Anti-cancer properties of phenolics from apple waste on colon carcinogenesis in vitro

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in Western countries. The World Health Organisation identifies diet as a critical risk factor in the development and progression of this disease and the protective role of high levels of fruit and vegetable consumption. Several studies have shown that apples contain several phenolic compounds that are potent anti-oxidants in humans. However, little is known about other beneficial properties of apple phenolics in cancer. We have used the HT29, HT115 and CaCo-2 cell lines as in vitro models to examine the effect of apple phenolics (0.01–0.1% apple extract) on key stages of colorectal carcinogenesis, namely; DNA damage (Comet assay), colonic barrier function (TER assay), cell cycle progression (DNA content assay) and invasion (Matrigel assay). Our results indicate that a crude extract of apple phenolics can protect against DNA damage, improve barrier function and inhibit invasion (p < 0.05). The anti-invasive effects of the extract were enhanced with twenty-four hour pretreatment of cells (p < 0.05). We have shown that a crude apple extract from waste, rich in phenolic compounds, beneficially influences key stages of carcinogenesis in colon cells in vitro.

Building a left coast: the legacy of the California Popular Front and the challenge to Cold War liberalism in the post-world war two era

The Cold War in the late 1940s blunted attempts by the Truman administration to extend the scope of government in areas such as health care and civil rights. In California, the combined weakness of the Democratic Party in electoral politics and the importance of fellow travelers and communists in state liberal politics made the problem of how to advance the left at a time of heightened Cold War tensions particularly acute. Yet by the early 1960s a new generation of liberal politicians had gained political power in the Golden State and was constructing a greatly expanded welfare system as a way of cementing their hold on power. In this article I argue that the New Politics of the 1970s, shaped nationally by Vietnam and by the social upheavals of the 1960s over questions of race, gender, sexuality, and economic rights, possessed particular power in California because many activists drew on the longer-term experiences of a liberal politics receptive to earlier anti-Cold War struggles. A desire to use political involvement as a form of social networking had given California a strong Popular Front, and in some respects the power of new liberalism was an offspring of those earlier battles.

It was never good world sence minister must have wyves”: clerical celibacy, clerical marriage, and anticlericalism in Reformation England

The impact of the Reformation was felt strongly in the nature and character of the priesthood, and in the function and reputation of the priest. A shift in the understanding of the priesthood was one of the most tangible manifestations of doctrinal change, evident in the physical arrangement of the church, in the language of the liturgy, and in the relaxation of the discipline of celibacy, which had for centuries bound priests in the Latin tradition to a life of perpetual continence. Clerical celibacy, and accusations of clerical incontinence, featured prominently in evangelical criticisms of the Catholic church and priesthood, which made a good deal of polemical capital out of the perceived relationship of the priest and the efficacy of his sacred function. Citing St Paul, Protestant polemicists presented clerical marriage as the only, and appropriate remedy, for priestly immorality. But did the advent of a married priesthood create more problems than it solved? The polemical certainties that informed evangelical writing on sacerdotal celibacy did not guarantee the immediate acceptance of a married priesthood, and the vocabulary that had been used to denounce clergy who failed in their obligation to celibacy was all too readily turned against the married clergy. The anti-clerical lexicon, and its usage, remained remarkably static despite the substantial doctrinal and practical challenges posed to the traditional model of priesthood by the Protestant Reformation.

ON AMINO ACID AND CODON ASSIGNMENT IN ALGEBRAIC MODELS FOR THE GENETIC CODE

We give a list of all possible schemes for performing amino acid and codon assignments in algebraic models for the genetic code, which are consistent with a few simple symmetry principles, in accordance with the spirit of the algebraic approach to the evolution of the genetic code proposed by Hornos and Hornos. Our results are complete in the sense of covering all the algebraic models that arise within this approach, whether based on Lie groups/Lie algebras, on Lie superalgebras or on finite groups.

A Look at Corporate Code of Conduct Legislation

Over recent years, there has been a growing perception among civil society in the developed world that multinational corporations are engaged in socially and environmentally exploitative practices that they would never get away with, or even attempt, in their home countries. Whether right or wrong, that perception and its political and economic ramifications have driven a global movement for more responsible corporate behavior. As part of that global movement, three common law jurisdictions—the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom—have seen legislation introduced to enforce standards of practice for multinational corporations based in those countries in respect of their overseas activities. None of those Bills has yet passed into law, but they are worthy of analysis as attempts to transform hitherto amorphous concepts like 'corporate social responsibility' into concrete legislation. This article compares and critically analyses the three Bills, making recommendations as to how they could be improved, with particular emphasis on the need to forge stronger links between the legislative provisions and international human rights law.

