: cytosolic GR binds GCs and is capable to bind to glucocorticoid response elements in DNA and either transactivate or transrepress genes depending on the tissue and cell type. In addition, GR exerts rapid, non‐genomic effects possibly mediated by membrane‐localized receptors or by translocation to mitochondria. GCs can also interact directly with several enzymes and cytokines. As a target treatment for BP, the production of autoantibodies should be discontinued. GCs, in spite of their wide immunosuppressive actions, are weak to stop immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibody formation. However, both systemic and topical GCs are able to reduce the clinical symptoms of BP. GCs are used to inhibit the secondary inflammation and symptoms, such as blistering and pruritus, and it is shown that GC treatment will gradually decrease also the autoantibody formation. Our review article analyses the mode of action of GC treatment in BP, as far it is possible due to paucity of modern immunological studies