Biophysical and electrochemical studies of protein-nucleic acid interactions

This review is devoted to biophysical and electrochemical methods used for studying protein-nucleic acid (NA) interactions. The importance of NA structure and protein-NA recognition for essential cellular processes, such as replication or transcription, is discussed to provide background for description of a range of biophysical chemistry methods that are applied to study a wide scope of protein-DNA and protein-RNA complexes. These techniques employ different detection principles with specific advantages and limitations and are often combined as mutually complementary approaches to provide a complete description of the interactions. Electrochemical methods have proven to be of great utility in such studies because they provide sensitive measurements and can be combined with other approaches that facilitate the protein-NA interactions. Recent applications of electrochemical methods in studies of protein-NA interactions are discussed in detail

Discovering Networks of Perturbed Biological Processes in Hepatocyte Cultures

The liver plays a vital role in glucose homeostasis, the synthesis of bile acids and the detoxification of foreign substances. Liver culture systems are widely used to test adverse effects of drugs and environmental toxicants. The two most prevalent liver culture systems are hepatocyte monolayers (HMs) and collagen sandwiches (CS). Despite their wide use, comprehensive transcriptional programs and interaction networks in these culture systems have not been systematically investigated. We integrated an existing temporal transcriptional dataset for HM and CS cultures of rat hepatocytes with a functional interaction network of rat genes. We aimed to exploit the functional interactions to identify statistically significant linkages between perturbed biological processes. To this end, we developed a novel approach to compute Contextual Biological Process Linkage Networks (CBPLNs). CBPLNs revealed numerous meaningful connections between different biological processes and gene sets, which we were successful in interpreting within the context of liver metabolism. Multiple phenomena captured by CBPLNs at the process level such as regulation, downstream effects, and feedback loops have well described counterparts at the gene and protein level. CBPLNs reveal high-level linkages between pathways and processes, making the identification of important biological trends more tractable than through interactions between individual genes and molecules alone. Our approach may provide a new route to explore, analyze, and understand cellular responses to internal and external cues within the context of the intricate networks of molecular interactions that control cellular behavior

Thrombospondin-1 in Early Flow-Related Remodeling of Mesenteric Arteries from Young Normotensive and Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

We tested the hypotheses that TSP-1 participates in the initiation of remodeling of small muscular arteries in response to altered blood flow and that the N-terminal domain of TSP-1 (hepI) can reverse the pathological inward remodeling of resistance arteries from SHR

EFEKTIVITAS PENGAWASAN UNIT KERJA ANTI FRAUD PADA BANK MUAMALAT INDONESIA

Perkembangan perbankan syari‟ah di Indonesia demikian pesat yang ditandai dengan berdirinya Bank Muamalat Indonesia. Perkembangan ini berimplikasi pada besarnya tantangan perbankan syari‟ah di Indonesia terutama dalam mempertahankan identitasnya sebagai perusahaan yang bergerak berlandaskan prinsip-prinsip syari‟ah. Sejak berdirinya perbankan syariah,berbagai kontroversi muncul dari masyarakat, masalah yang paling banyak disorot adalah pelekatan label syariah pada institusi keuangan Islam yang masih dianggap belum layak. Keraguan masyarakat tersebut seolah terjawab dengan munculnya kasus yang cukup menggemparkan yakni kasus fraud (tindak kecurangan) yang terjadi di lembaga syariah. Bank Muamalat Indonesia merupakan bank syari‟ah pertama yang muncul dengan gagasan bank murni syari‟ah. Akan tetapi, bank Muamalat Indonesia juga tak luput dari kasus fraud yang dilakukan oleh karyawan bank tersebut. Berdasarkan Laporan Tahunan BMI menyebutkan bahwa telah terjadi peningkatan kasus fraud dari tahun sebelumnya yang berjumlah 18 kasus menjadi 82 kasus pada tahun 2016. Padahal perusahaan yang menggunakan identitas syariah seharusnya dapat lebih meminimalisir bahkan meniadakan resiko terjadinya kasus fraud dengan adanya internal control perusahaan. Dari latar belakang tersebut, peneliti berusaha mendalami peran pengawasan Unit Kerja Anti Fraud dalam fraud preventive pada Bank Muamalat Indonesia. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitin pustaka yang bersifat deskriptif analisis dengan pendekatan kualitatif. Adapun sumber bahan hukum primer yang dipakai yaitu berdasarkan Laporan Tahunan Bank Muamalat Indonesia Tahun 2016. Sedangkan sumber bahan hukum sekunder berupa buku-buku, jurnal,karya ilmiah, artikel, terkait dengan strategi anti fraud perbankan syariah. Dari hasil penelitian dikemukakan bahwa peningkatan kasus fraud yang terjadi pada Bank Muamalat Indonesia disebabkan kurang efektifnya pengawasan Unit Kerja Anti Fraud. Hal ini dikarenakan kegiatan yang dilakukan selama tahun 2016 belum menujukkan adanya usaha preventif terhadap kasus fraud. Sedangkan pencegahan merupakan pilar penting dalam keefektivan sebuah pengawasan. Tujuan perusahaan dalam mencegah fraud dapat tercapai, jika fungsi pengawasan dilakukan sebelum terjadinya penyimpangan-penyimpangan sehingga lebih bersifat mencegah (prefentive control). Oleh karena itu, keefektivan pengawasan Unit Kerja Anti Fraud diharapkan dapat meminimalisir tindak kecurangan demi mewujudkan perusahaan yang patuh terhadap ketentuan syariah sesuai dengan identitas perusahaan. vii Usaha pencegahan terjadinya kasus pada Bank Muamalat Indonesia diharapkan dapat menjadi bukti terlaksananya tatakelola perusahaan (Good Corporate Governance) pada Bank Syari‟ah dengan baik. Hal ini berdasarkan dalam dalam perbankan syariah dikenal adanya prinsip-prinsip syariah yang mendukung bagi terlaksananya prinsip GCG yakni keharusan bagi subjek hukum termasuk bank untuk menerapkan prinsip kejujuran (shiddiq), edukasi kepada masyarakat (tabligh), kepercayaan (amanah), dan pengelolaan secara profesional (fathanah)

