Sand flies (Diptera, Phlebotominae) are small biting insects and vectors of Leishmania spp. which cause medically and veterinary important disease - leishmaniasis. During the piercing of the host skin, sand fly females inject saliva to facilitate the blood feeding. The sand fly saliva is composed of many bioactive molecules which were shown to possess anti-inflammatory and anti-haemostatic functions. The saliva affects host's immunity in the bite site and consequently enhances the survival and development of transmitted pathogens. Most of the studies focus on salivary proteins and enzymes of sand flies belonging to Phlebotomus and Lutzomyia genera, while salivary proteins from sand flies of the third genus Sergentomyia were neglected so far. In this thesis we focused on comparison of salivary proteins from two Phlebotomus species, namely Phlebotomus perniciosus and Phlebotomus orientalis, and Sergentomyia schwetzi. These sand fly species differ not only by the ecology and geographical distribution but also by host preferences. Both Phlebotomus species prefer large or medium-size mammals as the bloodmeal source, particularly rabbits, hares and dogs for P. perniciosus and cattle, goats, sheep and humans for P. orientalis. Contrarily, Sergentomyia sand flies are known for preferred feeding on reptiles...

Formins are proteins facilitating formation of actin filaments. They affect structure of cytoskeleton and participate in cytokinesis and tip growth. There are 2 classes of formins in Arabidopsis thaliana, which include FH1 and FH2 (Formin Homology 1 and 2) domain. Formins of the class I have usually a transmembrane domain on N-terminus. Due to this fact they can interact with membranes. Some formins from the class II include PTEN domain (Phosphatase and Tensin Homolog) derived from sequences of PTEN proteins which has lost the function of phosphatase. It is assumed this domain can bind on a membrane via the phosphatase section or C2 domain. This thesis was focused on the formin AtFH13 from the class II in Arabidopsis thaliana and on its PTEN domain. There were analyzed differences between mutants and wild-types in length of roots in seedlings and in size of seeds and seed coats, and observed the effect of dexamethasone on the length of roots on AtFH13. PTEN domain of the formin was isolated from cDNA, cloned to a vector and fused with YFP. The tagged protein was visualized by the method of transient expression in epidermal cells in the leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana. No big differences were observed between plants mutant in the gene AtFH13 and wild-type in choice parameters. Dexamethasone did't influence...

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According to NCHRP Report 493, there are five major left turn signal indications for permitted operations in the United States. They are: Circular Green (CG), Flashing Circular Red (FCR), Flashing Red Arrow (FRA), Flashing Circular Yellow (FCY) and Flashing Yellow Arrow (FYA). The main goal of this thesis is to study the driver behavior and analyze safety of drivers for different left turn indications using a real-time driving simulator. Different signal indications alter driver behavior which influences velocity and acceleration profiles. These profiles influence vehicular emissions and hence need to be studied as well. For this purpose, different scenarios are implemented in the driving simulator. Data is analyzed using Microsoft Excel, JMP Statistical tool and MATLAB. Safety of drivers is analyzed with respect to the parameter "Time to Collision (TTC)" which is directly obtained from simulator data. Vehicular emissions and fuel consumption are calculated using VT-Micro microscopic emissions model. Graphs are plotted for TTC and total emissions. Results indicate that for a day-time scenario, FCY and FYA are the most suitable left-turning indications whereas FCR and FRA are most suitable for a night-time scenario. / Master of Science / There are five major left-turn indications for permitted operation in the United States. They are: Circular Green (CG), Flashing Circular Red (FCR), Flashing Red Arrow (FRA), Flashing Circular Yellow (FCY) and Flashing Yellow Arrow (FYA). Different states use different left-turn indications throughout the country. The level of driver comprehension for a particular signal indication will have an effect on the driving behavior and this in turn will affect fuel consumption and total emissions. The main goal of this thesis is to study driver behavior for different left-turning operations and to provide guidelines for the selection of signal indications. For this purpose, a real time driving simulator is used and different scenarios are implemented for left-turning operations. Data has been collected from the simulator to analyze driver safety in each scenario. Velocity and acceleration data from the simulator is used to calculate vehicular emissions to analyze environmental impact. The signal indication that best suits a given situation should provide maximum driver safety and minimum environmental impact. Graphs are plotted and results indicate that, during day time FCY and FYA are the most suitable indications whereas FCR and FRA are best suited for a night time scenario.

