Chelatable zinc modulates excitability and seizure duration in the amygdala rapid kindling model

Zinc is present in high concentration in many structures of the limbic circuitry, however the role of zinc as a neuromodulator in such synapses is stilt uncertain. In this work, we verified the effects of zinc chelation in an animal model of epileptogenesis induced by amygdala rapid kindling. The basolateral. amygdala was electrically stimulated ten times per day for 2 days. A single stimulus was applied on the third day. Stimulated animals received injections of PBS or the zinc chelator diethildythiocarbamate acid (DEDTC) before each stimulus series. Animals were monitored with video-EEG and were perfused 3 h after the last stimulus for subsequent neo-Timm and Ftuoro-Jade B analysis. Zinc chelation decreased the duration of both behavioral seizures and electrical after-discharges, and also decreased the EEG spikes frequency, without changing the progression of behavioral seizure severity. These results indicate that the zinc ion may have a facilitatory role during kindling progression. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Clinical Criteria as Predictive Factors of Response to Primary Hormone Therapy in Locally Advanced Breast Cancer

This study investigates the efficacy of clinical criteria in selecting patients for primary tamoxifen therapy. A total of 60 breast cancer patients with large primary tumors and unknown hormonal receptor status were subjected to primary hormone therapy. Inclusion criteria were age over 60 years old or menopausal status for at least 10 years and no clinical evidence of inflammatory disease and fast tumor growth. The objective response rate was 55%. There was a positive correlation between the lack of clinical response and axillary lymph node metastasis (p = 0.009). Patients with objective response had significantly improved disease-free (p = 0.045) and overall (p = 0.0002) survival over those who did not have response to hormonal therapy. In multivariate analysis, the clinical response to therapy was the most powerful prognostic factor. This analysis demonstrates that clinical criteria were very effective predictor of response to neo-adjuvant hormone therapy in large breast tumors for postmenopausal women. Response to therapy is the major prognostic factor in primary tamoxifen-treated breast cancer.

Correlates of the Eysenck personality profiler

In this two part study, 811 participants completed the Eysenck Personality Profiler (EPP) and the Honey and Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) and 263 adults completed the EPP and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). As predicted there were many significant correlations which add to the concurrent validity of the EPP. When the overlap of the EPP with the MBTI and LSQ is compared with the overlap of the NEO-PI with the MBTI and LSQ (derived from Furnham, 1996a,b) it appears that the EPP has greater similarity with the LSQ, but the NEO-PI has greater similarity with the MBTI. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Peacebuilding in East Timor

This essay analyses some of the political, economic and social challenges of East Timer's transition to independence. It scrutinizes the ethical dimensions of building peace in a territory devastated by the combined effect of Indonesia's colonial occupation and the violent militia attacks of September 1999. The most difficult task ahead does not lie in the physical rebuilding of the territory-gargantuan as it may be-but in the more intricate and long-term rehabilitation of a traumatized society. The latter involves competing Timorese factions as well as a range of international actors, including the United Nations Transitional Authority, foreign governments, business institutions and various multilateral and bilateral donors. each having their own organizational leitmotifs and policy priorities. If not managed carefully, the reconstruction process could further exacerbate existing societal tensions and complicate the starch for peace and reconciliation. The essay identifies a number of crucial components necessary to counter such risks, including the need to promote popular participation in the rebuilding process. Without the legitimacy created by strong community involvement and grassroots participation in decision making, the task of national reconstruction may well become overwhelmed by conflict.

Development of disabled, replication-defective gene transfer vectors from the Jembrana disease virus, a new infectious agent of cattle

Jembrana disease virus (JDV) is a newly isolated and characterised bovine lentivirus. It causes an acute disease in Ball cattle (Bos javanicus). which can be readily transmitted to susceptible cattle with 17% mortality. There is as yet no treatment or preventive vaccine. We have developed a gene transfer vector system based on JDV that has three components. The first of the components is a bicistronic transfer vector plasmid that was constructed to contain cis-sequences from the JDV genome, including 5 '- and 3 ' -long terminal repeats (LTRs), 0.4 kb of truncated gag and 1.1 kb of 3 ' -env, a multiple cloning site to accommodate the gene(s) of interest for transfer, and an internal ribosome entry site plus the neomycin phosphotransferase (Neo) gene cassette for antibiotic selection. The second element is a packaging plasmid that contains trans-sequences. including gag, pol. vif, tar and rev: but without the env and packaging signals. The third is a plasmid encoding the G glycoprotein of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-G) to supply the vector an envelope for pseudotyping. Cotransfection of 293T cells with these three plasmid components produced VSV-G pseudotyped. disabled, replication defective, bicistronic JDV vectors encoding the green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and the Neo resistance selection maker simultaneously with a titre range of (0.4-1.2) x 10(6) CFU/ml. Transduction of several replicating primary and transformed cells from cattle, primate and human sources and importantly growth-arrested cells with the JDV vectors showed high efficiency of EGFP gene transfer at 35-75%, which was stable and the expression of EGFP was long term. Furthermore, these JDV vectors were designed to suit the inclusion and expression of genes corresponding to JDV specific proteins, such as gag or env, for the development of vaccines for Jembrana disease. This strategy should also be applicable to other bovine diseases as wall. The design and construction of the JDV vector system should facilitate the study of the lentivirology and pathogenesis of the diseases associated with JDV or other bovine virus infections. To our knowledge, this is the first such vector system developed from a cattle virus. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Deciding who has the right to vote: A comparative analysis of election laws

