Dual role of LldR in regulation of the lldPRD operon, involved in l-Lactate metabolism in Escherichia coli.

The lldPRD operon of Escherichia coli, involved in L-lactate metabolism, is induced by growth in this compound. We experimentally identified that this system is transcribed from a single promoter with an initiation site located 110 nucleotides upstream of the ATG start codon. On the basis of computational data, it had been proposed that LldR and its homologue PdhR act as regulators of the lldPRD operon. Nevertheless, no experimental data on the function of these regulators have been reported so far. Here we show that induction of an lldP-lacZ fusion by L-lactate is lost in an lldR mutant, indicating the role of LldR in this induction. Expression analysis of this construct in a pdhR mutant ruled out the participation of PdhR in the control of lldPRD. Gel shift experiments showed that LldR binds to two operator sites, O1 (positions 105 to 89) and O2 (positions 22 to 38), with O1 being filled at a lower concentration of LldR. L-Lactate induced a conformational change in LldR that did not modify its DNA binding activity. Mutations in O1 and O2 enhanced the basal transcriptional level. However, only mutations in O1 abolished induction by L-lactate. Mutants with a change in helical phasing between O1 and O2 behaved like O2 mutants. These results were consistent with the hypothesis that LldR has a dual role, acting as a repressor or an activator of lldPRD. We propose that in the absence of L-lactate, LldR binds to both O1 and O2, probably leading to DNA looping and the repression of transcription. Binding of L-lactate to LldR promotes a conformational change that may disrupt the DNA loop, allowing the formation of the transcription open complex.

Laüe back-reflection method for crystallographic orientation of a martensitic Cu-Zn-Al single crystal of the monoclinic system

A martensitic single crystal Cu-23.95Zn-3.62(wt.%)Al alloy was obtained melting pure Cu, Zn and Al using Bridgman's method. The martensitic phase (monoclinic) can present up to 24 variants, and orienting the surface according to a certain plane is a very hard task. The single crystal was submitted to 8 tons of tension (stress) along the longitudinal direction to reduce the number of variants and facilitate the surface orientation according to the desired plane. This single crystal was oriented using the Laüe back-reflection method to give surfaces with the following oriented crystallographic planes: (010), (120) and (130). It was observed that the tension stress was applied along the [010] direction.

Governmental Measures to Enhance the Finnish Innovation System to Respond to the Challenge of Mitigating Climate Change

Climate innovations, that cover both technological applications and process and service innovations, play a key role in climate change mitigation. The purpose of this study was to examine how the Finnish innovation system could be enhanced with governmental measures so that the diffusion of climate innovations could be speeded up. During the study, it became evident that the governmental measures need to support the whole innovation chain, which comprises of research, development, demonstration and deployment. Only this can lead to the successful birth and diffusion of low carbon innovations. The study found that the strengths of the Finnish innovation system are research and development, and the current national innovation policies strongly support these activities. However, these have been emphasised at the expense of the demonstration and deployment. Consequently, the biggest bottlenecks in the Finnish innovation landscape are the lack of pilot and demonstration projects and slow commercialisation, thus the high price of the innovation. To meet with the challenge, the government should firstly promote strict greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. This would boost up the innovation activities, which would also lower the prices of the innovations. To speed up the commercialisation process, measures that stimulate the domestic market, such as feed-in-tariffs and public procurements, are needed. Special attention should also be paid to the measures that could shift the traditional closed innovation chain towards open innovation. This means that the product development should involve experts from several fields such as the user and marketing experts to speed up the commercialisation. In addition, efficient innovation co-operation between both private and public sector is essential. Finally, as the domestic resources are not adequate for producing all the innovations needed, the domestic innovation activities should be focused on a few sectors, and at the same time promote efficient import policies.

