Social policy approaches to Hurricane Katrina and the Christchurch Earthquakes

Using secondary sources, the purpose of this thesis is to compare the two disasters – Hurricane Katrina in the United States and the two Christchurch Earthquakes in New Zealand and show how the countries managed the aftermath of each of the disasters. The thesis explores Esping-Andersen’s concept of welfare typologies and shows where New Zealand and the United States fit into his framework. The thesis also reviewed some critiques to Esping-Andersen’s typology. It details the events of the disasters and how the respective governments responded given their social policy approaches

The Factors Affecting the Consumer Buying Behaviour Towards Local Brand of Food Product in Selangor

The aim of this study is to determine the factors affecting the consumer buying behaviour toward food products in Selangor. Consumer behaviours comprise four factors: cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors. These factors influence consumer buying behaviour toward Malaysian local brands. Data were collected through online questionnaires using Google form. The sample of study consisted of 210 consumers in Selangor. In particular, principal components analysis (PCA) was employed in order to identify the factors that affect consumers on preferring locally produced food products. The findings of this study indicate that Halal logo was the first choice in terms of consumer’s perspective on the product attributes when buying food products followed by price. Size and quantity, and packaging are the third and fourth attributes considered by consumers when buying food products.  Our result suggests that, by providing this consumer information to small scale or local sellers will encourage more consumers to purchase local food products

Prevalence of Potentially Inappropriate Medications Use Among Recently Admitted Geriatric Patients in Rural Hospitals

Potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) are prescribed most often to elderly patients and can cause serious adverse effects. Older adults tend to use multiple medications, and age-related physiological changes can make some medications inappropriate. The aims of this study are to determine the prevalence of PIMs use for older patients admitted to rural hospitals; to identify the most frequently prescribed PIMs in this population; to compare the number of PIMs identified using two tools, STOPP criteria and Beers’ criteria; and to identify the total number of PIMs identified when using both sets of criteria. Secondly, this study explores the factors associated with PIMs use in this group. These objectives were examined through an observational study design involving patients aged 65 years and above at rural hospitals. Of the 178 patients enrolled, the median age was 80 and 93 participants (52.2%) were female. The collected data included demographic patient information, medical histories and current diagnoses, number and type of PIMs, and total number of prescribed medications. Using Beers’ criteria, the prevalence of taking at least one PIM was 62.92% among the population, with 112 older adults using 202 PIMs. Using the STOPP criteria, the prevalence of receiving at least one PIM was 69.10%, with 123 patients using 240 PIMs. When both sets of criteria were applied, the proportion using one or more PIMs increased to 73.03%, representing 130 patients using 330 PIMs. Bivariate logistic regression models showed no predictable associations between PIM use and gender, number of illnesses, or age when using both the STOPP and combined criteria models. In contrast, a positive association was found between PIM use and the number of medications, the presence of neurological or urogenital diseases, and age using Beers’ criteria. This study provided insight into the higher prevalence of PIMs in rural healthcare settings. The higher prevalence and number of PIMs under STOPP criteria compared to the Beers criteria were due to differences in their features, while these variances were eliminated when both criteria were concurrently applied. The continued use of PIMs among older patients is a crucial issue that requires further research to discover the underlying reasons of continued prescription of PIMs particularly in rural regions, and to determine an ideal approach that prevents PIM-related problems.1 yea

A collaborative filtering similarity measure based on singularities.

