We outline a theory of bounded affinity between religious experiences and beliefs and paranormalism, which emphasizes that religious and paranormal experiences and beliefs share inherent physiological, psychological, and ontological similarities. Despite these parallels, organized religious groups typically delineate a narrow subset of experiences and explanatory frames as acceptable and True, banishing others as either false or demonic. Accordingly, the theory provides a revised definition of the “paranormal” as beliefs and experiences explicitly rejected by science and organized religions. To demonstrate the utility of the theory, we show that, after controlling for levels of conventional religious practice, there is a strong, positive relationship between claiming Christian-based religious experiences and believing in, pursuing, and experiencing the paranormal, particularly among individuals not strongly tethered to organized religion. Bounded affinity theory makes sense of recent non-linear and complex moderation findings in the empirical literature and reiterates the importance of the paranormal for studies of religion.

abstract: How does a university create a culture of affinity where students seek and maintain life-long connections to the institution? The purpose of this action research study was to examine how affinity increased or developed for undergraduate students at the Arizona State University Polytechnic campus through meaningful student-centric activities. Three theoretical frameworks guided the study including the work of Baumeister and Leary, Kuh, and Ajzen. In this mixed method study, quantitative data about affinity, attitude, toward Arizona State University was collected using pre- and post-intervention surveys and qualitative data were gathered through individual semi-structured interviews at the conclusion of the study. Study participants were degree-seeking, undergraduate students whose degree programs were affiliated with the Polytechnic campus. The study was conducted during the first semester for first-year students. The intervention was implemented over a four-week period and consisted of providing information and opportunities to students to initiate connecting to the institution. Quantitative data exhibited slight upward changes or slight to modest decreases in the dependent variables between pre- and post-intervention assessments. Qualitative data provided a content-rich explanation that helped in understanding the quantitative results. For example, students indicated high behavioral beliefs, attitudes toward involvement, and intentions. Moreover, they demonstrated high levels of connectedness and loyalty to the institution. Discussion focused on describing the complementarity of the data, explaining outcomes relative to the theoretical frameworks, limitations, implications for practice and future research, and lessons learned. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2019

Anti-TNF alpha antibodies were among the first approved antibody drugs and now belongs to the best-selling drugs. Today, several companies are developing biosimilars to those drugs which will increase the access of medications and potentially reduce health care costs. There is a great demand for pharmacokinetic assays for anti-TNF-alpha drugs and the bridging assay format is a potential tool, mostly due to its high serum tolerance. This project at Gyros Protein Technologies AB aimed to investigate the properties of the solid phase on the Gyrolab and to utilize this to optimize the bridging assay to be used as a pharmacokinetic assay for a human antibody in the presence of serum. The solid phase was optimized by incorporating three reagents with increasing molecular weight and examining the column profiles generated. Furthermore, the capture reagent was titrated with b-BSA to avoid cross-binding of both arms of the antibody to the capture reagent. Since the background was relatively high, further optimization was done to reduce background and increase the signal to noise ratio. The performance of the optimized bridging assay was compared to alternative PK assay formats. The estimated sensitivity of the bridging assay was 5 ng/ml compared to 250 ng/ml for the indirect antibody assay and 2.5 ng/ml for the bridging assay using an anti-idiotypic antibody as detect. The optimized bridging assay performed well without dilution in buffer and was therefore used for affinity determination of Humira in neat serum. Variable concentrations of TNF-alpha were added to a fix concentration of Humira to compete with the interaction. Calculated KD-values were similar regardless of whether the measurements were performed in neat serum or after dilution in Rexxip buffer.