Separation of Gas Bubbles from Circulation Waters and Pulp Suspensions in Open Channel Flow

The objective of this thesis was to study the removal of gases from paper mill circulation waters experimentally and to provide data for CFD modeling. Flow and bubble size measurements were carried out in a laboratory scale open gas separation channel. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique was used to measure the gas and liquid flow fields, while bubble size measurements were conducted using digital imaging technique with back light illumination. Samples of paper machine waters as well as a model solution were used for the experiments. The PIV results show that the gas bubbles near the feed position have the tendency to escape from the circulation channel at a faster rate than those bubbles which are further away from the feed position. This was due to an increased rate of bubble coalescence as a result of the relatively larger bubbles near the feed position. Moreover, a close similarity between the measured slip velocities of the paper mill waters and that of literature values was obtained. It was found that due to dilution of paper mill waters, the observed average bubble size was considerably large as compared to the average bubble sizes in real industrial pulp suspension and circulation waters. Among the studied solutions, the model solution has the highest average drag coefficient value due to its relatively high viscosity. The results were compared to a 2D steady sate CFD simulation model. A standard Euler-Euler k-ε turbulence model was used in the simulations. The channel free surface was modeled as a degassing boundary. From the drag models used in the simulations, the Grace drag model gave velocity fields closest to the experimental values. In general, the results obtained from experiments and CFD simulations are in good qualitative agreement.

NADPH-Dependent Thioredoxin System In Regulation of Chloroplast Functions

Photosynthesis, the process in which carbon dioxide is converted into sugars using the energy of sunlight, is vital for heterotrophic life on Earth. In plants, photosynthesis takes place in specific organelles called chloroplasts. During chloroplast biogenesis, light is a prerequisite for the development of functional photosynthetic structures. In addition to photosynthesis, a number of other metabolic processes such as nitrogen assimilation, the biosynthesis of fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, and hormones are localized to plant chloroplasts. The biosynthetic pathways in chloroplasts are tightly regulated, and especially the reduction/oxidation (redox) signals play important roles in controlling many developmental and metabolic processes in chloroplasts. Thioredoxins are universal regulatory proteins that mediate redox signals in chloroplasts. They are able to modify the structure and function of their target proteins by reduction of disulfide bonds. Oxidized thioredoxins are restored via the action of thioredoxin reductases. Two thioredoxin reductase systems exist in plant chloroplasts, the NADPHdependent thioredoxin reductase C (NTRC) and ferredoxin-thioredoxin reductase (FTR). The ferredoxin-thioredoxin system that is linked to photosynthetic light reactions is involved in light-activation of chloroplast proteins. NADPH can be produced via both the photosynthetic electron transfer reactions in light, and in darkness via the pentose phosphate pathway. These different pathways of NADPH production enable the regulation of diverse metabolic pathways in chloroplasts by the NADPH-dependent thioredoxin system. In this thesis, the role of NADPH-dependent thioredoxin system in the redox-control of chloroplast development and metabolism was studied by characterization of Arabidopsis thaliana T-DNA insertion lines of NTRC gene (ntrc) and by identification of chloroplast proteins regulated by NTRC. The ntrc plants showed the strongest visible phenotypes when grown under short 8-h photoperiod. This indicates that i) chloroplast NADPH-dependent thioredoxin system is non-redundant to ferredoxinthioredoxin system and that ii) NTRC particularly controls the chloroplast processes that are easily imbalanced in daily light/dark rhythms with short day and long night. I identified four processes and the redox-regulated proteins therein that are potentially regulated by NTRC; i) chloroplast development, ii) starch biosynthesis, iii) aromatic amino acid biosynthesis and iv) detoxification of H₂O₂. Such regulation can be achieved directly by modulating the redox state of intramolecular or intermolecular disulfide bridges of enzymes, or by protecting enzymes from oxidation in conjunction with 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins. This thesis work also demonstrated that the enzymatic antioxidant systems in chloroplasts, ascorbate peroxidases, superoxide dismutase and NTRC-dependent 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins are tightly linked up to prevent the detrimental accumulation of reactive oxygen species in plants.

