China and the crisis : global power, domestic caution and local initiative

Even though the global crisis had a quick and dramatic impact on Chinese exports, the Chinese government responded with a range of policy responses that have helped maintain high rates of growth. This success has helped propel China to the centre of global politics, accelerating what many perceive to be a power shift from the West to China. But these gains were achieved by reversing policy in previous years designed to make a fundamental shift in China‟s mode of development, and have highlighted the problems associated with making such a transition. At the moment that many are looking at the Chinese "model" as a potential alternative to the Washington Consensus, one of the consequences of the crisis is to further question the long term efficacy of this "model" in China itself

Tourism policy and destination marketing in developing countries: the chain of influence

Tourism marketers including destination marketing organisations (DMOs) and international tour operators play a pivotal role in destination marketing, especially in creating destination images. These images, apparent in tourist brochures, are designed to influence tourist decision-making and behaviour. This paper proposes the concept of a “chain of influence” in destination marketing and image-making, suggesting that the content of marketing materials is influenced by the priorities of those who design these materials, e.g. tour operators and DMOs. A content analysis of 2,000 pictures from DMO and tour operator brochures revealed synergies and divergence between these marketers. The brochure content was then compared to the South African tourism policy, concluding that the dominant factor in the chain of influence in the South African context is in fact its organic image

It’s part of my life: engaging university and community to enhance science and mathematics education - final report, March 2017

This project is designed to improve mathematics and science teaching in Australian schools by engaging pre-service teachers with the mathematics and science that underpins everyday life in Australian regional communities. The project draws together the strengths of university mathematicians, scientists, and specialist educators to enhance the higher education mathematics and science education curriculum framework by grounding it in the practical contexts that are an integral part of our daily lives. In so doing, 'It's part of my life' addresses two critical issues in mathematics and science education: lack of teacher confidence, and lack of student interest. Along with a flexible and adaptive, scalable model for embedding real-world contexts and related teaching strategies into curriculum, project outcomes include an open educational resource of evaluated and documented real-life scenarios for inclusion in curriculum across all educational levels, tools for evaluating new scenarios, and increased networking amongst university researchers, specialist educators and members of the wider community

Fc engineered ACE2-Fc is a potent multifunctional agent targeting SARS-CoV2

Joining a function-enhanced Fc-portion of human IgG to the SARS-CoV-2 entry receptor ACE2 produces an antiviral decoy with strain transcending virus neutralizing activity. SARS-CoV-2 neutralization and Fc-effector functions of ACE2-Fc decoy proteins, formatted with or without the ACE2 collectrin domain, were optimized by Fc-modification. The different Fc-modifications resulted in distinct effects on neutralization and effector functions. H429Y, a point mutation outside the binding sites for FcγRs or complement caused non-covalent oligomerization of the ACE2-Fc decoy proteins, abrogated FcγR interaction and enhanced SARS-CoV-2 neutralization. Another Fc mutation, H429F did not improve virus neutralization but resulted in increased C5b-C9 fixation and transformed ACE2-Fc to a potent mediator of complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) against SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) expressing cells. Furthermore, modification of the Fc-glycan enhanced cell activation via FcγRIIIa. These different immune profiles demonstrate the capacity of Fc-based agents to be engineered to optimize different mechanisms of protection for SARS-CoV-2 and potentially other viral pathogens

Importance of Preoperative Imaging in Acetabular Revision Surgery - A Case Report

Acetabular defects, particularly as a result of protrusion of acetabular components into the hemipelvis, may cause serious complications during revision procedures as a result of iatrogenic injury to surrounding anatomical structures. In these challenging cases, we advocate the utilisation of preoperative three dimensional imaging. MRI and CT- imaging offer superior understanding of the three-dimensional quality of bony defects and the relationship of implants to important anatomical structures. Appropriate preoperative planning may also prevent major complications during the removal of the pre-existing hardware, prior to re-implantation of implants. Potential complications include injury of nerves, blood vessels and other intrapelvic structures

