The action of rennin on B-casein : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Chemistry at Massey University

A study was made of the action of the enzyme rennin on β-casein. Hydrolysis of β-casein initially at a single sensitive bond under controlled conditions of temperature, pH and relative enzyme and substrate concentrations, formed the basis of the investigation. Information on the hydrolysis of this sensitive bond was gained from the isolation of a small peptide produced and from a study of the effect of several parameters on the rate of hydrolysis. Evidence obtained from electrophoresis and gel filtration allowed the assumption that attack on the sensitive bond resulted in a macropeptide and a small peptide of molecular weight about 2000. The small peptide was isolated and partially characterised. As a result it appears that the small peptide is derived from the C-terminal end of the β-casein molecule. A polyacrylamide electrophoresis technique was used to study the effect of ionic strength and calcium ions on the rate of hydrolysis and the rate of appearance and disappearance of degradation products at 10°, 25° and 37°C. It was found that an increase in ionic strength retarded the reaction and the addition of calcium ions at a constant ionic strength further retarded the reaction. Also, the rate of appearance and disappearance of degradation products was found to increase with increasing temperature. A development of the polyacrylamide technique into a quantitative one enabled the determination of the Michaelis constant at pH 6.50 and 37°C for the rennin hydrolysis of β-casein as 9-59 g/1. This technique was also used to study the rate of hydrolysis at pH 6.12, 6.50 and 6.94 where an optimum rate occurred at pH 6.50. Finally, assuming that the small peptide is derived from the C-terminal end of the β-casein molecule and allowing for the sequential degradation elucidated by the temperature studies, alternative courses of rennin degradation of the β-casein molecule have been proposed

Entanglement and quantum gate processes in the one-dimensional quantum harmonic oscillator

Quantum states can contain correlations which are stronger than is possible in classical systems. Quantum information technologies use these correlations, which are known as entanglement, as a resource for implementing novel protocols in a diverse range of fields such as cryptography, teleportation and computing. However, current methods for generating the required entangled states are not necessarily robust against perturbations in the proposed systems. In this thesis, techniques will be developed for robustly generating the entangled states needed for these exciting new technologies. The thesis starts by presenting some basic concepts in quantum information proccessing. In Ch. 2, the numerical methods which will be used to generate solutions for the dynamic systems in this thesis are presented. It is argued that using a GPU-accelerated staggered leapfrog technique provides a very efficient method for propagating the wave function. In Ch. 3, a new method for generating maximally entangled two-qubit states using a pair of interacting particles in a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator is proposed. The robustness of this technique is demonstrated both analytically and numerically for a variety of interaction potentials. When the two qubits are initially in the same state, no entanglement is generated as there is no direct qubit-qubit interaction. Therefore, for an arbitrary initial state, this process implements a root-of-swap entangling quantum gate. Some possible physical implementations of this proposal for low-dimensional semiconductor systems are suggested. One of the most commonly used qubits is the spin of an electron. However, in semiconductors, the spin-orbit interaction can couple this qubit to the electron's momentum. In order to incorporate this e ffect into our numerical simulations, a new discretisation of this interaction is presented in Ch. 4 which is signi ficantly more accurate than traditional methods. This technique is shown to be similar to the standard discretisation for magnetic fields. In Ch. 5, a simple spin-precession model is presented to predict the eff ect of the spin-orbit interaction on the entangling scheme of Ch. 3. It is shown that the root-of-swap quantum gate can be restored by introducing an additional constraint on the system. The robustness of the gate to perturbations in this constraint is demonstrated by presenting numerical solutions using the methods of Ch. 4.This work was supported by a Doctoral Training Grant awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

