Newstead House : the social history, culture and architecture of a bygone era

Historic house museums form a significant component of the built heritage and social history of a country. They vary from the elaborate mansions of the wealthy to modest dwellings of the working class. Regardless of the original owner's status in society these house museums are vital to an understanding of architecture, culture and society from a bygone era. The Newstead House, the oldest surviving residence, in Brisbane, is the first house to be designated a 'Historic House Museum' in Queensland. It is a representative example of a house that demonstrates the British colonial heritage of 19th century Australia. Originally a modest cottage, on 34 acres of land, the Newstead house was built by a Scottish migrant. The ownership of the house and land changed many times, during the period from 1847 to 1939. During this period a series of prominent residents of Brisbane either owned or rented this residence. They included, an officer of the Royal Navy, politicians, magistrates, merchant ship owners, and a Consul General of the United States of America. As a result, the house went through a series of renovations and extensions to accommodate the needs of its owners and their position in society. This paper aims to investigate the significance of historic museum houses in educating the community on aspects of social history, culture and architecture of 19th century Australia. It will focus on the heritage listed Newstead House as a case study to demonstrate the significance of the house as an artefact and an educational tool.

An entirely new land? Italy’s post-war culture and its fascist past

Scholarship has for decades emphasised the significant continuities in Italian culture and society after Fascism, calling into question the rhetoric of post-war renewal. This essay proposes a reassessment of that rhetoric through the analysis of five key metaphors with which Italian intellectuals represented national recovery after 1945: parenthesis, disease, flood, childhood, and discovery. While the current critical consensus would lead us to expect a cultural conversation characterised by repression and evasion, an analysis of these five post-war metaphors instead reveals both a penetrating re-assessment of Italian culture after Fascism and an earnest adherence to the cause of national re-vitalisation. Foregrounding the inter-relation of Italy’s prospects for change and its continuities with Fascism, these metaphors suggest that post-war Italian intellectuals conceived of their country’s hopes for renewal, as well as its connections to the recent past, in terms that transcend the binary division favoured in many historical accounts.

Melatonin and the time window for the expression of the alpha 8 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in the membrane of chick retinal cells in culture

We have previously shown that melatonin influences the development of alpha 8 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) by measurement of the acetylcholine-induced increase in the extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) in chick retinal cell cultures. Cellular differentiation that takes place between DIV (days in vitro) 4 and DIV 5 yields cells expressing alpha 8 nAChR and results in a significant increase in the ECAR acetylcholine-induced. Blocking melatonin receptors with luzindole for 48 h suppresses the development of functional alpha 8 nAChR. Here we investigated the time window for the effect of melatonin on retinal cell development in culture, and whether this effect was dependent on an increase in the expression of alpha 8 nAChR. First, we confirmed that luzindole was inhibiting the effects of endogenous melatonin, since it increases 2-[(125)I] iodomelatonin (23 pM) binding sites density in a time-dependent manner. Then we observed that acute (15, 60 min, or 12 h) luzindole treatment did not impair acetylcholine-induced increase in the ECAR mediated by activation of alpha 8 nAChR at DIV 5, while chronic treatment (from DIV 3 or DIV 4 till DIV 5, or DIV 3.5 till DIV 4.5) led to a time-dependent reduction of the increase in the acetylcholine-induced ECAR. The binding parameters for [(125)I]-alpha-bungarotoxin (10 nM) sites in membrane were unaffected by melatonin suppression that started at DIV 3. Thus, melatonin surges in the time window that occurs at the final stages of chick retinal cell differentiation in culture is essential for development of the cells expressing alpha 8 nAChR subtype in full functional form. (C) 2010 ISDN. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The activity of the feminist online publications: challenges for the transmission of the feminist culture in Spain

Traditionally, big media corporations have contributed to hiding the women’s movement itself, as well as its main claims and topics of discussion (Marx, Myra y Hess, 1995; Rhode, 1995; Mendes, 2011). This has led the feminist movement to develop its own media generally print publications, usually, with a very specialized character and reduced audience. This is similar to what has occurred with quality main stream media, asthese publications have had to adapt themselves to a new communicatiion context, because of the financial crisis and  technological evolution. Feminist media has found in the Internet an excellent opportunity to access citizens and communicate their messages. , In view of this scene of change and renovation,  this article offers the results of a qualitative analysis focused on the experiences of four feminist online media sites edited in Spain: Pikaramagazine.com, Proyecto-kahlo.com, Mujeresenred.net and Laindependent.cat. Besides exploring the characteristics and content of these sites, the article pays attention to the virality of their contents spread through Facebook and Twitter. The onclusion estimates their social impact, insofar as they symbolize the specialization, diversification and dialogue promoted by the Web.

