University of Johannesburg

About: University of Johannesburg is a education organization based out in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 8070 authors who have published 22749 publications receiving 329408 citations. The organization is also known as: UJ.

Application of Porphyrins in Antibacterial Photodynamic Therapy.

Abstract: Antibiotics are commonly used to control, treat, or prevent bacterial infections, however bacterial resistance to all known classes of traditional antibiotics has greatly increased in the past years especially in hospitals rendering certain therapies ineffective. To limit this emerging public health problem, there is a need to develop non-incursive, non-toxic, and new antimicrobial techniques that act more effectively and quicker than the current antibiotics. One of these effective techniques is antibacterial photodynamic therapy (aPDT). This review focuses on the application of porphyrins in the photo-inactivation of bacteria. Mechanisms of bacterial resistance and some of the current ‘greener’ methods of synthesis of meso-phenyl porphyrins are discussed. In addition, significance and limitations of aPDT are also discussed. Furthermore, we also elaborate on the current clinical applications and the future perspectives and directions of this non-antibiotic therapeutic strategy in combating infectious diseases.

Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene.

Abstract: Global change has become a central focus of modern biology. Yet, our knowledge of how anthropogenic drivers affect biodiversity and natural resources is limited by a lack of biological data spanning the Anthropocene. We propose that the hundreds of millions of plant, fungal and animal specimens deposited in natural history museums have the potential to transform the field of global change biology. We suggest that museum specimens are underused, particularly in ecological studies, given their capacity to reveal patterns that are not observable from other data sources. Increasingly, museum specimens are becoming mobilized online, providing unparalleled access to physiological, ecological and evolutionary data spanning decades and sometimes centuries. Here, we describe the diversity of collections data archived in museums and provide an overview of the diverse uses and applications of these data as discussed in the accompanying collection of papers within this theme issue. As these unparalleled resources are under threat owing to budget cuts and other institutional pressures, we aim to shed light on the unique discoveries that are possible in museums and, thus, the singular value of natural history collections in a period of rapid change.This article is part of the theme issue 'Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene'.

Search for squarks and gluinos in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using 36 fb-1 of s =13 TeV pp collision data with the ATLAS detector

Abstract: A search for the supersymmetric partners of quarks and gluons (squarks and gluinos) in final states containing hadronic jets and missing transverse momentum, but no electrons or muons, is presented ...