Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigating asparagine-linked glycosylation substrate : specificity and effects on protein folding

N-linked glycosylation is a ubiquitous form of protein modification whereby a preassembled oligosaccharide is covalently attached the asparagine side chain of an acceptor protein. This process involves numerous enzymes, produces a diverse set of oligosaccharide structures, and results in a variety of structural and functional effects on the glycoprotein. Research discussed in this dissertation applies synthetic organic chemistry to probe this important biological system. To study the effects of N-linked glycosylation on protein folding, a semi-synthetic strategy was developed to access a set of model proteins that were homogeneously glycosylated at several sites of interest. The folding kinetics of this set of glycoproteins were then characterized using stopped-flow fluorescence spectroscopy, which revealed that the presence of the glycan show discrete effects on both the rate of protein folding and unfolding, and that the overall effect is highly specific to the local primary and secondary structure of the glycosylation site. The gram-negative bacterium Campylobacterjejuni was recently discovered to contain a general N-linked glycosylation system with a defined glycan structure and tractable enzymes for heterologous expression including a single subunit oligosaccharyltransferase. To probe the bacterial N-linked glycosylation machinery, a chemo-enzymatic synthesis for each of the glycan intermediates within this pathway was developed, which are impractical to obtain from the host organism. Importantly, chemo-enzymatic allowed for the incorporation of structural modifications for binding-specificity assays and radiolabels for accurate quantification. Access to these substrates allowed us to define the minimum glycosylation consensus sequence for the oligosaccharyltransferase as well as the polyisoprenol specificity of three representative enzymes within the pathway. Thesis Supervisor: Barbara Imperiali Class of 1922 Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biology
Net autotrophy and heterotrophy in the Pontevedra Ria upwelling system (NW Iberian margin)

A non-stationary state mass balance of the type advocated by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme/Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (IGBP/LOICZ) has been used to assess net ecosystem metabolism in the Pontevedra Ria (NW Spain), a large embayment subject to transient upwelling of Eastern North Atlantic Central Water (ENACW) under favourable meteorological conditions. Nitrate (NO3 – ) and phosphate (PO4 3– ) data spanning 12 months were resolved at the oceanic boundary by treating the ria as a single box of constant volume. The nutrient budget was scaled up to an estimate of net community production (NCP) using the compositional relationship of local phytoplankton. The mean annual NCP predicted by the NO3 – balance was 24.0 mgC m –2 h –1 , and 35.8 mgC m –2 h –1 by the PO4 3– budget. Nutrient fluxes into the reservoir were strongly driven by the incoming oceanic flow throughout the year, which supplied 88% and 98% of the total NO3 – and PO4 3– load, respectively. A high NCP (NO3 – ) of 57.2 mgC m –2 h –1 was calculated for the height of the growth season contemporaneous with ENACW intrusion, whereas a slightly higher value of 61.4 mgC m –2 h –1 corresponded to PO4 3– . Nutrient limitation was variable throughout the sampling, switching from PO4 3– to NO3 – from winter to spring concurrent with a drop in riverine PO4 3– input. Scaling the inorganic nutrients to carbon units, the Pontevedra Ria may be considered as net autotrophic, although the NO3 – budget suggests alternation between autotrophy and heterotrophy over an annual cycle.
Determinants of choice of credit sources by Eswatini SMEs: A focus on the Agriculture Sector

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence choice of credit sources by SMEs in the agriculture sector. Understanding factors that determine farmers’ choice of credit will help improve and prioritise financial services most frequently used by the SMEs, in order to improve local food production and contribute to the Gross Domestic Production (GDP). The study used FinScope 2016 Survey data entailing 3,024 Eswatini SMEs selected through the two stage stratified random sampling method. Out of these SMEs, 87 of them in the agriculture sector were able to access credit from the informal, semi-formal and formal service providers in 2016, hence this study focuses of them. The data was analysed using a multinomial logistic regression. The study finds that keeping financial records, capital size required to start a business, the size of business, age of the business owner, and interest rates are significant factors that influence choices of agriculture SME owners between informal, semi-formal, and formal credit providers. Entrepreneurs that do not keep records are more likely to use informal sources of credit. Therefore, there is a need to develop policies that should thrust interventions to informal sources of finance/credit such as stokvels and rotating and savings schemes (ROSCAs) and also a policy that will ensure that semi-formal financial institutions do not morph into pseudo formal institutions, that is, commercial banks.
First detection of Babesia gibsoni infection in Philippine stray dogs by immunochromatographic test (ICT)

