This dissertation describes a study utilizing bioinformatics to analyze homologues of a molecular chaperone, glucose-regulated protein 78 (grp 78), also known as BiP. The selected homologous proteins originate from organisms of infinitely diverse genera. Comparisons of protein sequence yielded the first clues of a common ancestry among these proteins. Furthermore, protein molecular weights, isoelectric points, N-terminal amino acids and half-lives of a known homolog and a non-homologous protein were examined. Additionally, electroporation, a state-of-the-art plasmid insertion technique, was explored using Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a green alga, as the recipient of a parent plasmid, pSP124S. Distinctive hypertonic solutions and three separate field strengths were used in the plasmolysis of the cell wall of C. reinhardtii and subsequent electroporation, respectively. The number of transformants was tallied to evaluate which electroporation condition would yield the most transformed colonies. We had two discrete hypotheses: 1) that a structurally and functionally similar protein to glucose-regulated protein 78 exists across a wide spectrum of organisms and 2) that Chlamydomonas reinhardtii could be successfully transformed with pSP124S under certain electroporation conditions. The bioinformatics investigation revealed that analogous proteins to Human GRP 78 existed in Mus musculus (mouse), Rattus norvegicus (rat), Gallus domesticus (chicken), Gallus domesticus (chicken), Mesocricetus auratus (golden hamster), Bos taurus (cow), Xenopus laevis (frog), and Spinacia oleracea (spinach). Moreover, these homologous proteins more likely have a common evolutionary origin.

The economic value of sport has long been an interesting subject to study. Proponents arguing there is big monetary return for a region hosting a professional sports team. However, majority of studies done on the subject point in the same direction where it seems economic return are negligible. Researchers even argue there is rather an alternative cost where money could be better spent on other social structure such as education and health care. The value of sport creates both direct and indirect effect. In this essay I will look at whether there could be any indirect spillover effects from hosting a hockey team in the highest league. Due to its simplicity, a difference-in-difference (DiD) method will be used on municipalities hosting a hockey team. This when looking at Gross Regional Product (GRP), unemployment rate and population growth to municipalities without a hockey team. The results of this study are ambiguous and hard to interpret when sign on coefficient differ between variables and municipalities. However, there seem to be a correlation between lower unemployment rate and population growth and an increase in GRP when a team is qualifying to SHL. It cannot be determined whether this depend on economic growth or success of their professional sports team.

Currently shock effects on surface ships can be determined by full scale shock trials, Finite Element Analysis or semi empirical methods that reduce the analytical problem to a limited number of degrees of freedom and include hull configurations, construction methods and materials in an empirical way to determine any debilitating effects that an explosion may have on the ship. This research has been undertaken to better understand the effect of hull shape on surface ships' shock response to external underwater explosions (UNDEX). The study is within the semi empirical method category of computations. A set of simple closed-form equations has been developed that accurately predicts the magnitude of dynamic excitation of different 2- D rigid-hull shapes subject to far-field UNDEX events. This research was primarily focused on the affects of 2-D rigid hull shapes and their contribution to global ship motions. A section of the thesis,

Each day, the dream of seamless networking and connectivity everywhere is getting closer to become a reality. In this regard, mobile Ad-Hoc networks (MANETs) have been a hot topic in the last decade; but the amount of MANET usage nowadays confines to a tiny percentage of all our network connectivity in our everyday life, which connectivity through infrastructured networks has the major share. On the other hand, we know that future of networking belongs to Ad-Hocing , so for now we try to give our everyday infrastructure network a taste of Ad-Hocing ability; these types of networks are called Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) and routing features play a vital role in their functionality. In this thesis we examine the functionality of 3 Ad-Hoc routing protocols known as AODV, OLSR and GRP using simulation method in OPNET17.5. For this goal we set up 4 different scenarios to examine the performance of these routing protocols; these scenarios vary from each other in amount of nodes, background traffic and mobility of the nodes. Performance measurements of these protocols are done by network throughput, end-end delay of the transmitted packets and packet loss ratio as our performance metrics. After the simulation run and gathering the results we study them in a comparative view, first based on each scenario and then based on each protocol. For conclusion, as former studies suggest AODV, OLSR and DRP are among the best routing protocols for WMNs, so in this research we don’t introduce the best RP based on the obtained functionality results, instead we discuss the network conditions that each of these protocols show their best functionality in them and suggest the best routing mechanism for different networks based on the analysis from the former part.

