Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Redox-Active Trivalent Metallosurfactants With Low Global Symmetry For Molecule-Based Electronics: Spectroscopic, Electrochemical, And Amphiphilic Properties Of New Molecular Materials For Current-Voltage Measurements In M|Lb-Monolayer|M Devices, Lanka Dilruksi Wickramasinghe Wickramasinghe Arachchilage

Wayne State University Dissertations

LANKA D. W. WICKRAMASINGHE ARACHCHILAGE

August 2014

Advisor: Professor Cláudio N. Verani

Major: Chemistry (Inorganic)

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

The silicon-based microelectronic industry has made remarkable technological advancements. Among these, new generation consumer electronics, telecommunication devices, and high performance data processing smart devices are of special interest. At present, electronic components existing on a single silicon chip grow rapidly, and soon the miniaturization process of electrical components will face limitations due to heat dissipation. Therefore, as an advanced alternative for silicon-based electronic components, the investigation of nanoscale molecular electronic devices is of great importance. This dissertation research is focused on …

On Switching Diffusions: The Feynman-Kac Formula And Near-Optimal Controls, Nicholas Baran

Wayne State University Dissertations

We consider diffusions in two different contexts. First, we consider the so-called Feynman-Kac formula(s) for switching diffusions. These formulas provide stochastic representations for solutions of certain weakly coupled elliptical systems of partial differential equations. The formulas are verified for the boundary value problem, the initial value problem, and the initial boundary value problem. Second, we show the existence of near-optimal controls for a system driven by wideband noise in the presence of regime-switching. Using a relaxed control formulation, together with weak convergence methods, we show that given a stochastic optimal control problem, one may find a control that is near-optimal. …

The Design, Analysis, & Application Of Multi-Modal Real-Time Embedded Systems, Masud Ahmed

Wayne State University Dissertations

For many hand-held computing devices (e.g., smartphones), multiple operational modes are preferred because of their flexibility. In addition to their designated purposes, some of these devices provide a platform for different types of services, which include rendering of high-quality multimedia. Upon such devices, temporal isolation among co-executing applications is very important to ensure that each application receives an acceptable level of quality-of-service. In order to provide strong guarantees on services, multimedia applications and real-time control systems maintain timing constraints in the form of deadlines for recurring tasks. A flexible real-time multi-modal system will ideally provide system designers the option to …

Rydberg Time-Of-Flight And Imaging Probes Of The Velocity-Dependent Hydrogen Atom Spin Polarization, Bernadette Michlewicz Broderick

Wayne State University Dissertations

Insights into electron spin and nuclei are central to the field of chemical reaction dynamics. Of particular note is the study of spin-polarized hydrogen (SPH) atoms, which result from photodissociation of molecules. Examination of the detailed H-atom spin polarization is achieved by determining the projection of the electron spin onto the probe laser direction. In doing so, its angular distribution, complex dissociation pathways, and coherent excitation mechanisms may be revealed. Approaches to detect SPH atoms are experimentally challenging due to the difficulty associated with probing ground-state H atoms through isolated fine structure levels, which is the only direct way to …

Effects Of Statin Drugs And Tocotrienol Rich Fraction Supplementation In Chronic Hemodialysis Patients And Metabolomic Profile, Eno Latifi

Wayne State University Theses

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is known as a heterogeneous disorder which currently is on the rise and lately has been classified as a public health issues in the United State and worldwide. CKD is an irreversible and progressive disease which can lead to kidney failure, and this is depicted by the advanced stage of the disorder when it reaches the point, that is classified as end stage of renal disease (ESRD) (Stage 5 of CKD) (eGRF <15 mL/min/ 1.73 m2 working capacity), where both organs are in a total or permanent kidney failure. End-Stage renal disease patients, on hemodialysis have been associated to experience an accelerated form of atherosclerosis, which is induced by inflammation, impairment of antioxidant system and elevated oxidative stress. Since the problem effecting ESRD patients is multifactorial, the objective of this investigation is to explore and look at the effects of supplementing with vitamin E-tocotrienol rich fraction (TRF), a micronutrient which has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and lipid lower capabilities into tackling these comorbid conditions experienced by this population. Therefore the aims of this investigation will be to explore changes in lipid profiles, inflammatory markers, and oxidative status, as well as look at any changes in metabolomic profiles. It was hypothesized that by supplementing with TRF a vitamin E, for 16 weeks in ESRD patients undergoing hemodialysis, it may help reverse and/or improve, oxidative status, inflammatory markers, increase antioxidants status and improve lipid profiles.