A total of 46 stray dogs in an impounding facility comprising 17 males and 29 females were diagnosed using the Babesia gibsoni P50 truncated antigen immunochromatographic test (P50t-ICT). Thirteen dogs (28.0%) were serologically positive. There was no cross-reactivity with serum samples from Babesia canis (= B. vogeli )-infected dogs and none of the ICT strips showed invalid results, which reinforce the sensitivity and specificity of the P50t antigen and the reliability and accuracy of the P50t-ICT. Thirty-seven (80.4%) dogs had mixed tick infestations principally of the genus rhipicephalus and Boophilus . From 11 seropositive and 20 seronegative dogs a total of 80 rhipicephalus ticks were pooled. Among the 33 seronegative dogs, 48.5% had infestation with rhipicephalus sp. only, 12.1% with Boophilus sp. only, 12.1% with mixed rhipicephalus sp. and Boophilus sp. , and 19.6% were un-infested. This paper documents the first account of serological detection of B. gibsoni in stray dogs and their infestation mainly with rhipicephalus sp. suggestive of their role as putative key vectors of B. gibsoni in Philippine stray dogs.
In vitro cytotoxic potential of Calotropis gigantea R.Br. against human cancer cell lines.

Calotropis gigantea R.Br belongs to Asdepiadaceae family, commonly known as milkweed or swallowort is a common wasteland weed and most abundant in the subtropics/ tropics and rare in cold countries (Singh et al., 1996). Calotropis gigantea is a traditional medical plant (Rastogi and Mehrotra, 1991) with unique properties (Oudhia and Tripathi, 1998) and is used alone or with other medicinal plants (Caius, 1986) to treat common diseases such as fevers, rheumatism, indigestion, cough, cold, eczema, asthma, elephantiasis, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea (Das, 1996). The plant is also a reputed Homoeopathic drug (Ferrington, 1990). The powdered root is used in asthma, bronchitis, dyspepsia and leaves are useful in the treatment of paralysis, swellings, intermittent fevers (Warrier et al., 1996). The plant possesses antidiarrhoeal activity (Chitme et al., 2004) and the latex of the plant is a rich source of useful components that has medicinal properties and one of the main applications is in controlling bleeding. The plant is considered crude drug of Bangladesh and new oxiopregnaneoligoglycosides named Calotropis A and B have been isolated from the root of C. gigantea (Isao et al., 1992). Cardenoloids glycosides calotropin frugoside and 4-OBetaDglucopyransyl frugoside were also obtained as the cytotoxic principles from the root of C. gigantea (Kiuchi et al., 1998). This study attempts to determine the in vitro cytotoxic effect of Calotropis gigantea R.Br. root extract on human cancer cell lines from six different origins. The results would enable more rational exploitation of the plant in both traditional and orthodox medicine.
SIMULATIONS ON COOPERATIVE BREEDING BETWEEN NORDIC RED DAIRY CATTLE POPULATIONS WITH DIVERSE OBJECTIVES

