IS-RT-PCR assay detection of MT-MMP in a human breast cancer cell line

The in situ-reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (IS-RT-PCR) is a method that allows the direct localisation of gene expression. The method utilises the dual buffer mediated activity of the enzyme rTth DNA polymerase enabling both reverse transcription and DNA amplification. Labelled nucleoside triphosphates allow the site of expression to be labelled, rather than the PCR primers themselves, giving a more accurate localisation of transcript expression and decreased background than standard in situ hybridisation (ISH) assays. The MDA-MB-231 human breast carcinoma (HBC) cell line was assayed via the IS-RT-PCR technique, using primers encoding MT-MMP (membrane-type matrix metalloproteinase) and human β-actin. Our results clearly indicate baseline expression of MT-MMP in the relatively invasive MDA-MB-231 cell line at a signal intensity similar to the housekeeping gene β-actin, and results following induction with Concanavalin A (Con A) are consistent with our previous results obtained via Northern blotting.

Brake system performance requirements of a lightweight electric/hybrid rear wheel drive vehicle

Investigates the braking performance requirements of the UltraCommuter, a lightweight series hybrid electric vehicle currently under development at the University of Queensland. With a predicted vehicle mass of 600 kg and two in-wheel motors each capable of 500 Nm of peak torque, decelerations up to 0.46 g are theoretically possible using purely regenerative braking. With 99% of braking demands less than 0.35 g, essentially all braking can be regenerative. The wheel motors have sufficient peak torque capability to lock the rear wheels in combination with front axle braking, eliminating the need for friction braking at the rear. Emergency braking levels approaching 1 g are achieved by supplementation with front disk brakes. This paper presents equations describing the peak front and rear axle braking forces which occur under straight line braking, including gradients. Conventionally, to guarantee stability, mechanical front/rear proportioning of braking effort ensures that the front axle locks first. In this application, all braking is initially regenerative at the rear, and an adaptive ''by-wire'' proportioning system presented ensures this stability requirement is still satisfied. Front wheel drive and all wheel drive systems are also discussed. Finally, peak and continuous performance measures, not commonly provided for friction brakes, are derived for the UltraCommuter's motor capability and range of operation.

Literacy education in a changing policy environment : introduction

Literacy has long been at the heart of discussions about improving the quality and equitable distribution of educational outcomes. The last decade, however, has seen a dramatic redirection of policy effort in this regard. The effects of this policy redirection are playing out now; it may be that new policy emphases may have consequences for how educators think about what matters in literacy, how they can, and should, make judgements about what matters, and how they can, and should, act on those judgements. This issue of the Journal focuses on the changing landscape of policy and practice in literacy education. Educators in many countries have encountered increasingly intensive government moves to centralise and standardise school education. In Australia national testing of literacy and numeracy began relatively recently. The results for individual schools have been publically reported since 2009. Following trialling in 2010 and 2011, most states and sectors are now beginning to implement new Australian curriculum in English, Mathematics, Science and History...

Nuclear gene silencing directs reception of long-distance mRNA silencing in Arabidopsis

In plants, silencing of mRNA can be transmitted from cell to cell and also over longer distances from roots to shoots. To investigate the long-distance mechanism, WT and mutant shoots were grafted onto roots silenced for an mRNA. We show that three genes involved in a chromatin silencing pathway, NRPD1a encoding RNA polymerase IVa, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 2 (RDR2), and DICER-like 3 (DCL3), are required for reception of long-distance mRNA silencing in the shoot. A mutant representing a fourth gene in the pathway, argonaute4 (ago4), was also partially compromised in the reception of silencing. This pathway produces 24-nt siRNAs and resulted in decapped RNA, a known substrate for amplification of dsRNA by RDR6. Activation of silencing in grafted shoots depended on RDR6, but no 24-nt siRNAs were detected in mutant rdr6 shoots, indicating that RDR6 also plays a role in initial signal perception. After amplification of decapped transcripts, DCL4 and DCL2 act hierarchically as they do in antiviral resistance to produce 21- and 22-nt siRNAs, respectively, and these guide mRNA degradation. Several dcl genotypes were also tested for their capacity to transmit the mobile silencing signal from the rootstock. dcl1-8 and a dcl2 dcl3 dcl4 triple mutant are compromised in micro-RNA and siRNA biogenesis, respectively, but were unaffected in signal transmission. © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Online belongings : female fan experiences in online soccer forums

Introduction: The Paradox at the Heart of Online Interaction

Agents as intermediaries : when do they compete with their suppliers?

