title: Investigating Macromolecular Rate Theory

authors: Prentice, Erica J.

subjects: MMRT

abstract: Curvature with temperature is a defining characteristic of enzyme catalysed rates.  Historically, curvature has been described by Arrhenius behaviour up to a temperature optimum (Tₒₚₜ), while decreases in rates above Tₒₚₜ have been attributed to protein denaturation.  However, various evidence indicates that denaturation is insufficient to explain the decreases in rates above Tₒₚₜ.  Macromolecular rate theory (MMRT) has been proposed as a description of the temperature dependent curvature of enzyme rates based on the expansion of established thermodynamic principals.  MMRT postulates that it is the unusually large change in heat capacity associated with enzyme catalysis (ΔCǂₚ) that results in curvature of rates with temperature.  This description is commensurate with the classical description of enzyme catalysis which involves the tighter binding of the transition state (TS) to the enzyme.  
Here, the molecular origins of the ΔCǂₚ associated with catalysis are explored through crystallography and molecular dynamics simulations.  Methods are developed which calculate a ΔCǂₚ commensurate with experimental values from in silico data.  Simulations reveal that global rigidification is responsible for reduced heat capacity at the TS, although some protein regions contribute more significantly to differences at the TS.  Exploration of the relationship between enzyme mass and catalytic efficiency implicates the vibrational modes captured in dynamics simulations as a reservoir for energy, some of which is available to drive catalysis.  This provides a theoretical framework for the large size of enzymes and extraordinary rate enhancements enzyme catalysts achieve.      
Curvature with temperature is also a feature of organism growth rates and the fluxes through ecosystems.  Here, an experimental validation of the applicability of MMRT to these multi-enzyme systems is presented based on the characterisation of an enzymatic pathway.  The inherent temperature dependence of an enzyme pathway is found to be an average of the temperature dependence of the constituent enzymes.  This relationship shows the factors influencing the rates of enzymes are relevant at the organism level, providing an intrinsic temperature response upon which regulatory responses act.  This proof gives an experimental justification of the application of MMRT to organism and ecosystem temperature data.

text: Investigating Macromolecular Rate Theory Curvature with temperature is a defining characteristic of enzyme catalysed rates.  Historically, curvature has been described by Arrhenius behaviour up to a temperature optimum (Tₒₚₜ), while decreases in rates above Tₒₚₜ have been attributed to protein denaturation.  However, various evidence indicates that denaturation is insufficient to explain the decreases in rates above Tₒₚₜ.  Macromolecular rate theory (MMRT) has been proposed as a description of the temperature dependent curvature of enzyme rates based on the expansion of established thermodynamic principals.  MMRT postulates that it is the unusually large change in heat capacity associated with enzyme catalysis (ΔCǂₚ) that results in curvature of rates with temperature.  This description is commensurate with the classical description of enzyme catalysis which involves the tighter binding of the transition state (TS) to the enzyme.  
Here, the molecular origins of the ΔCǂₚ associated with catalysis are explored through crystallography and molecular dynamics simulations.  Methods are developed which calculate a ΔCǂₚ commensurate with experimental values from in silico data.  Simulations reveal that global rigidification is responsible for reduced heat capacity at the TS, although some protein regions contribute more significantly to differences at the TS.  Exploration of the relationship between enzyme mass and catalytic efficiency implicates the vibrational modes captured in dynamics simulations as a reservoir for energy, some of which is available to drive catalysis.  This provides a theoretical framework for the large size of enzymes and extraordinary rate enhancements enzyme catalysts achieve.      
Curvature with temperature is also a feature of organism growth rates and the fluxes through ecosystems.  Here, an experimental validation of the applicability of MMRT to these multi-enzyme systems is presented based on the characterisation of an enzymatic pathway.  The inherent temperature dependence of an enzyme pathway is found to be an average of the temperature dependence of the constituent enzymes.  This relationship shows the factors influencing the rates of enzymes are relevant at the organism level, providing an intrinsic temperature response upon which regulatory responses act.  This proof gives an experimental justification of the application of MMRT to organism and ecosystem temperature data.

year: 2017

title: Social impact assessment monitoring the Huntly monitoring project in retrospect

authors: Fookes, T.W.

