Functional characterisation of constitutive expresser of pathogenesis-related genes 5 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Molecular Biology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

As reported previously, CPR5 negatively regulates the onset of leaf death, hypersensitive response, disease resistance and early leaf senescence. cpr5 plants contain aberrant trichomes and higher levels of ROS, SA and JA. Cell-cycle, JA/ET, ABA and sugar signalling are also affected in cpr5 plants. These results suggest that CPR5 is a master regulator of multiple processes. However, how CPR5 manages to exert pleiotropic effects is still poorly understood. The first objective of the current study was the purification of the CPR5 protein to solve its crystal structure. Extensive in silico analyses were carried out and the results showed that CPR5 is predicted to be a membrane protein with 4 or 5 transmembrane (TM) domains. Additionally, CPR5 contains intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) at its N-terminus. Proteins containing IDRs and TM domains are often difficult to purify for crystallization studies. Therefore, the undesirable regions of CPR5 such as, IDR and TM domains were deleted and a set of 24 constructs were developed. Despite several efforts, none of the CPR5 recombinant proteins were isolated. In addition to predicting IDR and TM domains, in silico results also predicted three NLS-encoding clusters, casein kinase phosphorylation sites, multiple start codons, coiled-coil domains and glycine motifs. To find out the roles of these putative structural elements on CPR5 functions, firstly a CPR5 cDNA was synthesised and termed as SynCPR5. Subsequently, predicted sites or motifs were mutated in SynCPR5 through sitedirected mutagenesis and a set of 25 mutated CPR5 transgenes (cDNA constructs) were developed. Using a complementation strategy, all the constructs were transformed into cpr5- 2 plants. The results show that the complementation of cpr5-2 plants with SynCPR5, fully restored HR-like lesions, wildtype-like trichomes and leaves on SynCPR5 plants. Further physiological characterization such as, transcript abundance of SynCPR5, PR1, PR5 and PDF1.2, leaf area measurements and ploidy levels showed that CPR5 regulates some of its functions and phenotypes quantitatively as well as qualitatively. When compared with the wildtype, better growth (larger leaves) but enhanced disease susceptibility was found in metCPR5 transgenic lines (in which putative start codons were mutated), indicating that CPR5 regulates a balance between growth and resistance. Functional characterization of NLS mutants (nlsCPR5) showed that NLS-encoding clusters are important for CPR5 proper functions. However, current evidence is insufficient to relate their role in CPR5 localization. Moreover, in silico results show that putative NLS clusters are present in the region of CPR5 which were annotated as intrinsically disordered region (IDR). Similar phenotypes shown by both nlsCPR5 and Del63CPR5 (in which the first 63 amino acids of CPR5 including putative NLS were deleted), indicate that the putative NLS clusters could be part of IDR and may have dual functions. Loss-of-function phenotypes shown by coiled-coil domain mutants (ccdCPR5) reinforce the role of coiled-coil domains in CPR5 homo-dimerization. Moreover, in contrast to previous reports, the downregulation of PDF1.2 in the majority of CPR5 complementation lines proposes CPR5 to be a positive regulator of PDF1.2. Based on the results presented in the current study, putative CPR5 IDRs and coiled-coil domains are proposed to facilitate CPR5 dimerization in order to restrict the entry of deregulated cargos into the nucleus. Moreover, these results uncover a novel role of CPR5 in the regulation of balance between plant growth and resistance. Furthermore, this study, for the first time, reports evidence of the requirement of NLS clusters for CPR5 functions

THE QUALITY OF VOLUNTARY SUSTAINABILITY REPORT ASSURANCE STATEMENTS: EVIDENCE FROM FORTUNE GLOBAL 500

Number of companies adopting sustainability report assurance is increasing rapidly. Prior researches have explored factors that might drive companies to voluntary adopt assurance on their sustainability reports. But, few researches focus on the quality of sustainability report assurance statements provided. The first objective of this research is to investigate how the quality of assurance statement differs among different assurance providers. The second objective of the research is to explore whether quality of assurance statement is jointly affected by national legal environment where company is located and the company’s choice of assurance provider. Population of this Research is Fortune Global 500 Companies 2014 list. Final sample of this research is 135 companies. Independent sample t-test is used to test how the quality of assurance statement differs among different assurance providers. Multivariate regression analysis is used to test whether quality of assurance statement is jointly affected by national legal environment and assurance provider. The analysis’ result indicates that national legal environment has a negative and significant effect on assurance statement quality. Assurance provider also has a negative and significant effect on quality of assurance statement, while industry has a negative and slightly significant effect on it

