Digital Commons Network^™

Optical Properties Of Iii-V Nanowire/Nanopillar Lasers Grown On Si, Juan Salvador Dominguez Morales

Theses

Nanowires (NW) /nanopillars (NP) offer the possibility of reducing the mismatch of III-V semiconductor materials grown on different substrates such as Si, SiN, SiO2 and are hence being considered potential candidates for coherent light sources in optoelectronics technologies. The difference between NPs and NWs lies in the growth process. The NPs are site-controlled using a patterned mask, while the NWs use a self-catalysed such as gold or Ga-droplet.. In this dissertation, the emission properties of GaAs/AlGaAs (core-shell and core-multishell) and InGaAs (unpassivated and passivated with InGaP) nanolasers have been studied with excitation powers above and below the lasing threshold at …

Crystallographic Structure Determination Of Bacteriophage-Encoded Enzymes That Specifically Target Pathogenic Bacteria, Marta Sanz Gaitero

Theses

Antibiotic resistance is becoming a serious public health concern. Infections that some decades ago could be treated with antibiotics now sometimes do not respond to traditional treatment, causing higher mortality and economic losses. An alternative to the use of antibiotics are bacteria's natural predators, bacteriophages (or phages), and specifically their lytic enzymes. These proteins are produced by phages to degrade bacterial peptidoglycan to inject their genetic material into the bacteria (virion-associated peptidoglycan hydrolases) or to release their progeny once the infection is finished (endolysins). They can be applied exogenously to lyse Gram-positive bacteria or be genetically engineered to lyse Gram-negative …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of Nursing Support And The Financial Implications Associated With Cpap Adherence, Christine Brunnick

Theses

The prevalence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is increasing. As the prevalence of OSA increases, as does the need for the condition to be treated effectively to reduce several risk factors which increase both mortality and morbidity rates. Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy is easily recognised as the most effective treatment for OSA. Despite the recognised benefits of CPAP therapy, adherence rates reported worldwide remain suboptimal. A transitional change within the Irish healthcare system means that private medical device companies will provide CPAP devices in specific contractual regions throughout Ireland. This change presents challenges and opportunities for policymakers. This …

Mind Over Matter : Stimulant Adhd Medication Use And Bone Mineral Density In College-Aged Subjects ; Is There A Trade-Off?, Sims Kirkland Lawson

Theses

Literature review showed lowered bone mineral density (BMD) among methamphetamine users and in mice that were given methylphenidate. No human clinical studies have been carried out, to date, to investigate whether there is a correlation between use of psychostimulants prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (in this case methylphenidate and amphetamines) and lowered BMD in young adult aged humans. This study observed 53 human subjects, age 19-27 years (average age 21 years); 25 experimental, psychostimulant-prescribed ADHD patients, and 28 healthy control subjects. Each subject was given dual x-ray absorptiometer (DXA) scans of femur, hip area, lumbar spine, and whole-body …

Development Of An Environmental Dna Assay For Detection And Monitoring Of The Troglobitic Crayfishes Cambarus Speleocoopi And Cambarus Laconensis, Spencer Boyd

Theses

Cave-dwelling species live in habitats that are hard to access and study. They often are small, elusive to capture, and possess morphological characters that make them difficult to identify without collection and dissection. Environmental DNA (eDNA) offers a nondestructive, noninvasive, and potentially cost-effective way to monitor and detect these species. I investigated the use of eDNA to detect two troglobitic crayfishes Cambarus speleocoopi in Marshall County and Cambarus laconensis in Morgan County, Alabama. I developed and tested in silico and in vivo primer-probe quantitative PCR assays for both species, then screened water samples collected from caves and springs in northern …

Novel Machine Learning Frameworks For Protein Conformational Selection In Drug Discovery Applications, Vishnu Sripriya Akondi

