Orthokeratology (OK) is the reduction, modification or elimination of myopia through application of contact lenses. With the development of high Dk/t lens materials, overnight therapy has become the modality of choice for OK. Overnight OK lens wear has been previously investigated in terms of its efficacy to reduce myopia. However, the underlying effects of overnight OK lens wear on the human cornea have received less attention. As well as the clinical efficacy of overnight OK, this study investigated the effects of overnight OK on topographical corneal thickness and the overnight corneal edema response, and corneal tissue changes with overnight OK. Eighteen subjects participated as the OK lens-wearing group, wearing BE lenses (UltraVision, Brisbane, Queensland) in both eyes. A further ten subjects participated as control subjects, wearing conventional rigid lenses (J-Contour, UltraVision) in the right eye (RE) only. The left eye (LE) acted as a non-lens-wearing control. Both groups wore lenses overnight only, with no lens wear during the day. Measurements were conducted at baseline then on day 1, 4, 10, 30, 60, and 90 for the OK lens-wearing eyes; and up to day 30 for the control group, in the morning (after overnight lens wear) and in the evening (after 8-10 hours of lens removal). Variables measured included best vision sphere (BVS), unaided logMAR visual acuity (VA), refractive astigmatism, apical corneal power (ACP), simulated K readings (Medmont E300 corneal topographer), topographical corneal thickness (Holden-Payor optical pachometer), and keratocyte and endothelial cell densities (ConfoScan2 confocal microscope). Approximately 75% of myopia was corrected after the first night of OK lens wear and the changes in refractive error stabilised by day 10. By day 90, myopia reduction averaged 2.54 ?? 0.63 D. This was associated with significant improvement in unaided VA of about 82% after the first night of lens wear. There was no change in refractive astigmatism over the 3-month period. There was significant reduction in ACP in the OK lens-wearing eyes after the first night of lens wear, which accounted for more than 70% of the total ACP change over the 3-month period (RE: -2.16 ?? 0.53 D; LE: -2.11 ?? 0.86 D). There was significant central epithelial thinning (about 30%) and significant thickening (about 3%) in the mid-peripheral stroma in the OK lens-wearing eyes. Significant central epithelial thinning was found after the first night of lens wear while thickening in the mid-peripheral stroma reached statistical significance by day 4. Further analysis suggests that topographical corneal thickness changes account for the refractive error changes with overnight OK lens wear, rather than corneal bending. The central overnight stromal edema response was significantly reduced in the OK lens-wearing eyes (1.2 ?? 0.5%) to a level lower than in the conventional RGP (6.2 ?? 1.2%) and non-lens-wearing eyes (2.5 ?? 0.9%) in the control group. Mid-peripheral and peripheral stromal edema responses showed similar levels to those predicted based on lens Dk/t. A single overnight wear of BE and Paragon Corneal Refractive Therapy (CRT) lenses showed that the edema response to BE lens wear is significantly less than in the CRT lens-wearing eyes (BE: 2.5 ?? 0.7%; CRT 3.5 ?? 1.3%) immediately on eye opening. No significant changes were found in either central stromal keratocyte or endothelial cell densities in either OK or control groups over the study period. In conclusion, overnight OK lens wear induces significant reductions in myopia after the first night of lens wear associated with improvement in unaided VA. Overnight OK lens wear causes significant thinning in the central epithelium and significant mid-peripheral stromal thickening which results in flattening of the central cornea and steepening in the mid-periphery. Although there were no significant changes in central stromal keratocyte and endothelial cell densities, thinning of the central epithelial layer raises concerns regarding the safety of the procedure, especially with the alarming number of corneal infections reported recently in the literature.

Adviser: Peter B. Gilkey. ix, 128 leaves / A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: MATH QA613 .Z43 2000 / Relative to a non-degenerate metric of signature (p, q), an algebraic curvature tensor is said to be IP if the associated skew-symmetric curvature operator R(π) has constant eigenvalues and if the kernel of R(π) has constant dimension on the Grassmanian of non-degenerate oriented 2-planes. A pseudo-Riemannian manifold with a non-degenerate indefinite metric of signature (p, q) is said to be IP if the curvature tensor of the Levi-Civita connection is IP at every point; the eigenvalues are permitted to vary with the point. In the Riemannian setting (p, q) = (0, m), the work of Gilkey, Leahy, and Sadofsky and the work of Ivanov and Petrova have classified the IP metrics and IP algebraic curvature tensors if the dimension is at least 4 and if the dimension is not 7. We use techniques from algebraic topology and from differential geometry to extend some of their results to the Lorentzian setting (p, q) = (1, m – 1) and to the setting of metrics of signature (p, q) = (2, m – 2).