In cases involving allegations of price fixing under the former s 45A of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth), it was necessary to prove that at least two parties to the arrangement or understanding at issue were “in competition with each other”. The same requirement is contained in the cartel provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) that replaced s 45A. The so-called “competition condition” is set out in s 44ZZRD (4) of the CCA. Where a supplier enters into vertical supply arrangements with agents or brokers, problems can arise if the supplier also has a downstream presence. At that functional level there may be a horizontal and therefore competitive dimension, and the competition condition may be satisfied. In such circumstances, great care will need to be taken in any discussions between the supplier and its downstream agents or distributors about the prices, discounts, allowances, rebates or credits that the agent or distributor may charge. Whether agents or brokers competed with their suppliers in vertical supply arrangements arose for consideration in two decisions handed down by the Federal Court in Brisbane...

The Music Industry : Music in the Cloud, 2nd edition

The music industry is going through a period of immense change brought about in part by the digital revolution. What is the role of music in the age of computers and the Internet? How has the music industry been transformed by the economic and technological upheavals of recent years, and how is it likely to change in the future? This thoroughly revised and updated new edition provides an international overview of the music industry and its future prospects in the world of global entertainment. Patrik Wikström illuminates the workings of the music industry, and captures the dynamics at work in the production of musical culture between the transnational media conglomerates, the independent music companies and the public. New to this second edition are expanded sections on the structure of the music industry, online business models and the links between social media and music. Engaging and comprehensive, The Music Industry will be a must-read for students and scholars of media and communication studies, cultural studies, popular music, sociology and economics.

Disability, public space performance & spectatorship : Unconscious performers

Why would disabled people want to re-engage, re-enact and re-envisage the everyday encounters in public spaces and places that cast them as ugly, strange, stare-worthy? In Disability, Public Space Performance and Spectatorship: Unconscious Performers, Bree Hadley examines the performance practices of disabled artists in the US, UK, Europe and Australasia who do exactly this. Operating in a live or performance art paradigm, artists like James Cunningham (Australia), Noemi Lakmaier (UK/Austria), Alison Jones (UK), Aaron Williamson (UK), Katherine Araniello (UK), Bill Shannon (US), Back to Back Theatre (Australia), Rita Marcalo (UK), Liz Crow (UK) and Mat Fraser (UK) all use installation and public space performance practices to re-stage their disabled identities in risky, guerilla-style works that remind passersby of their own complicity in the daily social drama of disability. In doing so, they draw spectators' attention to their own role in constructing Western concepts of disability. This book investigates the way each of us can become unconscious performers in a daily social drama that positions disability people as figures of tragedy, stigma or pity, and the aesthetics, politics and ethics of performance practices that intervene very directly in this drama. It constructs a framework for understanding the way spectators are positioned in these practices, and how they contribute to public sphere debates about disability today.

Making media participatory: Digital storytelling

From journalism to social media, the practices of our professional storytellers continue to evolve and change along with our storytelling institutions and their functions. Comprehending these developments is a key problem of contemporary media and cultural studies. Are the politics of representation giving way to a new progressive politics of self-representation and direct participation? Or, instead, are these new genres of self-representation part of a more general demotic turn in the function of contemporary media? Do media merely mediate or amplify cultural identities, or is media functionality becoming, closer to that of a translator or even an author of identities? How can we know if the changing actor-networks of storytelling contribute to a wider democratisation, a reshaping of the hierarchies of voice and agency? This chapter considers the place of one specific critical participatory media production practice known as 'digital storytelling’ in addressing these larger questions of socio-cultural change.

Editorial [Special Issue]

This special issue of the International Journal of Technology Policy and Law considers recent developments in the reconfiguration of communication regulation to account for the impact of media convergence. It is readily apparent that media worldwide are going through a series of transformations, associated with the rise of the internet, user-created content and social media. The papers in the collection draw upon legal and policy developments in Australia, the European union and South Korea, and consider such issues as public participation in media policy and regulation, civic media governance for online platforms, the future copyright laws, the roles and responsibilities of internet intermediaries, and regulatory frameworks for internet protocol television (IPTV).

When should private property rights give way to the public interest?