The study was double-blinded, randomized, parallel, placebo-controlled design trial, of 81 adult patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis at Great Lake Dialysis Clinic, Detroit MI, where …

Taming Uncertainties In Real-Time Routing For Wireless Networked Sensing And Control, Xiaohui Liu

Wayne State University Theses

Real-time routing is a basic element of closed-loop, real-time sensing and control, but it is challenging due to dynamic, uncertain link/path delays.

The probabilistic nature of link/path delays makes the basic problem of computing the probabilistic distribution of path delays NP-hard, yet quantifying probabilistic path delays is a basic element of real-time routing and may well have to be executed by resource-constrained devices in a distributed manner;

the highly-varying nature of link/path delays makes it necessary to adapt to in-situ delay conditions in real-time routing, but it has been observed that delay-based routing can lead to instability, estimation error, and …

A Decision Modeling For Phasor Measurement Unit Location Selection In Smart Grid Systems, Seung Yup Lee

Wayne State University Theses

As a key technology for enhancing the smart grid system, Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) provides synchronized phasor measurements of voltages and currents of wide-area electric power grid. With various benefits from its application, one of the critical issues in utilizing PMUs is the optimal site selection of units.

The main aim of this research is to develop a decision support system, which can be used in resource allocation task for smart grid system analysis. As an effort to suggest a robust decision model and standardize the decision modeling process, a harmonized modeling framework, which considers operational circumstances of component, is …

Energy Transfer In A Discrete, Soluble Heterobimetallic Complex Containing Tb3+ And Eu3+, Nikhil Kumar Barua

Wayne State University Theses

A discrete, heterobimetallic Tb3+-Eu3+ -containing complex has been synthesized, and energy transfer was observed in the complex without using an antenna. This result represents a new way of observing lanthanide emission using lanthanide excitation in discrete, soluble complex. The occurrence of energy transfer in the mixed heterobimetallic Tb3+-Eu3+ complex was characterized using steady state luminescence spectroscopy and luminescence-decay studies. These findings are likely to be useful for fundamental mechanistic studies of energy transfer in lanthanide-containing systems.

Biophysical Studies Of Mutant H69 Rna Constructs, Daya Nidhi Kharel

Wayne State University Theses

The importance of helix 69 (H69) of the large ribosomal subunit is emphasized by its location in the ribosome and key contacts with protein factors and tRNAs during different steps of protein synthesis. The presence of three highly conserved pseudouridine modifications in H69 has a significant impact on modulation of the ribosome conformations. Specific nucleotides of H69 may be necessary for the function of this helix-loop RNA, as some mutations are deleterious to bacterial growth. In this study, we investigated the effects of single nucleotide mutations in a 19-nucleotide H69 construct with and without pseudouridines on the RNA stability and …

Genetic And Biochemical Studies Of Human Apobec3h Enzyme, Thisari Sachithra Aluthgama Guruge

Wayne State University Theses

The AID/APOBEC enzymes are DNA/RNA cytosine deaminases with important functions in innate and adaptive immunity. APOBEC3 enzymes play a crucial role in restricting the replication of exogenous retroviruses such HIV-1 and endogenous retrotransposition events. In particular, APOBEC3 enzymes have evolved in humans by gene duplication to compose seven members. APOBEC3H is highly diverse in its allelic sequence and the distribution is population-specific. It has evolved under strong positive selection over millions of years. To study the catalytic mechanism, structure, function and the underlying cause of its high diversity, a high resolution crystal or NMR structure is required are not yet …

