Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Dynamics Of Anisotropic Gold Nanopartilces In Synthetic And Biopolymer Solutions, Sharmine Alam

Wayne State University Dissertations

Soft matter is a subfield of condensed matter physics including systems such as polymers, colloids, amphiphiles and liquid crystals. Understanding their interaction and dynamics is essential for many interdisciplinary fields of study as well as important for technological advancements. We used gold nanorods (AuNRs) to investigate the length-scale dependent dynamics in semidilute polymer solutions, their conjugation and interaction with a protein bovine serum albumin (BSA), and the effect of shape anisotropy on the dynamics within a crowded solution of spheres. Multiphoton fluctuation correlation spectroscopy (MP-FCS) technique was used to investigate the translation and rotational diffusion of AuNRs. For polymer solutions, …

No-Arbitrage Option Pricing And The Binomial Asset Pricing Model, Nicholas S. Hurley

Honors College Theses

Financial markets often employ the use of securities, which are defined to be any kind of tradable financial asset. Common types of securities include stocks and bonds. A particular type of security, known as a derivative security (or simply, a derivative), are financial instruments whose value is derived from another underlying security or asset (such as a stock). A common kind of derivative is an option, which is a contract that gives the holder the right but not the obligation to go through with the terms of said contract. An example of an option is the European Option, which we …

A Control-Theoretic Design And Analysis Framework For Resilient Hard Real-Time Systems, Pradeep Mahendra Hettiarachchi

Wayne State University Dissertations

We introduce a new design metric called system-resiliency which characterizes the maximum unpredictable

external stresses that any hard-real-time performance mode can withstand. Our proposed systemresiliency

framework addresses resiliency determination for real-time systems with physical and hardware

limitations. Furthermore, our framework advises the system designer about the feasible trade-offs between

external system resources for the system operating modes on a real-time system that operates in a

multi-parametric resiliency environment.

Modern multi-modal real-time systems degrade the system’s operational modes as a response to unpredictable

external stimuli. During these mode transitions, real-time systems should demonstrate a reliable

and graceful degradation of service. Many …

Resource Management In Cloud And Big Data Systems, Lena Mashayekhy

Wayne State University Dissertations

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift in computing, where services are offered and acquired on demand in a cost-effective way. These services are often virtualized, and they can handle the computing needs of big data analytics. The ever-growing demand for cloud services arises in many areas including healthcare, transportation, energy systems, and manufacturing. However, cloud resources such as computing power, storage, energy, dollars for infrastructure, and dollars for operations, are limited. Effective use of the existing resources raises several fundamental challenges that place the cloud resource management at the heart of the cloud providers' decision-making process. One of these challenges …

Development Of New Algorithms For Exploring The Potential Energy Landscape Of Chemical Reactions, Adam Benjamin Birkholz

Wayne State University Dissertations

The research presented in this dissertation is divided into 5 chapters. In Chapter 2, a method for reducing the number of coordinates required to accurately reproduce a known chemical reaction pathway by applying principal component analysis to a number of geometries along the pathway (expressed in either Cartesian coordinates or redundant internal coordinates) is described and applied to 9 example reactions. Chapter 3 introduces new methods for estimating the structure of and optimizing transition states by utilizing information about the atomic bonding in the reactants and products. These methods are then benchmarked against a standard transition state optimization approach utilizing …

Interaction Forces And Reaction Kinetics Of Ligand-Cell Receptor Systems Using Atomic Force Microscopy, Anwesha Sarkar

Wayne State University Dissertations

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) provides superior imaging resolution and the ability to measure forces at the nanoscale. It is an important tool for studying a wide range of bio-molecular samples from proteins, DNA to living cells. We developed AFM measurement procedures to measure protein interactions on live cells at the single molecular level. These measurements can be interpreted by using proper statistical approaches and can yield important parameters about ligand-receptor interactions on live cells. However, the standard theory for analyzing rupture force data does not fit the experimental rupture force histograms. Most of the experimental measurements of rupture force data …

Comparison Of Lazy Controller And Constant Bandwidth Server For Temperature Control, Zhen Sun

