326,486 research outputs found
Molecular basis of gene-environment interactions in the pathogenesis of asthma and COPD
No full textThe origins of respiratory disease, such as asthma in childhood and COPD in later life are unclear. Maternal smoking during pregnancy and low birth weight is associated with increased risk of asthma, poor lung function in adults and COPD in old age. Exposure to oxidative stress and poor nutrition in utero is thought to cause damage to the lung and alter the normal course of lung development.Glutathione S-transferases (GST) are potent antioxidants. In this work, genetic polymorphisms that alter GST enzyme activity were genotyped in a family-based childhood asthma cohort (341 families, n = 1508) and analysed to investigate whether they alter the risk of developing asthma when individuals are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. Real-time PCR based copy number variation methodology was developed to genotype the common gene deletion polymorphism of GSTT1 and GSTM1 genes, for other GST genes (GSTP1 and GSTO2) SNP haplotypes were constructed. A rare GSTO2 haplotype was negatively associated with asthma susceptibility, atopy severity, and FEV1 values. Asthmatic children with a GSTT1 gene deletion, or a common GSTP1 haplotype, developed more severe asthma compared to individuals with a GSTT1 gene or non-carriers of the GSTP1 haplotype. Total IgE levels were increased in GSTT1*0 individuals when exposed to tobacco smoke in early life, suggesting a gene-environment interaction. GSTO2 may be a shared susceptibility locus for asthma in childhood and COPD in later life.Animal models of maternal protein-restriction during pregnancy can induce hypertension, diabetes and endothelial dysfunction in offspring and in some of these models alterations to lung gene expression and lung architecture have been reported. This work established that a rat model of maternal dietary protein-restriction during pregnancy known to induce hypertension in the offspring, results in persistent alterations to the expression of genes in the lungs of adult offspring (120 days), including genes involved in glucocorticoid action (Hsd11b2), growth (Igf1 & 2 and Pcdh1) and alveolar development (Tp53). Lung microRNA expression profiles were also altered in response to exposure to protein restriction in utero. These findings suggest a role for nutritional programming in respiratory disease susceptibility in later life and a role for microRNAs in the study of the developmental origins of health and disease in general. Further work will include the investigation of epigenetic mechanisms that control nutritional programming in lungs of animals exposed to protein-restriction in utero.This work has demonstrated that GST polymorphism is a risk factor for childhood asthma and certain genotypes can offer some protection against the development of severe asthma. There was little evidence to suggest that GST polymorphism modulates the effects of smoke exposure in early life. In addition, we have demonstrated that maternal diets that are poor in nutrition could predispose her offspring to respiratory disease in later life by altering the course of normal lung development in early life or response to environmental stimuli in later life
Uriah M. Rose photograph collection, 1853-1913
No full textThis collection contains the photographic prints of Uriah M. and Margaret Rose and their home.Uriah M. Rose photograph collection, 1853-191
Food Sovereignty as a model for scholar-led open access publishing
No full textAs large commercial publishers adapt their business models to profit from an increasingly open access (OA) scholarly publishing landscape, there has been an increased focus on alternate scholar-led and diamond forms of open access. Andrea E. Pia and Filippo Zerilli, argue that to effectively compete and outcompete traditional publishers and bibliometrics, scholar-led publications can learn from the slow food and food sovereignty movements that have constructed co-operative systems for quality assessment that bypass the commercial mainstream
In/formalization
No full textAddressing a variety of locations and subjects across several social contexts and countries, this forum intends to stimulate novel ways of conceptualizing the inevitable interpenetration and entanglement of formalization and informalization as two interlinked social processes. Rather than proposing a new coherent definition of “informality”, we propose to consider “in/formalization” as a space of practice and reflection which is crucial for engaging with contemporary economy, law and politics and their current local and global articulations and scenarios. The forum features contributions by Stamatis Amarianakis, Lenka Brunclíková, Dolores Koenig, B. Lynne Milgram, Sarah Muir, Antonio Maria Pusceddu, Alan Smart, Mechthild von Vacano, Filippo M. Zerilli & Julie Trappe
Introduction: timescapes of extraction
No full textThis book aims to contribute to this growing literature by putting together mining and post-mining in a global perspective; that is, by approaching the spatial and temporal articulations of mining and post-mining as interrelated and coexisting features of the same global minescape. The main point we want to make is that placing mining and post-mining in a global perspective helps us account for the interconnections between the diverse and diversified worlds of resource extraction and their lasting effects over time, and to think about their legacies as intimately connected to the contemporary extractive geographies. To do this, we propose framing mining and post-mining sites through the idea of the ‘global life of mines’, which we conceive as a methodological framework for addressing the variations and permanence of resource extraction and its aftermath. Taken together, the chapters in this book offer insights into the multiple temporalities entangled in the timescapes of resource extraction (D’Angelo and Pijpers 2018a, 2018b) and how such temporalities, far from being captured by conventional linear chronologies (of clocks, calendars, calculations, estimates), coexist and interact in producing the global minescape. Thinking about mining and post-mining in terms of their ‘global life’ means to combine the spatialities of dispersed sites of (post)extraction with a timescape perspective that highlights the temporal intricacy and multifaceted temporal dimensions of socio-environmental life (Adam 1998). Consequently, the ‘global life of mines’ entails understanding extractive spaces through time and the temporalities of extraction through space.
This book brings into conversation researchers who address different dimensions, implications and temporalities of resource extraction and its aftermath. In this Introduction, we highlight a ‘global’ outlook as a productive way of thinking about extractive activities and their afterlives. We clarify the meaning of the global, what is global in the life of mines, and how we believe it is crucial to bring together mining and post-mining in a comparative perspective. We think of the global life of mines as a comprehensive framework for thinking about circuits of extraction, mining sites and their exhausted landscapes as intimately interconnected
Helen M. Rose Collection
No full textPhotograph taken inside Fleet Hospital #114, in Samar, Philippines, showing a room decorated for Christmas. The room has high ceiling with streamers draped from it, there are two table on either side of the photo with four chairs on the left and three chairs on the right. In the center is a door, to the right of that door is written "Merry Christmas" and on the left is "Happy New Year.
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