Small or limited population sizes of four Nordic red and red-and-white dairy cattle breeds restrict the rate of genetic improvement and make them less competitive as compared to the Holstein-Friesian populations. A simulation study was undertaken in order to evaluate opportunities for improvement of the competitiveness through cooperative breeding plans. A deterministic model based on the gene flow method was used. Progeny testing schemes were evaluated on the basis of genetic gain for the four populations of different sizes. Each breed was assumed to adopt three breeding objectives, i.e. milk yield, calving performance and mastitis resistance (MR). Three alternative economic weights for MR (500, 1410 and 2000 per phenotypic standard deviation) were used to differentiate slightly the populations. The schemes with the highest gains were used to evaluate the effect of cooperation on bull sire selection among all progeny tested bulls in the populations. It was found that the population with the lowest weight on MR obtained the lowest benefit from the cooperation whereas the three others obtained similar genetic progress, indicating that cooperation should be regarded as the first step towards uniting populations into one breeding unit.
Character Education for 21st Century Global Citizens

: The study aims at developing learning materials containing character education integrated in teaching and learning Bahasa Jawa (Javanese language) at secondary schools in Central Java. The model is integrated in the teaching-learning process, curriculum, syllabus, lesson plan, and learning materials. The researchers apply a descriptive qualitative method. The objects cover tembang macapat (Javanese song) lyrics containing five-character values. Data are collected using library and recording techniques. Data validity is checked using triangulation. Data are analyzed by texts analysis. The result shows that tembang macapat texts contain character education and can be used as learning materials integrated in teaching and learning of Javanese Language given to secondary school students in Central Java. This can be implemented by singing tembang macapat at the beginning or the end of every lesson. Then, teacher explains the character education beyond the song. Besides, it can be inserted in parts of curriculum, syllabus, lesson plan, and learning materials.
Records of bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from Suriname

Ten species are added to the 60 species of bats already known to occur in Suriname. The specie s added include Micronycteris minuta, M. nicefori, Phyl/oderma stenops, Tonatia bidens, T. brasiliense , Carollia brevicauda, Chiroderma trinitatum, Vampyressa bidens , Promops centralis , and P. nasutus. Additional information is presented on five species previously recorded from Suriname, including Pteronotus parnellii, Mimon crenulatum , Art ibeus concolor, Chiroderma villosum, and Sturnira tildae .
Have You Ever Felt That Way? Parents Asking Questions About Feelings and Emotions

Being able to express and label emotions is critical for children as this helps with selfregulation. The ability to self-regulate helps children to make friends, solve problems and be mindful. Mindfulness is taught by parents and varies across families and cultures (Erwin & Robinson, 2016). When children are mindful they learn to be aware of others and be sensible which develops into empathy skills. Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others (Decety, Meidenbauer & Cowell, 2018). Parents play an important role in the development of empathy as they teach children to identify their own feelings and emotions when taking others’ perspectives. As such, parent-child interactions have a critical role in the development of social skills (Gadaire, Henrich & Finn-Stevenson, 2016) particularly when discussing feelings and emotions. This study used Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory as a framework to analyze how adults guide children to identify feelings and emotions. Data was collected at a children’s museum in a major city in south central Texas. Ninety parents and their 3-5-year-olds participated in a 10minute prompt. Each session was videotaped and later coded. The prompt included PowerPoint slides with photos depicting feelings and emotions. Parents were asked to use the questions on each slide or to ask their own questions. Findings indicate that emotion, description, expression, inquiry, and elaboration are important to elicit children’s elaboration regarding their own feelings during parent-child interactions. Findings also show the importance of parents using appropriate vocabulary to identify feelings and emotions when interacting with children.
Women Entrepreneurship: Research Review And Future Directions

Objective of this research paper are divided into two parts first one is to inspect figure of research papers are available on women entrepreneurship in entrepreneurship and its relevant journals from 1990 to 2017 and another one is to review the progress of the research area by purposely reviewing literature published from 1990 to 2017 and put further research directions. During this study found that existing entrepreneur follow feminist theories which can be applied in obtainable entrepreneurship theories. As per finding most of studies are restricted with in national boundaries.
Preliminary report on the production of transgenic Oreochromis niloticus using tol 2 kit