Wayne State University Theses

Temperature control plays an important role in building control systems; there are

numerous methods for controlling temperature. Recently, a popular controller is the

lazy controller which proposed by Truong et al. However, by applying lazy control, the

temperature is not stable since this controller simply lets temperature increase or decrease

until it reaches the upper or lower temperature thresholds. We seek a heater-control

schedule that can make room temperatures more stable. The Constant Bandwidth Server

(CBS) was developed to handle soft real-time tasks characterized by the execution time

and period. By employing the concepts of CBS, we can derive a …

Inference Of Hydrogeological Conditions And Source History Of Groundwater Contaminants Using 3-D Modeling And Human Health Risk Assessment, Mary Rosanna Carnagie

Wayne State University Theses

This study was completed using data interpolation and human health risk modules in Spatial Analysis and Decision Assistance (SADA) software to model a 3-D time-series of 1,4-dioxane and vinyl chloride plumes and their associated health risks to infer hydrogeological conditions at the Ann Arbor Landfill site. Ordinary kriging estimates of contaminant distribution and human health risk distribution provide insight to groundwater flow direction, hydraulic conductivity distribution, and source history of contaminants at sites with groundwater contamination in a glacial aquifer system. More studies with larger datasets in glacial aquifer systems are necessary to prove these correlations, but this thesis illustrates …

Evaluation Of An Architectural-Level Approach For Finding Security Vulnerabilities, Mohammad Anamul Haque

Wayne State University Theses

The cost of security vulnerabilities of a software system is high. As a result,

many techniques have been developed to find the vulnerabilities at development time. Of particular interest are static analysis techniques that can consider all possible executions of a system. But, static analysis can suffer from a large number of false positives.

A recently developed approach, Scoria, is a semi-automated static analysis that requires security architects to annotate the code, typecheck the annotations, extract a hierarchical object graph and write constraints in order to find security vulnerabilities in a system.

This thesis evaluates Scoria on three systems (sizes …

Isomer Detection Of Radicals Produced By The Flash Pyrolysis Of Heptane And Its Structural Isomers, Steven Lingenfelter

Wayne State University Theses

Radicals can play an important role in combustion chemistry as key intermediates. As such studying them is vital in the study of combustion chemistry. Our study focused on the production of the 1 and 2-propyl radical from heptane isomers. Radicals were produced by flash pyrolysis which was achieved by restively heating a silicon carbide tube through which a molecular beam passed. Strong field ionization was utilized to discriminate between the two propyl isomers. Results indicated the expected trend however the signal intensity was quite low with significant noise. Further improvements are needed to improve the quality as well as the …

Survival Analysis Approach For Early Prediction Of Student Dropout, Sattar Ameri

Wayne State University Theses

Retention of students at colleges and universities has long been a concern for educators for many decades. The consequences of student attrition are significant for both students, academic staffs and the overall institution. Thus, increasing student retention is a long term goal of any academic institution. The most vulnerable students at all institutions of higher education are the freshman students, who are at the highest risk of dropping out at the beginning of their study. Consequently, the early identification of at-risk students is a crucial task that needs to be addressed precisely. In this thesis, we develop a framework for …

Impacts Of Anthropogenic Watershed Activity On The Sedimentary Record Of Dams From The Midwestern United States: A Case Study From Michigan And Indiana, Jenna Hage-Hassan

Wayne State University Theses

Large-scale watershed land use changes, including urbanization, have resulted in accelerated soil erosion and sediment accumulation rates, which in turn have posed a threat to the longevity and productivity of a majority of the aging dams in the mid-western United States. In this study, we collected and analyzed 3 sediment cores each from two dams from the Mid-western United States: Webber Dam in Michigan and Goshen Pond Dam in Indiana. Cores were analyzed for 137Cs and 210Pb to establish chronology, as well as concentrations and isotopic composition of organic carbon and nitrogen to investigate the land use changes as preserved …

Performance Comparison Of Two Data Mining Algorithms On Big Data Platforms, Md Rajiur Rahman Raju

