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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which
commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and
impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes
high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1979.
This book documents and interprets the trajectory of ethnographic
museums in Tunisia from the colonial to the post-revolutionary
period, demonstrating changes and continuities in role, setting and
architecture across shifting ideological landscapes. The display of
everyday culture in museums is generally looked down upon as being
kitsch and old-fashioned. This research shows that, in Tunisia,
ethnographic museums have been highly significant sites in the
definition of social identities. They have worked as sites that
diffuse social, economic and political tensions through a vast
array of means, such as the exhibition itself, architecture,
activities, tourism, and consumerism. The book excavates the
evolution of paradigms in which Tunisian popular identity has been
expressed through the ethnographic museum, from the modernist
notion of 'indigenous authenticity' under colonial time, to efforts
at developing a Tunisian ethnography after Independence, and more
recent conceptions of cultural diversity since the revolution.
Based on a combination of archival research in Tunisia and in
France, participant observation and interviews with past and
present protagonists in the Tunisian museum field, this research
brings to light new material on an understudied area.
Scientists are deciphering the biology of the tumor cell at a level
of detail that would have been hard to imagine just a decade or so
ago. The development of high-throughput DNA sequencing and genomics
technologies have allowed an understanding of the development,
growth, survival, and spread of cancer cells in the body. From this
information, we now have a basic blueprint or roadmap of how a
single damaged cell can develop into a pre-malignant lesion, a
primary tumor, and finally, a lethal tumor that may spread
throughout the body and resist both medical therapy and host immune
responses. In this book, we provide an overview of our current
understanding of this cancer blueprint, which has been aided both
by the study of familial cancer syndromes, in vitro studies of
cancer cells, and animal models. Three classes of genes have
emerged from these studies: tumor suppressor genes needed for
normal growth control and DNA repair; oncogenes that regulate cell
growth and survival, and epigenetic modifiers, enzymes that
regulate the modification of DNA and the proteins that form
chromatin. Each of these three classes of genes is mutated or
altered at least once in virtually all malignant cancer cells.
Current technologies permit the DNA sequencing of cancer exomes
(coding gene sequencing), whole genomes, transcriptome (all
expressed genes), and DNA methylation profiling. These studies show
that all tumors have unique constellations of mutated, rearranged,
amplified, and deleted genes. Single-cell sequencing further shows
that there is extensive variation in individual cells in the tumor;
that cancers evolve, and have many of the properties of a
multi-cellular entity. Lastly, cancer cells, through mutations in
epigenetic modifiers, can reprogram the genome and unlock entire
developmental and gene expression pathways to adapt and survive in
changing conditions. This reprogramming allows the tumor to elude
the host body's defenses, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted
therapy that we use in cancer treatment. Understanding this cancer
blueprint paves the way for the development of future therapies to
treat and eliminate cancer.
The lymphatic system develops and functions in parallel with the
blood circulatory system (termed the "hemovasculature") and
accomplishes transport of interstitial fluids, dietary lipids, and
reverse transport of cholesterol, immune cells, and
antigens-providing a critical homeostatic fluid balance and
transmission of immune cells and mediators back to the
cardiovascular system. Although the daily flow of lymph (normally
1-2 L/day under unstressed conditions) is far lower than that of
daily blood flow (which is 7,500 L/day), without the adequate
functioning of the lymphatics, virtually all organs and tissues
would acutely suffer many different physical and inflammatory
stresses ranging from edema to organ system failure. Although blood
and lymphatic vessels often form in anatomic parallels to one
another, our knowledge of the workings of the lymphatic system, the
fine structure of lymphatic networks, how they function in
different organs, and how they are regulated physiologically and
immunologically are far from parallel; our knowledge of the
lymphatic system still remains at only a tiny fraction of what is
understood about the cardiovascular system. Although both the
cardiovascular and lymphatic systems are important transport
systems, what they transport and how they transport and propel
these very different cargoes could not be more dissimilar. This
book provides an overview of the history of the discovery (and
re-discovery) of the components of the lymphatic system, lymphatic
anatomy, physiological functions of lymphatics, molecular features
of the lymphatic system, and clinical perspectives involving
lymphatics which may be of interest to scientists, clinicians,
patients, and the lay public. We provide a current understanding of
some of the more important structural similarities and differences
between lymphatics and the blood vascular system, their coordinated
control by angiogenic and hemangiogenic growth factors and other
modulators, the fate and lineage determinants which control
lymphatic development, and the roles that lymphatics may play in
several different diseases.
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