Theses

Drug discovery refers to the process of identification of specific-disease causing proteins and underscores the research efforts to derive a new medication that targets these proteins. As such the drug discovery process entails significant Big Data challenges as it is time consuming, data intensive, and involves an expensive developmental process which demands rigorous lab testing with high rates of uncertainty that the given drug will succeed. Therefore, it highlights the crucial need for machine learning methods to automate and hasten the drug discovery pipeline for improved healthcare and assist clinicians to make informed decisions for in-vitro testing. However, most real-world …

Migration Of Artificially Activated B Cells In A Microfluidic Device-Induced Cxcl-12 Gradient, Rachel Lauren Stokes

Theses

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Scytovirin And Testosterone On Cryptococcus Neoformans, Marjan Berenji Jalaei

Theses

Pathogenic fungi have become increasingly important due to a wide range of fungal infections worldwide and emergence of drug resistant strains. Cryptococcus neoformans is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that causes mostly pulmonary infections, meningitis and meningoencephalitis. The rate of mortality in males is higher compared to females. Testosterone, the major steroid hormone in males, has been shown to affect the C. neoformans pathogenicity. Searching for an effective antifungal drug against C. neoformans, in particular for males, is a matter of importance. Scytovirin is a lectin with newly discovered antifungal activity associated with cell wall interaction. Scytovirin was tested against two …

Oxime Cross-Linked Alginate Hydrogels With Tunable Stress Relaxation For Immune Cell Encapsulation, Hector Sanchez-Moran

Theses

Sodium alginate hydrogels have served as a versatile and reliable tool for biomedical applications such as 3-D cell encapsulation, both in vitro and in vivo. In the past, these hydrogels have formed via ionic or covalent cross-linking of the alginate chains upon the modification of its functional groups. Hereby, we employ a technique to modify hydroxyl groups of the alginate backbone to alkoxyamine groups (-O-NH2), and we verify such modifications in 1D and 2D NMR. Alkoxyamine groups belong to the field of click bioorthogonal polymer cross-linking. In the presence of aldehyde-modified alginate chains, both polymers can form an oxime reversible …

The Lew.1wr1 Rat Model Is Glucose Intolerant, Genoah Collins

Theses

The susceptibility to the development of glucose intolerance in the young adult type 1 diabetes model LEW.1 WRl was investigated. The animals were given either a 10% fat 7% sucrose diet or a 45% high fat 21% sucrose diet for 10 weeks. Two glucose tolerance tests (GTT) and an insulin tolerance test (ITT) were performed at 0, 8, and 4 weeks, respectively. Terminal anesthetized blood glucose was measured before sacrifice . Serum obtained at harvest was used for a metabolic hormone and cytokine/chemokine multiplex array and ongoing metabolomics studies. Pancreata collected at harvest were used for histological examination of islets. …

Quantification Of Butanol Produced By C. Pasteuranium And Isolated By L-A-Lecithin Liposomes Using Quantitative Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (Qnmr), Luke X. Viegas

Theses

A cleaner and more efficient option to ethanol in the alternative fuel industry is n-butanol. The focus of this study was to establish that quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (qNMR) is a viable method to determine levels of n-butanol as it is produced by Clostridium pasteurianum in the fermentation of glycerol. Extractive fermentation using L-α-Lecithin liposomes is proposed to separate n-butanol, hence the spectroscopic behavior of n-butanol in the presence of liposomes was studied and partition coefficients were determined. Additionally, qNMR was used to quantify glycerol and other fermentation products during the fermentation of C. pasteurianum using a bioreactor. Two …

Structural Engineering Of The Antifungal High Mannose Binding Lectin Myxovirin, Jessica L. Osier

Theses

The pathogenic encapsulated yeast Cryptococcus neoformans causes a majority of fungal disease related deaths worldwide from pulmonary infections, meningitis, or meningoencephalitis. Loss of efficacy in current treatment options against C. neoformans and the emergence of antifungal drug resistance call for the development of new therapeutics. High mannose binding lectins such as Scytovirin have been shown to be promising anticryptococcal drug candidates. In this work, a homologous antifungal lectin, Myxovirin, was structurally engineered in an effort to improve both its carbohydrate binding affinity and its anticryptococcal activity. Carbohydrate binding was studied using both isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and nuclear magnetic resonance …

