Polska Nowa Zelandia: Emigracja lat 1945-2006

A brief history of Polish emigration to New Zealand until the end of the World War 2 is presented first, setting a background to the main topic of the book. Then in the next chapter, all attention is given to the post-war period. Each wave of newcomers, beginning with groups of ex-soldiers arriving to join with members of their family and ending with a recent group of mostly young professionals aiming at making a successful career on the antipodes, has been analysed with considerable detail. The following chapter looks at the stance the Polish immigrants took towards the Polish communist Government in Warsaw including its diplomatic post in Wellington. This has been thoroughly analysed. It shows the patriotism of the Polish communities. With admirable determination they felt allegiance to and strongly supported the Polish Government in London – in exile until 1990. The final chapter deals with the attitude of Polish immigrants toward the host country and the local government in Wellington. Legal matters regarding residency, citizenship, work and so on, together with motives of coming and settling in this country, becoming a loyal citizen, are all presented in attempt to determine the national consciousness of the immigrants – are they still Polish or more New Zealanders by now? Although there is no one answer to that question, it seems certain that regardless of the opinion one or another individual holds toward their home country, in times of trouble or glory, they do remember their Polish roots. The source of the wide material presented in this book came from extensive queries done in New Zealand, Great Britain, Switzerland, Austria and Poland. Most valuable were numerous interviews with ‘Polish Kiwis’ living in various places in New Zealand. They were conducted while the author was on his New Zealand leg of his research.

Transcultural Film in Québec: North African Diasporas in Bachir Bensaddek’s Montréal la Blanche and Raed Hammoud’s Documentaries on Daech

This article examines the films of Bachir Bensaddek (Montréal la Blanche, 2016) and Raed Hammoud (T’es où Youssef, 2017 and Les Poussières de Daech, 2020) against the backdrop of an ever-increasing global trend of migration, as is evident in the Bouchard/Taylor report on “Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation” (2008) and the 2018 Global Compact on Migration (IOM). By problematizing the homogeneity of both “home” and “host” cultures in their cinematic work on “néo-Québécois,” Bensaddek and Hammoud contribute meaningfully to how immigration and integration are inflected through the work of imagination within the Québécois context. The relevance of their transcultural films is evident in their focus on the experiences of the large, more recent group of immigrants to the francophone province from the Maghreb (North Africa). The films multiply strategies for understanding the different challenges facing new Québécois as well as providing insights into what might shore up an intercultural society.

The Experimental Estimation of The Elastic Modulus of a Fly Ash Based Trackbed Layer Under Cyclic Loading

In a railway track structure system, trackbed layers are designed to compensate for insufficient bearing capacity and/or water orfrost resistance of natural soil. These, so called, ‘capping layers’ can be constructed from raw materials like sand or gravel or fromindustrial materials like asphalt or concrete. However, more environmentally and cost friendly alternatives have been studied in recentyears. Fly-ash represents one such promising material and a trial section of a main line track with the capping layer made froma fly-ash-based mixture was constructed in Czech Republic in 2005. The performance of the capping layer in the section has beenmeasured since. In this paper, results of the laboratory estimation of the elastic modulus under cyclic traffic-like induced loading arepresented for the most recent group of samples. The results show that the elastic limit of the fly-ash-based material lies well abovethe stresses induced by railway traffic and that its behaviour is stable under the cyclic loading. This suggests that the mechanicalproperties of the material may not be determinative for the design of the layer and that the feasibility factors may take precedent.This in turn suggests that either the design strength of the material or the designed thickness of the layer may be possibly reduced.

Multiple Spinal CSF Leaks in Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension. Do They Exist?

