Nature of the stimulation of biogenesis of cholesterol in the liver by noradrenaline

1.Administration of noradrenaline increased the incorporation of [1-14C]acetate into hepatic sterols and the activity of liver microsomal 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase. 2. The stimulation was observed at short time-intervals with a maximum at 4h and was progressive with increasing concentrations of noradrenaline. 3. Protein synthesis de novo was a necessary factor for the effect. 4. The stimulatory effect was not mediated through the adrenergic receptors, but appears to involve a direct action of the hormone within the hepatocyte.

Social evolution - Has nature ever rewound the tape?

Social insects such as ants, bees, wasps and termites exhibit extreme forms of altruism where some individuals remain sterile and assist other individuals in reproduction. Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory provides a powerful framework for investigating the evolution of such altruism. Using the paper wasp Ropalidia marginata, we have quantified and delineated the role of ecological, physiological, genetic and demographic factors in social evolution. An interesting feature of the models we have developed is their symmetry so that either altruism or selfishness can evolve, depending on the numerical values of various parameters. This suggests that selfish/solitary behaviour must occasionally re-emerge even from the eusocial state, It is useful to contemplate expected intermediate states during such potential reversals. We can perhaps envisage three successive steps in such a hypothetical process: i) workers revolt against the hegemony of the queen and challenge her status as the sole reproductive, ii) workers stop producing queens and one or more of them function as egg layers (functional queen/s) capable of producing both haploid as well as diploid offspring and iii) social evolution reverses completely so that a eusocial species becomes solitary, at least facultatively. It appears that the third step, namely transition from eusociality to the solitary state, is rare and has been restricted to transitions from the primitively eusocial state only. The absence of transitions from the highly eusocial state to the solitary state may be attributed to a number of 'preventing mechanisms' such as (a) queen control of workers (b) loss of spermathecae and ability to mate (c) morphological specialization (d) caste polyethism and (e) homeostasis, which must each make the transition difficult and, taken together, perhaps very difficult. However, the discovery of a transition from the highly eusocial to the solitary state can hardly he ruled out, given that little or no effort has gone into its detection. In this paper I discuss social evolution and its possible reversal and cite potential examples of stages in the transition from the social to the solitary.

A study of the nature of coordination in metal monothiocarbamates based on infrared spectroscopy and the HSAB concept

The nature of coordination in metal monothiocarbamates is shown to depend on the hardness or softness of the metal ton. Thus, the monothiocarbamate ion acts as a monodentate ligand with metal-sulphur bending when the metal ion is a soft acid while it acts as a bidentate ligand when the metal ion is a hard acid; it can exhibit either behaviour when the metal ion is a borderline acid. In dialkyltin and dialkylmonocholorotin complexes, the monothiocarbamate ion acts as a bidentate ligand with strong Sn-S bonding while in trialkyl-or triaryl-tin complexes it acts essentially as a monodentate ligand. Thus, R3Sn(I) seems to be a soft or borderline acid while R2Sn(II) is a hard acid.

Cloning and sequencing of winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus) basic agglutinin (WBA I): presence of second glycosylation site and its implications in quaternary structure

We report cloning of the DNA encoding winged bean basic agglutinin (WBA I). Using oligonucleotide primers corresponding to N- and C-termini of the mature lectin, the complete coding sequence for WBA I could be amplified from genomic DNA. DNA sequence determination by the chain termination method revealed the absence of any intervening sequences in the gene. The DNA deduced amino acid sequence of WBA I displayed some differences with its primary structure established previously by chemical means. Comparison of the sequence of WBA I with that of other legume lectins highlighted several interesting features, including the existence of the largest specificity determining loop which might account for its oligosaccharide-binding specificity and the presence of an additional N-glycosylation site. These data also throw some light on the relationship between the primary structure of the protein and its probable mode of dimerization.

Lapset ja nuoret ympäristökansalaisina : Ympäristökasvatuksen näkökulma osallistumiseen