High loading of polygenic risk for ADHD in children with comorbid aggression

Objective: Although attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is highly heritable, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have not yet identified any common genetic variants that contribute to risk. There is evidence that aggression or conduct disorder in children with ADHD indexes higher genetic loading and clinical severity. The authors examine whether common genetic variants considered en masse as polygenic scores for ADHD are especially enriched in children with comorbid conduct disorder. Method: Polygenic scores derived from an ADHD GWAS meta-analysis were calculated in an independent ADHD sample (452 case subjects, 5,081 comparison subjects). Multivariate logistic regression analyses were employed to compare polygenic scores in the ADHD and comparison groups and test for higher scores in ADHD case subjects with comorbid conduct disorder relative to comparison subjects and relative to those without comorbid conduct disorder. Association with symptom scores was tested using linear regression. Results: Polygenic risk for ADD, derived from the meta-analysis, was higher in the independent ADHD group than in the comparison group. Polygenic score was significantly higher in ADHD case subjects with conduct disorder relative to ADHD case subjects without conduct disorder. ADHD polygenic score showed significant association with comorbid conduct disorder symptoms. This relationship was explained by,the aggression items. Conclusions: Common genetic variation is relevant to ADHD, especially in individuals with comorbid aggression. The findings suggest that the previously published ADHD GWAS meta-analysis contains weak but true associations with common variants, support for which falls below genome-wide significance levels. The findings also highlight the fact that aggression in ADHD indexes genetic as well as clinical severity

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software

Adhesion Failures Determine the Pattern of Choroidal Neovascularization in the Eye: A Computer Simulation Study

Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) of the macular area of the retina is the major cause of severe vision loss in adults. In CNV, after choriocapillaries initially penetrate Bruch's membrane (BrM), invading vessels may regress or expand (CNV initiation). Next, during Early and Late CNV, the expanding vasculature usually spreads in one of three distinct patterns: in a layer between BrM and the retinal pigment epithelium (sub-RPE or Type 1 CNV), in a layer between the RPE and the photoreceptors (sub-retinal or Type 2 CNV) or in both loci simultaneously (combined pattern or Type 3 CNV). While most studies hypothesize that CNV primarily results from growth-factor effects or holes in BrM, our three-dimensional simulations of multi-cell model of the normal and pathological maculae recapitulate the three growth patterns, under the hypothesis that CNV results from combinations of impairment of: 1) RPE-RPE epithelial junctional adhesion, 2) Adhesion of the RPE basement membrane complex to BrM (RPE-BrM adhesion), and 3) Adhesion of the RPE to the photoreceptor outer segments (RPE-POS adhesion). Our key findings are that when an endothelial tip cell penetrates BrM: 1) RPE with normal epithelial junctions, basal attachment to BrM and apical attachment to POS resists CNV. 2) Small holes in BrM do not, by themselves, initiate CNV. 3) RPE with normal epithelial junctions and normal apical RPE-POS adhesion, but weak adhesion to BrM (e.g. due to lipid accumulation in BrM) results in Early sub-RPE CNV. 4) Normal adhesion of RBaM to BrM, but reduced apical RPE-POS or epithelial RPE-RPE adhesion (e.g. due to inflammation) results in Early sub-retinal CNV. 5) Simultaneous reduction in RPE-RPE epithelial binding and RPE-BrM adhesion results in either sub-RPE or sub-retinal CNV which often progresses to combined pattern CNV. These findings suggest that defects in adhesion dominate CNV initiation and progression

The genetic architecture of type 2 diabetes

The genetic architecture of common traits, including the number, frequency, and effect sizes of inherited variants that contribute to individual risk, has been long debated. Genome-wide association studies have identified scores of common variants associated with type 2 diabetes, but in aggregate, these explain only a fraction of heritability. To test the hypothesis that lower-frequency variants explain much of the remainder, the GoT2D and T2D-GENES consortia performed whole genome sequencing in 2,657 Europeans with and without diabetes, and exome sequencing in a total of 12,940 subjects from five ancestral groups. To increase statistical power, we expanded sample size via genotyping and imputation in a further 111,548 subjects. Variants associated with type 2 diabetes after sequencing were overwhelmingly common and most fell within regions previously identified by genome-wide association studies. Comprehensive enumeration of sequence variation is necessary to identify functional alleles that provide important clues to disease pathophysiology, but large-scale sequencing does not support a major role for lower-frequency variants in predisposition to type 2 diabetes

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis