Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Statistical Procedures For Bioequivalence Analysis, Srinand Ponnathapura Nandakumar

Dissertations

Applicants submitting a new drug application (NDA) or new animal drug application (NADA) under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDC Act) are required to document bioavailability (BA). A sponsor of an abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) or abbreviated new animal drug application (ANADA) must document first pharmaceutical equivalence and then bioequivalence (BE) to be deemed therapeutically equivalent to a reference listed drug (RLD). The Average (ABE), Population (PBE) and Individual (IBE) bioequivalence have been used to establish the equivalence in the pharmaco-kinetics of drugs.

The current procedure of PBE uses Cornish Fisher's (CF) expansion on small samples. Since …

Self Similar Flows In Finite Or Infinite Two Dimensional Geometries, Leonardo Xavier Espin Estevez

Dissertations

This study is concerned with several problems related to self-similar flows in pulsating channels. Exact or similarity solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations are of practical and theoretical importance in fluid mechanics. The assumption of self-similarity of the solutions is a very attractive one from both a theoretical and a practical point of view. It allows us to greatly simplify the Navier-Stokes equations into a single nonlinear one-dimensional partial differential equation (or ordinary differential equation in the case of steady flow) whose solutions are also exact solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations in the sense that no approximations are required in order …

Predictive Decoding Of Neural Data, Yaroslav O. Halchenko

Dissertations

In the last five decades the number of techniques available for non-invasive functional imaging has increased dramatically. Researchers today can choose from a variety of imaging modalities that include EEG, MEG, PET, SPECT, MRI, and fMRI.

This doctoral dissertation offers a methodology for the reliable analysis of neural data at different levels of investigation. By using statistical learning algorithms the proposed approach allows single-trial analysis of various neural data by decoding them into variables of interest. Unbiased testing of the decoder on new samples of the data provides a generalization assessment of decoding performance reliability. Through consecutive analysis of the …

Autonomous Migration Of Vertual Machines For Maximizing Resource Utilization, Hyung Won Choi

Dissertations

Virtualization of computing resources enables multiple virtual machines to run on a physical machine. When many virtual machines are deployed on a cluster of PCs, some physical machines will inevitably experience overload while others are under-utilized over time due to varying computational demands. This computational imbalance across the cluster undermines the very purpose of maximizing resource utilization through virtualization. To solve this imbalance problem, virtual machine migration has been introduced, where a virtual machine on a heavily loaded physical machine is selected and moved to a lightly loaded physical machine. The selection of the source virtual machine and the destination …

A Bioinformatics Framework For Rna Structure Mining, Motif Discovery And Polyadenylation Analysis, Mugdha Khaladkar

Dissertations

The RNA molecules play various important roles in the cell and their functionality depends not only on the sequence information but to a large extent on their structure. The development of computational and predictive approaches to study RNA molecules is extremely valuable. In this research, a tool named RADAR was developed that provides a multitude of functionality for RNA data analysis and research. It aligns structure annotated RNA sequences so that both the sequence as well as structure information is taken into consideration. This tool is capable of performing pair-wise structure alignment, multiple structure alignment, database search and clustering. In …

Discreet Dynamical Population Models : Higher Dimensional Pioneer-Climax Models, Yogesh Joshi

Dissertations

There are many population models in the literature for both continuous and discrete systems. This investigation begins with a general discrete model that subsumes almost all of the discrete population models currently in use. Some results related to the existence of fixed points are proved. Before launching into a mathematical analysis of the primary discrete dynamical model investigated in this dissertation, the basic elements of the model - pioneer and climax species - are described and discussed from an ecological as well as a dynamical systems perspective. An attempt is made to explain why the chosen hierarchical form of the …

Road-Based Routing In Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks, Josiane Nzouonta-Domgang

Dissertations

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) can provide scalable and cost-effective solutions for applications such as traffic safety, dynamic route planning, and context-aware advertisement using short-range wireless communication. To function properly, these applications require efficient routing protocols. However, existing mobile ad hoc network routing and forwarding approaches have limited performance in VANETs. This dissertation shows that routing protocols which account for VANET-specific characteristics in their designs, such as high density and constrained mobility, can provide good performance for a large spectrum of applications.