Wayne State University Theses

In this Big data era, the need for performing large-scale computations is evident. A better understanding of the most suitable platforms which can efficiently run these computations is needed. In this thesis, we attempt to compare four such big data platforms, namely Hadoop, Spark, GPU, and Multicore CPU. We compare these platforms using two prominent data mining algorithms, namely, K-means clustering and K-nearest neighbour classification and discuss specific implementation-level details. We provide several insights into the best possible implementations of these algorithms and systematically compare the benefits and drawbacks of each of these platforms. We conduct experiments by varying data …

Object Tracking: Appearance Modeling And Feature Learning, Raed Almomani

Wayne State University Dissertations

Object tracking in real scenes is an important problem in computer vision due to increasing usage of tracking systems day in and day out in various applications such as surveillance, security, monitoring and robotic vision. Object tracking is the process of locating objects of interest in every frame of video frames. Many systems have been proposed to address the tracking problem where the major challenges come from handling appearance variation during tracking caused by changing scale, pose, rotation, illumination and occlusion.

In this dissertation, we address these challenges by introducing several novel tracking techniques. First, we developed a multiple object …

Strong Field Ionization Of Radicals And Reaction Intermediates, Fadia Cudry

Wayne State University Dissertations

This work presents results of adapting SFI probe for detection of radicals and their isomers. Radicals and reaction intermediates were produced using an established method flash pyrolysis. This combination allows for new insight in studying radicals and provide complementary results to the other detection methods used. This is the first study reporting the use of SFI to detect radicals. This detection will also provide structural information of the radicals under study.

For acetone and isoprene, a detailed study shows the SFI flash pyrolysis mass spectra. These mass spectra were then compared to the spectra produced by other detection techniques. We …

Biochemical And Structural Characterization Of The Core Subunits Of Gpi Transamidase, Dilani G. Gamage

Wayne State University Dissertations

BIOCHEMICAL AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE CORE SUBUNITS OF GPI TRANSAMIDASE

by

DILANI G GAMAGE

May 2015

Advisor: Prof. Tamara L. Hendrickson

Major: Chemistry (Biochemistry)

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Glycosylphosphatidylinositol transamidase (GPI-T) is a complicated, membrane-bound, multi-subunit enzyme that catalyzes an essential post-translational modification. This enzyme attaches GPI anchors to the C-termini of various proteins that contain a proper GPI-T signal sequence. Gpi8, Gaa1, Gpi16, Gpi17 and Gab1 are the five known subunits that may encompass the fungal GPI-T; Gpi8 is the catalytic subunit, but the functions of the other subunits remain essentially unknown. In humans, different GPI-T subunits are …

Dna Aptamers Selected Against Wild-Type Helix 69 Ribosomal Rna And Their Implications In Combating Antibiotic Resistance, Sakina Miriam Hill

Wayne State University Dissertations

Outbreaks of advanced antibiotic-resistant strains of microbes have hastened the need to identify new viable molecular targets for the development of novel anti-infectives. For this purpose, helix 69 (H69, or m3a 19-nucleotide (nt) hairpin motif that is highly conserved throughout phylogeny and rich in modified nucleotides, including pseudouridine () and 3-methylpseudouridine (m3) was chosen as a potential target. Helix 69, which is located in domain IV of Escherichia coli 23S ribosomal RNA (rRNA), undergoes conformational changes when in close proximity to the decoding region of 16S rRNA and transfer RNAs (tRNAs) in the peptidyl-transferase center (PTC). Functionally, the exact biological …

The Loss Of Genomic Uracil Homeostasis And Aid-Dependent Accumulation Of Dna Damage In B Cell Lymphomas, Sophia Shalhout

Wayne State University Dissertations

Activation-induced deaminase (AID) is a sequence-selective DNA cytosine deaminase that introduces uracils in immunoglobulin genes. This DNA mutator is required for somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination- processes involved in the affinity maturation and diversification of antibodies. AID, however, can also lead to deleterious mutations and translocations promoting lymphomagenesis. The introduction of uracils throughout the genome of activated B cells and the ability of UNG2 glycosylase to excise these uracils is examined here. This interplay was also studied in cancerous B cells, with different results emerging in transformed cells versus healthy cells. Genomic uracil levels are found to remain at …

