The most abundant organic compound produced by plants is cellulose, however it has long been accepted that animals do not secrete the hydrolytic enzymes required for its degradation, but rely instead on cellulases produced by symbiotic microbes. The recent discovery of an endogenous cDNA transcript encoding a putative GHF9 endoglucanase in the parastacid crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus (Byrne et al., 1999) suggests that similar cellulase genes may have been inherited by a range of crustacean taxa. In this study, the evolutionary history of the C. quadricarinatus endoglucanase gene and the presence of additional GHF9 genes in other decapod species were investigated. The activity of endoglucanase and endoxylanase enzymes within several cultured decapod species were also compared. The evolutionary history of the C. quadricarinatus endoglucanase gene was assessed by comparing intron/exon structure with that of other invertebrate and plant GHF9 genes. The coding region of the gene was found to be interrupted by eleven introns ranging in size from 102-902 bp, the position of which was largely conserved in both termite and abalone GHF9 genes. These structural similarities suggest GHF9 genes in crustaceans and other invertebrate taxa share a common ancestry. In addition, two introns were observed to share similar positions in plant GHF9 genes, which indicates this enzyme class may have been present in ancient eukaryote organisms. The presence of GHF9 genes in C. quadricarinatus and various other decapod species was then explored via degenerate primer PCR. Two distinct GHF9 gene fragments were determined for C. quadricarinatus and several other Cherax and Euastacus parastacid freshwater crayfish species, and a single GHF9 gene fragment was also determined for the palaemonid freshwater prawn Macrobrachium lar. Phylogenetic analyses of these fragments confirmed the presence of two endoglucanase genes within the Parastacidae, termed EG-1 and EG-2. The duplication event that produced these two genes appears to have occurred prior to the evolution of freshwater crayfish. In addition, EG-2 genes appear to have duplicated more recently within the Cherax lineage. The presence of multiple GHF9 endoglucanase enzymes within the digestive tract of some decapod species may enable more efficient processing of cellulose substrates present in dietary plant material. Endoglucanase and endoxylanase enzyme activities were compared in several parastacid crayfish and penaeid prawn species using dye-linked substrates. Endoglucanase activity levels were higher in crayfish compared with prawn species, which corresponds with the known dietary preferences of these taxa. Endoglucanase temperature and pH profiles were found to be very similar for all species examined, with optimum activity occurring at 60°C and pH 5.0. These results suggest endoglucanase activity in penaeid prawns may also be derived from endogenous sources. Additional in vitro studies further demonstrated crayfish and prawn species liberate comparable amounts of glucose from carboxymethyl-cellulose, which indicates both taxa may utilise cellulose substrates as a source of energy. Endoxylanase temperature and pH profiles were also similar for all crayfish species examined, with optimal activity occurring at 50°C and pH 5.0. These results suggest xylanase activity in crayfish may originate from endogenous enzymes, although it is unclear whether this activity is derived from GHF9 enzymes or a different xylanase enzyme class. In contrast, no endoxylanase activity was detected in the three prawn species examined. Together, these findings suggest a wide range of decapod crustacean species may possess endogenous GHF9 endoglucanase genes and enzymes. Endoglucanases may be secreted by various decapod species in order to digest soluble or amorphous cellulose substrates present in consumed plant material. Further biochemical studies may confirm the presence and functional attributes of additional endoglucanase genes and enzymes in decapods, which may ultimately assist in the design of optimal plant based crustacean aquaculture feeds.

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Despite a high proportion of the population experiencing traumatic events within their lifetime, the number of individuals who go on to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is comparatively small; herein highlighting the importance of individual differences in imparting risk and resilience towards the development and maintenance of PTSD. Existing literature illustrates that biological and ecological factors are important in predicting PTSD development, with pathological vulnerabilities excepting their effects at pre- peri- and post trauma stages. Whilst cognitive and emotion based models of PTSD account for the role of a minority of known pre-trauma risk factors, individual differences in peri- and post trauma processes are held as critical to the development of PTSD. The broad range of risk factors implicated in the empirical literature, and necessity of traumatic exposure to PTSD, implicates the utility of a diathesis-stress conceptualisation of PTSD development. The current thesis employed an analogue VR-trauma paradigm to investigate the respective importance of vulnerability factors at each stage, in the prediction of analogue PTSD symptoms (memory problems, startle responses, re-exposure fear habituation), whilst measuring affective and electrophysiological concomitance. Findings supported the importance of peri-traumatic responses in the prediction of PTSD, where present, showing increased predictive capacities over pre- and post-trauma factors. Biological and ecological factors also illustrated important predictive associations, with genetic SNPs implicated in reflex startle and cardiac responses towards intrusive memories. Moreover, peri-traumatic HR decelerations and accelerations mediated the association between pre-trauma factors and cued recall inaccuracy and intrusion severity respectively. Results support existing cognitive and emotional models in their emphasis on peri-traumatic processes but suggest the added utility of a diathesis stress conceptualisation of the development of PTSD, in highlighting the importance of pre-trauma biological and ecological risk and resilience factors.

