A Glial Variant of the Vesicular Monoamine Transporter Is Required To Store Histamine in the Drosophila Visual System

Unlike other monoamine neurotransmitters, the mechanism by which the brain's histamine content is regulated remains unclear. In mammals, vesicular monoamine transporters (VMATs) are expressed exclusively in neurons and mediate the storage of histamine and other monoamines. We have studied the visual system of Drosophila melanogaster in which histamine is the primary neurotransmitter released from photoreceptor cells. We report here that a novel mRNA splice variant of Drosophila VMAT (DVMAT-B) is expressed not in neurons but rather in a small subset of glia in the lamina of the fly's optic lobe. Histamine contents are reduced by mutation of dVMAT, but can be partially restored by specifically expressing DVMAT-B in glia. Our results suggest a novel role for a monoamine transporter in glia that may be relevant to histamine homeostasis in other systems

An embedded system artefact organisation and adaptation knowledge management system for embedded system product prototyping

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.This thesis presents an innovative approach to knowledge management (KM) from the perspective of embedded system (ES) development, a form of development that is highly knowledge intensive and depends on specialised forms of knowledge obtained from a variety of complex knowledge artefacts. This study follows an experimental methodology that involves integrating a knowledge management system (KMS) into ES product prototyping projects, in order to facilitate KM of a specific form of knowledge, namely embedded system artefact organisation and adaptation (ESAOA) knowledge. ESAOA knowledge is produced during ESAOA activities, which concern organising artefacts that are used to construct an ES and techniques by which engineers adapt and learn from these artefacts