1,959 research outputs found
Lack of evidence for safe vaccination with the Muguga cocktail in Sudan
No full textHow to cite this article: Geysen, D. & Berkvens, D., 2013, ‘Lack of evidence for safe vaccination with the Muguga cocktail in Sudan’, Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research 80(1), Art. #571, 1 page. http:// dx.doi.org/10.4102/ojvr. v80i1.57
Entertainer: Pieter-Dirk Uys
No full textThis booklet celebrates the life and work of Pieter-Dirk Uys, internationally acclaimed playwright, author, role-model and one of South Africa's living treasures
Entertainer: Pieter-Dirk Uys
No full textThis booklet celebrates the life and work of Pieter-Dirk Uys, internationally acclaimed playwright, author, role-model and one of South Africa's living treasures
Entertainer: Pieter-Dirk Uys
No full textThis booklet celebrates the life and work of Pieter-Dirk Uys, internationally acclaimed playwright, author, role-model and one of South Africa's living treasures
Formal Techniques and Self/Other Relations in the Novels of Dirk Bogarde
No full textThe thesis foregrounds the distinctive contribution Dirk Bogarde made to
contemporary writing in a second career that developed in parallel to his screen
commitments. It dispels the notion that Bogarde followed a familiar path as an actor
who wrote books. Instead it establishes his reputation as an innovative writer whose
formal technique was substantially influenced by the textual systems of cinema and
the cross-fertilisation from acting to writing.
In examining the formative factors that steered Bogarde towards authorship, the
thesis addresses the role of performance as a generative factor in the evolution of the
novels, establishing a discursive link with Bakhtinian dialogism, and specifically,
transgredience as a formal imperative. Secondly, it affords a critical insight into why
the major concerns with staging and performativity preoccupy his writing career.
The thesis claims that Bogarde was an empirically dialogical writer whose use
of camera-eye narration fostered the proliferation of competing discourses across the
fiction. This formal dynamic is centred on the relationship between stages and
dialogism, which incorporates the work of Erving Goffinan as a complementary
critique to Bakhtinian theory with its emphasis on self-presentation. The concern
with socially-constructed behaviour leads the thesis to address the associated issues of
stereotyping and 'otherness', which in terms of body politics is articulated by the
mono logic drive to confine the sexual 'other' to a fixed representation.
Bogarde's ability to draw on cinematic and performance techniques identifies
an area of expertise unavailable to most other writers. This is an unusual repository
of skills to bring to writing which is why the thesis makes the claim for his singular
achievement as a contemporary author. There are fruitful points of intersection to be
explored in this respect with the work of Christopher Isherwood, whom Bogarde read
and admired, as a basis for further research. It is hoped that the thesis will play its
part in opening up new possibilities for Bogarde's writing to be re-visited by future
critics
"The end of national models? Integration courses and citizenship trajectories in Europe"
No full textSeveral European countries have recently introduced or are planning to introduce citizenship trajectories (voluntary or obligatory inclusion programs for recent immigrants) or citizen integration tests (tests one should pass to be able and acquire permanent residence or state citizenship). Authors like Joppke claim this is an articulation of a more general shift towards the logic of assimilation (and away from a multicultural agenda) in integration policy paradigms of European States. Integration policies would even be converging in such a fashion that it would no longer make sense to think in terms of national models for immigrant integration. One cannot deny the empirical fact of diffusion of civic integration policies throughout Europe. This paper claims there is, however, still sufficient distinctiveness between immigrant integration policies in order to continue and use an analytical framework which distinguishes national models
The application of molecular biology techniques to analyse diversity in Theileria parva populations in Zambia
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Theileria parva is a complex protozoan parasite causing East Coast fever in Eastern and Central Africa. Vaccination using live parasites is an effective control measure and has been used in Zambia based on locally isolated and introduced T. parva stocks. Diversity among T. parva populations was investigated in parasites from two Zambian provinces with different disease epidemiologies and control histories. Isolates from the pre-vaccination era, local and exotic stocks used for vaccination, and one recent field isolate were cloned and passaged in vitro to study genomic stability over time.
The results of the data from three genome-wide probes indicate a marked homogeneity and stability among the Zambian isolates in contrast to East African isolates. Results from Southern blot profiles and the polymorphic immunodominant molecule (PIM) sequence analysis suggest a common origin for the Zambian isolates from the pre-vaccination era, except for one isolate (Zam5) from Southern Province. This isolate showed characteristics suggesting a buffalo origin. Assays for genotype characterisation were developed using five allelic markers. Multilocus characterisation revealed identical profiles in a recent Zambian isolate from Southern Province and two components of an exotic cocktail vaccine, indicating the escape of one of the vaccine stocks in the field.
