Impact of Mueusems in Cultural Scoiety - A Case Study

Museums with strong brands or those that inhabit iconic buildings are increasingly used as cultural motifs in the destination-marketing strategies of public tourist bodies. Recent examples include the use of the British Museum in Visit Britain's Culture is Great campaign, or the Turner Contemporary as a symbol of Margate's brand enhancement. The latest figures from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) once again underlined the importance of museums to the visitor economy. Meanwhile, the new Arts Council England and Visit England partnership, which aims to help destinations develop their cultural tourism, provides an opportunity for museums to take a strategic lead in this area. But could it also result in greater reliance on marketing-orientated approaches that might not benefit the entire museum sector

Pengaruh Pemberian Ekstrak Jambe (Areca Catechu) Terhadap Pertambahan Berat Badan Ayam Kampung Jantan

ABSTRAK Telah dilakukan percobaan mengenai pengaruh ekstrak jambe untuk meningkatkan berat badan ayam kampung jantan. Percobaan dilakukan di Laboratorium Patologi Fakultas Kedokteran Hewan Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta. Percobaan dilakukan dengan 12 ekor ayam yang diberi perlakuan ekstrak jambe secara oral. Hewan dibagi menjadi tiga kelompok dengan satu kelompok sebanyak 4 ekor. Perlakuan pertama diberi ekstrak jambe peroral sebesar 1 ml, perlakuan kedua sebesar 2 ml dan kontrol diberi plasebo. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa perlakuan kontrol tidak terdapat pengaruh terhadap peristiwa spermatogenesis pada testis dari 4 sampel perlakuan dan terjadi peningkatan berat badan sebesar 425 gram. Perlakuan I terdapat pengaruh terhadap spermatogenesis sebesar 2 sampel dari 4 ekor dan efek peningkatan berat badan sebesar 542,188 gram dan perlakuan II terdapat pengaruh terhadap spermatogenesis sebesar 1 dari 4 perlakuan dan terdapat peningkatan berat badan sebesar 431,25 gram. Dengan test anova di dapat P hasil sebesar 0,1665 ( P>0,1)

High-throughput 18K SNP array to assess genetic variability of the main grapevine cultivars from Sicily

The viticulture of Sicily, for its vocation, is one of the most important and ancient forms in Italy. Autochthonous grapevine cultivars, many of which known throughout the world, have always been cultivated in the island from many centuries. With the aim to preserve this large grapevine diversity, previous studies have already started to assess the genetic variability among the Sicilian cultivars by using morphological and microsatellite markers. In this study, simple sequence repeat (SSR) were utilized to verify the true-to-typeness of a large clone collection (101) belonging to 21 biotypes of the most 10 cultivated Sicilian cultivars. Afterwards, 42 Organization Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin (OIV) descriptors and a high-throughput single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping array (Vitis18kSNP) were applied to assess genetic variability among cultivars and biotypes of the same cultivar. Ampelographic traits and high-throughput SNP genotyping platforms provided an accuracy estimation of genetic diversity in the Sicilian germplasm, showing the relationships among cultivars by cluster and multivariate analyses. The large SNP panel defined sub-clusters unable to discern among biotypes, previously classified by ampelographic analysis, belonging to each cultivar. These results suggested that a very large number of SNP did not cover the genome regions harboring few morphological traits. Genetic structure of the collection revealed a clear optimum number of groups for K = 3, clustering in the same group a significant portion of family-related genotypes. Parentage analysis highlighted significant relationships among Sicilian grape cultivars and Sangiovese, as already reported, but also the first evidences of the relationships between Nero d’Avola and both Inzolia and Catarratto. Finally, a small panel of highly informative markers (12 SNPs) allowed us to isolate a private profile for each Sicilian cultivar, providing a new tool for cultivar identification