Implementing an open data system and showing its benefits

Open data refers to publishing data on the web in machine-readable formats for public access. Using open data, innovative applications can be developed to facilitate people‟s lives. In this thesis, based on the open data cases (discussed in the literature review), Open Data Lappeenranta is suggested, which publishes open data related to opening hours of shops and stores in Lappeenranta City. To prove the possibility of creating Open Data Lappeenranta, the implementation of an open data system is presented in this thesis, which publishes specific data related to shops and stores (including their opening hours) on the web in standard format (JSON). The published open data is used to develop web and mobile applications to demonstrate the benefits of open data in practice. Also, the open data system provides manual and automatic interfaces which make it possible for shops and stores to maintain their own data in the system. Finally in this thesis, the completed version of Open Data Lappeenranta is proposed, which publishes open data related to other fields and businesses in Lappeenranta beyond only stores‟ data.

Creating an open-books implementation framework for a maintenance-related value-based life-cycle model

This study is a qualitative action research by its nature with elements of personal design in the form of a tangible model implementation framework construction. Utilized empirical data has been gathered via two questionnaires in relation to the arranged four workshop events with twelve individual participants. Five of them represented maintenance customers, three maintenance service providers and four equipment providers respectively. Further, there are two main research objectives in proportion to the two complementary focusing areas of this thesis. Firstly, the value-based life-cycle model, which first version has already been developed prior to this thesis, requires updating in order to increase its real-life applicability as an inter-firm decision-making tool in industrial maintenance. This first research objective is fulfilled by improving appearance, intelligibility and usability of the above-mentioned model. In addition, certain new features are also added. The workshop participants from the collaborating companies were reasonably pleased with made changes, although further attention will be required in future on the model’s intelligibility in particular as main results, charts and values were all reckoned as slightly hard to understand. Moreover, upgraded model’s appearance and added new features satisfied them the most. Secondly and more importantly, the premises of the model’s possible inter-firm implementation process need to be considered. This second research objective is delivered in two consecutive steps. At first, a bipartite open-books supported implementation framework is created and its different characteristics discussed in theory. Afterwards, the prerequisites and the pitfalls of increasing inter-organizational information transparency are studied in empirical context. One of the main findings was that the organizations are not yet prepared for network-wide information disclosure as dyadic collaboration was favored instead. However, they would be willing to share information bilaterally at least. Another major result was that the present state of companies’ cost accounting systems will definitely need implementation-wise enhancing in future since accurate and sufficiently detailed maintenance data is not available. Further, it will also be crucial to create supporting and mutually agreed network infrastructure. There are hardly any collaborative models, methods or tools currently in usage. Lastly, the essential questions about mutual trust and predominant purchasing strategies are cooperation-wise important. If inter-organizational activities are expanded, a more relational approach should be favored in this regard. Mutual trust was also recognized as a significant cooperation factor, but it is hard to measure in reality.

An Open Source, DDI-based Curation System for Social Science Data

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Integrating open articles with open data in the life sciences with Europe PubMed Central.

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Kramerius - Fedora based open source system for a digital library

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Designing a Bit Preservation System

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

The Welland Canals Foundation, Honourable William Hamilton Merritt and the St. Catharines Historical Society and Museum, 1971-1990, n.d.

