Iskanje po katalogu digitalne knjižnice

Opis: Background: While immunocastration has been studied in male pre-pubertal pigs, data on older, sexually mature animals are limited. To understand the physiological effects of androgen deprivation in the late sexual development phase, we compared mature immunocastrated boars (n = 19; average age = 480 days) to young male immunocastrated pigs (n = 6; average age = 183 days) and young entire males (n = 6; average age = 186 days) as positive and negative controls, respectively. Objectives: We hypothesized that the timing of gonadotropin-releasing hormone suppression (early or late sexual development phases) influences the extent of reproductive function inhibition, histological structure of testicular tissue, and expression levels of selected genes related to steroid metabolism. Materials and methods: Antibody titer, hormonal status, and histomorphometric analysis of testicular tissue were subjected to principal component analysis followed by hierarchical clustering to evaluate the immunocastration effectiveness in mature boars. Results: Hierarchical clustering differentiated mature immunocastrated boars clustered with young immunocastrated pigs from those clustered with entire males. Although all mature immunocastrated boars responded to vaccination, as evidenced by the increased gonadotropin-releasing hormone antibody titers (p < 0.001), decreased serum luteinizing hormone concentrations (p = 0.002), and changes in testicular tissue vascularization (lighter and less red testicular parenchyma; p ≤ 0.001), the responses were variable. Sharp decreases in testes index (p < 0.001), Leydig cell volume density (p < 0.001), Leydig cell nucleus-to-cytoplasm ratio (p < 0.001), and testosterone concentration (p < 0.001) were observed in mature immunocastrated boars clustered with young immunocastrated pigs compared with those that clustered with entire males. Additionally, mature immunocastrated boars clustered with young immunocastrated pigs showed lower hydroxysteroid 17-beta dehydrogenase 7 expression than entire males (p < 0.05). The young immunocastrated pigs group showed higher folliclestimulating hormone receptors than the entire males and mature immunocastrated boars, lower steroidogenic acute regulatory protein expression levels compared with entire males, and mature immunocastrated boars clustered with entire males (p < 0.01). Conclusion: The two-dose vaccination regime resulted in progressive but variable regression of testicular function in adult (post-pubertal) pigs; however, it was insufficient to induce a complete immunocastration response in all animals.
Ključne besede: response to immunocastration, pigs, anti-GnRH, morphometry, testicular mRNA expression
Objavljeno v DKUM: 16.08.2023; Ogledov: 470; Prenosov: 65
Celotno besedilo (4,04 MB)
Gradivo ima več datotek! Več...

Opis: The compression index is one of the important soil parameters that are essential for geotechnical designs. Because laboratory and in-situ tests for determining the compression index (Cc) value are laborious, time consuming and costly, empirical formulas based on soil parameters are commonly used. Over the years a number of empirical formulas have been proposed to relate the compressibility to other soil parameters, such as the natural water content, the liquid limit, the plasticity index, the specific gravity. These empirical formulas provide good results for a specific test set, but cannot accurately or reliably predict the compression index from various test sets. The other disadvantage is that they tend to use a single parameter to estimate the compression index (Cc), even though Cc exhibits spatial characteristics depending on several soil parameters. This study presents the potential for Genetic Expression Programming (GEP) and the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy (ANFIS) computing paradigm to predict the compression index from soil parameters such as the natural water content, the liquid limit, the plastic index, the specific gravity and the void ratio. A total of 299 data sets collected from the literature were used to develop the models. The performance of the models was comprehensively evaluated using several statistical verification tools. The predicted results showed that the GEP and ANFIS models provided fairly promising approaches to the prediction of the compression index of soils and could provide a better performance than the empirical formulas.
Ključne besede: compression index, statistical analysis, genetic expression programming, adaptive neuro-fuzzy, empirical equations
Objavljeno v DKUM: 14.06.2018; Ogledov: 1468; Prenosov: 83
Celotno besedilo (274,65 KB)
Gradivo ima več datotek! Več...