This work proposes a novel class of routing protocols as well as three forwarding optimizations for VANETs. The …

Numerical Detection Of Complex Singularities In Two And Three Dimensions, Kamyar Malakuti

Dissertations

Singularities often occur in solutions to partial differential equations; important examples include the formation of shock fronts in hyperbolic equations and self-focusing type blow up in nonlinear parabolic equations. Information about formation and structure of singularities can have significant role in interfacial fluid dynamics such as Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, Rayleigh-Taylor instability, and Hele-Shaw flow. In this thesis, we present a new method for the numerical analysis of complex singularities in solutions to partial differential equations. In the method, we analyze the decay of Fourier coefficients using a numerical form fit to ascertain the nature of singularities in two and three-dimensional functions. …

Enterprise Information Technology Organizational Flexibility : Managing Uncertainty And Change, Karen Prast Patten

Dissertations

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) lead enterprise information technology organizations (EITOs) in today's dynamic competitive business environment. CIOs deal with external and internal environmental changes, changing internal customer needs, and rapidly changing technology. New models for the organization include flexibility and suggest that CIOs should create and manage an enterprise IT organization that is more flexible in order to manage change and prepare for uncertainty, but they do not define what is meant by flexibility.

The first objective of this exploratory and ethnographic research study was to understand how uncertainty and unexpected change are currently managed by CIOs. The second was …

Leadership In Partially Distributed Teams, Linda Plotnick

Dissertations

Inter-organizational collaboration is becoming more common. When organizations collaborate they often do so in partially distributed teams (PDTs). A PDT is a hybrid team that has at least one collocated subteam and at least two subteams that are geographically distributed and communicate primarily through electronic media. While PDTs share many characteristics with both traditionally collocated and fully distributed teams, they also have unique characteristics and issues.

This dissertation reports on a field study of PDTs conducted over two semesters with student participants, This research was conducted as part of a larger series of studies investigating PDTs, In these studies, participants …

The Influence Of Organizational And Information Systems Factors On The Effectiveness Of Post-Merger Technology Integration, Gianilda A. Morsell

Dissertations

This dissertation explores how ten specific organizational and information systems factors influence post-merger IS integration success, and the role that degree of IS integration plays in moderating the influence these factors may have on IS integration success. Data were gathered, using a self-administered survey instrument, from senior IS executives at firms that experienced a U.S. public merger greater than $25 million between 2004 and 2007. Support is found for the study's Conceptual Model, indicating that all ten factors in unison influence post-merger IS integration success. The data support the hypotheses that quality of merger planning, quality of communication of merger …

Investigation Into Select Isoquinolines As A Putative Causal Agent Of Ethanol Addiction In Mammals, Jacob Christopher Strawbridge

Dissertations

Alcohol is the most abused drug in America today. The neurological root of the problem is still a much debated subject and many differing views exist on the nature of alcoholism, be it a social dysfunction or a neurochemical imbalance. Some researchers have proposed that a skewed metabolism of dopamine that results in the formation of tetrahydroisoquinoline (THIQ) alkaloids plays a major role in the neurochemical acquisition and maintenance of alcohol addiction. In an effort to better understand the relationship of THIQ's to alcohol addiction, a series of experiments have been conducted. The chiral separation via high pressure liquid chromatography …

Raft Synthesis Of Water-Soluble, Stimuli-Responsive (Co)Polymers And Post-Polymerization End Group Modification Via The Thiol-Ene Reaction, Bing Yu