Penyebaran keilmuan melalui jaringan ulama Tarekat Naqsabandi di Kepulauan Riau

Tarekat Naqsabandi merupakan tarekat yang memiliki jaringan terluas di dunia Islam dan memberikan pengaruh besar bagi perkembangan dan corak masyarakat Islam di nusantara khususnya di Kepulauan Riau. Pesatnya perkembangan jaringan tarekat ini tidak lepas dari adanya salāsilaḥ sebagai hubungan guru-murid yang membentuk jaringan ulama yang khas. Jaringan ulama ini terkandung keilmuan yang penting bagi hala tuju dan pengajaran tasawuf dan syari'at di Kepulauan Riau. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk membangun kerangka penyebaran keilmuan melalui jaringan ulama tarekat Naqsabandi di Kepulauan Riau. Ada lima masalah pokok dalam kajian ini, iaitu tentang bentuk jaringan, corak jaringan, wujud hubungan guru-murid, penyebaran keilmuan dan kerangka penyebaran. Kajian ini menggunakan reka bentuk pendekatan kualitatif. Data diperoleh melalui temu bual, kajian dokumen dan pemerhatian, dimana kesahan data menggunakan teknik triangulasi. Teknik Analisis data melalui tiga tahap, iaitu pengurangan data, penyajian data dan penarikan kesimpulan. Ada lima dapatan dalam kajian ini, iaitu: pertama, jaringan ulama tarekat naqsabandi terbentuk melalui hubungan keilmuan ulama tarekat Naqsabandi Haramaian, nusantara dan Kepulauan Riau. Kedua, ada tiga corak jaringan tarekat Naqsabandi di Kepulauan Riau iaitu; Khalidi, Muzhari dan Qadiriah Naqsabandi. Ketiga, hubungan keilmuan guru-murid terbentuk melalui pengajaran tarekat di masjid ataupun rumah suluk, dengan kaedah halāqah, talaqqi, hafalan dan bahsul masāil dan menghasilkan hubungan dalam bentuk salāsilaḥ dan ijāzah serta diperkuat dengan pemahaman kewalian dan guru kammil mukammil. Keempat, kandungan keilmuan yang berkembang memiliki ajaran dalam bentuk bai'at, rabitah, tawajjuh, suluk, zikir dan khatam. Kandungan keilmuan ini memiliki kecenderungan sufi baru yang berbentuk telaah hadis, sangat berpahamkan syari'at dan bersifat aktif untuk kemajuan zaman dan pembangunan insan. Kelima, kerangka yang dihasilkan dari penyelidikan ini mampu menjadi rujukan mengenai penyebaran keilmuan melalui jaringan ulama tarekat Naqsabandi di Kepulauan Riau

PENGARUH WORK OVERLOAD, WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT DAN FAMILY-WORK CONFLICT TERHADAP JOB EMBEDDEDNESS KARYAWATI PERBANKAN NASIONAL BANDA ACEH DENGAN EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION SEBAGAI VARIABEL MEDIASI

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengukur pengaruh Kelebihan Beban Kerja, Konflik Kerja-Keluarga dan Konflik Keluarga-Pekerjaan terhadap Keterikatan Kerja pada karyawati Perbankan Nasional di Kota Banda Aceh dengan Kelelahan Emosional sebagai variabel mediasi. Sampel yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah karyawati Perbankan Nasional di kota Banda Aceh (Kantor Cabang BRI, BNI & Bank Mandiri) yang berjumlah 213 responden. Peralatan pengumpulan data yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah kuisioner. Teknik pengambilan sampel yang digunakan adalah stratified random sampling, sebanyak 104 kuisioner disebarkan. Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) digunakan sebagai metode analisis untuk mengetahui pengaruh dari semua variabel-variabel yang terlibat. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Kelebihan Beban Kerja berpengaruh terhadap Keterikatan Kerja, Konflik Kerja-Keluarga berpengaruh terhadap Keterikatan Kerja, Konflik Kerja-Keluarga berpengaruh terhadap Kelelahan Emosional, Konflik Keluarga-Pekerjaan berpengaruh terhadap Kelelahan Emosional, Kelelahan Emosional memediasi pengaruh Kelebihan Beban Kerja terhadap Keterikatan Kerja, Kelelahan Emosional memediasi pengaruh Konflik Kerja-Keluarga terhadap Keterikatan Kerja.Kata Kunci: Kelebihan Beban Kerja, Konflik Kerja-Keluarga, Konflik Keluarga-Pekerjaan, Kelelahan Emosional, Keterikatan Kerja

