Digital Commons Network^™

Enhanced Surveillance And Characterisation Of Three Significant Gram-Positive Pathogens, Annmarie Mollaghan

Theses

Clinical microbiology has been revolutionised in recent years by the introduction of molecular biology. Traditionally, the gold standard for diagnosis in the clinical microbiology laboratory has been culture, which in some cases, is gradually being replaced by molecular detection methods, particularly where the pathogen is difficult to grow or to identify, or when the significance of an organism is dependent on the detection of specific markers of pathogenicity, such as toxins. Many fastidious bacteria which are difficult to culture and present public health implications, i.e. Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoea, can now be detected using commercial molecular assays …

High Resolution Hybrid Mass Spectrometry For The Determination Of Marine Biotoxins, Azaspiracids, And Their Biotransformation Products., Zuzana Skrabakova

Theses

Azaspiracids (AZAs), polyether marine toxins, are produced by marine microalgae and accumulate in filter-feeding bivalve molluscs, such as mussels, clams, oysters and scallops, while grazing on phytoplankton, from which they derive nutrition. Although being discovered quite recently, AZAs have caused several human intoxication events and thus became a problem for health authorities and shellfish industries. The rapid development of highly sensitive liquid chromatography multiple tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS, LC-MS") methods enabled the identification of numerous AZA analogues and added to the control of shellfish contamination. Tandem mass spectrometry techniques, while being highly selective and sensitive for determination of AZAs in …

The Exploitation Of Bacteriophages For The Biocontrol Of Spoilage And Pathogenic Bacteria Including Mrsa, David Kelly

Theses

This thesis describes the successful isolation and characterisation of novel phages with applications in the medical/veterinary sector and also in the food and beverage industry. This thesis begins with a comprehensive literature review on the biocontrol applications of phages which will appear as a book chapter in “Phage therapy; Current research and applications” edited by Andrzej Gorski in the Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental therapy, Wroclaw, Poland.

Chapters 2 to 5 encompass the technical part of the thesis work, which begins with the isolation and characterization of phages of Lactobacillus and Pediococcus which cause spoilage in the brewing industry'. …

Purification, Characterisation And Applications Of A Cloned Staphylococcal Bacteriophage Lysin For The Control Of Multi-Drug Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Including Mrsa, Mark Fenton

Theses

The work presented in this thesis focuses on the purification, characterisation and practical applications of an anti-staphylococcal lysin (LysK) and its single-domain truncated derivative (CHAP_k) against pathogenic staphylococci including meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Both proteins were purified to greater than 90% homogeneity. Affinity chromatography was applied as the optimum method for LysK purification and ion-exchange chromatography was successfully applied to CHAP_k. The lytic spectrum of LysK was investigated by zymogram analysis where the enzyme exhibited strong activity against a range of staphylococci regardless of their origin, sequence type (ST) or antibiotic resistant profile. This analysis …

Composition-Structure-Property Relationships For Experimental Composite Nerve Guidance Conduits, Xiaofang Zhang

Theses

Many Nerve Guidance Conduits (NGCs) have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an alternative to nerve autografting for guiding peripheral nerve regeneration. However these materials offer little therapeutic potential for favourable axon growth environment, and difficulty in balancing the mechanical properties and the degradation rate of the implanted material is also a contemporary challenge. This project involved the design of experimental composite NGCs comprising glass particles and Pluronic FI27 in the copolymer (poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)) and examined the composition-structure-property relationships for such materials. Three glasses (0.5Si-(x) Na-0.2Ca-0.13Zn-(0.17-x) Ce) (0.0.04 > x > 0.14) were produced. Glasses were characterised using …

Characterisation Of Bacterial Extracellular Polysaccharides (Eps) And Other Complex Carbohydrates With Prebiotic Potential, Padraigin Murphy

Theses

Prebiotics are selectively fermented ingredient that allows specific changes, both in the composition and/or activity in the gastrointestinal microbiota that confers benefits upon host well-being and health’ It is not the prebiotic by itself but rather the changes induced in microflora composition that is responsible for its effects. Several sources of prebiotic were used in this study, namely extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) originating from Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB), barley, oat. Laminaria digitata. Laminaria hyperborea and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. EPS-producing LAB were isolated from a wide variety of environmental and gastrointestinal niches. The strains were typed and classified according to their EPS-producing ability …