Dissertations

A series of water-soluble, stimuli-responsive (co)polymers was synthesized via the reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. The end group of a RAFT polymer, poly(jV-isopropylacrylamide), was modified to ene or yne function via thiol-ene click chemistry. The ene or yne end group subsequently underwent thiol-ene or thiol-yne addition affording mono- or di-functional end group. First, three methacrylic monomers containing 2 or 3 pendent tertiary amine functional groups, l,3-bis(dimethylamino)propan-2-yl methacrylate (Ml), l-(bis(3-(dimethylamino)propyl)amino)propan-2-yl methacrylate (M2), and 2-((2-(2-(dimethylamino)ethoxy)ethyl)methylamino)ethyl acrylate (M3), were synthesized via an acylation reaction between methacryloyl chloride and the corresponding aminoalcohol. All of these three monomers were successfully homopolymerized under RAFT conditions …

African-American College Student Attitudes Toward Physics And Their Effect On Achievement, Carl Timothy Drake

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors affecting the attitudes that African-American college students have towards introductory college physics. The population targeted for this study consisted of African-American males and females enrolled in introductory college physics classes at an urban public historical black college or university (HBCU) located in the southeastern United States. Nine of the Fennema- Sherman Mathematics Attitude Scales, modified for physics, were used to analyze the attitudes of the 135 participants enrolled in an introductory college physics class. The nine scales used to measure the students' attitudes were Attitude Toward Success in Physics Scale (AS), …

Design, Synthesis, And Film Formation Of Fluorine Containing Colloidal Dispersions, Anuradha Misra

Dissertations

Fluoropolymers (FPs) have been subject of interest for many years, however due to extreme synthetic and processing conditions their applications have been limited. This dissertation focuses on design and synthesis of fluorine containing colloidal dispersions to advance limited knowledge and to gain further understanding of fluorine containing colloidal dispersions. Fluoroacrylates and fluoro methacrylates consisting of varying chain length of perfluoroalkyl side chain were copolymerized with methylmethacrylate (MMA) and n-butylacrylate (n-BA) under aqueous environment utilizing phospholipids (PLs) as dispersing agent. Morphologies of colloids, coalescence, and film formation processes after water evaporation was investigated using various microscopic probes such as transmission electron …

Influence Of Functional Components On The Film Formation Of Colloidal Dispersions, Kevin Lee Rhudy

Dissertations

A number of colloidal dispersions were synthesized to advance knowledge and gain understanding regarding interactions between individual components and for elucidation of complex processes governing their film formation. These studies show that for methyl methacrylate/n-butyl acrylate (MMA/nBA) colloidal dispersions, the presence of functional components significantly affects film formation. The incorporation of polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) into pMMA/nBA colloidal dispersions creates competing environments between the copolymer particle surfaces, aqueous phases, and dispersing agents which results in migration with self-induced stratification occuring during coalescence. pMMA/nBA/PVOH films stratify to form sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) rich film-air (F-A) interfaces, and the -SO3" moieties exhibit preferential …

Molecular Interactions Involved In The Biogenesis Of Bacterial Microcompartments, Balaraj Balaram Menon

Dissertations

This study was undertaken with the goal of gaining better insights into the assembly pathway of carboxysomes and related polyhedra. Aside from their similarity in size and shape, all known microcompartments package enzymes that mediate key reactions of metabolic pathways [1]. It remains unclear whether the sequestered enzymes participate in microcompartment assembly and/or contribute to the overall shape of the polyhedra. Genetic studies in Salmonella enterica have suggested that the shells of organelles involved in propanediol utilization assemble in the absence of encapsulated enzymes [2]. In this study, in vivo yeast two-hybrid screens, involving components of the ethanolamine utilization (Eut) …

Functional Characterization And Assembly Studies Of Carboxysomes In Halothiobacillus Neapolitanus, Zhicheng Dou

Dissertations

Functional characterization and assembly studies of carboxysomes in Halothiobacillus neapolitanus were pursued in order to understand the roles of carboxysomes in the carbon metabolism in H. neapolitanus and the assembly of carboxysomes in vitro and in vivo. Previously, a low abundance H. neapolitanus carboxysomal protein, CsoSCA was identified as a novel carboxysomal shell-bound carbonic anhydrase. The enzyme is thought to dehydrate the cytosolic bicarbonate to CO2, the substrate of the RuBisCO packaged within the carboxysome [14, 21]. In this study, the carboxysomal shell was identified as a diffusion barrier for CO2 and O2 molecules. The shell-bound CsoSCA protein facilitates the …

