The Impact of Accreditation Standards in Developing Library and Information Science Master’s Degree Program in Jordan: A Comparative Study with American Library Association (ALA) Standards

Standards and their application are a tool to reach the required level of academic performance to ensure providing the society and labor market with a distinct level of graduates. Library science, as an academic field, is in dire need for such standards to raise the level of the scientific field and of functionality and library services. This is the ultimate goal of the field. This study evaluated Jordanian standards for Master Degree in Library Science through a comparison with the ALA standards. The study concluded that Jordanian standards are general for all postgraduate studies in all scientific fields, so there are no specific standards for the master’s program in library science. The Jordanian standards are issued by a commission which is not linked with the profession and this makes the standards lack too many necessary requirements for the scientific knowledge of libraries as a field of study and as a profession. Keywords: Standards; Master’s Degree; ALA standards; postgraduate studies; Jordan

Expression of variable viruses as herpes simplex glycoprotein D and varicella zoster gE glycoprotein using a novel plasmid based expression system in insect cell

AbstractSeveral prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems have been used for in vitro production of viruses’ proteins. However eukaryotic expression system was always the first choice for production of proteins that undergo post-translational modification such as glycosylation. Recombinant baculoviruses have been widely used as safe vectors to express heterologous genes in the culture of insect cells, but the manipulation involved in creating, titrating, and amplifying viral stocks make it time consuming and laborious. Therefore, to facilitate rapid expression in insect cell, a plasmid based expression system was used to express herpes simplex type 1 glycoprotein D (HSV-1 gD) and varicella zoster glycoprotein E (VZV gE). Recombinant plasmids were generated, transfected into insect cells (SF9), and both glycoproteins were expressed 48h post-infection. A protein with approximately molecular weight of 64-kDa and 98-kDa for HSV-1 gD and VZV gE respectively was expressed and confirmed by SDS. Proteins were detected in insect cells cytoplasm and outer membrane by immunofluorescence. The antigenicity and immunoreactivity of each protein were confirmed by immunoblot and ELISA. Results suggest that this system can be an alternative to the traditional baculovirus expression for small scale expression system in insect cells