2,989 research outputs found
The 1961 Kampong Bukit Ho Swee fire and the making of modern Singapore
No full textBy 1970, Singapore’s urban landscape was dominated by high-rise blocks of planned public housing built by the People’s Action Party government, signifying the establishment of a high modernist nation-state. A decade earlier, the margins of the City had been dominated by kampongs, home to semi-autonomous communities of low-income Chinese families which freely built, and rebuilt, unauthorised wooden houses. This change was not merely one of housing but belied a more fundamental realignment of state-society relations in the 1960s. Relocated in Housing and Development Board flats, urban kampong families were progressively integrated into the social fabric of the emergent nation-state. This study examines the pivotal role of an event, the great Kampong Bukit Ho Swee fire of 1961, in bringing about this transformation. The redevelopment of the fire site in the aftermath of the calamity brought to completion the British colonial regime’s ‘emergency’ programmes of resettling urban kampong dwellers in planned accommodation, in particular, of building emergency public housing on the sites of major fires in the 1950s. The PAP’s far greater political resolve, and the timing of and state of emergency occasioned by the scale of the 1961 disaster, enabled the government to rehouse the Bukit Ho Swee fire victims in emergency housing in record time. This in turn provided the HDB with a strategic platform for clearing other kampongs and for transforming their residents into model citizens of the nation-state. The 1961 fire’s symbolic usefulness extended into the 1980s and beyond, in sanctioning the PAP’s new housing redevelopment schemes. The official account of the inferno has also become politically useful for the government of today for disciplining a new generation of Singaporeans against taking the nation’s progress for granted. Against these exalted claims of the fire’s role in the Singapore Story, this study also examines the degree of actual change and continuity in the social and economic lives of the people of Bukit Ho Swee after the inferno. In some crucial ways, the residents continued to occupy a marginal place in society while pondering, too, over the unresolved question of the cause of the fire. These continuities of everyday life reflect the ambivalence with which the citizenry regarded the high modernist state in contemporary Singapore
Perimetric Studies on Long-Term Hypotensive Glaucoma After Filtering Surgery by Intraoperative Mitomycin Application
No full textOligonychus litchii is an important agricultural pest in Taiwan (Acar: Tetranychidae)
No full textOligonychus litchii was first reported in 1989 by Lo and Ho. The known host
plants of this mite have rapidly increased to 34 plants in 17 families, including fruit
trees, ornamental plants, and some wild trees. It has become the key mite pest of
guava, litchi, longyan, loquat, and wax apple. In the opinion of the author, the
importance of this spider mite to agriculture in Taiwan is second only to Tetanychus
kanzawai Kishda, T. urticae Koch, and Panonychus citri (McGregor)
Cooling rates of neutron stars and the young neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant
No full textWe explore the thermal state of the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant using the recent result of Ho & Heinke that the thermal radiation of this star is well described by a carbon atmosphere model and the emission comes from the entire stellar surface. Starting from neutron star cooling theory, we formulate a robust method to extract neutrino cooling rates of thermally relaxed stars at the neutrino cooling stage from observations of thermal surface radiation. We show how to compare these rates with the rates of standard candles – stars with non-superfluid nucleon cores cooling slowly via the modified Urca process. We find that the internal temperature of standard candles is a well-defined function of the stellar compactness parameter x=rg/R, irrespective of the equation of state of neutron star matter (R and rg are circumferential and gravitational radii, respectively). We demonstrate that the data on the Cassiopeia A neutron star can be explained in terms of three parameters: f?, the neutrino cooling efficiency with respect to the standard candle; the compactness x; and the amount of light elements in the heat-blanketing envelope. For an ordinary (iron) heat-blanketing envelope or a low-mass (? 10?13 M?) carbon envelope, we find the efficiency f?? 1 (standard cooling) for x? 0.5 and f?? 0.02 (slower cooling) for a maximum compactness x? 0.7. A heat blanket containing the maximum mass (?10?8 M?) of light elements increases f? by a factor of 50. We also examine the (unlikely) possibility that the star is still thermally non-relaxe
Buffett book author and Forbes newsletter editor to give BB&T Lecture
No full textForbes newsletter editor and book author Vahan Janjigian will give a talk on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., as the featured speaker in the BB&T Distinguished Lecture Series on Capitalism, hosted by Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business
T Regulatory Lymphocytes Function Increased, by Induction Of Ho-1, Improves Type-1 Cardio-Renal Syndrome
No full textRationale: Type-1 cardio-renal syndrome (CRS) is characterized by an acute kidney dysfunction due to renal arteriolar vasoconstriction following an acute worsening of cardiac function. It is well know that HO-1 upregulation has a cardio protective and renoprotective function mediated by anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic and vasodilating effects. An alteration of T-lymphocyte-related immune response seems to be one of the potential mechanisms involved in type-1 CRS.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess 1) if HO-1 upregulation could be a therapeutic target for type 1 CRS and 2) the role of T-lymphocytes in HO-1 induced effects on renal function in type 1 CRS.
