Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of the C2H2-zinc finger transcription factor gene family and screening of candidate genes involved in floral development in Coptis teeta Wall. (Ranunculaceae)

© 2023 The authors. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2024.1349673Background: C2H2-zinc finger transcription factors comprise one of the largest and most diverse gene superfamilies and are involved in the transcriptional regulation of flowering. Although a large number of C2H2 zinc-finger proteins (C2H2-ZFPs) have been well characterized in a number of model plant species, little is known about their expression and function in Coptis teeta. C. teeta displays two floral phenotypes (herkogamy phenotypes). It has been proposed that the C2H2-zinc finger transcription factor family may play a crucial role in the formation of floral development and herkogamy observed in C. teeta. As such, we performed a genome-wide analysis of the C2H2-ZFP gene family in C. teeta. Results: The complexity and diversity of C. teeta C2H2 zinc finger proteins were established by evaluation of their physicochemical properties, phylogenetic relationships, exon-intron structure, and conserved motifs. Chromosome localization showed that 95 members of the C2H2 zinc-finger genes were unevenly distributed across the nine chromosomes of C. teeta, and that these genes were replicated in tandem and segmentally and had undergone purifying selection. Analysis of cis-acting regulatory elements revealed a possible involvement of C2H2 zinc-finger proteins in the regulation of phytohormones. Transcriptome data was then used to compare the expression levels of these genes during the growth and development of the two floral phenotypes (F-type and M-type). These data demonstrate that in groups A and B, the expression levels of 23 genes were higher in F-type flowers, while 15 genes showed higher expressions in M-type flowers. qRT-PCR analysis further revealed that the relative expression was highly consistent with the transcriptome data. Conclusion: These data provide a solid basis for further in-depth studies of the C2H2 zinc finger transcription factor gene family in this species and provide preliminary information on which to base further research into the role of the C2H2 ZFPs gene family in floral development in C. teeta.This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (project grant no: 31971543), Major Special Projects of Yunnan Province (Biomedicine) (project number: 202102AA310045), Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Department Agriculture Joint Special Project (projectnumber:202101BD070001-008)

The effect of dose, settling time, shelf life, storage temperature and extractant on Moringa oleifera Lam. protein coagulation efficiency

© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enmm.2024.100919The study explores green chemistry to purify drinking water using Moringa oleifera (MO) Lam. seeds. This is done by investigating the coagulation efficiency of MO seed extracts for treating moderately turbid water. The research reveals the influence of various factors such as dose, settling time, shelf life, storage temperature, and extractant (water and 1 M NaCl solution) on the coagulation efficiency of MO Lam. protein. The MO seed protein extracts (MOPE) dissolved in tap water, and 1 M NaCl solution was characterised for their performance at ambient temperature and 4 ℃. Within 3 h of MOPE treatment, the turbidity reduced by 90–93 % without significantly altering pH and total dissolved solids (TDS) or electrical conductivity (EC) of the treated water samples. Although the dose rate was found to increase with the storage time, the optimum Moringa oleifera dose was 30–50 mg/l. Overall, the refrigerated MOPE in NaCl offered an extended shelf life, exhibiting good coagulation for up to 7 days compared to 3–4 days for the non-refrigerated variant.Accepted versio

Exploring user experience and effectiveness of an innovative leanbuild UK project management software: usability study post development stage

Paper published by IGLC in the Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 32), 1st-7th July 2024, Auckland, New Zealand.This paper explores the usability and efficiency of the LeanBuild project management software; an innovative solution rooted in Lean Construction 4.0 principles. Through collaboration with the University of Wolverhampton UK, Kingston University UK, and London South Bank University UK, the LeanBuild Limited project presents a promising innovation in the construction industry. The integration of usability evaluations and user recommendations in software development is limited, despite the importance of usability testing. Even with limited adoption of construction project management software, Target Value Delivery principles are often overlooked. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, incorporating focus groups, questionnaires, and interviews to assess the software's usability. Recommendations gathered from industry practitioners, academics, and IT professionals emphasize the need for improvements such as financial reporting, critical path display, resource assignment features, simultaneous file uploads, BIM integration, enhanced security, and E-Tendering and Marketplace integration. The paper concludes that despite requiring further enhancements from its minimum viable product, LeanBuild is an effective solution, endorsed by users as a viable and scalable innovation with global applicability for efficient project delivery. This study highlights the importance of post-development usability checks and positions LeanBuild as a significant breakthrough in the construction software landscape