Investigation of Solar Photovoltaic-Thermal (PVT) and Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Performance: A Case Study in Ghana

publishedVersio

Regulation of immunity during visceral Leishmania infection

Unicellular eukaryotes of the genus Leishmania are collectively responsible for a heterogeneous group of diseases known as leishmaniasis. The visceral form of leishmaniasis, caused by L. donovani or L. infantum, is a devastating condition, claiming 20,000 to 40,000 lives annually, with particular incidence in some of the poorest regions of the world. Immunity to Leishmania depends on the development of protective type I immune responses capable of activating infected phagocytes to kill intracellular amastigotes. However, despite the induction of protective responses, disease progresses due to a multitude of factors that impede an optimal response. These include the action of suppressive cytokines, exhaustion of specific T cells, loss of lymphoid tissue architecture and a defective humoral response. We will review how these responses are orchestrated during the course of infection, including both early and chronic stages, focusing on the spleen and the liver, which are the main target organs of visceral Leishmania in the host. A comprehensive understanding of the immune events that occur during visceral Leishmania infection is crucial for the implementation of immunotherapeutic approaches that complement the current anti-Leishmania chemotherapy and the development of effective vaccines to prevent disease.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No.602773 (Project KINDRED). VR is supported by a post-doctoral fellowship granted by the KINDReD consortium. RS thanks the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for an Investigator Grant (IF/00021/2014). This work was supported by grants to JE from ANR (LEISH-APO, France), Partenariat Hubert Curien (PHC) (program Volubilis, MA/11/262). JE acknowledges the support of the Canada Research Chair Program

Revisiting the B-cell compartment in mouse and humans: more than one B-cell subset exists in the marginal zone and beyond.

International audienceABSTRACT: The immunological roles of B-cells are being revealed as increasingly complex by functions that are largely beyond their commitment to differentiate into plasma cells and produce antibodies, the key molecular protagonists of innate immunity, and also by their compartmentalisation, a more recently acknowledged property of this immune cell category. For decades, B-cells have been recognised by their expression of an immunoglobulin that serves the function of an antigen receptor, which mediates intracellular signalling assisted by companion molecules. As such, B-cells were considered simple in their functioning compared to the other major type of immune cell, the T-lymphocytes, which comprise conventional T-lymphocyte subsets with seminal roles in homeostasis and pathology, and non-conventional T-lymphocyte subsets for which increasing knowledge is accumulating. Since the discovery that the B-cell family included two distinct categories - the non-conventional, or extrafollicular, B1 cells, that have mainly been characterised in the mouse; and the conventional, or lymph node type, B2 cells - plus the detailed description of the main B-cell regulator, FcγRIIb, and the function of CD40+ antigen presenting cells as committed/memory B-cells, progress in B-cell physiology has been slower than in other areas of immunology. Cellular and molecular tools have enabled the revival of innate immunity by allowing almost all aspects of cellular immunology to be re-visited. As such, B-cells were found to express "Pathogen Recognition Receptors" such as TLRs, and use them in concert with B-cell signalling during innate and adaptive immunity. An era of B-cell phenotypic and functional analysis thus began that encompassed the study of B-cell microanatomy principally in the lymph nodes, spleen and mucosae. The novel discovery of the differential localisation of B-cells with distinct phenotypes and functions revealed the compartmentalisation of B-cells. This review thus aims to describe novel findings regarding the B-cell compartments found in the mouse as a model organism, and in human physiology and pathology. It must be emphasised that some differences are noticeable between the mouse and human systems, thus increasing the complexity of B-cell compartmentalisation. Special attention will be given to the (lymph node and spleen) marginal zones, which represent major crossroads for B-cell types and functions and a challenge for understanding better the role of B-cell specificities in innate and adaptive immunology

The evolution of university governance in Ghana: implications for education policy and practice

