Digital Commons Network^™

Lipid Targets In Clinical Practice: Successes, Failures And Lessons To Be Learned, M Dunne, Oscar Mac Ananey, V Maher

Articles

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:

Optimal risk factor control is integral to managing patients with proven coronary heart disease (CHD+) and for those at risk of coronary heart disease (CHD-). The primary aim of the study was to assess the success rate of reaching lipid risk factor targets in a multiple risk factor clinic.

METHODS:

A retrospective audit was conducted in 488 patients (CHD+, n = 112; CHD-, n = 376) who attended the Cardiovascular Risk Factor Clinic at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin in 2009 and 2010.

RESULTS:

Risk factor targets achieved in CHD+ and CHD- patients were LDLc (54/62 %), HDLc (67/67 %), …

Article Navigation Wild-Type Measles Virus Infection Upregulates Poliovirus Receptor-Related 4 And Causes Apoptosis In Brain Endothelial Cells By Induction Of Tumor Necrosis Factor-Related Apoptosis-Lnducing Ligand, Haniah Abdullah, Brenda B. Brankin, Clare Brady, Sara Louise Cosby

Articles

Small numbers of brain endothelial cells (BECs) are infected in children with neurologic complications of measles virus (MV) infection. This may provide a mechanism for virus entry into the central nervous system, but the mechanisms are unclear. Both in vitro culture systems and animal models are required to elucidate events in the endothelium. We compared the ability of wild-type (WT), vaccine, and rodent-adapted MV strains to infect, replicate, and induce apoptosis in human and murine brain endothelial cells (HBECs and MBECs, respectively). Mice also were infected intracerebrally. All MV stains productively infected HBECs and induced the MV receptor PVRL4. Efficient …

Variances In Airflows During Different Ventilation Modes In A Dynamic U-Shaped Cave, Jiří Faimon, Marek Lang

International Journal of Speleology

Airflow dynamics were studied in Císařská Cave (Moravian Karst, Czech Republic) under different seasonal conditions. The dependence of airflows on the difference between external and cave temperatures is nonlinear and roughly obeys the Darcy-Weisbach equation. The upward airflows were found to be systematically higher than the downward airflows under comparable driving forces. The principle reason is nonlinearity between air temperature and air density. U-shaped cave geometry magnifies this effect by feedback between external temperature and airflow driving forces. Whereas this feedback is positive during the upward airflow ventilation mode, it is negative during the downward airflow mode. To discuss the …

Layer-Bounding Surfaces In Stalagmites As Keys To Better Paleoclimatological Histories And Chronologies, Loren Bruce Railsback, Pete D. Akers, Lixin Wang, Genevieve A. Holdridge, Ny Riavo Voarintsoa

International Journal of Speleology

Petrographic recognition of layer-bounding surfaces in stalagmites offers an important tool in constructing paleoclimate records. Previous petrographic efforts have examined thickness of layers (a possible proxy for annual rainfall) and alternation of layers in couplets (a possible indicator of seasonality). Layer-bounding surfaces, in contrast, delimit series of layers and represent periods of non-deposition, either because of exceptionally wet or exceptionally dry conditions.

Two types of layer-bounding surfaces can be recognized according to explicitly defined petrographic criteria. Type E layer-bounding surfaces are surfaces at which layers have been truncated or eroded at the crest of a stalagmite. Keys to their recognition …

Advances In Blind Source Separation, Christopher Osterwise

Doctoral Dissertations

"Blind Source Separation (BSS) is a classic problem that attempts to separate unknown sources from observed mixtures. A common framework of this is the Cocktail Party problem, where multiple individuals speaking in a noisy room are recorded by a configuration of microphones, with the challenge being to split the observed signals into individual conversations. This dissertation covers the evaluation of an existing algorithm known as Cascaded ICA with Intervention Alignment (CICAIA), the establishment of a new parameter for characterizing blind mixtures, and three new algorithms, of which two are capable of separating any number of sources given more microphones than …

Minimizing Formation Damage For Preformed Particle Gels Treatment In Mature Reservoirs, Mahmoud Omran Elsharafi

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research studied the effect of preformed particle gels (PPGs) on unswept, low-permeable zones/areas. The objective was to find methods that minimized the damage caused by PPGs on unswept, low-permeable zones/areas, thus improving PPG treatment efficiency. These results can help to identify of the best PPG types, particle sizes, and brine concentrations for specific reservoirs and treatments. This study used sandstone core samples with various degrees of permeability. Two types of particle gels, a strong Daqing gel (DQ) and a weak Liquiblock™ 40k gel (40K), were used, each with a different strength.

