The Common Operational Picture as Collective Sensemaking

The common operational picture is used to overcome coordination and information management problems during emergency response. Increasingly, this approach is incorporated in more advanced information systems. This is rooted in an ‘information warehouse’ perspective, which implies information can be collected, sorted and exchanged in an accessible and univocal form. In practice, however, professionals interpret similar information differently. Therefore, we focus on how emergency responders develop collective sensemaking from information. We employ a ‘trading zone’ perspective, in which information is negotiated, to study information management in an ethnographic study of disaster exercises in the Netherlands. Our analysis shows how professionals attribute different meanings to information that distorts the coordination process. We end by stressing the importance of actionable knowledge and reflexivity.     

大型SMTP服务器的设计与实现

给出了一种大型SMTP服务器系统的分布式结构、SMTP服务器扩展的方法以及MIME格式的电子邮件解析方式,同时给出了邮件的存储方式、邮件列表的结构和邮件列表的处理方式以及系统核心模块的实现代码。在系统实现中采用了面向对象技术和多线程技术,系统完全由标准C 语言实现。该SMTP系统适于大型电子邮件系统应用,它能够同时处理大量并发邮件操作,运行在各种操作系统与硬件平台上。     

Interleukin-1 mediates a rapid inflammatory response after injection of adenoviral vectors into the brain

Adenovirus-mediated gene transfer into the brain is associated with significant inflammation and activation of anti-vector and anti-transgene immune responses that curtail the gene delivery of adenoviruses and therapeutic efficacy. Elucidating the molecular mediators of inflammatory and immune responses to adenoviruses injected into the brain should allow us to inhibit their inflammatory actions, thereby reducing vector clearance and enhance adenoviral-mediated gene transfer into the CNS. Cytokines are primary mediators of the immune response and are released during inflammation. Here we report for the first time that injection of replication-deficient adenovirus vectors into the cerebral ventricles of rats causes a rapid increase in body temperature. This fever response precedes any vector-encoded transgene expression and occurs with vectors encoding no transgene, as well as with vectors encoding a therapeutic transgene i.e., HSV1-thymidine kinase. No fever is detected after infection of the striatum, an important brain target in studies on neurodegeneration. After infection of the brain ventricles, CSF levels of immunoreactive tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and interleukin (IL)-1beta increase significantly (up to 300-fold). In the hypothalamus, the locus of thermoregulation in the brain, only IL-1beta and IL-6 are significantly elevated. A neutralizing TNF-alpha antibody has no effect on adenovirus-induced fever. However, pretreatment with either the IL-1 receptor antagonist or the cyclooxygenase inhibitor flurbiprofen completely abolishes adenovirus-induced fever, suggesting that IL-1 and prostaglandins are direct mediators of this response. These results are the first to demonstrate that IL-1, but not TNF-alpha, is the main mediator of a very early inflammatory response to adenovirus in the brain.     

South Turkwel: a new pliocene hominid site in Kenya

New fossils discovered south of the Turkwel River in northern Kenya include an associated metacarpal, capitate, hamate, lunate, pedal phalanx, mandibular fragment, and teeth. These fossils probably date to around 3.5 m.y.a. Faunal information suggests that the environment at South Turkwel was predominantly bushland. The mandibular and dental remains are fragmentary, but the postcranial fossils are informative. Comparisons with Australopithecus, modern human, chimpanzee and gorilla hand bones suggest that the Turkwel hominid was most like Australopithecus afarensis and A. africanus. Carpometacarpal articulations are intermediate between those of modern humans and African apes, suggesting enhanced gripping capabilities compared with extant apes. The hamulus was strikingly large, similar in proportion only to Neandertals and some gorillas, suggesting the presence of powerful forearms and hands. There are no indicators of adaptations to knuckle-walking or suspensory locomotion in the hand, and the pedal phalanx suggests that this hominid was habitually bipedal.     

Localization of human transcription factor TEF-4 and TEF-5 (TEAD2, TEAD3) genes to chromosomes 19q13.3 and 6p21.2 using fluorescence in situ hybridization and radiation hybrid analysis

The tetrapeptide Ala-lle-Gly-Met bound to a Wang resin via the methionine residue was studied by NMR under MAS conditions and compared to the same peptide in solution. The bound peptide exhibits average linewidths superior to those observed for the peptide in solution. The origin of the residual NMR linewidth observed for the bound form was investigated. The dynamics of the peptide is shown to be only marginally responsible for the increased linewidth; the major cause of the line broadening appears to be nonaveraged magnetic susceptibility differences.     

Identification of ''tissue'' transglutaminase binding proteins in neural cells committed to apoptosis

Mice in which the gene that encodes the receptor (R) for leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) has been deleted show abnormal growth and development of the placenta. This indicates that LIF plays an important role in placental development. The expression of LIF-R and LIF was examined in human trophoblast and decidua using in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry. LIF-R mRNA and immunoreactivity was localized in villous and extravillous trophoblast throughout pregnancy, and in endothelial cells of the fetal villi. Strong expression of mRNA encoding LIF was detected in decidual leukocytes, which are abundant at the implantation site. Extravillous trophoblast, which invades the maternal decidua, therefore expresses LIF-R as it moves past decidual leukocytes, which express LIF mRNA. The effect of LIF on cultured human trophoblast was examined in vitro. Recombinant human LIF had no effect on [3H]thymidine incorporation by purified extravillous trophoblast, nor on expression of integrins alpha1, alpha5, or beta1 by isolated trophoblast. These results identify fetal endothelial cells and all cells of the trophoblast lineage as targets for the action of LIF in human placenta. Although its effects on trophoblast are not yet clear, LIF appears to mediate interactions between maternal decidual leukocytes and invading trophoblast. LIF may also play a critical role in controlling angiogenesis in the placental villi, since human fetal endothelial cells express LIF-R, and mice lacking a functional LIF receptor gene show altered vascular development in the placenta.