Digital Commons Network^™

Adaptive Middleware For Resource-Constrained Mobile Ad Hoc And Wireless Sensor Networks, Chien-Liang Fok

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Mobile ad hoc networks: MANETs) and wireless sensor networks: WSNs) are two recently-developed technologies that uniquely function without fixed infrastructure support, and sense at scales, resolutions, and durations previously not possible. While both offer great potential in many applications, developing software for these types of networks is extremely difficult, preventing their wide-spread use. Three primary challenges are: 1) the high level of dynamics within the network in terms of changing wireless links and node hardware configurations,: 2) the wide variety of hardware present in these networks, and: 3) the extremely limited computational and energy resources available. Until now, the burden …

Representaciones E Imaginarios Sobre La Pobreza: Villa Miseria Y Subjetividad En La Literatura Argentina Del Siglo Xx Y Xxi, Maria Forcadell

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This dissertation studies the representation of shantytowns in Argentine narrative of the 20th and 21st century. The intellectual assumes the role of mediator and strengthens and or defies the social imagery about the poor and the space s/he inhabits. I argue that the socio-economic crisis of December 2001 affects the way in which writers imagine the subaltern and his/her urban spaces. As the narratives of progress and modernity enter in crisis, the villa miseria and poverty are reconfigured in new tales. This project is concentrated mainly in the post crisis fiction and on the emergency of social actors such piqueteros, …

Accurate Docking Is Achieved By Decoupling Systematic Sampling From Scoring, Jianwen Feng

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This dissertation discusses two main projects from my thesis work. The first project focuses on the development of a small molecule docking program, SKATE, for drug discovery. The second project focuses on the critical analysis of the thermal stability of a mini-protein, FSD-1. SKATE is a novel approach to small molecule docking. It removes any inter-dependence between sampling and scoring to improve docking accuracy. SKATE systematically and exhaustively samples a ligand's conformational, rotational and translational degrees of freedom, as constrained by a receptor pocket, to find sterically allowed poses. A total of 266 ligands were re-docked to their respective receptors …

Filling Essential Laminations, Michael Hamm

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Thurston and, later, Calegari-Dunfield found superlaminations in certain laminated 3-manifolds, the existence of which implies inclusions into Homeo S1 of the fundamental groups of those manifolds. The present paper extends the construction of the superlamination, and finds an infinite class of manifolds to which the extension does not yield such an inclusion of groups. Specifically, Calegari and Dunfield's proof of the existence of such an inclusion into Homeo S1 depended on their filling lemma, which states that essential laminations with solid torus guts can have leaves added to them to yield essential laminations with solid torus complementary regions.: Roughly, a …

Exploring The Potential Of Aging Network Services To Improve Depression Care, Leslie Hasche

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Depression is a prevalent, debilitating yet treatable psychiatric disorder affecting older adults. Older adults underutilize specialty mental health care, persistently receive poor quality care in primary care settings, and have high rates of non-adherence to pharmacotherapy. Aging network services, such as adult day services, homecare services, senior centers, and supportive housing may be able to improve the quality of depression care. However, it is unknown how current models of empirically supported depression care are used within or could be adopted by aging network services. Thus, this study described the organizational factors, staff factors, and current agency practices regarding depression among …

A Quest For Meaning In Spontaneous Brain Activity - From Fmri To Electrophysiology To Complexity Science, Biyu He

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The brain is not a silent, complex input/output system waiting to be driven by external stimuli; instead, it is a closed, self-referential system operating on its own with sensory information modulating rather than determining its activity. Ongoing spontaneous brain activity costs the majority of the brain's energy budget, maintains the brain's functional architecture, and makes predictions about the environment and the future. I have completed three separate studies on the functional significance and the organization of spontaneous brain activity. The first study showed that strokes disrupt large-scale network coherence in the spontaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging: fMRI) signals, and that …

Statistical Aggregation: Theory And Applications, Ruibin Xi

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Due to their size and complexity, massive data sets bring many computational challenges for statistical analysis, such as overcoming the memory limitation and improving computational efficiency of traditional statistical methods. In the dissertation, I propose the statistical aggregation strategy to conquer such challenges posed by massive data sets. Statistical aggregation partitions the entire data set into smaller subsets, compresses each subset into certain low-dimensional summary statistics and aggregates the summary statistics to approximate the desired computation based on the entire data. Results from statistical aggregation are required to be asymptotically equivalent. Statistical aggregation processes the entire data set part by …

