South Africa’s Subimperial Futures: Washington Consensus, Bandung Consensus, or Peoples’ Consensus?

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Angiomotin and angiomotin like proteins, their expression and correlation with angiogenesis and clinical outcome in human breast cancer

BACKGOUND: Angiomotin is a newly discovered molecule that regulates the migration and tubule formation of endothelial cells. It therefore has been implicated in the control of angiogenesis under physiological and pathological conditions. This study examined the expression of angiomotin and its analogues, angiomotin-like 1 (L1) and -like 2 (L2) in breast tumour tissues, and analysed their correlation with angiogenesis and clinical outcomes. METHODS: Human breast tissues (normal n = 32 and tumours n = 120) were used. The levels of expression of angiomotin, L1 and L2 were determined using reverse transcription PCR. Microvessels were stained using antibodies against PECAM, von Willebrand factor (factor 8, or vWF) and VE-cadherin. The transcript levels of angiomotin and its analogues were assessed against the clinical and pathological background, including long term survival (120 months). RESULTS: Breast cancer tissues expressed significantly higher levels of angiomotin transcript, compared with normal mammary tissues (33.1 ± 11 in normal versus 86.5 ± 13.7 in tumour tissues, p = 0.003). Both L1 and L2 were seen at marginally higher levels in tumour than normal tissues but the difference was not statistically significant. Levels of angiomotin were at significantly higher levels in grade 2 and grade 3 tumours compared with grade 1 (p < 0.01 and p = 0.05 respectively). The levels of angiomotin in tumours from patients who had metastatic disease were also significantly higher than those patients who remained disease free (p = 0.03). Multivariate analysis indicated that angiomotin transcript was an independent prognostic factor (p = 0.031). No significant correlations were seen between angiomotin-L1 and L2 with the clinical outcome. Furthermore, high levels of angiomotin transcript were associated with shorter overall survival (p < 0.05). There was a high degree of correlation between levels of vW factor and that of angiomotin (p < 0.05), but not angiomotin-L1 and angiomotin-L2. CONCLUSION: Angiomotin, a putative endothelial motility factor, is highly expressed in human breast tumour tissues and linked to angiogenesis. It links to the aggressive nature of breast tumours and the long term survival of the patients. These data point angiomotin as being a potential therapeutic target

Performance-based building and innovation: Balancing client and industry needs

One reason for the interest in performance-based building is that it is commonly advocated as a powerful way of enhancing innovation performance by articulating building performance outcomes, and by offering relevant procurement actors the discretion to innovate to meet these performance requirements more effectively and/or efficiently. The paper argues that the current approach to performance-based building assumes that relevant actors have the capacity, ability and motivation to innovate from a business perspective. It is proposed that the prevailing conceptualization of PBB is too restrictive and should be broadened explicitly to accommodate the required business logic that must be in place before actors will innovate. The relevant performance-based building and innovation literature is synthesized to support the assertion. The paper concludes with an innovation-focused definition of performance-based building

Regulation of pituitary MT1 melatonin receptor expression by gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and early growth response factor-1 (Egr-1) : in vivo and in vitro studies

Copyright: © 2014 Bae et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC; grant BB/F020309/1; http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/home/home.aspx). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Electronic Structure Calculations with LDA+DMFT

The LDA+DMFT method is a very powerful tool for gaining insight into the physics of strongly correlated materials. It combines traditional ab-initio density-functional techniques with the dynamical mean-field theory. The core aspects of the method are (i) building material-specific Hubbard-like many-body models and (ii) solving them in the dynamical mean-field approximation. Step (i) requires the construction of a localized one-electron basis, typically a set of Wannier functions. It also involves a number of approximations, such as the choice of the degrees of freedom for which many-body effects are explicitly taken into account, the scheme to account for screening effects, or the form of the double-counting correction. Step (ii) requires the dynamical mean-field solution of multi-orbital generalized Hubbard models. Here central is the quantum-impurity solver, which is also the computationally most demanding part of the full LDA+DMFT approach. In this chapter I will introduce the core aspects of the LDA+DMFT method and present a prototypical application.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures. Chapter of "Many-Electron Approaches in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics: A Multidisciplinary View", eds. V. Bach and L. Delle Site, Springer 201