This research included two stages. Firstly, both a …

Source Reconstructions For Ic Radiated Emissions Based On Magnitude-Only Near-Field Scanning, Ji Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"In this dissertation, a source reconstruction method is proposed to model the emission behavior of an IC by using magnitude-only information during near-field scanning. The phase-retrieval is accomplished during the back-forth iterations between two scanning planes of different heights. The magnitudes of fields on two planes of different heights are recorded and used to constrain the amplitude of the calculated fields during iterations. Three essential transformations among dipoles and fields are continued at each iteration step, until the convergence condition is achieved. The proposed algorithm has been verified by using a set of dipole-array as the original emitting sources, and …

Spatial Variation Of Amd Related Co₂ Emissions On Reclaimed Mine Spoil, Moagabo Mathiba

Doctoral Dissertations

"Carbon dioxide (CO₂) from acid mine drainage (AMD)-carbonate neutralization reactions in reclaimed mine spoils, can intermittently invade homes and structures constructed on or adjacent to these spoils in hazardous and even lethal concentrations (>15%) and rendering them uninhabitable. This phenomenon is beginning to be recognized as an emerging environmental, safety and health threat with potential environmental and financial liability for mine operators, developers and owners.

Like in natural soils, soil temperature and moisture, and possibly elevation are likely to influence CO₂ emissions from reclaimed mine spoils. However, mine spoil soils are heterogeneous and have significant convective transport due to …

Topics In Voice Echo Cancellation, Pratik Vijay Shah

Doctoral Dissertations

"Acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) is a well studied problem. The underlying assumption in most echo cancellation solutions is that the echo path following the reference signal is completely linear. However, in many handheld devices, the echo path following the reference signal is nonlinear. The reason for this nonlinearity in the echo path is the use of smaller and cheaper loudspeakers. In order to cut the manufacturing cost, device manufactures use cheaper loudspeakers such that they satisfy the carrier specifications. Such loudspeaker can be easily over driven in to their nonlinear region and thus add nonlinearities to the downlink path. This …

Common Mode Current Estimation For Cable Bundle Inside A Vehicle, Dazhao Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

"In the Section 1, it introduces a methodology to simulate the currents and fields during an air discharge ESD into a product by combining a linear description of the behavior of the DUT with a non-linear arc resistance equation. The most commonly used test standard IEC 61000-4-2 requires using contact mode discharges to metallic surfaces and air discharge mode to non-conducting surfaces. This paper proposes a method that combines the linear ESD generator full wave model and the non-linear arc model to simulate currents and fields in air discharge mode. In Section 2, when simulating surface and thin wire structures, …

Study Of Artificially Disordered Optical Fibers, Herath Mudiyanselage Sumudu Rasika Kumari Herath

Doctoral Dissertations

"Light transmission through photo-sensitive multi-mode fibers (MMF) with controlled volume disorder is investigated. Experiment shows that a segment of disordered MMF as short as 10 cm is sufficient to distribute power uniformly over all co-propagating modes and the intensity at the output surface of the fiber follows the Rayleigh negative exponential function. To explain the experimental findings, a comprehensive theoretical model is developed with three main results. First, statistical properties of all components of the dielectric tensor are obtained and analyzed in the framework a microscopical model of photo-sensitivity in a germano-silicate glasses. Secondly, it is shown that induced birefringence …

Observability-Enhanced Dual-Filter Design For Attitude Estimation With Minimum Observations, Jason D. Searcy

Doctoral Dissertations

"Determining spacecraft attitude in real time using only magnetometer data presents a challenging filtering problem. A flexible and computationally efficient method for solving the spacecraft attitude using only an inexpensive and reliable magnetometer would be a useful option for satellite missions, particularly those with modest budgets. The primary challenge is that magnetometers only instantaneously resolve two axes of the spacecraft attitude. Typically, magnetometers are used in conjunction with other sensors to resolve all three axes. However, by using a filter over an adequately long orbit arc, the magnetometer data can yield full attitude, and in near real time. The method …

Characterization Of Nano-Scaled Metal-Hydrides Confined In Nano-Porous Carbon Frameworks, David Edward Peaslee

Doctoral Dissertations

"Metal hydrides are currently being studied to provide hydrogen for use in fuel cells and for transportation applications. Hydrogen can be stored in chemical compounds at higher density and lower volume than liquid H₂ or compressed gas. Thermodynamic properties of metal hydrides differ between bulk and nano-sized particles. Many metal hydrides with useful volumetric and gravimetric capacities have high decomposition temperatures, but when placed in nano-sized frameworks (or templates) desorption and adsorption temperatures can be fine-tuned to meet engineering requirements for real-world systems. Additionally, some metal hydrides have shown a change in the decomposition pathway when infiltrated into these frameworks, …