E-glass has been widely used as a reinforcing material for years, especially as a plastic reinforcer in the production of GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic). Failure of GRP materials under stress came in to the picture quite recently. Since then studies have been conducted in an attempt to understand the causes and the underlying behaviour. / Except for the last section of the research (analysis using a kinetic approach) where glass fibre was cut out to weigh approximately 1.0g, standard sized specimens were soaked in the required acid solutions of desired concentrations for varying temperatures and time frames. Wherever tensile strength retention was measured, LLOYD instrument was employed. Leaching of the cations were analysed using Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES and also know and ICP-AES). / The scope of this project can be divided in to four sections; first section involved investigating the effects of malonic acid. The study of malonic acid was narrowed to investigating the trend in strength retention. A rapid strength loss was observed initially followed by a much steady decline in the strength. However the continuation of the loss of strength was unmistakable throughout the time period of exposure. Furthermore, temperature can be observed as a facilitating factor in this degradation reaction. / Secondly the corrosive effect of glyoxylic acid on E-glass fibre was studied. This was explored at two different temperatures for two specific time frames using various concentrations of the acid of interest. The influence of this acid on the glass fibre was found out in terms of strength retention and loss of cations from the glass matrix. The mildness of this acid was accentuated by the fact that 70% or more of the strength was retained at all the conditions employed. A minima in strength retention was observed at 2M acid concentration similar to the trends observed in the past (Betz and Jones 2003 and Jones and Chandler 1986). Leaching of cations reflected this trend. The large strength retention could be related to the fewer amounts of Ca and K leached from the glass matrix (Kumosa and Qui, 1997). Similar to malonic acid, an unusually large amount of B was leached out that could be due to the favourable orientation of the anion with the trivalent ions during the complex formation. Yet again temperature was found to enhance the degradation process. / Next the extent of passivation (if any) showed by malonic acid was investigated using E-glass fibre pre-treated in 5M malonic acid and post treated in known corrosive acids hydrochloric acid and oxalic acid. Passivation of malonic acid was put to test through examination of strength retention of the fibres under these conditions. This segment was carried out as an extension of a finding (a behaviour synonymous to passivation) shown by malonic that surfaced the previous year by the present researcher. Increasing the pre-treatment time showed a great improvement in the retained strength for all the post-treatment acid mediums. Furthermore, while Jones and Betz (2004) featured 20-40% strength retention within a short time frame in 3M HCl, the immense amount of strength retention (60-70%) preceding pre-treatment should definitely be noted. Similarly strength retention of about 80% was observed when post-treated with the severely corrosive oxalic acid. Hence its is clear that passivation can be induced through prolonged pre-treatment in 5M malonic acid that could inhibit the attack of corrosive acid at least for a period of time. / The last fragment of the study focussed on understanding and working out the mechanism behind the reactions between the E-glass fibre and acid medium in terms of kinetics. The acids utilized were 1.5M malonic acid and 3M glyoxylic acid and the assessments were made through the analysis of the weight changes brought about by the acid medium at various temperatures and time frames. In addition leaching patterns of cations were evaluated as this could contribute in achieving the objective. Maximum weight loss reached 4% in glyoxylic acid while that for malonic acid exceeded 20%. The general trend was that the glass fibres lost weight in both acids for a period of time followed by an evident weight gain. Furthermore the weight loss results fit the first order rate law. While the leaching of cations reflects the weight loss for the shorter time frames, steady loss of ions was visible even for the longer time frames where the weight has increased. The weight gain could be explained in terms of binding of anions to certain cations on the glass surface, accounting for the hindrance in the loss of cations at the longer time frames as well. About 50% of weight loss was associated to Ca while 20% was to Al, leaving 6% to B where as the rest of the ions had shown almost insignificant contribution to the weight loss.