Social scientists don’t say titwank’

Drawing on the textual evidence of a number of referees’ reports, this article maps key differences between the humanities and social sciences approaches to the study of pornography, in order to facilitate better understanding and communication between the areas. 1. Social scientists avoid ‘vulgar’ language to describe sex. Humanities scholars need not do so. 2. Social scientists remain committed to the idea of ‘objectivity’ while humanities scholars reject the idea – although this may be a confusion in language, with the term in the social sciences used to mean something more like ‘falsifiability’. 3. Social science assumes that the primary effects of exposure to pornography must be negative. 4. More generally, social science resists paradigm changes, insisting that all new work agrees with research that has gone before. 5. Social science believes that casual sex and sadomasochism are negative; humanities research need not do so.

Negative space and positive environment : mapping opportunities for urban resilience

Cities have long held a fascination for people – as they grow and develop, there is a desire to know and understand the intricate interplay of elements that makes cities ‘live’. In part, this is a need for even greater efficiency in urban centres, yet the underlying quest is for a sustainable urban form. In order to make sense of the complex entities that we recognise cities to be, they have been compared to buildings, organisms and more recently machines. However the search for better and more elegant urban centres is hardly new, healthier and more efficient settlements were the aim of Modernism’s rational sub-division of functions, which has been translated into horizontal distribution through zoning, or vertical organisation thought highrise developments. However both of these approaches have been found to be unsustainable, as too many resources are required to maintain this kind or urbanisation and social consequences of either horizontal or vertical isolation must also be considered. From being absolute consumers of resources, of energy and of technology, cities need to change, to become sustainable in order to be more resilient and more efficient in supporting culture, society as well as economy. Our urban centres need to be re-imagined, re-conceptualised and re-defined, to match our changing society. One approach is to re-examine the compartmentalised, mono-functional approach of urban Modernism and to begin to investigate cities like ecologies, where every element supports and incorporates another, fulfilling more than just one function. This manner of seeing the city suggests a framework to guide the re-mixing of urban settlements. Beginning to understand the relationships between supporting elements and the nature of the connecting ‘web’ offers an invitation to investigate the often ignored, remnant spaces of cities. This ‘negative space’ is the residual from which space and place are carved out in the Contemporary city, providing the link between elements of urban settlement. Like all successful ecosystems, cities need to evolve and change over time in order to effectively respond to different lifestyles, development in culture and society as well as to meet environmental challenges. This paper seeks to investigate the role that negative space could have in the reorganisation of the re-mixed city. The space ‘in-between’ is analysed as an opportunity for infill development or re-development which provides to the urban settlement the variety that is a pre-requisite for ecosystem resilience. An analysis of the urban form is suggested as an empirical tool to map the opportunities already present in the urban environment and negative space is evaluated as a key element in achieving a positive development able to distribute diverse environmental and social facilities in the city.

