J M Barrie and the ballets russes

Barrie’s playlet The Truth about the Russian Dancers (written as a direct response to the impact upon British cultural life of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes) has been hardly discussed in the literary scholarship dedicated to his writings. By placing the playlet in the social and political context of the age, as well as focusing on close analysis of the textual variants of the manuscript, the paper discusses Barrie’s exploration of the impressionistic notion of the unfamiliar and the exotic. It is shown that as a searching piece of dramatic criticism, the work provides a penetrating reflection on cultural dialogism produced within the framework of a modernist, rather than Edwardian platform, and thus puts into new perspective certain aspects of the British perception of what was notoriously categorised as the Russian myth

Modification of fluid lipid and mobile protein fractions of reticulocyte plasma membranes affects agonist-stimulated adenylate cyclase. Application of the percolation theory

AbstractThe technique of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching was used to measure the lateral mobility of membrane integral proteins in reticulocyte plasma membranes which were treated to modify the ‘fluid’ lipid or immobilized protein fractions, hence increasing the relative prevalence of obstacles to protein lateral motion. This was achieved by either: (1) treating the plasma membranes with phospholipase A2 followed by extraction of the hydrolysis products using fatty-acid-free bovine serum albumin, resulting in a decrease in the membrane ‘fluid’ lipid portion; or (2) preincubating the plasma membranes with polylysines, resulting in plasma membrane protein aggregation and immobilization. As the prevalence of obstacles to lateral motion increased in plasma membranes through the treatments described above, the mobility of the membrane integral proteins diminished. Experimental results for the dependence of protein mobility on the prevalence of obstacles to lateral motion were compared to theoretical data in order to verify the applicability of the percolation theory to reticulocyte plasma membranes. The influence of a decrease in the ‘fluid’ lipid and an increase in the immobilized membrane protein fractions upon the hormone-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity has been studied as well. As the ‘solid’ lipid and immobilized membrane protein fractions decreased, both the hormone-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity and the fraction of β-adrenergic receptors with high affinity to hormone diminished. It was shown that this correlation can be caused by a decrease in membrane fraction accessible to the movement of the interacting proteins of the adenylate cyclase complex. Hormonal stimulation of adenylate cyclase is discussed in terms of the percolation theory

The role of NK cells in selectin-dependent tumor suppression

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Biology, 2008.Includes bibliographical references.Selectins are a small family of adhesion molecules that are critical for immune cell trafficking. In our laboratory, mice lacking all combinations of selectins have been generated. Previous work from our laboratory has demonstrated that, in the absence of selectins, human tumors transplanted subcutaneously into Rag2'- mice grow significantly larger. This implicates selectins and the innate immune system in tumor immune surveillance. We have extended the xenograft tumor model to immunocompetent C57BL/6 mice. Similarly to previous experiments, we found that many syngeneic tumors grow significantly larger in the triple selectin knockouts (ELP/) than in ELP+' control mice. The difference in tumor growth is most apparent in ELP'- and single L-selectin knockout (L-/) mice. P-selectin also contributes to selectin-dependent tumor suppression, while E-selectin does not appear to be involved. Since selectins are known to play a role in immune cell traffic, we explored recruitment defects in selectin knockout mice, and discovered that natural killer (NK) cell recruitment to tumors in Matrigel is impaired. NK cells in ELP-' and L'/ mice appear otherwise normal and functional. NK cells express L-selectin and selectin ligands, and are known to be tumoricidal. In mice depleted of NK cells, either pharmacologically by TM-P1 antibody injection, or genetically in NK-deficient GrzA-Ly49A transgenic mice, tumor growth is also significantly enhanced.Tumor growth increase seen in the absence on NK cells is not enhanced further by the absence of both NK cells and selectins, arguing that selectins and NK cells may act in the same pathway to suppress tumor growth. The ability of NK cells to clear tumors in selectin-deficient mice is defective. These results suggest that NK cells act to suppress tumor growth in this system and dependent on selectins to do so. Thus, this work contributes to the understanding of the role of selectins and NK cells in the process of tumor immunosurveillance.by Olga Sobolev.Ph.D

Some ways to wildlife research in a megalopolis (on the example of the city of Nizhny Novgorod)

The paper is aimed to characterize the abundance of wildlife species listed in the Red Data Books of Russia and the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast on the territory of the city of Nizhny Novgorod, a megalopolis located in the geographical center of European Russia, to identify particular areas as habitats of rare species, to justify the need for protection of these areas. The analysis was based on the results of the authors’ surveys, published data, stock information (since the end of the XIX century), facts collected by the methods of citizen science. We have been developed the database containing 938 units of information about the registrations of 119 rare wildlife species in the city and identified 37 areas as the most important habitats of rare wildlife species, the human transformation of which should be avoided or requires special attention to the conservation of rare wildlife species and their habitats. We have proposed the matrix to estimate the degree of protection of urban habitats of rare wildlife species. Today, the habitats of a third of rare species are not protected by law. If all 37 identified natural areas are adopted as protected, more than 82% of rare urban species will be provided with territorial protection in full or at a high level

Long-term field and laboratory leaching tests of cemented radioactive wastes

Experiments with real and simulated radioactive cementitious wasteforms were set up to compare the leaching behaviour of cementitious wasteforms containing nuclear power plant operational waste in field and laboratory test conditions. Experiments revealed that the average annual Cs-137 leach rate in deionised water was about thirty-five times greater compared with the measured average value for the 1st year of the field test. Cumulative leached fraction of Cs-137 for 1st year (3.74%) was close to values reported in literature for similar laboratory experiments in deionised water, however more than two orders of magnitude higher than the 1st year leached fraction of Cs-137 in the repository test (0.01%). Therefore, to compare field and laboratory test results, a scaling factor is required in order to account for surface to volume factor difference, multiplied by a temperature factor and a leach rate decrease coefficient related to the ground water composition. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Novel Protocol for Generating Physiologic Immunogenic Dendritic Cells

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