Magnetic And Dielectric Properties Of Sulfonated (S) Poly[(Styrene)-(Ethylene-Co-Butylene)-(Styrene)] (Sebs) Block Copolymer/Magnetic Metal Oxide Nanocomposites Synthesized Via An In-Situ Precipitation Method, Sateesh Kumar Peddini

Dissertations

Block copolymer/magnetic metal oxide nanocomposites were synthesized by growing metal oxide nanoparticles (cobalt ferrite, CoFe204 and iron oxide, a-Fe203) in sulfonated (s) poly (styrene) (PS) block domains of sulfonated poly [(styrene)-(ethyleneco- butylene)-(styrene)] (SEBS) BCP preformed films via an in-situ precipitation method by dissolving the salts of respective metal chloride (s) in a suitable solvent that selectively swells the sPS regions. Inorganic uptake was determined using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and it was observed that none of the samples incorporated more than 5 wt % of the inorganic component. Dynamical mechanical analysis was used to observe the changes in the glass transition …

Transmission And Guiding Of Fast Electrons Through Insulating Nanocapillaries And Comparison With Ion Guiding, Susanta Das

Dissertations

Transmission and guiding of fast electrons (500 and 1000 eV) through an insulating polyethylene terephthalate nanocapillary foil has been investigated and compared with results for slow highly charged ions. As for slow ions, guiding is attributed to charge-up of the inner walls near the capillary entrance, which, after a characteristic time, electrostatically deflects the traversing ions causing them to be guided through the sample along the capillary axis. The measurements were performed at WMU. Electron guiding is found to decrease faster with both energy and foil tilt angle than for ions. Ions lose negligible energy during the course of guiding, …

The Robustness Of Confidence Intervals For The Mean Of Delta Distribution, Mathew Anthony Cantos Rosales

Dissertations

The delta distribution is a mixture of a lognormal distribution and a distribution degenerate at zero. Interval estimators of the mean of delta distribution were proposed and examined under full assumption of the model. In this dissertation, robustness of these estimators is studied by comparing coverage properties when the data are contaminated. Simulation models have been considered to accommodate two types of contaminants: (1) data from lognormal distribution with higher level of skewness and (2) data from similar skewed distribution such as gamma, Weibull or Birnbaum-Saunders distributions with the same mean and variance as the original lognormal distribution. In addition, …

Low-Level Pharmaceuticals And Personal Care Products In The Waters Of Michigan, Lisa M. Anderson

Dissertations

The results of this research are the product of a two year study funded by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality with monies from the Clean Michigan Initiative. Low-level (part per billion range) pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the waters of Michigan were investigated. Five rivers in the State were sampled; including the Clinton, Grand, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, and Saginaw. Groundwater samples were obtained from two shallow municipal water wells also; one on the Grand River and one on the Kalamazoo River. The wells were sampled to determine if PPCPs in the river water were being drawn in by …

Terahertz Response Of Microfluidic-Jetted Fabricated 3d Flexible Metamaterials, Yew Li Hor

Dissertations

Conventional materials exhibit some restrictions on their electromagnetic properties. Especially in terahertz region, for example, materials that exhibit magnetic response are far less common in nature than materials that exhibit electric response. However, materials can be designed, namely artificial man-made metamaterials that exhibit electromagnetic properties that are not found in natural materials by adjusting, for example, the dielectric, magnetic or structural parameters of the constituent elements.