abstract: The emerging field of Social Impact Assessment Monitoring is critically examined through a review of the Huntly Monitoring Project (HMP). A summary of the HMP, which is both reflexive and critical, identifies practical issues and criticisms arising from that research experience, as well as describing its research method and results. Criticisms of the application of Positivism to Social Science published during the six years of the HMP provide a framework for an SIA Monitoring critique. Alternative philosophical and theoretical positions advanced by Albrow, Giddens, Hagerstrand and Pred are examined. Ideas pertinent to SIA Monitoring are brought together in a discussion of Albrow’s Dialectical Paradigm, Giddens’ Theory of Action, and Hagerstrand’s Time-Geography. The implications for SIA Monitoring of two opposing philosophical positions within Social Science are examined through a comparison of eight SIA Monitoring options, with only three found to be compatible with the non-positivistic position. SIA Monitoring as a Study of Structuration is one of these three options, and a coherent methodology is provided for it by Time-Geography. Finally, it is concluded that designing another Huntly Monitoring Project to include non-positivistic ideas is possible but politically difficult.

text: Social impact assessment monitoring the Huntly monitoring project in retrospect The emerging field of Social Impact Assessment Monitoring is critically examined through a review of the Huntly Monitoring Project (HMP). A summary of the HMP, which is both reflexive and critical, identifies practical issues and criticisms arising from that research experience, as well as describing its research method and results. Criticisms of the application of Positivism to Social Science published during the six years of the HMP provide a framework for an SIA Monitoring critique. Alternative philosophical and theoretical positions advanced by Albrow, Giddens, Hagerstrand and Pred are examined. Ideas pertinent to SIA Monitoring are brought together in a discussion of Albrow’s Dialectical Paradigm, Giddens’ Theory of Action, and Hagerstrand’s Time-Geography. The implications for SIA Monitoring of two opposing philosophical positions within Social Science are examined through a comparison of eight SIA Monitoring options, with only three found to be compatible with the non-positivistic position. SIA Monitoring as a Study of Structuration is one of these three options, and a coherent methodology is provided for it by Time-Geography. Finally, it is concluded that designing another Huntly Monitoring Project to include non-positivistic ideas is possible but politically difficult.

year: 1984

title: Supervision and continuing professional development: Supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD

authors: Flanagan, Paul G.

abstract: Continuing professional development (CPD) is now embedded into the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC) practices, such as its members’ supervision, processes for membership renewal and applications for annual practicing certificates. Since its implementation in 2017, a number of developments have been made to NZAC CPD requirements, and in 2020 the process went online. During the same year, six experienced supervisors participated in a small-scale study in which they were interviewed about their experiences of the CPD process and its effects on supervision. The research project was part of a postgraduate paper in professional supervision and worked to introduce and engage researcher-students, all of whom were experienced counselling practitioners, in a supervised collaborative project. This article offers a review of literature on CPD and supervision, and presents the new findings about supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD. The findings highlighted limitations with current competencies for CPD and questioned these competencies as reflecting dominant Pākehā constructions of counselling and therefore, having effects for Māori practitioners. The study also revealed a tension between treating professional development as a requirement to be accounted for and hopes for supervision as a space to reflect on and shape future professional development.

text: Supervision and continuing professional development: Supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD Continuing professional development (CPD) is now embedded into the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC) practices, such as its members’ supervision, processes for membership renewal and applications for annual practicing certificates. Since its implementation in 2017, a number of developments have been made to NZAC CPD requirements, and in 2020 the process went online. During the same year, six experienced supervisors participated in a small-scale study in which they were interviewed about their experiences of the CPD process and its effects on supervision. The research project was part of a postgraduate paper in professional supervision and worked to introduce and engage researcher-students, all of whom were experienced counselling practitioners, in a supervised collaborative project. This article offers a review of literature on CPD and supervision, and presents the new findings about supervisors’ hopes for meaningful, supervision-supported CPD. The findings highlighted limitations with current competencies for CPD and questioned these competencies as reflecting dominant Pākehā constructions of counselling and therefore, having effects for Māori practitioners. The study also revealed a tension between treating professional development as a requirement to be accounted for and hopes for supervision as a space to reflect on and shape future professional development.

year: 2021