YangZheng XiaoJi exerts anti-tumour growth effects by antagonising the effects of HGF and its receptor, cMET, in human lung cancer cells

BACKGROUND: Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a cytokine that has a profound effect on cancer cells by stimulating migration and invasion and acting as an angiogenic factor. In lung cancer, the factor also plays a pivotal role and is linked to a poor outcome in patients. In particular, HGF is known to work in combination with EGF on lung cancer cells. In the present study, we investigated the effect of a traditional Chinese medicine reported in cancer therapies, namely YangZheng XiaoJi (YZXJ) on lung cancer and on HGF mediated migration and invasion of lung cancer cells. METHODS: Human lung cancer cells, SKMES1 and A549 were used in the study. An extract from the medicine was used. Cell migration was investigated using the EVOS and by ECIS. Cell–matrix adhesion and in vitro invasion were assessed. In vivo growth of lung cancer was tested using an in vivo xenograft tumour model and activation of the HGF receptor in lung tumours by an immunofluorescence method. RESULTS: Both lung cancer cells increased their migration in response to HGF and responded to YZXJ by reducing their speed of migration. YZXJ markedly reduced the migration and in vitro invasiveness induced by HGF. It worked synergistically with PHA665752 and SU11274, HGF receptor inhibitors on the lung cancer cells both on HGF receptor activation and on cell functions. A combination of HGF and EGF resulted in a greater increase in cell migration, which was similarly inhibited by YZXJ, and in combination with the HGF receptor and EGF receptor inhibitors. In vivo, YZXJ reduced the rate of tumour growth and potentiated the effects of PHA665752 on tumour growth. It was further revealed that YZXJ significantly reduced the degree of phosphorylation of the HGF receptor in lung tumours. CONCLUSION: YZXJ has a significant role in reducing the migration, invasion and in vivo tumour growth of lung cancer and acts to inhibit the migratory and invasive effects induced by HGF and indeed by HGF/EGF. This effect is likely attributed to the inhibition of the HGF receptor activation. These results indicate that YZXJ has a therapeutic role in lung cancer and that combined strategy with methods to block HGF and EGF should be considered. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12967-015-0639-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

STM Spectroscopy of ultra-flat graphene on hexagonal boron nitride

Graphene has demonstrated great promise for future electronics technology as well as fundamental physics applications because of its linear energy-momentum dispersion relations which cross at the Dirac point. However, accessing the physics of the low density region at the Dirac point has been difficult because of the presence of disorder which leaves the graphene with local microscopic electron and hole puddles, resulting in a finite density of carriers even at the charge neutrality point. Efforts have been made to reduce the disorder by suspending graphene, leading to fabrication challenges and delicate devices which make local spectroscopic measurements difficult. Recently, it has been shown that placing graphene on hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) yields improved device performance. In this letter, we use scanning tunneling microscopy to show that graphene conforms to hBN, as evidenced by the presence of Moire patterns in the topographic images. However, contrary to recent predictions, this conformation does not lead to a sizable band gap due to the misalignment of the lattices. Moreover, local spectroscopy measurements demonstrate that the electron-hole charge fluctuations are reduced by two orders of magnitude as compared to those on silicon oxide. This leads to charge fluctuations which are as small as in suspended graphene, opening up Dirac point physics to more diverse experiments than are possible on freestanding devices.Comment: Nature Materials advance online publication 13/02/201

Iron, silicate, and light co-limitation of three Southern Ocean diatom species

The effect of combined iron, silicate, and light co-limitation was investigated in the three diatom species Actinocyclus sp. Ehrenberg, Chaetoceros dichaeta Ehrenberg, and Chaetoceros debilis Cleve, isolated from the Southern Ocean (SO). Growth of all species was co-limited by iron and silicate, reflected in a significant increase in the number of cell divisions compared to the control. Lowest relative Si uptake and drastic frustule malformation was found under iron and silicate co-limitation in C. dichaeta, while Si limitation in general caused cell elongation in both Chaetoceros species. Higher light intensities similar to SO surface conditions showed a negative impact on growth of C. dichaeta and Actinocyclus sp. and no effect on C. debilis. This is in contrast to the assumed light limitation of SO diatoms due to deep wind driven mixing. Our results suggest that growth and species composition of Southern Ocean diatoms is influenced by a sensitive interaction of the abiotic factors, iron, silicate, and light