Lipolytic enzymes from the bovine rumen : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biochemistry at Massey University

1.1. Lipid metabolism in the ruminants and significance of hydrolysis and hydrogenation in the rumen. The digestion pattern of ruminants differs from other mammals in that the food of ruminants is subjected to a microbial fermentation in the rumen before passing into the true stomach. Carbohydrates, proteins, organic acids and many other food constituents are attacked by the micro organisms in the rumen and as a result short-chain fatty acids (VFA), CO2 , CH4 , NH3 etc. are produced as the end product of microbial metabolism. This ruminal fermentation has a considerable effect on the metabolic processes of the animal and moreover the functions of the rumen microorganisms are intimately associated with certain metabolic disorders of the ruminant (Bryant, 1959) e.g. Ketosis, bloat etc. It is now generally believed that the organisms of functional significance in the rumen are protozoa and bacteria which are capable of growth under the anaerobic conditions prevailing. The rumen provides an ideal anaerobic environment for a large and diverse microbial population at a temperature of 39°-40°C. The pH of the ingesta is slightly acid and the bacteria are adapted to live between pH 5.5 and 7.0 (Hungate, 1966). It is apparent from earlier studies that the lipids of ruminants differ in several respects from those of non-ruminant herbivorous animals in particular. Occurrence of unusually high proportions of stearic acid and the presence of trans acids and isomeric forms of oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid in depot fats and tissue lipids are peculiar to ruminants. [From Introduction

Airborne occupational exposures and the risk of developing respiratory symptoms and airway obstruction in the Lifelines Cohort Study

OBJECTIVES: To date, only a few studies have investigated the associations between occupational exposures and respiratory outcomes longitudinally in the general population. We investigated the associations between occupational exposures and the development of respiratory symptoms and airway obstruction in the Lifelines Cohort Study. METHODS: We included 35 739 occupationally active subjects with data on chronic cough, chronic phlegm, chronic bronchitis or airway obstruction at baseline and approximately 4.5 years follow-up. Exposures to biological dust, mineral dust, gases/fumes, pesticides, solvents and metals in the current job at baseline were estimated with the ALOHA+job-exposure matrix (JEM). Airway obstruction was defined as FEV1/FVC below the lower limit of normal. Logistic regression analysis adjusted for baseline covariates was used to investigate the associations. RESULTS: At follow-up, 1888 (6.0%), 1495 (4.7%), 710 (2.5%) and 508 (4.5%) subjects had developed chronic cough, chronic phlegm, chronic bronchitis and airway obstruction, respectively. High exposure to biological dust was associated with a higher odds to develop chronic cough and chronic bronchitis. High exposure to pesticides was associated with a higher odds for the development of all respiratory symptoms and airway obstruction. In the multiple exposures analyses, only the association between pesticides exposure and respiratory symptoms remained. CONCLUSIONS: Subjects exposed to high pesticides had a higher odds to develop respiratory symptoms on average 4.5 years later. Control measures should be taken to reduce pesticides exposure among the working population to prevent respiratory symptoms and airway obstruction

Enhancing GI Cancer Radiation Therapy: Advanced Organ Segmentation with ResECA-U-Net Model

This research introduces a pioneering solution to the challenges posed by gastrointestinal tract (GI) cancer in radiation therapy, focusing on the imperative task of precise organ segmentation for minimizing radiation-induced damage. GI imaging has historically used manual demarcation, which is laborious and uncomfortable for patients. We address this by introducing the ResECA-U-Net deep learning model, a novel combination of the U-Net and ResNet34 architectures. Furthermore, we further augment its functionality by incorporating the Efficient Channel Attention (ECA-Net) methodology. By utilizing data from the UW-Madison Carbone Cancer Center, we carefully investigate several image processing techniques designed to capture critical local characteristics. With its foundation in computer vision concepts, the ResECA-U-Net model is excellent at extracting fine details from GI images. Sophisticated metrics such as intersection over union (IoU) and the dice coefficient are used to evaluate performance. Our study's outcomes demonstrate the effectiveness of the suggested method, yielding an impressive 96.27% Dice coefficient and 91.48% IoU. These results highlight the significant contribution that our strategy has made to the advancement of cancer therapy. Beyond its scientific merits, this work has the potential to significantly enhance cancer patients' quality of life and provide better long-term outcomes. Our work is a significant step towards automating and optimizing the segmentation process, which can potentially change how GI cancer is treated completely. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2024-08-03-012 Full Text: PD