PENGECATAN SEPEDA MOTOR SUZUKI RG

Tujuan dari Pengecatan sepeda motor Suzuki RG adalah dapat menemukan kerusakan yang terjadi pada bodi dan cat sepeda motor Suzuki RG. Melaksanakan proses perbaikan dan pengecatan bodi dan rangka sepeda motor Suzuki RG, selanjutnya mengetahui hasil setelah dilakukan perbaikan dan pengecatan. Proses pengecatan sepeda motor Suzuki RG, pertama – tama menemukan kerusakan yang terjadi pada sepeda motor Suzuki RG. Adapun bagian-bagian kerusakan yang dapat ditemukan yaitu: terdapat bagian bodi yang retak, terdapat bagian cat pada bodi yang tergores, terdapat bagian dempul pada bodi yang terkelupas dan terdapat bagian yang korosi. Bagian bodi yang retak adalah spakbor depan, fairing bawah kanan dan kiri, cover tutup tengah kanan, dan cover belakang. Bagian cat pada bodi yang tergores adalah spakbor, fairing atas, fairing bawah kanan dan kiri, cover tengah kanan dan kiri, dan cover belakang. Bagian cat yang tekelupas adalah sepakbor, fairing atas, fairing bawah kanan dan kiri, cover belakang dan bagian yang korosi adalah rangka. Selanjutnya memperbaiki kerusakan pada bodi sepeda motor Suzuki RG yang meliputi menilai luasan permukaan yang mengalami kerusakan, mengupas lapisan cat lama pada bodi dan rangka yang mengalami kerusakan, pendempulan, pengamplasan, proses pengaplikasian epoxy, proses pengecatan cat dasar, proses pengecatan cat akhir, proses pengaplikasian clear, pengkilapan dan pemolesan. Alat-alat yang dibutuhkan untuk pengecatan bodi sepeda motor Suzuki RG antara lain: amplas, kompresor, blok tangan, spraygun, batang pengaduk, kapi, dan air duster gun. Bahan yang diperlukan untuk pengecatan bodi sepeda motor Suzuki RG antara lain: amplas dari grit #120-#2000, cat Danagloss hitam 020, cat Danagloss silver 9021, thinner rexom, thinner Impala hijau, epoxy Alfagloss, spot putty, compound Farecla, kain lap, dan dempul Alfagloss. Berdasarkan hasil pengujian yang dilakukan oleh orang yang berkompeten di bidang pengecatan dapat disimpulkan cat cukup rata disetiap bagian permukaan bodi dan daya kilap cat juga cukup bagus, namun masih ada sedikit bagian kecil teridentifikasi cacat pengecatan seperti mata ikan, mottling, lubang jarum, bergelembung, dan bintik. Dengan melihat hasil dari pengujian yang terlampir pada lembar observasi dan acuan yang telah ditetapkan maka perbaikan dan pengecatan bodi sepeda motor Suzuki RG meskipun terdapat beberapa cacat pengecatan pada beberapa bagian yang kecacatannya tersebut kurang signifikan maka hasil pengecatan dapat dikatakan berhasil

On-line Handwritten Character Recognition: An Implementation of Counterpropagation Neural Net

On-line handwritten scripts are usually dealt with pen tip traces from pen-down to pen-up positions. Time evaluation of the pen coordinates is also considered along with trajectory information. However, the data obtained needs a lot of preprocessing including filtering, smoothing, slant removing and size normalization before recognition process. Instead of doing such lengthy preprocessing, this paper presents a simple approach to extract the useful character information. This work evaluates the use of the counter- propagation neural network (CPN) and presents feature extraction mechanism in full detail to work with on-line handwriting recognition. The obtained recognition rates were 60% to 94% using the CPN for different sets of character samples. This paper also describes a performance study in which a recognition mechanism with multiple hresholds is evaluated for counter-propagation architecture. The results indicate that the application of multiple thresholds has significant effect on recognition mechanism. The method is applicable for off-line character recognition as well. The technique is tested for upper-case English alphabets for a number of different styles from different peoples

Hukum Inseminasi Buatan Dan Bayi Tabung

Artiket ini membahas tentang hukum inseminasi buatan menurut hukum Islam dan pandangan ulama dan bagaimana kedudukan anak yang dilahirkannya. Penulis menyimpulkan bahwa hukum inseminasi buatan dan bayi tabung pada dasarnya boleh (halal) jika sperma dan ovum berasai dari suami istri yang sah dan rahim yang dipakai juga rahim istri secara hukum berdasarkan ayat, hadis, kaidah ushul filh, fatwa ulama seperti dan fatwa MUI DKI Jakat