Investigating The Anisotropy Of Magnetic Susceptibility And Other Rock Magnetic Properties Of The Beaver River Diabase In Northeastern Minnesota, Samer H. Hariri

Wayne State University Theses

The Beaver River Diabase (BRD) is a series of mafic dikes and sills within the Beaver Bay Complex (BBC) of northern Minnesota, which formed during the development of the ~1.1 Ga Midcontinent Rift (MCR). The BRD is one of the youngest and most extensive intrusive phases of the BBC. The BRD dikes and sills were emplaced into the medial levels of the 6-10 kilometer-thick North Shore Volcanic Group and occur over an arcuate area extending 120 by 20 kilometers. The BRD is composed of fine- to medium-grained ophitic olivine gabbro and does not display obvious foliation or lineation features and …

The Investigation Of The Molecular Mechanism Of Rhodopsin Activation By Small Angle Neutron Scattering And Small Angle X-Ray Scattering Techniques, Kurt William Van Delinder

Wayne State University Theses

Rhodopsin is a visual pigment found within the rod photoreceptor cells of the retina. It is a visual protein found within human beings and commonly shared amongst other vertebrate species. The major pigment protein is responsible for converting photons into chemical signals, which stimulates biological processes in the nervous system, and this allows the ability to then sense light [4]. The process of how rhodopsin is activated is believed to be understood with the introduction of a time ordered sequence of intermediate states. However, there are still major gaps and inconsistencies regarding the large-scale conformational changes that follow photoactivation. The …

New Carbohydrate-Based Anti-Cancer And Anti-Bacterial Vaccines, Zhifang Zhou

Wayne State University Dissertations

The unique carbohydrates expressed on the surface of cancer, bacterial, viral and fungal cells are excellent target antigens for the design of therapeutic or preventive vaccines. However, as antigens carbohydrates have problems. First, carbohydrates usually have low immunogenicity. Second, even if immunogenic, carbohydrates typically elicit T cell-independent immune responses. To overcome these problems and design useful vaccines based on carbohydrate antigens, they are usually coupled with carrier proteins to form conjugates to enhance the immunogenicity of the antigens. However, there are still some issues existing in glycoprotein vaccines, such as poor reproducibility of the conjugates, difficulties in quality control and …

Measurement Of Branching Fractions Of Rare Semi-Leptonic Ds Decays Ds → Π0 L Ν, Ds →Ρ L Ν, Ds →Ks L Ν (Near ϒ (4s), ϒ (5s)) At Belle, Sudeshna Ganguly

Wayne State University Dissertations

In Particle physics, a flavor-less meson whose constituents are a quark and an anti-quark is known as quarkonium. Mesons which are formed by a bound state of charm quark and anti-charm quark are known as charmonium states. Different inspections of exotic charmonium states have been understood as 4-quark states. Charmonium states are produced via e+e− annihilation. We search at Belle, based on 119000 tagged events in the ϒ (4S) and ϒ (5S) energy regions, to look for Ds → π0 l ν, Ds →ρ l ν, Ds →Ks l ν ; considering the electron candidates as well the heavy electron …

Computational Studies Of Enzymatic Reactions And Inorganic Compounds, Dong Fang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Quantum mechanics (QM) calculations have been demonstrated to give very accurate results in studying a variety of chemical reactions. However, the current computing resources limits its use in large-size systems such as enzymes. Compared to QM, Molecular Mechanics (MM) have an advantage in computing time but disadvantage in accuracy, and MM cannot be used in reactions involving bonding forming and breaking. To combine the advantages of these two types of methods, QM/MM has been introduced to study reactions and processes in large-size systems, and it has been proven to give accurate results with moderate computational expense. When studying enzymatic reactions, …

Stability And Controls For Stochastic Dynamic Systems, Zhixin (Harriet) Yang

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on stability analysis and optimal controls for stochastic dynamic systems. It encompasses two parts. One part of our work gives an in-depth study of stability of linear jump diffusion, linear Markovian jump diffusion, multi-dimensional jump diffusion and

regime-switching jump diffusion together with the associated numerical solutions. The other part of our work is controls for stochastic dynamic systems, to be specific, we concentrated on mean variance types of control under different formulations. We obtained the nearly optimal

mean-variance controls under both two-time-scale and hidden Markov chain formulations and convergence for each case is achieved.

