Starting material is an important consideration when developing and manufacturing immunotherapies such as dendritic cell (DC) vaccines. Historically, DC vaccines have been generated via monocyte ...intermediates to circumvent the difficulty in obtaining a sufficient yield of such a rare cell type. However, monocyte-derived DCs (MoDCs) are not representative of the heterogenous dendritic population observed in the human body. This is a concern further compounded by donor variability, creating challenges in isolating ample patient cells while retaining modification capacity. Establishing a standardized platform that adequately meets quality parameters for clinical applications while addressing the concerns surrounding donor variability is one current focus in immunotherapies.
In this study, leukapheresis material from a single qualified donor was obtained for reprogramming into iPSCs to generate iPSC-derived DCs (iP-DCs). These iP-DCs were evaluated for identity, function, and potential for differentiation towards DC lineage and compared to their ex vivo counterparts, MoDCs; which were generated from monocytes isolated from leukapheresis product. Flow cytometry and image-based analyses were utilized throughout multiple stages of the study to examine whether an iPSC-derived immunotherapy mediates the challenges associated with donor variability, source yield, and differentiation capacity. Preliminary data for the generation of CD14-/CD1c+ MoDCs from leukapheresis material reveal a relatively short induction time MoDCs of under seven days. A majority of the cells lost expression of the monocyte marker CD14 by day seven, with 94% of cells CD14- . Additionally, 96.8% of cells were CD1c+ by day-seven, as opposed to only 8.58% at the start of the experiment. Results at various stages of the cell process highlight the unique difficulties associated with generating MoDCs. Phenotyping of isolated PBMCs (Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell) from five distinct donors revealed variability in the percentage of starting CD14+ cells ranging from 1.9 - 13.5%. Different monocyte isolation methods demonstrated further variability; for example, isolation by plastic adhesion resulted in 38.2-84.3% CD14+ cell retention from the starting PBMC population, while bead-based negative selection methods yielded 63-83.4% CD14+ cell retention. Successful generation of DCs from iPSCs will be significant for use in standardization and quality control of immunotherapy production.
Summary
Sprouting populace mass within the urban areas furnishes critical challenges of providing uninterruptible community services to fulfill the primitive needs of inhabitants in smart cities. ...Smart cities facilitate and uplift the living standards of inhabitants through various smart systems or infrastructures, and smart grid is one of them. Secure transmission is a key requirement in the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) of most smart grids, and key establishment cryptographic protocols can be used to achieve such a requirement. Designing efficient and secure key establishment protocols for AMI remains challenging. For example, in this paper, we reveal several weaknesses in the identity‐based key establishment protocol of Mohammadali et al (published in IEEE Trans Smart Grid, 2017), which is based on elliptic curves. We then improve their protocol and prove its security in the random oracle model. We also demonstrate that the improved protocol achieves both anonymity and untraceability, before presenting a comparative summary of the security and computational overheads of the proposed protocol and several other existing protocols.
Enhanced identify‐based key agreement protocol is introduced to bring security and privacy for authenticating entities in the smart grid infrastructure. Formal and information validation is presented to prove the correctness and strength of the introduced protocol.
Tecoma stans (L.) Juss ex Kunth var. stans (Bignoniaceae) is an invasive shrub or small tree from Central America that continues to extend its range in all nine provinces of South Africa and in ...neighbouring countries. The weed has been a target for biological control (biocontrol) in South Africa since 2003. The gall-forming rust fungus Prospodium transformans (Ellis & Everh.) Cummins (Pucciniales: Uropyxidaceae) was released in 2010, but failed to establish. Two leaf-feeding agents, Mada polluta (Mulsant) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Pseudonapomyza sp. Hendel (Diptera: Agromyzidae), were subsequently released in South Africa in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Mada polluta has become established at seven sites in the low elevation coastal regions of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, but not in high elevation inland areas. The leaf-mining Pseudonapomyza sp. has established at seven sites in four provinces, namely the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, but at low population densities. The deliberate destruction of release sites by landowners and inadvertent veld fires have confounded the establishment and proliferation of both agents, as well as progress on their post-release evaluation. A root-feeding flea beetle Heikertingerella sp. Csiki (Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae), initially collected in Mexico in 2007, was determined to be host specific and potentially effective as a new biocontrol agent of T. stans. An application for the release of Heikertingerella sp. in South Africa will shortly be submitted to the regulatory authorities. Additional mass-rearing and releases of the two established agents will be undertaken to improve their establishment and impact.
