Structure-Based Mutational Analysis of eIF4E in Relation to sbm1 Resistance to Pea Seed-Borne Mosaic Virus in Pea

Background: Pea encodes eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF4E (eIF4E(S)), which supports the multiplication of Pea seed-borne mosaic virus (PSbMV). In common with hosts for other potyviruses, some pea lines contain a recessive allele (sbm1) encoding a mutant eIF4E (eIF4E(R)) that fails to interact functionally with the PSbMV avirulence protein, VPg, giving genetic resistance to infection.

Apoptosis and chemotherapy in bladder cancer in bladder cancer

Purpose: To discuss the role of apoptosis, gene directed self-destruction of a cell, in the response of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder cells to chemotherapy. Methods: A directed MEDLINE literature search of apoptosis, bladder cancer and chemotherapy was performed to extract the relevant information, which was reviewed. The characteristics of apoptotic cells were defined and the methods in common use to detect these traits were described. The role of the key mediators of the apoptotic process in bladder cancer is discussed in the context of chemosensitivity and stage of disease. The importance of induction of apoptosis post chemotherapy is highlighted. Results: On stimulus by appropriate external or internal signals, a cell may alter the expression of genes coding for proteins associated with the apoptotic process. The development of apoptosis depends on the balance between pro- and anti- apoptotic proteins. Key alterations in genes and proteins related to apoptosis within bladder cancer result in a shift away from an ability to undergo apoptosis towards a cell with increased survival properties that is chemoresistant. Conclusions: Much current research in bladder cancer is aimed at restoring chemosensitivity by shifting the balance in a cell towards a pro-apoptotic phenotype. Successful translation of this work into clinical practice may improve survival in patients in whom prognosis is currently poor.

Characterization of the proteins present in the mucus of the flatworm Artioposthia triangulata (Dendy)

In common with other terrestrial flatworms, the mucus produced by Artioposthia triangulata may have a number of functions, including protection from environmental factors and from predators, and it provides the flatworm with lubrication for movement and adhesion. No previous work has been carried out on the characterization of proteins present in the mucus of A. triangulata and this study was a preliminary investigation of the mucus. Mucus was analysed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, biotinylated peptide affinity probes and the API ZYM enzyme detection kit. Results have revealed the presence of at least 40 polypeptides in the mucus and further studies with biotinylated probes have characterised one of them as a chymotrypsin-like serine protease. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.

Semiotics, Presence and the Sublime in the Work of Alvin Lucier

Alvin Lucier, in his uncompromising exploration into the artistic potential of acoustic phenomena, has developed a body of work that remains highly original and hugely influential across many disciplines. His seminal works such as I am sitting in a room and Music for Solo Performer foreshadowed ways of approaching sound that are in common use among electro-acoustic composers, installation artists, as well as in commercial products. Lucier, despite his far reaching influence, is and has always been a composer, and his explorations of acoustics have been singularly focused on the development of a rich body of music. In this article, I investigate Lucier’s unique approach and attitude towards acoustics and aspire to enumerate important aesthetic developments he has made in creating music through the exploration of acoustic phenomena. In particular, this article seeks to investigate the role of semiotics in Lucier’s work, commenting on the pre-linguistic nature of Lucier’s approach to acoustic phenomenon. Here as well, an exploration of Lucier’s musical materials takes place, focusing on his instrumental compositions, specifically Diamonds for One, Two or Three Orchestras, where instruments are used as catalysts to generate in real-time acoustic phenomenon which interact to produce a rich yet intimate world of sound. Finally, Lucier’s approach to semiotics and real-time generation of music is viewed through a sublime aesthetic provoking questions regarding issues of presence and the now.

Enhancing social work students’ learning experience and readiness to undertake practice learning.

This project set out to evaluate the effectiveness of social work education by analysing student perceptions of the strengths and limitations of their education and training on the Bachelor of Social Work, Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB) at different stages of their ‘learning journey’ through the programme.
The author’s primary aim in undertaking this study was to contribute evidence-based understanding of the challenges and opportunities students identified themselves within contemporary practice environments. A secondary aim was to test the effectiveness of key approaches, theories and learning tools in common usage in social work education. The authors believe the outcomes generated by the project demonstrate the value of systematically researching student perceptions of their learning experience and feel the study provides important lessons which should help to inform the future development of social work education not only locally but in other parts of the UK.