Advances In Computational Solvation Thermodynamics, Matthew Wyczalkowski

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The aim of this thesis is to develop improved methods for calculating the free energy, entropy and enthalpy of solvation from molecular simulations. Solvation thermodynamics of model compounds provides quantitative measurements used to analyze the stability of protein conformations in aqueous milieus. Solvation free energies govern the favorability of the solvation process, while entropy and enthalpy decompositions give insight into the molecular mechanisms by which the process occurs. Computationally, a coupling parameter λ modulates solute-solvent interactions to simulate an insertion process, and multiple lengthy simulations at a fixed λ value are typically required for free energy calculations to converge; entropy …

Structually Diverse Cu-64-Labeled Rgd Peptide Conjugates For Pet Imaging Of Αvβ3 Expression, Ashley Fiamengo

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Radiolabeled receptor-binding peptides have emerged as an important class of radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic imaging and cancer therapy. Following radionuclide labeling, the specific receptor-binding properties of the ligand can be exploited to guide the radioactivity to tissues expressing a particular receptor. This dissertation reports on the development of integrin α_vβ₃-targeting radiopharmaceuticals for medical imaging applications from the perspective of both the radiometal-labeled chelator as well as the targeting peptide. Several macrocyclic copper(II) chelators have been studied with the goal of improving kinetic and in vivo stability. Structurally diverse bifunctional RGD: arginine-glycine-aspartic acid) peptides were investigated for α …

In Vivo Function Of Otopetrin 1 In The Vestibular Sensory Epithelium, Euysoo Kim

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Otopetrin family genes encode multi-transmembrane domain proteins with three highly conserved domains. In mice, three Otopetrin paralogues are found. One of its members, Otopetrin 1: Otop1) has been previously shown to be essential for the formation of otoconia in the vestibular system of the inner ear. Otoconia are calcium carbonate biominerals that are required for normal balance and the sensation of linear acceleration with respect to gravity. The mechanism by which OTOP1 mediates otoconia biosynthesis is not known, but the ability of OTOP1 to modulate [Ca2+]i in response to purinergic signals in heterologous systems suggest that OTOP1 may be involved …

Investigations Into Building Block Structure And Method Of Preparation On The Properties Of Nanomaterials, Zicheng Li

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This dissertation research is primarily focused on the preparation of polymer-based nanostructures as potential diagnostic agents and therapeutics delivery vehicles. Various polymers, nanoparticles and conjugation techniques were developed to meet the specific requirements of each application. Shell crosslinked nanoparticles: SCKs) are characterized by their structural integrity and available functionality to attach multiple agents on the shell, such as receptor-recognizing or receptor-specific ligands, .imaging agents, Cell transduction components, etc. In this work, SCKs derived from amphiphilic poly(acrylic acid)-block-polystyrene: PAA-b-PS) have been studied as potential diagnostic and therapeutic agent delivery vehicles: Chapters 2 and 4). SCK nanoparticles bearing a cyclic KCRGDC peptide …

Investigations Into The Ulnar Response To Mechanical Stimuli Activating Lamellar And Woven Bone Formation, Jennifer Mckenzie

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Woven and lamellar bone formation can be stimulated using mechanical loading. Woven bone forms rapidly in response to damaging loading in a disorganized manner with low mineral density. In contrast, lamellar bone formation can be induced in the absence of damage, and is characterized by its slow, organized deposition and high density. In this dissertation, we first examined the molecular response to woven and lamellar bone formation using damaging and non-damaging dynamic loading protocols, respectively. We observed a significant increase in gene expression related to angiogenesis, cell proliferation and osteogenesis prior to woven bone formation, with significantly lower levels of …

Development And Implementation Of Fully 3d Statistical Image Reconstruction Algorithms For Helical Ct And Half-Ring Pet Insert System, Daniel Keesing

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X-ray computed tomography: CT) and positron emission tomography: PET) have become widely used imaging modalities for screening, diagnosis, and image-guided treatment planning. Along with the increased clinical use are increased demands for high image quality with reduced ionizing radiation dose to the patient. Despite their significantly high computational cost, statistical iterative reconstruction algorithms are known to reconstruct high-quality images from noisy tomographic datasets. The overall goal of this work is to design statistical reconstruction software for clinical x-ray CT scanners, and for a novel PET system that utilizes high-resolution detectors within the field of view of a whole-body PET scanner. …

Batf Regulates Previously Unknown Ap-1 Target Genes To Control Th17 Differentiation, Barbara Schraml