Identification And Characterization Of Equine Rotaviruses In Southern Ireland, Crystal Cronin

Theses

Group A Rotaviruses(GARVs) are enteric pathogens which induce acute gastroenteritis in infants, neonates and the young of many animal species. During a 4 year study (2005-2009), 64 fecal samples from symptomatic foals, from several counties, in the south of Ireland, were molecularly characterized to determine the VP& (G type), VP4 (P type), and NSP4 antigenic specificities. Globally, G3 [P12] and G14[P12] are recognized as the predominant equine GARV strains. Twenty-two samples (34.38%) were found to contain G3 viruses, while 21 samples (32.81%) contained G14 viruses. In this study, there was a distinct increase in the incidence of mixed infections circulating …

The Evolution Of Bacteriophages E11/2 And E4/Lc For Control Of Verocytotxigenic E.Coli At Key Stages In The Beef Chain, Bríd Coffey

Theses

The objective of this thesis was lo evaluate the potential of bactcriophages e4/1 c and cl 1/2 ns biocontrol agents for E. coli O157:H7. Initially, e4/lc and el 1/2 were subjected to high-throughput 454 sequencing. The data generated revealed that e4/I c (47,112 bp) is very similar to the lytic E. coli phages RTP and JK06. Interestingly, differences within the tail module led to the identification of a putative site of attachment to E. coli O157:H?. Comparative genomic analysis indicated that el 1/2 (168,470 bp) is a novel member of the T-even group, with high degrees of similarity to T4 …

Exploring Possible Factors Contributing To The Onset Of Osgood Schlatter Disease, Justin Pruitt

Theses

No abstract provided.

Role Of The Tnac Peptide Residues In The Regulation Of The Ribosome Function By L-Trp In E. Coli, Nitin Shirole

Theses

No abstract provided.

Observation Of Rocket Pollution With Overhead Sensors, Annette Fisher

Theses

No abstract provided.

The Presence Of Sound Symbolism Effects For 3-D Objects, Cassie Stutts Berry

Theses

No abstract provided.

Direct Retroreflective Laser Strobography Shadowgraphs, Destin Sandlin

Theses

No abstract provided.

Emission Enhancement Through Dual Donor Sensitization And Photo-Luminescine Properties Of Europium(Iii)And Terbium(Iii) -Terpyridine -Tetracyanoplatinate Complexes, Nuquie Glekeh Beedoe

Theses

Luminescence studies were conducted on tetracyanoplatinate complexes that contain up to four different ligands simultaneously, resulting in very complex structural features. Most of the complexes of (terpy)-Eu-platinum tetra cyanide complexes (terpy = terpyridine) crystallize with low one-, and two-dimensional structural types. The effects of anion variation on the intermolecular energy transfer (IET) mechanism are discussed in detail. Temperature dependent luminescence studies were also conducted on terbium based compounds that contain different ligands resulting in complex structural features. The system also displays dual donor feature where both the organic ligand (terpyridine) and the platinum tetracyanide (TCP) metal complex act as donors. …

Sweet Sorghum Production Based On Fertilizer Rates, Varieties And Use Of Grain Sorghum Model, Ashwin Kumar Devudigari

Theses

Sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moenich) is a promising alternative energy crop. Biophysical crop models are advanced agronomic tools designed to predict crop growth for given conditions and to supplement field experiments. No crop model has been developed for sweet sorghum. Adapting the existing grain sorghum model is a good approach to develop a dedicated sweet sorghum model. Our experiment was conducted at the NC A&T research farm in 2010 and 2011, designed with a split plot and strip plot method, respectively. These experiments included two varieties (Dale and M81-E) and four fertilizer rates (0,168-56-168, 84- 28-84-soysoap, 168-56-168-soysoap of N-P2O5-K2O …

A Machine-Learning Approach For Workflow Identification From Low-Level Monitoring Information, Thorsten Stein

Theses

Knowing which workflows are executed within Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) is essential for successful IT management. In many cases, SOAs grew out of previous existing IT architectures; existing components are used as single services and therefore as parts of newly created workflows. Since such workflows consist of newly developed and legacy services, traditional workflow management systems often cannot be applied. This thesis presents a method for gathering information about the executed workflows within such heterogeneous environments. An implementation of a framework is presented. This framework allows the training of machine-learning algorithms with workflow models and the mapping of low-level monitoring …