C2-symmetric amino acid amide-derived organocatalysts

© 2024 The Authors. Published by MDPI. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.3390/reactions5030027N-alkylated C2-symmetric amino acid amide derivatives were shown to catalyse the Michael addition of 2-hydroxy-1,4-napthoquinone to β-nitrostyrene, achieving a maximum ee of 44%. The corresponding trifluoroacetic acid salts also catalysed the aldol reaction between 4-nitrobenzaldehyde and hydroxyacetone, leading to the formation of predominantly syn-aldol products in up to 55% ee. Aspects of the solvent dependence of the aldol reaction and the H-bonding of the catalyst were investigated.This work was funded in part by the Iraqi government (Z.S.A.-T.) and supported by the Centre for Environmental Biotechnology Project part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF; RK) through the Welsh Government. Support was given by the EPSRC via the EPSRC National Crystallography Service.Published onlin

Investigating disparities in SMEs digitalisation

© The Enterprise Research Centre 2024. Research paper and policy briefing.This research investigates disparities in digitalisation among UK Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), with a specific focus on variations by gender, ethnicity, region, and industry. Adopting a mixed-method approach, data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data was obtained from a panel discussion with academics, SME owners, and industry experts, providing a practical perspective that bridges the gap between theory and practice in digital transformation, particularly in the context of SMEs. Secondary data was sourced from the UK Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) spanning from 2018 to 2022, which examines digital technology adoption trends across five key digitalisation indicators: Accountancy Software, HR Management Software, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software, AI/Robotics/Automation, and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) technologies

The millennial generation’s self-care practices – a poetic representation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the Professional Doctorate in Health & Wellbeing.Background: This study explored the poetics of the self-care practices of the millennial generation. Millennials are those with the starting birth years of early 1980s and ending birth years of 2000s. This was during the era of technological revolution and are thus known as digital natives. Having been born and raised with technology, they are a distinct generation which are culturally dissimilar to the previous generations. Being ubiquitous, dominating the higher education and workplace spaces, their health and wellbeing are of public health interest. While on one hand, there is tension in the literature on their ability to self-care, there is a gap in the literature on what their self-care practices can mean on the other hand. It was thus necessary to investigate their notion of self-care without the encumbrances of scientism. The study examined their self-care practices and made sense of them contextually in order to be culturally relevant to them. Methodology: The research design used poetic inquiry to relook at the self-care practices of the millennial generation. Poetic inquiry is a way of knowing and provides the space for polyvocal voices on a given concept. It is rooted in subjectivity and expressed using language, reflexivity, and metaphor. These poetic devices were helpful both in crafting the found poems from the graphic and textual data on millennials’ self-care practices provided by the study participants and in developing and discussing the themes that emerged. An inductive approach based on the Braun & Clarkes (2006) method was utilised as the analytical framework. This allowed fluidity in how the meanings were made and discussed. Findings: The study explored the self-care practices of the millennial generation through a primary study involving the use of digital theme boards and written stories on their self-care practices. The study contributes to furthering the body of knowledge of millennials’ self-care practices by providing found poems and exploring their meanings contextually. This threw up new themes, Academic Stress and the Ways to Overcome It; Parental Support among the Millennials; The Millennials’ Tribe; and Spirituality and Millennials’ Self-Care, and meanings on millennials’ self-care practices that extends knowledge which are useful for professional practice and further research. It offers new insights into the cultural values held by the millennial generation which are different from previous generations. The millennials’ self-care practices identified and discussed are exposed as important for their health and wellbeing. They trump the notion of scientism on what is acceptable as self-care practice and are thus canvassed for as necessary in holistic care. Recommendations: Quantitative research involving the use of structured questionnaire would be helpful in providing outcomes that are both generalisable and comparable with the current study. A longitudinal study which monitors the millennials till old age and the poetics thereof would be helpful to find out if their values are simply based on their young age or the generation to which they belong. Findings should be conveyed to health and wellbeing professionals working with young people to provide insights into the millennials’ self-care practices and the meanings