A Geometric Approach For Global Stability Of A Predator-Prey Model With An Ivlev-Type Functional Response, Soniykha Dhevi Murukan

Theses

In this paper, using a geometric approach, we study the global stability for a class of predator-prey model with an Ivlev-type functional response. We obtained this by sufficient conditions on the systems parameters, which guarantee that the positive equilibrium point of the presented system is globally asymptotically stable. Our results improve the previously obtained results from Xiaoqin Wang and Huihai Ma [1]. We conjecture that the local and global stability of the positive equilibrium are equivalent. Our conjecture is supported by numerical simulations. The theoretical proof will be our future research effort.

Genetics And Molecular Dynamics Of L,L-Diaminopimelate Aminotransferase (Dapl): An Enzyme Involved In Lysine And Peptidoglycan Biosynthesis, Lily E.J. Adams

Theses

The marked increase of bacteria that are resistant to clinically relevant antibiotics in recent years has sparked a push in the development and discovery of novel antibiotics. Complementary to this, the identification of novel antibiotic targets is also of great interest. The lysine biosynthesis pathway is an ideal candidate for these efforts because its product is an essential amino acid. Lysine cannot be synthesized by humans and thus poses minimal risk of side effects if synthesis is targeted. The penultimate product in the lysine biosynthesis pathway, meso-DAP, is also a key component of the gram-negative bacterial cell wall peptidoglycan layer. …

A Modified Rcm Medium For The Growth Of Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, Ayowole Caleb Oyeniran

Theses

In this study, we modified reinforced clostridial medium (RCM) to selectively enumerate and isolate Lactobacillus bulgaricus, a probiotic and an important starter culture in the dairy industry. The disparity in the reported carbohydrate fermentation pattern of L. bulgaricus was used to develop a growth medium not only selective for L. bulgaricus but significantly inhibitory to the growth of other lactic acid bacteria. A recently modified RCM (mRCM) was optimized for this study by the addition of 0.5% fructose, 0.5% dextrose, 1% maltose and 0.25% sodium pyruvate while replacing lactose as a carbohydrate source. The cell recovery and bacterial counts of …

Comparison Study Of Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms For Real Time Prediction Of Uav Behaviors, Brian Baity

Theses

An American scientific writer/critic of the mid-20th century, Joseph Wood Krutch, stated, “Technology made large populations possible: large populations now make technology indispensable.” Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a vital part of society, evolving from solely military use to commercial and even personal day-to-day use. UAV application has grown for mobility on demand, increasing the number of UAVs in the sky. Consequently, more UAVs increases the possibility of aerial collisions, challenging the safety of passengers flying and bystanders on the ground. Understanding the behavior of UAVs and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in general, therefore, will decrease the possibility of …

Applying Merleau-Ponty’S Phenomenology Of Perception To Maternal Well-Being In The First Twelve Months Following Birth, Anna Bosco

Theses

Maternal emotional wellbeing is a deeply personal experience embodied through society; however previous literature examining emotional adaptation to motherhood has focussed on negative outcomes, risk factors and pathology. This perspective is limiting and objectifies a mother’s experiences rather than exploring her being-in-the- world. In contrast to current conceptualisations, Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception asserts a holistic view of the individual within the world, whereby the subjective body and the lived body are intertwined, and perception is a conversation between the body and the world. This conversation is how the mother embodies the world within her being, for example how she …

Point Spread Function Determination In The Scanning Electron Microscope And Its Application In Restoring Images Acquired At Low Voltage, Mandy C. Nevins

Theses

Electron microscopes have the capability to examine specimens at much finer detail than a traditional light microscope. Higher electron beam voltages correspond to higher resolution, but some specimens are sensitive to beam damage and charging at high voltages. In the scanning electron microscope (SEM), low voltage imaging is beneficial for viewing biological, electronic, and other beam-sensitive specimens. However, image quality suffers at low voltage from reduced resolution, lower signal-to-noise, and increased visibility of beam-induced contamination. Most solutions for improving low voltage SEM imaging require specialty hardware, which can be costly or system-specific. Point spread function (PSF) deconvolution for image restoration …