Morphology of osteocyte cells in normal and hyper-gravity

Osteocyte cells are the most abundant cells in human bone tissue. Due to their unique morphology and location, osteocyte cells are thought to act as regulators in the bone remodelling process, and are believed to play an important role in astronauts’ bone mass loss after long-term space missions. There is increasing evidence showing that an osteocyte’s functions are highly affected by its morphology. However, changes in an osteocyte’s morphology under an altered gravity environment are still not well documented. Several in vitro studies have been recently conducted to investigate the morphological response of osteocyte cells to the microgravity environment, where osteocyte cells were cultured on a two-dimensional flat surface for at least 24 hours before microgravity experiments. Morphology changes of osteocyte cells in microgravity were then studied by comparing the cell area to 1g control cells. However, osteocyte cells found in vivo are with a more 3D morphology, and both cell body and dendritic processes are found sensitive to mechanical loadings. A round shape osteocyte’s cells support a less stiff cytoskeleton and are more sensitive to mechanical stimulations compared with flat cellular morphology. Thus, the relative flat and spread shape of isolated osteocytes in 2D culture may greatly hamper their sensitivity to a mechanical stimulus, and the lack of knowledge on the osteocyte’s morphological characteristics in culture may lead to subjective and noncomprehensive conclusions of how altered gravity impacts on an osteocyte’s morphology. Through this work empirical models were developed to quantitatively predicate the changes of morphology in osteocyte cell lines (MLO-Y4) in culture, and the response of osteocyte cells, which are relatively round in shape, to hyper-gravity stimulation has also been investigated. The morphology changes of MLO-Y4 cells in culture were quantified by measuring cell area and three dimensionless shape features including aspect ratio, circularity and solidity by using widely accepted image analysis software (ImageJTM). MLO-Y4 cells were cultured at low density (5×103 per well) and the changes in morphology were recorded over 10 hours. Based on the data obtained from the imaging analysis, empirical models were developed using the non-linear regression method. The developed empirical models accurately predict the morphology of MLO-Y4 cells for different culture times and can, therefore, be used as a reference model for analysing MLO-Y4 cell morphology changes within various biological/mechanical studies, as necessary. The morphological response of MLO-Y4 cells with a relatively round morphology to hyper-gravity environment has been investigated using a centrifuge. After 2 hours culture, MLO-Y4 cells were exposed to 20g for 30mins. Changes in the morphology of MLO-Y4 cells are quantitatively analysed by measuring the average value of cell area and dimensionless shape factors such as aspect ratio, solidity and circularity. In this study, no significant morphology changes were detected in MLO-Y4 cells under a hyper-gravity environment (20g for 30 mins) compared with 1g control cells.

Protein kinase D isoforms are expressed in rat and mouse primary sensory neurons and are activated by agonists of protease-activated receptor 2

Serine proteases generated during injury and inflammation cleave protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR(2)) on primary sensory neurons to induce neurogenic inflammation and hyperalgesia. Hyperalgesia requires sensitization of transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV) ion channels by mechanisms involving phospholipase C and protein kinase C (PKC). The protein kinase D (PKD) serine/threonine kinases are activated by diacylglycerol and PKCs and can phosphorylate TRPV1. Thus, PKDs may participate in novel signal transduction pathways triggered by serine proteases during inflammation and pain. However, it is not known whether PAR(2) activates PKD, and the expression of PKD isoforms by nociceptive neurons is poorly characterized. By using HEK293 cells transfected with PKDs, we found that PAR(2) stimulation promoted plasma membrane translocation and phosphorylation of PKD1, PKD2, and PKD3, indicating activation. This effect was partially dependent on PKCepsilon. By immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy, with antibodies against PKD1/PKD2 and PKD3 and neuronal markers, we found that PKDs were expressed in rat and mouse dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons, including nociceptive neurons that expressed TRPV1, PAR(2), and neuropeptides. PAR(2) agonist induced phosphorylation of PKD in cultured DRG neurons, indicating PKD activation. Intraplantar injection of PAR(2) agonist also caused phosphorylation of PKD in neurons of lumbar DRG, confirming activation in vivo. Thus, PKD1, PKD2, and PKD3 are expressed in primary sensory neurons that mediate neurogenic inflammation and pain transmission, and PAR(2) agonists activate PKDs in HEK293 cells and DRG neurons in culture and in intact animals. PKD may be a novel component of a signal transduction pathway for protease-induced activation of nociceptive neurons and an important new target for antiinflammatory and analgesic therapies.

Formulaic sequences in native and non-native argumentative writing in German

Whereas there is substantial scholarship on formulaic language in L1 and L2 English, there is less research on formulaicity in other languages. The aim of this paper is to contribute to learner corpus research into formulaic language in native and non-native German. To this effect, a corpus of argumentative essays written by advanced British students of German (WHiG) was compared with a corpus of argumentative essays written by German native speakers (Falko-L1). A corpus-driven analysis reveals a larger number of 3-grams in WHiG than in Falko-L1, which suggests that British advanced learners of German are more likely to use formulaic language in argumentative writing than their native-speaker counterparts. Secondly, by classifying the formulaic sequences according to their functions, this study finds that native speakers of German prefer discourse-structuring devices to stance expressions, whilst British advanced learners display the opposite preferences. Thirdly, the results show that learners of German make greater use of macro-discourse-structuring devices and cautious language, whereas native speakers favour micro-discourse structuring devices and tend to use more direct language. This study increases our understanding of formulaic language typical of British advanced learners of German and reveals how diverging cultural paradigms can shape written native speaker and learner output.

