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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Investigation Of G Protein-Coupled Receptor Quaternary Structure Through Fluorescence Micro-Spectroscopy And Theoretical Modeling: Interdependence Between Receptor-Receptor And Receptor-Ligand Interactions, Joel David Paprocki May 2021

Investigation Of G Protein-Coupled Receptor Quaternary Structure Through Fluorescence Micro-Spectroscopy And Theoretical Modeling: Interdependence Between Receptor-Receptor And Receptor-Ligand Interactions, Joel David Paprocki

Theses and Dissertations

Proteins are of high interest in biophysics research due to the important roles they play within cells, such as sensing of chemical (ions and small molecules) and physical (e.g., light) stimuli, providing structure, transporting ions/molecules, signaling, and intercellular communication. The studies described in this dissertation focus on a particular type of membrane proteins known as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR), which play a key role in cellular response to external stimuli. We used the sterile 2 α-factor mating pheromone receptor (Ste2), a prototypical class D GPCR present within Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast). Ste2 is responsible for initiating the second messenger signal …


Mult-Spectral Imaging Of Vegetation With A Diffractive Plenoptic Camera, Tristan R. Naranjo Mar 2020

Mult-Spectral Imaging Of Vegetation With A Diffractive Plenoptic Camera, Tristan R. Naranjo

Theses and Dissertations

Snapshot multi-spectral sensors allow for object detection based on its spectrum for remote sensing applications in air or space. By making these types of sensors more compact and lightweight, it allows drones to dwell longer on targets or the reduction of transport costs for satellites. To address this need, I designed and built a diffractive plenoptic camera (DPC) which utilized a Fresnel zone plate and a light field camera in order to detect vegetation via a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). This thesis derives design equations by relating DPC system parameters to its expected performance and evaluates its multi-spectral performance. …


Light Scattering In Diffraction Limit Infrared Imaging, Ghazal Azarfar Aug 2019

Light Scattering In Diffraction Limit Infrared Imaging, Ghazal Azarfar

Theses and Dissertations

Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy is a noninvasive technique for chemical imaging of micrometer size samples. Employing an infrared microscope, an infrared source and FTIR spectrometer coupled to a microscope with an array of detectors (128 x 128 detectors), enables collecting combined spectral and spatial information simultaneously. Wavelength dependent images are collected, that reveal biochemical signatures of disease pathology and cell cycle. Single cell biochemistry can be evaluated with this technique, since the wavelength of light is comparable to the size of the objects of interest, which leads to additional spectral and spatial effects disturb biological signatures and can confound …


Scattering In Infrared Microspectroscopy, Alex James Schofield Aug 2019

Scattering In Infrared Microspectroscopy, Alex James Schofield

Theses and Dissertations

Mid-infrared absorbance spectra obtained from spatially inhomogeneous and finite samples often contain scattering effects that undermine the Beer-Lambert law assumption. Such spectra contain generally non-linear contributions from the scattering material’s complex refractive index, which may result in derivative-like bands with shifted peak positions. It is first shown using Mie theory for spherical scatterers, that these band distortions may be interpreted and accurately modeled by Fano theory when the imaginary part of its complex dielectric function is small and Lorentzian in nature—as is the case for many biological media. By fitting Fano line shapes to isolated absorbance bands, recovery of the …


Excited Argon 1s5 Production In Microhollow Cathode Discharges, Richard D. Peterson Mar 2018

Excited Argon 1s5 Production In Microhollow Cathode Discharges, Richard D. Peterson

Theses and Dissertations

Diode-pumped rare gas lasers (DPRGL) have been in development for their potential to become high energy lasers with excellent beam quality that is typical of gas lasers. DPRGL require metastable densities on the order of 1013 cm-3 at pressures around one atmosphere for efficient operation. Argon 1s5 number densities have been measured in microhollow cathode discharges (MHCD) using tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy. The MHCD had copper electrodes with gaps of 127 and 254 µm and hole diameters from 100-400 µm. Absorbance was measured at pressures of 37 Torr up to 400 Torr, where absorbance could no longer …


Biomedical Applications Of Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging And Multivariate Data Analysis: Contribution To The Understanding Of Diabetes Pathogenesis, Ebrahim Aboualizadeh Aug 2017

Biomedical Applications Of Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging And Multivariate Data Analysis: Contribution To The Understanding Of Diabetes Pathogenesis, Ebrahim Aboualizadeh

Theses and Dissertations

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a microvascular complication of diabetes and a leading cause of adult vision loss. Although a great deal of progress has been made in ophthalmological examinations and clinical approaches to detect the signs of retinopathy in patients with diabetes, there still remain outstanding questions regarding the molecular and biochemical changes involved. To discover the biochemical mechanisms underlying the development and progression of changes in the retina as a result of diabetes, a more comprehensive understanding of the bio-molecular processes, in individual retinal cells subjected to hyperglycemia, is required. Animal models provide a suitable resource for temporal detection …