Mineralization of soft tissues can cause significantly increased morbidity and mortality. The mechanism for this process is still unknown; however, patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at high risk of developing vascular calcifications. Coronary artery calcification occurs faster in CKD patients undergoing dialysis in comparison with the general population. The pathological process of vascular calcification is the leading cause of death in patients with CKD.   Upper zone of growth plate and cartilage matrix associated protein (UCMA) is a novel vitamin-K dependent (VKD) protein expressed in bone and the vascular system. The UCMA protein contains 15 γ-carboxyglutamic acid (Gla) residues in its 138 residue sequence which is the highest ratio between the number of Gla-residues and the size of the mature protein found in any protein so far. These Gla-residues form a domain that gives unique calcium binding properties for UCMA with high affinity for calcium phosphate crystals (i.e., hydroxyapatite). Even though the function of UCMA remains to be elucidated, it has been speculated that UCMA inhibits calcification of soft tissues and could therefore have a protective function against vascular calcification. Any mutations in the gene coding for UCMA might lead to a diminished function or defective protein.   The aim of this study was to determine whether the gene encoding UCMA in patients with the most progressed stage of CKD (stage 5 CKD) contained any mutations. This was accomplished by performing a full re-sequencing of all five exons with dideoxy sequencing in 16 patients with stage 5 CKD on heamodialysis. If any mutations were discovered, pyrosequencing would be performed on 98 healthy control individuals. This would help to determine if the mutation was exclusive for the patients or existed in the general population as well.   Genomic DNA was extracted from whole blood originating from 16 patients with CKD on haemodialysis. Each of UCMAs five exons were amplified with PCR and the results were visualized using gel electrophoresis. Each exon was re-sequenced and pyrosequencing was performed on 98 healthy control samples. The acquired results were compared with the sequence of the UCMA gene identified at NCBI-GenBank (NCBI, build 37.2, NM_145314.1, Gene ID: 221044) and the Ensemble genome browser (ENSG00000165623). In addition, the frequencies of each SNP were calculated and compared with a study at the Ensemble database originating from the 1000 genomes project (1000GENOMES:low_coverage: CEU).   Because the population of our study group was too small to yield appropriate power for statistical calculations, no definite conclusions could be drawn from the acquired results. Nevertheless, this is the first patient group with CKD ever studied and should thus be regarded as a pilot study due to the limited size. However, no indication was found that UCMA had major defects in the investigated patients. Instead, a heterozygous transversion mutation was found in SNP rs4750328, indicating that the site of this SNP is subject to other modifications. Furthermore, a novel SNP was discovered which has not been described in other populations to our knowledge. The novel SNP is non-synonymous (i.e., causes an amino acid exchange) and located at the carboxyl-terminal of the protein. A serine is incorporated instead of threonine giving a 138Thr>Ser change since the last ACC codon in exon 5 (adjacent to the stop codon) is altered to an AGC codon. The UCMA 138Thr>Ser polymorphism was submitted to the dbSNP database and has been assigned the accession number ss283927876, which will be publicly available upon the release of the next dbSNP Build, B134. In order to determine the physiological significance of the discovered SNP, functional studies are required on both the wild-type and mutated UCMA variants.

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Die Herstellung mehrfach gekrümmter großflächiger Tragwerke aus Beton erfordert komplexe Schalungskonstruktionen, die in der Regel material- und kostenaufwändig sind [2]. Durch die im Projekt durchgeführte Entwicklung und Erprobung von flexiblen Strukturen aus glasfaserverstärktem Kunststoff (GFK) für den Schalungsbau in Kombination mit dem Einsatz von textilverstärktem Beton sollten diese Defizite behoben werden. [Aus: Ausgangsfragen und Zielsetzung] / The practical implementation of large-scale curved concrete elements requires complex formwork constructions, which are rather expensive and therefore reach their limits easily [2]. Flexible glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) formwork to produce textile reinforced concrete elements, which was developed and tested within the project, is expected to eliminate those deficits. [Off: Initial question and objective]

The cyanobacterial neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), a non-protein amino acid, first attracted attention in correlation to reports of high incidence of the unusual neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/Parkinsonism-dementia (ALS/PDC) among the people of Guam in the South Pacific Ocean. Experimental studies have revealed that BMAA causes neuronal cell death. The neurotoxin is suggested to act via excitotoxicity through interaction with glutamatergic receptors. More importantly, BMAA is suggested to misincorporate in the synthesis of proteins, and contribute to protein misfolding and/or deleterious aggregation, which are hallmarks of several neurodegenerative disorders. A selective uptake of BMAA in the rat neonatal hippocampus can interfere with brain development, causing learning and memory impairments in adult rats. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of BMAA in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells. These cells were exposed to BMAA (10 μM, 50 μM, 100 μM or 500 μM) for 72 hours, and the expression of five selected proteins, including heat shock protein-27 (HSP-27), lysosomal associated membrane protein-1 (LAMP-1), CCAAT-enhancer-binding protein homologous protein (CHOP), Golgi associated plant pathogenesis related protein-2 (GLIPR-2), and glucose regulated protein-78 (GRP-78). They were carried out with immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results revealed an increased expression of all selected proteins, which indicates an uptake and shows the effects of BMAA in the cell cultures. Taken together, BMAA caused cellular stress, including endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress that is correlated with HSP-27, LAMP-1, CHOP, GLIPR-2, and GRP-78. Further studies are needed in order to support the results. The experiments require being repeated using the same biomarkers as well as a combination of them with other biomarkers to elucidate the effects of BMAA.