The Code Red epidemic : a case study

An analysis of log files from an immune World Wide Web server was used to discover the patterns of infection from the Code Red worm variants.  Analogies are drawn to biological systems.  The need for protection is commented on.

Australia's proposed anti-terrorism laws

Discusses if ASIO and the police should be able to keep people in detention for 48 hours without access to a lawyer? Is this an appropriate response to to a dangerous new post-September 11 world?Or a radical over reaction that tramples on civil rights?

Infanticide and anti-imperialism in Pasolini's Medea

Euripides’ Medea has been reinvented several times in the twentieth century. While some modern Medeas reiterate conservative tropes of the monstrous feminine or the evil of the cultural Other, the infanticidal figure of Medea is also open to more politically progressive usages. Indeed, several modern versions of Medea are overt in their politicisation of the problems of colonialism and/or institutionalised gender dissymmetry: the Medeas of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Heiner Müller, Christa Wolf, and more recently the indigenous Australian version by Wesley Enoch, for example, enact resistance to the interpretative closures that construct Medea as a caricature of the evil Other. But what lends the Euripidean narrative to such politicisations? And what role does the infanticide have in modern politicisations of the narrative?

To answer these questions, the paper examines Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film Medea from his Trilogy of Life series. Focussing on Pasolini’s representation of Medea’s signature act, maternal infanticide, the paper outlines the complex ways in which this motif is integral to the film’s contestation of imperialist ideologies, values and practices, and its affiliations with Marxist and feminist criticism. Drawing upon theories of subjectivity and postcolonial discourse, the paper argues that the infanticide motif is politically enabling precisely because it exalts the politics of the ways in which subjectivity is defined. That is, the apparent blessing of the sun god over Medea’s murderous act speaks to the ways in which subjectivity is formed by the symbolic order: a point recalling Medea’s earlier articulation that society systematically demonises and oppresses foreigners and women. The films representation of infanticide, then, can be read in the light of the narratives politicisation of the discourses that define subjectivity and the hegemonic practices that subjugate and dominate the subaltern. So, while Medea’s infanticide is sometimes dismissed as a demonising representation of the cultural and sexual Other, it can also be read as the key to understanding Medea’s political radicality, drawing attention to the discourses of rights-bearing subjectivity in both its ancient and modern incarnations.

Pasolini’s project of anti-colonialism, however, is fraught with certain paradoxes. To politicise the predicament of imperial subjugation, Pasolini’s Medea places the burden of authenticity on the cultural and sexual Other, on Medea - and on Medea’s culture of origin, Colchis. In this way, Pasolini’s Medea mobilises the problematic discourses of ‘First World’ modernity that define the ‘Third World’ as the carrier of the symbolic burden of authenticity as well as of ‘the sacred.’ Pasolini’s Medea thus offers an overly schematic and abstract representation of the relationship between coloniser and colonised. However, Pasolini’s Medea is not simply or finally a reification of these discourses; rather it strategically mobilises them – just as it strategically mobilises the monstrous act of infanticide – to make its political point.

Ethical practice from the perspective of the forensic psychologist : commentary on the uses and value of the Australian Psychological Society (2007) code of ethics

Forensic practice in Australia and around the world attracts a high level of public and judicial scrutiny. The way in which the forensic psychologist conducts him or herself in ethically challenging situations is important not only to the reputation of the individual practitioner, but to the profession more widely. This paper outlines some of the ethical issues that commonly arise in forensic psychology practice and discusses these in relation to the recently published Australian Psychological Society (2007) Code of Ethics. Four ethically challenging scenarios are described and discussed in terms of how the Code might be used to offer guidance to psychologists about how they might best respond.

Anti-amnesic effect of enzyme extracted stevioside from Stevia rebaudiana

The increasing consumption of sucrose has resulted in several nutritional and medicinal problems, including obesity. There is an alarming rise in the prevalence of obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and metabolic syndrome in children and adults around the world, partly related to increasing availability of energy-dense, high-calorie foods, and perhaps to increased consumption of sugar and particularly fructose sweetened beverages. Therefore, low calorie sweeteners are urgently required to substitute table sugar.

Stevioside, a diterpene glycoside, is well known for its intense sweetness and is used as a non-caloric sweetener. Its potential widespread use requires an easy and effective extraction method. Enzymatic extraction of stevioside from Stevia rebaudiana leaves with cellulase, pectinase and hemicellulase using various parameters such as concentration of enzyme, incubation time and temperature was optimized. The extraction conditions were further optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). Under the optimized conditions, the experimental values were in close agreement with predicted model and resulted in a three times yield enhancement of stevioside.

