Systemic Research Practices Towards the Development of an Eco-Community in Vietnam: some Joint Post-Facto Reflections

In this article we discuss how an interdisciplinary research team partnered with a variety of stakeholders concerned with and/or affected by the impacts of climate change in the Red River Delta of Vietnam. The research, undertaken from 2016 to 2018, drew upon a wide range of methods to investigate systemically these impacts – with a view to the research inputting into the development of (more) sustainable ways of living. The research solicited various accounts of the experience of climate change in the community, set up learning processes in community meetings, and created an interface with government officials positioned at commune, district, provincial, and national levels. The intention was to offer support towards developing a learning process (broadly defined as including learnings/systemic inquiry across organizational levels of the society) to pursue options for sustainable living. The article offers our post-facto reflections which render more explicit (to ourselves and for the benefit of audiences) how the research team, with Hoang as lead researcher, facilitated the inquiry process towards developing a synthesis which underscored the assets for resilience to climate change and supported interventions to strengthen such (defined) assets.

     

Paraneoplastic myasthenic syndrome IgG inhibits 45Ca2+ flux in a human small cell carcinoma line

Certain cancers exert unexplained remote effects on the nervous system. Small cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lung, a tumour capable of spike electrogenesis and which is of possible neural crest origin, is present in approximately 70% of patients with the Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS), a disorder characterized by fatigable muscle weakness. Patients with this syndrome have a defect in the (Ca2+-dependent) quantal release of acetylcholine from motor nerve terminals evoked by a nerve impulse or by high K+ (ref.5), and a decreased number of presynaptic active zone particles. The physiological and morphological features of the syndrome can be transferred to mice by the patients' IgG, consistent with an autoantibody interfering with the function of voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels. Here we demonstrate that K+-induced 45Ca2+ flux in a cultured human SCC line is significantly reduced by LEMS IgG, suggesting that in SCC-LEMS an autoantibody to tumour Ca2+-channel determinants is triggered; its cross-reaction with similar determinants at the motor nerve terminal could lead to the remote neurological syndrome.     

Molecular and genetic damage in humans from environmental pollution in Poland.

Extreme environmental pollution such as that found in the highly industrialized Silesian region of Poland has been associated with increased risk of cancer and adverse reproductive outcomes. Among the most prevalent carcinogenic and mutagenic air pollutants in Silesia are the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) which are largely produced by industrial and residential combustion of coal. Molecular epidemiology aims to prevent disease by using biological markers to identify risks well before clinical onset to allow effective intervention. Here, we use a battery of biological markers to measure molecular and genetic damage in peripheral blood samples from residents of Silesia and from persons living in a rural, less polluted area of Poland. The results show that their exposure to environmental pollution is associated with significant increases in carcinogen-DNA adducts (PAH-DNA and aromatic adducts), in sister chromatid exchange including high-frequency cells, and in chromosomal aberrations as well as a doubling in the frequency of ras oncogene overexpression. We found that aromatic adducts on DNA were significantly correlated with chromosomal mutation, providing us with a molecular link between environmental exposure and a genetic alteration relevant to cancer and reproductive risk.     

LKB1 modulates lung cancer differentiation and metastasis

Germline mutation in serine/threonine kinase 11 (STK11, also called LKB1) results in Peutz-Jeghers syndrome, characterized by intestinal hamartomas and increased incidence of epithelial cancers. Although uncommon in most sporadic cancers, inactivating somatic mutations of LKB1 have been reported in primary human lung adenocarcinomas and derivative cell lines. Here we used a somatically activatable mutant Kras-driven model of mouse lung cancer to compare the role of Lkb1 to other tumour suppressors in lung cancer. Although Kras mutation cooperated with loss of p53 or Ink4a/Arf (also known as Cdkn2a) in this system, the strongest cooperation was seen with homozygous inactivation of Lkb1. Lkb1-deficient tumours demonstrated shorter latency, an expanded histological spectrum (adeno-, squamous and large-cell carcinoma) and more frequent metastasis compared to tumours lacking p53 or Ink4a/Arf. Pulmonary tumorigenesis was also accelerated by hemizygous inactivation of Lkb1. Consistent with these findings, inactivation of LKB1 was found in 34% and 19% of 144 analysed human lung adenocarcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas, respectively. Expression profiling in human lung cancer cell lines and mouse lung tumours identified a variety of metastasis-promoting genes, such as NEDD9, VEGFC and CD24, as targets of LKB1 repression in lung cancer. These studies establish LKB1 as a critical barrier to pulmonary tumorigenesis, controlling initiation, differentiation and metastasis.     

Long-term evolution and transmission dynamics of swine influenza A virus

Swine influenza A viruses (SwIV) cause significant economic losses in animal husbandry as well as instances of human disease and occasionally give rise to human pandemics, including that caused by the H1N1/2009 virus. The lack of systematic and longitudinal influenza surveillance in pigs has hampered attempts to reconstruct the origins of this pandemic. Most existing swine data were derived from opportunistic samples collected from diseased pigs in disparate geographical regions, not from prospective studies in defined locations, hence the evolutionary and transmission dynamics of SwIV are poorly understood. Here we quantify the epidemiological, genetic and antigenic dynamics of SwIV in Hong Kong using a data set of more than 650 SwIV isolates and more than 800 swine sera from 12?years of systematic surveillance in this region, supplemented with data stretching back 34?years. Intercontinental virus movement has led to reassortment and lineage replacement, creating an antigenically and genetically diverse virus population whose dynamics are quantitatively different from those previously observed for human influenza viruses. Our findings indicate that increased antigenic drift is associated with reassortment events and offer insights into the emergence of influenza viruses with epidemic potential in swine and humans.     

基于热压块的不锈钢粉尘还原实验

为了从不锈钢粉尘中回收利用Fe,Cr和Ni等,对不锈钢粉尘热压块制备及其自还原过程进行了研究.在热压温度为200℃,热压压力为35 MPa条件下,抗压强度达到900 N/个以上.高温条件下,煤热解产生的挥发分可参与不锈钢粉尘还原反应,当还原温度为1 400,1 450℃时,挥发分还原作用率达到0.4.据XRD分析和热力学计算,自还原过程中含铬物质的物相转变顺序为Fe Cr2O4,Cr2O3,Cr7C3,[Cr]Fe-Cr-Ni-C.当还原温度为1 450℃,烟煤中固定碳与粉尘中可去除氧的物质量的比(xc/xo)为0.72时,不锈钢粉尘热压块不能完全还原;当xc/xo大于0.8,还原20 min时,不锈钢粉尘热压块能完全还原.     

本溪地区BIF中玄武质围岩的高场强元素特征

辽宁本溪地区条带状铁矿(BIF)与其玄武质火山围岩之间的时空关联非常密切.对于玄武质火山围岩高场强元素(HFSE)的研究表明:wNb/wTa比值(7.00~19.93)表现出明显的分异,而wZr/wHf比值(33.46~38.28)则变化不大;从弓长岭到南芬、歪头山样品的wNb/wTa比值变化具有明显的循序性.这种高场强元素的迁移和分异特征反映出俯冲作用与盆地演化之间的关联.研究区玄武质火山围岩(wNb/wYb)N比值大于1(1.21~18.45,平均2.72),这进一步表明,其形成的构造背景为陆内弧后盆地提供了有利于BIF形成的条件.