A Prediction Modeling Framework For Noisy Welding Quality Data, Junheung Park

Wayne State University Dissertations

Numerous and various research projects have been conducted to utilize historical manufacturing process data in product design. These manufacturing process data often contain data inconsistencies, and it causes challenges in extracting useful information from the data. In resistance spot welding (RSW), data inconsistency is a well-known issue. In general, such inconsistent data are treated as noise data and removed from the original dataset before conducting analyses or constructing prediction models. This may not be desirable for every design and manufacturing applications since every data can contain important information to further explain the process. In this research, we propose a prediction …

Investigation Of New Ligand Architechtures Towards Proton And Water Reduction Catalysis By Cobalt Complexes, Debashis Basu

Wayne State University Dissertations

We designed several redox-active ligand architectures to optimize and understand the redox, electronic, and catalytic properties of their respective cobalt complexes. Ligand design was varied from pentadentate donor phenolate to tetradentate acceptor oxime in order to reduce the overpotential of hydrogen generation in organic solvents. We altered the substitution, axial ligands and axial ligand substitutions to vary electronic and catalytic properties for such tetra- or pentadentate ligand systems. Knowledge of the nature of the active species for catalysis enabled us to design the pentadentate oxime ligand which exhibited rich reaction chemistry along with suitable catalytic property in organic solvent. Presence …

On The Nature Of Excited States In Ruthenium Complexes: Towards Renewable Energy, Ryan A. Thomas

Wayne State University Dissertations

The 77 K radiative properties (spectra, quantum yields and lifetimes) of ruthenium-polypyridyl complexes are investigated to better understand the effects of electronic mixing on metal-to-ligand-charge-transfer (3MLCT) excited state properties and how metal-centered (3MC) excited states affect the properties of potential ruthenium photosensitizers.The radiative rate of relaxation (kRAD) determines the maximum possible excited state lifetime when all other relaxation pathways are blocked (kn = 0 for all n  RAD). Thus, the excited state will relax only by means of an emission characteristic of the polypyridyl chromophore. kRAD is expected to increase as the excited state energy increases while the value …

Estimating Cold Nuclear Matter Effects Using Jets In P-Pb Collisions At √Snn = 5.02 Tev With The Alice Detector, Christopher Ghanim Yaldo

Wayne State University Dissertations

In heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC, a suppression of the nuclear modifi- cation factor for jets along with other strongly interacting particles has been observed relative to proton-proton collisions. To unambiguously determine if this suppression is due to the creation of a strongly interacting medium of de-confied partons referred to as the Quark-Gluon Plasma, or due to Cold Nuclear Matter effects, a "control experiment" is required. Proton-lead collisions serve as this control experiment, because these colli- sions are expected to be sensitive to cold nuclear matter effects while not producing a QGP at this collision energy (√sNN = …

Noncovalent Interactions Between Alkali Metal Cation And Aza/Thia-Crown Macrocycles: Mass Spectrometric Techniques And Theoretical Studies, Calvin A. Austin

Wayne State University Dissertations

Macrocyclic complexes have been useful in understanding many systems encountered in biology, along with having widespread use in analytical, pharmaceutical, and synthetic chemistry. My goal was to provide a quantitative experimental and theoretical description of cation-aza-crown and thia-crown ether interactions with alkali metal cations. Infrared multiple photon dissociation (IRMPD) action spectroscopy and energy-resolved collision-induced dissociation (CID) techniques were used in conjunction with theoretical electronic structure calculations to characterize the structures, binding interactions, and stability of cation-aza-crown ether interactions. Quantum chemical calculations at several levels of theory were employed to characterize the structures and stabilities of the isolated cations and aza-crown …

Semantic Web Based Relational Database Access With Conflict Resolution, Fayez Khazalah

Wayne State University Dissertations

This thesis focuses on (1) accessing relational databases through Semantic Web technologies and (2) resolving conflicts that usually arises when integrating data from heterogeneous source schemas and/or instances.