Les immunoessais en phase solide sont utilisés pour le diagnostic in vitro afin de détecter ou de quantifier une molécule dans un échantillon biologique. Ils s'appuient sur l'interaction spécifique entre un antigène et un anticorps. Habituellement, des anticorps spécifiques aux antigènes à détecter sont immobilisés sur une surface solide pour capturer les antigènes d'intérêt et les séparer du reste de l'échantillon.Lors du développement d'un immunoessai, la sensibilité, la spécificité et le temps d’analyse sont optimisés par le choix - classiquement empirique - de ligands, de supports solides, de débits,… Une meilleure compréhension et prédiction des interactions moléculaires complexes se produisant au cours d’un immunoessai seraient utiles pour : identifier les paramètres critiques des immunoessais, simplifier et accélérer le processus d’identification des meilleures conditions opératoires et améliorer les immunoessais existants.L'instrument VIDAS®, commercialisé par bioMérieux, est l'un des systèmes d’immunoessais les plus utilisés dans les laboratoires cliniques. Dans ce travail de thèse, deux outils expérimentaux basés sur la chromatographie inverse sont construits et testés. Un modèle prédictif de la cinétique d'interaction anticorps/antigène est développé. Les outils expérimentaux, fonctionnant dans des conditions très proches du VIDAS®, sont utilisés pour valider le modèle et estimer ses paramètres caractérisant les interactions anticorps/antigène à partir de courbes expérimentales. Dans l’avenir et à partir des résultats, un des outils expérimentaux associé au modèle pourra être utilisé par bioMérieux pour concevoir des systèmes d’immunoessais / Solid-phase immunoassays are used for in vitro diagnostic to detect the presence or measure the concentration of a molecule of interest in a biological sample. They rely on the specific interaction between an antigen and an antibody. Usually, antibodies specific to the antigens to be detected are immobilized on a solid surface to capture the antigens of interest and separate them from the rest of the sample components. During solid-phase immunoassay development, sensitivity, specificity and time-to-result need to be optimized through the choice of dedicated ligands, solid supports, flow rates,… Classically, these choices are made empirically. A better understanding and prediction of the complex molecular interactions that occur in the different steps of a diagnostic immunoassay is likely to be useful to: identify the critical parameters of immunoassays, simplify and speed-up the process of identification of the best immunoassay conditions and improve the immunoassays currently available. The VIDAS® instrument, commercialized by bioMérieux is one of the most widely used immunoassay system in clinical laboratories worldwide. In this PhD work, two experimental tools based on inverse chromatography are built and tested. A predictive model of antibody/antigen interaction kinetics in immunoassays is developed. The experimental tools which mimic VIDAS® process conditions are used to validate the predictive model and to estimate model parameters characterizing antibody/antigen interaction kinetics from experimental curves. In the future, based on the results, one of the experimental tools associated with the model could be used by bioMérieux to design immunoassay systems

Voltage-gated sodium channels auxiliary subunits evolutionary emerged nearly 500 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. These subunits alter one the most important ion channels to electrical signaling, the voltage-gated sodium channels support the propagation of electric impulses in animals. The mechanism for the auxiliary subunits effects on the channels is poorly understand, as is the stoichiometry between the auxiliary subunit and the channel. The focus of my thesis is to generate assays and to use these approaches to understand the interactions different types of voltage-gated channels and their auxiliary subunits. A biochemical approach was taken to identify novel interactions between the eukaryotic sodium channel auxiliary subunits and a prokaryotic voltage-gated sodium channel, a protein that diverged from the eukaryotic voltage-gated sodium channels billions of years ago. These interactions between the auxiliary subunits and channels were probed with chemical and photochemical crosslinkers in search of interaction surfaces and similarity to explain the mechanisms of interaction. The work in this thesis identified novel interactions between the voltage-gated sodium channel auxiliary subunits and voltage-gated channels that are distantly related to the voltage-gated sodium channels principally thought to be modulated by the auxiliary subunits. From this work a rudimentary concept can be theorized that the voltage-gated sodium channel β-subunits and not only β1 have a more primary role in electrophysiology by associating with multiple different types of ion channels.