Social Network and Tax Evasion: Theoretical Model and Empirical Evidence in Bangladesh

This paper examines ethical and behavioral aspects of taxpayers, the financial condition of citizens, tax fairness, taxpayer services, complexities in the tax regime, tax rates, penalties and enforcement, and tax amnesties and the black economy. Primary data were collected by conducting a survey utilizing structured printed questionnaires. Secondary data were collected from project reports, government publications and documents, books, journals, reports, newspapers and electronic media. Empirical findings suggest that all these issues are associated with tax evasion in Bangladesh. We also find that eligibility in a social network increases the likelihood that others will take-up. This suggests that taxpayers affect each other’s decisions about tax avoidance, highlighting the importance of accounting for social interactions in understanding enforcement and tax avoidance behavior, and providing a concrete example of optimization frictions in the context of behavioral responses to taxation. The involvement and nexus of the three actors in tax policy formulation, implementation and compliance processes were examined. The empirical findings indicate the presence of this nexus which facilitates tax evasion. The high magnitude of tax evasion in Bangladesh is significantly acknowledged by respondents in the study. The empirical findings suggest that the absence of a participatory policy making process, lack of research into, and reform of, the tax system, short-term oriented and politically motivated tax policies, loopholes, anomalies and complexities of tax laws and policies are responsible for creating scope for tax evasion

Socio-economic Factors of Tax Compliance: An Empirical Study of Individual Taxpayers in the Dhaka Zones, Bangladesh

Tax compliance can be affected by many factors such as magnitude of compliance cost, the extent of penalty, perceived fairness of the tax system, awareness level of taxpayers and perceptions of government spending. The purpose of the study is identifying factors that affect compliance of individual income taxpayers in Bangladesh. The target population of the study is individual income taxpayers of the fifteen zones of Dhaka. The sample size is determined to 385 self-assessment assesse and 376 general procedure return submitted income taxpayers to which the questionnaire was distributed during the period of 1st December 2019 to 15th February, 2020. The results of the ordered logistic regression model reveal that the fairness, tax penalty and relationship with regard to taxpayer’s perception of government spending have positive and significant relationships with compliance. It also examines the effects of compliance decisions of referrals on others compliance decisions. The findings show a negative but insignificant relationship between them which implies that individual income taxpayer’s make their compliance decisions independent of others' decisions. Finally, the study having evaluated the effect of cost of complying with the tax law on tax compliance and concluded that there is a negative relationship between them implying that higher cost of compliance will lead to lower levels of compliance. Therefore, this paper suggests that maintaining tax fairness, optimum levels of penalty, spending the tax revenue on public development projects, keeping tax rates to the minimum as much as possible and keeping compliance costs to the minimum can enhance the compliance of taxpayers

Psychosocial work factors and blood pressure among 63 800 employees from The Netherlands in the Lifelines Cohort Study

OBJECTIVES: Previous studies on the association between psychosocial work factors and blood pressure mainly focused on specific occupations or populations and had limited sample sizes. We, therefore, investigated the associations between psychosocial work factors and blood pressure in a large general working population in the Netherlands. METHODS: We included 63 800 employees from the Netherlands, aged 18–65 years, with blood pressure measurements and a reliable job code at baseline. Psychosocial work factors (job strain, effort–reward imbalance (ERI) and emotional demands) in the current job were estimated with three recently developed psychosocial job exposure matrices. To examine the associations, regression analyses adjusted for covariates (age, sex, body mass index, education, monthly income, pack-years, smoking, alcohol consumption and antihypertensive medication (not included for hypertension)) were performed. RESULTS: Higher job strain was associated with higher systolic blood pressure (SBP) (B (regression coefficients) (95% CI) 2.14 (1.23 to 3.06)) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (B (95% CI) 1.26 (0.65 to 1.86)) and with higher odds of hypertension (OR (95% CI) 1.43 (1.17 to 1.74)). Higher ERI was associated with higher DBP (B (95% CI) 4.37 (3.05 to 5.68)), but not with SBP or hypertension. Higher emotional demands were associated with lower SBP (B (95% CI) −0.90 (−1.14 to −0.66)) and lower odds of hypertension ((OR) (95% CI) 0.91 (0.87 to 0.96)). CONCLUSIONS: In the general working population, employees in jobs with high job strain and ERI have higher blood pressure compared with employees with low job strain and ERI. Emotional demands at work are inversely associated with blood pressure

