Thesis (M.S.)--Indiana University, 2009. / Title from screen (viewed on October 1, 2009). Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Sonal P. Sanghani, Paresh C. Sanghani, William F. Bosron. Includes vita. Non-Latin script record Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-56).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on July 1, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

The global socio-ecological system is under stress with increasing consumer demands and society’s inability to meet those demands. Businesses are both enablers and inhibitors of this socio-ecological dilemma, enabling a shift towards sustainability, in various ways including through Certification. This study aims to understand the B Corp Certification (BCC) – a certification that certifies business according to their social and environmental performance.  The purpose of this study is to gage how much this Certification granted by B Lab moves the dial on sustainability.  To accomplish this, a case study was performed on B Lab with a focus on Developed Markets. This study was largely dependent on semi-structured interviews, desk research and an analysis of the B Impact Assessment (BIA) - a cornerstone of the BCC - which was assessed according to the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD). The FSSD which takes a scientific systems view on strategic sustainable development (SSD) was instrumental in analyzing how much the BCC aligns with a SSD approach. The result of this research lends itself to recommendations for the B Corp Certification of which B Lab may choose to consider in future iterations of the BIA and Certification in general.

This work presents a precision determination of the mass difference of neutral and charged B mesons, m(B0) - m(B+). The measurement is based on a data sample of about 232 million B-meson pairs recorded with the BABAR detector at the e+e- storage-ring system PEP-II. In events of e+e- --> Upsilon(4S) --> B Bbar, B0 and B+ mesons are fully reconstructed in decays B+ --> J/psi K+ and B0 --> J/psi K*0 using the subsequent decays J/psi --> l+ l- and K*0 --> K+ pi- for the reconstruction of J/psi mesons and K*0 resonances, respectively. The determination of the mass difference from the measurement of the invariant B-meson masses suffers from detector-resolution effects. To reach the desired sensitivity, the B-meson momenta are measured in the center-of-mass system, the Upsilon(4S) rest frame. Since their energy is also known in the center-of-mass system, this method leads to the mass difference using the relativistic energy-momentum relation. For this purpose, three different fit methods are performed to the spectra of the B momenta. The obtained result is m(B0) - m(B+) = (+0.33 +- 0.05 +- 0.03) MeV/c^2, where the first error is statistical and the second estimates the systematic uncertainty of this measurement, which agrees well with the current world average. However, the combined error of this measurement is substantially smaller than that in the current world average, and the significance of m(B0) - m(B+) being non-zero has exceeded the 5 sigma level.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR) also known as glutathione- dependent formaldehyde dehydrogenase (FDH), is a zinc-dependent dehydrogenase. GSNOR oxidizes long chain alcohols to an aldehyde with the help of a molecule of NAD+. GSNOR was initially identified as FDH because of its role in the formaldehyde detoxification pathway. The only S-nitrosothiol (SNO) substrate recognized by GSNOR is GSNO. A transnitrosation reaction transfers NO from nitrosylated proteins or S-nitrosothiols (RSNO) to glutathione to form S-nitrosoglutathione. This GSNO is finally converted to glutathione disulfide (GSSG) by a two step mechanism. Cellular GSNO is a nitric oxide reservoir that can either transfer to or remove from the proteins a NO group. Reduction of GSNO by GSNOR depletes this reservoir and therefore indirectly regulates protein nitrosylation. GSNOR inhibitors which can increase the basal GSNO levels will be another potential therapy. Several GSNOR inhibitors were identified in our laboratory and the aim of this study was to understand their cellular effects. One of the experiments studied the effect of the compound on protein-SNO. The role of nitric oxide in regulation of NF-κB pathway is reviewed by Bove and van der Vliet. We focused on identification of nitrosylated proteins using protein specific antibodies. We identified nitrosylation of IKKβ. So the question raised was whether nitrosylation of IKKβ affects its activity. IKKβ is responsible for phosphorylation of IκBα and phosphorylation of IκBα results in its degradation and activation of NF-κB pathway. Therefore, we studied the phosphorylation of IκBα in the presence of inhibitor C3. Results showed a dose-dependent decrease of pIκB. So the next question was whether the phosphorylation of IKKβ was affected by nitrosylation. We did not detect any change in pIKKβ with different concentrations of C3. The decreased degradation of IκBα caused by C3 translated into decreased NF-κB activity as seen by a dose-dependent decrease in amounts of ICAM-1 with increasing C3 concentration. This data supports the premise that the activity of transcription factor NF-κB is suppressed by inhibiting GSNOR with compound C3

Typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper describes the implementation of a Feher-Patented Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (FQPSK) waveform variant that reduces overall design complexity, which in turn results in a telemetry transmitter that provides all the benefits of the existing FQPSK-B waveform, in a 3.0 x 2.0 x 1.0 volume. This variant is referred to the as the FQPSK-JR version. This waveform differs from the “near constant” envelop response of the qualified Herley airborne FQPSK-B telemetry transmitter in terms of the time domain wavelet transition functions and the amplitude scaling term associated with those functions. The end result is a “constant envelop” design, which employs simplified antialias filtering and more efficient digital design techniques.