A New Versatile Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometer For Vibration Measurements, Viswanath Bavigadda

Doctoral

Electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) has been widely used for vibration amplitude and phase measurements. Conventional ESPI systems are bulk and expensive and need careful alignment of all the optical components which is a time consuming task. To overcome these problems alternative compact ESPI systems were developed using fibre-optical components or holographic optical elements (HOEs). The fibre-optic based ESPI systems suffer from random phase fluctuations induced by environmental temperature changes. Hence HOEs can be used as more powerful alternative optical elements to design ESPI systems. The time average ESPI method is widely used for vibration studies. The time average method …

The Turning, Stretching And Boxing Technique: A Direction Worth Looking Towards, Mark Dunne

Doctoral

3D avatar user interfaces (UI) are now used for many applications, a growing area for their use is serving location sensitive information to users as they need it while visiting or touring a building. Users communicate directly with an avatar rendered to a display in order to ask a question, get directions or partake in a guided tour and as a result of this kind of interaction with avatar UI, they have become a familiar part of modern human-computer interaction (HCI). However, if the viewer is not in the sweet spot (defined by Raskar et al. (1999) as a stationary …

Analysis Of Model Uncertainty In Hydraulic Modeling: The Bstem Application To The Osage River, Annabell Leigh Ulary

Masters Theses

"Uncertainty is inevitable when creating any kind of model. A model can be used in the most accurate way possible, if the uncertainties are understood. This study determines the level of uncertainty in the Bank Stability and Toe Erosion Model (BSTEM) of the Osage River downstream of Bagnell Dam between Lake Ozark, MO and Jefferson City, MO. The statistical analysis of the BSTEM model was performed using the aid of SAS statistical computer modeling software. There were 4 different analysis values used to determine the best fit model for all dependent variables. These values include the F-test, the coefficient of …

Robust Methods For Construction Of Global Potential Energy Surfaces, Phalgun Lolur

Masters Theses

"This thesis is about the development of robust methods for construction of global potential energy surfaces to study the spectroscopy and dynamics of molecular systems. A potential energy surface represents the electronic energy of a molecule as a function of its geometry. This is central to how chemists view molecular systems in terms of motion across a rich energy landscape where barriers separate wells corresponding to different stable structures. The range of molecular distortions defines the potential energy surface. Computing the potential energy surface of a molecule has become a fundamental operation in modern theoretical chemistry studies. The Born-Oppenheimer approximation …

Assessment Of An Enterprise Employee Portal Using Dashboard Monitoring System: A Case Study, Aditi Mishra

Masters Theses

"A portal is a browser-based application that provides a web platform for users to improve inter-department collaboration and customer service. Portals are classified either as internal facing portals or external public facing portals. This study addresses the problems facing an internal portal related to its contents, functions and usability and provides a list of essential contents and functions that it should include through integrating theories and industry best practices. The theory framework is based on literature review and the industry best practices are based on the analysis of a number of internal portals of companies used as case studies. These …

Transmission Shaft Design For Hydrokinetic Turbine With Reliability Consideration, Goutham Pusapati

Masters Theses

"Hydrokinetic energy, a relatively new kind of renewable energy, can be generated from flowing water in rivers or oceans. Hydrokinetic turbines (HKTs) are a major system for hydrokinetic energy, and the reliability of the HKTs is critical for both their lifecycle cost and safety. The objective of this work is to apply advanced methodologies of reliability analysis and reliability-based design to the transmission shaft design for a horizontal-axis, non-submerged HKT. The deterministic shaft design is performed first by considering failure modes of strength and deflection using distortion energy, maximum shear and deflection theories. Then the reliability analysis of the shaft …

Secure Design Defects Detection And Correction, Wenquan Wang

Masters Theses

"Bad design and software defects often make source codes hard to understand and lead to maintenance difficulties. In order to detect and fix such defects, researchers have systematically investigated these issues and designed different effective algorithms to tackle the problems. However, most of these methods need source codes/models for defect detection and correction. Commercial companies, like banks, may not be willing to provide their source models due to data security. Therefore, it is a huge challenge to detect software detects by a consulting company as well as to keep source models confidential. This thesis analyze security issues in existing approaches …

Lexis In Chemical Engineering Discourse: Analyzing Style In Chemical Engineering Research Articles Through A Rhetorical Lens, David Lamar Young

Masters Theses

"This study examines the style of chemical engineering research articles to discover stylistic trends that may be applicable to authors looking to publish their own research. Rhetorical stylistic analysis was used as a research method to allow for thorough analysis of all articles in the sample. Ten research articles from the two prominent chemical engineering journals were chosen using specific criteria to constitute a sample of articles that could most accurately represent the population of chemical engineering research articles. Each article was then analyzed line by line to identify markers of chemical engineering research article style, including the following: ▬Use …

