scholarly journals Subtyping Options for Microsporum canis Using Microsatellites and MLST: A Case Study from Southern Italy

Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Chioma Inyang Aneke ◽  
Adéla Čmoková ◽  
Vít Hubka ◽  
Wafa Rhimi ◽  
Domenico Otranto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Structure ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
Microsporum Canis ◽  
Microsatellite Typing ◽  
Intraspecies Variability ◽  
Dermatophyte Species ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

Microsporum canis is considered one of the most common zoophilic dermatophyte species causing infections in animals and humans worldwide. However, molecular epidemiological studies on this dermatophyte are still rare. In this study, we aimed to analyse the population structure and relationships between M. canis strains (n = 66) collected in southern Italy and those isolated from symptomatic and asymptomatic animals (cats, dogs and rabbits) and humans. For subtyping purposes, using multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and multilocus microsatellite typing (MLMT), we first used a limited set of strains to screen for variability. No intraspecies variability was detected in six out of the eight reference genes tested and only the ITS and IGS regions showed two and three sequence genotypes, respectively, resulting in five MLST genotypes. All of eight genes were, however, useful for discrimination among M. canis, M. audouinii and M. ferrugineum. In total, eighteen microsatellite genotypes (A–R) were recognized using MLMT based on six loci, allowing a subdivision of strains into two clusters based on the Bayesian iterative algorithm. Six MLMT genotypes were from multiple host species, while 12 genotypes were found only in one host. There were no statistically significant differences between clusters in terms of host spectrum and the presence or absence of lesions. Our results confirmed that the MLST approach is not useful for detailed subtyping and examining the population structure of M. canis, while microsatellite analysis is a powerful tool for conducting surveillance studies and gaining insight into the epidemiology of infections due to this pathogen.

scholarly journals Nests, arcs and cycles in the lifespan of a studio project

Popular Music ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Slater
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Orchestral Music ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
Longitudinal Case Study ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Creativity Research ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

AbstractMiddlewood Sessions produced a kind of popular music that infuses the timbral aesthetics of jazz and orchestral music with the driving rhythms of dance music. This studio project, lasting for almost eight years, provided a rich resource for gaining insight into the increasingly prevalent context of the domestic project studio via a longitudinal case study approach. At the heart of this research is the desire to understand how people collaborate as part of a studio project, how people use technologies to make music and how all of this unfolds over time. To tackle the question of how to understand the shattered, scattered nature of creative practices, and in extending existing creativity research, I propose three ways of thinking about time: nests, arcs and cycles. While explicating this theoretical framework, something of the specific and idiographic nature of the case study, as an example of contemporary music production, is recounted.

scholarly journals The «New School» of Basilicata in Mid-twentieth Century. Arturo Arcomano’s Contribution for a Different Education in Southern Italy 

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-67
Author(s):  
Michelina D’Allessio
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Teaching Methodologies ◽  
New School ◽  
Professional Profile ◽  
The One ◽  
Italian Education ◽  
Insight Into

This article falls within a branch of studies aimed at highlighting the experiences of some neglected protagonists of Italian education through their professional writings. Indeed, school journals and records give an insight into the transformations that the teaching profession and school culture have undergone throughout the years. From such a historiographical perspective, this contribution highlights the «new school» experiment carried out by the teacher Arturo Arcomano (1927-2007) in a small town in Basilicata, a region of Southern Italy, in the mid-twentieth century. By looking at the material held in the private archive of this educator, scholar, professor and politician, particularly his school journals, as well as at the notebooks and school papers produced by his pupils, we can get a sense of the «new life» breathed through the school of Roccanova, where Arcomano applied the teaching methodologies that were becoming popular in those years, like the use of free writing and Freinet’s printing press at school. The Arcomano case study enables us to understand both the resistance and the push towards this experimentation, which was based on a «different» pedagogical culture, and action intended to fit the environmental context. The use of the sources that can be found in Arcomano’s personal archive on the one hand enables us to define the human and professional profile of the teacher, and on the other, contributes to the reconstruction of the renovation process that affected education in Southern Italy in the mid-twentieth century. 

‘Is This the Right Material, Girl?’