In mammals, the microbiota can be transmitted from the placenta, uterus, and vagina of the mother to the infant. Unlike mammals, development of the avian embryo is a process isolated from the mother ...and thus in the avian embryo the gut microbial developmental process remains elusive. To explore the establishment and inheritance of the gut microbiome in the avian embryo, we used the chicken as the model organism to investigate the gut microbial composition in embryos, chicks, and maternal hens. We observed: (1) 28 phyla and 162 genera of microbes in embryos where the dominated genus was
(79%). (2) 65 genera were core microbiota in all stages with 42% and 62% gut microbial genera of embryo were found in maternal hen and chick, respectively. There was a moderate correlation (0.40) between the embryo and maternal, and 0.52 between the embryo and chick at the family level. (3) Gut microbes that are involved in substance metabolism, infectious disease, and environmental adaptation are enriched in embryos, chicks, and maternal hens, respectively. (4) 94% genera of gut microbial composition were similar among three different chicken breeds which were maintained under similar conditions. Our findings provide evidence to support the hypothesis that part of the microbial colonizers harbored in early embryos were inherited from maternal hens, and the gut microbial abundance and diversity were influenced by environmental factors and host genetic variation during development.
In degraded landscapes, recolonization by pioneer vegetation is often halted by the presence of persistent environmental stress. When natural expansion does occur, it is commonly due to the momentary ...alleviation of a key environmental variable previously limiting new growth. Thus, studying the circumstances in which expansion occurs can inspire new restoration techniques, wherein vegetation establishment is provoked by emulating natural events through artificial means. Using the salt-marsh pioneer zone on tidal flats as a biogeomorphic model system, we explore how locally raised sediment bed forms, which are the result of natural (bio)geomorphic processes, enhance seedling establishment in an observational study. We then conduct a manipulative experiment designed to emulate these facilitative conditions in order to enable establishment on an uncolonized tidal flat. Here, we attempt to generate raised growth-promoting sediment bed forms using porous artificial structures. Flume experiments demonstrate how these structures produce a sheltered hydrodynamic environment in which suspended sediment and seeds preferentially settle. The application of these structures in the field led to the formation of stable, raised sediment platforms and the spontaneous recruitment of salt-marsh pioneers in the following growing season. These recruits were composed primarily of the annual pioneering Salicornia genus, with densities of up to 140 individuals/m² within the structures, a 60-fold increase over ambient densities. Lower abundances of five other perennial species were found within structures that did not appear elsewhere in the pioneer zone. Furthermore, recruits grew to be on average three times greater in mass inside of the structures than in the neighboring ambient environment. The success of this restoration design may be attributed to the combination of three factors: (1) enhanced seed retention, (2) suppressed mortality, and (3) accelerated growth rates on the elevated surfaces generated by the artificial structures. We argue that restoration approaches similar to the one shown here, wherein the conditions for natural establishment are actively mimicked to promote vegetation development, may serve as promising tools in many biogeomorphic ecosystems, ranging from coastal to arid ecosystems.
Seed vigour and crop establishment Finch-Savage, W.E.; Bassel, G.W.
