Studies in the growth of grapes

During the grape season of 1922 in South Africa the question of the ripeness of grapes arose in connection with their export. In this country the export regulations with regard to grapes stipulate that "no unripe grapes will be passed by the Inspector ",while the general regulations concerning fruits for export provide that "all fruit shall be in a sound condition, fully developed and not too unripe." In America a legal standard has been set up whereby the sugar content of the juice must be at least 16 - 17° Balling according to the variety of the grape( 1°). This law was framed to prevent the indiscriminate marketing of green immature grapes and has apparently proved successful in practice.In view of the indefinite nature of the terms "ripe" and "unripe ", it is clear that any attempt to apply regulations, involving such terms, must be an entirely arbitrary proceeding depending to a large extent upon the personal interpretation of such factors, and consequently will undoubtedly be subject to considerable variations. The problem of what constitutes a ripe grape must therefore be solved before an attempt can be made with any chance of success to apply regulations which involve an estimation of the degree of ripeness of the fruit. Since sweetness is a desirable quality in any fruit, attention is generally focused upon the sugar- content, more especially as the flavour appears to be associated with this factor. At the same time it is important to remember that the intensity of a sensation such as sweetness is considerably '\modified by the presence of an acid or sour substance(36). It rn is, therefore, clear that the condition of ripeness of a fruit must also depend upon the acidity of the juice. It may be concluded that a high sugar-content and a low acidity are desirable for the production of a mild sweet flavour in the fruit.At the present time there is no generally established method for determining when grapes have reached a condition suitable for export. In addition to the taste which may be subject to wide variations, the colour, firmness and size all influence the picker's decision. When the appearance and attractiveness of the product are to be considered the physical aspect of the berry must be given due weight, but the final decision regarding the maturity of the fruit must depend essentially upon the quality and flavour of the juice. In order to obtain an idea of the limits of some of the factors which influence "the condition of ripeness" in connection with table varieties of grapes, an investigation into the changes which occurred during the ripening of grapes was undertake.n. Preliminary work was carried out during the 1923 season and the work was continued during the 1925 and 1926 seasons in order to determine the extent to which these limits are affected by seasonal conditions. In 1927 similar work was carried out for the purpose of studying the effects due to a variation in locality

Acute rejection is associated with antibodies to non-Gal antigens in baboons using Gal-knockout pig kidneys

We transplanted kidneys from α1,3-galactosyltransferase knockout (GalT-KO) pigs into six baboons using two different immunosuppressive regimens, but most of the baboons died from severe acute humoral xenograft rejection. Circulating induced antibodies to non-Gal antigens were markedly elevated at rejection, which mediated strong complement-dependent cytotoxicity against GalT-KO porcine target cells. These data suggest that antibodies to non-Gal antigens will present an additional barrier to transplantation of organs from GalT-KO pigs to humans. © 2005 Nature Publishing Group

Cord blood banking – bio-objects on the borderlands between community and immunity

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) has become the focus of intense efforts to collect, screen and bank haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in hundreds of repositories around the world. UCB banking has developed through a broad spectrum of overlapping banking practices, sectors and institutional forms. Superficially at least, these sectors have been widely distinguished in bioethical and policy literature between notions of the ‘public’ and the ‘private’, the commons and the market respectively. Our purpose in this paper is to reflect more critically on these distinctions and to articulate the complex practical and hybrid nature of cord blood as a ‘bio-object’ that straddles binary conceptions of the blood economies. The paper draws upon Roberto Esposito’s reflections on biopolitics and his attempt to transcend the dualistic polarisations of immunity and community, or the private and the public. We suggest that his thoughts on immunitary hospitality resonate with many of the actual features and realpolitik of a necessarily internationalised and globally distributed UCB ‘immunitary regime’

The image after Strathern:Art and persuasive relationality in India's sanguinary politics

Publicly-enacted blood extractions (principally blood donation events and petitions or paintings in blood) in mass Indian political contexts (for instance, protest or political memorial events and election rallies) are a noteworthy present-day form of political enunciation in India, for such extractions – made to speak as and on behalf of political subject positions – are intensely communicative. Somewhat akin to the transformative fasts undertaken by Gandhi, such blood extractions seek to persuade from the moral high ground of political asceticism. This essay seeks to shed light on how and why these extractions have become such a means, with a particular focus on blood-based portraiture. What makes such portraits – chiefly of politicians and ‘freedom fighter’ martyrs – interesting from a Strathernian point of view is their immanent persuasive relationality. The insights of Strathern can help us to explicate these objects’ dynamic relational features, while reciprocally, the portraits may help us to illuminate and clarify the very particular and interesting nature of the way Strathern treats (and creates) images

