Molecular similarity of MDR inhibitors

Everyone is free to re-use the published material if proper accreditation/citation of the original publication is given. http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/3.0/The molecular similarity of multidrug resistance (MDR) inhibitors was evaluated using the point centred atom charge approach in an attempt to find some common features of structurally unrelated inhibitors. A series of inhibitors of bacterial MDR were studied and there is a high similarity between these in terms of their shape, presence and orientation of aromatic ring moieties. A comparison of the lipophilic properties of these molecules has also been conducted suggesting that this factor is important in MDR inhibition.Peer reviewe

In silico structural evaluation of short cationic antimicrobial peptides

© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Cationic peptides with antimicrobial properties are ubiquitous in nature and have been studied for many years in an attempt to design novel antibiotics. However, very few molecules are used in the clinic so far, sometimes due to their complexity but, mostly, as a consequence of the unfavorable pharmacokinetic profile associated with peptides. The aim of this work is to investigate cationic peptides in order to identify common structural features which could be useful for the design of small peptides or peptido-mimetics with improved drug-like properties and activity against Gram negative bacteria. Two sets of cationic peptides (AMPs) with known antimicrobial activity have been investigated. The first reference set comprised molecules with experimentally-known conformations available in the protein databank (PDB), and the second one was composed of short peptides active against Gram negative bacteria but with no significant structural information available. The predicted structures of the peptides from the first set were in excellent agreement with those experimentally-observed, which allowed analysis of the structural features of the second group using computationally-derived conformations. The peptide conformations, either experimentally available or predicted, were clustered in an “all vs. all” fashion and the most populated clusters were then analyzed. It was confirmed that these peptides tend to assume an amphipathic conformation regardless of the environment. It was also observed that positively-charged amino acid residues can often be found next to aromatic residues. Finally, a protocol was evaluated for the investigation of the behavior of short cationic peptides in the presence of a membrane-like environment such as dodecylphosphocholine (DPC) micelles. The results presented herein introduce a promising approach to inform the design of novel short peptides with a potential antimicrobial activity.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Counter-Devices of Moving Image: The Werner Nekes Collection

If we trace an archaeological perspective on the history of moving image, we will invariably find innumerable visual devices that both belong to the field of science and that have become popular optical toys. Allowing therefore to put in discussion if the nature of cinematic experience is in fact rooted historically in cinema, since this is a diffuse experience, synthesized in devices that wanted to give back anima to what had previously been fixed in an image. It is for this precise reason that it is particularly pertinent to approach in this context the Werner Nekes' collection of optical devices, because it possesses unique qualities as an archive that condenses the history of visual media, cross-referencing it with visual culture in its popular expression, as well as with the universe of fine arts and contemporary art

Book Review: Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America

Review of Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America by Ji-Yeon Yu

Grad Students to Give Tour of New Booth Exhibit

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/lib_exhibits_questionofhistory_news/1006/thumbnail.jp

Industrial Relations in Austria

Austria's economic progress during the last twenty years has been most impressive, comparing favourably with other industrialised countries. Major credit is ascribed to the social partnership between labour and management, which extends to all areas of social and economic concern. Its most significant manifestation has been the adoption, in 1957, of an incomes policy, of voluntary wage and price restraint. The results have been: significant improvements in the standards of living; full employment; modest inflation; and an enviable record of industrial peace. The social partnership is supported by an understanding with the government, which allows the two major interest groups considerable freedom to carry out their commitments to wage and price restraint

Qof Ma Dhiban: Somali Orality And The Delineation Of Power

This Major Research Paper (MRP) explores Somali origin myths as a site through which to track the formation, maintenance and transmission of power. It places into conversation colonial anthropological texts and Somali oral stories to examine a contemporary Somali diaspora's response to the Madhibaan, a qabil (clan) with limited socio-economic power. Throughout the analysis, I ask: Where do Madhibaan Somali women appear? When do they materialize? Why do they show up? What does this absence/presence make possible? I bring together several scholarly communities and conversations in this MRP which include: critical African/Black feminisms; critical race theory; post coloniality; oral histories; Somali studies; and decolonial knowledge production. It is my hope that I will make valuable methodological and theoretical contributions to the field of Somali Studies in particular on scholarship that includes Madhibaan Somalis as well as Somali orality

Investigation of the Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Matrix Protein: Uncoating and Assembly

Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) is a simple, enveloped, nonsegmented negative-strand RNA virus and is the prototype rhabdovirus to study viral entry, transcription, replication, and assembly. The matrix protein (M) of VSV is a central component of the viral replication cycle. While being the smallest of the viral proteins it is multifunctional and is involved in uncoating, cytopathic effects (CPE), and assembly of the virus. M protein interactions involved in the uncoating and assembly of VSV have been examined in this dissertation. Uncoating of VSV involves dissociation of M from the ribonucleoprotein core (RNPs) of the virus. Current models of VSV uncoating propose that following membrane fusion M protein is released from the RNP with subsequent diffusion of M into the cytoplasm and distribution of some of the released M to the nucleus of a host cell. The studies in Chapter 2 investigated where in the endocytic pathway uncoating occurs, where M is located following uncoating, and the role of the cytoskeleton in distribution of input M by using a VSV, containing fluorescent M protein (rVSV-M-Lumio-Green). I found that uncoating occurs primarily in early endosomes and results in the majority of M remaining associated with the endosomal membrane which eventually localizes to the perinuclear recycling endosomes. A small fraction of M, which is presumably released into the cytosol, gets delivered to the nuclear envelope, and I found that the typical polymerized actin or microtubules within host cells were not required for distribution of M to the nuclear envelope. Uncoating and assembly of the VSV genome occurs on membranes within the cytoplasm of the host cell. Exactly how both of these processes can occur in the same environment (e.g. the cytoplasmically exposed membrane surface) without modification of M protein by phosphorylation, cleavage, or some other change has been an intriguing question in the field. In Chapter 3 I present results showing a pH effect on the M-Lumio-Green protein fluorescence in vitro and during the endocytosis of virions which was dependent on G protein. I also observed that low pH enhanced the release of M from rVSV-wt virions, which suggested that acidification of the virus interior results in the dissociation of M contacts within the virus enhancing the uncoating process. An exposed protease-sensitive loop located between amino acids 120 to 129 of M has been shown to be important for M protein self-association and has been proposed to be crucial for assembly of virions. This knowledge comes from protease treated, purified M protein and not from mutagenesis studies. In Chapter 4 I examined mutations in the exposed loop and in particular a conserved aspartate at residue 125 of a conserved LXD sequence. I found that virions with mutations at residue 123 or 125 of the LXD motif have two phenotypes; 1) an assembly defect and 2) reduced viral protein synthesis starting at 4 hours post infection. These two phenotypes have not been separated genetically and the LXD motif may represent a motif of M involved in assembly and support of VSV protein translation.Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) is a simple, enveloped, nonsegmented negative-strand RNA virus and is the prototype rhabdovirus to study viral entry, transcription, replication, and assembly. The matrix protein (M) of VSV is a central component of the viral replication cycle. While being the smallest of the viral proteins it is multifunctional and is involved in uncoating, cytopathic effects (CPE), and assembly of the virus. M protein interactions involved in the uncoating and assembly of VSV have been examined in this dissertation

The ethical infrastructure of legal practice in larger law firms: values, policy and behaviour

The article examines the impact of the cultures and organisational structures of large law firms on individual lawyers' ethics. The paper suggests that large law firms in Australia should consciously design and implement 'ethical infrastructures' to both counteract pressures for misbehaviour and positively promote ethical behaviour and discussion. The paper goes on to explain what implementing ethical infrastructures in law firms could and should mean by reference to what Australian law firms are already doing and US innovations in this area. Finally, the paper warns that the 'ethical infrastructure' of a firm should not be seen merely as the formal ethics policies explicitly enunciated by management. Formal and legalistic ethical infrastructures that fail to support or encourage the development of individual lawyers' awareness oftheir own ethical values and ethical judgment in practice will be useless

A Novel Experimental Approach to the Explication of Information Processing Differences Between High and Low Anxious Individuals.

The information processing perspective of cognition and emotion has been a fruitful area of research inquiry in recent years. As a result of this recent spate of interest, emotional processing biases in anxiety have been consistently demonstrated, indicating that anxious individuals possess a processing priority for threatening information. This study is an attempt to further examine the processing biases which characterize anxious and nonanxious individuals. Pilot work was conducted to investigate the utility of a novel approach, the affective categorization task, to examine the affective meaning of lexical stimuli. Pilot research using the affective categorization task with socially anxious individuals suggested that socially anxious participants exhibited a tendency to evaluate subliminally presented threatening information more accurately than nonanxious participants. Nonanxious individuals were more accurate in detecting the affective content of neutral and positive information. Furthermore, socially anxious participants took longer to make affective decisions to emotional information, regardless of valence, than did nonanxious individuals. Based on that preliminary data, a second and more complete experiment was conducted to replicate and extend those findings with generally anxious individuals. A secondary aim of the full study was to explore the relationship between affective categorizations and underlying associative network representations. Overall, results from the affective categorization task were quite similar to those obtained in pilot work. Anxious individuals evidenced an enhanced ability to correctly classify subliminally presented threatening information, whereas, nonanxious participants demonstrated an enhanced ability to correctly classify subliminally presented information that was neutral or positive in affective tone. Signal detection analyses, however, indicated that these results were primarily due to a response bias, or tendency for anxious participants to categorize all subliminally presented information as threatening. Such a bias in responding was not observed in nonanxious participants. There were no differences in decision time to emotionally valent information between anxious and nonanxious individuals. Additionally, contrary to expectations, no group differences were found in network representations using the Pathfinder (Schvaneveldt, 1990) methodology. Implications will be discussed in terms of information processing theories of emotion and cognition