The impact of social media on consumers' acculturation and purchase intentions

YesSocial media has emerged as a significant and effective means of assisting and endorsing activities and communications among peers, consumers and organizations that outdo the restrictions of time and space. While the previous studies acknowledge the role of agents of culture change, it largely remains silent on the role of social media in influencing acculturation outcomes and consumption choices. This study uses self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 514 Turkish-Dutch respondents and examines how their use of social media affects their acculturation and consumption choices. This research makes a significant contribution to consumer acculturation research by showing that social media is a vital means of culture change and a driver of acculturation strategies and consumption choices. This study is the first to investigate the role of social media as an agent of culture change in terms of how it impacts acculturation and consumption. The paper discusses implications for theory development and for practice

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017) includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has led to an increase in life expectancy, an ageing global population, and an expansion of the non-fatal burden of disease and injury. These studies have also shown how a substantial portion of the world's population experiences non-fatal health loss with considerable heterogeneity among different causes, locations, ages, and sexes. Ongoing objectives of the GBD study include increasing the level of estimation detail, improving analytical strategies, and increasing the amount of high-quality data. Methods: We estimated incidence and prevalence for 354 diseases and injuries and 3484 sequelae. We used an updated and extensive body of literature studies, survey data, surveillance data, inpatient admission records, outpatient visit records, and health insurance claims, and additionally used results from cause of death models to inform estimates using a total of 68 781 data sources. Newly available clinical data from India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Norway, and Italy were incorporated, as well as updated claims data from the USA and new claims data from Taiwan (province of China) and Singapore. We used DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, as the main method of estimation, ensuring consistency between rates of incidence, prevalence, remission, and cause of death for each condition. YLDs were estimated as the product of a prevalence estimate and a disability weight for health states of each mutually exclusive sequela, adjusted for comorbidity. We updated the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary development indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Additionally, we calculated differences between male and female YLDs to identify divergent trends across sexes. GBD 2017 complies with the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting. Findings: Globally, for females, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and haemoglobinopathies and haemolytic anaemias in both 1990 and 2017. For males, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and tuberculosis including latent tuberculosis infection in both 1990 and 2017. In terms of YLDs, low back pain, headache disorders, and dietary iron deficiency were the leading Level 3 causes of YLD counts in 1990, whereas low back pain, headache disorders, and depressive disorders were the leading causes in 2017 for both sexes combined. All-cause age-standardised YLD rates decreased by 3·9% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 3·1–4·6) from 1990 to 2017; however, the all-age YLD rate increased by 7·2% (6·0–8·4) while the total sum of global YLDs increased from 562 million (421–723) to 853 million (642–1100). The increases for males and females were similar, with increases in all-age YLD rates of 7·9% (6·6–9·2) for males and 6·5% (5·4–7·7) for females. We found significant differences between males and females in terms of age-standardised prevalence estimates for multiple causes. The causes with the greatest relative differences between sexes in 2017 included substance use disorders (3018 cases [95% UI 2782–3252] per 100 000 in males vs s1400 [1279–1524] per 100 000 in females), transport injuries (3322 [3082–3583] vs 2336 [2154–2535]), and self-harm and interpersonal violence (3265 [2943–3630] vs 5643 [5057–6302]). Interpretation: Global all-cause age-standardised YLD rates have improved only slightly over a period spanning nearly three decades. However, the magnitude of the non-fatal disease burden has expanded globally, with increasing numbers of people who have a wide spectrum of conditions. A subset of conditions has remained globally pervasive since 1990, whereas other conditions have displayed more dynamic trends, with different ages, sexes, and geographies across the globe experiencing varying burdens and trends of health loss. This study emphasises how global improvements in premature mortality for select conditions have led to older populations with complex and potentially expensive diseases, yet also highlights global achievements in certain domains of disease and injury

Structurational explication of technology adoption In ICT4D: a throwback to Giddens

This chapter examines how Giddens’ social theory of structuration, which reconciles the classical dichotomy between structure and agency in sociology, can explicate success and failure of ICT for Development (ICT4D). Information Systems (IS) has keenly adopted structurational concepts from sociology to formulate a theoretical basis for understanding technology adoption and use in society. In its wake the original theory of structuration has been creatively re-interpreted. This chapter considers how technology adoption or rejection in developing societies can be explained through a faithful interpretation of the structuration theory, in terms of the characteristics of structure in Giddensian terms and agent–structure interaction. In a deliberate throwback to Giddens, specific IS questions oftechnology adoption are shown to be explained well by the original theory of structuration