x, 164 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / We study the topology of the space of metrics of positive scalar curvature on a compact manifold. The main tool we use for constructing such metrics is the surgery technique of Gromov and Lawson. We extend this technique to construct families of positive scalar curvature cobordisms and concordances which are parametrised by Morse functions and later, by generalised Morse functions. We then use these results to study concordances of positive scalar curvature metrics on simply connected manifolds of dimension at least five. In particular, we describe a subspace of the space of positive scalar curvature concordances, parametrised by generalised Morse functions. We call such concordances Gromov-Lawson concordances. One of the main results is that positive scalar curvature metrics which are Gromov-Lawson concordant are in fact isotopic. This work relies heavily on contemporary Riemannian geometry as well as on differential topology, in particular pseudo-isotopy theory. We make substantial use of the work of Eliashberg and Mishachev on wrinkled maps and of results by Hatcher and Igusa on the space of generalised Morse functions. / Committee in charge: Boris Botvinnik, Chairperson, Mathematics; James Isenberg, Member, Mathematics; Hal Sadofsky, Member, Mathematics; Christopher Phillips, Member, Mathematics; Michael Kellman, Outside Member, Chemistry

O trabalho realizado consiste no desenvolvimento das equações pertinentes à teoria de cascas, implementação de programas de elementos finitos em Matlab e resolução de problemas de casca numéricos e analíticos. No desenvolvimento da teoria de cascas é evidenciada a aplicação da curvatura da estrutura no cálculo das forças e momentos resultantes para uma superfície de casca simplificada a uma estrutura localmente bidimensional. O problema de casca é resolvido analiticamente para um caso de curvatura simples e comparado com a resolução por elementos finitos em um programa desenvolvido pelo autor, em que a utilização da curvatura para o cálculo das forças e momentos resultantes é inserida na programação. A análise de elementos finitos é realizada para casos de casca com curvatura simples e dupla curvatura e de duas formas, sendo que a primeira utiliza elementos cujas normais médias são empregadas na montagem da matriz de rigidez, constituindo um elemento de casca e a segunda aplica normais a cada nó de cada elemento, tendo-se assim uma superfície facetada, com comportamento de placa em cada elemento. Os resultados obtidos mostram que o impacto da aplicação da curvatura em geral é pequeno nas regiões mais críticas para as forças e momentos resultantes, como na região de engaste. Porém, algumas regiões da casca apresentam grandes variações, e caso sejam de importância para o usuário, cabe uma análise mais detalhada em que o emprego da curvatura possa ser considerado. / This work presents the development of the shell theory equations, implementation of finite element programs in Matlab and the resolution of numerical and analytical shell problems. Along with the development of the shell theory, the application of the curvature of the structure in the calculation of stress and couple resultants for a shell structure simplified to a bidimensional problem become clear. The shell problem is solved analytically, by means of the application of the shell equations in a shell with simple curvature, and this solution is compared with the numerical solution using the finite element program implemented, considering the curvature of the structure for the stress and couple resultants. Finite element analysis is performed for the simple and double curvature cases of shells, and in two distinct ways, the first one considering averaged normals for neighbor elements, which produces shell elements, the second one using normals to each node of each element, which results in locally flat elements, behaving as plates. Results obtained show that the impact of the application of the curvature in the resultants is usually small in the most critical points, such as the crimp. However, some regions of the shell present huge variation, and further analysis is recommended, since the application of the curvature can be important.

abstract: This thesis explores the different aspects of higher curvature gravity. The "membrane paradigm" of black holes in Einstein gravity is extended to black holes in f(R) gravity and it is shown that the higher curvature effects of f(R) gravity causes the membrane fluid to become non-Newtonian. Next a modification of the null energy condition in gravity is provided. The purpose of the null energy condition is to filter out ill-behaved theories containing ghosts. Conformal transformations, which are simple redefinitions of the spacetime, introduces serious violations of the null energy condition. This violation is shown to be spurious and a prescription for obtaining a modified null energy condition, based on the universality of the second law of thermodynamics, is provided. The thermodynamic properties of the black holes are further explored using merger of extremal black holes whose horizon entropy has topological contributions coming from the higher curvature Gauss-Bonnet term. The analysis refutes the prevalent belief in the literature that the second law of black hole thermodynamics is violated in the presence of the Gauss-Bonnet term in four dimensions. Subsequently a specific class of higher derivative scalar field theories called the galileons are obtained from a Kaluza-Klein reduction of Gauss-Bonnet gravity. Galileons are null energy condition violating theories which lead to violations of the second law of thermodynamics of black holes. These higher derivative scalar field theories which are non-minimally coupled to gravity required the development of a generalized method for obtaining the equations of motion. Utilizing this generalized method, it is shown that the inclusion of the Gauss-Bonnet term made the theory of gravity to become higher derivative, which makes it difficult to make any statements about the connection between the violation of the second law of thermodynamics and the galileon fields. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Physics 2014