Med en ökande tillväxt inom flygtrafikbranschen behöver de bakomliggande flygtrafikledningssystemen uppgraderas för att möta den växande komplexiteten i syfte att säkerställa en ordnad flygtrafik. Här anses det arkitekturella konceptet System Wide Information Management (SWIM) för distribuerade flygledningssystem vara lösningen för att bygga system som är lättare att underhålla och enklare kan kan samverka med varandra. År 2021 fastslog Europeiska unionen att samtliga operativa intressenter inom det aeronautiska informationsutbytet i EU skall tillhandahålla och kunna konsumera SWIM-tjänster och erbjöd då en uppsättning tjänstegränssnittsbindningar för intressenter att hävda foglighet med för att efterfölja de nya regleringarna. Bland dessa finner vi AMQP Messaging och WS Light som utiliserar AMQP respektive HTTP som meddelandeprotokoll. Tidigare forskning har visat att AMQP presterar bättre än HTTP inom de flesta områden, men denna studie undersöker om någon av de två lämpar sig bättre som meddelandeprotokoll för en europabaserad SWIM-implementation genom att analysera resultatet i en SWIM-kontext. Med hjälp av en komparativ analys och kvantitativ dataanalys jämförs de två meddelandeprotokollen i denna studie för att identifiera liknande och åtskiljande karaktärsdrag samt för att svara på om någon av de två lämpar sig bättre för ändamålet. De punkter protokollen jämförs på är struktur, overhead och effektivitet, interoperabilitet och kompabilitet, tillförlitlighet och feltolerans samt förekomster i Eurocontrols SWIM Registry. Studiens resultat visar att AMQP är den lämpligaste kandidaten av de två sett till implementationstrender och prestanda, men att det är bör göras en avvägning innan en intressent väljer vilket gränssnitt denne skall implementera. / With an increasing growth within the aviation industry, the underlying air traffic control systems needs to be upgraded to meet the growing complexity for ensuring an organized air traffic. This is where the architectural concept System Wide Information Management (SWIM) for distributed air traffic control systems is believed to be the solution for building systems that are easier to maintain and can cooperate with ease. In the year 2021, the European Union decided that all operative stakeholders within the aeronautical information exchange in EU shall provide and be able to consume SWIM services, and provided a set of service interface bindings for stakeholders to claim conformance to in order to follow the new regulations. Among these we find AMQP Messaging and WS Light that utilizes AMQP and HTTP, respectively, as messaging protocols. Previous research has shown that AMQP performs better than HTTP in most areas, but this study analyses the result in a SWIM context to see if any of the two is a more suitable messaging protocol in a Europe based SWIM implementation. Through a comparative analysis and a quantitative data analysis the two messaging protocols are compared in this study to identify similar and distinctive characteristics to answer whether one of the two is a better candidate for the purpose. The protocols are compared on their structure, overhead and efficiency, interoperability and fault tolerance, and their occurances in Eurocontrol's SWIM Registry. The result of the study shows that AMQP is the more suitable candidate of the two, in regards to trends in current implementations as well as performance metrics, but a stakeholder should make a trade-off before choosing what service interface binding to implement.

Thesis (PhD (Botany and Zoology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Improved anti-predator protection has been postulated to be the primary advantage of sociality in the family Herpestidae. Therefore, the yellow mongoose, Cynictis penicillata, is considered an anomaly in the family because it may den socially with conspecifics, cooperating in the rearing of young and territory defence, but inevitably forages alone. I studied the communicative and anti-predator behaviour of a population of yellow mongooses which exhibited a lower degree of sociality than populations studied elsewhere. The yellow mongoose’s flexible social nature was evident in its vocal repertoire. Although its vocal repertoire was smaller and less context-specific than those of social mongooses, it had a large proportion (over 50%) of affiliative vocalizations, suggesting that individuals show a higher degree of cooperation than strictly solitary species. During predator encounters yellow mongooses used a simple urgency-based alarm call repertoire, indicating high and low urgency threat with two separate call types. The social environment strongly affected the alarm communication of yellow mongooses – vocal alarms were displayed almost exclusively by individuals in a group, whereas the visual alarm (a raised tail) was displayed by solitary individuals, when predators were outside the range from which they were potentially dangerous. This was a clear demonstration of the ‘audience effect’ – a phenomenon whereby animals adjust their communicative signals depending on the audience that is present. Until this study, the audience effect has only been demonstrated in obligate social species. The yellow mongoose’s social flexibility was further reflected in its territorial scent marking behaviour. In contrast to high density populations, where subordinate individuals contribute significantly to territory defence and scent marking, only the dominant male marked and defended territory borders in this low density population. Dominant males appeared to overmark the small number of cheek marks that females deposited, especially during the breeding season, which suggests that cheek marks were used in mate guarding. The yellow mongoose showed less flexibility in responses to conspecifics while foraging: the presence of group members appeared to make foragers more nervous, as individuals increased vigilance and decreased foraging success when group members were nearby. This could not be attributed to foraging competition, which happened very rarely. Yellow mongooses relied on a form of vigilance that allowed them to continue foraging while remaining alert, which contrasted with meerkats, Suricata suricatta, that had to interrupt foraging in order to be vigilant. The foraging patterns of yellow mongooses and meerkats differed markedly, and both species appeared to be inflexible in these patterns. I have proposed, therefore, that rigid vigilance patterns of vigilance are the reason why yellow mongooses forage alone, despite showing other cooperative tendencies. This study highlights that the selective forces acting on group living and group foraging are very different, and that the group-size effect – which postulates that individual vigilance declines as group size increases – may not be applicable to species adapted to solitary foraging.