‘The Father of Canadian Transportation’ is a term commonly associated with William Hamilton Merritt. Although he is most known for being one of the driving forces behind the building of the first Welland Canal, he was many things throughout his life; a soldier, merchant, promoter, entrepreneur and politician to name a few. Born on July 3, 1793 at Bedford, Westchester County, N.Y. to Thomas Merritt and Mary Hamilton, Merritt’s family relocated to Canada shortly after in 1796. The move came after Merritt’s father petitioned John Graves Simcoe for land in Upper Canada after serving under him in the Queen’s Rangers during the American Revolution. The family quickly settled into their life at Twelve Mile Creek in St. Catharines. Merritt’s father became sheriff of Lincoln County in 1803 while Merritt began his education in mathematics and surveying. After some brief travel and further education Merritt returned to Lincoln County, in 1809 to help farm his father’s land and open a general store. While a farmer and merchant, Merritt turned his attention to military endeavours. A short time after being commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Lincoln militia, the War of 1812 broke out. Fulfilling his duty, Merritt fought in the Battle of Queenston Heights in October of 1812, and numerous small battles until the Battle of Lundy’s Lane in July 1814. It was here that Merritt was captured and held in Cheshire, Massachusetts until the war ended. Arriving back in the St. Catharines area upon his release, Merritt returned to being a merchant, as well as becoming a surveyor and mill owner. Some historians hypothesize that the need to draw water to his mill was how the idea of the Welland Canals was born. Beginning with a plan to connect the Welland River with the Twelve mile creek quickly developed into a connection between the Lakes Erie and Ontario. Its main purpose was to improve the St. Lawrence transportation system and provide a convenient way to transport goods without having to go through the Niagara Falls portage. The plan was set in motion in 1818, but most living in Queenston and Niagara were not happy with it as it would drive business away from them. Along with the opposition came financial and political restraints. Despite these factors Merritt pushed on and the Welland Canal Company was chartered by the Upper Canadian Assembly on January 19, 1824. The first sod was turned on November 30, 1824 almost a year after the initial chartering. Many difficulties arose during the building of the canal including financial, physical, and geographic restrictions. Despite the difficulties two schooners passed through the canal on November 30, 1829. Throughout the next four years continual work was done on the canal as it expended and was modified to better accommodate large ships. After his canal was underway Merritt took a more active role in the political arena, where he served in various positions throughout Upper Canada. In 1851, Merritt withdrew from the Executive Council for numerous reasons, one of which being that pubic interest had diverted from the canals to railways. Merritt tried his hand at other public works outside transportation and trade. He looked into building a lunatic asylum, worked on behalf of War of 1812 veterans, aided in building Brock’s monument, established schools, aided refugee slaves from the U.S. and tried to establish a National Archives among many other feats. He was described by some as having “policy too liberal – conceptions too vast – views too comprehensive to be comprehensible by all”, but he still made a great difference in the society in which he lived. After his great contributions, Merritt died aboard a ship in the Cornwall canal on July 5, 1862. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=38719 retrieved October 2006 Today numerous groups carry on the legacy of Merritt and the canals both in the past and present. One such group is the Welland Canals Foundation. They describe themselves as: “. . . a volunteer organization which strives to promote the importance of the present and past Welland Canals, and to preserve their history and heritage. The Foundation began in 1980 and carries on events like William Hamilton Merritt Day. The group has strongly supported the Welland Canals Parkway initiative and numerous other activities”. The Welland Canals Foundation does not work alone. They have help from other local groups such as the St. Catharines Historical Society. The Society’s main objective is to increase knowledge and appreciation of the historical aspects of St. Catharines and vicinity, such as the Welland Canals. http://www.niagara.com/~dmdorey/hssc/dec2000.html - retrieved Oct. 2006 http://www.niagara.com/~dmdorey/hssc/feb2000.html - retrieved Oct. 2006

Bringing Zombies Back to Life: An Autoethnographical Exploration of Alienation and Political Dis/Engagement in Emerging Adulthood Within Late-Stage Capitalism

In this thesis, by employing an autoethnographic methodology, I am exploring why certain understandings, or assemblages, of political engagement come to have greater meaning in my life and why other assemblages may be more hidden and thus fail to contribute substantially to the meaning of political in my life. Using immanent, Marxist and post-Marxist theories, as well as a zombie narrative, the study will contextualize the movement of assemblages in my life within late-stage capitalism which is juxtaposed with the zombie apocalypse. The placement and displacement of certain understandings of the political within my life will be theorized within the crisis of constituent power that is revealed in an immanent framework. Furthermore, the crisis of the constituent in late-stage capitalism creates new forms of radical alienation which will also be examined. By exploring my own struggles in becoming political I will theorize why political disengagement in emerging adulthood appears to be increasing, as well as possibilities for new forms of political engagement in a late-stage capitalist context.

