After the 2016 election of president Duterte, the Philippines have been actively fighting a war on drugs inside their own country according to the new policies developed by the newly chosen regime. These policies have led to the several thousands of dead in police operations which are by many called out as extrajudicial executions. The purpose of this study is to research the experience of urban people living in a society pervaded by a war on drugs with the goal of contributing to the understanding of how they handle the situation and how it affects their lives. The authors have spent two months in the Philippines, mainly in the Metro Manila area to gather the data for the study through mainly participant observation and semi-structured interviews for an ethnographic study. The results show who are being targeted in the war, how people experience it and create labeling and stigma according to the societal rules and norms as well as how people cope with difficult circumstances out of their control.

The Fueling Station at Utah State University was created to provide pre-workout fueling and post-workout recovery foods to the Utah State University athletes. The athletes use an online survey to mark what foods they selected after each visit to the Fueling Station. There is a large amount of research on the lack of sports nutrition knowledge in collegiate athletes, but there is little information on the dietary intake of athletes, the education of athletes, and the education of macronutrient timing in athletes. A food labeling system named “Gain Your Edge” food labels that targeted the education of timing was created in the Utah State University Fueling Station. It lets athletes know which food choices might be the most appropriate choices for certain periods of timing (i.e. pre-workout versus post-workout). The Fueling Station was selected as an outlet for education because it reaches a large percentage of all Utah State athletes each week. The survey responses by the athletes were used to determine if the fueling station visits were appropriate or not appropriate based on the reported timing of eating, purpose of eating, and food selections. After four weeks of implementation, it was determined that the food labels did result in significant changes in percentage of appropriate fueling station visits for the athletes. However, almost all the athletes noticed the food labels, and more than 75% of the athletes said that the food labels influenced their food selection. This research project contributes important information about the patterns of use in a University-sponsored fueling station to the limited knowledge base of collegiate sports nutrition research.

Delays in communication are one of the defining characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Educators have begun using technology to teach students with ASD to label different items. However, more research needs to be conducted with technology (such as iPads and other tablets) to find the most effective teaching procedures. We wanted to find the most effective way to teach children with ASD age-appropriate action verbs, such as drawing and painting. Five preschool-aged students with ASD participated in this study. We taught these participants to label action verbs using pictures and short video clips, to test which method was the most effective. With two of the five participants, we wanted to see if the action verbs we taught as pictures generalized to video clips, and vice versa. With these same two participants, we asked if they remembered all of the verbs two weeks later, to see if the skill maintained. At the end of the study, we conducted an assessment with the participants to see if they preferred learning action verbs with pictures or video clips. The results show that all of the preschoolers with ASD learned to identify verbs both as pictures and video clips.

The aim of this study was to examine how Russian press represents people with disabilities. The study was conducted using the method of qualitative content analysis. The material for the analysis consisted of sixty articles selected from Russian's four national newspapers. The study covered a period of the year 2011. Labeling theory and stigma were used for the analysis of the results. The results showed that Russian press described discrimination of people with disabilities, social support provided to them by the Government and their active way of life. The newspaper articles mentioned that the Russian Government tries to integrate disabled people into society. The study did not find any significant differences in the representation of people with disabilities in various newspapers. It was found that the articles covered physical disabilities, such as mobility, hearing and visual impairments.

Synthesis of structures is a very difficult task even with only a small number of components that form a system; yet it is the catalyst of innovation. Molecular structures and nanostructures typically have a large number of similar components but different connections, which manifests a more challenging task for their synthesis. <p> This thesis presents a novel method and its related algorithms and computer programs for the synthesis of structures. This novel method is based on several concepts: (1) the structure is represented by a graph and further by the adjacency matrix; and (2) instead of only exploiting the eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix, both the eigenvalue and the eigenvector are exploited; specifically the components of the eigenvector have been found very useful in algorithm development. This novel method is called the Eigensystem method.<p> The complexity of the Eigensystem method is equal to that of the famous program called Nauty in the combinatorial world. However, the Eigensystem method can work for the weighted and both directed and undirected graph, while the Nauty program can only work for the non-weighted and both directed and undirected graph. The cause for this is the different philosophies underlying these two methods. The Nauty program is based on the recursive component decomposition strategy, which could involve some unmanageable complexities when dealing with the weighted graph, albeit no such an attempt has been reported in the literature. It is noted that in practical applications of structure synthesis, weighted graphs are more useful than non-weighted graphs for representing physical systems. <p> Pivoted at the Eigensystem method, this thesis presents the algorithms and computer programs for the three fundamental problems in structure synthesis, namely the isomorphism/automorphism, the unique labeling, and the enumeration of the structures or graphs.

