The biology and pathogenesis of hepatitis viruses

Viral hepatitis is caused mainly by infection with one of the five hepatitis viruses, which use the liver as their primary site of replication. Each of these, known as hepatitis A through E viruses (HAV to HEV), belong to different virus families, have unique morphology, genomic organization and replication strategy. These viruses cause similar clinical manifestations during the acute phase of infection but vary in their ability to cause chronic infection. While HAV and HEV cause only acute disease with no chronic sequelae, HBV, HCV and HDV cause varying degrees of chronicity and liver injury, which can progress to cirrhosis and liver cancers. Though specific serological tests are available for the known hepatitis viruses, nearly 20% of all hepatitis cases show no markers. Antiviral therapy is also recommended for some hepatitis viruses and a preventive vaccine is available only for hepatitis B. More research and public awareness programmes are needed to control the disease. This review will provide an overview of the hepatitis viruses and the disease they cause.

Reservoir performance under uncertainty in hydrologic impacts of climate change

Relatively few studies have addressed water management and adaptation measures in the face of changing water balances due to climate change. The current work studies climate change impact on a multipurpose reservoir performance and derives adaptive policies for possible futurescenarios. The method developed in this work is illustrated with a case study of Hirakud reservoir on the Mahanadi river in Orissa, India,which is a multipurpose reservoir serving flood control, irrigation and power generation. Climate change effects on annual hydropower generation and four performance indices (reliability with respect to three reservoir functions, viz. hydropower, irrigation and flood control, resiliency, vulnerability and deficit ratio with respect to hydropower) are studied. Outputs from three general circulation models (GCMs) for three scenarios each are downscaled to monsoon streamflow in the Mahanadi river for two future time slices, 2045-65 and 2075-95. Increased irrigation demands, rule curves dictated by increased need for flood storage and downscaled projections of streamflow from the ensemble of GCMs and scenarios are used for projecting future hydrologic scenarios. It is seen that hydropower generation and reliability with respect to hydropower and irrigation are likely to show a decrease in future in most scenarios, whereas the deficit ratio and vulnerability are likely to increase as a result of climate change if the standard operating policy (SOP) using current rule curves for flood protection is employed. An optimal monthly operating policy is then derived using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) as an adaptive policy for mitigating impacts of climate change on reservoir operation. The objective of this policy is to maximize reliabilities with respect to multiple reservoir functions of hydropower, irrigation and flood control. In variations to this adaptive policy, increasingly more weightage is given to the purpose of maximizing reliability with respect to hydropower for two extreme scenarios. It is seen that by marginally sacrificing reliability with respect to irrigation and flood control, hydropower reliability and generation can be increased for future scenarios. This suggests that reservoir rules for flood control may have to be revised in basins where climate change projects an increasing probability of droughts. However, it is also seen that power generation is unable to be restored to current levels, due in part to the large projected increases in irrigation demand. This suggests that future water balance deficits may limit the success of adaptive policy options. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Structural and photoelectrical characterization of hot wall deposited CuInSe2 thin films and the fabrication of CuInSe2 based solar cells

Films of CuInSe2 were deposited onto glass substrates by a hot wall deposition method using bulk CuInSe2 as a source material. All the deposited CuInSe2 films were found to be polycrystalline in nature exhibiting the chalcopyrite structure with the crystallite orientation along (101),(112),(103),(211),(220),(312) and (400) directions. The photocurrent was found to increase with increase in film thickness and also with increase of light intensity. Photocurrent spectra show a peak related to the band-to-band transition. The spectral response of CuInSe2 thin films was studied by allowing the radiation to pass through a series of interference filters in the wavelength range 700-1200 rim. Films of higher thickness exhibited higher photosensitivity while low thickness films exhibited moderate photosensitivity. CuInSe2-based Solar cells with different types of buffer layers such as US, Cdse, CuInSe2 and CdSe0.7Te0.3 were fabricated. The current and voltage were measured using an optical power meter and an electrometer respectively. The fabricated solar cells were illuminated using 100 mW/cm(2) white light under AM1 conditions. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Integrative functional genomics analysis of sustained polyploidy phenotypes in breast cancer cells identifies an oncogenic profile for GINS2

Aneuploidy is among the most obvious differences between normal and cancer cells. However, mechanisms contributing to development and maintenance of aneuploid cell growth are diverse and incompletely understood. Functional genomics analyses have shown that aneuploidy in cancer cells is correlated with diffuse gene expression signatures and that aneuploidy can arise by a variety of mechanisms, including cytokinesis failures, DNA endoreplication and possibly through polyploid intermediate states. Here, we used a novel cell spot microarray technique to identify genes with a loss-of-function effect inducing polyploidy and/or allowing maintenance of polyploid cell growth of breast cancer cells. Integrative genomics profiling of candidate genes highlighted GINS2 as a potential oncogene frequently overexpressed in clinical breast cancers as well as in several other cancer types. Multivariate analysis indicated GINS2 to be an independent prognostic factor for breast cancer outcome (p = 0.001). Suppression of GINS2 expression effectively inhibited breast cancer cell growth and induced polyploidy. In addition, protein level detection of nuclear GINS2 accurately distinguished actively proliferating cancer cells suggesting potential use as an operational biomarker.