The hoosier school master ; a story of back woods life to Indiana

UANL

Effet du stress prolifératif sur la fonction des cellules souches hématopoïétiques : rôles des gènes Scl, E2A et Heb

Le système hématopoïétique est un tissu en constant renouvellement et les cellules souches hématopoïétiques (CSHs) sont indispensables pour soutenir la production des cellules matures du sang. Deux fonctions définissent les CSHs; la propriété d’auto-renouvellement, soit la capacité de préserver l’identité cellulaire suivant une division, et la multipotence, le potentiel de différenciation permettant de générer toutes les lignées hématopoïétiques. Chez l’adulte, la majorité des CSHs sont quiescentes et l’altération de cet état corrèle avec une diminution du potentiel de reconstitution des CSHs, suggérant que la quiescence protège les fonctions des CSHs. La quiescence est un état réversible et dynamique et les réseaux génétiques le contrôlant restent peu connus. Un nombre croissant d’évidences suggère que si à l’état d’homéostasie il y a une certaine redondance entre les gènes impliqués dans ces réseaux de contrôle, leurs rôles spécifiques sont révélés en situation de stress. La famille des bHLHs (basic helix-loop-helix) inclue différentes classes des protéines dont ceux qui sont tissu-spécifiques comme SCL, et les protéines E, comme E12/E47 et HEB. Certains bHLHs sont proposés êtres important pour la fonction des cellules souches, mais cela ne fait pas l’unanimité, car selon le contexte cellulaire, il y a redondance entre ces facteurs. La question reste donc entière, y a-t-il un rôle redondant entre les bHLHs d’une même classe pour la fonction à long-terme des CSHs? Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse visaient dans un premier temps à explorer le lien encore mal compris entre la quiescence et la fonction des CSHs en mesurant leurs facultés suite à un stress prolifératif intense et dans un deuxième temps, investiguer l’importance et la spécificité de trois gènes pour la fonction des CSHs adultes, soit Scl/Tal1, E2a/Tcf3 et Heb/Tcf12. Pour répondre à ces questions, une approche cellulaire (stress prolifératif) a été combinée avec une approche génétique (invalidation génique). Plus précisément, la résistance des CSHs au stress prolifératif a été étudiée en utilisant deux tests fonctionnels quantitatifs optimisés, soit un traitement basé sur le 5-fluorouracil, une drogue de chimiothérapie, et la transplantation sérielle en nombre limite. Dans la mesure où la fonction d’un réseau génique ne peut être révélée que par une perturbation intrinsèque, trois modèles de souris, i.e. Scl+/-, E2a+/- et Heb+/- ont été utilisés. Ceci a permis de révéler que l’adaptation des CSHs au stress prolifératif et le retour à l’équilibre est strictement contrôlé par les niveaux de Scl, lesquels règlent le métabolisme cellulaire des CSHs en maintenant l’expression de gènes ribosomaux à un niveau basal. D’autre part, bien que les composantes du réseau puissent paraître redondants à l’équilibre, mes travaux montrent qu’en situation de stress prolifératif, les niveaux de Heb restreignent la prolifération excessive des CSHs en induisant la sénescence et que cette fonction ne peut pas être compensée par E2a. En conclusion, les résultats présentés dans cette thèse montrent que les CSHs peuvent tolérer un stress prolifératif intense ainsi que des dommages à l’ADN non-réparés, tout en maintenant leur capacité de reconstituer l’hématopoïèse à long-terme. Cela implique cependant que leur métabolisme revienne au niveau de base, soit celui trouvé à l’état d’homéostasie. Par contre, avec l’augmentation du nombre de division cellulaire les CSHs atteignent éventuellement une limite d’expansion et entrent en sénescence.