Computational investigations on S-nitrosothiols.

Several computational investigations on the properties of S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs) and other interactions with the biochemically important Cu + ions are described. In Chapter 3, the ability of conventional electron correlation (MP2 and QCISD) and DFT (B3LYP and B3P86) methods to provide accurate and reliable structures and homolytic S--N BDEs, for a range of RSNOs is considered. With a suitable large basis set, i.e., 6-311+G(2df,p) or larger, the different methods generally give optimized structures in close agreement with each other; the B3LYP method consistently overestimates r(S--N). The trends observed are due in part to the fact that the RS--NO bond does not possess considerable double-bond character as previously suggested, but rather is a long single S--N bond. For BDEs, B3P86/6-311+G(2df,p) consistently gives best agreement with higher accuracy methods. For all RSNOs, QCISD significantly underestimates BDEs, Of the methods considered, B3P86/6-311+G(2df,p) is found to perform the best for obtaining optimized structures and homolytic S--N BDEs of S-nitrosothiols. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2004 .B32. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-01, page: 0350. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN THROUGH SPORTS

Sport offers more that physical health benefits, for many children and adolescents contributing to their successful personality shaping, to a better socialization and social development. There are more and more studies that offer data that support the idea that sports have an important role in the well balanced development of young people. We consider that sport sociology researches have the role to future emphasize even more the importance of sports into children lives. Dezvoltarea socială şi personală a copiilor prin sport. Sportul oferă mai mult decât beneficii referitoare la starea de sănătate fizică, pentru mulţi copii şi adolescenţi implicarea în activităţi sportive contribuind la formarea şi modelarea armonioasă a personalităţii lor, la o mai bună socializare în general. Sunt din ce în ce mai numeroase studiile care vin să ofere argumente pentru rolul benefic al sportului în dezvoltarea echilibrată a sinelui la copii şi adolescenţi. Considerăm important ca cercetările din domeniul sociologiei sportului să pună un accent sporit pe aspectele ce reliefează aceste contribuţii ale sportului la o bună dezvoltare personală şi socială a copiiilor şi tinerilor contribuind astfel la promovarea practicării lui. Cuvinte cheie: copii, sport, dezvoltare personală, dezvoltare social

SUPPLY CHAIN OUTSOURCING: MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING AND CONTROL SYSTEMS USED IN INTER-ORGANISATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Inter-organisational relationships created through outsourcing have become popular in recent years. Researchers have shown increased interest in management accounting and control systems used in such relationships, however previous studies identify potential areas for future research. The purpose of this research is to build on previous studies and to identify what management accounting and control systems organisations implement when they enter into an inter-organisational relationship following an outsourcing decision, in order to mitigate potential risks and maintain control over the supplier’s performance and activities. The methodology chosen is a case study conducted in an IT company that outsourced part of its supply chain function to a third party logistics provider. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with members of the Supply Chain and Procurement Teams. Findings show that risks are mitigated through partner selection criteria, contractual agreements and frequent meetings. The supplier’s performance is controlled through performance measurement tools, integrated information systems and cost models. The implementation of these management accounting and control systems enabled the partners to achieve a collaborative relationship. Keywords: outsourcing, inter-organisational relationships, management accounting and control system

Bioinformatics and biomolecular tools for biomarker discovery in peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Sporadic Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS) is a complex, invariably fatal, disease with a poorly understood cause, despite many studies. Diagnostic biomarkers that precede active symptoms would be an immense help to clinicians, for patient management, following the progress of clinical studies, and uncovering early events in the development and progression of the disease. Combining bioinformatics of microarrays and molecular biology assays we analyzed and extended the results from experiments performed on peripheral blood lymphocyte (PBL) fractions from an sALS and a normal-matched coronary artery disease (CAD) study. We developed a novel computational pipeline (LO-BaFL) to improve the power and discrimination of identifying differentially expressed (DE) genes on long-oligonucleotide arrays. From sALS samples we performed quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) validation assays that linked three novel genes, ACTG1, B2M, and ILKAP, to sALS. Selected regions of the DE transcripts were sequenced, which revealed a new, albeit non ALS-linked mutation. Genes revealed as DE by LO-BaFL were examined through pathway and network interaction analysis. Heightened profiles are seen in the immune response signature, apoptosis and responses to chemical stimulus; these correspond well to phenotypes associated with sALS and are good candidates for a simplified blood-based biomarker signature

Teaching methods and tools used in the adults’ education

The conception concerning the adults' education, even also in defining the term, was always tributary to the social and individual needs during one period or another. Due to the rapid changes which have occurred on the labour market in the last decades, the adults' education has become an interest of the society, first due to the fact that the principle, „I learn today, I produce tomorrow”, has turned into „I learn today, I produce today”. These continuous changes have led to modifying the school position within the society, the school being forced to direct its attention not only upon the students but also upon the adults' education. In the adults' education, the main role is held by the capacity of learning achieved before, the type and reasons of learning and not the age as such. For the adults, school is correlated with work. The modernizing of the adults' educational activities has been made with practical-demonstrative methods which got a particular importance due to the use of the heuristics principles, the discovery of new ideas, significances or skills of major interest. The active participation in the one's own education represents the main course of these methods, this explains the strong extent they knew in the last years and the desire of those who organize courses for adults to know and use mainly such methods. The diversity of the methods used is very large, a part of them being used successfully also in the students' education, the most frequent being: debate, symposium, test and grids, examination, round-table, project, sharing of experience, industrial training, team-work, work with computer. The evaluation tools of the acquirements the adults gathered from their former experience, formally or informally, used successfully are: portfolio, teaching practice notebook, case study. The courses of training organized and the international projects carried on this theme in our school allowed us to apply successfully these methods and promulgate them