2019 ◽  
pp. 376-394
Author(s):  
Richard J. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Ambiguity ◽  
Film Version ◽  
The Right ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Title Character ◽  
Gaining Insight

Alan Parker’s film version of Lloyd Webber and Rice’s Evita (1996) provides a case study of how a star’s agency can affect a film musical’s narrative. This chapter on the movie reveals how adjustments made to the piece for its movie incarnation result in a change of presentation of the title character, played by Madonna. Whereas the stage show depicts Eva as a figure of moral ambiguity, the film turns her into a probably well-meaning, mostly sympathetic, inherently romantic heroine. A series of newly created flashbacks, scenes, lyrics, and entire songs were crafted for the purpose of gaining insight into and empathy for Eva. For example, Eva, rather than Peron’s mistress, now sings ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall,’ one of the hit songs from the score, and the ‘Waltz for Evita and Che’ is staged as a romantic duet, without conveying the cynicism of the lyrics. The addition of ‘You Must Love Me’ adds a new insight into her realization that if Peron can still show her such attention and affection when she is dying and no longer of any use to him, then he must love her after all. In these and many other ways, Eva is humanized in a way that is not the case in the Broadway original.

scholarly journals How effective is river restoration in re-establishing groundwater – surface water interactions? – A case study

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1093-1118
Author(s):  
A.-M. Kurth ◽  
C. Weber ◽  
M. Schirmer
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
River Restoration ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Urban Stream ◽  
Distributed Temperature Sensing ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Restoration Measures ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

Abstract. In this study we investigated whether river restoration was successful in re-establishing vertical connectivity and, thereby, groundwater-surface water interactions, in a degraded urban stream. Well-tried passive Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) and novel active and passive DTS approaches were employed to study groundwater-surface water interactions in an experimental reach of an urban stream before and after its restoration and in two (near-) natural reference streams. Results were validated with Radon-222 analyses. Our results indicated that river restoration at the study site was indeed successful in increasing groundwater-surface water interactions. Increased surface water downwelling occurred locally at the tip of a gravel island created during river restoration. Hence, the installation of in-stream structures increased the vertical connectivity and thus groundwater-surface water interactions. With the methods presented in this publication it would be possible to routinely investigate the success of river restorations in re-establishing vertical connectivity, thereby gaining insight into the effectiveness of specific restoration measures. This, in turn, would enable the optimization of future river restoration projects, rendering them more cost-effective and successful.

scholarly journals Quality in Software Development: a pragmatic approach using metrics

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Acton ◽  
Derrick Kourie ◽  
Bruce Watson
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Software Quality ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Software Products ◽  
Main Disadvantage ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

As long as software has been produced, there have been efforts to strive for quality in software products. In order to understand quality in software products, researchers have built models of software quality that rely on metrics in an attempt to provide a quantitative view of software quality. The aim of these models is to provide software producers with the capability to define and evaluate metrics related to quality and use these metrics to improve the quality of the software they produce over time. The main disadvantage of these models is that they require effort and resources to define and evaluate metrics from software projects. This article briefly describes some prominent models of software quality in the literature and continues to describe a new approach to gaining insight into quality in software development projects. A case study based on this new approach is described and results from the case study are discussed.

A virulent genotype of Microsporum canis is responsible for the majority of human infections

2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (10) ◽  
pp. 1377-1385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Sharma ◽  
S. de Hoog ◽  
Wolfgang Presber ◽  
Yvonne Gräser
Keyword(s):  
Tinea Capitis ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
Host Adaptation ◽  
Microsporum Canis ◽  
Multilocus Genotype ◽  
Human Infections ◽  
Animal Isolates ◽  
Distance Approach ◽  
Animal Strains ◽  
Dermatophyte Species

The zoophilic dermatophyte species Microsporum canis belongs to the Arthroderma otae complex and is known to mate with tester strains of that teleomorph species, at least in the laboratory. Human infections are likely to be acquired from the fur of cats, dogs and horses. Epidemiological studies to reveal sources and routes of infection have been hampered by a lack of polymorphic molecular markers. Human cases mainly concern moderately inflammatory tinea corporis and tinea capitis, but, as cases of highly inflammatory ringworm are also observed, the question arises as to whether all lineages of M. canis are equally virulent to humans. In this study, two microsatellite markers were developed and used to analyse a global set of 101 M. canis strains to reveal patterns of genetic variation and dispersal. Using a Bayesian and a distance approach for structuring the M. canis samples, three populations could be distinguished, with evidence of recombination in one of them (III). This population contained 44 % of the animal isolates and only 9 % of the human strains. Population I, with strictly clonal reproduction (comprising a single multilocus genotype), contained 74 % of the global collection of strains from humans, but only 23 % of the animal strains. From these findings, it was concluded that population differentiation in M. canis is not allopatric, but rather is due to the emergence of a (virulent) genotype that has a high potential to infect the human host. Adaptation of genotypes resulting in a particular clinical manifestation was not evident. Furthermore, isolates from horses did not show a monophyletic clustering.