The paper analyses seven potential restrictions to the right to vote in 63 democracies. Only two of these restrictions have given rise to a near consensus. An overwhelming majority of democracies have decided that the minimum voting age should be 18 and that the right to vote of mentally deficient people should be restricted. There is little consensus about whether the right to vote should be restrcited to citizens, about whether there should be country or electoral district residence requirements, about which electors residing abroad (if any) should retain their right to vote and about which prison inmates (if any) should have the right to vote. The paper also examines two factors that affect right to vote laws: British colonialism and level of political rights. The pattern found with respect to electoral systems, whereby former British colonies emulate their former ruler, is less systematic in the case of right to vote legislation. Finally, “strong” democracies are slightly more inclusive than “weak” ones when deciding who has the right to vote.

Patterns of governance: The curious case of non-profit community services in Australia

Community has taken on a new significance in Australian social policy discourse. Seemingly sound and morally justifiable, in the context Of neo-liberalism the language of community positions non-profit delivery of services as superior to state-provided services. As a consequence, non-profit community services are being centrally positioned to mediate the relationship between the state and citizen subjects. In the first part of this paper we trace some of the key historical developments in Australia's welfare state and patterns of governance that are propelling the non-profit sector firm the margins to the centre. The second section examines the relationship between Australia's shifting political landscape and the emerging welfare regime. One key feature of this new regime is the attempt to relocate citizenship away from the domain of the state and into that of civil society. The article concludes by sketching out some research themes, focusing, for example, on the impact of devolution of governance in terms of client rights and public accountability.

Rural lines of flight: Telecommunications and post-metro dreaming

Information and communications technologies hold a prominent place in the cultural imagination of many people living outside the Australian metropolis, especially recent émigrés. A vision of a wired pastoral conjures up the possibilities of city work, connections and pleasures accompanying the flight to the country. Such aspirations have given a twist to one of the great topos of Australian post-invasion communications history, communications ameliorating the perceived isolation in the bush. This article examines important changes to rural telecommunications in the 1990s coinciding with post-metro dreaming and digital convergence, namely the rise of local telecommunications. Neo-Foucauldian accounts of citizenship hold some promise for explaining the criss-cross of tangled lines of flight in regional communications in the twenty-first century: emergent subjectivities, utopian digital modes of becoming, new politics of infrastructure, reconfigured relationships among state, market and citizen.

The intuitive basis of implicature: relevance theoretic implicitness versus gricean implying

The notion of implicature was first introduced by Paul Grice (1967, 1989), who defined it essentially as what is communicated less what is said. This definition contributed in part to the proliferation of a large number of different species of implicature by neo-Griceans. Relevance theorists have responded to this by proposing a shift back to the distinction between "explicit" & "implicit" meaning (corresponding to "explicature" & "implicature," respectively). However, they appear to have pared down the concept of implicature too much, ignoring phenomena that may be better treated as implicatures in their overgeneralization of the concept of explicature. These problems have their roots in the fact that explicit & implicit meaning intuitively overlap & thus do not provide a suitable basis for distinguishing implicature from other types of pragmatic phenomena. An alternative conceptualization of implicature based on the concept of "implying" with which Grice originally associated his notion of implicature is thus proposed. From this definition, it emerges that implicature constitutes something else inferred by the addressee that is not literally said by the speaker. Instead, it is meant in addition to what the speaker literally says & is consequently defeasible like all other types of pragmatic phenomena. 1 Figure, 60 References. Adapted from the source document