Opis: SMS is a relatively new asynchronous communication form, generally accepted in Croatia, where the number of mobile phones surpasses the number of the inhabitants. A language analysis of the corpus of SMS messages has been done for the purpose of this investigation, with the aim to examine the type of communication involved, and to establish whether the language in the Croatian SMS messages differs from those in German and English. It has been found that the limit of 160 characters in a single message presents a basic determining factor of the SMS discourse, as it requires utmost economy of the language used, i.e. briefness (saving the effort, space, time and money). The language analysis performed has also shown that SMS messages are used to communicate almost any topic of everyday life, as well as that, apart from numerous elements of deviation from the accepted language standards, they exhibit a lot of abbreviations, together with graphostylistic signs (emoticons) and Anglicisms. The language used in Croatian SMS messages does not differ significantly from that used in English or German messages of the same type.
Ključne besede: SMS discourse, conceptually oral expression, abbreviating, anglicisms, deviation from the standard, graphostylistic signs, emoticons, Croatia
Objavljeno v DKUM: 26.09.2017; Ogledov: 1166; Prenosov: 100
Celotno besedilo (85,38 KB)
Gradivo ima več datotek! Več...

Opis: The hERG potassium channel is essential for repolarization of the cardiac action potential. Due to this vital function, absence of unintended and potentially life-threatening interactions with hERG is required for approval of new drugs. The structure of hERG is therefore one of the most sought-after. To provide purified hERG for structural studies and new hERG biomimetic platforms for detection of undesirable interactions, we have developed a hERG expression platform generating unprecedented amounts of purified and functional hERG channels. Full-length hERG, with or without a C-terminally fused green fluorescent protein (GFP) His 8-tag was produced from a codon-optimized hERG cDNA in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Both constructs complemented the high potassium requirement of a knock-out Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain, indicating correct tetramer assembly in vivo. Functionality was further demonstrated by Astemizole binding to membrane embedded hERG-GFP-His 8 with a stoichiometry corresponding to tetramer assembly. The 156 kDa hERG-GFP protein accumulated to a membrane density of 1.6%. Fluorescence size exclusion chromatography of hERG-GFP-His 8 solubilized in Fos-Choline-12 supplemented with cholesteryl-hemisuccinate and Astemizole resulted in a monodisperse elution profile demonstrating a high quality of the hERG channels. hERG-GFP-His 8 purified by Ni-affinity chromatography maintained the ability to bind Astemizole with the correct stoichiometry indicating that the native, tetrameric structure was preserved. To our knowledge this is the first reported high-yield production and purification of full length, tetrameric and functional hERG. This significant breakthrough will be paramount in obtaining hERG crystal structures, and in establishment of new high-throughput hERG drug safety screening assays.
Ključne besede: potassium channel, membrane protein production, functional expression, cardiac action potential
Objavljeno v DKUM: 29.06.2017; Ogledov: 1496; Prenosov: 344
Celotno besedilo (2,85 MB)
Gradivo ima več datotek! Več...

Opis: This diploma thesis deals with phrasal verbs, which are an important and frequently used element in English language. Since they are typical of spoken English, my aim was to explore their usage in direct speech. As a basis for my research I chose three American dance movies: Step up, Step up 2: The Streets and Step up 3D. According to the genre of the movies, I expected a large number of phrasal verbs to occur. I focused on idiomatic phrasal verbs, whose meaning cannot be easily guessed from the component parts, whereas literal phrasal verbs are easy to understand. I analyzed the frequency of occurrence of idiomatic phrasal verbs in the movies, and identified those that occur in idioms and in slang expressions. Moreover, I focused on the translation of idiomatic phrasal verbs and slang expressions in Slovene. The results of the analysis confirmed my hypothesis that idiomatic phrasal verbs dominate over literal ones in the movies. Often they occurred in idioms and in slang expressions. The analysis also showed that phrasal verbs in idioms cannot be translated in Slovene word for word. Instead, we need to find their closest equivalent in Slovene to make the translated version sound natural. In the last part of the analysis I made a comparison of the occurrence of idiomatic phrasal verbs in the movies and in literature. The comparison confirmed my hypothesis that idiomatic phrasal verbs are more frequently used in spoken than in written English. However, in both cases their usage also depends on the formality of a situation.
Ključne besede: phrasal verb, idiomatic phrasal verb, idiomatic expression, slang, Slovene translation of phrasal verbs
Objavljeno v DKUM: 08.10.2012; Ogledov: 2812; Prenosov: 161
Celotno besedilo (935,73 KB)