Ribonucleoside diphosphate reductase (RR) from vaccinia virus was recently cloned and overexpressed rn Escherichia coli. The amino acid sequence identities of the small and large subunits between the mouse and the vaccinia virus reductase are approximately 80 and 72 percent, respectively. In addition, vaccinia virus RR displays similar complex allosteric regulation to the mouse enzyme and other eukaryotic reductases. The overall activity of the enzyme, which has two subunits (Rl and R2), is regulated through binding to ATP, which activates the enzyme, and dATP which seryes as an inhibitor. Both nucleotides bind to the same allosteric site, called the activity site, on the large subunit of RR. The specificity of the enzyme towards the four ribonucleoside diphosphate substrates is regulated by the binding of ATP, dATP, dTTP and GTp. Each of these nucleotides affects the reduction of a specific nucleoside diphosphate. Although this enzyme's allosteric regulation is kinetically well understood it has not been possible so far to gain further structural information about the location of the activity site and specificity site. The use of deletion mutants and photoaffinity labeling of the large subunit to identify the location of the binding sites is the incentive for this thesis. With the introduction of 6xHis/Nickel Nitrilo-tri-acetic acid (Ni-NTA) chromatography, the purification of the large subunit was improved in the E. coli and vaccinia virus/T7 RNA polymerase hybrid system. The purification of several deletion mutant forms of the large subunit was also attempted, but it was not possible to purify any of them from either of the expression systems. The purified full-length large subunit obtained with the Ni-NTA-chromatography system was used for a photoaffinity labeling experiment with [³²P]dATP and [³²P]dTTP. The labeled proteins were proteolytically digested to find out about the specificity of the labeling experiment and also to map the binding site of the nucleotide. It was found that labeling of dATP yielded few discrete bands indicating specific binding, while a comparable experiment with dTTP indicated less specific binding, based on a larger number of labeled bands. In competition experiments with non-radioactive nucleotides, vaccinia virus R1 featured the same properties as the mouse and E. coli counterparts. This is consistent with data from kinetic experiments, which also establish the same kinetic properties between vaccinia virus RR with those of mouse and E. coli (RR). To identify the sequence of the fragments carrying the label the digests were subjected to mass spectrometric analysis. However, it was not possible to determine the sequence of the labeled fragment by mass spectrometry due to poor spectral resolution. / Graduation date: 1994

It is difficult to understand why genocide continues to occur, even when the international community pledges never to let it happen in the future. Techniques such as moral disengagement and dehumanization have consistently resulted in genocide. These techniques can be greatly amplified through the careful use of language and labeling. The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles that language and labeling play in genocide. Social and psychological influences that use language will be investigated through the examination of the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide and the Rwandan genocide. These influences are many times unintentionally or unknowingly exercised and can have negative results for everyone involved. The use of language in the media is also examined, along with ways in which ordinary people can avoid susceptibility to language that could influence them to commit evil acts such as genocide.

Steroid sulfatase (STS) is considered to be one of the key enzymes contributing to the development of breast cancer. It catalyzes the hydrolysis of inactive sulfated steroids such as estrone sulfate (ES) to inorganic sulfate active steroids such as estrone (E1), a precursor to estradiol (E2), a key stimulator for breast cancer development. Inhibitors of STS are currently being pursued in both academia and industry as potential drugs for treating breast cancer. A series of 4-substituted estrone and estradiol derivatives were examined as inhibitors of STS. Inhibition of STS with 4-FE1, an irreversible inhibitor of STS previously studied in the Taylor group, can be enhanced by introducing a hydrophobic benzyl group at the 17-positon of 4-FE1. As with 4-FE1, the inhibition was concentration and time-dependent. Only 14% of the activity could be recovered after extensive dialysis. Introducing substituents at the 2-position of 4-formyl estrogen derivatives resulted in loss of concentration and time-dependent inhibition and a considerable decrease in inhibitor affinity. Studies with estrogen derivatives substituted at the 4-position with groups other than a formyl revealed that a relatively good reversible inhibitor can be obtained simply by introducing an electron withdrawing group at this position. These types of inhibitors are non-competitive inhibitors suggesting an alternative steroid binding site. A series of estrone derivatives were examined as photoaffinity labels of STS. 4-azidoestrone suflate and 4-azidoestrone phosphate exhibited properties that are suitable for photoaffinity labeling studies with STS. These labels may be useful for ascertaining pathways of substrate entry into the STS active site. 16-diazoestrone phosphate was not a photoaffinity label of STS. 2- and 4-azido estrone and 16-diazoestrone all acted as photoaffinity labels of STS. These compounds may be useful for ascertaining pathways of product release from the STS active site.

Synthesis of structures is a very difficult task even with only a small number of components that form a system; yet it is the catalyst of innovation. Molecular structures and nanostructures typically have a large number of similar components but different connections, which manifests a more challenging task for their synthesis. <p> This thesis presents a novel method and its related algorithms and computer programs for the synthesis of structures. This novel method is based on several concepts: (1) the structure is represented by a graph and further by the adjacency matrix; and (2) instead of only exploiting the eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix, both the eigenvalue and the eigenvector are exploited; specifically the components of the eigenvector have been found very useful in algorithm development. This novel method is called the Eigensystem method.<p> The complexity of the Eigensystem method is equal to that of the famous program called Nauty in the combinatorial world. However, the Eigensystem method can work for the weighted and both directed and undirected graph, while the Nauty program can only work for the non-weighted and both directed and undirected graph. The cause for this is the different philosophies underlying these two methods. The Nauty program is based on the recursive component decomposition strategy, which could involve some unmanageable complexities when dealing with the weighted graph, albeit no such an attempt has been reported in the literature. It is noted that in practical applications of structure synthesis, weighted graphs are more useful than non-weighted graphs for representing physical systems. <p> Pivoted at the Eigensystem method, this thesis presents the algorithms and computer programs for the three fundamental problems in structure synthesis, namely the isomorphism/automorphism, the unique labeling, and the enumeration of the structures or graphs.

Being located in subtropical climates, the cooling energy accounts for a huge percentage of the total power consumption, and has become the major cause for power shortages. Therefore, building energy conservation strategies has become the major remedy to tackle this problem. In this study, the building energy performance certificate evaluation system has been established, in referencing the European communities systems, while integrating the financial and consumers factors to establish the building labeling system in Taiwan.