Separate domestication events and strong selective pressures have created diverse phenotypes among existing cattle populations; however, the genetic determinants underlying most phenotypes are currently unknown. Bos taurus taurus (Bos taurus) and Bos taurus indicus (Bos indicus) cattle are subspecies of domesticated cattle that are characterized by unique morphological and metabolic traits. Because of their divergence, they are ideal model systems to understand the genetic basis of phenotypic variation. Here, we developed DNA and structural variant maps of cattle genomes representing the Bos taurus and Bos indicus breeds. Using this data, we identified genes under selection and biological processes enriched with functional coding variants between the two subspecies. Furthermore, we examined genetic variation at functional non-coding regions, which were identified through epigenetic profiling of indicative histone- and DNA-methylation modifications. Copy number variants, which were frequently not imputed by flanking or tagged SNPs, represented the largest source of genetic divergence between the subspecies, with almost half of the variants present at coding regions. We identified a number of divergent genes and biological processes between Bos taurus and Bos indicus cattle; however, the extent of functional coding variation was relatively small compared to that of functional non-coding variation. Collectively, our findings suggest that copy number and functional non-coding variants may play an important role in regulating phenotypic variation among cattle breeds and subspecies.

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Augmented Reality is a relatively new advertising medium, which up until now has only seen limited commercial success. The applications and value thereof, as an effective marketing communications tool has not been understood or quantified in the context of an industry which is currently going through profound changes. To this end, this research attempts to answer some of the critical questions facing practitioners and academics within this field. Using audience engagement as a measure of efficacy, independent test groups were subject to various types of Augmented Reality as well as more traditional, media advertisements. Through the experiments, the impacts of contextual relevance, media integration and message style on Augmented Reality advertising, were tested. The findings strongly support contextual relevance as a key characteristic for a successful Augmented Reality advertising implementation. In addition, it was found that this medium also had a significant impact on the audience’s visual and emotive levels of engagement with the subject matter. It was also found through the testing and analysis that the most receptive population group for Augmented Reality advertising are young female Millennials. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lmgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The field study based on a questionnaire, classroom observation and a range of interviews with government officials and teachers confirmed a deeply negative attitude towards the way SiSwati is being taught, resulting in negative attitudes towards the language itself. Other findings pointed to a resistance to the cultural content of the curriculum as dictated by the power elite in Swaziland, the outdated emphasis on linguistics rather than sociolinguistics as an informing discipline and the absence of social and negative literacy skills embedded in subject content. The field study reflects an overall climate of despondency governing the teaching and learning context.

Copy cat investment strategies exist in the US, where copy cat funds profitably replicate the investing behaviour of larger more renowned funds, leveraging off research completed by the initial fund, without incurring the same level of expenses. Funds, or unit trusts as they are known in South Africa, are mandated to disclose portfolio holdings quarterly, with the intention of enabling investors to track whether funds are meeting their stated objectives, through more frequent access to portfolio holdings. More frequent disclosure has lead to significant controversy internationally, with some researchers providing evidence that more frequent disclosure has lead to copy cat investing strategies. In contrast to the research completed in the US, copy cat funds in South Africa are able to generate similar returns, before costs, but once costs are included t-tests provided evidence that the copy cat fund was not able to generate significantly higher returns than the actual fund, particularly in the long run. These tests hold true when considering the whole general equity market, but interestingly do not hold statistically valid for every fund when considering them in isolation. Certain funds within the general equity classification offer potential for copy cat investing and have successfully proven outperformance in the last decade. Copy cat investors would need to seek out these funds based on the predicted outperformance of each fund, by considering the historical behaviour and then lastly by considering their own, already questionable, risk appetite. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Silene latifolia and Silene dioica are closely related dioecious plant species where sex is determined by the presence of sex chromosomes, X and Y. The sex chromosomes of S. latifolia and S. dioica are younger (10-20 million years) than in mammals (about 200 million years). These two species are thus important models for the study of early stages of sex chromosomes evolution. In this work a group of genes linked to sex chromosomes (Sl3, Sl7, DD44) was analyzed. These genes were de-novo isolated from S. dioica by screening of the BAC library. The expression of these genes in different tissues was compared using Real-Time PCR and HRM in S. latifolia and S. dioica. Using the low-copy FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) method, a physical map for individual genes was created. This map is the most detailed physical map created for closely related Silene species.

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Though much work has been done on the definition of Standard English and on the standardization process, little attention has been paid to the role of copy editors in that process. Editors comprise a class of craft professionals employed to remove errors from texts and make them more consistent, but when editors speak about editors at all, they generally rely on anecdotes rather than hard data about what editors do. Since formal written English is often used as a baseline for determining what is standard, and since corpora of published writing are increasingly used to research questions of usage, it is important to understand the role of copy editors in shaping the text that we see on the printed page. This study examines the usage and grammar changes made by student editorial interns in twenty-three academic journal articles. Volunteer professional editors were then solicited to edit the same articles, and their changes were compared against the interns' changes. The changes were counted and categorized to determine which usage rules can be considered most important to copy editors and thus most essential to distinguishing Standard Edited English from standard unedited writing. It was found that the most frequent changes were several grammatical items and a few lexical items, including the that/which rule, avoidance of towards, increased parallelism, and standardization of s-genitive forms. These changes confirm the idea that editors play a role in standardization, particularly codifying certain forms by reducing optional variation. From this data we can conclude that educated written usage and edited usage are not necessarily the same and should not be conflated. These findings also have implications for the use of corpus data in usage studies by showing that the final version of a printed work does not necessarily show the usage of edited writers but likely has a substantial contribution from copy editors.

No description available.

No description available.