Pre-clinical trials for Machado-Joseph Disease: Hypothesis-based and hypothesis-free therapeutic approaches

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Saúde

Exploitation of Ashbya gossypii for the production of high-value products from glycerol feedstocks

Dissertação de mestrado em Bioengenharia

Caracterización de moléculas de rizobacterias y de leguminosas con alto impacto productivo y tecnológico en la provincia de Córdoba. Characterization of rhizobacteria and legumes molecules with high production and technological impact in the province of Córdoba.

La provincia de Córdoba cuenta con alto desarrollo agrícola a base de cereales y leguminosas, como por ejemplo el maní. Pero este cultivo con los años ha trasladado su zona de siembra original y se ha extendido hacia otras áreas de mayor riesgo ambiental a raíz de la implantación de la soja. Diversas son las consecuencias de estas dos acciones y que se extienden desde lo agroecológico hasta lo científico-técnico. Este previo estado del arte y las referencias bibliográficas que apuntan a la necesitad de aumentar el valor agregado de los cultivos, nos ha llevado a formular una hipótesis de trabajo y es que las plantas de maní y soja así como las rizobacterias que se asocian con ellas, son productoras de diversas moléculas con potencial uso biológico en la productividad del cultivo y en aplicaciones tecnológicas, biológicas e industriales. Sumado a lo anterior y a las ideas gubernamentales de la necesidad de obtener conocimiento y capitalizarlo como riqueza, y la imperiosa urgencia de responder a demandas regionales, se presenta este proyecto cuyo objetivo general apunta a estudiar la producción de diversas moléculas de rizobacterias y leguminosas con el fin de mejorar la productividad de los cultivos y desarrollar nuevas aplicaciones tecnológicas en la provincia de Córdoba. Para cumplir dentro de los dos años de trabajo solicitados con lo expuesto anteriormente, la investigación será dividida en objetivos específicos y que consisten en investigar la producción de moléculas de raíces de maní y soja, analizar la respuesta microbiana a las rizodeposiciones de ambas leguminosas y evaluar el posible papel biológico y aplicación tecnológica de moléculas de ambos tipos de organismos. Nuestro grupo es de caracter multidisciplinar y ahondará en la diversidad molecular producida por raíces de maní y soja en direfentes días y la respuesta de las rizobacterias que se asocian ellas utilizando técnicas químicas (HPLC, GC, GC-masa) y herramientas microbiológicas y bioquímicas clásicas. Con fines de aplicación tecnológica se determinará la posible acción antioxidante de los extractos vegetales sobre sistemas modelos de ensayo así como la búsqueda de enzimas y hormonas microbianas aplicables en otros campos de la ciencia. De esta forma se pretende atender algunas demandas de diferentes sectores del centro sur de Córdoba y del país pero fundamentalmente posibilitar nuevas aplicaciones de las leguminosas y de las rizobacterias además de permitir la formación académicas de alumnos de grado y posgrado de la UNRC. The province of Cordoba has high agricultural development based on cereals and legumes such as peanuts. But the crop over the years has transferred his original planting area and has spread to other areas of greatest environmental risk following the introduction of soybeans. The previous state and regional art references that point to the necessity of increasing the value-added crops, has led us to formulate a working hypothesis is that the peanut and soybean plants and rhizobacteria associated with they are products of various biological molecules with potential use in crop productivity and biological technology and industrial applications. The general objective is aimed at studying the production of various molecules and legumes rhizobacteria to improve crop productivity and develop new technological applications in the Cordoba province. This form is intended to meet some demands of different sectors of the center south of Cordoba and the country but enabling new applications of legumes and rhizobacteria in addition to allowing the academic training of undergraduates and graduate of the UNRC.

