Isolation And Characterization Of Upregulated Floral Transcripts From Mangosteen (Garcinia Mangostana L.)

Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.) is one of the slowest-growing and longest living tropical fruit trees. Besides long juvenile period, lack of profuse flowering and irregular fruiting during early maturing stage are some of the major problems associated with growing mangosteen as an export fruit or for fruit products. The initiation of flowering process, development and maturation of flower in mangosteen are largely unknown. The understanding of these processes is important to solve some of the problems associated with growing mangosteen as one of the major fruits. Thus, the objectives of this study were to isolate, identify and sequence the mangosteen transcripts that were upregulated in the floral tissues, and study the gene expression and gene copy number of the selected upregulated floral transcripts. In this study, NSTEP method was found to be the best total RNA isolation method for mangosteen tissues. A subtracted cDNA library was constructed to facilitate the isolation of upregulated transcripts from mangosteen flower. Reverse northern screening and sequence analysis revealed that 28.5 % (149/522) of these transcripts were upregulated in mangosteen flower. Among these transcripts, 82 of them were assembled into 30 contigs whereas 67 were singletons. A total of 63.9 % of these unigenes had non-signifancant matches to sequences in the non-redundant protein database in GenBank, 19.6 % had significant matches to unknown proteins and the remaining 16.5 % had putative functions that were further classified into six categories according to their biological functions. A total of three transcripts were selected for further characterization by real time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction and southern hybridization analysis. They were GmAGmbp (protein with GATA-type zinc finger domain), GmHsa32 (phosphosulfolatate synthase related protein) and GmbZIP (bZIP transcription factor). The 3’ untranslated region (UTR) of these three transcripts were isolated from a cDNA library constructed using flower of 0.5-1.0 cm. All of these transcripts were verified to be expressed predominantly in the mangosteen flower tissue. GmAGmbp and GmHsa32 were found to be single copy genes in the mangosteen genome. The subtracted cDNAs isolated in this study might be used as expression markers for crop improvement in the future. However, further characterization of expression patterns and functional analyses are required to gather more valuable information on how these transcripts function during the flowering process

The Institutional and Individual Contributors to Research in Financial Education: 1991-2002

This paper provides an account of the contributors in financial education research during 1991-2002. We present the top institutions and individuals in financial education research that were published in Financial Practice and Education and Journal of Financial Education. In terms of institutional and individual contributors, doctoral programs faculty and institutions contribute significant large number of articles in financial education research. Similarly AACSB accredited academic programs also contribute significantly to the financial education literature. The findings in this study provide information to the potential college bound students, donors, and job applicants

Solicited and Unsolicited Credit Ratings: A Global Perspective

We conducted a global study of the long-term issuer ratings of nonfinancial firms from Standard and Poor's Ratings Services (S&P) for the period 1998–2003. Specifically, we focused on the solicited versus unsolicited ratings and sample-selection bias in the analysis. Unlike the literature, we adopted an improved method using Wooldridge’s instrumental-variable approach to mitigate the concern of specification errors in Heckman’s model. We found that the probability of seeking a long-term issuer rating is positively related to the size and profitability of the firm, and negatively related to the growth opportunities and debt levels of the firm. The credit rating is positively related to the sovereign rating, size, and profitability of the issuer, and negatively related to the debt ratio of the issuer. Consistent with the literature, we found sample-selection bias in credit ratings. Our findings suggest that the firms with solicited ratings seem to be more profitable, more liquid, and have lower leverage than the issuers with unsolicited ratings. After controlling for sample-selection bias and some key financial ratios, we found that unsolicited firms, on average, seem to have lower long-term issuer ratings.corporate long-term issuer ratings; solicited and unsolicited

The Role Of Personality Trait Inference In Performance Appraisal Ratings

This dissertation focuses on raters\u27 implicit theories of personality and performance and their influence on performance ratings. The manner in which behavioural exemplars are perceived to be associated make up implicit theories . Implicit theories or inferential networks are developed by individuals based upon their experiences and are applied towards the interpretation of current experiences.;The first study defines explicitly the network of personality and performance interrelationships perceived by senior personnel managers and senior accountant managers who routinely make performance appraisal ratings. This is achieved via a multidimensional scaling of similarity ratings performed upon 20 personality and 8 performance behaviours. Raters\u27 implicit theories of personality and performance not only overlapped but are definable along a reduced number of dimensions. Three dimensions are shown to be sufficient to describe raters\u27 implicit theories and of these the first two are the most stable.;The second study builds on these findings and investigates the impact of raters\u27 inferential networks and actual ratings of performance for two major job types using two different styles of performance rating forms, a trait based and a behaviourally based form. The impact of additional personality information on performance ratings is examined via the experimental manipulation of employee profiles. The question of whether inferential networks are selectively applied is examined. Study 2 provides evidence that raters incorporate personality information into individual scale ratings of ratee performance but not into ratings of overall effectiveness.;The third study was conducted in order to examine the impact of raters\u27 implicit theories within a context in which raters were very familiar with the specific performance behaviours and actual performance was observed. Students\u27 implicit theories are defined via a multidimensional scaling and the impact of these implicit networks is examined via an experimental study where students observe a videotape of teaching performance with or without prior personality information. Study 3 provides evidence that student raters also use the personality information in making teacher evaluation ratings of the videotape stimulus