Recommender systems play an important role in reducing the negative impact of informa- tion overload on those websites where users have the possibility of voting for their prefer- ences on items. The most normal technique for dealing with the recommendation mechanism is to use collaborative filtering, in which it is essential to discover the most similar users to whom you desire to make recommendations. The hypothesis of this paper is that the results obtained by applying traditional similarities measures can be improved by taking contextual information, drawn from the entire body of users, and using it to cal- culate the singularity which exists, for each item, in the votes cast by each pair of users that you wish to compare. As such, the greater the measure of singularity result between the votes cast by two given users, the greater the impact this will have on the similarity. The results, tested on the Movielens, Netflix and FilmAffinity databases, corroborate the excellent behaviour of the singularity measure proposed

Stromal cells differentially regulate neutrophil and lymphocyte recruitment through the endothelium

Stromal fibroblasts modify the initial recruitment of leucocytes by endothelial cells (EC), but their effects on subsequent transendothelial migration remain unclear. Here, EC and dermal or synovial fibroblasts were cultured on opposite surfaces of 3-lm pore filters and incorporated in static or flow-based migration assays. Fibroblasts had little effect on tumour necrosis factor-a-induced transendothelial migration of neutrophils,but tended to increase the efficiency of migration away from the endothelium.Surprisingly, similar close contact between EC and fibroblasts strongly reduced lymphocyte migration in static assays, and nearly abolished stable lymphocyte adhesion from flow. Fibroblasts did not alter endothelial surface expression of adhesion molecules or messenger RNA for chemokines. Inhibition of attachment did not occur when EC-fibroblast contact was restricted by using 04-lm pore filters, but under these conditions pre-treatment with heparinase partially inhibited adhesion. In the 3-lm pore co-cultures, inhibition of metalloproteinase activity partially recovered lymphocyte adhesion, but addition of CXCL12 (SDF-1a) to the endothelial surface did not. Hence, the ability of EC to present activating chemokines for lymphocytes may have been enzymatically inhibited by direct contact with fibroblasts. To avoid contact, we cultured EC and fibroblasts on separate 3-lm pore filters one above the other. Here,fibroblasts promoted the transendothelial migration of lymphocytes. Fibroblasts generate CXCL12, but blockade of CXCL12 receptor had no effect on lymphocyte migration. While stromal cells can provide signal(s)promoting leucocyte migration away from the sub-endothelial space,direct cell contact (which might occur in damaged tissue) may cause disruption of chemokine signalling, specifically inhibiting lymphocyte rather than neutrophil recruitment

The intestinal expulsion of the roundworm Ascaris suum is associated with eosinophils, intra-epithelial T cells and decreased intestinal transit time

Ascaris lumbricoides remains the most common endoparasite in humans, yet there is still very little information available about the immunological principles of protection, especially those directed against larval stages. Due to the natural host-parasite relationship, pigs infected with A. suum make an excellent model to study the mechanisms of protection against this nematode. In pigs, a self-cure reaction eliminates most larvae from the small intestine between 14 and 21 days post infection. In this study, we investigated the mucosal immune response leading to the expulsion of A. suum and the contribution of the hepato-tracheal migration. Self-cure was independent of previous passage through the liver or lungs, as infection with lung stage larvae did not impair self-cure. When animals were infected with 14-day-old intestinal larvae, the larvae were being driven distally in the small intestine around 7 days post infection but by 18 days post infection they re-inhabited the proximal part of the small intestine, indicating that more developed larvae can counter the expulsion mechanism. Self-cure was consistently associated with eosinophilia and intra-epithelial T cells in the jejunum. Furthermore, we identified increased gut movement as a possible mechanism of self-cure as the small intestinal transit time was markedly decreased at the time of expulsion of the worms. Taken together, these results shed new light on the mechanisms of self-cure that occur during A. suum infections

Priming by Chemokines Restricts Lateral Mobility of the Adhesion Receptor LFA-1 and Restores Adhesion to ICAM-1 Nano-Aggregates on Human Mature Dendritic Cells