Before the consolidation of the germ theory of human diseases at the end of the nineteenth century, medical explanations about disease causation were dominated by the environmental notions of medical geography. This dissertation explores how nineteenth-century Colombian physicians transformed the medical geographical approach using the early concepts and technologies of the emerging Pasteurian germ theory. I follow this transformation in the cases of periodic fevers (yellow fever and malaria), continuous fevers (typhoid fever and typhus) and leprosy. The analysis reveals that by mid century physicians had incorporated neo-Hippocratic versions of disease causation and French medical geographical ideas in order to make sense of disease of the warm, temperate and cold lands. Their conceptual network revolved around the specific, predisposing and occasional causes in which climate and geography played a determinant role. Evidence indicates that this was the case of periodic fevers of the warm lands (yellow fever and malaria). I argue that the “parasitic” hypothesis of yellow fever was accepted during the controversy around the prophylactic inoculations inspired by Pasteurism that were applied in Colombia in 1887. However, doctors struggled to reconcile the medical geographical and the bacteriological perspective of both yellow fever and malaria. Continuous fevers, on the other hand, were also framed within the medical geography scheme of disease causation. I show how during the debates about typhoid fever and typhus happening in the Colombian highlands during the 70s, 80s and 90s, doctors used medical geographical notions and developed anti-pasteurian arguments, while the international scientific community had identified the specific bacilli for typhoid fever. Finally, I argue that the strong interest of Colombian doctors on leprosy –also understood in neo-Hippocratic terms- that foster the search for local treatments based on Pasteurism (antiseptics in the 1880s and serotherapy in the 1890s) also prompted the extension of the bacteriological model and techniques to other diseases in those decades.

Photocontrol, the use of light-sensitive proteins to control events within living tissue, allows complex processes in higher organisms to be studied. The Halorhodospira halophila photoactive yellow protein (PYP) can be used to regulate transcription factor activity with blue light. Before any PYP-based system can probe complex processes in higher organisms, proof of functional expression in vivo is required. We linked d25 PYP to the C-terminus of blue fluorescent protein (BFP) and expressed variants of the fusion protein (BFPd25PYP) in E. coli and human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cells. Expression of BFPd25PYP in E. coli verified in vitro photoswitching. The fusion protein was successfully expressed in HEK293. Fluorescence studies of intact cells indicated chromophore uptake and incorporation into PYP in HEK293, while photoswitching of PYP was measured in protein isolated from HEK293. These findings are promising for the development of applications using PYP for in vivo mammalian photocontrol of biological events.

Photocontrol, the use of light-sensitive proteins to control events within living tissue, allows complex processes in higher organisms to be studied. The Halorhodospira halophila photoactive yellow protein (PYP) can be used to regulate transcription factor activity with blue light. Before any PYP-based system can probe complex processes in higher organisms, proof of functional expression in vivo is required. We linked d25 PYP to the C-terminus of blue fluorescent protein (BFP) and expressed variants of the fusion protein (BFPd25PYP) in E. coli and human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cells. Expression of BFPd25PYP in E. coli verified in vitro photoswitching. The fusion protein was successfully expressed in HEK293. Fluorescence studies of intact cells indicated chromophore uptake and incorporation into PYP in HEK293, while photoswitching of PYP was measured in protein isolated from HEK293. These findings are promising for the development of applications using PYP for in vivo mammalian photocontrol of biological events.