Pronuclear microinjection of donor plasmid containing the tol 2 transposon that was flanked by a promoter β- actin and green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene were injected into the perinuclear cytoplasm of Oreochromis niloticus fertilized eggs. The aim was to determine if the β-actin promoter will drive the expression of the GFP in specific tissues of the embryo. Few days after hatching, GFP was strongly expressed in the embryos when observed under UV-light microscope. Subsequently, β actin fused with a foreign growth hormone gene in a donor tols 2 transposon along with messenger RNA was co-injected into early stage of fertilized eggs using micro injector. Out of the 30 eggs injected, 15 representing 50% hatchlings were obtained. GH was successfully transposed to the genome of Fo as confirmed from PCR of DNA from fin clip of the founder population. Growth performance in transgenic after 2 months of rearing was 1.06gm (3.7cm) compared with 0.68gm(3.5cm) in nontransgenic individuals. The founder generation is being raised to maturity to determine the level of efficiency in transmission to next generation. Keywords : Transposon; growth enhancement; Oreochromis niloticus ; transgenesis; growth hormone gene
PRODUCTION AND PURIFICATION OF HSV-1 VECTORS AND ITS USE FOR GENE TRANSFER TO HUMAN CD34⁺ CELLS

The delivery of therapeutic DNA to patients with genetic or acquired disorders has evolved into a realistic alternate treatment to surgery, drug delivery, or as an adjuvant to therapies. A specific area of this research is to transduce CD34⁺ cells with therapeutic DNA containing vectors developed from viruses. Explanted CD34⁺ progenitor cells are exposed to these vectors and then are transplanted to a host. Despite the positive advances, major limitations exist in the ability to efficiently transduce cells with current vector systems. In addition, if vectors are proven effective at ameliorating disease, the expense of manufacturing sufficient quantities required to treat large populations of patients may prohibit their widespread applications. Our lab utilizes replication-defective herpes simplex virus type-1 (HSV-1) as a gene delivery vector. HSV-1 possesses the capability to deliver large or multiple genes and infects a wide variety of cell types. In order to optimize transduction of human umbilical cord blood CD34⁺ cells, I examined this population for presence and functionality of the three different HSV receptors required for virus binding and entry. Optimal transduction efficiencies of 75% were obtained by systematically varying vector concentration and adsorption time. Additionally, several vector constructs were developed in order to examine the effects of various promoter systems and additional gene deletions on gene expression and vector-associated toxicity. Throughout these studies we were confronted with the difficulty of obtaining sufficient amounts of high quality vector needed for testing the efficacy of HSV-1 vectors in various applications. To further improve the vector yield, I examined the effect of temperature and media conditions on the stability of an HSV-1 vector. Applying a temperature shift to production conditions resulted in increased vector yields that remained stable at peak levels in cultures incubated at 33°C rather than 37°C. To enhance vector recovery, alternative purification strategies were examined. A two-stage tangential flow filtration system coupled to a chromatography step was developed to isolate vector from large debris such as cells and smaller molecules such as protein and DNA. This new system for vector concentration and purification proved superior to the standard protocols currently in use.
Genetics, genomics, and breeding of bananas.

Large amounts of data are currently produced via the “tooled up” foundation of “omic” technologies. Proteomics and metabolomics which are typical for post-genomic profiling techniques have been utilized in crop development. The current genomics projects of Musa spp. including banana and plantain are complemented with high-throughput metabolomics and proteomics approaches. While metabolic analyses globally focus on small molecules of plants under a specific condition, proteomics identify and quantify differentially expressed proteins. Data from metabolite and protein profiling are analyzed by bioinformatics and complement the more commonly used transcriptomics approaches. This chapter reviews the current developments in different areas of Musa metabolome and proteome studies. Experimental and analytical tools such as NMR, MS, 2D-gel electrophoresis, GC-MS, MALDI-TOF have been described as important requisites for the generation of Musa metabolome and proteome data. In general, systems biology then forms the expected integration of results from transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics and bioinformatics approaches in Musa genomics research.
VPS45p as a Model System for Elucidation of SEC1/MUNC18 Protein Function: A Dissertation