A study of the interaction between national and corporate culture in a selection of Irish based companies

This research studies the phenomenon of national and corporate culture. National culture is the culture the members of a country share and corporate culture is a subculture which members of an organisation share (Schein, 1992). The objective of this research is to reveal if the employees within equivalent Irish and American companies share the same corporate and national culture and to ascertain if, within each company, there is a link between national culture and corporate culture. The object of this study is achieved by replicating research which was conducted by Shing (1997) in Taiwan. Hypotheses and analytical tools developed by Shing are employed in the current study to allow comparison of results between Shing’s study and the current study. The methodology used, called for the measurement and comparison of national and corporate culture in two equivalent companies within the same industry. The two companies involved in this study are both located in Ireland and are of American and Irish origin. A sample of three hundred was selected and the response rate was 54%. The findings from this research are: (1) The two companies involved had different corporate cultures, (2) They had the same national culture, (3) There was no link between national culture and corporate culture within either company, (4) The findings were not similar to those of Shing (1997). The implication of these findings is that national and corporate culture are separate phenomena therefore corporate culture is not a response to national culture. The results of this research are not reflected in the finding’s of Shing (1997), therefore they are context specific. The core recommendation for management is that, corporate culture should take account of national culture. This is because although employees recognise the espoused values of corporate culture (Schein, 1992), they are at the same time influenced by a much stronger force, their national culture.

Development of a data acquisition system to characterise sustainable energy technologies and to support Web-Based learning (DAQ-WBL)

Driven by concerns about rising energy costs, security of supply and climate change a new wave of Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET’s) have been embraced by the Irish consumer. Such systems as solar collectors, heat pumps and biomass boilers have become common due to government backed financial incentives and revisions of the building regulations. However, there is a deficit of knowledge and understanding of how these technologies operate and perform under Ireland’s maritime climate. This AQ-WBL project was designed to address both these needs by developing a Data Acquisition (DAQ) system to monitor the performance of such technologies and a web-based learning environment to disseminate performance characteristics and supplementary information about these systems. A DAQ system consisting of 108 sensors was developed as part of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology’s (GMIT’s) Centre for the Integration of Sustainable EnergyTechnologies (CiSET) in an effort to benchmark the performance of solar thermal collectors and Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP’s) under Irish maritime climate, research new methods of integrating these systems within the built environment and raise awareness of SET’s. It has operated reliably for over 2 years and has acquired over 25 million data points. Raising awareness of these SET’s is carried out through the dissemination of the performance data through an online learning environment. A learning environment was created to provide different user groups with a basic understanding of a SET’s with the support of performance data, through a novel 5 step learning process and two examples were developed for the solar thermal collectors and the weather station which can be viewed at http://www.kdp 1 .aquaculture.ie/index.aspx. This online learning environment has been demonstrated to and well received by different groups of GMIT’s undergraduate students and plans have been made to develop it further to support education, awareness, research and regional development.

Potentially viable solar powered appliances cooling and distillation

Stand alone solar powered refrigeration and water desalination, two of the most popular and sought after applications of solar energy systems, have been selected as the topic of research for the works presented in this thesis. The water desalination system based on evaporation and condensation was found to be the most suitable one to be powered by solar energy. It has been established that highoutput fast-response solar heat collectors used to achieve high rates of evaporation and reliable solar powered cooling system for faster rates of condensation are the most important factors in achieving increased outputs in solar powered desalination systems. Comprehensive reviews of Solar powered cooling/refrigeration and also water desalination techniques have been presented. In view of the fact that the Institute of Technology, Sligo has a well-established long history of research and development in the production of state of the art high-efficiency fast-response evacuated solar heat collectors it was decided to use this know how in the work described in this thesis. For this reason achieving high rates of evaporation was not a problem. It was, therefore, the question of the solar powered refrigeration that was envisaged to be used in the solar powered desalination tofacilitate rapid condensation of the evaporated water that had to be addressed first. The principles of various solar powered refrigeration techniques have also been reviewed. The first step in work on solar powered refrigeration was to successfully modify a conventional refrigerator working on Platen-Munters design to be powered by highoutput fast-response evacuated solar heat collectors. In this work, which was the first ever successful attempt in the field, temperatures as low as —19°C were achieved in the icebox. A new approach in the use of photovoltaic technology to power a conventional domestic refrigerator was also attempted. This was done by modifying a conventional domestic refrigerator to be powered by photovoltaic panels in the most efficient way. In the system developed and successfully tested in this approach, the power demand has been reduced phenomenally and it is possible to achieve 48 hours of cooling power with exposure to just 7 hours of sunshine. The successful development of the first ever multi-cycle intermittent solar powered icemaker is without doubt the most exciting breakthrough in the work described in this thesis. Output of 74.3kg of ice per module with total exposure area of 2.88 m2, or 25.73kg per m2, per day is a major improvement in comparison to about 5-6kg of ice per m2 per day reported for all the single cycle intermittent systems. This system has then become the basis for the development of a new solar powered refrigeration system with even higher output, named the “composite” system described in this thesis. Another major breakthrough associated with the works described in this thesis is the successful development and testing of the high-output water desalination system. This system that uses a combination of the high-output fast-response evacuated solar heat collectors and the multi-cycle icemaker. The system is capable of producing a maximum of 141 litres of distilled water per day per module which has an exposure area of 3.24m2, or a production rate of 43.5 litres per m2 per day. Once again when this result is compared to the reported daily output of 5 litres of desalinated water per m per day the significance of this piece of work becomes apparent. In the presentation of many of the components and systems described in this thesis CAD parametric solid modelling has been used instead of photographs to illustrate them more clearly. The multi-cycle icemaker and the high-output desalination systems are the subject of two patent applications.

