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Introduction: Our objective is to investigate whether Semaphorin 3E (sema3E) regulates human airway smooth muscle cell (HASMC) proliferation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods: HASMCs and tissues were isolated from COPD patients. Sema3E and plexinD1 expressions were studied using Q-PCR, FACS, IHC and immunoblotting. Cell proliferation was evaluated using FACS. Results: HASM cells from COPD patients express p61kDa-Sema3E isoform and plexinD1 at mRNA and protein level. Lung tissue from COPD and healthy subjects display Sema3E immunoreactivity. Treatment with Sema3E inhibits HASM cell proliferation mediated by PDGF in healthy, but not in COPD. HASM cells from COPD patient display surface expression of Sema3E. Conclusion: The absence of effect of recombinant Sema3E in COPD is due the constitutive expression and release of p61kDa-Sema3E isoform, which may account for airway remodeling in COPD. / May 2015

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Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Biology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-116). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss&rft%5Fval%5Ffmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss:MQ99326

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), a factor which stimulates cell growth, morphogenesis and migration, was found in hepatocytes and other epithelial cells. HGF was found to induce cell scattering, so that it was previously named as ¡§scatter factor¡¨ (SF), which turned out to be the same protein. HGF has two chains, a-chain, which contains N-terminal domain and four kringle domains and b-chain, a serine protease-like domain linked with a-chain by disulfide bond. The size of b-chain is 34 kDa after glycosylation in human cells. The function of HGFb was not unknown until recently that HGFb was shown 1000-fold lower affinity to c-Met than HGFa. Thus this project is to create biotechnological approaches for quick and large scale production of HGFb. The DNA fragment amplified by PCR was transferred to pET-22b(+) for expression, and showed that large amount of recombinant HGFb was produced both in periplasmic space and culture supernatant. Assays for cancer proliferation and migration with the HGFb showed that the recombinant protein inhibited cancer cells in a dose-independent manner. Our experiment showed clearly that 10 nM of the E. coli-produced HGFb inhibited proliferation and migration of cancer cells in comparison with the medium and pET controls, 1000-fold higher affinity to c-Met than reported.

This study examines the performance of decentralized health and education service delivery in Indonesia. Results show that education outcomes improved with decentralization, and that local governments are responding to local needs for education services. Decentralization also brings improvement to health services, as mortality rates and life expectancy are significantly improved with decentralization. However, results indicate that decentralization does not improve availability of health services, as only small percentage of municipalities in Indonesia have access to health facilities. The empirical study on the performance of proliferated municipalities provides similar conclusions to those obtained in the examination of general decentralization performance. Proliferated municipalities experience improvement in education outcomes but not so for health outcomes; these results are consistent with the previous examination. Therefore, from the result of this study, there is no evidence to reject proliferation as it does not hurt health and education service delivery outcomes.

A computational tool to assess the most likely path a state proliferator would take in making a nuclear weapon was created in a Bayesian network. The purpose of this work was to create a tool to facilitate analysts and policymakers in learning about state proliferation. In carrying out this work, a previous Bayesian network based on nuclear weapon proliferation was expanded to include dual-use export controlled technologies. The constant nodes in the network quantifying technical capability, international networking, and available infrastructure were developed to be based on pertinent characteristics that were appropriately weighted. To verify the network, nine historical cases of state proliferation were tested over time, and the enrichment and weapon pathways were graphed. The network sufficiently modeled the cases, so it was concluded that, while one can never truly being able to sufficiently validate a network of this type, sufficient verification was achieved. The tool was used to gain knowledge and insight concerning technology transfers with four countries in hypothetical cases. This exercise proved that the network can in fact be used to learn about state proliferation under different policies and conditions.