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Activator protein 1: AP-1) transcription factors are dimers of Jun, Fos, musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma: MAF) and activating transcription factor: ATF) family proteins that are characterized by a basic region and a leucine zipper domain. While many AP-1 proteins also contain defined transcriptional activation domains: TADs), some consist only of a basic region and leucine zipper and are thought to function as inhibitors of AP-1 activity. We found that the AP-1 protein Batf, which lacks a TAD, is highly expressed in T helper cells compared to various other immune cells and tissues. IL-17-producing T helper: TH17) cells are a CD4+ T cell …

Sumbawan Obstetrics: The Social Construction Of Obstetrical Practice In Rural Indonesia, Vanessa Hildebrand

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This dissertation examines the ways that the people in the village of Lunyuk, Sumbawa negotiate relationships and identity in their discussions about pregnancy and childbirth. At the center of the analysis are dueling midwives: those with biomedical training: bidan) versus those who use a local indigenous obstetrical knowledge similar to that found in much of Indonesia: dukun bayi). They compete with each other for patients, who are likewise making sense of their position in the world while juggling the pressures from national citizenship, local ethnic membership, Islam, and obstetric knowledge options. Specifically, this dissertation examines how people in this region …

Oxy-Coal Combustion: Submicrometer Particle Formation, Mercury Speciation, And Their Capture, Achariya Suriyawong

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Energy is the issue of great importance at the present. Coal, the cheapest and the most abundant reserve fossil fuel, is currently one of the most widely used energy source globally and will continue to be in the foreseeable future. The use of coal has also posed many world-wide environmental challenges, including the control of particulate matter, mercury, and trace metals, and carbon oxide: CO2) emissions. The rising of CO2 level in the atmosphere due to burning of fossil fuels is one of the major factors contributing to the global climate change. Capturing CO2 from coal combustion exhaust has been …

Evolution Of Endosperm Starch Synthesis Pathway Genes In The Context Of Rice: Oryza Sativa) Domestication, Guoqin Yu

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The evolution of metabolic pathways is a fundamental but poorly understood aspect of evolutionary change. The rice endosperm starch biosynthetic pathway is one of the most thoroughly characterized biosynthesis pathways in plants, and starch is a trait that has evolved in response to strong selection during rice domestication and subsequent crop improvement. In this study, I have examined six key genes in the rice endosperm starch biosynthesis pathway to investigate the evolution of this pathway before rice domestication and during rice domestication. Oryza rufipogon is the wild ancestor of cultivated rice: Oryza sativa). Oryza sativa has five variety groups: aus, …

The Development Of Architectural Office Specialization As Evidenced By Professional Journals, 1890-1920, Elyse Mcbride

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An analysis of the development of architectural office specialization at the turn of the twentieth century. Discourse on the operation of architectural offices in professional journals is analyzed to reveal trends relating to the types of office management used in large architectural offices from 1890 to 1920.

A Thesis Towards Development Of An Occupational Therapy Game System For Stroke Patients, Emily Yang

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Persons who have suffered from stroke participate in occupational therapy to help recover occupational functionality, but therapy is expensive and maximal recovery often depends on repetitive, tedious exercises to be done by patients both in therapy sessions and on their own. Often patients do not have the resources or motivation to complete the treatment required to give them the best results. This thesis is presented as part of a larger project in which we aim to enable occupational therapists to use the Looking Glass programming environment to create computer games for their patients that can be played inexpensively and effectively, …

An Oversampled Analog To Digital Converter For Acquiring Neural Signals, Grant Williams

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A third order delta-sigma modulator and associated low-pass digital filter is designed for an analog to digital converter: ADC) for sensing bioelectric phenomena. The third order noise shaping reduces the quantization noise in the baseband and the digital lowpass filter greatly attenuates the out of band quantization noise, increasing the effective number of bits. As part of a neural signal acquisition system designed by The BrainScope Company to capture Electro-Encephalogram: EEG) and Automated Brainstem Response: ABR) signals, this paper describes the design of a third order Delta-Sigma modulator which meets or exceeds the low noise specifications mandated by previous BrainScope …

An Energy Economic Model For Electricity Generation In The United States, Lee Chusak

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No abstract provided.

Financial Crisis And Future Securities Regulation, Mark Collins

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No abstract provided.

‘This’ Is Not ‘Love’: A Cognitive Assessment Of The Lyrics And Translations Of Jalāl Al-Din Rūmī'S Ghazal #1919 From The Divān-I Shams, Matthew Miller

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No abstract provided.