Composition - Structure - Property Relationships In Strontium / Zinc Doped Glass-Ceramics., Mark Looney

Theses

Calcium silicate ceramics are amongst a group of ceramic materials currently utilised as bone graft materials. However, current calcium silicate grafts offer little therapeutic potential and poor mechanical properties. The objective of this project was to examine the composition-structure-property relationships arising from the incorporation of therapeutic ions of strontium (Sr) and zinc (Zn) into calcium silicate glass-ceramics (GC) in order to allow for healthy bone regeneration and antibacterial efficacy. Five compositions were studied with varying mole fractions of Sr and Zn. The GC’s were characterised using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), x-ray diffraction (XRD) at room and ascending temperatures, x-ray tomography …

The Bioinformatics Work Flow Framework For One Step Gene Identification And Analysis Of Complex Genomic And Metagenomic Sequence Data, John Timothy Carroll

Theses

Abstract

Vioinformatics is the application of computer science and related disciplines to the field of molecular biology. There are currently many web and desktop tools available for biologists to perform bioinformatic tasks. These tools often require users to manually and repeatedly co-ordinate multiple applications to produce a result, which is time consuming and error prone for the user. As a result, workflow tools have been developed to automate these tasks. Many of these tools require expert knowledge of the techniques and supporting databases within the area of bioinformatics. Biologists learning to use these workflow tools can find it difficult as …

Establishing Parameters For Problem Difficulty In Permutation-Based Genetic Algorithms, Adam Nogaj

Theses

This thesis examines the performance of genetic algorithm (GA) crossover techniques within two problems: n-queens with poison (NQWP) and processor scheduling (PS). Each problem was analyzed at sizes of 32, 64, and 128, referring to number of queens to be placed and number of single-time-unit processes to be scheduled, respectively. The specific crossover techniques studied were cycle crossover, order crossover, partially mapped crossover, merging crossover, and one-point, two-point, and uniform signature representation crossover, in addition to various greedy approaches. In conjunction with tests that vary crossover techniques, experimentation was performed to determine what percentage of problem constraints (poisoned squares for …

Addressing The Gender Gap In Federal Law Enforcement Professions: The Motivational Attraction Of Women In Computing, Maegan Stanek

Theses

Nationwide, federal law enforcement agencies seek candidates with specialized skill sets and more advanced educational knowledge for employment. In view of this, it was proven, after much open source research into federal agencies' qualification requirements, that those who possess a background in select areas, specifically computer science, have a better opportunity for employment with federal law enforcement agencies, particularly in the computing sector; although, in many cases, work experience can be substituted for a college degree [7]. For this reason, many women are not involved in, nor apply for, computing professions within federal law enforcement agencies. A significant step in …

Markov Chain Monte Carlo On The Gpu, Michael Dumont

Theses

Markov chains are a useful tool in statistics that allow us to sample and model a large population of individuals. We can extend this idea to the challenge of sampling solutions to problems. Using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques we can also attempt to approximate the number of solutions with a certain confidence based on the number of samples we use to compute our estimate. Even though this approximation works very well for getting accurate results for very large problems, it is still computationally intensive. Many of the current algorithms use parallel implementations to improve their performance. Modern day …

Studies Toward The Total Synthesis Of Trocheliophorolide A, Stephanie Dorn

Theses

Transition metal-mediated carbon-carbon bond forming reactions are among the most synthetically useful chemical transformations in modern organic synthesis. The most expedient routes toward many natural products and compounds of pharmacological interest involve such reactions. Our research focuses on the development of a novel synthetic route towards the total synthesis of the novel antibacterial natural product trocheliophorolide A using such transition metal-mediated reactions. Specifically, trocheliophorolide A was envisioned to be synthesized via a Stille coupling between a butenolide and an unsaturated sidechain. The butenolide synthesis was optimized and several routes to synthesize the sidechain were investigated. This thesis will detail the …

Feasibility Of A Non-Invasive Wireless Blood Glucose Monitor, Benjamin Freer

Theses

Blood glucose monitors are critical to diabetes management. Many new noninvasive measurement techniques are being investigated. The present work focuses on the possibility of a monitor that non-invasively measures blood glucose levels using electromagnetic waves. The technique is based on relating a monitoring antenna's resonant frequency to the permittivity and conductivity of blood which in turn is related to the glucose levels. At first a realistic data base for the dielectric properties of blood has been established through in-vitro measurements performed on blood samples obtained from 20 patients with glucose levels ranging from normal (87 mg/dl) to hyperglycemic (330 mg/dl). …

