Development of optimal fermentation expression systems for recombinant proteins: a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Technology at Massey University

This research set out to maximise the titre of four recombinant protein products (i.e. Eg95 vaccine antigen against Echinococcus granulosus a aspartyl protease inhibitor homologue, Aspin; a secreted cytokine granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF); a secreted gonadotropin ovine follicle stimulating factor (oFSH)) and develop parameters for the expression of those proteins in a small scale stirred tank biorcactor. Production of Eg95 as inclusion bodies in E. coli was influenced by the medium, feeding strategy, induction timing and dissolved oxygen concentration. Expression was greatest using the medium Terrific Broth. Higher Eg95 titres were favoured using exponential feeding, a low dissolved oxygen concentration and with cells induced in mid-exponential growth. A maximum titre of 1.73 g/L of Eg95 was produced in a fed-batch fermentation controlled at 37°C, pH 7.0 and 30% dissolved oxygen. Induction with 0.1 mM of IPTG added four hours after inoculation, was optimal. The maximum titre attained, was a 360% improvement on fermentations prior to this research. Aspin was used to investigate the culture conditions for maximizing the production of soluble protein in E.coli. Soluble Aspin production was favoured at low expression rates. A volumetric titre of 0.220 g/L of soluble Aspin was attained in batch fermentation by inducing with 2 g/L of L-arabinose, with the temperature reduced from 37°C to 23°C and by maintaining a low dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration. This yield was relatively high compared to previous reports [1-3]. G-CSF production in the yeast Pichia pastoris was influenced by the medium, pH and methanol-to-cell ratio. A maximum titre of 0.028g/L of G-CSF was produced in shaker flasks of enhanced yeast extract Hy-Soy dextrose medium (YEHD), maintained at 200 rpm, 30°C, pH 6.0 and with 1% (v/v) methanol fed per day. Cells were resuspended to an optical density of 8 prior to induction. No improvement in G-CSF was achieved in the fermenter, likely due to an inhibition by toxic materials. The optimised shaker flask yield was consistent with previous reports [4-6]. Production of oFSH in insect cells was influenced by the cell density at inoculation and rate of agitation. 0.001 g/L of oFSH was produced in shaker flasks inoculated at a density of 1 x 106 cells/mL, cultured at 27°C and agitated at 140rpm. This represented an improvement over previous yields[7]

The impact of locus of control and control on performance during painful stimulation : an experimental investigation : a dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

Pain interrupts cognitive processing, is hard to ignore and demands priority attention (Crombez, Baeyens & Eelen, 1994). Focusing on the effect of pain on attention, the primary task paradigm was used to investigate the effect pain had on the task performance of 59 psychology undergraduate students assessed for their locus of control (LOC) beliefs using Rotters (1964) LOC Scale. In a mixed experimental design, participants were required to discrimination between 250 and 750 MHz tones while being exposed to the experimental pain stimulus potassium iontophoresis, a control stimulus of an old man's face and tone only baseline trials. A control manipulation gave all participants both control and no control over the presentation of three levels of pain; high, medium and low pain. The results show that pain interfered with the accuracy of tone discriminations but not reaction times (RT). Additionally, the interference effect from painful stimulation was greater at 250 ms after the onset of the tone compared to the 750 ms onset. A signalling/warning effect is discussed as an explanation for this finding. The external LOC group performed worse when they had control over pain compared to no control. The internal LOC group showed less task degradation overall during the pain condition compared to the external group. These results are discussed in relation with current theories of attention, the effects of control and LOC beliefs

Environmental compliance costs and innovation activity in UK manufacturing industries

We examine the relationship between environmental regulations and innovation, using data from UK manufacturing industry during 2000-2006. We estimate a dynamic model of innovation behaviour, and explicitly account for the likely endogeneity of our measure of the burden of environmental regulations (pollution abatement costs). Our results indicate that environmental R&D and investment in environmental capital are stimulated by greater pollution abatement pressures. However, we do not ?find a positive impact of environmental compliance costs on total R&D or total capital accumulation. New environmental innovations may therefore have a crowding out effect on other potentially more productive investments or avenues for innovation.Innovation, Pollution abatement expenditures, Panel data.

Environmental Regulations, Outward FDI and Heterogeneous Firms: Are Countries Used as Pollution Havens?