Note on the locally product and almost locally product structures

This paper is concerned with a study of some of the properties of locally product and almost locally product structures on a differentiable manifold X n of class C k . Every locally product space has certain almost locally product structures which transform the local tangent space to X n at an arbitrary point P in a set fashion: this is studied in Theorem (2.2). Theorem (2.3) considers the nature of transformations that exist between two co-ordinate systems at a point whenever an almost locally product structure has the same local representation in each of these co-ordinate systems. A necessary and sufficient condition for X n to be a locally product manifold is obtained in terms of the pseudo-group of co-ordinate transformations on X n and the subpseudo-groups [cf., Theoren (2.1)]. Section 3 is entirely devoted to the study of integrable almost locally product structures.

Spectrophotometric and potentiometric investigations of copper (II)-ethanolamine complexes - Part II. Monoethanolamine (Analysis of mixed hydroxy complexes with polarographic evidence)

Potentiometric, spectrophotometric and polarographic evidence has been presented for the formation of mixed hydroxy complexes in coppermonoethanolamine system. A method has been developed for the analysis of Bjerrum formation curves taken in presence of 0·1, 0·2, 0·5 and 1·0 M monoethanolammonium ion with respect to hydroxy complexes. The formation of CuAOH+, CuA2OH+ and CuA3OH+ is shown and the corresponding stability constants are calculated at different concentrations of MEA ion. Curves showing the distribution of pure and hydroxy complexes at various pA values in solutions containing different concentrations of MEA ion have also been given.

Characteristics of yeasts isolated from phenol- and catechol-adapted activated sludges

Phenol- and catechol-adapted sludges contained large numbers of the yeasts, Candida tropicalis and Trichosporon cutaneum. Both were able to grow on a variety of aromatic compounds and utilized phenol and catechol at a high rate. This property was inducible. The feasibility of using these yeasts for removing phenols from waste waters is suggested.

Integrin trafficking regulated by Rab21 is necessary for cytokinesis

Adherent cells undergo remarkable changes in shape during cell division. However, the functional interplay between cell adhesion turnover and the mitotic machinery is poorly understood. The endo/exocytic trafficking of integrins is regulated by the small GTPase Rab21, which associates with several integrin alpha subunits. Here, we show that targeted trafficking of integrins to and from the cleavage furrow is required for successful cytokinesis, and that this is regulated by Rab21. Rab21 activity, integrin-Rab21 association, and integrin endocytosis are all necessary for normal cytokinesis, which becomes impaired when integrin-mediated adhesion at the cleavage furrow fails. We also describe a chromosomal deletion and loss of Rab21 gene expression in human cancer, which leads to the accumulation of multinucleate cells. Importantly, reintroduction of Rab21 rescued this phenotype. In conclusion, Rab21-regulated integrin trafficking is essential for normal cell division, and its defects may contribute to multinucleation and genomic instability, which are hallmarks of cancer.

Prevalence and Forms of Bullying among Business Professionals: A Comparison of Two Different Strategies for Measuring Bullying

The aim of this study was to analyse the prevalence and forms of workplace bullying among business professionals holding predominantly managerial or expert positions. A cross-sectional survey study was conducted among Finnish professionals with a university degree in business studies. In the study two different strategies for measuring bullying were used and compared. When provided a definition of bullying, 8.8% of the respondents reported that they had at least occasionally been bullied during the past 12 months. However, when using a slightly modified version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire (Einarsen & Hoel 2001), containing a list of 32 predefined negative and potentially harassing acts, as many as 24.1% of the respondents reported that they had been subjected to at least one of the negative acts on a weekly basis. The respondents had experienced predominantly work-related negative acts, e.g. that their opinions and views were ignored, that they were given unreasonable deadlines or that information was withheld. Although the prevalence rates reported with the two strategies varied considerably, there was still consistency between the two strategies in the sense that those who had classified themselves as bullied also reported higher exposure rates to almost all of the negative acts included.

The Gendered Social Organisation of Defence: Two Ethnographic Case Studies in the Finnish Defence Forces

In Finland the organising of defence is undergoing vast restructuring. Recent legislation has redefined the central tasks of the Finnish Defence Forces. At the same time, international security cooperation, economic pressures and new administrative paradigms have steered the military towards new ways of organising. National defence is not just politics and principles; to a large extent it is also enacted in day-to-day life in organisations. The lens through which these realities of defence are analysed in this study is gender. How is the security sector – and national defence as part of it – organised in the changing security environment? What is the new division of labour between different societal actors in the face of security challenges? What happens ‘at work’ within the military and the defence sector more broadly? How does gender affect the way in which defence is organised and understood, and how do the changes in the organising of security affect gender relations? The thesis searches for answers to these questions in the context of two organisational settings in the male-dominated defence sector. The case study on a Finnish peacekeeping unit in the Balkans opens a critical view on men’s social practices and the everyday life of crisis management organisations. In the second case study, reorganising of provisioning in the Finnish Defence Forces turns out to be a complicated process where different power relations and social divisions intermingle. Tallberg’s extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the two focal organisations has produced a detailed set of data that lays the basis for critical analysis and policy development in terms of defence organising, cooperation around peace and security issues, and gender equality in organisations. Observations and results are provided for understanding social networks, militarisation, authority relations, care, public-private partnerships, personnel policies, career planning, and humour.