Desafios da constru????o de uma pol??tica intersetorial de cultura e educa????o

A transi????o paradigm??tica vivenciada pela gest??o p??blica no Brasil tem provocado a busca por arranjos institucionais capazes de romper com a in??rcia institucional e responder ?? complexidade das novas demandas sociais. O presente estudo busca analisar a intersetorialidade a partir de fatores pol??ticos e institucionais que influenciaram o Programa Mais Educa????o, com foco na articula????o entre as ??reas de educa????o e cultura. Trata-se de pesquisa qualitativa realizada a partir do estudo sistem??tico da literatura sobre pol??ticas intersetoriais, analisada ?? luz do modelo sist??mico de Easton. Aborda conceitos como agendamento e implementa????o de pol??ticas p??blicas, centrando-se no debate contempor??neo sobre intersetorialidade. Analisa, a partir dos dados levantados sobre o Programa Mais Educa????o e entrevistas semi dirigidas com gestores dos diferentes minist??rios que o integram, mecanismos existentes na gest??o p??blica para que essa intersetorialidade se efetive. Constata a centralidade do papel das ideias na burocracia de governo em resposta a demandas sociais hist??ricas, contudo sorganizadas. O estudo reconhece a educa????o integral como um campo de atua????o complexo e interdisciplinar, cujo desenvolvimento de pol??ticas p??blicas mais efetivas, eficientes e eficazes, exige abordagens distintas e somat??ria de esfor??os entre as ??reas. A complexidade do modelo de gest??o do Programa reflete-se em um arranjo institucional inovador em que a intersetorialidade otimiza recursos e esfor??os das ??reas envolvidas, exigindo coordena????o intersetorial centralizada e coopera????o entre os ??rg??os

Associativismo intergovernamental: experi??ncias brasileiras

O oitavo volume da s??rie Inova????o na Gest??o P??blica apresenta o resultado de uma pesquisa desenvolvida entre os anos de 2010 e 2011, na qual foram realizados onze estudos de caso sobre formas de arranjos associativos intergovernamentais existentes no Brasil, e contou com o apoio do Projeto Brasil Munic??pios. A expectativa com essa discuss??o ?? que se possam trazer ?? tona novos temas ou abordagens sobre associativismo, problematizar alguns importantes desafios, captar poss??veis funcionamentos das l??gicas de articula????o intergovernamental e possibilitar a reflex??o sobre alternativas para coordena????o e coopera????o intergovernamentais no Brasil. Dessa forma, o livro inicia-se por uma discuss??o te??rica com o objetivo de real??ar a import??ncia dos modelos de entrela??amento e coopera????o entre os n??veis de governo, sem que estes percam a autonomia e mesmo a capacidade de ???competir por agendas de pol??ticas???. Por outro lado, busca mostrar que formas de parceria e de atua????o em rede do governo para com a sociedade t??m se acoplado ao associativismo territorial. O federalismo ?? apresentado tamb??m sob uma perspectiva internacional, sobretudo fazendo um apanhado geral dos mecanismos de associativismo territorial em pa??ses federativos ou semifederativos, com destaque principal para os casos dos Estados Unidos, da Alemanha, da Espanha, do Canad?? e da Austr??lia, buscando ressaltar, principalmente, dos aspectos: o primeiro deles ?? apresentar a diversidade de possibilidades de coopera????o intergovernamental. O livro apresenta ainda uma an??lise do federalismo brasileiro contempor??neo, come??ando com um hist??rico resumido sobre a Federa????o brasileira, com foco no estudo dos processos de coordena????o e coopera????o intergovernamental existentes. Adicionalmente, apresenta-se um mapeamento das experi??ncias de associativismo territorial no Brasil, a partir de uma tipologia de arranjos que foram vinculados a dez diferentes l??gicas de articula????o intergovernamental: l??gica setorial; l??gica metropolitana; l??gica de desenvolvimento regional contra a desigualdade; l??gica de desenvolvimento regional baseada na identidade territorial; l??gica de atua????o regional da uni??o e dos governos estaduais; l??gica de atua????o microrregional; l??gica econ??mica de parceria p??blico-privado; l??gica social de parceria p??blico-privado; l??gica de associativismo de advocacy e coopera????o intergovernamental; e l??gica ad hoc de coopera????o intergovernamental. Por fim, apresenta-se uma s??ntese de onze estudos de caso sobre associativismo territorial no Brasil, com o intuito de demonstrar as poss??veis a????es que estariam ligadas as tipos de l??gica de articula????o intergovernamental, bem como propor a????es e incentivos nos plano institucional, da pol??ticas p??blicas e da governan??a territorial ampliada, a fim de buscar poss??veis solu????es para os problemas e dificuldades abordados por essas experi??ncias associativas