Numerical Investigation Of Fluid Flow And Heat Transfer Effects In Minichannels And Microchannels Under H2 Boundary Condition, Viral Dharaiya

Theses

Deviations in heat transfer predictions by classical theory for single-phase laminar flow in microchannels have been mainly attributed to surface roughness, deviations in channel dimensions, errors in measurement, entrance and exit effects. Identifying correct thermal boundary conditions in a given application also plays an important role in accurate estimation of heat transfer coefficients. Different thermal boundary conditions generally applied in fluid domain are: T, H1, and H2. However, there are very few solutions available for the heat transfer under the H2 boundary condition which is the most applicable thermal boundary condition in many microchannel heat exchangers. The current work aimed …

Extra Food Intake And Depressive Symptoms In Adolescents: Is There A Relationship?, Elizabeth Bradshaw

Theses

This pilot study explored the potential role of food on young people’s mental health. Specifically, the aim was to determine if a relationship exists between extra food intake and depressive symptoms in adolescents’ age 12-17 years. It has been documented that mental health problems in young people result from a complex interaction of risk and protective factors. Eating behaviours and food intake has been investigated in early adolescence (age 10-14), however the specific contribution of extra food on depressive symptoms in mid adolescence has not been determined.

Extra food intake and depressive symptoms were collected from girls and boys in …

Development Of A System To Optimise Water Recharge And Timber Production From Pinus Pinaster Aiton Plantations On The Gnangara Water Mound, Scott Wood

Theses

Degree Name:

Doctor of Natural Resource Management

In 1996, the Western Australian Government decided to progressively liquidate 21,000 hectares of Pinus pinaster Aiton plantations located 20 kilometres north of Perth on the Gnangara Water Mound. The decision was made for a number of reasons but one of the principal concerns was the conflict between water use and timber production. The decision to liquidate the plantation over a prescribed period while meeting a legal requirement to produce timber for a laminated veneer lumber plant provided the opportunity to integrate the large database on plantation growth and water recharge and use operational …

Strategies For Improvement Of Kosova's Forest Resources / [Presentation Given In May 2011], Arben Qerimi

Theses

This capstone project assesses the forest resources of Kosova which is known to have a problem with degraded forests and shrub forest. The degraded forests and shrub forest comprise about 40.9 % or 182,202 hectare of the total forest area. Illegal loggings, forest fires, pests and diseases contribute to the formations of wastelands in Kosova. About 14 % or 66,404 hectare of the total forests areas are barren forestlands ... The goal of this project is to gradually transform the degraded forests and shrub forests into higher producing forests, with the aim of improving the wood productivity, an advanced forestland …

An Analysis Of The Million Module March Algorithm Applied To The Atron Robotic Platform, James Phipps

Theses

The Million Module March algorithm is a locomotion planning algorithm for self-reconfiguring robotic systems. It was first introduced by Robert Fitch and Zack Butler. It has already been proven to successfully plan movement for a kinematic abstraction whose traits are very different from the kinematic traits of the ATRON system. In this work we further examine this algorithm, and an adaptation of it to the ATRON robotic system. We examine a two dimensional proof of the reachability of connected configurations of sliding squares, and expand the proof to the three dimensional SlidingCube model of a self-reconfiguring robot. Using this proof, …

Perspectives Of Women In Leadership Roles: Working Through The Change, Philippa Gavranich

Theses

The majority of women will experience perimenopausal symptoms (Hickey, Davis & Sturdee, 2005; MacLennan, 2009) with an estimated 20% of those experiencing severe symptoms (Hickey et al., 2005). Many of these symptoms have the potential to directly or indirectly affect work performance including hot flushes and night sweats which are experienced by 85% of perimenopausal women (Baldo, Schneider, & Slyter, 2003). Symptoms may begin several years before the cessation of menstruation and may last well into old age (MacLennan, 2009).

This research sought to explore the perceived impact of perimenopausal symptoms on women in leadership roles: how they managed symptoms; …

Impact Of Metallic Nanoparticles On Photoinduced Fluorescence Enhancement Of Colloidal Quantum Dots, Ali Nejat

Theses

No abstract provided.