O trabalho realizado consiste no desenvolvimento das equações pertinentes à teoria de cascas, implementação de programas de elementos finitos em Matlab e resolução de problemas de casca numéricos e analíticos. No desenvolvimento da teoria de cascas é evidenciada a aplicação da curvatura da estrutura no cálculo das forças e momentos resultantes para uma superfície de casca simplificada a uma estrutura localmente bidimensional. O problema de casca é resolvido analiticamente para um caso de curvatura simples e comparado com a resolução por elementos finitos em um programa desenvolvido pelo autor, em que a utilização da curvatura para o cálculo das forças e momentos resultantes é inserida na programação. A análise de elementos finitos é realizada para casos de casca com curvatura simples e dupla curvatura e de duas formas, sendo que a primeira utiliza elementos cujas normais médias são empregadas na montagem da matriz de rigidez, constituindo um elemento de casca e a segunda aplica normais a cada nó de cada elemento, tendo-se assim uma superfície facetada, com comportamento de placa em cada elemento. Os resultados obtidos mostram que o impacto da aplicação da curvatura em geral é pequeno nas regiões mais críticas para as forças e momentos resultantes, como na região de engaste. Porém, algumas regiões da casca apresentam grandes variações, e caso sejam de importância para o usuário, cabe uma análise mais detalhada em que o emprego da curvatura possa ser considerado. / This work presents the development of the shell theory equations, implementation of finite element programs in Matlab and the resolution of numerical and analytical shell problems. Along with the development of the shell theory, the application of the curvature of the structure in the calculation of stress and couple resultants for a shell structure simplified to a bidimensional problem become clear. The shell problem is solved analytically, by means of the application of the shell equations in a shell with simple curvature, and this solution is compared with the numerical solution using the finite element program implemented, considering the curvature of the structure for the stress and couple resultants. Finite element analysis is performed for the simple and double curvature cases of shells, and in two distinct ways, the first one considering averaged normals for neighbor elements, which produces shell elements, the second one using normals to each node of each element, which results in locally flat elements, behaving as plates. Results obtained show that the impact of the application of the curvature in the resultants is usually small in the most critical points, such as the crimp. However, some regions of the shell present huge variation, and further analysis is recommended, since the application of the curvature can be important.

Neste trabalho, estuda-se propriedades e implementações de duas importantes representações de formas denominadas curvatura e eixos de simetria (ou esqueletos), relacionando-as ao clássico modelo de processamento da informação visual proposto por Marr. Para tanto, fez-se necessária uma releitura dos critérios para a representação de formas já existentes, além da proposição e comparação de algumas abordagens numéricas através das quais curvaturas e esqueletos são calculados, com especial atenção dada a características como robustez e invariância. No caso da curvatura, que é uma medida clássica da geometria diferencial sem divergências quanto a sua definição e interpretação, foi dado maior enfoque à robustez dos métodos quanto à presença de ruídos de diversas naturezas e quanto a sensibilidade na escolha dos parâmetros que levaram aos resultados mais precisos. Além disso, propôs-se uma versão não-derivativa da curvatura (denominada circularidade local) a fim de contornar o problema advindo das instabilidades do cálculo de derivadas de dados reais amostrados. Ainda relativamente à curvatura, um método baseado na transformada de Fourier bidimensional foi proposto e comparado à abordagem unidimensional já estabelecida e a outro método padrão (&#946-Splines/ Medioni) de cálculo de curvatura de contornos digitais. Já no caso dos esqueletos, a existência de diversas interpretações geométricas e matemáticas para o conceito e as inúmeras abordagens numéricas para o cálculo dos mesmos demandaram a revisão da literatura sob a luz do modelo inicialmente introduzido para que se pudesse impor uniformidade à terminologia e situar as diferentes abordagens e implementações dentro de um panorama comum, sendo que dois novos métodos para o cálculo de esqueletos foram criados quando do desenvolvimento deste trabalho (esqueletos por dilatações exatas e esqueletos afins baseados em áreas). / In this work, properties and implementations of two important shape representa¬tions had been studied: curvature and symmetry axis (or skeletons) and they had been related to the Marr\'s classical visual information processing model. Thus, it was necessary a re-interpretation of previously existent criteria for shape represen¬tation in addition to the proposition and comparison of some numerical approaches for curvature and skeletons calculations with special attention given to robustness and invariance characteristics. In the curvature case, a classic measure from dif¬ferential geometry with no divergence about its definition and interpretation, we focused mainly on the numerical methods robustness in presence of several noise categories and on the best parameter set choice sensibility. Additionally, a no derivative version of curvature (also called local circularity) was proposed in order to circumvent problems related to the sampled real data derivatives numerical ins¬tabilities. Still talking about curvature, a 2D Fourier transform based method had been proposed and assessed in comparison to the 1D approach and other standard digital contour curvature calculation method (&#946-Splines/ Medioni). In the skeleton\'s case, the existence of several geometrical and mathematical interpretations of the concept and the innumerable numeric approaches to their calculation demanded a literature survey regarding the initially introduced model to impose uniformity to the terminology and to situate the different approaches and implementations into a common framework where two new methods to skeleton\'s calculations had been created (exact dilations based skeletons and area based affine skeletons).