The Casual Buttress:Certainty and Contingency in the Study of the Vernacular

Impromptu accretions such as the buttresses in Robin Walkers photograph are moments that are familiar in the architecture of the everyday. Indeed the buttress is a very common occurrence with these cottages in particular, their mud walls being poor at resisting concentrated lateral loading. While not always required the buttress emerges when requirements to create spaces to support inhabitation are at odds with the external form and construction of the buildings. These points of disjunction are resolved in an additive fashion externally. The location varies from structure to structure, occasionally the buttress is be used as a point of connection for further structures, becoming subsumed in outbuildings or walls. This preponderance to variety means that it is omitted from the reductive drawings of type that classify these buildings and yet it occurs in enough for it to have a fundamental and transformative relationship to the generality of cottages.
What is of interest is not so much what these structures hold in common, but rather what differentiates them. It is their capacity for variety within a defined range which allows them at once to speak at once of broader social structures and of a specific place and person.
Using the above observation this paper treats of the failure of architectural typological studies of the vernacular to derive anything other than formal exemplars, and posits an alternative approach based on a focus on the technical construction of such buildings.

Attitudes towards ideal family size of different ethnic/nationality groups in Great Britain, France and Germany.

This article reports upon results from a European Union funded project on the integration of children of international migrants in Britain, France and Germany. It provides both a descriptive and a multivariate analysis of the factors that determine attitudes towards ideal family size. The results reveal that there are large differences between ethnic groups in Britain: Indian and Pakistani respondents in Britain expressed a preference for significantly larger families. However, many children of international migrants expressed a desire for smaller families than the autochthonous population in both countries. This was particularly the case for Portuguese respondents in France and Turks in Germany. Religious affiliation also had a significant effect, above and beyond ethnicity per se. Both Moslems and Christians preferred larger families than those with no religious affiliation. The article concludes that ethnic differences in attitudes towards fertility behaviour will remain important in the foreseeable future in western Europe, particularly in Britain.

A Review of the Research on Offender Supervision in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

This paper reviews existing research on offender supervision in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Three distinct areas are considered: practising offender supervision, experiencing supervision and decision-making in this sphere. The material presented draws on findings from a European-wide research action under the Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) initiative. The review highlights some of the gaps in knowledge and the need to focus research attention in this area. This need is underlined by the expansion in probation’s role, both North and South. In common with other countries there has been a growth in referrals to probation and in the numbers of people subject to supervision, whether on a community sentence or under post-custodial licence conditions. This review highlights some of the relevant factors including the increased emphasis placed on public protection and attempts to reduce the prison population. The circulation of people through systems and the experiences, processes and decision-making involved are all areas that we argue are worthy of further research attention.

The Potency of Pastoral in Hispanic Baroque poetry

This monograph demonstrates that aesthetic and ontological anxieties continue to find diverse expression within the contrived textual artifice of the bucolic space. Drawing upon expansive definitions of the Hispanic literary Baroque, (Beverley, 1980, 2008, Echevarría 1993, Ross 1993, Chemris 2008 , Egido 2009 ) the study analyses the pastoral verse of representative poets of the period to demonstrate that they re-enter an Arcadia that has been defamiliarized but is nonetheless inexorably connected to the classical origins of the mode. Pastoral, in common with other literary forms, is subject to a process of re-evaluation which was latent in its classical legacy. Within the intricacies of this literary construct, surface artistry sustains an effect of artless innocence that is vibrantly contested across the secular, sacred, parodic and colonial text.