Methods: Post-ischemic heart failure was induced by left anterior coronary artery ligation in C57Bl6 and SCID (T lymphocytes deficient) mice. Animals were divided into 4 groups: sham, myocardial infarction (MI), MI treated with HO-1 inducer cobalt protoporphyrin (CoPP) with and without the HO activity inhibitor stannous mesoporphyrin (SnMP). All mice underwent echocardiography (fractional area shortening, FAS) and renal Doppler sonography (intrarenal pulsatility index, PI) 30 days after surgery.
Results: Heart function was significantly reduced in MI groups (C57: FAS: sham 0.36±0.06, MI 0.26±0.04, p<0.05; SCID: FAS: sham 0.34±0.04, MI: 0.24±0.04, p<0.01) and PI was significantly increased in MI groups compared to sham groups (C57: PI: sham 0.98±0.05, MI: 1.12±0.11, p<0.05; SCID: PI: sham 0.72±0.08, MI 1.37±0.37, p<0.05). HO-1 induction improved heart function in both C57 and SCID mice but only in SCID mice was a significant improvement of renal vasoconstriction observed (SCID; PI: MI+CoPP 0.9±0.19 p<0.05). In SCID mice SnMP treatment reversed the effect of CoPP on heart function and renal vasoconstriction.
Conclusion: Our novel study showed that T lymphocyte mediated immunity is involved in type 1 CRS and upregulation of HO-1, in this setting, could be a therapeutic target for improving type 1 CRS.
Author Disclosures: P. Pesce: None. D. Sacerdoti: None. M. Boldrin: None. R. Rezzani: None. N.G. Abraham: None.
Key Words: Renal circulation • Heart failure • Immunologic factors • Oxidative stres
T Cell responses to whole SARS Coronavirus in humans
No full textEffective vaccines should confer long-term protection against future outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by a novel zoonotic coronavirus (SARS-CoV) with unknown animal reservoirs. We conducted a cohort study examining multiple parameters of immune responses to SARS-CoV infection, aiming to identify the immune correlates of protection. We used a matrix of overlapping peptides spanning whole SARS-CoV proteome to determine T cell responses from 128 SARS convalescent samples by ex vivo IFN-γ ELISPOT assays. Approximately 50% of convalescent SARS patients were positive for T cell responses, and 90% possessed strongly neutralizing Abs. Fifty-five novel T cell epitopes were identified, with spike protein dominating total T cell responses. CD8+ T cell responses were more frequent and of a greater magnitude than CD4+ T cell responses (p < 0.001).
Polychromatic cytometry analysis indicated that the virus-specific T cells from the severe group tended to be a central memory phenotype (CD27+/CD45RO+) with a significantly higher frequency of polyfunctional CD4+ T cells producing IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-2, and CD8+ T cells producing IFN-γ, TNF-α, and CD107a (degranulation), as compared with the mild-moderate group. Strong T cell responses correlated significantly (p < 0.05) with higher neutralizing Ab. The serum cytokine profile during acute infection indicated a significant elevation of innate immune responses. Increased Th2 cytokines were observed in patients with fatal infection. Our study provides a roadmap for the immunogenicity of SARS-CoV and types of immune responses that may be responsible for the virus clearance, and should serve as a benchmark for SARS-CoV vaccine design and evaluation
Research on Factors Affecting the Work Engagement of Employees AT Small and Medium Enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
No full textResearch on factors affecting the work engagement of employees in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ho Chi Minh City” was conducted with the following objectives: (i) Identify the employee's factors affecting the work engagement of employees in small and medium-sized enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City; (ii) Measuring the impact of factors on employee engagement in small and medium-sized enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City and (iii) Proposing managerial implications to improve employee engagement connect the work of employees in small and medium enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City. Accordingly, the author builds models from research and scales based on previous studies. The study investigated 300 individuals who were employees working in Ho Chi Minh and collected 282 valid samples to collect data for quantitative analysis
Structural and magnetic properties of R(FexMn1-x)12 (R = Ho,Y)
No full textThe crystallographic structures and magnetic properties of R(FexMn1-x)(12) (R=Ho,Y; x=0, 0.2, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7) have been studied using powder neutron diffraction and magnetic measurements. These compounds crystallize in a ThMn12-type structure. The rare earths occupy the 2a sites, and Fe and Mn atoms are distributed on three nonequivalent sites: 8i, 8i, and 8f. The Mn and Fe atoms are found to exhibit strong site preferences, with the 8i sites favoring Mn atoms and the 8f sites favoring Fe atoms. Ho(Fe,Mn)(12) compounds show a noncollinear magnetic structure within the Mn(,Fe) sublattice. Spin-glass-like behavior has been observed in these two series. There are two characteristic temperatures for the Ho(Mn1-xFex)(12); one corresponding to the compensation of the ordered Ho and (Mn,Fe) magnetic moments, and the other to the ordering of the (Mn,Fe) lattice. The uncommon feature of two ordering temperatures in this compound is due to the weak rare-earth (R) transition-metal (T) interaction. The addition of Fe substantially modifies the magnetic interactions, thus increasing the ordering temperature and changing the type of magnetic order of the (Mn,Fe) sublattice.Physics, Condensed MatterSCI(E)15ARTICLE6null6
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