Children and young people as environmental citizens the environmental education perspective to participation This doctoral thesis examines the participation of children and young people in developing their own environment at school, as a part of environmental education. The aim of the research is to assess and consider children and young people s environmentally responsible participation and its effectiveness in relation to the participants own learning and the end results of the participation. The research combines the perspectives of environmental education and citizenship education through the concept of environmental citizenship. Environmental education, which enhances environmental citizenship, offers children and young people the possibility to be active citizens and learn about citizenship in their own lives by taking action themselves. The research is made up of two parts which complement each other. The first part consists of an action research carried out in the Joensuu Lyseo Upper Secondary School, where an environmental education course with a traffic-related theme was planned, developed and evaluated. The second part is made up of an interview survey carried out in Helsinki. In the survey actors from schools and various city offices, who were involved in development projects of school environments, were interviewed. According to the research results, all-round cooperation and more open relations with those outside of the school environment are important ways to support environmental citizenship in schools. Thus, environmentally responsible participation offers a chance to learn competence that an environmental citizen needs the knowledge, skills and willingness to act that have not been successfully taught through traditional school education. The research introduces a model of environmentally responsible participation as a learning process, in which learning is studied through the development of competence, self-empowerment and social empowerment. The model makes the context of environmental education visible and puts emphasis on reflection in the learning process. A central factor in children and young people s self-empowerment is the sense of being heard and taken into consideration. At the moment children and young people s rights to participate are strong, due to legislation, school curricula, and several national and international agreements. Despite this, involving them in developing their own immediate surroundings has not become a part of schools and planning organisations daily life and established methods. Reasons for this situation can be found in the lack of regard and resources for these matters, in the complex nature of planning and a long time frame, and the problems of ownership and of reaching each other. Central to overcoming these obstacles are a gradual change in conduct and mentalities and the strengthening of teachers and officials competence. Children and young people need different ways and methods of varying levels of involvement, structures and arenas which enable participation and in which environmental citizenship can be realized. Key words: environmental citizenship, environmental education, citizenship education, children and young people s participation, social learning, self-empowerment, social empowerment, school, community planning

The problem with teamwork: A discursive investigation

- Background Teamwork sits comfortably within the vocabularies of most physical education teachers. It is used to both describe and prescribe student behaviour in a variety of physical and sport-related activities. Yet while supporters of sport and PE have readily employed the term, remarkably few pedagogues have taken the time to consider what teamwork refers to, let alone what it means to teach it. - Focus of study In this paper, we examine practitioners' constructions of teamwork. - Participants and setting Data were generated with seven physical education teachers (four male and three female) at a state-funded secondary school near Brisbane, Australia. The teachers ranged in experience from three months to more than 30 years. - Research design The investigation was a case study of one physical education department at a secondary school. - Data collection Three interviews were conducted with each of the teachers. The first was biographical in nature and covered themes such as education and sporting experiences. During the second interviews, teachers produced examples and statements on the topic of teamwork as it occurs within their lessons. The material from the second set of interviews was explored in the final set where the teachers were invited to elaborate on and explain comments from their previous interviews. - Analysis Data were considered from a discursive-constructionist perspective and attention was given to linguistic and grammatical features of the teachers' commentary as well as the cultural relevance of the utterances. The notion of ‘interpretive repertoires’ – essentially cultural explanations bounded by particular socio-linguistic features – provided the central unit of analysis. - Findings The teachers in the project made use of an array of discursive resources to make sense of teamwork. These constructions often bore little resemblance to one another or to existing theories of teamwork. In some cases, the teachers offered vague descriptions or drew on alternative concepts to make sense of teamwork. - Conclusions Without a certain level of agreement in their everyday usage, teachers' constructions of teamwork fail to be convincing or useful. We maintain that a more substantive conceptualisation of teamwork is needed in the field of sport pedagogy and offer suggestions on how this might be accomplished.

Guest editorial: Urban nature for resilient and liveable cities

It is a transforming experience to imagine that in 50 years, our current built environment might look as foreign to our grandchildren as the computers of the 1960s look to us today. We can already see emerging attempts to create cities that are resilient and liveable in the face of physical stresses including population growth, increasing climate variability, resource shortages and pollution. The capacity for transforming every aspect of development towards resilience and liveability goals is profoundly exciting, from heating and cooling through to energy generation, water reticulation, food production, transportation, communication and recreational spaces...

