Beeldcultuur, een drieluik.I: Deconstructie van het fenomeen culturele studies

An important process in glass manufacture is the forming of the product. The forming process takes place at high rate, involves extreme temperatures and is characterised by large deformations. The process can be modelled as a coupled thermodynamical/mechanical problem including the interaction between glass, air and equipment. In this paper a general mathematical model for glass forming is derived, which is specified for different forming processes, in particular pressing and blowing. The model should be able to correctly represent the flow of the glass and the energy exchange during the process. Various modelling aspects are discussed for each process, while several key issues, such as the motion of the plunger and the evolution of the glass-air interfaces, are examined thoroughly. Finally, some examples of process simulations for existing simulation tools are provided

Therapeutic hypothermia translates from ancient history in to practice

Acute postasphyxial encephalopathy around the time of birth remains a major cause of death and disability. The possibility that hypothermia may be able to prevent or lessen asphyxial brain injury is a “dream revisited”. In this review, a historical perspective is provided from the first reported use of therapeutic hypothermia for brain injuries in antiquity, to the present day. The first uncontrolled trials of cooling for resuscitation were reported more than 50 y ago. The seminal insight that led to the modern revival of studies of neuroprotection was that after profound asphyxia, many brain cells show initial recovery from the insult during a short “latent” phase, typically lasting ~6 h, only to die hours to days later during a “secondary” deterioration phase characterized by seizures, cytotoxic edema, and progressive failure of cerebral oxidative metabolism. Studies designed around this conceptual framework showed that mild hypothermia initiated as early as possible before the onset of secondary deterioration, and continued for a sufficient duration to allow the secondary deterioration to resolve, is associated with potent, long-lasting neuroprotection. There is now compelling evidence from randomized controlled trials that mild induced hypothermia significantly improves intact survival and neurodevelopmental outcomes to midchildhood

Complement genes contribute sex-biased vulnerability in diverse disorders.

Many common illnesses, for reasons that have not been identified, differentially affect men and women. For instance, the autoimmune diseases systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and Sjögren's syndrome affect nine times more women than men1, whereas schizophrenia affects men with greater frequency and severity relative to women2. All three illnesses have their strongest common genetic associations in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) locus, an association that in SLE and Sjögren's syndrome has long been thought to arise from alleles of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes at that locus3-6. Here we show that variation of the complement component 4 (C4) genes C4A and C4B, which are also at the MHC locus and have been linked to increased risk for schizophrenia7, generates 7-fold variation in risk for SLE and 16-fold variation in risk for Sjögren's syndrome among individuals with common C4 genotypes, with C4A protecting more strongly than C4B in both illnesses. The same alleles that increase risk for schizophrenia greatly reduce risk for SLE and Sjögren's syndrome. In all three illnesses, C4 alleles act more strongly in men than in women: common combinations of C4A and C4B generated 14-fold variation in risk for SLE, 31-fold variation in risk for Sjögren's syndrome, and 1.7-fold variation in schizophrenia risk among men (versus 6-fold, 15-fold and 1.26-fold variation in risk among women, respectively). At a protein level, both C4 and its effector C3 were present at higher levels in cerebrospinal fluid and plasma8,9 in men than in women among adults aged between 20 and 50 years, corresponding to the ages of differential disease vulnerability. Sex differences in complement protein levels may help to explain the more potent effects of C4 alleles in men, women's greater risk of SLE and Sjögren's syndrome and men's greater vulnerability to schizophrenia. These results implicate the complement system as a source of sexual dimorphism in vulnerability to diverse illnesses

Determining crystal structures through crowdsourcing and coursework

We show here that computer game players can build high-quality crystal structures. Introduction of a new feature into the computer game Foldit allows players to build and real-space refine structures into electron density maps. To assess the usefulness of this feature, we held a crystallographic model-building competition between trained crystallographers, undergraduate students, Foldit players and automatic model-building algorithms. After removal of disordered residues, a team of Foldit players achieved the most accurate structure. Analysing the target protein of the competition, YPL067C, uncovered a new family of histidine triad proteins apparently involved in the prevention of amyloid toxicity. From this study, we conclude that crystallographers can utilize crowdsourcing to interpret electron density information and to produce structure solutions of the highest quality