Invaders, Launchpads and Hybrids: The Importance of Transmediality in British Science Fiction Film in the 1950s

With its origins in the trick films of the 1890s and early 1900s, British science fiction film has a long history. While Things to Come (1936) is often identified as significant for being written by H.G.Wells, one of the fathers of science fiction as a genre, the importance of the interactions between media in the development of British science fiction film are often set aside. This chapter examines the importance of broadcast media to film-making in Britain, focusing on the 1950s as a period often valourised in writings about American science fiction, to the detriment of other national expressions of the genre. This period is key to the development of the genre in Britain, however, with the establishment of television as a popular medium incorporating the development of domestic science fiction television alongside the import of American products, together with the spread of the very term ‘science fiction’ through books, pulps and comics as well as radio, television and cinema. It was also the time of a backlash against the perceived threat of American soft cultural power embodied in the attractive shine of science fiction with its promise of a bright technological future. In particular, this chapter examines the significance of the relationship between the BBC television and radio services and the film production company Hammer, which was responsible for multiple adaptations of BBC properties, including a number of science fiction texts. The Hammer adaptation of the television serial The Quatermass Experiment proved to be the first major success for the company, moving it towards its most famous identity as producer of horror texts, though often horror with an underlying scientific element, as with their successful series of Frankenstein films. This chapter thus argues that the interaction between film and broadcast media in relation to science fiction was crucial at this historical juncture, not only in helping promote the identities of filmmakers like Hammer, but also in supporting the identity of the BBC and its properties, and in acting as a nexus for the then current debates on taste and national identity.

Plasma total homocysteine and carotid intima-media thickness in type 1 diabetes: A prospective study

Objective: Plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) has been positively associated with carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) in non-diabetic populations and in a few cross-sectional studies of diabetic patients. We investigated cross-sectional and prospective associations of a single measure of tHcy with common and internal carotid IMT over a 6-year period in type 1 diabetes. Research design and methods: tHcy levels were measured once, in plasma obtained in 1997–1999 from patients (n = 599) in the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study, the observational follow-up of the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT). Common and internal carotid IMT were determined twice, in EDIC “Year 6” (1998–2000) and “Year 12” (2004–2006), using B-mode ultra-sonography. Results: After adjustment, plasma tHcy [median (interquartile range): 6.2 (5.1, 7.5) μmol/L] was significantly correlated with age, diastolic blood pressure, renal dysfunction, and smoking (all p < 0.05). In an unadjusted model only, increasing quartiles of tHcy correlated with common and internal carotid IMT, again at both EDIC time-points (p < 0.01). However, multivariate logistic regression revealed no significant associations between increasing quartiles of tHcy and the 6-year change in common and internal carotid IMT (highest vs. lowest quintile) when adjusted for conventional risk factors. Conclusions: In a type 1 diabetes cohort from the EDIC study, plasma tHcy measured in samples drawn in 1997–1999 was associated with measures of common and internal carotid IMT measured both one and seven years later, but not with IMT progression between the two time-points. The data do not support routine measurement of tHcy in people with Type 1 diabetes.

At Home in Care: Children living with birth parents on a Care Order

This study explored the processes, background information, and perceived reasons why children and young people returned home while remaining in care, in the five HSC Trusts in Northern Ireland. The research also focused on understanding the functions the Care Order had for social services, the birth parents, and young people involved.
It was found that on 31st March 2009, there were 193 children/young people living with their birth parents on a Care Order in Northern Ireland. This is eight per cent of the total population of Looked After children, and is lower than had been anticipated from governmental statistics. In total, the case files of 47 of these young people (24% of them) were reviewed, and interviews were conducted with ten of them and their birth parent/s.
The analysis revealed that the majority of them had in common a parental background history of alcohol abuse and domestic violence, and most return breakdowns in the study were related to continuing parental alcohol and/or drugs misuse. While some children had a planned return home after parents had engaged in supports and completed assessments, many young people had returns that were not planned, as they initiated the move themselves, or previous foster placements had broken down and there were no alternative placements identified for them. Many of these young people essentially ‘voted with their feet’, and social services were required to ensure that they remained safe in often less than optimal circumstances.
After returning home, for many, Care Orders remained for initially unintended lengthy periods because of the risks posed by parents’ intermittent alcohol abuse and their lifestyle, contact issues, and parents’ desire to ensure that their children were able to access the supports that they needed. Thus, Care Orders at home tended to serve two main functions: to either monitor and/or support the placement.