猪脾转移因子微囊的制备及其活性检测

为了提高转移因子的稳定性,以壳聚糖和海藻酸钠为囊材,采用乳化外部凝胶法制备猪脾转移因子微囊,并检测了其粒径大小、包封率、载药量等性质;通过小鼠腹腔巨噬细胞吞噬试验和迟发型超敏反应试验检测转移因子微囊的药理活性。结果显示,转移因子微囊呈类圆形,平均粒径为11.05μm,包封率为60.8%,载药量11.60mg/g;转移因子微囊能增强小鼠腹腔巨噬细胞的吞噬功能,提高迟发型超敏反应的能力,效果优于转移因子。结果表明,该制备工艺简单,转移因子微囊具有较好的发展前景。     

中华鳖TLR2部分序列的克隆及其组织表达差异分析

为探究中华鳖天然免疫的分子机制,针对TLR2(Toll-like receptor 2)保守区设计兼并引物,从中华鳖脾cDNA中扩增出了740bp的目标序列。测序和序列分析结果表明,该序列包含富含半胱氨酸型C端结构域、跨膜结构域和TIR结构域;与斑马鱼、鸡等脊椎动物相应的TLR2序列相似性为60.5%～74.4%。采用荧光定量PCR检测中华鳖感染嗜水气单胞菌后各组织TLR2mRNA表达的变化,结果显示,感染后第24小时,中华鳖脾和外周血TLR2mRNA相对表达水平升高,其中外周血中的增幅最显著,是对照组的8.57倍;中华鳖外周血经4μg/mL酵母聚糖刺激后,第2小时TLR2mRNA相对表达水平较高。首次获得了中华鳖TLR2部分cDNA序列,并分析了不同刺激物对中华鳖TLR2mRNA转录的影响。     

Evaluating Claims of Social Connection to International Conflict Casualties

Recent studies examining the political impact of individuals' connections to the victims of international violence find these ties have a powerful effect on people's attitudes and feelings. How reliable, however, are self-reported claims of ties to a conflict's casualties? Using data from 9/11 and the Iraq War, I examine these claims, analyzing: 1) their influence on both public assessments of foreign policy and voting behavior, 2) whether critical demographic and political factors predict the likelihood of individuals reporting a tie to a conflict casualty, 3) the predicted, aggregate likelihood of survey respondents having connections to conflict victims, and 4) the theoretical distinction between actual vs. perceived casualty connections. The results strongly support the use of casualty connection data for understanding individuals' responses to international violence, and encourage future applications of social network approaches to the study of war and politics.     

Effect of Aging and Surface Interactions on the Diffusion of Endogenous Compounds in Latent Fingerprints Studied by Mass Spectrometry Imaging,

The ability to determine the age of fingerprints would be immeasurably beneficial in criminal investigations. We explore the possibility of determining the age of fingerprints by analyzing various compounds as they diffuse from the ridges to the valleys of fingerprints using matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging. The diffusion of two classes of endogenous fingerprint compounds, fatty acids and triacylglycerols (TGs), was studied in fresh and aged fingerprints on four surfaces. We expected higher molecular weight TGs would diffuse slower than fatty acids and allow us to determine the age of older fingerprints. However, we found interactions between endogenous compounds and the surface have a much stronger impact on diffusion than molecular weight. For example, diffusion of TGs is faster on hydrophilic plain glass or partially hydrophilic stainless steel surfaces, than on a hydrophobic Rain‐x treated surface. This result further complicates utilizing a diffusion model to age fingerprints.     

Views on workplace culture and climate: through the lens of retention and Title IV-E participation

ABSTRACT

Retention of public child welfare (PCW) workers is the focus of much scholarly research. Examinations of the topic have ranged from assessments of workers’ background to job factors and attitudinal components about the workplace. Unlike most studies, the present study uses agency administrative data on retention. In it, 502 PCW workers responded to a point-in-time survey covering a wide range of topics including job satisfaction, commitment to child welfare, perceptions of culture and climate, Title IV-E status, and demographic variables. While Title IV-Es were more likely to leave the agency, several significant interactions between Title IV-E and retention status showed that Title IV-Es who left the agency had significantly lower supervisor satisfaction and influence than Title IV-Es who stayed; and lower efficacy scores than non-Title IV-Es who left. No such differences were found for non-Title IV-E stayers and leavers. Implications for these differences for county agencies and universities are discussed.     

Asia Pacific news

This column provides a country-by-country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications' industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.     

Law enforcement access to personal data originally collected by private parties: Missing data subjects' safeguards in directive 2016/680?

Access by law enforcement authorities to personal data initially collected by private parties for commercial or operational purposes is very common, as shown by the transparency reports of new technology companies on law enforcement requests. From a data protection perspective, the scenario of law enforcement access is not necessarily well taken into account. The adoption of the new data protection framework offers the opportunity to assess whether the new ‘police’ Directive, which regulates the processing of personal data for law enforcement purposes, offers sufficient safeguards to individuals. To make this assessment, provisions contained in Directive 2016/680 are tested against the standards established by the ECJ in Digital Rights Ireland and Tele2 Sverige on the retention of data and their further access and use by police authorities. The analysis reveals that Directive 2016/680 does not contain the safeguards identified in the case law. The paper further assesses the role and efficiency of the principle of purpose limitation as a safeguard against repurposing in a law enforcement context. Last, solutions to overcome the shortcomings of Directive 2016/680 are examined in conclusion.     

European national news

This article tracks developments at the national level in key European countries in the area of IT and communications and provides a concise alerting service of important national developments. It is co-ordinated by Herbert Smith Freehills LLP and contributed to by firms across Europe. This column provides a concise alerting service of important national developments in key European countries. Part of its purpose is to complement the Journal's feature articles and briefing notes by keeping readers abreast of what is currently happening “on the ground” at a national level in implementing EU level legislation and international conventions and treaties. Where an item of European National News is of particular significance, CLSR may also cover it in more detail in the current or a subsequent edition.     

“Regulation,I presume?” said the robot – Towards an iterative regulatory process for robot governance

This article envisions an iterative regulatory process for robot governance. In the article, we argue that what lacks in robot governance is actually a backstep mechanism that can coordinate and align robot and regulatory developers. In order to solve that problem, we present a theoretical model that represents a step forward in the coordination and alignment of robot and regulatory development. Our work builds on previous literature, and explores modes of alignment and iteration towards greater closeness in the nexus between research and development (R&D) and regulatory appraisal and channeling of robotics’ development. To illustrate practical challenges and solutions, we explore different examples of (related) types of communication processes between robot developers and regulatory bodies. These examples help illuminate the lack of formalization of the policymaking process, and the loss of time and resources that the waste of knowledge generated for future robot governance instruments implies. We argue that initiatives that fail to formalize the communication process between different actors and that propose the mere creation of coordinating agencies risk being seriously ineffective. We propose an iterative regulatory process for robot governance, which combines the use of an ex ante robot impact assessment for legal/ethical appraisal, and evaluation settings as data generators, and an ex post legislative evaluation instrument that eases the revision, modification and update of the normative instrument. In all, the model breathes the concept of creating dynamic evidence-based policies that can serve as temporary benchmark for future and/or new uses or robot developments. Our contribution seeks to provide a thoughtful proposal that avoids the current mismatch between existing governmental approaches and what is needed for effective ethical/legal oversight, in the hope that this will inform the policy debate and set the scene for further research.     

Asia Pacific news

This column provides a country-by-country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications’ industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.