Coupling Nuclear Induced Phonon Propagation With Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy, Michael J. Parker Jun 2015

Coupling Nuclear Induced Phonon Propagation With Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy, Michael J. Parker

Theses and Dissertations

Mössbauer spectroscopy is a very sensitive measurement technique (10-8 eV) which prompted motivation for the experiment described in this thesis. Namely, can a sensitive detection system be developed to detect nuclear recoils on the order of 10 to 100 of eVs? The hypothesis that this thesis tests is: Nuclear induced phonon bursts caused by Rutherford scattered alphas, decayed from 241Am, in a type-310 stainless steel material can couple with 7.3 keV conversion electron Mössbauer events at the other end of the material which will have a statistically significant effect on a Mössbauer spectrum. The phonon bursts produced by …


Remote Quantification Of Smokestack Total Effluent Mass Flow Rates Using Imaging Fourier-Transform Spectroscopy, Jacob L. Harley Mar 2011

Remote Quantification Of Smokestack Total Effluent Mass Flow Rates Using Imaging Fourier-Transform Spectroscopy, Jacob L. Harley

Theses and Dissertations

A Telops Hyper-Cam midwave infrared (1.5 − 5.5μm) imaging Fourier-transform spectrometer (IFTS) was used to estimate industrial smokestack total effluent mass flow rates by combining spectrally-determined species concentrations with flow rates estimated via analysis of sequential images in the raw interferogram cube. Strong emissions from H2O, CO2, CO, SO2, and NO were observed in the spectrum. A previously established plume radiative transfer model was used to estimate gas concentrations, and a simple temporal cross-correlation analysis of sequential imagery enabled an estimation of the flow velocity. Final effluent mass flow rates for CO2 and …


Directional Pair-Production Spectrometer Design For Airborne Stand-Off Detection Of Special Nuclear Material, William L. Harrell Mar 2011

Directional Pair-Production Spectrometer Design For Airborne Stand-Off Detection Of Special Nuclear Material, William L. Harrell

Theses and Dissertations

The purposes of this research are to experimentally and theoretically prove the concept of a directional pair-production spectrometer to detect and locate the tailings that are created when making Special Nuclear Material (SNM) at stand-off distances from a remotely piloted vehicle (RPV). A directional pair-production spectrometer uses the information garnered from the high energy gamma rays emitted by these SNM manufacturing tailings to perform pair-production spectroscopy and identify the isotope of interest. Through simultaneous operation as a Compton camera, the detection system will be able to measure rudimentary directional information from the medium energy gamma decays. The detector used for …


Improving The Efficiency Of Photon Collection By Compton Rescue, Alexander W. Stevenson Mar 2011

Improving The Efficiency Of Photon Collection By Compton Rescue, Alexander W. Stevenson

Theses and Dissertations

A method to improve the efficiency of photon collection in thin planar HPGe detectors was investigated. The method involved implementing a second HPGe detector to collect Compton scattered photons from the primary detector and incorporating coincident interactions in the two detectors that sum to the full energy event into the energy spectrum. This method is termed Compton rescue because the Compton scattered photons make a partial energy deposition in the primary detector and are added back to the spectrum after being detected by the second detector. This research has implications on improving the efficiency of positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) techniques …


Raman Scattering In Gan And Zno, Shinobu Nagata Jan 2007

Raman Scattering In Gan And Zno, Shinobu Nagata

Theses and Dissertations

The Micro-Raman scattering technique has been used for the study of GaN and ZnO. Capabilities of the Raman technique and existing literature on Raman spectroscopy in GaN and ZnO are reviewed. About 50 GaN and ZnO samples with a wide range of properties are studied. From the analysis of positions of the E2H and A1(LO) phonon modes, biaxial stress and plasmon coupling of the Al(LO) mode are observed and compared to a bulk GaN sample. The stress-related shift rate for the AI(LO) mode in hexagonal GaN is established to be 2.7 ± 0.4 cm-1/GPa through series of GaN with low …


Use Of Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy To Determine Desorption Coefficients Of Trichioroethylene From Powdered Soils, Jay H. Foil Mar 1999

Use Of Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy To Determine Desorption Coefficients Of Trichioroethylene From Powdered Soils, Jay H. Foil

Theses and Dissertations

This laboratory thesis investigated the applicability of reflectance spectroscopy as a tool to measure desorption rates by directly observing the change in trichloroethylene bound to surface sites. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy holds the promise of being a faster technique with minimal sample preparation time. Reflectance spectroscopy's dependence on the surface of the sample is its greatest advantage, as well as its greatest disadvantage. Both high and low resolution scans were made of different soil samples contaminated by trichloroethylene. After the technique of spectral subtraction was used, potential TCE signals were observed from the dolomitic limestone sample. Unfortunately, due to the low …