Large Scale Benchmark of Materials Design Methods

Lack of rigorous reproducibility and validation are major hurdles for scientific development across many fields. Materials science in particular encompasses a variety of experimental and theoretical approaches that require careful benchmarking. Leaderboard efforts have been developed previously to mitigate these issues. However, a comprehensive comparison and benchmarking on an integrated platform with multiple data modalities with both perfect and defect materials data is still lacking. This work introduces JARVIS-Leaderboard, an open-source and community-driven platform that facilitates benchmarking and enhances reproducibility. The platform allows users to set up benchmarks with custom tasks and enables contributions in the form of dataset, code, and meta-data submissions. We cover the following materials design categories: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Electronic Structure (ES), Force-fields (FF), Quantum Computation (QC) and Experiments (EXP). For AI, we cover several types of input data, including atomic structures, atomistic images, spectra, and text. For ES, we consider multiple ES approaches, software packages, pseudopotentials, materials, and properties, comparing results to experiment. For FF, we compare multiple approaches for material property predictions. For QC, we benchmark Hamiltonian simulations using various quantum algorithms and circuits. Finally, for experiments, we use the inter-laboratory approach to establish benchmarks. There are 1281 contributions to 274 benchmarks using 152 methods with more than 8 million data-points, and the leaderboard is continuously expanding. The JARVIS-Leaderboard is available at the website: https://pages.nist.gov/jarvis_leaderboar

Polypharmacy among anabolic-androgenic steroid users: A descriptive metasynthesis

Background: As far as we are aware, no previous systematic review and synthesis of the qualitative/descriptive literature on polypharmacy in anabolic-androgenic steroid(s) (AAS) users has been published. Method: We systematically reviewed and synthesized qualitative/descriptive literature gathered from searches in electronic databases and by inspecting reference lists of relevant literature to investigate AAS users' polypharmacy. We adhered to the recommendations of the UK Economic and Social Research Council's qualitative research synthesis manual and the PRISMA guidelines. Results: A total of 50 studies published between 1985 and 2014 were included in the analysis. Studies originated from 10 countries although most originated from United States (n = 22), followed by Sweden (n = 7), England only (n = 5), and the United Kingdom (n = 4). It was evident that prior to their debut, AAS users often used other licit and illicit substances. The main ancillary/supplementary substances used were alcohol, and cannabis/cannabinoids followed by cocaine, growth hormone, and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), amphetamine/meth, clenbuterol, ephedra/ephedrine, insulin, and thyroxine. Other popular substance classes were analgesics/opioids, dietary/nutritional supplements, and diuretics. Our classification of the various substances used by AAS users resulted in 13 main groups. These non-AAS substances were used mainly to enhance the effects of AAS, combat the side effects of AAS, and for recreational or relaxation purposes, as well as sexual enhancement. Conclusions: Our findings corroborate previous suggestions of associations between AAS use and the use of other licit and illicit substances. Efforts must be intensified to combat the debilitating effects of AAS-associated polypharmacy

Positive Selection Shaped the Convergent Evolution of Independently Expanded Kallikrein Subfamilies Expressed in Mouse and Rat Saliva Proteomes

We performed proteomics studies of salivas from the genome mouse (C57BL/6 strain) and the genome rat (BN/SsNHsd/Mcwi strain). Our goal was to identify salivary proteins with one or more of three characteristics that may indicate that they have been involved in adaptation: 1) rapid expansion of their gene families; 2) footprints of positive selection; and/or 3) sex-limited expression. The results of our proteomics studies allow direct comparison of the proteins expressed and their levels between the sexes of the two rodent species. Twelve members of the Mus musculus species-specific kallikrein subfamily Klk1b showed sex-limited expression in the mouse saliva proteomes. By contrast, we did not find any of the Rattus norvegicus species-specific kallikrein subfamily Klk1c proteins in male or female genome rat, nor transcripts in their submandibular glands. On the other hand, we detected expression of this family as transcripts in the submandibular glands of both sexes of Sprague-Dawley rats. Using the CODEML program in the PAML package, we demonstrate that the two rodent kallikrein subfamilies have apparently evolved rapidly under the influence of positive selection that continually remodeled the amino acid sites on the same face in the members of the subfamilies. Thus, although their kallikrein subfamily expansions were independent, this evolutionary pattern has occurred in parallel in the two rodent species, suggesting a form of convergent evolution at the molecular level. On the basis of this new data, we suggest that the previous speculative function of the species-specific rodent kallikreins as important solely in wound healing in males be investigated further. In addition to or instead of that function, we propose that their sex-limited expression, coupled with their rapid evolution may be clues to an as-yet-undetermined interaction between the sexes