Factors Affecting Size And Swelling Of Poly(Ethylene Glycol) Hydrogel Microspheres Formed In Aqueous Sodium Sulfate Solutions, Michael Nichols

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The lower critical solution temperature: LCST) behavior of poly(ethylene glycol): PEG) in aqueous sodium sulfate solutions was exploited to fabricate hydrogel microspheres under mild conditions without the use of other monomers, polymers, surfactants or organic solvents. Reactive PEG derivatives underwent thermally induced phase separation to produce spherical PEG-rich domains that coarsened pending gelation, resulting in stable hydrogel microspheres that were polydisperse in size. The degree of reaction prior to phase separation, reaction rate within the PEG-rich domains, and duration of the reaction were independently varied to elucidate their effects on final microsphere size and gain insight regarding the mechanism of …

Sleeping To Remember: Spontaneous Retrieval Of Prospective Memories Across Sleep And Wake Delays, Michael Scullin

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Laboratory-based prospective memory tasks have rarely examined the effect of retention interval on later remembering. In the current study, participants had to remember to perform an intended action: press Q in response to a target cue) after a short delay: approximately 20 min), a 12-hr sleep delay, or a 12-hr wake delay. The results demonstrated a large decline in prospective memory performance after a 12-hr wake delay: relative to the short delay condition). Interestingly, prospective remembering was not only better following a 12-hr sleep delay than a 12-hr wake delay but performance in this condition did not differ significantly from …

Test Expectancy And Transfer Of Knowledge With Open-Book And Closed-Book Tests, Pooja Agarwal

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Two experiments examined the testing effect with open-book tests, in which students view notes and textbooks while taking the test, and closed-book tests, in which students take the test without viewing notes or textbooks. In the first experiment, subjects studied GRE passages and then took an open- or closed-book test. Open-book testing led to better initial performance than closed-book testing, but this benefit did not persist and both types of testing produced equivalent retention on GRE comprehension questions and transfer questions after a two-day delay. In the second experiment, subjects were informed in advance of the type of immediate or …

Superpixel Segmentation Of Outdoor Webcams To Infer Scene Structure, Rachel Tannenbaum

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Understanding an outdoor sceneΓÇÖs 3-D structure has applications in several ∩¼üelds, including surveillance and computer graphics. Scene elementsΓÇÖ time-series brightness gives insight to their geometric orientation; and thus the 3-D structure of the overall scene. Previous works have studied the time-series brightness of individual pixels. However, there are limitations with this approach. Pixels are often quite noisy, and can require a lot of memory. This thesis explores the use of superpixels to address these issues. Superpixels, an approach to image segmentation, over-segment a scene but attempt to ensure that each segment lies on only one scene element. Applying superpixels to …

Ensemble Support Vector Machine Models Of Radiation-Induced Lung Injury Risk, Todd Schiller

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Patients undergoing radiation therapy can develop a potentially fatal inflammation of the lungs known as radiation pneumonitis: RP). In practice, modeling RP factors is difficult because existing data are under-sampled and imbalanced. Support vector machines: SVMs), a class of statistical learning methods that implicitly maps data into a higher dimensional space, is one machine learning method that recently has been applied to the RP problem with encouraging results. In this thesis, we present and evaluate an ensemble SVM method of modeling radiation pneumonitis. The method internalizes kernel/model parameter selection into model building and enables feature scaling via Olivier Chapelle's method. …

The Nonexistence Of Shearlet-Like Scaling Multifunctions That Satisfy Certain Minimally Desirable Properties And Characterizations Of The Reproducing Properties Of The Integer Lattice Translations Of A Countable Collection Of Square Integrable Functions, Robert Houska

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

In Chapter 1, we introduce three varieties of reproducing systems—Bessel systems, frames, and Riesz bases—within the Hilbert space context and prove a number of elementary results, including qualitative characterizations of each and several results regarding the combination and partitioning of reproducing systems.

In Chapter 2, we characterize when the integer lattice translations of a countable collection of square integrable functions forms a Bessel system, a frame, and a Riesz basis.

In Chapter 3, we introduce composite wavelet systems and generalize several well-known classical wavelet system results—including those regarding pointwise values of the Fourier transform of the wavelet and scaling function …

Multi-Element Isotopic Analyses Of Presolar Graphite Grains From The Orgueil Meteorite, Manavi Jadhav

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This dissertation presents the results and implications of the isotopic analyses of presolar graphite grains from the primitive carbonaceous chondrite, Orgueil. Graphite grains from low- and high-density fractions were analyzed for C, N, O, Si, Al-Mg, K, Ca, and Ti isotopes. These analyses indicate that isotopic properties are density dependent. Most low-density grains come from supernovae as indicated by large 18O, 15N, 28Si excesses, high inferred 26Al/27Al and 41Ca/40Ca ratios, and the initial presence of the short-lived radionuclide 44Ti in some grains. Some high-density grains also show supernovae signatures, but a majority seems to originate from low-metallicity asymptotic giant branch …