Regulation of Topoisomerase IIa expression in humans : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biochemistry at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

In mammalian cells, the loss or down-regulation of tumour-suppressor genes and/or the mutation or overexpression of proto-oncogenes, whose products promote unregulated proliferation in cells, characterise the process of malignant transformation. This generates mitogenic signals that promote abnormal cell growth resulting in tumour progression. Topoisomerase IIα (topo IIα) is an enzyme present in elevated concentrations in highly proliferating cells due to the requirement for untwisting and unknotting of the DNA which is essential for replication. Because of this requirement, a number of anti-cancer drugs have been designed with topo IIα as their primary target. The effectiveness of these drugs however is limited by the development of resistance. One factor linked to drug resistance is the down-regulation of topo IIα at the transcription level. Expression of topo IIα appears to be regulated through various transcription factors with members of the Spl family having a major contribution. Previous work has shown down regulation of topo IIα can occur at the level of transcription. Nucleotide sequencing of the topo IIα promoter in drug-resistant cell lines has not revealed any mutations thus far. Three known proteins and one uncharacterised protein are capable of interacting with the proximal topo IIα promoter region. The uncharacterised protein may act as a co-activator or a co-repressor depending on the complement of transcription factors associated with the DNA in this region. Because drug resistant cell lines showed modulated expression of these transcription factors, it is important to identify the unknown protein and characterise its role in regulating topo IIα expression. This research aimed to identify the minimal binding site and DNA elements required for the uncharacterised protein to bind, as well as introduce mutations into this proximal region and examine their functional significance. The results of this study could provide insights into the molecular mechanisms responsible for the development of drug resistance, contributing to more efficient and effective methods for the treatment of cancer

Sensory quality of scab-resistant apple cultivars

Twenty-two scab-resistant apple cultivars were harvested in autumn 1999 and evaluated for sensory quality the following October, November and December. Multivariate analysis was effective in describing the comblex relationships and variabillity among the numerous attributes used to characterise apple quality. Crispness, mealiness, skin toughness, apple flavour, sweetness, unripe flavour and overripe flavour were informative attributes describing the variation in the sensory quality. Texture attributes, apple flavour and overripe flavour were affected by storage. Extended storage resulted in an increase in mealiness and overripe flavour and a decrease in crispness, juiciness and apple flavour. Many potential scab-resistant cultivars were suitable for consumption in October: 'Dayton', 'Primicia', 'Retina' and 'Realka'; in November: 'Merlijn', 'Saturn', 'Initial', 'Realka', 'Rajka' and 'Rubinola'; and in December: 'Otava', 'Ecolette', 'Rejka', 'Rubinola', 'Delorina', 'Initial' and 'Resista' and 'Topaz'. This study gives a sensory sharacterisation of scab-resistant cultivars as an indicator of suitability for commercial growing and marketing of low-input apple cultivars

The Comparison of High and Low Shear Viscometers for Determining Rheological Characteristics in Pigmented Coatings

Introduction The purpose of this investigation was to determine if there was any relationship between the rheograms of the Hercules High Shear Viscometer and the Stormer Low Shear Viscometer when applied to paper pigmented coatings

Robust H∞ filtering for markovian jump systems with randomly occurring nonlinearities and sensor saturation: The finite-horizon case

This article is posted with the permission of IEEE - Copyright @ 2011 IEEEThis paper addresses the robust H∞ filtering problem for a class of discrete time-varying Markovian jump systems with randomly occurring nonlinearities and sensor saturation. Two kinds of transition probability matrices for the Markovian process are considered, namely, the one with polytopic uncertainties and the one with partially unknown entries. The nonlinear disturbances are assumed to occur randomly according to stochastic variables satisfying the Bernoulli distributions. The main purpose of this paper is to design a robust filter, over a given finite-horizon, such that the H∞ disturbance attenuation level is guaranteed for the time-varying Markovian jump systems in the presence of both the randomly occurring nonlinearities and the sensor saturation. Sufficient conditions are established for the existence of the desired filter satisfying the H∞ performance constraint in terms of a set of recursive linear matrix inequalities. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed filter design scheme.This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61028008, 60825303, and 61004067, National 973 Project under Grant 2009CB320600, the Key Laboratory of Integrated Automation for the Process Industry (Northeastern University) from the Ministry of Education of China, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the U.K., under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Royal Society of the U.K., and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Performance of original New Zealand themed choral work 'Summer Christmas' composed by Wayne Senior

'Summer Christmas' was chosen to be performed in Camerata Chamber Choir's November 14, 2018 Christmas program which was subsequently titled 'Summer Christmas’ About the work: (dur. 6:20) with music and lyrics composed by Wayne Senior, speaks in evocative settings of things relevant to New Zealand referencing beach scenes, the warmth of the summer sun, native birds, the mighty Kauri and ‘our very own Christmas tree’ the iconic Pohutukawa, whilst drawing comparisons with winter Christmas in ‘cooler climes’ (e.g. 'no chestnuts roasting on an open fire’ and a new setting of ‘O Magnum Mysterium’) closing with a choral representation of church bells. My original text is a combination of English, Te reo Māori and Latin, incorporating translations by Honi Rawhiti (George Lusty). The setting of ‘O Magnum Mysterium’ is in Latin with alternating lines in English and Te Reo Māori. Scored for choir and piano, it is envisioned that an enhanced accompaniment will be added for possible future performances with orchestral resources if and when required. Also that it will be re-scored in other versions for young students' choir and a less advanced version for community choir