The molecular chaperones are a group of proteins that are effective in vitro and in vivo folding aids and show a well documented affinity for proteins lacking tertiary structure. Heat-induced Escherichia coli BL21 cell lysate (10 mg protein) was applied to immobilized ɑ-casein (45 mg/g beads) or β-casein (30 mg/g beads) column. After removing a majority of nonspecifically bound proteins with 1 M NaCl, the molecular chaperones were eluted with cold water, 1 mM Mg-ATP, or 6 M urea. Western analysis identified five Escherichia coli molecular chaperones including DnaK, DnaJ, GrpE, GroEL, and GroES. Among samples, ATP eluates showed the highest chaperone purity of 80-87% followed by cold water eluates with 62-68% purity. The β-Casein column showed a higher binding capacity than the ɑ-casein column since β-casein urea eluates contained 3.18 mg total protein (or 58% chaperone) compared to a-casein urea eluates with 2.68 mg total protein (or 32% chaperone). For strain comparison, Escherichia coli NM522 eluates showed more unidentified proteins in cold water eluates from both affinity columns. Chaperones were induced from BL21 strain with three treatments: heat shock at 39°C, heat shock at 42°C, and alcohol shock with 3% ethanol (v/v). Lysates were applied to an immobilized β-casein (30 mg/g beads) column. The molecular chaperones were eluted with cold water or 1 mM Mg-ATP after washing with 1 M NaCl. The purity of eluted chaperones was 58% with cold water and 100% with Mg-ATP. The treatment at 42°C was the most efficient for chaperone induction with highest chaperone yield of 1.0 mg among samples. Refolding denatured carbonic anhydrase B enzyme in the presence of Mg-ATP resulted in a 97% recovery of heat-denatured enzyme and a 68% recovery of chemically denatured enzyme. It was concluded that the novel casein affinity chromatography is a rapid and efficient method for purification of chaperone. The affinity purified chaperones were effective in vitro folding aids.

Malaria is a major threat to the public health worldwide as it is affecting populations in tropical and subtropical areas globally. Among those populations are around 40% of pregnant women and children who are susceptible to this disease. Plasmodium falciparum is the most lethal agent that causes malaria in human. Currently, there is drug resistance against antimalarial drugs in parasite against treatment of malaria infections, it is essential to search for new drug targets in order to find cure and alleviate suffering of human population. There are approximately 100 protein kinases in P. falciparum that are involved in phosphorylation of asexual blood stage. Hence, the phosphorylation plays an important part in the development of different stages of malarial parasites. Due to their significance in the parasite life cycle, one of the protein kinase of P. falciparum belongs to the ABC-1 family of proteins. PfABCK2 can be a therapeutic target due to its higher expression during the late schizont stage of blood stage form. The bioinformatic analysis and preliminary results of PfABCK2 showed the heterologous expression of this protein. Hence, the gene of PfABCk2 was ligated into pET21a+ vector with His-tag at C-terminus and transformed into BL-21 (DE3) competent cells that were verified through Miniprep and DNA sequencing. Furthermore, this gene construct is utilized to heterologous express this protein with IPTG and afterwards purified the recombinant protein kinase using nickel affinity chromatography as shown on 10% SDS-PAGE with the expected 36 kDa protein band. Therefore, the aim of this study is to partially characterize PfABCK2 protein kinase utilizing molecular cloning, heterologous express and protein kinase activity assay.

Abstract not available

車載網路受到各方廣泛討論，激發出許多新的議題，由於車載網路的通訊品質不穩定，速度快、節點多，封包傳送不易，因此許多人都採用分群式架構增進效能，以集中式管理群組，避免封包被重複傳送，降低封包碰撞的機會。然而，現有的分群機制只能用在即時方面的應用，在檔案傳輸方面效能不足。本篇論文擬改善C. Shea等人[1]所提出的分群機制File-based Affinity Propagation Cluster, FAPC，建立兼具動態性和檔案相關性的叢集架構，並且提出改善失去叢集管理員的重建機制，以提升分群的穩定性及吞吐量（throughput）。最後，我們以模擬證明所提出的方法優於C. Shea [1]的方法，以query hit ratio、retrieve file ratio、average number of clusters及average cluster head duration為效能指標，觀察在不同時間、車輛數目及車輛速度時效能表現。 / Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) has been widely discussed and many issues have been proposed. Due to VANET’s unstable quality, varying speed, lots of mobility nodes, it’s not easy to deliver packets. Thus many researchers suggested using cluster architecture to enhance performance. Because of the central management, we can avoid duplication of packets in the same cluster and decrease the probability of packet collision. However, we find most of the cluster architectures are suitable for real-time applications, but not for file transfer. In this research, we improve C. Shea’s [1] method by adding file-similarity by classifying into groups and reselecting cluster head, when the group of nodes have not cluster head. This cluster architecture can enhance stability and throughput. Finally, we use simulation to prove that our method outperforms Chen’s [1] cluster method in terms of query hit ratio, retrieve file ratio, average number of clusters and average cluster head duration.

No description available.