A dissertation presented to the graduate school of the University of Florida in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 2009 / Submitted by Leonardo Martinez-Acchini (leonardo.acchini@unila.edu.br) on 2017-11-01T01:49:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 martineza_l.pdf: 1737664 bytes, checksum: a522807aa2f99a94e70dedfdaee49734 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-11-01T01:49:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 martineza_l.pdf: 1737664 bytes, checksum: a522807aa2f99a94e70dedfdaee49734 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / This research is about cultural and linguistic change among western Bolivian highland and valley peasants who have been migrating to the country’s eastern lowlands in the recent years, a very widespread phenomenon in developing economies of the Andean neo-tropics today. In particular, I want to know how Quechua-speaking people from the highlands and valleys adapt to lowland culture; which ethnic traits and linguistic resources they keep, and which ones they abandon; and which strategies they utilize to ease the process of adaptation. The results indicate that highland migrants who settled in the lowland community of Cuatro Cañadas (department of Santa Cruz) speak less Quechua among themselves, and especially with their children, although they assign great importance to the maintenance of this language. Four specific cultural practices that were selected as indicators of Quechua mode of life were measured and analyzed. The results indicate that there is a substantial reduction of these practices in the lowlands. Also, inter-ethnic marriage (highlanders seeking lowlanders), thought to be an important strategy of adaptation, was found to be a preference for a reduced proportion of both the single migrant population and the married population. Therefore, migrants in Cuatro Cañadas are reducing their traditional linguistic behavior and the practice of specific cultural traditions, but their alliance patterns are still somewhat conservative. In spite of this process of acculturation, the theoretical framework used in this research argues that highland migrants do not fully own Cuatro Cañadas: they are trapped between traditional, modern and globalizing codes, and just embrace the hybrid nature of their identities, which makes them speak and behave in certain ways depending on which ethnic identity they want to activate.

A presente pesquisa dedica-se ao estudo da história da formação territorial da Colômbia tendo como ponto de partida a obra do historiador, geógrafo e cartógrafo Francisco Javier Vergara y Velasco (1860-1914). Foca-se na análise da sua obra principal, a Nueva Geografía de Colombia, publicada sua versão definitiva em 1902. Esta pesquisa não apenas revela a Vergara como um autor erudito e crítico, mas demostra que o seu pensamento geográfico não encaixava dentro dos parâmetros das ideologias geográficas dominantes no país no período. Também, esta pesquisa faz um trabalho de exploração conceitual, consagrado à construção de categorias que permitam uma compreensão cada vez melhor das complexas relações entre as ciências geográficas, as instituições estatais e os processos de formação territorial. / This research is about the history of the territorial conformation of Colombia using as a departure point the work of the historian, geographer and cartographer Francisco Javier Vergara y Velasco (1860-1914). It is dedicated to the analysis o his main work, the Nueva Geografía de Colombia, published in its definitive version in 1902. This research not only reveals Vergara as an erudite and critical author, but it demonstrates that his geographical thought didnt fitted into the patterns of the geographical ideologies dominating at that period. Also, this research makes a conceptual exploration work, consecrated to the development of categories that allows an even-better comprehension of the complex relationships between geographic sciences, institutions from the State and territorial conformation.

Au May Lan Alma Mary Gerardina. / "August 2000." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-73). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

by Fung Wing-chuen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-59). / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgments --- p.ii / Biography --- p.iii / Abbreviation --- p.v-vi / Chapter 1. --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Natural O-heterocycles --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Methods for the construction of O-heterocycles --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Intramolecular nitrone cycloaddition in the construction of O-heterocycles --- p.9 / Chapter 2. --- Results and discussion / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Synthesis of 68，77，84 Via INC --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3 --- Acyclic INC of nitrones --- p.16 / Chapter 2.4 --- "Studies on 7-, 8-membered rings formation" --- p.24 / Chapter 3. --- Conclusions --- p.29 / Chapter 4. --- Experimental --- p.34 / Chapter 5. --- References --- p.57 / Chapter 6. --- List of spectra --- p.60 / Chapter 7. --- Appendices --- p.72

Most research investigating impression formation during early stages of a relationship on social network sites adopts unrealistic, ecologically invalid social scenarios. This thesis used an ecologically valid social scenario to improve understanding of impression formation during the early stages of a relationship on social network sites. Three studies investigated how students get to know each other on social network sites in the weeks before starting university. A focus group study, a questionnaire study and an experiment demonstrated that incoming undergraduate students form impressions about groups of people (e.g. a group of housemates) and specific individuals (e.g. a housemate) during university transition. The studies highlighted that it is too simplistic to suggest that impression formation about a group of people is different from impression formation about a specific individual. Instead, the coherence of the social target, the nature of the affiliation with that social target, and the strategies used to get to know that social target on social network sites influence how confident students are in their impressions of each other during university transition. Explanations are proposed that, if substantiated, would require expansion of the Hamilton and Sherman’s and cues-filtered in theories of impression formation. The studies highlighted that impression formation and the influence of those three factors can partially explain the intensity of students’ worries about the academic and social aspects of their future university experience. The findings are practically applied as guidance for university and pastoral support services and further research is proposed to test the tentative explanations.