The production of vermicompost from dairy sludge and its value as a plant growth medium

Dairy sludge generated at Glanbia Ingredients Ltd., Kilkenny has up until now been landspread. This study investigated the feasibility of using earthworms to vermicompost the sludge as an alternative method of treatment. It was found that high levels of ammonia in the sludge led to earthworm fatality but that by manually aerating the sludge the ammonia could be volatilised or by adding zeolite the ammonia could be absorbed, thus solving the problem. In a medium scale trial, the earthworm species Dendrobaena veneta and Eisenia fetida dominated the polyculture. Earthworms grew and generated cocoons during vermicomposting. During vermicomposting no leachate was generated. Nutrient changes took place during vermicomposting. There were high levels of nitrate, increased calcium and sulphate in the vermicomposted dairy sludge. The amount of magnesium, potassium and chloride did not change, while phosphate was undetectable after vermicomposting. The levels of nitrate and phosphate were good indicators of the extent of vermicomposting. The vermicomposted dairy sludge provided improved growth and yields of radishes and barley compared to the dairy sludge and control. Compared to the vermicompost, the dairy sludge provided heavier ryegrass yields and more marigolds with larger flower diameters. Generally, it is the amount of phosphate in dairy sludge that dictates how much can be applied as a fertiliser on land. Vermicomposting reduced the amount of phosphate to an undetectable level but on the other hand created a problem of high nitrate levels. In a pot trial with grass grown in vermicompost the nitrate leached from the vermicompost. In field conditions the leaching of nitrate might occur and could cause an increased risk of contamination of groundwater and watercourses.

Conceptual Foundations of Modelling of Innovative Production Projects

At the moment there is a lack of methodological approaches to formalization of management of innovative projects relating to production systems, as well as to adaptation and practical use of the existing approaches. This article is about one potential approach to the management of innovative projects, which makes the building of innovative process models possible based on objective approach. It outlines the frameworks for the building of innovative project models, and describes the method of transition from conceptual modelling to innovative project management. In this case, the model alone and together with parameters used for evaluation of the project may be unique and depends on the special features of the project, preferences of decision-making person, and production and economic system in which it is to be implemented. Unlike existing approaches, this concept does not place any restrictions on types of models and makes it possible to take into account the specificities of economic and production systems. Principles embodied in the model allow its usage as a basis for simulation model to be used in one of specialized simulation systems, as well as for information system providing information support of decision-making process in production and economic systems both newly developed by the company (enterprise) and designed on the basis of available information systems that interact through the exchange of data. In addition, this article shows that the development of conceptual foundations of innovative project management in the economic and production systems is inseparable from the development of the theory of industrial control systems, and their comprehensive study may be reduced to a set of elements represented as certain algorithms, models and evaluations. Thus, the study of innovative process may be conducted in both directions: from general to particular, and vice versa.

Investigating independent language learning in classroom-based EFL Learners

La recerca efectuada sobre les estratègies d’aprenentatge de llengües ha demostrat que els aprenents que utilitzen estratègies metacognitives (planificació, revisió i avaluació) desenvolupen estratègies cognitives més eficaces (Anderson, 2002). Aquest article descriu les activitats que 43 estudiants de llengua estrangera de la Universitat de Vic van emprendre de forma independent i dedueix les estratègies metacognitives que van utilitzar sense cap formació prèvia en estratègies. Els estudiants van completar un dossier on expressaven les necessitats d’aprenentatge, la planificació i supervisió de les activitats i finalment l’avaluació de l’aprenentatge que havien portat a terme de manera independent fora de les hores lectives. La primera fase de l’anàlisi de les dades revela que, tot i que els estudiants foren capaços d’expressar les necessitats d’aprenentatge en general, la formulació d’objectius i la supervisió de les activitats fou escassa. La discussió gira entorn de la formació dels estudiants de llengües estrangeres en estratègies metacognitives i la integració de l’aprenentatge autònom dins el currículum docent.