Characterisation of T. parva field populations by RFLP-PCR assays after immunisation revealed the presence of dominant genotypes from those that had been used for vaccination. Circumstantial evidence for the involvement of one of the exotic vaccine parasites in epidemics in Southern Province is presented and a hypothesis formulated for the rapid spread of this genotype. Analysis of the characterisation data suggested the existence of two groups of T. parva parasites of different origin. The classic T. parva group, characterised by a dimorphism of the p150, p104 and p32 loci and the absence of a p67 insert and a buffalo-derived group which showed a polymorphism of p150, p104 and p32 and the presence of a p67 insert. There is evidence that recombination occurs, resulting in parasites that have characteristics of both groups. The relevance of these recombinant parasites in the epidemiology of the disease seems low. Characterisation of larger samples from areas of regular buffalo-cattle contact is necessary to clarify this. Sequence analysis of the most discriminative locus (PIM) was undertaken and gene conversion could be the main mechanism generating diversity. A more appropriate nomenclature for T. parva is proposed based on the growing evidence of molecular differences among isolates and stocks.Belgian Administration for Development
Cooperatio
Het polymorf immunodominant molecule van Theileria parva : recombinante expressie en localizatie in zoogdiercellen, DNA immunizatie van runderen en gebruik in diagnostiek
No full textEast Coast fever (ECF), an acute lymphoproliferative disease of cattle
in sub-Saharan Africa, is caused by the apicomplexan parasite Theileria parva.
Protective immunity against the parasite is mediated by CD8+ cytotoxic
T lymphocytes (CTL) directed against schizont-infected cells. The
polymorphic immunodominant molecule (PIM) is a ubiquitously
expressedschizont surface protein that has been hypothesized to play a
role in protective immune responses against T. parva, mostly based on the allelic diversity of its coding sequence.
The primary objective of this work was to test whether PIM contains
epitopes recognized by CTL by inducing a PIM-specific cellular immune
response in cattle by DNA immunization. By presenting PIM in isolation
from other T. parva-antigens,
the epitope selection by the bovine MHC class I molecules is limited to
PIM-derived epitopes, thereby forcing the generation of a PIM-specific
CTL response. If PIM-specific CTL can be generated and if these are
demonstrated to kill parasite-infected lymphocytes, this proves that
PIM-derived epitopes are presented by schizont-infected cells and hence
that PIM is a potential target for a subunit vaccine against ECF.
PIM expression plasmids were constructed and tested by transient
transfection of simian fibroblasts (COS-7). The best expression level
was obtained using a chimeric gene consisting of the PIM coding
sequence fused to the gene encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein
(EGFP). Because PIM contains 3 predicted transmembrane helices, it was
expected that EGFP-PIM would aggregate in the cytoplasm of transfected
cells. Instead, both EGFP-PIM and PIM alone were shown to localize to
the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and to lipid droplets. By expressing
different regions of PIM fused to EGFP, we have shown that the
C-terminal region containing the transmembrane helices is necessary for
the localization of PIM to the ER membrane. Expression of EGFP-NtPIM, a
construct containing only the hydrophilic aminoterminal and central
regions of PIM, resulted in a diffuse cytoplasmic distribution, without
any apparent interaction with the host cell cytoskeleton.
The DNA vaccine encoding EGFP-PIM was administered to cattle
intradermally by jet-injection. The vaccinated animals showed both
EGFP- and PIM-specific antibodies and PIM-specific and
parasite-specific T helper responses, indicating that the fusion
antigen was expressed in sufficient amounts for inducing an immune
reaction. More importantly, parasite-specific cytotoxic cells could be
generated from both vaccinated animals and not from a naive animal. In
calf 1, the cytotoxic cells were MHC-I-restricted and therefore
represent CD8+ CTL. This calf was protected from a lethal challenge. In
contrast, the parasite-specific cytotoxicity in calf 2 did not appear
to be MHC-restricted and that animal developed acute ECF upon
challenge. Interestingly, calf 2 exhibited a much stronger T helper
response than calf 1, which could indicate an association of the
strength or the nature of the T helper resonse with the ability to
develop parasite-specific CTL.
Finally, because high protein levels of EGFP-NtPIM were obtained in
COS-7 cells, we used this recombinant PIM for the development of a new
PIM-based serodiagnostic enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for
ECF. Although an antibody capture ELISA based on a fusion of PIM with
glutathione S-transferase (GST) is commercially available, the more
labor intensive indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT) still is the
preferred method of choice for serodiagnosis of T. parva infections. Here we demonstrate cross-reaction of sera from Fasciola hepatica-infected
cattle on GST-PIM but not on EGFP-NtPIM coated plates, showing that the
EGFP-NtPIM antibody capture ELISA is more specific than the
commercialtest. However, some sera from Trypanosoma-infected
cattle reacted with EGFP-NtPIM and GST-PIM and were shown to recognize
PIM in IFAT and Western blot. Changing the format of our assay to a
capture competition ELISA did not solve the cross-reactivity of the Trypanosoma-antisera.
Therefore, regardless of the serodiagnostic test that is used, care
must be taken in the interpretation of test results in herds with a
high prevalence of Trypanosoma spp.status: Publishe
A brief choice of films
No full textMelbourne experimental filmamaker Dirk de Bruyn together with sound artist Joel Stern created a hallucinating mixture of light, movement and sound in the small basement of the Urban Espresso Bar. Dirk De Bruyn and Joel Stren gave an author talk at 8:30 pm on 13th October 2009<br
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