The relationship between education and public policy is two way: (1) economic development of a nation depends on the human capital produced by the education system of that nation and (2) public spending and management of the education system is crucial to the welfare of the nation. Changes in this relationship generate public concerns about university governance and its implications to national development. Therefore, this study explores the questions: (1) Have the role and purpose of university governance changed since its inception? (2) Are there differences between the old and the new system of university governance? (3) What larger ramifications does this have on university governance? The study was conducted within the framework of qualitative research design. The researchers adopted the social constructivist worldview with phenomenology approach to inquiry. Participants who were mainly eminent former senior university administrators and regulators with management, administrative and governance experience in public and private university were interviewed. Data was transcribed and read repeatedly over time to make sense of issues raised by informants. Significant statements were selected, interpreted and used in the text to highlight key issues as well as to provide voice of the informants. The findings of the study suggest that remedies for the changes realized in governance should take into account measures such as strengthening institutional capacities; balancing between the interests of the private and public sector actors in university education; and safeguarding the policy space of the ordinary people to participate in university education affairs that concern or affect them

A humanized mouse model identifies key amino acids for low immunogenicity of H7N9 vaccines

Influenza vaccines of H7N9 subtype are consistently less immunogenic in humans than vaccines developed for other subtypes. Although prior immunoinformatic analysis identified T-cell epitopes in H7 hemagglutinin (HA) which potentially enhance regulatory T cell response due to conservation with the human genome, the links between the T-cell epitopes and low immunogenicity of H7 HA remains unknown due to the lack of animal models reproducing the response observed in humans. Here, we utilized a humanized mouse model to recapitulate the low immunogenicity of H7 HA. Our analysis demonstrated that modification of a single H7 epitope by changing 3 amino acids so that it is homologous with a known H3 immunogenic epitope sequence significantly improved the immunogenicity of the H7 HA in the humanized mouse model, leading to a greater than 4-fold increase in HA-binding IgG responses. Thus, we provide experimental evidence for the important contribution of this H7-specific T cell epitope in determining the immunogenicity of an influenza vaccine. Furthermore, this study delineates strategies that can be used for screening and selecting vaccine strains using immunoinformatics tools and a humanized mouse model

Antimicrobial resistance profiling of Salmonella enterica distinct serotypes isolated from pork in São Paulo

Salmonellosis still is one of the most important worldwide zoonosis due to its high endemicity, mortality, and difficulty in control (Stevens et al., 2009). In the São Paulo city, different realities regarding good production practices and quality control of animal products coexists, especially when considering points of direct consumer sales. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial resistance profiles of Salmonella enterica distinct serotypes isolated from pork in São Paulo

Incompetence of Neutrophils to Invasive Group A streptococcus Is Attributed to Induction of Plural Virulence Factors by Dysfunction of a Regulator

Group A streptococcus (GAS) causes variety of diseases ranging from common pharyngitis to life-threatening severe invasive diseases, including necrotizing fasciitis and streptococcal toxic shock-like syndrome. The characteristic of invasive GAS infections has been thought to attribute to genetic changes in bacteria, however, no clear evidence has shown due to lack of an intriguingly study using serotype-matched isolates from clinical severe invasive GAS infections. In addition, rare outbreaks of invasive infections and their distinctive pathology in which infectious foci without neutrophil infiltration hypothesized us invasive GAS could evade host defense, especially neutrophil functions. Herein we report that a panel of serotype-matched GAS, which were clinically isolated from severe invasive but not from non-invaive infections, could abrogate functions of human polymorphnuclear neutrophils (PMN) in at least two independent ways; due to inducing necrosis to PMN by enhanced production of a pore-forming toxin streptolysin O (SLO) and due to impairment of PMN migration via digesting interleukin-8, a PMN attracting chemokine, by increased production of a serine protease ScpC. Expression of genes was upregulated by a loss of repressive function with the mutation of csrS gene in the all emm49 severe invasive GAS isolates. The csrS mutants from clinical severe invasive GAS isolates exhibited high mortality and disseminated infection with paucity of neutrophils, a characteristic pathology seen in human invasive GAS infection, in a mouse model. However, GAS which lack either SLO or ScpC exhibit much less mortality than the csrS-mutated parent invasive GAS isolate to the infected mice. These results suggest that the abilities of GAS to abrogate PMN functions can determine the onset and severity of invasive GAS infection