Objective:To determine the frequency of multiple spinal CSF leaks in a recent group of patients with spontaneous intracranial hypotension (SIH) who were investigated with digital subtraction myelography (DSM).Methods:This observational study was conducted using data from a prospectively maintained data base of patients who meet the International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD)-III criteria for SIH. The patient population consisted of a consecutive group of 745 patients with SIH who underwent DSM between March 2009 and February 2020. Based on the results of DSM, participants were classified according to type and number of spinal CSF leaks.Results:Among 398 patients with SIH and extradural CSF on spinal imaging, multiplicity of CSF leaks was observed in none of 291 patients with type 1a ventral leaks and in four (6.2%) of 65 patients with type 1b (postero-) lateral leaks. Among 97 patients with SIH from spinal CSF-venous fistulas (type 3 leaks) who did not have extradural CSF on spinal imaging, nine patients (9.3%) had multiple fistulas (p<0.0001 for comparison between groups). Type 3 and type 1a or 1b CSF leaks coexisted in an additional five patients.Conclusions:Among patients with SIH, multiplicity of CSF leaks was observed radiographically in none of the patients with ventral leaks, in 6% of patients with lateral leaks, and in 9% of patients with CSF-venous fistulas. These results suggest that patients with SIH can be reassured that the occurrence of multiple CSF leaks is negligible to uncommon at most, depending on type of CSF leak.

Type I Interferonopathies in Children: An Overview

Notable advances in gene sequencing methods in recent years have permitted enormous progress in the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of autoinflammatory syndromes. Interferonopathies are a recent group of inherited autoinflammatory diseases, characterized by a dysregulation of the interferon pathway, leading to constitutive upregulation of its activation mechanisms or downregulation of negative regulatory systems. They are clinically heterogeneous, but some peculiar clinical features may lead to suspicion: a familial “idiopathic” juvenile arthritis resistant to conventional treatments, an early necrotizing vasculitis, a non-infectious interstitial lung disease, and a panniculitis associated or not with a lipodystrophy may represent the “interferon alarm bells.” The awareness of this group of diseases represents a challenge for pediatricians because, despite being rare, a differential diagnosis with the most common childhood rheumatological and immunological disorders is mandatory. Furthermore, the characterization of interferonopathy molecular pathogenetic mechanisms is allowing important steps forward in other immune dysregulation diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus and inflammatory myositis, implementing the opportunity of a more effective target therapy.

PQQ-Aza-Crown Ether Complexes as Biomimetics for Lanthanide and Calcium Dependent Alcohol Dehydrogenases

<div>Understanding the role of metal ions in biology can lead to the development of new catalysts for</div><div>several industrially important transformations. Lanthanides are the most recent group of metal ions</div><div>that have been shown to be important in biology i.e. - in quinone-dependent methanol</div><div>dehydrogenases (MDH). Here we evaluate a pyrroloquinoline quinone and 1-aza-15-crown-5 based</div><div>ligand platform as scaffold for Ca2+ , Ba2+ , La3+ and Lu3+ biomimetics of MDH and we evaluate the</div><div>importance of ligand design, charge, size, counterions and base for the alcohol oxidation reaction</div><div>using NMR spectroscopy. In addition, we report a new straightforward synthetic route (3 steps</div><div>instead of 11 and 33% instead of 0.6% yield) for biomimetic ligands based on PQQ. We show that</div><div>when studying biomimetics for MDH, larger metal ions and those with lower charge in this case</div><div>promote the dehydrogenation reaction more effectively and that this is likely an effect of the ligand</div><div>design which must be considered when studying biomimetics. To gain more information on the</div><div>structures and impact of counterions of the complexes, we performed collision induced dissociation</div><div>(CID) experiments and observe that the nitrates are more tightly bound than the triflates. To resolve</div><div>the structure of the complexes in the gas phase we combined DFT-calculations and ion mobility</div><div>measurements (IMS). Furthermore, we characterized the obtained complexes and reaction mixtures</div><div>using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and show the emergence of a quinone-</div><div>based radical during the reaction with substrate and base.</div>

PQQ-Aza-Crown Ether Complexes as Biomimetics for Lanthanide and Calcium Dependent Alcohol Dehydrogenases

