F. Holland Day's ‘Nubians’

Abstract

In the October 1897 issue of his newly-founded journal, Camera Notes, Alfred Stieglitz began to publish a remarkable series of ‘Nubian’ portraits. They were by F. Holland Day, the Boston photographer whose innovative and dramatic images of young women had already established his reputation internationally. Greatly admired by Stieglitz, Day's ‘Nubian’ series was afforded the most painstaking attention, and reproduced in the expensive process of photogravure.     

The Project Involvement Index,psychological distress,and psychological well-being: Comparing workers from projectized and non-projectized organizations

It is important to understand the extent to which project involvement affects mental health. As projects and project management expand beyond traditional fields, it is also important to compare project involvement and mental health across settings that vary in terms of management structure. This study is the first to validate a Project Involvement Index (PII) useful in various settings to understand how workload relates to mental health defined as high psychological well-being and low psychological distress. Our results demonstrate that the PII is parsimonious measure showing reliability, predictive validity, and discriminant validity. Furthermore, results show that people involved in projects from a non-projectized organization show less mental health than those from a projectized organization.     

Measurement of fat and moisture in air-dried bread by near infrared reflectance

Near infrared calibrations have been derived and used routinely for a year in the measurement of fat and moisture in air-dried bread. First and second derivative calibrations were obtained using a Pacific Scientific mark II scanning spectrophotometer on samples sent from all over South Africa to the Wheat Board for analysis. Prediction analysis performed on further bread samples gave standard errors of prediction (s.e.p.) of 0.12% fat and 0.13% moisture.     

IL-17A in Human Liver: Significant Source of Inflammation and Trigger of Liver Fibrosis Initiation

IL-17A is considered to guide liver inflammation and fibrosis. From twenty-two human liver samples of different fibrosis stages (F0 to F4), IL-17A, IL-22, and TGFβ1 protein expression in liver tissue lysates were analyzed. Ten paired samples of liver tissue (F0–F1 stage) and blood from the same patient were used to analyze intrahepatic and blood T-lymphoid IL-17A⁺ cells by flow cytometry. The analyses have been performed regardless of pathology, considering the stage of fibrosis. Human liver tissue was used for the primary human liver slice cultures, followed by subsequent cytokine stimulation and fibrotic markers’ analysis by ELISA. IL-17A production in human liver tissue was significantly higher in the early fibrotic stage compared with the advanced stage. Th17 T cells and, to a lesser extent, MAIT cells were the main sources of IL-17A in both compartments, the liver and the blood. Moreover, the presence of liver Th17IL-17A⁺INFγ⁺ cells was detected in the liver. IL-17A stimulation of human liver slice culture increased the expression of profibrotic and pro-inflammatory markers. IL-17A, secreted by Th17 and MAIT cells in the liver, triggered fibrosis by inducing the expression of IL-6 and profibrotic markers and could be a target for antifibrotic treatment. Further amplitude studies are needed to confirm the current results.     

Post-mortem changes in viscera of cuttlefish Sepia officinalis L. during storage at two different temperatures

We observed the post-mortem changes in viscera of cuttlefish Sepia officinalis in order to apply the data to autolysate production. Cuttlefish viscera were stored at 4 or 25 °C and sampled regularly over 4 months. Our results showed that total acid proteases and cathepsins were rapidly released to the extracellular medium due to the breakdown of lysosomes. Total alkaline protease activity increased 2 h after death due to the breakdown of zymogene vesicles. The same patterns were found with trypsin, chymotrypsin and α-amylase activities. After 10 days of incubation, no endogenous enzymatic activity was found. After 50 days of storage, the TCA soluble protein levels decreased rapidly to approximately 30% due to protein degradation and aggregation. After 10 days, the pH of viscera stored at 25 °C was alkaline, whereas in the viscera stored at 4 °C the pH increased more slowly. As significant reduction in the protein molecular weight due to autolysis, was also observed.