Photobiological studies of Baltic Sea phytoplankton

Phytoplankton ecology and productivity is one of the main branches of contemporary oceanographic research. Research groups in this branch have increasingly started to utilise bio-optical applications. My main research objective was to critically investigate the advantages and deficiencies of the fast repetition rate (FRR) fluorometry for studies of productivity of phytoplankton, and the responses of phytoplankton towards varying environmental stress. Second, I aimed to clarify the applicability of the FRR system to the optical environment of the Baltic Sea. The FRR system offers a highly dynamic tool for studies of phytoplankton photophysiology and productivity both in the field and in a controlled environment. The FRR metrics obtain high-frequency in situ determinations of the light-acclimative and photosynthetic parameters of intact phytoplankton communities. The measurement protocol is relatively easy to use without phases requiring analytical determinations. The most notable application of the FRR system lies in its potential for making primary productivity (PP) estimations. However, the realisation of this scheme is not straightforward. The FRR-PP, based on the photosynthetic electron flow (PEF) rate, are linearly related to the photosynthetic gas exchange (fixation of 14C) PP only in environments where the photosynthesis is light-limited. If the light limitation is not present, as is usually the case in the near-surface layers of the water column, the two PP approaches will deviate. The prompt response of the PEF rate to the short-term variability in the natural light field makes the field comparisons between the PEF-PP and the 14C-PP difficult to interpret, because this variability is averaged out in the 14C-incubations. Furthermore, the FRR based PP models are tuned to closely follow the vertical pattern of the underwater irradiance. Due to the photoacclimational plasticity of phytoplankton, this easily leads to overestimates of water column PP, if precautionary measures are not taken. Natural phytoplankton is subject to broad-waveband light. Active non-spectral bio-optical instruments, like the FRR fluorometer, emit light in a relatively narrow waveband, which by its nature does not represent the in situ light field. Thus, the spectrally-dependent parameters provided by the FRR system need to be spectrally scaled to the natural light field of the Baltic Sea. In general, the requirement of spectral scaling in the water bodies under terrestrial impact concerns all light-adaptive parameters provided by any active non-spectral bio-optical technique. The FRR system can be adopted to studies of all phytoplankton that possess efficient light harvesting in the waveband matching the bluish FRR excitation. Although these taxa cover the large bulk of all the phytoplankton taxa, one exception with a pronounced ecological significance is found in the Baltic Sea. The FRR system cannot be used to monitor the photophysiology of the cyanobacterial taxa harvesting light in the yellow-red waveband. These taxa include the ecologically-significant bloom-forming cyanobacterial taxa in the Baltic Sea.

Knowledge management research in the construction industry: a review

Purpose: Knowledge management (KM) is important to the knowledge-intensive construction industry. The diversified and changing nature of works in this field warrants us to stocktake, identify changes and map out KM research framework for future exploration. Design/methodology/approach: The study involves three aspects. First, three stages of KM research in construction were distinguished in terms of the time distribution of 217 target publications. Major topics in the stages were extracted for understanding the changes of research emphasis from evolutionary perspective. Second, the past works were summed up in a three-dimensional research framework in terms of management organization, managerial methodology and approach, and managerial objective. Finally, potential research orientations in the future were predicted to expand the existing research framework. Findings: It was found that (1) KM research has significantly blossomed in the last two decades with a great potential; (2) major topics of KM were changing in terms of technology, technique, organization, attribute of knowledge and research objectives; (3) past KM studies centred around management organization, managerial methodology and approach, and managerial objective thus a three-dimensional research framework was proposed; (4) within the research framework, team-level, project-level and firm-level KM were studied to achieve project, organizational and competitive objectives by integrated methodologies of information technology, social technique and KM process tool; and (5) nine potential research orientations were predicted corresponding to the three dimensions. Finally, an expanded research framework was proposed to encourage and guide future research works in this field. Research limitations/implications: The paper only focused on the construction industry. The findings need further exploration in order to discover any possible missing important research works which were not published in English or not included in the time period. Originality/value: The paper formed a systematic framework of KM research in construction and predicted the potential research orientations. It provides much value for the researchers who want to understand the past and the future of global KM research in the construction industry.

A parameter characterizing plowing nature of surfaces close to Gaussian

A non-dimensional parameter descriptive of the plowing nature of surfaces is proposed for the case of sliding between a soft and a relatively hard metallic pair. From a set of potential parameters which can be descriptive of the phenomenon, dimensionless groups are formulated and the influence of each one of them is analyzed. A non-dimensional parameter involving the root-mean square deviation (R-q) and the centroidal frequency (F-mean) deducted from the power-spectrum is found to have a high degree of correlation (as high as 0.93) with the coefficient of friction obtained in sliding experiments under lubricated condition.

Mathematical model and rule extraction for tool wear monitoring problem using nature inspired techniques

In this paper, pattern classification problem in tool wear monitoring is solved using nature inspired techniques such as Genetic Programming(GP) and Ant-Miner (AM). The main advantage of GP and AM is their ability to learn the underlying data relationships and express them in the form of mathematical equation or simple rules. The extraction of knowledge from the training data set using GP and AM are in the form of Genetic Programming Classifier Expression (GPCE) and rules respectively. The GPCE and AM extracted rules are then applied to set of data in the testing/validation set to obtain the classification accuracy. A major attraction in GP evolved GPCE and AM based classification is the possibility of obtaining an expert system like rules that can be directly applied subsequently by the user in his/her application. The performance of the data classification using GP and AM is as good as the classification accuracy obtained in the earlier study.

