Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Initial Characterization Of A Conserved Active Site Residue For The Cdc34 Ubiquitin Conjugating Enzyme, Arvin Akoopie

Theses

Ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes (E2s) covalently modify protein substrates with ubiquitins. The active site cysteine residues on E2s are essential for catalyzing the transfer of ubiquitin from the E2 active site onto the protein substrate, however there is a limited amount of information available concerning additional active site residues for E2s that may also participate in catalysis. Cdc34 is an essential E2 that has merited the lion’s share of attention for biochemical analysis of the E2 family. Previous phylogenetic analysis of Cdc34 amino acid sequences has identified an invariably conserved histidine residue close to the active site cysteine in the primary ...

Boundaries Of A Complex World, Andrei Ludu

Andrei Ludu

No abstract provided.

Electronic & Magnetic Properties Of Ba(Fe,Co)2as2 & Uru2si2, Travis J. Williams

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

This thesis details a collection of experiments performed on two condensed matter systems, Co-doped BaFe₂As₂ and URu₂Si₂. These two materials are related by their structural type (ThCr₂Si₂-type) serving as great examples of the diversity of material properties present in this family. They are also both superconducting materials and belong to the collection of strongly-correlated electron systems. The interest in studying the Ba(Fe,Co)₂As₂ group of materials is due to the high superconducting transition temperature in these (and related) materials, while the compound URu₂Si_{2 ...}

Phase Field Crystal Studies Of Strain-Mediated Effects In The Thermodynamics And Kinetics Of Interfaces, Jonathan F E Stolle

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, the Phase Field Crystal (PFC) Method is used to study a number of problems in which interfaces and elastic effects play important roles in alloys. In particular, the three topics covered in this work are grain boundary thermodynamics in alloys, dislocation-mediated formation of clusters in binary and ternary alloys, and solutal effects in explosive crystallization. Physical phenomena associated with grain boundaries, such as Read-Shockley-like behaviour and Gibbs adsorp- tion theorem, were shown to be accurately captured in both PFC- and XPFC-type models. In fact, a connection between the solute segregation behaviour and physical properties of the system ...

Neutron Scattering Studies Of Magnetic Oxides Based On Triangular Motifs, Katharina Fritsch

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

The following dissertation presents neutron scattering studies on three specific magnetic insulating oxide materials whose lattice is based on triangular structural motifs. Each of the three materials studied, LuCoGaO₄, Co₃V₂O₈ and Tb₂Ti₂O₇, displays an interesting disordered ground state that is reached by different mechanisms: site disorder, geometric frustration, and quantum fluctuations induced by a transverse magnetic field. The main focus of this work is the characterization of the resulting magnetic ground states and magnetic excitations within these systems.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 contain original work in the form ...

Direct Numerical Simulations Of Magnetic Helicity Conserving Astrophysical Dynamos, Alex J. Cridland

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

Here we present direct numerical simulations of a shearing box which models the MHD turbulence in astrophysical systems with cylindrical geometries. The purpose of these simulations is to detect the source of the electromotive force - the driver of large scale magnetic field evolution. This electromotive force is responsible for the large scale dynamo action which builds and maintains the magnetic field against dissipation in plasmas. We compare the estimates of the electromotive force from the kinematic approximation of mean field theory - the most prevalent theory for astrophysical dynamos - with a modified version of mean field theory which restricts the electromotive ...

Asymptotic Theory For Three Infinite Dimensional Diffusion Processes, Youzhou Zhou

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is centered around three infinite dimensional diffusion processes:

(i). the infinitely-many-neutral-alleles diffusion model [Ethier and Kurtz, 1981],

(ii). the two-parameter infinite dimensional diffusion model [Petrov, 2009] and [Feng and Sun, 2010],

(iii). the infinitely-many-alleles diffusion with symmetric dominance [Ethier and Kurtz, 1998].

The partition structures, the ergodic inequalities and the asymptotic theory of these three models are discussed. In particular, the asymptotic theory turns out to be the major contribution of this thesis.

In Chapter 2, a slightly altered version of Kingman's one-to-one correspondence theorem on partition structures is provided, which in turn becomes a handy tool ...

Likelihood-Based Inferential Methods For Some Flexible Cure Rate Models, Suvra Pal

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

Recently, the Conway-Maxwell Poisson (COM-Poisson) cure rate model has been proposed which includes as special cases some of the well-known cure rate models discussed in the literature. Data obtained from cancer clinical trials are often right censored and the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm can be efficiently used for the determination of the maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of the model parameters based on right censored data.