Infrastructure Services and Financing in Chinese Cities

As urbanization accelerates and cities expand their role in the Chinese economy, expensive urban infrastructural facilities and financing have become major policy issues. Drawing on fieldwork in five cities in 1994 as well as national statistics, this Article analyzes the provision of urban infrastructure services and financing. As marketization proceeds, an overhaul of the urban public finance system, along with a redefinition of the role of local government in China, is urgently required

Responding to environment: The experience of strategic planning of non-governmental organizations in Hong Kong

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.In recent years, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Hong Kong have been facing tremendous challenges and demands from both the external environment and internal administrative mechanisms. Regarding the external environment, Hong Kong is facing a major political change in 1997 as its sovereignty will be returned to Mainland China. However, it is perceived that there are many differences in both the conceptions and the administrative systems of both Hong Kong and China. In view of the task environment, as opposed to the general environment, the Social Welfare Department is now conducting a `subvention review' exercise. Such an exercise attempts to re-examine the current funding arrangements and the partnership relationship between the government and the NGOs. Service contracts between the funder and the service providers are recommended as the future mode of operation in the subvention policy. In addition, the NGOs will also be required to conform to a list of performance standards which are categorised into four major dimensions, namely, the provision of information, service management, the management of clients and a respect for clients' rights. Not only the rise of managerialism, but public accountability and the empowerment of clients are also perceived as prominent issues affecting the administrators. Based on a research study conducted by the author, this paper will examine the above issues in detail. It also examines the value orientations of the social work administrators in the voluntary sector during their decision-making processes. Various organization theories such as contingency theory, political economy and resources dependency perspective are adopted as the organizing framework for the analysis. Patterns of service development and patterns of management development have been constructed after examining twenty-five voluntary organizations. Four domains of strategic planning and management are covered in the study, including Domain Enlargement mode, Domain Enhancement mode, Domain Restructuring mode and Domain Reduction mode. A questionnaire was also constructed in order to examine the views of the chief executives in terms of their choices of strategies and approaches in responding to environmental changes, with respect to the organizational attributes, including organization size, complexity of service nature, religious background, and level of subvention from government funding

Influence of electron scatterings on thermoelectric effect

In this work, we employed non-equilibrium Green's function to investigate the electron transport properties in the nanowire with the presence of scatterings. The scattering mechanism is modelled by using the concept of B\"uttiker probe. The effect of electron scattering is analyzed under three conditions: absence of external field; with a bias voltage; and with a finite temperature difference. It is found weak and strong scatterings strength affect the electron transport in different ways. In the case of weak scattering strength, electron trapping increase the electron density, hereafter boost the conductance significantly. Although the increment in conductance would reduce the Seebeck coefficient slightly, the power factor still increases. In the case of strong scattering strength, electron diffraction causes the redistribution of electrons, accumulation of electron at the ends of the wire blocks current flow; hence the conductance is reduced significantly. Although the Seebeck coefficient increases slightly, the power factor still decreases. The power factor is enhanced by 6%-18%, at the optimum scattering strength

Can Information in Children’s Drawings Inform Teachers’ Practices? A Study of Singaporean Pre-school Teachers’ “Reading” of 5-6 year olds’ Drawings.

Children’s drawings are graphic visual records of learning experiences (e.g. a zoo outing) often displayed on the walls of Singapore preschools to celebrate children’s learning and teachers’ teaching. At best, drawings are pictures to report to parents (e.g. child’s colouring skills or impressions of learning). Drawings are under utilized as representations of learning and thinking to inform teachers’ practices in lesson planning. First of all, a questionnaire survey with 325 teachers was collated to understand factors that influence teaching decisions. While face-to-face interviews with 61 children (5 - 6 years) had provided factors that influence their learning from children’s perspectives. The study aimed to explore with the goal of developing a strategy to teach teachers to read children’s drawings for information to support learning. As a result, the Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (TEO): cognitive processes (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) with a focus on learning and cognition was the framework for the “children’s drawing evaluation checklist” designed to deduce information of content-knowledge and cognitive processes. About 140 teacher-respondents evaluated 50 pre-and post-lesson drawings on wild animals and the water cycle by 25 children (5 – 6 years old) from two preschools. The findings showed children’s cognitive processes were directed at Bloom’s “Remember,” “Understand,” “Apply,” and “Analyze,” capturing alongside rich information of children’s spontaneous knowledge. The checklist was later revised and integrated with Biggs and Collis (1982) the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy to reflect the amount of information represented. The revised checklist was tested with 18 mainstream teachers to evaluate wild animals and the water cycle drawings. To test for generalizability, the checklist was tested with 22 special needs teachers to evaluate 17 high functioning special needs children’s (5- 6 years old) drawings. Consequently, implications of the use of information in children’s drawings in this study are discussed