Partial (13)C isotopic enrichment of nucleoside monophosphates: useful reporters for NMR structural studies

Analysis of the (13)C isotopic labeling patterns of nucleoside monophosphates (NMPs) extracted from Escherichia coli grown in a mixture of C-1 and C-2 glucose is presented. By comparing our results to previous observations on amino acids grown in similar media, we have been able to rationalize the labeling pattern based on the well-known biochemistry of nucleotide biosynthesis. Except for a few notable absences of label (C4 in purines and C3′ in ribose) and one highly enriched site (C1′ in ribose), most carbons are randomly enriched at a low level (an average of 13%). These sparsely labeled NMPs give less complex NMR spectra than their fully isotopically labeled analogs due to the elimination of most (13)C–(13)C scalar couplings. The spectral simplicity is particularly advantageous when working in ordered systems, as illustrated with guanosine diphosphate (GDP) bound to ADP ribosylation factor 1 (ARF1) aligned in a liquid crystalline medium. In this system, the absence of scalar couplings and additional long-range dipolar couplings significantly enhances signal to noise and resolution

Playful Parody and Philosophical Counter-Narrative: Douglas Adams’ Science Fiction Comedy

Denne masteroppgåva tar føre seg den parodiske science fiction-trilogien, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy av Douglas Adams, som diverre vert diskutert svært lite i akademia. Oppgåva ser på korleis forfattaren nyttar parodi sjangeren til å kommentera på dei tomme paradigma i science fiction, samstundes som han produserer ein mot-forteljing til den eksisterande dystopiske litteraturen. Oppgåva definerer difor bøkene som positiv dystopi. Grunna bøkenes post-moderne parodiske natur er dei svært vanskelege å definere, trilogien er difor også definert, i denne oppgåva, som ein komedisk science fiction-parodi med element frå den pikareske tradisjonen. Dystopisk litteratur er framleis populært i det 21. hundreåret og Douglas Adams sine bøker er difor framleis aktuelle som mot-forteljingar i dag. Gjennom bøkene sin parodiske mot-forteljing vert lesaren presentert for ei ny og frigjerande filosofisk måte å sjå og forstå verda på. Bøkene til Adams utfordrar grensene for kva me tenker science fiction skal innehalda. Dei utfordrar òg vår forståing av kva ein legg i omgrepa forteljar, plot og karakter. For å undersøka desse elementa i bøkene tar eg i bruk teoriar om science fiction, parodi, metafiksjon og narratologi. I kapittel ein utforskar eg konsepta novum, World Building og Big Dumb Objects. Dette er konsept som er direkte relatert til science fiction-sjangeren. I kapittel to vert dei narratologiske konsepta forteljar og forteljing studert med omsyn til korleis dei fungerer i ein moderne parodi og i samanheng med den pikareske tradisjonen. I kapittel tre tar eg føre meg korleis karakterane i trilogien fungerer sett i høve dei overordna parodiske elementa og i samanheng med den gjennomgåande filosofiske tankegangen i bøkene.Engelsk mastergradsoppgåveMAHF-LÆFRMAHF-ENGENG35

Punctuation Prediction for Norwegian: Using Established Approaches for Under-Resourced Languages

Masteroppgåve i informasjonsvitskapINFO390MASV-INF

Multifunctionality: Concepts and Applications to the WTO Negotiations on Agriculture

The ongoing negotiations in the WTO will most certainly lead to a further liberalization of the global agricultural trade. Related to this, many national governments, including Norway, Switzerland and Japan have placed substantial emphasis on the so-called non-trade concerns. In addition to the production of food and fiber, agriculture also provides or may provide national food security, environmental benefits, and viable rural areas. The term "Multifunctional Agriculture" has been applied to describe these additional functions. In this paper, we will show how the economic concepts of "positive and negative externalities" and "public goods" can be used to analyse non-trade concerns and multifunctionality, especially with reference to agriculture's impact on the environment. We conclude the paper with suggestions for international trade rules that can allow countries to meet domestic environmental policy objectives in a minimally trade-distorting manner.Non-trade concerns, multifunctionality, externalities, public goods, cultural landscape, optimum subsidy, WTO, International Relations/Trade,

A Dipolar Coupling Based Strategy for Simultaneous Resonance Assignment and Structure Determination of Protein Backbones

A new approach for simultaneous protein backbone resonance assignment and structure determination by NMR is introduced. This approach relies on recent advances in high-resolution NMR spectroscopy that allow observation of anisotropic interactions, such as dipolar couplings, from proteins partially aligned in field ordered media. Residual dipolar couplings are used for both geometric information and a filter in the assembly of residues in a sequential manner. Experimental data were collected in less than one week on a small redox protein, rubredoxin, that was 15N enriched but not enriched above 1% natural abundance in 13C. Given the acceleration possible with partial 13C enrichment, the protocol described should provide a very rapid route to protein structure determination. This is critical for the structural genomics initiative where protein expression and structural determination in a high-throughput manner will be needed

Location of divalent ion sites in acyl carrier protein using relaxation perturbed 2D NMR

AbstractThe T1-accordion COSY experiment has been applied to acyl carrier protein (ACP) to locate the divalent ion binding sites in the protein using the paramagnetic ion, Mn2+, as a substitute for Ca2+. Replacement with Mn2+ leads to an enhancement of proton spin-lattice (T1) relaxation rates. These enhancements have a l/r6, distance dependence that makes them extremely useful in structural analyses. Ion-proton distances ranging from 3.0 to 9.0 Å have been obtained from this experiment and subsequently used as constraints in the molecular mechanics module of AMBER to refine a protein structure

Long gravitational-wave transients and associated detection strategies for a network of terrestrial interferometers

Searches for gravitational waves (GWs) traditionally focus on persistent sources (e.g., pulsars or the stochastic background) or on transients sources (e.g., compact binary inspirals or core-collapse supernovae), which last for time scales of milliseconds to seconds. We explore the possibility of long GW transients with unknown waveforms lasting from many seconds to weeks. We propose a novel analysis technique to bridge the gap between short O(s) “burst” analyses and persistent stochastic analyses. Our technique utilizes frequency-time maps of GW strain cross power between two spatially separated terrestrial GW detectors. The application of our cross power statistic to searches for GW transients is framed as a pattern recognition problem, and we discuss several pattern-recognition techniques. We demonstrate these techniques by recovering simulated GW signals in simulated detector noise. We also recover environmental noise artifacts, thereby demonstrating a novel technique for the identification of such artifacts in GW interferometers. We compare the efficiency of this framework to other techniques such as matched filtering