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / Neste trabalho consideraremos hipersuperfÃcies n-dimensionais com curvaturas escalar constante na esfera unitÃria S^(n+1). Caracterizaremos as hipersuperfÃcies dadas por produtos de esferas, cuja dimensÃo à n, na esfera unitÃria S^(n+1) e mostraremos que existe vÃrias hipersuperfÃcies compactas com curvaturas escalar constante na esfera unitÃria S^(n+1) que nÃo sÃo congruentes entre si. Em particular, provaremos que se M à uma hipersuperfÃcie n-dimensional (n>3) completa, localmente conformemente plana com curvatura escalar constante n(n-1)r na esfera unitÃria S^(n+1), entÃo r à maior do que um valor prÃ-estabelecido e sÃo provados dois resultados, um envolvendo isometrias e o outro de existÃncia, quando r e S satisfazem determinadas condiÃÃes, onde S à o quadrado da norma se segunda forma fundamental de M. / In this paper we consider n-dimensional hypersurfaces with constant scalar curvature in the unit sphere S ^ (n +1). Characterize the hypersurfaces given by products of spheres whose size is n, the unit sphere S ^ (n +1) and show that there is more compact hypersurfaces with constant scalar curvature in the unit sphere S ^ (n +1) that are not congruent itself. In particular, prove that M is an n-dimensional hypersurface (n> 3) complete with buckle locally flat accordingly constant scalar n (n-1) on the unit sphere S r ^ (n +1) is greater than r a pre-established and two results are proven value, and the other one involving isometries of existence, when are S satisfy certain conditions, where S is the square of the standard is second fundamental form of M.

Orientador: Carlos Eduardo Duran Fernandez / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Matematica, Estatistica e Computação Cientifica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T06:35:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Moreira_AnaClaudiadaSilva_M.pdf: 1048893 bytes, checksum: 74079b9ae1dc0f7d9eee36e181cf4377 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: O presente trabalho tem por objetivo estudar o Método do Referencial Móvel de Cartan aplicado a curvas, através de diversos exemplos, desde problemas simples, passando por publicações dos anos 60 e 70 até artigos recentes. Embora existam teorias gerais para encontrar referenciais de Cartan, optamos por estudar uma forma um pouco mais "artesanal" de construção dos referenciais móveis; a ênfase está na absorção das variadas técnicas e intuições que se adaptam a cada geometria / Abstract: The aim of this work is to present the Cartan's Moving Frame Method applied to curves, through several examples, starting with simple problems, going through publications of the 60's, 70's, and up to recent results. Although there are general theories for finding Cartan's moving frames, we chose to study a slightly more "handcraft" way of building the required moving frame; the emphasis being on the absorption of the different techniques and intuitive understanding adapted to each geometry / Mestrado / Mestre em Matemática

O objetivo desta dissertaÃÃo à apresentar um resultado similar ao Teorema de Bernstein sobre hipersuperfÃcies mÃnimas no espaÃo euclidiano, isto Ã, mostrar que tal resultado se generaliza para hipersuperfÃcies de Sn+1 com curvatura mÃdia constante, cuja aplicaÃÃo de Gauss estÃcontida em um hemis- fÃrio fechado de Sn+1 (Teorema 3.1). PorÃm, no caso em que a hipersuperfÃcie à mÃnima, utilizaremos na demonstraÃÃo deste teorema, um resultado sobre caracterizaÃÃo das hiperesferas de Sn+1 entre todas hipersuperfÃcies de Sn+1 em termos de suas imagens de Gauss (Teorema 2.1). / The objective of this dissertation is to show a similar result of Bernstein theorem about minimal hypersurfaces in Euclidian space, that is, to show that that result is generalized to hypersurfaces of Sn+1 with constant mean curvature, whose Gauss image is contained in a closed hemisphere of Sn+1(Theorem 3.1). However, in the case where the hypersurface is minimal, we will use in the proof of this theorem a result about the characterization of the hyperspheres of Sn+1 among all complete hypersurfaces in Sn+1 in terms of their Gauss images (Theorem 2.1)