<div>Understanding the role of metal ions in biology can lead to the development of new catalysts for</div><div>several industrially important transformations. Lanthanides are the most recent group of metal ions</div><div>that have been shown to be important in biology i.e. - in quinone-dependent methanol</div><div>dehydrogenases (MDH). Here we evaluate a pyrroloquinoline quinone and 1-aza-15-crown-5 based</div><div>ligand platform as scaffold for Ca2+ , Ba2+ , La3+ and Lu3+ biomimetics of MDH and we evaluate the</div><div>importance of ligand design, charge, size, counterions and base for the alcohol oxidation reaction</div><div>using NMR spectroscopy. In addition, we report a new straightforward synthetic route (3 steps</div><div>instead of 11 and 33% instead of 0.6% yield) for biomimetic ligands based on PQQ. We show that</div><div>when studying biomimetics for MDH, larger metal ions and those with lower charge in this case</div><div>promote the dehydrogenation reaction more effectively and that this is likely an effect of the ligand</div><div>design which must be considered when studying biomimetics. To gain more information on the</div><div>structures and impact of counterions of the complexes, we performed collision induced dissociation</div><div>(CID) experiments and observe that the nitrates are more tightly bound than the triflates. To resolve</div><div>the structure of the complexes in the gas phase we combined DFT-calculations and ion mobility</div><div>measurements (IMS). Furthermore, we characterized the obtained complexes and reaction mixtures</div><div>using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and show the emergence of a quinone-</div><div>based radical during the reaction with substrate and base.</div>

Do the ESC guidelines improve the treatment of acute myocardial infarction due to acute circumflex artery occlusion?

Background The left circumflex artery (LCX) and its branches are less often recognized as infarct related artery (IRA) in STEMI compared to NSTEMI patients because of lower ability to detect posterior AMI on 12leads ECG. Significant proportion of patients with acute LCX occlusion therefore did not receive immediate reperfusion therapy. The recent ESC guidelines recommendation of immediate coronary angiography for NSTEMI with ongoing ischemia should change the situation. Objectives To estimate the change in proportion of patients receiving immediate reperfusion therapy for acute LCX occlusion within last 20 years. Methods Prospective registry of patients with acute coronary syndromes treated in the cardiac centre. The group of patients treated with direct PCI as STEMI and the group of patients treated as NSTE ACS were compared. Results Of 369 STEMI patients treated with primary PCI in 1995–2000, the LCX was recognized as IRA in only 29 (8%) patients. In the group of 809 STEMI patients treated in period 2008–2011, the LCX was detected as IRA in 133 (16%). In he recent group of 1006 patients treated as STEMI in period 2016–2019 the LCX was IRA in 166 (16.5%) patients. LAD, LM and RCA were detected as IRA in 407 (40.5%), 17 (1.7%) and 415 (41%) patients respectively. In the parallel group of 1087 NSTE-ACS patients the proportion of LCX, LAD, LM and RCA as culprit artery was 271 (25%), 438 (40%), 52 (5%) and 326 (30%) respectively. The difference of LCX involvement in STEMI (16%) compared to NSTE-ACS patients (25%) was highly significant (p&lt;0,001). Conclusion The disproportion of LCX involvement among the patients with STEMI and NSTE-ACS is not decreasing in the course of last 10 years. Our data show that still significant part of patients with acute LCX occlusion are diagnosed as having NSTE-ACS and are not treated with adequate immediate reperfusion. So even in recent era of modern reperfusion therapy these patients which mostly suffer posterior AMIs have a lower chance to receive the proper treatment in our region. The new ESC guidelines did not change this fading yet. Better diagnostics of AMI due to the acute LCX occlusion (including 15 leads ECG) is routinely needed or every suspected NSTEMI patient should undergo the acute coronary angiogram as he would be a STEMI patient. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: None

Polymer genome–based prediction of gas permeabilities in polymers

Predicting gas permeabilities of polymers a priori is a long-standing challenge within the membrane research community that has important applications for membrane process design and ultimately widespread adoption of membrane technology. From early attempts based on free volume and cohesive energy to more recent group contribution methods, the ability to predict membrane permeability has improved in terms of accuracy. However, these models usually stay “within the paper”, i.e. limited model details are provided to the wider community such that adoption of these predictive platforms is limited. In this work, we combined an advanced polymer chemical structure fingerprinting method with a large experimental database of gas permeabilities to provide unprecedented prediction precision over a large range of polymer classes. No prior knowledge of the polymer is needed for the prediction other than the repeating unit chemical formula. In addition, we have incorporated this model into the existing Polymer Genome project to make it open to the membrane research community.