Constructing Conducted Emission Models For Integrated Circuits, Shuai Jin

Masters Theses

"Conducted emissions, noise conducted out of integrated circuit pins, play an important role in determining the system level EMC performance. Characterizing conducted emissions from ICs is investigated and the corresponding noise models are developed in this thesis. Both simulation IBIS and measurement based methods for noise-model construction are studied. The constructed noise source model for a test IC is applied in system-level simulations and the calculated far field radiation is validated with measurements. The agreement in the simulated and measured results demonstrates the effectiveness of the constructed model for characterizing the conducted emissions from an IC I/O pin"--Abstract, page iii.

Examining The Efficiency Of Multimodal Transportation Systems: A Systems Dynamics Approach, Lizzette Pérez-Lespier

Masters Theses

"With international trade becoming a big part of the world's economic activity, the demand for good freight transportation systems has grown substantially. The appropriate use of transportation is an integral part of the supply chain's effectiveness. Therefore, the continuous economic globalization, the growing demand for speed-to-market product delivery, and the need to manage global supply chains more effectively, has led to the sustained increase in demand towards multimodal transportation systems (MTS). MTS play an essential role in corporations competing in global markets in the 21st century. In transportation, the effectiveness and efficiency of the whole system depends upon the interconnectivity …

Provenance Framework For Mhealth, Aarathi Prasad, Ronald Peterson, Shrirang Mare, Jacob Sorber, Kolin Paul, David Kotz

Dartmouth Scholarship

Mobile health technologies allow patients to collect their health information outside the hospital and share this information with others. But how can data consumers know whether to trust the sensor-collected and human-entered data they receive? Data consumers might be able to verify the accuracy and authenticity of the data if they have information about its origin and about changes made to it, i.e., the \emphprovenance\/ of the data. We propose a provenance framework for mHealth devices, to collect and share provenance metadata and help the data consumer verify whether certain provenance properties are satisfied by the data they receive. This …

Supply Chain Management And Lean Six Sigma In A Retail Environment, Brittain Cliff Ladd

Apparel Design and Hospitality Management

This qualitative research evaluated the as-is supply chain management and logistics retail processes of Dell, a manufacturing company that also has retail operations globally. Dell has an online channel capable of serving millions of customers annually. This research focused on Dell’s retail operations in Canada and the United States and the challenges of managing the supply chain requirements of meeting customer demand. The goal was to identify issues with process execution leading to decreased service to customers and increased costs to the manufacturer. A literature review provided information regarding best practices in supply chain management and the leading process-improvement methodology. …

Throwing The Red Flag: Challenging The Nfl's Lessons For American Business, Heather M. Field

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Paved With Good Intentions: Sentencing Alternatives From Neuroscience And The Policy Of Problem-Solving Courts, Emily R. Murphy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Constructing Legal Meaning In The Supreme Court Oral Arguments: Cultural Codes And Border Disputes, Jeffrey Forest Hilbert

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Culture plays a part in the construction of legal understandings in the Supreme Court contrary to much legal scholarship. The oral argument of the Supreme Court is a unique way for Justices to gather information beyond the formalized briefs and prior written opinions. In the oral argument the Supreme Court Justices utilize cultural codes as tools to probe, shape, negotiate and challenge the legal meanings and boundaries of the case before them. Using the oral argument transcript in a 2010 Supreme Court case on the issue of whether California has the right to censor the sale of violent video games …

Structured Materials For Catalytic And Sensing Applications, Selma Hokenek

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The optical and chemical properties of the materials used in catalytic and sensing applications directly determine the characteristics of the resultant catalyst or sensor. It is well known that a catalyst needs to have high activity, selectivity, and stability to be viable in an industrial setting. The hydrogenation activity of palladium catalysts is known to be excellent, but the industrial applications are limited by the cost of obtaining catalyst in amounts large enough to make their use economical. As a result, alloying palladium with a cheaper, more widely available metal while maintaining the high catalytic activity seen in monometallic catalysts …

Spin Dependent Transport In Novel Magnetic Heterostructures, Priyanga Buddhika Jayathilaka

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Magnetic oxides have become of interest source for spin transport devices due to their high spin polarization. But the real applications of these oxides remains unsatisfactory up to date, mostly due to the change of properties as a result of nano structuring. Magnetite (Fe₃O₄) is one such a material. High Curie temperature and the half metallicity of Fe₃O₄ make it a good potential candidate for spin transport devices. Studies have shown that the nano structuring Fe₃O₄ changes most of it's important properties. This includes high saturation magnetization and drop of …