A survey and analysis of the GNSS spoofing threat and countermeasures

Detection and prevention of global network satellite system (GNSS) “spoofing” attacks, or the broadcast of false global navigation satellite system services, has recently attracted much research interest. This survey aims to fill three gaps in the literature: first, to assess in detail the exact nature of threat scenarios posed by spoofing against the most commonly cited targets; second, to investigate the many practical impediments, often underplayed, to carrying out GNSS spoofing attacks in the field; and third, to survey and assess the effectiveness of a wide range of proposed defences against GNSS spoofing. Our conclusion lists promising areas of future research.

Quaternary [Guest Curator]

The curated exhibition, 'Quaternary' was held at the QUT Art Museum in 2015. Dr Courtney Pedersen was the guest curator. The aim of this curatorial project was to identify and analyse the work of a selection of women artists whose practices utilise the affective power of colour in compelling ways.Taking its cue from the Australian artist Thea Proctor's claim in 1938 that women artists make better colourists, the exhibition explored the enduring nature of this perception by presenting a range of contrasting approaches to colour. 'Quaternary' was the second iteration of QUT's triennial exhibition series, which explores the University's open-studio, cross-disciplinary approach to studying art. The artists include: Bianca Beetson, Chantal Fraser, Rachael Haynes, Natalya Hughes, Alice Lang, Gemma Smith, and Jemima Wyman.

Directional dominance on stature and cognition in diverse human populations

Homozygosity has long been associated with rare, often devastating, Mendelian disorders1, and Darwin was one of the first to recognize that inbreeding reduces evolutionary fitness2. However, the effect of the more distant parental relatedness that is common in modern human populations is less well understood. Genomic data now allow us to investigate the effects of homozygosity on traits of public health importance by observing contiguous homozygous segments (runs of homozygosity), which are inferred to be homozygous along their complete length. Given the low levels of genome-wide homozygosity prevalent in most human populations, information is required on very large numbers of people to provide sufficient power3, 4. Here we use runs of homozygosity to study 16 health-related quantitative traits in 354,224 individuals from 102 cohorts, and find statistically significant associations between summed runs of homozygosity and four complex traits: height, forced expiratory lung volume in one second, general cognitive ability and educational attainment (P < 1 × 10−300, 2.1 × 10−6, 2.5 × 10−10 and 1.8 × 10−10, respectively). In each case, increased homozygosity was associated with decreased trait value, equivalent to the offspring of first cousins being 1.2 cm shorter and having 10 months’ less education. Similar effect sizes were found across four continental groups and populations with different degrees of genome-wide homozygosity, providing evidence that homozygosity, rather than confounding, directly contributes to phenotypic variance. Contrary to earlier reports in substantially smaller samples5, 6, no evidence was seen of an influence of genome-wide homozygosity on blood pressure and low density lipoprotein cholesterol, or ten other cardio-metabolic traits. Since directional dominance is predicted for traits under directional evolutionary selection7, this study provides evidence that increased stature and cognitive function have been positively selected in human evolution, whereas many important risk factors for late-onset complex diseases may not have been.

Functional interaction of diphenols with polyphenol oxidase - Molecular determinants of substrate/inhibitor specificity SO FEBS JOURNAL

Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) catalyzes the oxidation of o-diphenols to their respective quinones. The quinones autopolymerize to form dark pigments, an undesired effect. PPO is therefore the target for the development of antibrowning and antimelanization agents. A series of phenolic compounds experimentally evaluated for their binding affinity and inhibition constants were computationally docked to the active site of catechol oxidase. Docking studies suggested two distinct modes of binding, dividing the docked ligands into two groups. Remarkably, the first group corresponds to ligands determined to be substrates and the second group corresponds to reversible inhibitors. Analyses of the complexes provide structural explanations for correlating subtle changes in the position and nature of the substitutions on o-diphenols to their functional properties as substrates and inhibitors. Higher reaction rates and binding are reckoned by additional interactions of the substrates with key residues that line the hydrophobic cavity. The docking results suggest that inhibition of oxidation stems from an interaction between the aromatic carboxylic acid group and the apical His 109 of the four coordinates of the trigonal pyramidal coordination polyhedron of CuA. The spatial orientation of the hydroxyl in relation to the carboxylic group either allows a perfect fit in the substrate cavity, leading to inhibition, or because of a steric clash flips the molecule vertically, facilitating oxidation. This is the first study to explain, at the molecular level, the determinants Of substrate and inhibitor specificity of a catechol oxidase, thereby providing a platform for the design of selective inhibitors useful to both the food and pharmaceutical industries.