Journal of experimental botany,
02/2016, Letnik:
67, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Seeds are central to crop production, human nutrition, and food security. A key component of the performance of crop seeds is the complex trait of seed vigour. Crop yield and resource use efficiency ...depend on successful plant establishment in the field, and it is the vigour of seeds that defines their ability to germinate and establish seedlings rapidly, uniformly, and robustly across diverse environmental conditions. Improving vigour to enhance the critical and yield-defining stage of crop establishment remains a primary objective of the agricultural industry and the seed/breeding companies that support it. Our knowledge of the regulation of seed germination has developed greatly in recent times, yet understanding of the basis of variation in vigour and therefore seed performance during the establishment of crops remains limited. Here we consider seed vigour at an ecophysiological, molecular, and biomechanical level. We discuss how some seed characteristics that serve as adaptive responses to the natural environment are not suitable for agriculture. Past domestication has provided incremental improvements, but further actively directed change is required to produce seeds with the characteristics required both now and in the future. We discuss ways in which basic plant science could be applied to enhance seed performance in crop production.
Legitimising Religion in Public Prideaux, Melanie
Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society (Online),
12/2020, Letnik:
6, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
The English context for interreligious dialogue is shaped by the presence of an established church which is inclusive, geographically spread, and engages with the state. This article will ...trace the ways in which the presence of an established church, and the particular model of church-state settlement, provide a context to legitimise particular types of interreligious activity. The social role of religion, the representative function of religion, and religion as an inclusive category, will be highlighted as key elements in the role of religion in English public life and in how interreligious organisations have developed. This observation is analytically useful as it assists an understanding of how and why interreligious dialogue and other activity has at various points become significant for the state's governance of religious diversity, how success is understood and managed, and what non-engagement with interreligious activity might indicate.
Over the years, research on firm location choice has received less attention than residential location choices. Although valuable efforts have been made to model firms' location choices, ...investigations on the location choice of smaller economic units (establishments) and differences between location determinants of various activities can provide better insights into the interaction between land use and transportation network. This study aims to, first, model the location choice of establishments considering the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) sectors and examine the impact of spatial components; second, evaluate how the location determinants of establishments vary across industry sectors; third, assess the interdependence between different establishments' location choices; and fourth, estimate and compare the Willingness to Pay of different activities for better accessibility. A discrete choice model is incorporated to model establishments' location preferences, where first, based on the selected parcel by each establishment, a set of competitive alternatives are generated, creating a constrained choice set, and then, the actual choice of an alternative is estimated using a multinomial logit model. The developed model is implemented on the data collected from the state of Tennessee, USA. Results suggested that spatial location determinants can be categorized into four categories: accessibility, neighborhood characteristics, office profile, and presence of other activities. Moreover, agglomeration, land value, office size, square feet, and surrounding land use conditions are the most important location determinants. The finding of this study provides valuable information to transportation planners on interactions between establishments' locations, demographic conditions, and transportation networks.
This work demonstrated that the performance improvement of nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (N-rGO) electrodes over reduced graphene oxide (rGO) electrodes for supercapacitors could be further ...enhanced by violet laser treatment (VLT). A specific capacitance of 30 and 145 F g−1 was obtained for rGO and N-rGO electrodes, respectively. When using N-rGO with proper VLT, a high specific capacitance of 214 F g−1 could be achieved. In addition, the percentage of capacitive retention of the N-rGO with VLT remaining 94% after 10,000 cycles with a slower self-discharge rate at 0.55 V h−1, comparing to 0.91 V h−1 for N-rGO. Systematic investigations of N-rGO with VLT were carried out by using different film characterization techniques. The surfaces of N-rGO with VLT exhibit an increase in the number of exfoliated graphene oxide sheets with more roughness when increasing the fluence of laser. It was also found that there are the decrease in oxygen/nitrogen-containing functional groups contents and the increases in graphitic carbon phase with CC sp2-hybridization with the influence of laser. These may explain the improvements of the reported charge storage ability, electrode stability, and self-discharge rate.
•Nitrogen doped reduced graphene oxide (N-rGO) is prepared via hydrothermal method.•Violet laser treatment (VLT) is simple, fast, not expensive, and effective.•VLT on N-rGO (N-rGO-V5) can enhance the Csp around 48%, compared with N-rGO.•VLT can improve self-discharge or leakage current.•N-rGO-V5 shows long cycle life at least 94% after 10,000 charge-discharge cycles.
PDF