Pairwise Check Decoding for LDPC Coded Two-Way Relay Block Fading Channels

Partial decoding has the potential to achieve a larger capacity region than full decoding in two-way relay (TWR) channels. Existing partial decoding realizations are however designed for Gaussian channels and with a static physical layer network coding (PLNC). In this paper, we propose a new solution for joint network coding and channel decoding at the relay, called pairwise check decoding (PCD), for low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded TWR system over block fading channels. The main idea is to form a check relationship table (check-relation-tab) for the superimposed LDPC coded packet pair in the multiple access (MA) phase in conjunction with an adaptive PLNC mapping in the broadcast (BC) phase. Using PCD, we then present a partial decoding method, two-stage closest-neighbor clustering with PCD (TS-CNC-PCD), with the aim of minimizing the worst pairwise error probability. Moreover, we propose the minimum correlation optimization (MCO) for selecting the better check-relation-tabs. Simulation results confirm that the proposed TS-CNC-PCD offers a sizable gain over the conventional XOR with belief propagation (BP) in fading channels.Comment: to appear in IEEE Trans. on Communications, 201

Press Dewatering of Sludge with Applications of an Electric Field

In the paper industry today, there is a rising concern over the question of what to do with the paper mill sludge. Although in the past most of the sludge was sent to a landfill, this disposal method is becoming less and less acceptable due to increasing environmental concerns, decreasing landfill space and increasing costs. Since sludge contains a large fraction of water, one of the alternatives is to increase the dewaterability of the sludge through the use of electrokinetic forces. Increased dewatering of the sludge would allow for more economical alternatives to sludge disposal, such as incineration, as well as decrease the sludge handling, transportation, and disposal costs by reducing both volume and weight. The main objective of this thesis was to determine if the application of an electric current through a sludge press would increase the amount of dewatering in the sludge. A simulated press that allowed for the sludge to be pressed in-between two charged screens and water to be collected from both the top and bottom of the press was designed and constructed. During experimentation, drainage amounts and final sludge consistency was collected under varying voltage applications and compared to a control run with no voltage. From the results, it could be concluded that the application of an electric field did indeed help increase the dewaterability of the sludge. The results also show that ion migration does take place in the sludge with positively charged particles carrying water molecules towards the negatively charged screen. Further studies in applying this concept at higher pressing consistencies as well as other applications is recommended

Reducing Decomposition Time in Landfills by an Aerobic Process

This experiment was performed to determine if sludge produced by the paper industry could be composted faster by promoting the aerobic degradation process. To perform this experiment, I chose a sludge produced by a virgin pulp mill. Once I collected sludge, it was dewatered to a moisture content of sixty-five percent or less. As soon as the sludge was dewatered, I set up four separate composting systems, three of which were run under aerobic conditions and one that was run under anaerobic conditions. The anaerobic conditions only had sludge and plastic for its bulking agent. In the aerobic systems there were three different types of bulking agents used; pine bark, plastic and compost. In the aerobic systems air was introduced into the system. To determine how fast each of the processes was composting, I collected the gases that were produced by each of the systems. The gases that are produced by an anaerobic process was carbon dioxide and methane, whereas an aerobic process produces carbon dioxide and water. Therefore, by analyzing the gases produced by each of the systems periodically and determining the amount of carbon dioxide produced by each of the systems, one can determine the rate of decomposition of the sludge for each of the separate systems. Also the chemical oxygen demand (COD) was determined for each of the system, before and after the degradation occurred. COD was used to measure that content of organic matter in the sludge. This also helped in determining the degradation that has occurred in each of the systems

The Aging of Recycled Fibers

The object of this thesis is to study the aging of recycled paper, focusing on strength and optical properties. To observe the changes in these properties, the following experimental procedure was used. 100% softwood fibers were pulped, made into handsheets, tested, artificially aged, again tested, repulped and bleached before being made into handsheets once again. Because of cross-linking due to heating, the aging strength losses were masked

An Analysis of the Wash and Flotation Deinking Processes

The purpose of this paper is to obtain data, so that we may compare the ability of Floatation vs. Wash deinking to produce a paper of equal standards as the original unprinted base-stock. It was determined that both flotation and wash deinked stock with the addition of 40% fresh pulp can produce a paper of equal physical and optical properties as the unprinted stock from which it was made. Floatation deinked stock was found have a higher materials cost, however, it displayed better strength and opacity properties than wash deinked stock. The difference is thought to result from a large fines loss in the wash deinking process