In Chapter 2, …

Assembly And Function Of Macromolecular Complexes For Accurate Trna Aminoacylation In Helicobacter Pylori, Gayathri Niroshani Silva

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

ASSEMBLY AND FUNCTION OF MACROMOLECULAR COMPLEXES FOR ACCURATE TRNA AMINOACYLATION IN HELICOBACTER PYLORI

by

GAYATHRI SILVA

January 2014

Advisor: Dr. Tamara L. Hendrickson

Major: Chemistry (Biochemistry)

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Abstract

The aminoacylation of tRNA is a critical step in maintaining the accuracy of the genetic code. Many microorganisms are missing one or more aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) and rely on indirect pathways to produce certain aa–tRNAs. In Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), the genes encoding both asparaginyl tRNA synthetase (AsnRS) and glutaminyl tRNA synthetase (GlnRS) are missing and the organism consequently relies on the indirect pathway for …

In-Network Processing For Mission-Criticalwireless Networked Sensing And Control: A Real-Time, Efficiency, And Resiliency Perspective, Qiao Xiang

Wayne State University Dissertations

As wireless cyber-physical systems (WCPS) are increasingly being deployed in mission-critical applications, it becomes imperative that we consider application QoS requirements in in-network processing (INP). In this dissertation, we explore the potentials of two INP methods, packet packing and network coding, on improving network performance while satisfying application QoS requirements. We find that not only can these two techniques increase the

energy efficiency, reliability, and throughput of WCPS while satisfying QoS requirements of applications in a relatively static environment, but also they can provide low cost proactive protection against transient node failures in a more dynamic wireless environment.

We first …

Teak: A Novel Computational And Gui Software Pipeline For Reconstructing Biological Networks, Detecting Activated Biological Subnetworks, And Querying Biological Networks., Thair Judeh

Wayne State University Dissertations

As high-throughput gene expression data becomes cheaper and cheaper, researchers are faced with a deluge of data from which biological insights need to be extracted and mined since the rate of data accumulation far exceeds the rate of data analysis. There is a need for computational frameworks to bridge the gap and assist researchers in their tasks. The Topology Enrichment Analysis frameworK (TEAK) is an open source GUI and software pipeline that seeks to be one of many tools that fills in this gap and consists of three major modules. The first module, the Gene Set Cultural Algorithm, de novo …

Energy Efficiency Analysis And Optimization For Mobile Platforms, Grace Metri

Wayne State University Dissertations

The introduction of mobile devices changed the landscape of computing. Gradually, these devices are replacing traditional personal computer (PCs) to become the devices of choice for entertainment, connectivity, and productivity. There are currently at least 45.5 million people in the United States who own a mobile device, and that number is expected to increase to 1.5 billion by 2015.

Users of mobile devices expect and mandate that their mobile devices have maximized performance while consuming minimal possible power. However, due to the battery size constraints, the amount of energy stored in these devices is limited and is only growing by …

Multiparticle Correlations In Pb--Pb Collisions At \Snn=2.76 Tev, Jocelyn Mlynarz

Wayne State University Dissertations

Quantum Chromodynamics, which describe the interactions of quarks and gluons, have been found not to violate global parity symmetry. However, the possibility

of local parity violations due to transitions in the vacuum state of QCD is not excluded. The effects of these parity violations could be measured in the

hot and dense medium created in the ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions experiment conducted at the Large Hadron Collider, called a Quark-Gluon Plasma, in which

the quarks that compose most of ordinary matter are deconfined. In the strong magnetic fields which permeate the QGP in non-central collisions, parity violation

would express itself …