LFA-1 is a leukocyte specific β2 integrin that plays a major role in regulating adhesion and migration of different immune cells. Recent data suggest that LFA-1 on mature dendritic cells (mDCs) may function as a chemokine-inducible anchor during homing of DCs through the afferent lymphatics into the lymph nodes, by transiently switching its molecular conformational state. However, the role of LFA-1 mobility in this process is not yet known, despite that the importance of lateral organization and dynamics for LFA-1-mediated adhesion regulation is broadly recognized. Using single particle tracking approaches we here show that LFA-1 exhibits higher mobility on resting mDCs compared to monocytes. Lymphoid chemokine CCL21 stimulation of the LFA-1 high affinity state on mDCs, led to a significant reduction of mobility and an increase on the fraction of stationary receptors, consistent with re-activation of the receptor. Addition of soluble monomeric ICAM-1 in the presence of CCL21 did not alter the diffusion profile of LFA-1 while soluble ICAM-1 nano-aggregates in the presence of CCL21 further reduced LFA-1 mobility and readily bound to the receptor. Overall, our results emphasize the importance of LFA-1 lateral mobility across the membrane on the regulation of integrin activation and its function as adhesion receptor. Importantly, our data show that chemokines alone are not sufficient to trigger the high affinity state of the integrin based on the strict definition that affinity refers to the adhesion capacity of a single receptor to its ligand in solution. Instead our data indicate that nanoclustering of the receptor, induced by multi-ligand binding, is required to maintain stable cell adhesion once LFA-1 high affinity state is transiently triggered by inside-out signals.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Structural Basis and Kinetics of Force-Induced Conformational Changes of an αA Domain-Containing Integrin

Integrin α(L)β₂ (lymphocyte function-associated antigen, LFA-1) bears force upon binding to its ligand intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) when a leukocyte adheres to vascular endothelium or an antigen presenting cell (APC) during immune responses. The ligand binding propensity of LFA-1 is related to its conformations, which can be regulated by force. Three conformations of the LFA-1 αA domain, determined by the position of its α₇-helix, have been suggested to correspond to three different affinity states for ligand binding.The kinetics of the force-driven transitions between these conformations has not been defined and dynamically coupled to the force-dependent dissociation from ligand. Here we show, by steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations, that the αA domain was successively transitioned through three distinct conformations upon pulling the C-terminus of its α₇-helix. Based on these sequential transitions, we have constructed a mathematical model to describe the coupling between the αA domain conformational changes of LFA-1 and its dissociation from ICAM-1 under force. Using this model to analyze the published data on the force-induced dissociation of single LFA-1/ICAM-1 bonds, we estimated the force-dependent kinetic rates of interstate transition from the short-lived to intermediate-lived and from intermediate-lived to long-lived states. Interestingly, force increased these transition rates; hence activation of LFA-1 was accelerated by pulling it via an engaged ICAM-1.Our study defines the structural basis for mechanical regulation of the kinetics of LFA-1 αA domain conformational changes and relates these simulation results to experimental data of force-induced dissociation of single LFA-1/ICAM-1 bonds by a new mathematical model, thus provided detailed structural and kinetic characterizations for force-stabilization of LFA-1/ICAM-1 interaction

The Innate Immune Cross Talk between NK Cells and Eosinophils Is Regulated by the Interaction of Natural Cytotoxicity Receptors with Eosinophil Surface Ligands

Previous studies suggested that the cross talk between NK cells and other cell types is crucial for the regulation of both innate and adaptive immune responses. In the present study, we analyzed the phenotypic and functional outcome of the interaction between resting or cytokine-activated NK cells and eosinophils derived from non-atopic donors. Our results provide the first evidence that a natural cytotoxicity receptor (NCR)/NCR ligand-dependent cross talk between NK cells and eosinophils may be important to upregulate the activation state and the effector function of cytokine-primed NK cells. This interaction also promotes the NK-mediated editing process of dendritic cells that influence the process of Th1 polarization. In turn, this cross talk also resulted in eosinophil activation and acquisition of the characteristic features of antigen-presenting cells. At higher NK/eosinophil ratios, cytokine-primed NK cells were found to kill eosinophils via NKp46 and NKp30, thus suggesting a potential immunoregulatory role for NK cells in dampening inflammatory responses involving eosinophils