Role of germ line p53 mutations in aneuploidy and immortalization of dermal fibroblasts from Li-Fraumeni cancer patients

Pedigree analysis of certain families with a high incidence of tumors suggests a genetic predisposition to cancer. Li and Fraumeni described a familial cancer syndrome that is characterized by multiple primary tumors, early age of onset, and marked variation in tumor type. Williams and Strong (1) demonstrated that at least 7% of childhood soft tissue sarcoma patients had family histories that is readily explained by a highly penetrant autosomal dominant gene. To characterize the mechanism for genetic predisposition to many tumor types in these families, we have studied genetic alterations in fibroblasts, a target tissue from patients with the Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS).^ We have observed spontaneous changes in initially normal dermal fibroblasts from LFS patients as they are cultured in vitro. The cells acquire an altered morphology, chromosomal anomalies, and anchorage-independent growth. This aberrant behavior of fibroblasts from LFS patients had never been observed in fibroblasts from normal donors. In addition to these phenotypic alterations, patient fibroblasts spontaneously immortalize by 50 population doublings (pd) in culture; unlike controls that remain normal and senesce by 30-35 (2). At 50 pd, immortal fibroblasts from two patients were found to be susceptible to tumorigenic transformation by an activated T24 H-ras oncogene (3). Approximately 80% of the oncogene expressing transfectants were capable of forming tumors in nude mice within 2-3 weeks. p53 has been previously associated with immortalization of cells in culture and cooperation with ras in transfection assays. Therefore, patients' fibroblast and lymphocyte derived DNA was tested for point mutations in p53. It was shown that LFS patients inherited certain point mutations in one of the two p53 alleles (4). Further studies on the above LFS immortal fibroblasts have demonstrated loss of the remaining p53 allele concomitant with escape from senescence. While the loss of the second allele correlates with immortalization it is not sufficient to transformation by an activated H-ras or N-ras oncogene. These immortal fibroblasts are resistant to tumorigenic transformation by v-abl, v-src, c-neu or v-mos oncogene; implying that additional steps are required in the tumorigenic progression of LFS patients' fibroblasts.^ References. (1) Williams et al., J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 79:1213, 1987. (2) Bischoff et al., Cancer Res. 50:7979, 1990. (3) Bischoff et al., Oncogene 6:183, 1991. (4) Malkin et al., Science 250:1233, 1990. ^

IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF DISTINCT POPULATIONS OF CLONOGENIC BONE MARROW STROMAL CELLS CAPABLE OF TRANSFERRING THE HEMATOPOIETIC MICROENVIRONMENT IN VIVO AND SUPPORTING LT-HSCs IN VITRO

Bone marrow (BM) stromal cells are ascribed two key functions, 1) stem cells for non-hematopoietic tissues (MSC) and 2) as components of the hematopoietic stem cell niche. Current approaches studying the stromal cell system in the mouse are complicated by the low yield of clonogenic progenitors (CFU-F). Given the perivascular location of MSC in BM, we developed an alternative methodology to isolate MSC from mBM. An intact ‘plug’ of bone marrow is expelled from bones and enzymatically disaggregated to yield a single cell suspension. The recovery of CFU-F (1917.95+199) reproducibly exceeds that obtained using the standard BM flushing technique (14.32+1.9) by at least 2 orders of magnitude (P<0.001; N = 8) with an accompanying 196-fold enrichment of CFU-F frequency. Purified BM stromal and vascular endothelial cell populations are readily obtained by FACS. A detailed immunophenotypic analysis of lineage depleted BM identified PDGFRαβPOS stromal cell subpopulations distinguished by their expression of CD105. Both subpopulations retained their original phenotype of CD105 expression in culture and demonstrate MSC properties of multi-lineage differentiation and the ability to transfer the hematopoietic microenvironment in vivo. To determine the capacity of either subpopulation to support long-term multi-lineage reconstituting HSCs, we fractionated BM stromal cells into either the LinNEGPDGFRαβPOSCD105POS and LINNEGPDGFRαβPOSCD105LOW/- populations and tested their capacity to support LT-HSC by co-culturing each population with either 1 or 10 HSCs for 10 days. Following the 10 day co-culture period, both populations supported transplantable HSCs from 10 cells/well co-cultures demonstrating high levels of donor repopulation with an average of 65+23.6% chimerism from CD105POS co-cultures and 49.3+19.5% chimerism from the CD105NEG co-cultures. However, we observed a significant difference when mice were transplanted with the progeny of a single co-cultured HSC. In these experiments, CD105POS co-cultures (100%) demonstrated long-term multi- lineage reconstitution, while only 4 of 8 mice (50%) from CD105NEG -single HSC co-cultures demonstrated long-term reconstitution, suggesting a more limited expansion of functional stem cells. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the PDGFRαβCD105POS stromal cell subpopulation is distinguished by a unique capacity to support the expansion of long-term reconstituting HSCs in vitro.