By assuming the lifetime distribution to be exponential, lognormal, Weibull, and gamma, the necessary steps of the EM algorithm are developed for the COM-Poisson cure rate model and some of its special cases. The inferential ...

Application Of Magnetic “Fishing” And Mass Spectrometry For Function-Based Assays Of Biomolecular Interactions, Meghan J. Mcfadden

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

The human interactome presents a goldmine of potentially powerful therapeutic targets, yet very few small molecule modulators of protein-protein interactions (PPI) have been identified. PPI pose a particular challenge for drug discovery, and one of the major obstacles to fully exploiting these interactions is a lack of appropriate technologies to screen for modulating compounds. This thesis aims to address the need for function- based approaches that target PPI by using magnetic beads (MB) and mass spectrometry (MS) to develop efficient assays to monitor these interactions and their modulation by small molecules. The work begins with the validation of a novel ...

Effects Of Thinning On Carbon Dynamics In A Temperate Coniferous Forest, Janelle S. Trant

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

Forest ecosystems are a significant component of the global carbon (C) cycle. Afforestation is considered a cost-effective and ecologically viable means to sequester atmospheric carbon. However, afforestation requires intensive management practices, including thinning, to maintain and enhance the carbon sequestration capability of the forest. This study examines thinning effects on forest carbon dynamics using eddy covariance (EC) methods. In January 2012, a 74-year-old white pine (Pinus strobus) plantation located in southern Ontario was selectively thinned. Approximately 30% of trees, equating to 2308 m³ of wood (sawlogs and pulpwood), were removed to improve light, water and nutrient availability for remaining ...

Defect Localization Using Dynamic Call Tree Mining And Matching And Request Replication: An Alternative To Qos-Aware Service Selection, Anis Yousefi

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is concerned with two separate subjects; (i) Defect localization using tree mining and tree matching, and (ii) Quality-of-service-aware service selection; it is divided into these parts accordingly.

In the first part of this thesis we present a novel technique for defect localization which is able to localize call-graph-affecting defects using tree mining and tree matching techniques. In this approach, given a set of successful executions and a failing execution and by following a series of analyses we generate an extended report of suspicious method calls. The proposed defect localization technique is implemented as a prototype and evaluated using ...

Development Of A Thgem Imaging Detector With Delay Line Readout, Andrei Hanu

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

Position sensitive detectors represent a class of particle detectors widely used in high-energy physics, astrophysics, biophysics and medicine for imaging the spatial distribution of various radioactive sources. In recent years, a new class of gas based detectors, so-called micropattern gas detectors (MPGDs), has emerged. While modern MPGDs rival solid state detectors in terms of spatial and temporal resolution, their cost of production is significantly lower. A Thick Gaseous Electron Multiplier (THGEM) imaging detector, with a two-dimensional delay line readout, has been constructed as a concept for a large area imaging detector with reasonable spatial resolution. The delay line based THGEM ...

In-Package Atmospheric Pressure Cold Plasma Treatment Of Strawberries, Nn Misra, Paula Bourke, Patrick J. Cullen, Sonal Patil

Articles

The ability to generate low temperature plasma at atmospheric pressure offers new opportunities to decontaminate biological materials, including fresh foods. In this study, strawberries were treated with atmospheric cold plasma (ACP), generated with a 60 kV dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) pulsed at 50 Hz, across a 40 mm electrode gap, generated inside a sealed package containing ambient air (42% relative humidity). The current-voltage characteristics revealed that the plasma operated in the filamentary regime. The background microflora (aerobic mesophillic bacteria, yeast and mould) of strawberries treated for 5 min was reduced by 2 log 10 within 24 h of post-ACP treatment ...

Multicomponent Dark Matter: Possible Signatures At Colliders, Satellites, And Underground Experiments, Gregory Peim

Physics Dissertations

Collider and dark matter phenomenology of the Higgs boson, Supersymmetry, Stueckelberg extensions to the Standard Model as well as to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, and exotic TeV size scalars with naturalness implications in the context of multicomponent dark matter and asymmetric dark matter models are investigated. The measurement of signals of new physics at dark matter direct detection experiments as well as colliders (Large Hadron Collider, TeVatron, and a future muon collider) were discussed and explored in depth with a focus on the prospects for the discovery of new physics. The details of multicomponent dark matter models and each ...