This dissertation demonstrates the use of new fabrication techniques to construct metamaterials in THz range via a material deposition system. The metamaterials are fabricated by stacking alternative layers with conventional designs such as single …

Voting In Group Support Systems : Theory, Implementation, And Results From An Exploratory Study, Kung-E Cheng

Dissertations

Group decision making is essential in organizations. Group Support Systems (GSS) can aide groups in making decisions by providing tools and process support. GSS is especially useful for geographically or temporally distributed groups. Researchers of GSS have pointed out that convergence processes are hard to accomplish in GSS. Voting tools in GSS can be a valuable asset in alleviating the difficulty of convergence processes because voting is a concise communication of individual preferences with a well defined procedure that is accepted by group members. In addition, voting results can serve as a group memory of the convergence processes. Field observations …

Collaborative Learning Utilizing A Domain-Based Shared Data Repository To Enhance Learning Outcomes, David J. Lubliner

Dissertations

A number of learning paradigms have postulated that knowledge formation is a dynamic process where learners actively construct a representation of concepts integrating information from multiple sources. Current teaching strategies utilize a compartmentalized approach where individual courses contain a small subset of the knowledge required for a discipline. The intent of this research is to provide a framework to integrate the components of a discipline into a cohesive whole and accelerate the integration of concepts enhancing the learning process. The components utilized to accomplish these goals include two new knowledge integration models; a Knowledge Weighting Model (KWM) and the Aggregate-Integrate-Master …

Loss Of Synchrony In An Inhibitory Network Of Type-I Oscillators, Myongkeun Oh

Dissertations

Synchronization of excitable cells coupled by reciprocal inhibition is a topic of significant interest due to the important role that inhibitory synaptic interaction plays in the generation and regulation of coherent rhythmic activity in a variety of neural systems. While recent work revealed the synchronizing influence of inhibitory coupling on the dynamics of many networks, it is known that strong coupling can destabilize phase-locked firing. Here we examine the loss of synchrony caused by an increase in inhibitory coupling in networks of type-I Morris-Lecar model oscillators, which is characterized by a period-doubling cascade and leads to mode-locked states with alternation …

Synchrotron Radiation-Based Characterization Of Gan- Based Mqw Structures And Strongly Correlated Materials, Sean M. O'Malley

Dissertations

The following dissertation applies synchrotron radiation-based characterization techniques to the fields of gallium nitrides, multiferroic manganites, and self-assembled nano-domain oxide films. These material systems were chosen due to their unusual properties and potential device applications, which have made them very attractive to the scientific community.

Synchrotron-based High Resolution X-ray Diffraction (HRXRD) was used to characterize the structural properties of GaN-based multiple quantum well (MQW) structures grown on trapezoidal shaped GaN ridges. Results where interpreted within the framework of vapor-phase diffusion and surface-migration effects during the metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial growth. The relatively short diffusion length of group- III precursors and …

Characterization And Synthesis Of Nanoscale Materials, Jinfeng Wang

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the systematic study of techniques for characterization and synthesis of nanoscale materials. We have achieved several goals. Firstly, high number density uniform zinc oxide nanostructure growth has been achieved using thermal evaporation, through control of experimental parameters that include source material temperature, substrate temperature, substrate material, gas flow rate, and choice of catalyst. Aligned zinc oxide nanowires, randomly oriented zinc oxide nanowires, zinc oxide container-shaped structures, and zinc oxide nanobelts have been synthesized with high yield. Secondly, using a one parameter family of lattice fringe geometry curves, we show how to examine the epitaxial relationship between …

Empirical Development Of An Instructional Product And Its Impact On Mastery Of Geometry Concepts, Donaldson Williams

Dissertations

Problem

Relatively poor levels of mathematical thinking among American school children have been identified as a major issue over the past half century. Many efforts have been made to increase the mathematics performance of children in schools. Additionally, out-of-school-time programs have attempted to address this issue as well. Holistic development is one of the distinguishing features of Seventh-day Adventist instructional programs. Yet, as of 2007, the Pathfinder program, an informal educational program operated by the world-wide Seventh-day Adventist church, had no instructional product designed to foster participants’ cognitive development in mathematics. This study focused on the empirical development of an …