Computer simulation of random parckings for self-similar particle size distributions in soil and granular materials: porosity and pore size distribution

A 2D computer simulation method of random packings is applied to sets of particles generated by a self-similar uniparametric model for particle size distributions (PSDs) in granular media. The parameter p which controls the model is the proportion of mass of particles corresponding to the left half of the normalized size interval [0,1]. First the influence on the total porosity of the parameter p is analyzed and interpreted. It is shown that such parameter, and the fractal exponent of the associated power scaling, are efficient packing parameters, but this last one is not in the way predicted in a former published work addressing an analogous research in artificial granular materials. The total porosity reaches the minimum value for p = 0.6. Limited information on the pore size distribution is obtained from the packing simulations and by means of morphological analysis methods. Results show that the range of pore sizes increases for decreasing values of p showing also different shape in the volume pore size distribution. Further research including simulations with a greater number of particles and image resolution are required to obtain finer results on the hierarchical structure of pore space.

Vasoactive intestinal peptide inhibits human small-cell lung cancer proliferation in vitro and in vivo

Small-cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) is an aggressive, rapidly growing and metastasizing, and highly fatal neoplasm. We report that vasoactive intestinal peptide inhibits the proliferation of SCLC cells in culture and dramatically suppresses the growth of SCLC tumor-cell implants in athymic nude mice. In both cases, the inhibition was mediated apparently by a cAMP-dependent mechanism, because the inhibition was enhanced by the adenylate cyclase activator forskolin and the phosphodiesterase inhibitor 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine in proportion to increases in intracellular cAMP levels, and the inhibition was abolished by selective inhibition of cAMP-dependent protein kinase. If confirmed in clinical trials, this antiproliferative action of vasoactive intestinal peptide may offer a new and promising means of suppressing SCLC in human subjects, without the toxic side effects of chemotherapeutic agents.

Inhibitory effects of persistent apoptotic cells on monoclonal antibody production in vitro:simple removal of non-viable cells improves antibody productivity by hybridoma cells in culture

Cells undergoing apoptosis in vivo are rapidly detected and cleared by phagocytes. Swift recognition and removal of apoptotic cells is important for normal tissue homeostasis and failure in the underlying clearance mechanisms has pathological consequences associated with inflammatory and auto-immune diseases. Cell cultures in vitro usually lack the capacity for removal of non-viable cells because of the absence of phagocytes and, as such, fail to emulate the healthy in vivo micro-environment from which dead cells are absent. While a key objective in cell culture is to maintain viability at maximal levels, cell death is unavoidable and non-viable cells frequently contaminate cultures in significant numbers. Here we show that the presence of apoptotic cells in monoclonal antibody-producing hybridoma cultures has markedly detrimental effects on antibody productivity. Removal of apoptotic hybridoma cells by macrophages at the time of seeding resulted in 100% improved antibody productivity that was, surprisingly to us, most pronounced late on in the cultures. Furthermore, we were able to recapitulate this effect using novel super-paramagnetic Dead-Cert Nanoparticles to remove non-viable cells simply and effectively at culture seeding. These results (1) provide direct evidence that apoptotic cells have a profound influence on their non-phagocytic neighbors in culture and (2) demonstrate the effectiveness of a simple dead-cell removal strategy for improving antibody manufacture in vitro.