De nombreux phénomènes naturels sont trop complexes pour être pleinement reconnus par un seul instrument de mesure ou par une seule modalité. Par conséquent, le domaine de recherche de la multi-modalité a émergé pour mieux identifier les caractéristiques riches du phénomène naturel de la multi-propriété naturelle, en analysant conjointement les données collectées à partir d’uniques modalités, qui sont en quelque sorte complémentaires. Dans notre étude, le phénomène d’intérêt multi-propriétés est l’activité du cerveau humain et nous nous intéressons à mieux la localiser au moyen de ses propriétés électromagnétiques, mesurables de manière non invasive. En neurophysiologie, l’électroencéphalographie (EEG) et la magnétoencéphalographie (MEG) constituent un moyen courant de mesurer les propriétés électriques et magnétiques de l’activité cérébrale. Notre application dans le monde réel, à savoir le problème de reconstruction de source EEG / MEG, est un problème fondamental en neurosciences, allant des sciences cognitives à la neuropathologie en passant par la planification chirurgicale. Considérant que le problème de reconstruction de source EEG /MEG peut être reformulé en un système d’équations linéaires sous-déterminé, la solution (l’activité estimée de la source cérébrale) doit être suffisamment parcimonieuse pour pouvoir être récupérée de manière unique. La quantité de parcimonie est déterminée par les conditions dites de récupération. Cependant, dans les problèmes de grande dimension, les conditions de récupération conventionnelles sont extrêmement strictes. En regroupant les colonnes cohérentes d’un dictionnaire, on pourrait obtenir une structure plus incohérente. Cette stratégie a été proposée en tant que cadre d’identification de structure de bloc, ce qui aboutit à la segmentation automatique de l’espace source du cerveau, sans utiliser aucune information sur l’activité des sources du cerveau et les signaux EEG / MEG. En dépit du dictionnaire structuré en blocs moins cohérent qui en a résulté, la condition de récupération conventionnelle n’est plus en mesure de calculer la caractérisation de la cohérence. Afin de relever le défi mentionné, le cadre général des conditions de récupération exactes par bloc-parcimonie, comprenant trois conditions théoriques et une condition dépendante de l’algorithme, a été proposé. Enfin, nous avons étudié la multi-modalité EEG et MEG et montré qu’en combinant les deux modalités, des régions cérébrales plus raffinées sont apparues / Three main challenges have been addressed in this thesis, in three chapters.First challenge is about the ineffectiveness of some classic methods in high-dimensional problems. This challenge is partially addressed through the idea of clustering the coherent parts of a dictionary based on the proposed characterisation, in order to create more incoherent atomic entities in the dictionary, which is proposed as a block structure identification framework. The more incoherent atomic entities, the more improvement in the exact recovery conditions. In addition, we applied the mentioned clustering idea to real-world EEG/MEG leadfields to segment the brain source space, without using any information about the brain sources activity and EEG/MEG signals. Second challenge raises when classic recovery conditions cannot be established for the new concept of constraint, i.e., block-sparsity. Therefore, as the second research orientation, we developed a general framework for block-sparse exact recovery conditions, i.e., four theoretical and one algorithmic-dependent conditions, which ensure the uniqueness of the block-sparse solution of corresponding weighted mixed-norm optimisation problem in an underdetermined system of linear equations. The mentioned generality of the framework is in terms of the properties of the underdetermined system of linear equations, extracted dictionary characterisations, optimisation problems, and ultimately the recovery conditions. Finally, the combination of different information of a same phenomenon is the subject of the third challenge, which is addressed in the last part of dissertation with application to brain source space segmentation. More precisely, we showed that by combining the EEG and MEG leadfields and gaining the electromagnetic properties of the head, more refined brain regions appeared.

The purpose of the study was to explore the experiences of female nyaope injectors residing in City of Tshwane Municipality, Gauteng. The study was conducted at COSUP sites namely; Soshanguve, Pretoria CBD, Sunnyside, Mamelodi, Eersterust, and Attridgeville. The study focused on females who have a history of injecting nyaope, accessing substance use related services at a registered service provider within City of Tshwane Municipality, Gauteng. Research design of the study was exploratory, which is basically used to explore a new topic or learn more about phenomenon where little is known. The research approach was purely qualitative methodology. This permitted the researcher to deeply explore the lived experiences of female nyaope injectors residing in City of Tshwane Municipality, Gauteng. A qualitative in-depth interview method was used to collect data from 24 participants who took part in the study. Questions of the interview were semi-structured, in-depth one-on-one interviews and were used to explore the lived experiences of female nyaope injectors residing in City of Tshwane Municipality, Gauteng. The findings of the study revealed that females who are injecting nyaope, are at risk of contracting HIV and other blood-borne infections. The stigma that is perpetuated by families, intimate partners, communities, health care professionals, and police officers is creating a hostile environment for female nyaope injectors; which increases the risk of contracting HIV and other blood-borne infections. Harm reduction services have the potential to address the needs of female nyaope injectors if fully implemented. It can be concluded that there is a need for substance abuse service providers to implement comprehensive harm reduction services to curb HIV prevalence amongst female nyaope injectors. / Health Studies / M.A. (Social Behavioural Studies in HIV/AIDS)