"Taming The Beast": Exploring The Lived Experience Of Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Using A Life History Approach, Therese Burke

Theses

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a complex neurological disease affecting the central nervous system and is driven by a complex autoimmune cascade. The peak age of onset is between the ages of 20 and 40 years and shows a female preponderance of 3:1. The most common form of the disease affecting 85% of people living with the illness is called relapsing remitting MS (RRMS), and is characterised by unpredictable relapses or exacerbations which usually last a few weeks before returning to baseline function. There is the possibility of disease progression and non-reversible disability after many years. RRMS is also characterised by …

Towards An Aristotelian Theory Of Care: A Comparison Of Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics With Feminist Ethics Of Care, And The Fundaments Of A Virtue Ethical Theory Of Care, Steven Steyl

Theses

The intersection between virtue and care ethics is underexplored in contemporary moral philosophy. This thesis approaches care ethics from a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical perspective, comparing the two frameworks and drawing on recent work on care to develop a theory thereof. It is split into seven substantive chapters serving three major argumentative purposes, namely the establishment of significant intertheoretical agreement, the compilation and analysis of extant and new distinctions between the two theories, and the synthesis of care ethical insights with neo-Aristotelianism to generate a virtue ethical theory of care. In the first two chapters, I outline virtue ethics and care …

Assessment Of Pre-Eclampsia Risk In Early Pregnancy, Ziad T.A Al-Rubaie

Theses

My thesis aims to improve pre-eclampsia prevention and outcomes in Australian women by providing evidence that can be used to enhance pre-eclampsia risk assessment in broad antenatal settings. I conducted the thesis in three stages. In stage 1, a systematic review identified major limitations in the existing evidence for current guideline approaches and ‘simple’ risk models incorporating maternal characteristics to identify women at increased risk of pre-eclampsia in early pregnancy. While the review demonstrated models including specialised tests such as uterine artery Doppler and serum biomarkers improved sensitivity to predict pre-eclampsia compared to simple models, there was insufficient evidence to …

Effect Of Turbostratic Orientations And Confined Fluid On Mechanical Strength Of Bi-Layer Graphene: A Molecular Dynamics Study, Nil B. Dhankecha

Theses

The rise of graphene as a reinforcement material in the last decade has been exponential owing to its superior mechanical properties. This one atom thick 2D material is applicable in many industries related to nanomechanical, nanoelectronics and optical devices. Despite its strength and superior properties, single-layer graphene tends to be unstable in a free-standing form. This led to active use of bi-layer and multilayered graphene in many of the above-stated applications. Though properties of single-layer graphene have been extensively investigated both computationally as well as experimentally for over a decade, bilayer graphene and its turbostratic form are still under research. …

Isolation And Activation Of B Lymphocytes Using Magnetic Microbeads-Assisted Reversible Bioconjugation, Veena Vinod

Theses

B cells mature within the microenvironment called germinal center and undergo affinity maturation through rounds of selective clonal expansion and somatic hypermutation, isotype class switching, and differentiation to plasma cells and memory B cells. Induction of such complex germinal center reactions artificially in vitro has not been achieved. Here we first develop and evaluate the use of reversible bioconjugation chemistry for surface modification of magnetic microbeads with model proteins using desthiobiotin-streptavidin pair. Second, we employed the same reversible bioconjugation chemistry and magnetic sorting for isolation of antigen-specific B cells with a minimal amount of potentially toxic magnetic beads for the …

The Role Of Auditory Fluency In Judgments Of Learning And Memory Performance, Linda J. Myers

Theses

Empirical research has shown that processing fluency affects peoples’ judgments of learning (JOLs). This study investigated the role of auditory fluency on participants’ JOLs, Workload and Effort ratings, and Recognition Performance. Two simultaneous science lectures were monaurally presented to participants. Auditory fluency was manipulated by varying the signal-to-noise level (SNR Level: 0 dB SNR, -3 dB SNR, -6 dB SNR) between the Target and the Masker and by varying the sex of the Target and Masker (Condition). Participants provided JOLs and other ratings and completed a recognition test after each 3 min lecture segment. There was no main effect of …

An Analysis On Utilizing The Cdr3 Transcriptome In The Detection Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Jake Brouwer

Theses

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Into The Role And Function Of Athlete Monitoring And Its Impact On Training Practice And Performance Among Elite Gaelic Football Players, Jason Hugh Mcgahan

Theses

Background: Ensuring adequate rest and recovery is critical for the avoidance of overtraining and the achievement of optimal performance, therefore it is recommended that training load and recovery be continually monitored throughout the training year. The purpose of this research was to investigate training load and markers of wellness among elite Gaelic footballers to assist the regulation of such loading to optimise performance in an amateur sports setting.

Methods: Participants were selected from two elite Gaelic football teams (Division 1 and 3 respectively) where training load data (global positioning system (GPS), session rating of perceived exertion (s-RPE) and wellness markers) …

Icing Thickness Prediction Model For Overhead Transmission Lines, Yue Ming

Theses

Failures in a large electric power system are often inevitable. Severe weather conditions are one of the main causes of transmission line failures. Using the fault data of transmission lines of Shaanxi Power Grid from 2006 to 2016, in conjunction with meteorological information, this paper analyses the relationship between the temporal-spatial distribution characteristics of meteorological disasters and the fault of transmission lines in Shaanxi Province, China.

In order to analyze the influence of micro-meteorology on ice coating, a grey correlation analysis method is proposed. This thesis calculates the grey relational between ice thickness and micro-meteorological parameters such as ambient temperature, …

Polya Db3: A Database Cataloging Polyadenation Sites(Pas) Across Different Species And Their Conservation, Ram Mohan Nambiar

Theses

Polyadenation is an important process occurring in the messenger RNA that involves cleavage of 3 end nascent mRNAs and addition of poly(A) tails. For this thesis,I present PolyA DB3 ,a database cataloging cleavage and polyadenylation sites (PASs) in several genomes specifically for human,mouse,rat and chicken. This database is based on deep sequencing data. PASs are mapped by the 3’ region extraction and deep sequencing (3’READS) method, ensuring unequivocal PAS identification. Large volume of data based on diverse biological samples is used to increase PAS coverage and provide PAS usage information. Strand-specific RNA-seq data were used to extend annotated 3’ ends …

Interactions Between Polymer Nanoparticles And Blood Plasma Applied To Drug Delivery Systems, Mark Bannon

Theses

Targeted nanoparticle drug delivery has the potential to replace current forms of cancer therapy with previously unparalleled efficiency. Upon introduction into the human body, nanoparticles exhibit a substantial increase in diameter due to a biomolecular corona formation caused by interactions between blood plasma proteins and the nanoparticles. These interactions must be analyzed and understood for targeted delivery to reach its potential in both feasibility and efficiency.

To study the formation of the protein corona, polystyrene nanoparticles were incubated in vitro in goat blood plasma for 10-minute intervals, diluted to different degrees and then measured to obtain the hydrodynamic diameter of …

Transcriptome-Wide Analysis Of Vsv Strains With Varying Ability To Block Nf-Κb, Thomas M. Russell

Theses

Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) is a negative sense, single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) virus that is currently studied for its uses as a vaccine viral vector and its potential in oncolytic therapy. The M protein of VSV is the active participant in the virus’s abrogation of the host innate immune response. This activity is thought to be due to the M protein’s ability to downregulate overall host transcription by blocking nuclear transport. A VSV mutant containing a D52G mutation in the M protein (22-20) has been shown to block nuclear transport while being defective as a suppressor of NF-κB activation. It is …