The present work concerns the regulation of B cell activation, growth and terminal differentiation of helper T cells. T cell dependent (TD) B cell activation requires physical cell to cell contact between competent helper T cells (TH) and B cells and the recognition of MHC Class II antigens. The involvement of immunoglobulin receptors in TD B cell induction and maturation of B cells to plasma cells, however, are still unclear. Long term helper T cell lines and clones were raised against naturally expressed minor transplantation antigens. Using such antigen specific TH lines and clones, the mechanisms controlling growth and maturation of B cells to plasma cells were studied. Specific TH cells against both H-Y and C3H/Tif "minor" antigens were able to polyclonally induce small, resting B lymphocytes to proliteration and high rate antibody secretion. This observation definitively excludes an obligatory role of membrane immunoglobulin molecules in TD B cell triggering. In contrast to other similarly derived TH clones, a variant clone, was isolated which was fully competent to activate B cells to proliferation but did not induce PFC in T cell depleted "target" spleen cells. This defect could, however, be fully reconstituted by cell culture supernatants derived from competent TH clones (but not from the variant clone). These results indicated the presence of two distinct factors in such supernatants, controlling either growth or maturation in TD B cell responses, and lead to further efforts in their characterization. A B cell growth factor (BSF-pI) derived from such supernatants, with a Mr of 15-20 kD, displayed no mitogenicity on small, resting B lymphocytes and failed to induce PFC in prol iterating B cells. On the other hand, two distinct species of B cell maturation factors (BMA) were separated from the supernatants with Mr of 60 kD and 30 kD, respectively. These factors induced PFC of several antibody isotypes in assays were only maturation activity was limiting, but only the 60 kD species induced Ig-secretion, in pure populations of lymphoma cells (WEHI-279.1). Finally, neonatal B cells were shown to be inducible to growth but not to immunoglobulin secretion by competent TH cells, in the absence of suppressive effects in the neonatal spleen cell population. These results suggest that "early" B lymphocytes are intrinsically defective in the reception or processing of maturation signals. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1984, härtill 5 uppsatser</p> / digitalisering@umu

Multiculturalism has become a hot topic in political philosophy. This thesis investigates the philosophical foundations of multicultural theories through examining the key concepts commonly relied upon. A careful examination of each concept and the way in which they are interconnected, reveals an interesting strategy that the multiculturalist employs. It is my contention that the multiculturalist relies on a complex web of nebulous concepts which fools the reader into thinking that their theory rests on strong foundations. However, when we clear away the fog of confusion, we can see that the multiculturalist has presented us with an illusion, and none of the concepts remain strong enough to hold any of the normative weight they need them to. Multiculturalism relies on grandiloquent rhetoric and muddled thinking, and will ultimately fail to achieve the liberal goals it purports to.

I examine the debate between reductive and non-reductive physicalists, and conclude that if we are to be physicalists, then we should be reductive physicalists. I assess how both reductionists and non-reductionists try to solve the mind-body problem and the problem of mental causation. I focus on the problem of mental causation as it is supposed to be faced by non-reductionism: the so-called overdetermination problem. I argue that the traditional articulation of that problem is significantly flawed, and I show how to articulate it properly: what I call the ‘super-overdetermination problem’. In doing so, I demonstrate that the problem of mental causation faced by non-reductionism is in fact a special case of the mind-body problem, as faced by non-reductionism, and that the former can’t be solved independently of the latter. I then assess the prospects for a particular family of non-reductive views that I call immanentism, and show that they fail to solve the super-overdetermination problem. Finally, I put forward two arguments to support the conclusion that physicalism entails reductionism. Both arguments establish, via distinct reasoning, the proposition that mental property instances are identical to physical property instances; and then each argument employs the inference, which I also defend, that if mental instances are physical instances, then mental properties are physical properties; hence, reductionism follows.