Since Queensland Wire Industries Pty Ltd v Broken Hill Pty Co Ltd (1989) 167 CLR 177 it has been recognised that corporations with substantial market power are subject to special responsibilities and restraints that corporations without market power are not. In NT Power Generation Pty Ltd v Power and Water Authority (2004) 219 CLR 90 McHugh A-CJ, Gummow, Callinan and Heydon JJ in their joint reasons stated (at [76]), that s 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) can operate not only to prevent firms with substantial market power from doing prohibited things, but also compel them positively to do things they do not want to do. Their Honours also stated (at [126]) that the proposition that a private property owner who declines to permit competitors to use the property is immune from s 46 is “intrinsically unsound”. However, the circumstances in which a firm with substantial power must accommodate competitors, and private property rights give way to the public interest are uncertain. The purpose of this Note is to consider recent developments in two areas of the CCA where the law requires private property rights to give way to the public interest. The first part of the Note considers two recent cases which clarify the circumstances in which s 46 of the CCA can be used to compel a firm with substantial market power to accommodate a competitor and allow the competitor to make use of private property rights in the public interest. Secondly, on 12 February 2014 the Minister for Small Business, the Hon Bruce Billson,released the Productivity Commission’s Final Report, on the National Access Regime in Pt IIIA of the CCA (National Access Regime, Inquiry Report No 66, Canberra). Pt IIIA provides for the processes by which third parties may obtain access to infrastructure owned by others in the public interest. The Report recommends that Pt IIIA be retained but makes a number of suggestions for its reform, some of which will be briefly considered.

Optimising employee engagement with internal communication : a social exchange perspective

Drawing on principles of social exchange this thesis employs mediated regression to investigate the relationship between internal communication and employee engagement in the Australian workforce. Findings suggest organisations and supervisors should focus internal communication efforts toward building greater perceptions of support and stronger identification among employees in order to foster optimal engagement. This research contributes to public relations and management scholarship through understanding how perceived support and identification act as mediating mechanisms in the relationship between internal communication and employee engagement at the organisational and supervisory level.

Phosphorus-based functional groups as hydrogen bonding templates for rotaxane formation

We report on the use of the hydrogen bond acceptor properties of some phosphorus-containing functional groups for the assembly of a series of [2]rotaxanes. Phosphinamides, and the homologous thio– and selenophosphinamides, act as hydrogen bond acceptors that, in conjunction with an appropriately positioned amide group on the thread, direct the assembly of amide-based macrocycles around the axle to form rotaxanes in up to 60% yields. Employing solely phosphorus-based functional groups as the hydrogen bond accepting groups on the thread, a bis(phosphinamide) template and a phosphine oxide-phosphinamide template afforded the corresponding rotaxanes in 18 and 15 % yields, respectively. X-Ray crystallography of the rotaxanes shows the presence of up to four intercomponent hydrogen bonds between the amide groups of the macrocycle and various hydrogen bond accepting groups on the thread, including rare examples of amide-to-phosphonamide, -thiophosphinamide and -selenophosphinamide groups. With a phosphine oxide-phosphinamide thread, the solid state structure of the rotaxane is remarkable, featuring no direct intercomponent hydrogen bonds but rather a hydrogen bond network involving water molecules that bridge the H-bonding groups of the macrocycle and thread through bifurcated hydrogen bonds. The incorporation of phosphorus-based functional groups into rotaxanes may prove useful for the development of molecular shuttles in which the macrocycle can be used to hinder or expose binding ligating sites for metal-based catalysts.

The construction of social identity in newly recruited nuclear engineering staff : a longitudinal study

This study examines the process by which newly recruited nuclear engineering and technical staff came to understand, define, think, feel and behave within a distinct group that has a direct contribution to the organization's overall emphasis on a culture of reliability and system safety. In the field of organizational behavior the interactive model of social identity formation has been recently proposed to explain the process by which the internalization of shared norms and values occurs, an element critical in identity formation. Using this rich model of organizational behavior we analyzed multiple sources of data from nine new hires over a period of three years. This was done from the time they were employed to investigate the construction of social identity by new entrants entering into a complex organizational setting reflected in the context of a nuclear facility. Informed by our data analyses, we found support for the interactive model of social identity development and report the unexpected finding that a newly appointed member's age and level of experience appears to influence the manner in which they adapt, and assimilate into their surroundings. This study represents an important contribution to the safety and reliability literature as it provides a rich insight into the way newly recruited employees enact the process by which their identities are formed and hence act, particularly under conditions of duress or significant organizational disruption in complex organizational settings.