Vesicular trafficking, the movement of vesicles between organelles and the plasma membrane for secretion, consists of multiple highly regulated processes. Many protein families function as specificity and regulatory determinants to ensure correct vesicle targeting and timing of trafficking events. The SNARE proteins dock and fuse vesicles to their target membranes. Sec1/Munc18 (SM) proteins regulate membrane fusion through interactions with the SNAREs—SM proteins have been shown to act as both inhibitors and stimulators of SNARE assembly and membrane fusion. However, the details of these SM protein functions are not understood. Constructing a model of SM protein function has been challenging due to the various modes of interactions reported between SM proteins and their SNAREs. SM proteins interact with their cognate SNAREs and SNARE complexes through several distinct modes. The most conserved mode is an interaction with the syntaxin N-peptide; other modes of binding, such as the syntaxin closed conformation, are hypothesized to be specific for specialized cell types. In order to elucidate the general function of SM proteins, I investigated the function of the endosomal SM protein Vps45p by analyzing its interactions with its cognate syntaxin Tlg2p and its role in SNARE assembly. I had two main hypotheses: that the Tlg2p N-peptide does not solely mediate the interaction between Vps45p and Tlg2p; and that Vps45p functions to stimulate SNARE complex assembly. I systematically mapped the interaction between Vps45p and Tlg2p using various Tlg2p truncations containing the different domains of Tlg2p and discovered a second binding site on Tlg2p that corresponds to the closed conformation. The neuronal
Mosquito Ecology: Field Sampling Methods

Designing a Mosquito Sampling Programme. - Sampling the Egg Population. - Sampling the Larval Population. - Sampling the Emerging Adult Population. - Sampling the Adult Resting Population. - Sampling Adults by Animal Bait Catches and by Animal-Baited Traps. - Blood-feeding and its Epidemiological Significance. - Sampling Adults with Non-attractant Traps. - Sampling Adults with Light-Traps. - Sampling Adults with Carbon Dioxide Traps. - Sampling Adults with Visual Attraction Traps, Sound Traps and Other Miscellaneous Attraction Traps. - Estimation of the Mortalities of the Immature Stages. - Methods of Age-grading Adults and Estimation of Adult Survival Rates. - Estimating the size of the Adult Population. - Measuring Adult Dispersal. - Experimental Hut Techniques. - Indices of Association and Species Diversity Indices.
The influence of bodily actions on social perception and behaviour : assessing effects of power postures

Les postures corporelles signalant domination ou soumission servent une fonction de communication chez les humains et d’autres animaux. La question de savoir si l'adoption de telles "postures de pouvoir" influence la perception et le comportement de l'agent fait actuellement l'objet d'un debat. Le travail realise pendant cette these consistait a explorer les effets de ces postures sur des comportements etroitement lies a leur fonction primaire, a savoir la communication sociale, en se focalisant sur les reponses aux visages, signaux sociaux particulierement saillants. Dans une serie d'experiences, j'ai utilise des methodes de correlation inverse pour visualiser les representations mentales de traits preferes du visage. Les representations mentales des visages preferes implicitement et explicitement evoquaient une impression affiliative et legerement dominante, mais ne revelaient aucun effet reproductible des postures. Deux autres experiences distinctes ont etudie les effets de la posture sur la perception d’expressions faciales menacantes et sur les comportements d'approche ou d'evitement en reponse a ces signaux. Bien que les postures n'aient pas d’influence sur la reconnaissance explicite d’expressions faciales menacantes, elles ont un impact sur les decisions d'approcher ou d'eviter des signaux de menace. Plus precisement, l'adoption d'une posture de soumission augmentait la tendance a eviter les personnes exprimant la colere. Enfin, une tentative de replication des effets des postures sur les niveaux de testosterone et de cortisol a demontre que meme l'adoption repetee d'une posture de pouvoir en contexte social ne provoque pas de changements hormonaux. Dans l'ensemble, ces resultats suggerent que notre posture corporelle n’influence pas nos representations mentales et notre perception des autres individus, mais pourrait influencer nos actions en reponse aux signaux sociaux.