Various studies have revealed that in addition to sweetening nature of stevisoide, it exerts beneficial effects including antihypertensive, anti-hyperglycemic, anti-human rotavirus, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antitumor actions. Its anti-amnesic potential remains to be explored, therefore the present study has been undertaken to investigate the beneficial effect of stevioside in memory deficit of rats employing scopolamine induced amnesia as an animal model.

Significance: Stevia is gaining significance in different parts of the world and is expected to develop into a major source of high potency sweetener for the growing natural food market. There is a strong possibility that Stevia sweeteners could replace aspartame in some diet variants. In addition, Stevia is expected to be used as a part substitute for sugar and also used in combination with other artificial sweeteners in the emerging phase of life cycle.

Anti-spectacle : a discussion paper

We want to open this discussion by repeating an earlier argument (Radovic 2008b) that there is a need to revisit World City Hypothesis (Friedmann, 1986). We see that as important in the context of the Conference on Degrowth, Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity, as the idea of “world city” implies a certain (kind of) quality, and the concept of degrowth and the idea(l) of sustainable development are both about a necessity to redefine the very criteria which frame our understanding of progress. Cities offer an important arena for all developments related to sustainable future.

The new anti-semitism

The new Anti-Semitism is a term that came into use to describe attacks on Jews across the world that erupted in the aftermath of the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in September 2000 after the collapse of the Camp David peace talks. The conflict unleashed a wave of suicide bombings in Israel and led to Israel reoccupying Palestinian areas. This fighting triggered an outburst of antiSemitism not seen since the end of the World War II. Nearly 100 synagogues were attacked across the world in the four weeks from the end of September to October 2000; more were burnt down at any time since Kristallnacht, when Nazis attacked Jewish institutions in Germany in 1938.

Youth Depression Alleviation-Augmentation with an anti-inflammatory agent (YoDA-A): protocol and rationale for a placebo-controlled randomized trial of rosuvastatin and aspirin

AIM: There is growing support for the role of inflammation and oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). This has led to the development of novel strategies targeting inflammation in the treatment of depression. Rosuvastatin and aspirin have well-documented, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The aim of the Youth Depression Alleviation: Augmentation with an anti-inflammatory agent (YoDA-A) study is to determine whether individuals receiving adjunctive anti-inflammatory agents, aspirin and rosuvastatin experience a reduction in the severity of MDD compared with individuals receiving placebo. METHODS: YoDA-A is a 12-week triple-blind, randomized controlled trial funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia. Participants aged 15-25, with moderate-to-severe MDD, are allocated to receive either 10 mg/day rosuvastatin, 100 mg/day aspirin, or placebo, in addition to treatment as usual. Participants are assessed at baseline and at weeks 4, 8, 12 and 26. The primary outcome is change in the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) from baseline to week 12. RESULTS: The study is planned to be completed in 2017. At date of publication, 85 participants have been recruited. CONCLUSION: Timely and targeted intervention for youth MDD is crucial. Given the paucity of new agents to treat youth MDD, adjunctive trials are not only pragmatic and 'real-world', but additionally aim to target shortfalls in conventional medications. This study has the potential to first provide two new adjunctive treatment options for youth MDD; aspirin and rosuvastatin. Second, this study will serve as proof of principle of the role of inflammation in MDD.

Fool me if you can: mimicking attacks and anti-attacks in cyberspace

Botnets have become major engines for malicious activities in cyberspace nowadays. To sustain their botnets and disguise their malicious actions, botnet owners are mimicking legitimate cyber behavior to fly under the radar. This poses a critical challenge in anomaly detection. In this paper, we use web browsing on popular web sites as an example to tackle this problem. First of all, we establish a semi-Markov model for browsing behavior. Based on this model, we find that it is impossible to detect mimicking attacks based on statistics if the number of active bots of the attacking botnet is sufficiently large (no less than the number of active legitimate users). However, we also find it is hard for botnet owners to satisfy the condition to carry out a mimicking attack most of the time. With this new finding, we conclude that mimicking attacks can be discriminated from genuine flash crowds using second order statistical metrics. We define a new fine correntropy metrics and show its effectiveness compared to others. Our real world data set experiments and simulations confirm our theoretical claims. Furthermore, the findings can be widely applied to similar situations in other research fields.

Antitumoral, mutagenic and (anti)estrogenic activities of tingenone and pristimerin

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)