In the first part of the thesis, we present an approach to access relational databases using Semantic Web technologies. Our approach is built on top of Ontop framework for Ontology Based Data Access. It extracts both Ontop mappings and an equivalent OWL ontology from an existing database schema. The end users can then access the underlying data source through SPARQL queries. The proposed approach takes into consideration the different relationships between the …

Stochastic Approximation Algorithms With Applications To Particle Swarm Optimization, Adaptive Optimization, And Consensus, Quan Yuan

Wayne State University Dissertations

In this dissertation, we present three problems arising in recent applications of stochastic approximation methods. In Chapter 2, we use stochastic approximation to analyze Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. We introduce four coefficients and rewrite the PSO procedure as a stochastic approximation type iterative algorithm. Then we analyze its convergence using weak convergence method. It is proved that a suitably scaled sequence of swarms converge to the solution of an ordinary differential equation. We also establish certain stability results. Moreover, convergence rates are ascertained by using weak convergence method. A centered and scaled sequence of the estimation errors is shown …

Chirped-Pulse Fourier Transform Microwave Spectroscopy In Pulsed Uniform Supersonic Flows, Chamara S.W Abeysekera

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is focused on the development of a new experimental apparatus that combines two powerful techniques: Chirped-Pulse Fourier-Transform Microwave (CP-FTMW) spectroscopy and uniform supersonic flows. This combination promises a nearly universal detection method that can deliver quantitative isomer, conformer, and vibrational level specific detection; characterize unstable reaction products and intermediates; and perform unique spectroscopic, kinetics and dynamics measurements.

Thus, a new high-power Ka band (26 – 40 GHz) chirped pulse spectrometer with sub-MHz resolution was designed and constructed. In order to study smaller molecules, E-band (60 – 90 GHz) capabilities were also added to the spectrometer. A novel strategy …

Dynamics Of Biopolymers On Nanomaterials Studied By Quasielastic Neutron Scattering And Mdsimulations, Gurpreet Dhindsa

Wayne State University Dissertations

Neutron scattering has been proved to be a powerful tool to study the dynamics of biological systems under various conditions. This thesis intends to utilize neutron scattering techniques, combining with MD simulations, to develop fundamental understanding of several biologically interesting systems. Our systems include a drug delivery system containing Nanodiamonds with nucleic acid (RNA), and two specific model proteins, β-Casein and Inorganic Pyrophosphatase (IPPase).

RNA and nanodiamond (ND) both are suitable for drug-delivery applications in nano-biotechnology. The architecturally flexible RNA with catalytic functionality forms nanocomposites that can treat life-threatening diseases. The non-toxic ND has excellent mechanical and optical properties and …

On A Multi-Dimensional Singular Stochastic Control Problem: The Parabolic Case, Nhat Do Minh Nguyen

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation considers a stochastic dynamic system which is governed by a multidimensional diffusion process with time dependent coefficients. The control acts additively on the state of the system. The objective is to minimize the expected cumulative cost associated with the position of the system and the amount of control exerted. It is proved that Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman’s equation of the problem has a solution, which corresponds to the optimal cost of the problem. We also investigate the smoothness of the free boundary arising from the problem.

In the second part of the dissertation, we study the backward parabolic problem for a …

Efficient Synergistic De Novo Co-Assembly Of Bacterial Genomes From Single Cells Using Colored De Bruijn Graph, Narjes Sadat Movahedi Tabrizi

Wayne State University Dissertations

Recent progress in DNA amplification techniques, particularly multiple displacement

amplification (MDA), has made it possible to sequence and assemble bacterial

genomes from a single cell. However, the quality of single cell genome assembly has

not yet reached the quality of normal multi-cell genome assembly due to the coverage

bias (including uneven depth of coverage and region blackout) and errors caused by

MDA. Computational methods try to mitigates the amplification bias. In this document

we introduce a de novo co-assembly method using colored de Bruijn graph,

which can overcome the problem of blackout regions due to amplification bias. The

algorithm is …

New Characterizations Of Sobolev Spaces On Heisenberg And Carnot Groups And High Order Sobolev Spaces On Eucliean Spaces, Xiaoyue Cui

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on new characterizations of Sobolev spaces .

It encompasses an in-depth study of Sobolev spaces on Heisenberg groups, as well as Carnot groups, second order and high order Sobolev spaces on Euclidean spaces.