Resource Mobilization’s Effect on the Social Construction of Identity on Twitter: A Case Study of J.J. Watt’s Hurricane Harvey Relief

2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952093725
Author(s):  
Jake Andrew Kucek
Keyword(s):  
Football Player ◽  
Resource Mobilization ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Celebrity Status ◽  
The Social ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

Social media provides an area for athletes to engage with a mass audience and, in turn, has users create a narrative about the athlete in a collaborative effort. Using a platform, such as Twitter, offers numerous affordances for network interactions, which result in the shaping of online identities. Gaining insight into how resource mobilization impacts dialog and identity construction of an athlete is essential as sports have the unique ability to reach and influence a broad audience. This article explores how J.J. Watt used resource mobilization on Twitter to aid the Hurricane Harvey relief, and how his identity was socially constructed over a 3-year period. Based on a textual analysis of 2,965 tweets, the results show that Watt was able to use his celebrity status and active involvement to achieve the largest crowdsourced fundraiser in history. Further, Watt’s actions transformed his identity as a football player into a humanitarian.

scholarly journals What Smart Campuses Can Teach Us about Smart Cities: A Case Study on Open Data

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roza Vasileva ◽  
Lucelia Rodrigues ◽  
Nancy Hughes ◽  
Chris Greenhalgh ◽  
Murray Goulden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Privacy ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Novel Technologies ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

Universities, like cities, have embraced novel technologies and data-based solutions to improve their campuses with ‘smart’ becoming a welcomed concept. Campuses in many ways are small-scale cities. They increasingly seek to address similar challenges and to deliver improved experiences to their users. How can data be used in making this vision a reality? What can we learn from smart campuses that can be scale up to smart cities? A short research study was conducted over a three-month period at a public university in the United Kingdom employing stakeholder interviews and user surveys, aiming at gaining insight into these questions. Based on the study, the authors suggest that making data publicly available could bring many benefits to different groups of stakeholders and campus users. These benefits come with risks and challenges such as data privacy and protection and infrastructure hurdles. However, if these challenges can be overcome, open data could contribute significantly to improving campuses and user experiences, and potentially set an example for smart cities.

Beyond committing and presupposing in Yurakaré conversations: Investigating the interactional functions of epistemic markers through their sequential distributions

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Gipper
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Epistemic State ◽  
Low Degree ◽  
Interactional Functions ◽  
Low Degrees ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

AbstractThis paper outlines a method for studying the sequential distributions of epistemic markers with the purpose of gaining insight into their interactional functions. The method is exemplified with a case study of two epistemic markers of Yurakaré (isolate, Bolivia), =la “commitment” and =se “presupposition”. The investigation reveals that the two markers show different distributions across initial and responsive utterances. Moreover, each marker functions differently when used in initial utterances and responses. It is argued that these distributions show that the interactional functions of the two markers go beyond the marking of commitment and presupposition, and that they contrast in terms of two scales, one capturing the poles of “highly initiating” and “highly responsive”, the other concerning high vs. low degrees of “thematic agency”. While the commitment marker =la is associated with the responsivity pole and with a low degree of thematic agency, the presupposition marker =se shows a tendency toward the initiating pole and toward a high degree of thematic agency. These findings then support the view that epistemic markers are employed to co-construct epistemic perspectives in interaction rather than to make explicit some internal epistemic state held by the speaker.

The photoreactions of simple amides with NO. Gaining insight into radical bio-damages through an EPR case study

Tetrahedron ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (12) ◽  
pp. 2662-2670
Author(s):  
Angelo Alberti ◽  
Loris Grossi ◽  
Dante Macciantelli
Keyword(s):  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight
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