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The purpose of this study was: (a) to replicate those parts of the Pontius and Ruttiger (1976) study in which they found a lower frequency of the ability to express maturity in narrative stories (appropriate change of behavior during an intervening circumstance) within a group(b) to verify with an accepted measure of frontal lobe dysfunction (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) the conclusion of Pontius and Ruttiger that subjects can be classified into two groups, one demonstrating frontal lobe dysfunction and Level IV of juvenile delinquents versus a group ofnormal controls; the other demonstrating normal frontal lobe development, on the basis of the Narratives Test; and (c) to determine the efficacy of a newly developed Perseveration Response as a measure of frontal lobe dysfunction.The effectiveness of the Narratives Test as a measure of fronal lobe dysfunction could not be verified as determined by its relationship with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.It was, however, concluded, on the basis of a successful replication, that the Narratives Test canconsistently measure Level IV maturity but that there is no basis to specifically associate an inability to change behavior appropriately in reponse to an intervening circumstance in narrative stories with frontal lobe dysfunction.Even though that part of the Pontius and Ruttiger (1976) study dealing specifically with juvenile delinquents was successfully replicated, results of the present study relating to normals differed significantly from the Pontius and Ruttiger findings.The present study identified a significantly lower frequency of Level IV maturity failures among normals than was true in the Pontius and Ruttiger study.Based on the correlation between the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Perseveration Category Error Score, the present study did not support the validity of this scoring procedure as a viable measure of frontal lobe dysfunction. A verification of the Perseveration Category Error Score with a sample of documented frontal lobe patients and matched control groups is suggested.

Subcellular localization is crucial for determining the functions of proteins. A system called prediction of protein subcellular localization (P2SL) that predicts the subcellular localization of proteins in eukaryotic organisms based on the amino acid content of primary sequences using amino acid order is designed. The approach for prediction is to nd the most frequent motifs for each protein in a given class based on clustering via self organizing maps and then to use these most frequent motifs as features for classication by the help of multi layer perceptrons. This approach allows a classication independent of the length of the sequence. In addition to these, the use of a new encoding scheme is described for the amino acids that conserves biological function based on point of accepted mutations (PAM) substitution matrix. The statistical test results of the system is presented on a four class problem. P2SL achieves slightly higher prediction accuracy than the similar studies.

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PhD / The aim of this thesis was to investigate the possibility of integrating frozen-thawed boar semen into reproductive technologies and into commercial production of pigs in Australia. This was to be achieved by establishing a semen freezing and AI regime that was of a standard acceptable to industry, and integrating the resultant frozen-thawed sperm into other reproductive technologies, such as flow cytometric sperm sorting and IVF. Initially, a protocol for freezing and thawing boar semen was established, based on the method described by Westendorf et al. (1975) and attempts were made to modify this protocol to improve the post-thaw sperm quality, as determined by in vitro assessment of motility, acrosome integrity and longevity. First, the egg yolk used in the freezing extenders was investigated, and the chicken yolk was replaced with either duck or quail yolk. It was shown that there was no benefit in substituting yolk from duck or quail for the chicken yolk traditionally used in freezing extender. Second, the effect of seminal plasma addition to the freezing extender, or seminal plasma addition to resuspension medium post-thaw was tested. Incorporating whole seminal plasma into the freezing extender at levels above 50% was found to be detrimental to post-thaw sperm quality. Reducing levels to 20% of the final volume improved acrosome integrity, but adversely affected motility of sperm. However, adding 20% seminal plasma to the resuspension medium used after thawing of boar semen had no significant influence on sperm quality compared with resuspension in medium without seminal plasma. The antioxidant catalase, and the iron chelator desferal added to the freezing extender, did not improve post-thaw sperm quality, nor was any benefit seen with addition of these substrates to the resuspension medium post-thaw. However, the bioactive phospholipid PAF and its regulating enzyme PAF:AH appeared to enhance post-thaw motility and acrosome integrity of sperm, respectively, when added to the semen pre-freezing. Unfortunately, due to the restrictions imposed on rPAF:AH as a research drug, it was not possible to test the in vivo effects at this time. After the in vitro experiments were completed, the in vivo fertility of frozen-thawed sperm was tested using the optimal freezing protocol and a novel technology, enabling non-surgical deep intrauterine insemination of sows. The aim was to establish the lowest possible dose of frozen-thawed sperm that could be used, without compromising fertility. Successful pregnancies were achieved with doses as low as 62.5 x 106 frozen-thawed sperm but the farrowing rates were too low to be practicable on a commercial scale. This is the first report of litters born after insemination of such a low dose of frozen-thawed sperm and using the novel DIU insemination technique. However, it was concluded that a double dose of 250 x 106 frozen-thawed sperm was the minimum dose required for maintaining acceptable fertility. Reduction in sperm numbers to such an extent made it possible to consider non-surgical insemination of sex-sorted, frozen-thawed semen. Previously, pregnancies had been achieved only after surgical insemination of sex-sorted boar sperm, or with DIU insemination of unfrozen sperm, immediately after sex-sorting. The low numbers of sex-sorted sperm available restricted the inseminate dose used here to 50 x106 motile sperm. A litter of 5 piglets was born after a low-dose, DIU insemination of sex-sorted, frozen-thawed sperm. This is the first report of piglets born after insemination with sex-sorted frozen-thawed sperm and non-surgical insemination. The low farrowing rate achieved in this experiment prompted the investigation of integrating sex-sorted, frozen-thawed boar sperm into IVF. Morulae were produced after IVF with sex-sorted, frozen-thawed sperm and successfully transferred using non-surgical techniques. This is the first report of pregnancy achieved with non-surgical transfer of embryos produced after IVF and IVC of IVM oocytes with sex-sorted, frozen-thawed boar sperm. Unfortunately, the pregnancy did not hold, and the embryos were lost prior to Day 32, but PCR of non-transferred embryos confirmed successful pre-selection of sex. Overall, this thesis demonstrated that it is still not economically feasible to incorporate frozen-thawed boar semen into the commercial production of pigs although it has considerable application in breeding programmes. However, the development of novel techniques enabling reduction in sperm dose, and for non-surgical transfer of embryos into recipient sows and incorporation of frozen-thawed semen into these technologies means that progress is being made with the integration of reproductive technologies and frozen-thawed semen into the pig industry.

