Green consumer markets in the fight against climate change

Climate change has become one of the greatest threats to environmental security, as attested by the growing frequency of severe flooding and storms, extreme temperatures and droughts. Accordingly, the European Union’s (EU) 6th Environment Action Programme (2010) lists tackling climate change as its first priority. A key aim of the EU has been to cut CO2 emissions, a major factor in climate change, by 8% until 2012 and 20% until 2020. The European Commission has proposed the encouragement of private consumer market for green products and services as one of several solutions to this problem. However, existing research suggests that the market share of these products has been only 3%, although 30% of individuals favour environmental and ethical goods. This article uses Public Goods Theory to explain why the contribution of the green consumer market to fighting climate change has been and possibly may remain limited without further public intervention

Image-based modeling of tumor growth in patients with glioma.

International audienceno abstrac

OptiJ: Open-source optical projection tomography of large organ samples

The three-dimensional imaging of mesoscopic samples with Optical Projection Tomography (OPT) has become a powerful tool for biomedical phenotyping studies. OPT uses visible light to visualize the 3D morphology of large transparent samples. To enable a wider application of OPT, we present OptiJ, a low-cost, fully open-source OPT system capable of imaging large transparent specimens up to 13 mm tall and 8 mm deep with 50 µm resolution. OptiJ is based on off-the-shelf, easy-to-assemble optical components and an ImageJ plugin library for OPT data reconstruction. The software includes novel correction routines for uneven illumination and sample jitter in addition to CPU/GPU accelerated reconstruction for large datasets. We demonstrate the use of OptiJ to image and reconstruct cleared lung lobes from adult mice. We provide a detailed set of instructions to set up and use the OptiJ framework. Our hardware and software design are modular and easy to implement, allowing for further open microscopy developments for imaging large organ samples

Multiple publications: The main reason for the retraction of papers in computer science

This paper intends to review the reasons for the retraction over the last decade. The paper particularly aims at reviewing these reasons with reference to computer science field to assist authors in comprehending the style of writing. To do that, a total of thirty-six retracted papers found on the Web of Science within Jan 2007 through July 2017 are explored. Given the retraction notices which are based on ten common reasons, this paper classifies the two main categories, namely random and nonrandom retraction. Retraction due to the duplication of publications scored the highest proportion of all other reasons reviewed

Correction to: The Transition from Hunting–Gathering to Food Production in the Gamo Highlands of Southern Ethiopia

The article The Transition from Hunting–Gathering to Food Production in the Gamo Highlands of Southern Ethiopi

Use of humanised rat basophilic leukaemia cell line RS-ATL8 for the assessment of allergenicity of Schistosoma mansoni proteins.

BACKGROUND Parasite-specific IgE is thought to correlate with protection against Schistosoma mansoni infection or re-infection. Only a few molecular targets of the IgE response in S. mansoni infection have been characterised. A better insight into the basic mechanisms of anti-parasite immunity could be gained from a genome-wide characterisation of such S. mansoni allergens. This would have repercussions on our understanding of allergy and the development of safe and efficacious vaccinations against helminthic parasites. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A complete medium- to high-throughput amenable workflow, including important quality controls, is described, which enables the rapid translation of S. mansoni proteins using wheat germ lysate and subsequent assessment of potential allergenicity with a humanised Rat Basophilic Leukemia (RBL) reporter cell line. Cell-free translation is completed within 90 minutes, generating sufficient amounts of parasitic protein for rapid screening of allergenicity without any need for purification. Antigenic integrity is demonstrated using Western Blotting. After overnight incubation with infected individuals' serum, the RS-ATL8 reporter cell line is challenged with the complete wheat germ translation mixture and Luciferase activity measured, reporting cellular activation by the suspected allergen. The suitability of this system for characterization of novel S. mansoni allergens is demonstrated using well characterised plant and parasitic allergens such as Par j 2, SmTAL-1 and the IgE binding factor IPSE/alpha-1, expressed in wheat germ lysates and/or E. coli. SmTAL-1, but not SmTAL2 (used as a negative control), was able to activate the basophil reporter cell line. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE This method offers an accessible way for assessment of potential allergenicity of anti-helminthic vaccine candidates and is suitable for medium- to high-throughput studies using infected individual sera. It is also suitable for the study of the basis of allergenicity of helminthic proteins