The effect of the treatments application of some bioactive substances on the productions obtained at the eggplants aubergines

Among the modern methods of the vegetable plants growing which take into account the production the production increase both regarding the quantitative aspect and the quality aspect one can find those of use of different chemical factors, among which the growth phytoregulators have great importance. This bioactive substance (matters) has a favorable effect as what concerns the vital processes of the vegetal organism .Within the experience one took into account view the investigated amino-acids are without exception at all the used substances and in all the used substances and in all stages of organo-genesis. For the proposed research, we have chosen two species, respectively Long Purple and Pana Corbului. The experience was divided into four variants and we applied the following treatments with bioactive substance: V!- reference sample untreated; V2- Atonik 0.05%; -V3- Revital 0.05%; - V4 Gibereline GA0.001%. During the experience we made observation and biometrical determinations concerning the fruits harvest at the technological maturity. The average of the early and total production obtained makes evident the benefic effect of the treatments applied with different bioactive substances through very significant differences and respectively significant at two between the experimental variants V2 (Atonik 0,05%) and V3(Revital 0,05%) in comparison with the reference sample variant both to Long Purple species and to Pana Corbului species. At the two species, the differences of production achieved at V4(Gibereline 0,001%) in comparison to the reference sample untreated were negative. We (Gibereline ( 0,001%) in comparison to the reference sample untread were negative. We must mention too the fact that the plants treated with the two bioactive substances, respectively Atonik0,05% and Revital 0,05% have become more resistant to illnesses and the climate conditions

Leczenie akromegalii w Rumunii. Jak blisko jesteśmy uzyskania kontroli nad chorobą?

Introduction: In Romania, no nationwide data for acromegaly treatment and control rate are available. Our objective was to assess the acromegaly control rate in a tertiary referral centre, which covers an important part of Romanian territory and population of patients with acromegaly. Materials and methods: We reviewed the records of all 164 patients (49 males and 115 females; median age 55 [47, 63.5] years) with newly or previously diagnosed acromegaly, who have been assessed at least once in our tertiary referral centre between January 1, 2012 and March 31, 2016. This sample represents 13.6% of the total expected 1200 Romanian patients with acromegaly and covers 82.9% of the counties in Romania. Control of acromegaly was defined as a random serum growth hormone (GH) < 1 ng/mL and an age-normalised serum insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) value. The GH and IGF-I values used for calculation of the control rate were those at the last evaluation. The same assays for GH and IGF-I measurement were used in all patients. Results: There were 147 treated and 17 untreated patients. Of the 147 patients assessed after therapy, 137 (93.2%) had pituitary surgery, 116 (78.9%) were on medical treatment at the last evaluation, and 67 (45.5%) had radiotherapy. Seventy-one (48.3%) had a random GH < 1 ng/mL, 54 (36.7%) had a normalised, age-adjusted IGF-I, and 42 (28.6%) had both normal random serum GH and IGF-I. Conclusions: In Romania, acromegaly benefits from the whole spectrum of therapeutic interventions. However, the control rate remains disappointing.Wstęp: W Rumunii nie są dostępne ogólnokrajowe dane dotyczące leczenia akromegalii ani wskaźnika kontroli choroby. Badanie przeprowadzono w celu oceny wskaźnika kontroli akromegalii w ośrodku referencyjnym trzeciego stopnia, który obejmuje opieką zdrowotną znaczną część obszaru Rumunii i populacji pacjentów z akromegalią. Materiał i metody: Autorzy dokonali przeglądu danych medycznych wszystkich 164 chorych [49 mężczyzn i 115 kobiet; mediana wieku 55 lat (47; 63,5)] z noworozpoznaną lub wcześniej zdiagnozowaną akromegalią, których przynajmniej jednokrotnie zbadano w ośrodku referencyjnym trzeciego stopnia (miejsce pracy autorów) w okresie od 1 stycznia 2012 roku do 31 marca 2016 roku. Ta próba stanowiła 13,6% całej rumuńskiej populacji chorych na akromegalię szacowaną na 1200 osób i reprezentowała 82,9% okręgów administracyjnych w Rumunii. Kontrolę akromegalii definiowano jako stężenie przygodne hormonu wzrostu (growth hormone, GH) w surowicy wynoszące poniżej 1 ng/ml oraz normalizacja odpowiednio do wieku stężenia insulinopodobnego czynnika wzrostu 1 (insulin-like growth factor-1, IGF-1) w surowicy. Do obliczenia wskaźnika kontroli choroby stosowano wartości GH i IGF-1 z ostatnich pomiarów. U wszystkich pacjentów używano tych samych testów do pomiarów GH i IGF-1. Wyniki: Badanie obejmowało 147 chorych poddanych leczeniu i 17 chorych nieleczonych. Spośród 147 chorych ocenianych po terapii, u 137 (93,2%) zastosowano leczenie chirurgiczne, 116 (78,9%) w momencie ostatniej wizyty kontrolnej stosowało leczenie farmakologiczne, a 67 (45,5%) poddano radioterapii. U 71 chorych (48,3%) przygodne stężenie GH w surowicy wynosiło poniżej 1 ng/ml, u 54 (36,7%) uzyskano normalizację stężenia IGF-1 skorygowanego względem wieku, a u 42 chorych (28,6%) uzyskano normalizację obu parametrów — GH i IGF-1. Wnioski: W Rumunii u chorych na akromegalię stosuje się szerokie spektrum interwencji terapeutycznych, jednak wskaźnik kontroli choroby nadal pozostaje niezadawalający