Occupational exposures and genetic susceptibility to occupational exposures are related to sickness absence in the Lifelines cohort study

In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the association between occupational exposures and sickness absence (SA), the mediating role of respiratory symptoms, and whether genetic susceptibility to SA upon occupational exposures exists. Logistic regression was used to examine associations and structural equation modelling was used for mediation analyses. Genetic susceptibility was investigated by including interactions between occupational exposures and 11 candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Biological dust, mineral dust, and pesticides exposure were associated with a lower prevalence of any SA (OR (95% CI) = 0.72 (0.58–0.89), 0.88 (0.78–0.99), and 0.70 (0.55–0.89), respectively) while gases/fumes exposure was associated with a higher prevalence of long-term SA (1.46 (1.11–1.91)). Subjects exposed to solvents and metals had a higher prevalence of any (1.14 (1.03–1.26) and 1.68 (1.26–2.24)) and long-term SA (1.26 (1.08–1.46) and 1.75 (1.15–2.67)). Chronic cough and chronic phlegm mediated the association between high gases/fumes exposure and long-term SA. Two of 11 SNPs investigated had a positive interaction with exposure on SA and one SNP negatively interacted with exposure on SA. Exposure to metals and gases/fumes showed a clear dose–response relationship with a higher prevalence of long-term SA; contrary, exposure to pesticides and biological/mineral dust showed a protective effect on any SA. Respiratory symptoms mediated the association between occupational exposures and SA. Moreover, gene-by-exposure interactions exist

Climate Obstruction in the Global South: Future Research Trajectories

open access article“Climate Obstruction” broadly refers to campaigns and other policy actions led by well-organized and financed networks of corporate and other actors who have actively sought to prevent global and/or national action on climate change over the past four decades. In turn, these campaigns often shape public debates, which can affect political support and collective mobilization to mitigate climate change. However, to date, most of the research on climate obstruction has focused on countries in the Global North, especially the United States. Given considerable gaps in research and knowledge, this opinion paper presents a future research agenda needs to shine greater light on if and in what form climate obstruction in the Global South appears

A Multi-Institutional Approach to Delivering Shared Curricula for Developing a Next-Generation Energy Workforce

In this paper, we consider collaborative power systems education through the FEEDER consortium. To increase students\u27 access to power engineering educational content, the consortium of seven universities was formed. A framework is presented to characterize different collaborative education activities among the universities. Three of these approaches of collaborative educational activities are presented and discussed. These include 1) cross-institutional blended courses (“MS-MD”); 2) cross-institutional distance courses (“SS-MD”); and 3) single-site special experiential courses and concentrated on-site programs available to students across consortium institutions (“MS-SD”). This paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of each approach

Transcriptional regulation of Satb1 in mouse trophoblast stem cells

SATB homeobox proteins are important regulators of developmental gene expression. Among the stem cell lineages that emerge during early embryonic development, trophoblast stem (TS) cells exhibit robust SATB expression. Both SATB1 and SATB2 act to maintain the trophoblast stem-state. However, the molecular mechanisms that regulate TS-specific Satb expression are not yet known. We identified Satb1 variant 2 as the predominant transcript in trophoblasts. Histone marks, and RNA polymerase II occupancy in TS cells indicated an active state of the promoter. A novel cis-regulatory region with active histone marks was identified ∼21 kbp upstream of the variant 2 promoter. CRISPR/Cas9 mediated disruption of this sequence decreased Satb1 expression in TS cells and chromosome conformation capture analysis confirmed looping of this distant regulatory region into the proximal promoter. Scanning position weight matrices across the enhancer predicted two ELF5 binding sites in close proximity to SATB1 sites, which were confirmed by chromatin immunoprecipitation. Knockdown of ELF5 downregulated Satb1 expression in TS cells and overexpression of ELF5 increased the enhancer-reporter activity. Interestingly, ELF5 interacts with SATB1 in TS cells, and the enhancer activity was upregulated following SATB overexpression. Our findings indicate that trophoblast-specific Satb1 expression is regulated by long-range chromatin looping of an enhancer that interacts with ELF5 and SATB proteins