abstract: This paper examines the link between firm size and innovation. Given that innovation is highly reliant on human capital, the ability to attract, motivate, and retain high quality inventors is a key determinant of firm innovation. Firm size may affect these abilities, and small firms are known to account for a disproportionate share of aggregate innovation. I therefore investigate the role that sorting of inventors across firms plays in explaining this disparity. Talented inventors may find employment at a large firm less attractive due to the relative absence of growth options and a lower ability to link compensation to performance. Using inventor-level patent data, I construct employment histories for inventors at U.S. public firms. I find that the most productive inventors are disproportionately likely to move to small firms, while the least productive inventors disproportionately remain at large firms. These results cannot be explained fully by small firms' superior growth opportunities. In addition, productive innovators' turnover in small firms is sensitive to the level of option compensation. Taken together, this evidence is consistent with inventor sorting explaining part of the firm size innovation gap. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2016

The diploma thesis deals with analysis of sales of BMW vehicles on the Czech market. The production of the currently produced cars was described and analyzed the most commonly sold models. For these models, historical developments have been further analyzed, and its changes have been described in terms of vehicle technical level. On the basis of these evaluations, the price development of the individual models was assessed, as well as the comparison of the price of the sale price to the new price compared to the amortization scales in accordance with the Methodology of the Expert Standard No. I / 2005

Firstly, this work demonstrates that contactless dielectrophoresis (cDEP) was useful to detect a reversal in the electrical phenotype of late-stage ovarian cancer cells to a profile similar to that of slow-growing early-stage ovarian epithelial cells after treatment with a non-toxic bioactive metabolite, sphingosine. Current chemotherapeutics are highly toxic to patients and can cause severe adverse side effects, so non-toxic treatments that could slow or reverse cancer growth would be advantageous. This is the first instance of cDEP for detecting induced changes in cell structure, showing its potential as a rapid, non-biomarker-based drug screening platform. Specifically, low frequency contactless dielectrophoresis devices previously designed by Sano et al were used to extract the crossover frequency and specific membrane capacitance of early and late stage mouse ovarian surface epithelial (MOSE-E and MOSE-L) cells when untreated, treated with the anti-cancer sphingosine (So) metabolite and with a generally cancer-supporting sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) metabolite. The specific membrane capacitance of MOSE-L cells treated with So decreased and the normalized crossover frequency increased to levels matching MOSE-E cells. Secondly, a new multilayer cDEP device featuring curved interdigitated electrode channels overlaying a straight sample channel for the purpose of cell sorting was designed, computationally modeled, fabricated, and tested. The goal of this design was to achieve continuous multi-stream sorting of cells, and preliminary testing demonstrated that prostate cancer PC3 cells were continuously deflected toward the top of the channel under an electric field, as predicted by the numerical model. / Master of Science

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No description available.