Stepwise evolution of the Sec machinery in Proteobacteria

The Sec machinery facilitates the translocation of proteins across and into biological membranes. In several of the Proteobacteria, this machinery contains accessory features that are not present in any other bacterial division. The genomic distribution of these features in the context of bacterial phylogeny suggests that the Sec machinery has evolved in discrete steps. The canonical Sec machinery was initially supplemented with SecB; subsequently, SecE was extended with two transmembrane segments and, finally, SecM was introduced. The Sec machinery of Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriales represents the end product of this stepwise evolution.</p

Pilot Sportplein Groningen: zelfregulatie in het VMBO

In het kader van kwaliteitsverbetering van bewegingsonderwijs heeft er in het voorjaar van 2014 een pilot plaatsgevonden waarin in een tweetal lessenreeksen van drie lessen (floorball en judo) meer aandacht is geweest voor zelfregulatie. Zelfregulatie is de mate waarin een individu in staat is om zelfstandig, doelbewust en efficiënt te leren door het gebruik van verschillende vaardigheden. Uit onderzoek onder sporttalenten is gebleken dat zelfregulatie een belangrijke rol speelt omdat sporttalenten in korte tijd veel moeten leren om de top te bereiken. Ook in de schoolcontext is zelfregulatie een belangrijke bepaler voor succes. Doelstelling van de pilot is zelfregulatie een plek te geven binnen de lessen judo en floorball, gegeven op het VMBO. Met het stimuleren van zelfregulatie bij de doelgroep VMBO leerlingen is nog weinig ervaring en de pilot dient dan ook ter verkenning. Om te leren van de ervaringen met de pilot, is hieraan een exploratief onderzoek gekoppeld, met het volgende doel: Inzicht geven in hoeverre zelfregulatie een plek krijgt binnen de pilotlessen floorball en judo en evalueren hoe leerlingen en docenten de lessen ervaren. Het onderzoek is uitgevoerd in opdracht van Sportplein Groninge

Risk factors for injury in talented soccer and tennis players:A maturation-driven approach

Talented athletes having their growth spurt have an increased injury riskYoung talented athletes that mature have an increased injury risk. Human movement scientist Alien van der Sluis studied soccer players of the talent development program of FC Groningen and tennis players of the talented development program of the Royal Dutch Lawn Tennis Federation (KNLTB). The soccer players were followed for three years around their adolescent growth spurt. In the year of their growth spurt, players have more injuries compared to the year before or the year after, and they miss more training sessions and matches. A possible cause is the different rates in which bone tissue, muscle tissue and tendon tissue adapt to the growing body. More specific, players that grow more than 0.6 cm in one month, have an increased risk for injury in the next month. Moreover, players with a late growth spurt are relatively small compared to their peers, and this leads to more injuries compared to their ‘earlier mature’ counterparts.Furthermore, tennis players high in risk-taking behavior (typical for puberty), have more injuries and players with better metacognitive skills such as monitoring, have less injuries. Players may be better capable of monitoring small physical complaints, which could help them to prevent themselves from having more severe injuries.Van der Sluis concluded that during puberty, there are specific risk factors for injuries in talented athletes. Coaches and trainers should estimate the moment of the adolescent growth spurt, to take injury preventive measures at the right moment. Monthly monitoring of length, could help to predict an increased risk of injury in periods of intensive growth. At last, it is advised to provide feedback to players high in risk-taking and to educate athletes in monitoring their own training process

Slow Higher Education

Slow education appears in the printed media at regular intervals as a metaphor to counter the constraints of target and assessment driven education, and this article explores whether the notion could travel to Higher Education

Pechora River basin integrated system management PRISM; biodiversity assessment for the Pechora River basin; Cluster B: biodiversity, land use & forestry modeling

This report describes the biodiversity for the Pechora River basin Integrated System Management (PRISM). The Pechora River Basin, situated just west of the Ural Mountains, Russia, consists of vast boreal forests and tundra landscapes, partly pristine and undisturbed. The concept of biodiversity is discussed and parameters are selected which are descriptive for biodiversity at both the landscape and stand level. Based on these parameters the biodiversity is assessed to describe or quantify impacts of certain forest or land use exploitation scenarios. The chosen parameters for biodiversity should therefore be meaningful for the expected or possible changes. The biodiversity is described, based on field data which was collected for vascular plants, lichens, mosses, invertebrates, birds, mammals, fishes, reptiles and amphibians and benthos. For the different taxa it is described and discussed what the biodiversity is of the Pechora River Basin, for the different land units that have been defined. The results are extrapolated to the River Basin leve

Mechanisms of cancer immunotherapy combinations

Clinical responses to immunotherapy can be complete and sustained; however, compared to responses to conventional cancer therapies such as chemotherapy they are often delayed. It has become clear that when different cancer therapies are combined they can potentially synergize. Understanding how individual cancer therapeutics work enables the development of the most optimal combinations of cancer therapies. In this thesis, we have used interesting combinations of chemotherapy, cancer vaccines and immune checkpoint blockade and obtained insights in the mechanisms involved in these combinations. For example, we combined chemotherapy with vaccination and observed that none of the tested chemotherapeutics had a negative effect on vaccination, while only a few displayed synergy with vaccination in tumor eradication. We found that vaccine-induced T cells produce Tumor Necrosis Factor-α which could sensitize tumor cells for chemotherapy-induced cell death. Furthermore, we have shown that different cancer therapies modulate intratumoral myeloid cells in a unique manner which can critically affect the therapeutic efficacy of the therapy. Understanding how different therapies affect the local tumor environment will help to improve clinical responses and decrease toxicity in patients