The Barcelonnettes: an example of network-entrepreneurs in XIX century Mexico. An explanation based on a theory of bounded rational choice with social embeddedness

A theory of network-entrepreneurs or "spin-off system" is presented in this paper for the creation of firms based on the community’s social governance. It is argued that firm’s capacity for accumulation depends on the presence of employees belonging to the same social/ethnic group with expectations of "inheriting" the firm and becoming entrepreneurs once they have been selected for their merits and loyalty towards their patrons. Such accumulation is possible because of the credibility of the patrons’ promises of supporting newcomers due to high social cohesion and specific social norms prevailing in the community. This theory is exemplified through the case of the Barcelonnettes, a group of immigrants from the Alps in the South of France (Provence) who came to Mexico in the XIX Century.

Conscious procreation: neo-malthusianism in southern Europe and Latin America in around 1900

One main concern of Ecological Economics is the balance between human population and natural resources. This is rightly named the Malthusian question because Malthus predicted that human populations, if unchecked, would grow exponentially while agricultural production (and other land-based productions) would be subject to decreasing returns to the labour input. This article shows that over one hundred years ago, there was in Europe and America a successful social movement that called itself Neo-Malthusianism. In contrast to Malthus’ pessimism, it believed that population growth could be stopped among the poor classes by voluntary decisions. Women were entitled to choose the number of children they wanted to have. The movement did not appeal to the State to impose restrictions on population growth. On the contrary, in Southern Europe it was based on "bottom up" activism against governments and the Catholic Church.

What is the european social model? an aproximation based on Spanish case

The public perception of the EU in Spain varies greatly. The most positive aspects of Spanish membership are associated with the consolidation of democracy, economic growth, the introduction of the euro, the growth in employment and structural and cohesion funds, the increase in the female participation rate, and the equal opportunities policies. The analysts are in favour of common objectives in the employment policy and multi-level government. The less positive aspects of the EU are the risks of losing social protection and loss of employment in some sectors due to mergers of multinationals and delocalization of companies towards Eastern Europe. The continuous demands for reform of the welfare state, the toughening of the conditions of access to social benefit and the reform of the labour market are also seen as problematic issues. Risks of competitive cuts and social dumping.

Collusion and fights in an experiment with price-setting firms and production in advance

We present results from 50-round market experiments in which firms decide repeatedly both on price and quantity of a completely perishable good. Each firm has capacity to serve the whole market. The stage game does not have an equilibrium in pure strategies. We run experiments for markets with two and three identical firms. Firms tend to cooperate to avoid fights, but when they fight bankruptcies are rather frequent. On average, pricing behavior is closer to that for pure quantity than for pure price competition and price and efficiency levels are higher for two than for three firms. Consumer surplus increases with the number of firms, but unsold production leads to higher efficiency losses with more firms. Over time prices tend to the highest possible one for markets both with two and three firms.

On the design of peer punishment experiments

We discuss how technologies of peer punishment might bias the results that are observed in experiments. A crucial parameter is the “fine-to-fee” ratio, which describes by how much the punished subjects income is reduced relatively to the fee the punishing subject has to pay to inflict punishment. We show that a punishment technology commonly used in experiments embeds a variable fine-to-fee ratio and show that it confounds the empirical findings about why, whom, and how much subjects punish.

Social capital and government in the production of public goods

As a response to the rapidly growing empirical literature on social capital and the evidence of its correlation with government performance, we build a theoretical framework to study the interactions between social capital and government's action. This paper presents a model of homogeneous agents in an overlapping generations framework incorporating social capital as the values transmitted from parent to child. The government's role is to provide public goods. First, government expenditure is exogenously given. Then, it will be chosen at the preferred level of the representative agent. For both setups the equilibrium outcomes are characterized and the resulting dynamics studied. Briefly we include an analysis of the effect of productivity growth on the evolution of social capital. The results obtained caution caution against both the crowding out effect of the welfare state and the impact of sustained economic growth on social capital.