Pathogenicity of Philippine and Indonesian Trypanosoma evansi Isolates in Mice and Their Responses to Trypanocides

Pathogenicity of 10 isolates of T. evansi collected from  Mindanao, Philippines, and one isolate from East Java, Indonesia was determined and compared. The susceptibility of these isolates against diminazene aceturate, melarsomine dihydrochloride, suramin and quinapyramine sulphate/chloride was also tested. Twenty-five mice were infected intraperitoneally with each isolate and 20 were treated with the 4 drugs (5 mice/drug) while 5 infected and 7 uninfected mice served as infected-untreated and uninfected controls, respectively. Treatment was carried out 24 hours post-infection and parasitemia was monitored for 35 days. Mice infected with Philippine isolates significantly died earlier (5-11 days) than those infected with the Indonesian isolate (14-16 days). The prepatent period for Philippine isolates (3-8 days) was significantly shorter than the Indonesian strain (11-13 days).  Trypanosomes were not observed in the blood of mice infected with any of the Philippine isolates when treated with quinapyramine sulphate/chloride, melarsomine dihydrochloride or suramin. Two of 10 mice infected with either C4 or A9 Philippine isolates and treated with diminazene aceturate had parasitemia on days 29 and 31, respectively. It is concluded that isolates of T. evansi from Mindanao, Philippines, are more pathogenic than the isolate from East Java, Indonesia. This study also indicated that quinapyramine sulphate/chloride, melarsomine dihydrochloride and suramin are effective against these T. evansi isolates from Mindanao, Philippines and East Java, Indonesia, while two of the Mindanao isolates are resistant to diminazene. This information is valuable in the enhancement of the control strategy against surra in the Philippines and Indonesia

Garotas de loja, história social e teoria social [Shop Girls, Social History and Social Theory]

Shop workers, most of them women, have made up a significant proportion of Britain’s labour force since the 1850s but we still know relatively little about their history. This article argues that there has been a systematic neglect of one of the largest sectors of female employment by historians and investigates why this might be. It suggests that this neglect is connected to framings of work that have overlooked the service sector as a whole as well as to a continuing unease with the consumer society’s transformation of social life. One element of that transformation was the rise of new forms of aesthetic, emotional and sexualised labour. Certain kinds of ‘shop girls’ embodied these in spectacular fashion. As a result, they became enduring icons of mass consumption, simultaneously dismissed as passive cultural dupes or punished as powerful agents of cultural destruction. This article interweaves the social history of everyday shop workers with shifting representations of the ‘shop girl’, from Victorian music hall parodies, through modernist social theory, to the bizarre bombing of the Biba boutique in London by the Angry Brigade on May Day 1971. It concludes that progressive historians have much to gain by reclaiming these workers and the service economy that they helped create

Remote automatic selection of cows for milking in a pasture-based automatic milking system

ABSTRACT New Zealand pastoral dairy farming presents unique challenges for combining automatic milking systems (AMS), including long walking distances, large herds, year round pasturing and a predominately fresh pasture diet. This paper describes a system designed to minimise walking, maximise the efficiency of AMS utilisation and enable control of individual cow milking frequency by remotely selecting cows for milking up to 400 m from the dairy. Cows report to a selection unit (SU) located in the centre of a block of pasture and linked via raceways to the AMS. Entry is via one-way gates and exit via a computer controlled drafting gate, which directs the cow either to the dairy or the paddock depending on time since last milking. A communication cable connects the SU to the AMS server in the dairy. Cows wear an electronic identification device. Water and pasture access act as incentives for cows to enter the SU. Cows readily learned to use the SU and were observed visiting the unit at every hour over 24 hours. Twenty-seven cows were assigned to either a 6h or 12h minimum milking interval (MMI). On average, cows visited the SU 4.5 and 5.5 times/d for the 6h MMI and 12h MMI groups, respectively, and achieved a milking frequency of 1.9 and 1.4 milkings/d, respectively. Results showed that milking frequency can be controlled via a system for remotely selecting cows for milking and that access to fresh pasture is a strong factor in motivating cow traffic through the SU