We consider whether pollution-intensive FDI tends to outflow from a country which maintains stringent environmental regulations and into countries with weak environmental regulations. We consider this issue by incorporating the predictions from the recent heterogeneous firm models of international trade into an empirical model of outward FDI by UK firms. We find that environmental regulations are not a robustly significant determinant of the internationalisation decision, but a pollution-intensive multinational enterprise’s location decision will be affected by the environmental regime in place in the host country. Any deterrent effect is however highly conditional upon other factors, notably corruption.Pollution haven; Foreign investment; Environmental regulation

The Metastases of Myth: Legal Images as Transitional Phenomena

In times of transition and transformation, legal images metastasize. This idea can be usefully related both to Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects and Barthes’ theory of myth. But each tell only part of the full story. Barthes fails to fully account for the stabilizing effect of the reassuring signifier; Winnicott fails to fully account for the ideological adaptability—and implications—of the shifting signified. The legal image unites the iterability of the signifier and the polysemy of the signified, harnessing the affective intensity of the former to the cultural mobility of the latter. In this article, I propose to illustrate this insight by reflecting on two notable images of law that appeared at a moment of profound legal transformation, at the dawn of the early modern era. The images of ‘blind justice’ and ‘sol justitiae’ which the article discusses are both ‘transitional myths’, facilitating through modes of affect a legal journey into uncharted territory. Paying attention to these images and above all to their transformation over time, we can observe not only the process of legal transition at work, but the function of the image in its authorization and modalization

After illness, under diagnosis

A vast portion of the world’s population live with ill health following acute infection or disease and its emergency management. This reflects the increased capacity of technological innovations and pharmaceuticals to interrupt decline or complications, even when cure is unlikely. The authors in this Special Section illustrate how, in different localities, people live with risk for themselves or their offspring; with non-communicable, degenerative, autoimmune, and congenital conditions; with the after-effects of diagnostic procedures and surgical interventions; and with continued treatment and surveillance. We attend to the value of conceptualising this as ‘living under’ diagnosis or description. We illustrate how diagnostic labels overdetermine subsequent embodied states of being, structuring interactions and social relations with family, friends, and health professionals. Living under diagnosis, we argue, impacts on self-care, care for and by others, everyday lives, and anticipations of the future

Contents & Introduction, Law Text Culture, volume 26

The essays in this collection grew out of an online symposium series organized in the middle of the 2020 pandemic lockdown in Australia. We had a sense of the vital role of metaphor in how we think; vital in the twin senses of crucial and full of life. We wanted to find out more from colleagues working in disciplines as diverse as history, cultural studies, critical theory, law, and philosophy. We wanted to think about the role of metaphors in how we confront difference; in how we make sense of the world; in the political, legal, and social challenges of the world we live in. What metaphors frame our thinking and to what ends? The answers that emerged orbit around a series of underlying tensions: metaphor as necessity, opportunity, and impurity; metaphor as natural, as strategic, as tactical; metaphor as a way of living, a way of seeing, and a way of obscuring; metaphor as keeping faith and metaphor as betrayal; metaphor as critique and the critique of metaphor. In exploring these tensions, three matters of concern kept recurring, and these three themes form the structure of the collection to follow: colonialism, monsters, and disease. Each chapters focuses on one of these themes, but all convincingly draw out their interconnections and mutual implications. What is colonialism but a monstrous disease? What are these monsters but diseased colonists? What is disease but yet another colonising monstrosity

Desert Island Disks: Ten Reveries on Inter-Disciplinary Pedagogy in Law

In this essay Professor Manderson defends the use of inter-disciplinary methodologies in teaching law. Focusing in particular on images and texts of no more than a page's length, the essay insists that a whole curriculum could be devised around these pictures, sounds, and stories. Yet legal teaching, reflecting the character of legal texts in general, has been relentlessly long-winded and linear. They direct us to one conclusion to the exclusion of all others; they close options rather than open them. This is no way to learn: it is untrue; it is tedious; it excludes us from ourselves participating in learning. Other forms of expression have more to say and say it differently. A picture for example has a density to it in its depiction of the relationship of ideas and forces which can be both easy to take in and complex to decipher. Its ability to communicate paradoxical, ambiguous, or double-edged thought repays continuing reflection. Other forms of expression welcome our thinking instead of merely forcing us to submit to its logic. We are embodied beings not logicians. Words are often such abstract ghostly emanations. The physicality of sound or vision draws out memories and associations which offer each observer inimitable divergent paths to interpretation. The reciprocity thus forged between writer and reader, teacher and student, is a grossly under exploited pedagogic resource that provides to all parties an unparalleled richness and discursive power