Thailand: Selected Issues

Staff report describing Thailand\u27s economic crisis and measures taken by the governmen

Evolution-Informed Discovery of the Naphthalenone Biosynthetic Pathway in Fungi

Fungi produce a wide diversity of secondary metabolites with interesting biological activities for the health, industrial, and agricultural sectors. While fungal genomes have revealed an unexpectedly high number of biosynthetic pathways that far exceeds the number of known molecules, accessing and characterizing this hidden diversity remain highly challenging. Here, we applied a combined phylogenetic dereplication and comparative genomics strategy to explore eight lichenizing fungi. The determination of the evolutionary relationships of aromatic polyketide pathways resulted in the identification of an uncharacterized biosynthetic pathway that is conserved in distant fungal lineages. The heterologous expression of the homologue from Aspergillus parvulus linked this pathway to naphthalenone compounds, which were detected in cultures when the pathway was expressed. Our unbiased and rational strategy generated evolutionary knowledge that ultimately linked biosynthetic genes to naphthalenone polyketides. Applied to many more genomes, this approach can unlock the full exploitation of the fungal kingdom for molecule discovery

Multivalent Fucosides Targeting β-Propeller Lectins from Lung Pathogens with Promising Anti-Adhesive Properties

Fungal and bacterial pathogens causing lung infections often use lectins to mediate adhesion to glycoconjugates at the surface of host tissues. Given the rapid emergence of resistance to the treatments in current use, β-propeller lectins such as FleA from Aspergillus fumigatus, SapL1 from Scedosporium apiospermum, and BambL from Burkholderia ambifaria have become appealing targets for the design of anti-adhesive agents. In search of novel and cheap anti-infectious agents, we synthesized multivalent compounds that can display up to 20 units of fucose, the natural ligand. We obtained nanomolar inhibitors that are several orders of magnitude stronger than their monovalent analogue according to several biophysical techniques (i.e., fluorescence polarization, isothermal titration calorimetry, and bio-layer interferometry). The reason for high affinity might be attributed to a strong aggregating mechanism, which was examined by analytical ultracentrifugation. Notably, the fucosylated inhibitors reduced the adhesion of A. fumigatus spores to lung epithelial cells when administered 1 h before or after the infection of human lung epithelial cells. For this reason, we propose them as promising anti-adhesive drugs for the prevention and treatment of aspergillosis and related microbial lung infections

Receptor-Mediated Gonadotropin Action in Ovary

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65826/1/j.1432-1033.1979.tb12873.x.pd

Two Concepts of Basic Equality

It has become somewhat a commonplace in recent political philosophy to remark that all plausible political theories must share at least one fundamental premise, ‘that all humans are one another's equals’. One single concept of ‘basic equality’, therefore, is cast as the common touchstone of all contemporary political thought. This paper argues that this claim is false. Virtually all do indeed say that all humans are ‘equals’ in some basic sense. However, this is not the same sense. There are not one but (at least) two concepts of basic equality, and they reflect not a grand unity within political philosophy but a deep and striking division. I call these concepts ‘Equal Worth’ and ‘Equal Authority’. The former means that each individual’s good is of equal moral worth. The latter means that no individual is under the natural authority of anyone else. Whilst these two predicates are not in themselves logically inconsistent, I demonstrate that they are inconsistent foundation stones for political theory. A theory that starts from Equal Worth will find it near impossible to justify Equal Authority. And a theory that starts from Equal Authority will find any fact about the true worth of things, including ourselves, irrelevant to justifying legitimate action. This helps us identify the origin of many of our deepest and seemingly intractable disagreements within political philosophy, and directs our attention to the need for a clear debate about the truth and/or relationship between the two concepts. In short, my call to arms can be summed up in the demand that political philosophers never again be allowed to claim ‘that all human beings are equals’ full stop. They must be clear in what dimension they claim that we are equals—Worth or Authority (or perhaps something else)

Free-will, responsibility and punishment

One of the purposes of this thesis is to try to examine the concepts of mental sickness and responsibility (and some other related concepts) and see whether or not they can be defended against some of the criticisms that have been made against them. It has, for instance, been argued that the concept mental sickness is culture relative in a bad sense. If this criticism is valid, then we cannot be justified in saying that mental sickness has impaired a person's responsibility. Another criticism that has been made is that arguments that use mental sickness to explain and excuse criminal behaviour are circular. Most of the criticisms that I have discussed are intended to be general, i.e. they are criticisms of the concept of mental disorder im general, not just of a particular kind of mental disorder. Thus though Lady Wootton says that arguments that try to explain the psychopath's anti-social behaviour are circular, she thinks (at least in her more radical moments) that the circular process prevails in other mental disorders as well (e.g. with mental defectives. See Social Science and Social Pathology, page 256 ff.). Similarly, the argument that different standards of mental defect prevail in different cultures, and that therefore there is something wrong with the concept of mental defect, is intended to be (at least in her more radical moments) a general one, i.e. it is intended to apply, mutatis mutandis against other kinds of mental disorders also. [Please see pdf. for full abstract.

Some aspects of sterol and steroid biosynthesis in the bovine corpus luteum

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. The following pages are missing: 110, 136-137, 145, and 157.PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you.Some aspects of sterol and steroid biosynthesis were investigated to gain an insight into the control and regulatory mechanisms. In some of the initial experiments, LH was found to increase the incorporation of acetate-1-14C into DPS and cholesterol, suggesting that one of the sites of action of LH is before the formation of cholesterol. [TRUNCATED]2031-01-0

The Right to Civil Disobedience

This article compares and contrasts the way Gandhi understands the right to civil disobedience with the way this right is understood by some contemporary liberals. Some of the implications of the right to civil disobedience are also discussed. The right to civil disobedience implies that the authorities should extend some tolerance to civil disobedients not only when they are correct, but also when they are reasonably mistaken in their views. Tolerance here does not involve preventing civil disobedients from breaking the law, and implies that when civil disobedients break the law, they have a claim not to be punished or have their punishment reduced. Of course such claims have to be balanced against other considerations, such as the need for deterrence

Free-will, responsibility and punishment

One of the purposes of this thesis is to try to examine the concepts of mental sickness and responsibility (and some other related concepts) and see whether or not they can be defended against some of the criticisms that have been made against them. It has, for instance, been argued that the concept mental sickness is culture relative in a bad sense. If this criticism is valid, then we cannot be justified in saying that mental sickness has impaired a person's responsibility. Another criticism that has been made is that arguments that use mental sickness to explain and excuse criminal behaviour are circular. Most of the criticisms that I have discussed are intended to be general, i.e. they are criticisms of the concept of mental disorder im general, not just of a particular kind of mental disorder. Thus though Lady Wootton says that arguments that try to explain the psychopath's anti-social behaviour are circular, she thinks (at least in her more radical moments) that the circular process prevails in other mental disorders as well (e.g. with mental defectives. See Social Science and Social Pathology, page 256 ff.). Similarly, the argument that different standards of mental defect prevail in different cultures, and that therefore there is something wrong with the concept of mental defect, is intended to be (at least in her more radical moments) a general one, i.e. it is intended to apply, mutatis mutandis against other kinds of mental disorders also. [Please see pdf. for full abstract.