Dance injury monitoring, strength and conditioning training for decreasing injury incidence for Chinese pre-professional dancers

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.The high prevalence of dance injuries affects elements of training, rehearsals, performance, and even the daily lives of those involved. Therefore, reducing and preventing dance injuries is an ultimate goal. Previous studies have evidenced that greater levels of physical fitness have been linked to decreased injury incidence and improved dance performance, whilst they had not been reviewed. The systematic review, for the first time, systematically reviewed the efficacy of physical fitness training on dance injury. It included 10 studies that met the inclusion criteria from an initial 2450 publications. These studies offered physical fitness training for professional (n = 3) and pre-professional dancers (n = 7), participant sample size ranged between 5 to 62, ages from 11 to 27 years, and most participants were females. Assessment scores were classified as Fair (n = 1), Limited (n = 7), and Expert Opinion Only (n = 2) and risk of bias scores ranged from 22.7% to 68.2 %. After physical fitness training, 80 % of studies reported significant benefits in injury rate, the time between injuries, pain intensity, pain severity, missed dance activities and injury count. This review suggests that physical fitness training could have a beneficial effect on injury incidence in dance. The evidence is limited by the current study methodologies. Based on this evidence, the following studies (studies 1-4) focused on improving the level of evidence in study design, dance injury tracking methods, physical fitness training content and load, and dance injury reduction. In addition, previous research has mostly focused on Western populations, with only a few studies examining Chinese dancers. Therefore, using exclusively Chinese dancers, the aims of this thesis were fourfold: (a) to investigate and compare injury prevalence, causes, and risk factors before and during the COVID-19 lockdown, (b) to develop a dance injury monitoring tool on a weekly basis and examine its efficacy of weekly reporting and respondent compliance, (c) to determine injury incidence and injury severity of Chinese full-time pre-professional dancers using the injury monitoring tool, and (d) to examine the efficacy of strength and conditioning training on dance injury, physical fitness, and dance performance. Study 1 investigated dance injury in 2086 full-time Chinese pre-professional dancers pre- and post-COVID lockdown. Self-reports revealed that injury prevalence dropped significantly from 39.6% to 16.5% during this period (p<0.01). During the lockdown, the injuries on the lower back, feet and shoulders decreased significantly (p<0.01), but the knee, ankle and groin joint injuries remained the same. Fatigue and the recurrence of an old injury remained reported as the top two perceived causes of an injury between the two periods. Study 2 developed a weekly online dance injury monitoring tool and examined its efficacy. A total of 756 respondents from 16 different Chinese dance schools engaged in the survey. Over a two-semester period, the dropout rate was 70.1%, with student respondents under 18 years of age having a slightly lower drop-out rate than adult respondents (69% vs 71%). It was concluded that the researchers would need to weigh reduced completion rates (<100%) against data efficacy to achieve generalizability. Study 3 determined dance injury incidence and severity in full-time Chinese pre-professional dancers using the injury monitoring tool developed in Study 2. A total of 450 individuals’ data from 11 different schools were included in the analyses. The injury prevalence was 64.9%, and the injury incidence was 5.51 injuries per 1000 hours. Forty-eight percent of the injuries were minor severity and 41% were of moderate severity. Female dancers are at a higher risk of injury and reported higher levels of injury severity than male dancers (p<0.001). Study 4 examined the effects of a strength and conditioning training intervention on dance injury, physical fitness and dance performance. A total of 89 full-time pre-professional dancers participated. Sixty-seven dancers volunteered for a 12-week strength and conditioning training intervention (2-session/week, 40-60-min/session), and 22 dancers acted as controls. The injury was self-reported using the dance injury monitoring tool (Study 2). The intervention group significantly increased physical fitness (p0.05). The intervention group reported lower injury prevalence (28% vs 15%, p<0.001) and injury incidence (8.09 vs 5.16 injuries per 1000hrs, p<0.05) than the previous year. In conclusion, this thesis examined dance injury epidemiology following the COVID-19 arrival for a sizable sample size of Chinese pre-professional dancers and then determined injury incidence at a higher level of evidence using an innovative self-developed dance injury monitoring tool. Building on this, this thesis reinforced the positive effect of strength and conditioning training on dance injury incidence. The thesis has contributed to moving one step closer to reducing and preventing dance injuries and enriching the diversity of participants in dance injury studies.China Scholarship Council