An Exploration Of “Non-Economic” Damages In Civil Jury Awards, Herbert M. Kritzer, Guangya Liu, Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

Using three primary data sources plus three supplemental sources discussed in an appendix, this paper examines how well non-economic damages could be predicted by economic damages and at how the ratio of non-economic damages to economic damages changed as the magnitude of the economic damages awarded by juries increased. We found a mixture of consistent and inconsistent patterns across our various datasets. One fairly consistent pattern was the tendency for the ratio of non-economic to economic damages to decline as the amount of economic damages increased. Moreover, the variability of the ratio also tended to decline as the amount of ...

Query-Document-Dependent Fusion: A Case Study Of Multimodal Music Retrieval, Zhonghua Li, Bingjun Zhang, Yi Yu, Jialie Shen, Ye Wang

Research Collection School Of Information Systems

In recent years, multimodal fusion has emerged as a promising technology for effective multimedia retrieval. Developing the optimal fusion strategy for different modality (e.g. content, metadata) has been the subject of intensive research. Given a query, existing methods derive a unified fusion strategy for all documents with the underlying assumption that the relative significance of a modality remains the same across all documents. However, this assumption is often invalid. We thus propose a general multimodal fusion framework, query-document-dependent fusion (QDDF), which derives the optimal fusion strategy for each query-document pair via intelligent content analysis of both queries and documents ...

Vibrational Spectroscopy: Disease Diagnostics And Beyond, Hugh Byrne, Kamila Ostrowska, Haq Nawaz, Jennifer Dorney, Aidan Meade, Franck Bonnier, Fiona Lyng

Books/Book Chapters

Summary

This chapter outlines some developments in the applications of vibrational spectroscopy for disease diagnostics and demonstrates how the applications of the spectroscopic techniques can be extended to the analysis and evaluation of disease aetiology and the mechanisms of interaction and the cellular and subcellular responses to, for example chemotherapeutic agents and nanoparticles. The primary emphasis is on Raman spectroscopy, although some examples are based on infrared absorption spectroscopy. The studies presented are chosen to illustrate how a range of multivariate analytical techniques can be employed to maximize the potential benefits of the complex spectral information obtained from tissue or ...

Three-Dimensional-Network Li3v2(Po4) 3/C Composite As High Rate Lithium Ion Battery Cathode Material And Its Compatibility With Ionic Liquid Electrolytes, Jiantie Xu, Shulei Chou, Cuifeng Zhou, Qinfen Gu, Hua K. Liu, Shi X. Dou

Australian Institute for Innovative Materials - Papers

A high performance Li3V2(PO4)3 cathode material for lithium ion batteries was synthesized by the microwave-assisted hydrothermal method followed by a post annealing process. The synchrotron X-ray diffraction analysis results confirmed that single-phase Li3V2(PO4)3 with monoclinic structure was obtained. Scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope images revealed that the as-prepared Li3V 2(PO4)3 was composed of nanowires and microsized particles. Electrochemical results demonstrated that the Li 3V2(PO4)3 electrode measured at 10 C after 500 cycles can deliver discharge capacities of 85.4 mAh g-1 and 103.4 mAh g-1, with a capacity retention ...

Observing, Reporting, And Deciding In Networks Of Sentences, H. Jerome Keisler, Jeffrey M. Keisler

Jeffrey Keisler

In prior work we considered networks of agents who prove facts from their knowledge bases and report them to their neighbors in their common languages in order to help a decider verify a single sentence. In report complete networks, the signatures of the agents and the links between agents are rich enough to verify any decider's sentence that can be proved from the combined knowledge base. This paper introduces a more general setting where new observations may be added to knowledge bases and the decider must choose a sentence from a set of alternatives. We consider the question of ...

Abstract Modular Inference Systems And Solvers, Yuliya Lierler, Miroslaw Truszczyński

Computer Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Integrating diverse formalisms into modular knowledge representation systems offers increased expressivity, modeling convenience and computational benefits. We introduce the concepts of abstract inference modules and abstract modular inference systems to study general principles behind the design and analysis of model-generating programs, or solvers, for integrated multilogic systems.We show how modules and modular systems give rise to transition graphs, which are a natural and convenient representation of solvers, an idea pioneered by the SAT community. We illustrate our approach by showing how it applies to answer-set programming and propositional logic, and to multi-logic systems based on these two formalisms.