The multikinase inhibitor midostaurin (PKC412A) lacks activity in metastatic melanoma: a phase IIA clinical and biologic study

Midostaurin (PKC412A), N-benzoyl-staurosporine, potently inhibits protein kinase C alpha (PKCα), VEGFR2, KIT, PDGFR and FLT3 tyrosine kinases. In mice, midostaurin slows growth and delays lung metastasis of melanoma cell lines. We aimed to test midostaurin's safety, efficacy and biologic activity in a Phase IIA clinical trial in patients with metastatic melanoma. Seventeen patients with advanced metastatic melanoma received midostaurin 75 mg p.o. t.i.d., unless toxicity or disease progression supervened. Patient safety was assessed weekly, and tumour response was assessed clinically or by CT. Tumour biopsies and plasma samples obtained at entry and after 4 weeks were analysed for midostaurin concentration, PKC activity and multidrug resistance. No tumour responses were seen. Two (12%) patients had stable disease for 50 and 85 days, with minor response in one. The median overall survival was 43 days. Seven (41%) discontinued treatment with potential toxicity, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and/or fatigue. One patient had >50% reduction in PKC activity. Tumour biopsies showed two PKC isoforms relatively insensitive to midostaurin, out of three patients tested. No modulation of multidrug resistance was demonstrated. At this dose schedule, midostaurin did not show clinical or biologic activity against metastatic melanoma. This negative trial reinforces the importance of correlating biologic and clinical responses in early clinical trials of targeted therapies

Structural basis of purine nucleotide inhibition of human uncoupling protein 1

Mitochondrial uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) gives brown adipose tissue of mammals its specialized ability to burn calories as heat for thermoregulation. When activated by fatty acids, UCP1 catalyzes the leak of protons across the mitochondrial inner membrane, short-circuiting the mitochondrion to generate heat, bypassing ATP synthesis. In contrast, purine nucleotides bind and inhibit UCP1, regulating proton leak by a molecular mechanism that is unclear. We present the cryo–electron microscopy structure of the GTP-inhibited state of UCP1, which is consistent with its nonconducting state. The purine nucleotide cross-links the transmembrane helices of UCP1 with an extensive interaction network. Our results provide a structural basis for understanding the specificity and pH dependency of the regulatory mechanism. UCP1 has retained all of the key functional and structural features required for a mitochondrial carrier–like transport mechanism. The analysis shows that inhibitor binding prevents the conformational changes that UCP1 uses to facilitate proton leak

Changes in zooplankton community, and seston and zooplankton fatty acid profiles at the freshwater/saltwater interface of the Chowan River, North Carolina

The variability in zooplankton fatty acid composition may be an indicator of larval fish habitat quality as fatty acids are linked to fish larval growth and survival. We sampled an anadromous fish nursery, the Chowan River, during spring of 2013 in order to determine how the seston fatty acid composition varied in comparison with the zooplankton community composition and fatty acid composition during the period of anadromous larval fish residency. The seston fatty acid profiles showed no distinct pattern in relation to sampling time or location. The mesozooplankton community composition varied spatially and the fatty acid profiles were typical of freshwater species in April. The Chowan River experienced a saltwater intrusion event during May, which resulted in brackish water species dominating the zooplankton community and the fatty acid profile showed an increase in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), in particular eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The saltwater intrusion event was followed by an influx of freshwater due to high precipitation levels in June. The zooplankton community composition once again became dominated by freshwater species and the fatty acid profiles shifted to reflect this change; however, EPA levels remained high, particularly in the lower river. We found correlations between the seston, microzooplankton and mesozooplankton fatty acid compositions. Salinity was the main factor correlated to the observed pattern in species composition, and fatty acid changes in the mesozooplankton. These data suggest that anadromous fish nursery habitat likely experiences considerable spatial variability in fatty acid profiles of zooplankton prey and that are correlated to seston community composition and hydrodynamic changes. Our results also suggest that sufficient prey density as well as a diverse fatty acid composition is present in the Chowan River to support larval fish production