Sustainable transformation of the United Arab Emirates oil and gas sector

This is an accepted manuscript of a paper due to be presented at Achieving transformation for greater good: Societal, organisational and personal barriers and enablers, 38th British Academy of Management Conference, 2nd– 6th September 2024, Nottingham Trent University, U.K The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.The global economy is facing a paradigm shift due to the increasing issues of sustainability. The oil and gas sector are at the centre of this change as it produces a significant amount of carbon emissions through burning of fossil fuels. As a large producer of oil and gas, UAE must act accordingly, to ensure sustainability in its oil explorations activities. This will ensure the surface temperatures are kept below 2oC as championed by Paris Agreement, COP28, and national sustainability targets. This research aims to critically review the sustainable transformation of the United Arab Emirates oil and gas sector by exploring the issues, strategies, challenges and barriers in the implementation of sustainability measures. This will also involve the appraisal of the status of nationally set targets to promote environmental, social and economic sustainability of the energy sector in UAE. This research presents quantitative analysis of data by conducting a systematic review of literature

Investigating the adoption of smart cities strategies for competitive advantage: MENA perspective

Paper delivered at Beyond Futures, Festival of Research and Innovation, Tuesday 16 – Thursday 18 July 2024, University of Wolverhampton

The use of a novel scent enrichment to improve captive primate welfare and its potential application to conservation breeding

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Scent-marking behaviours are common across vertebrates, having roles in territoriality, sex identification and advertising fertility. Lemurs which rely on olfactory communication are a conservation priority and modern zoos have a role in contributing to their conservation with captive breeding programmes. But mismatches between zoo and wild environments may lead to welfare problems, which can impact upon breeding success. To improve welfare, zoos routinely use environmental enrichments, including scents (typically essential oils) which may have applications to improve breeding success for lemurs. My project aims to study the scent-marking and odour profiles of zoo-housed crowned lemurs (Eulemur coronatus) and red-ruffed lemurs (Varecia rubra). I also aim to develop a novel, biologically-relevant scent enrichment based on odour profiles. Firstly, I examined the scent-marking behaviours and odour secretions released by lemurs, by combining commonly used behavioural sampling methods (scan sampling) and cutting-edge semiochemistry techniques, including solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and Gas-Chromatography-Mass-Spectrometry (GC-MS). I found that both male crowned (n= 1) and red-ruffed (n= 1) lemurs’ scent-mark significantly more than their respective females (n = 1 for both). I identified 12 volatile compounds on female red-ruffed lemur odour samples that may provide breeding season cues and used them to develop a novel scent enrichment. Following this, I tested this enrichment with groups (n= 4) of red-ruffed and black-and-white ruffed (V. variegata) lemurs housed at Twycross Zoo (n= 2), Dudley Zoo & Castle (n= 7) and Shaldon Wildlife Trust (n= 6). To assess both welfare and breeding indicators I combined behavioural observations with faecal endocrinology using enzyme immunoassay techniques to analyse cortisol and testosterone. The enrichment had effects on welfare, with a significant increase of active behaviours observed during the enrichment period in comparison to the baseline; however, stress-related behaviours and faecal cortisol concentration also increased. Encouragingly, the scent enrichment triggered sexual behaviours, crucially including mounting, in all but one male, but no effects were found on male faecal testosterone concentration. Thus, biologically-relevant scent enrichments have the potential to impact on conservation breeding and in the future this could be applied to other endangered species