The contribution of this thesis is on the temporal adjustment of the consensus weights, as applied to spacecraft formation control. Such an objective is attained by dynamically enforcing attitude synchronization via coupling terms included in each spacecraft controller. It is assumed that each spacecraft has identical dynamics but with unknown inertia parameters and external disturbances. By augmenting a standard adaptive controller that accounts for the unknown parameters, made feasible via an assumption on parameterization, with adaptation of the consensus weights, one opts to improve spacecraft synchronization. The coupling terms, responsible for enforcing synchronization amongst spacecraft, are weighted dynamically in proportion to the disagreement between the states of the spacecraft. The time adjustment of edge-dependent gains as well as the special cases of node-dependent and agent-independent constant gains are derived using Lyapunov redesign methods. The proposed adaptive control architectures which allow for adaptation of both parameter uncertainties and consensus penalty terms are demonstrated via extensive numerical studies of spacecraft networks with limited connectivity. By considering the sum of deviation-from-the-mean and rotational kinetic energy as appropriate metrics for synchronization and controller performance, the numerical studies also provide insights on the choice of optimal consensus gains.

Autophagy, referring to macroautophagy, is an evolutionarily conserved degradation pathway. Through autophagy cells can degrade damaged organelles, lipid vesicles and misfolded protein aggregates with implications in various pathological conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases, cancers, and infectious diseases. Autophagy is one of the major intracellular membrane-trafficking processes and its morphology includes the initiation, maturation, transportation and degradation of autophagosomes, where the double-membrane autophagosomes package the cargo for degradation. Therefore, understanding how autophagosomes form and are regulated is important in this field. Here we conducted a genome-wide siRNA screen using a high-throughput imaging system to identify undiscovered regulators in autophagosome formation. In this study, HEK293 cells stably expressing GFP-DFCP1 (GFP-tagged zinc finger FYVE-type containing 1) were used and amino acid starvation was used to induce autophagy. After the first round of primary screening, a small-scale screen was conducted with the same conditions including 384 candidates and additionally with these candidates HEK293 cells stably expressing GFPLC3 (GFP-tagged microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3) were used to monitor the late steps of the autophagy process. From these rounds of screening, 39 candidates were selected and validated by investigating early autophagosome markers for their effects on autophagosome formation. Finally, five of the best candidates were confirmed based on their depletion effects on autophagy. Among these five candidates, DCAKD (dephospho-CoA kinase domain containing), WDR91 (WD repeat domain 91) and WDR65 were further investigated. Preliminary data using both RNAi and CRISPR Cas9 showed that DCAKD affected the accumulation of some early autophagy markers on initiation membranes in autophagosome formation. Interestingly, protein levels of canonical autophagy markers remained unchanged in DCAKD-deficient cells. Another candidate WDR91 showed the ability to mediate endosomal and lysosomal PtdIns3P and mildly affect autophagy initiation. WDR65 also inhibited early autophagy events. However, the detailed mechanism for these proteins are yet to be determined. In summary, our work provided more understanding on the egulation of autophagosome formation, as well as a list of potentially novel regulators.

by Yong-li Zhong. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 234-246). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Tidal debris structures are striking evidence of hierarchical assembly -- the premise that the Milky Way and galaxies like it have been built over cosmic time through the coalescence of many smaller objects. In the prevailing Lambda -- Cold Dark Matter cosmology, the vast majority of mergers by number are minor; one dark matter halo, hosting a larger galaxy, dominates the interaction and a smaller object, the satellite, is stripped of mass by tidal forces. When the luminous component of the satellite is disrupted the debris may form structures such as stellar tidal streams or shells, depending on the parameters of the interaction. In this Thesis we examine the properties of this debris left behind by minor mergers theoretically, computationally, and observationally, making strides towards a more complete understanding of what tidal debris can tell us about the history of galaxy formation in the Universe. Around the Milky Way itself we have examined the properties of the Orphan Stream, a stellar tidal stream so named due to uncertainty about the position and current state of its progenitor. Using 3.6 um observations taken as part of the Spitzer Merger History and Shape of the Galactic Halo program, the latest period--luminosity--metallicity relations, and archival data, we compute precise distances to RR Lyrae stream members with state--of--the--art 2.5% relative uncertainties. Fitting an orbit to the data, we measure an enclosed mass for the Milky Way that is in good agreement with other recent results, once the biases in orbit fitting are taken into account. By applying the same technique to N--body simulations we determined that the Orphan progenitor is most likely similar to the classical dwarf spheroidal satellites. We also examined tidal debris more generally, in particular by investigating the source of the morphological dichotomy between shells and streams. We find that the transition from a stream--like to a shell--like morphology occurs when the differential azimuthal precession between the orbits of stars exceeds the position angle subtended by individual petals of the progenitor orbit's rosette. This statement is cast more precisely in terms of scaling relations that control the dispersion of energy and angular momentum in the debris, and we find that the observed morphology can be predicted for a given host, orbit, and mass ratio. This leads us to the idea that the observed occurrence rates of different morphologies can be used to recover, at the population statistics level, the progenitor satellites' orbital infall distribution. This a part of the cosmological accretion history that is otherwise inaccessible. To achieve this in practice requires an unbiased and automated method to detect and classify substructure; we have developed just such a tool and demonstrate its effectiveness. In the upcoming era of LSST and WFIRST the methods and insights developed in this Thesis will be useful in decoding the information about the current state and assembly of galaxies encoded in tidal debris.

An enone was synthesized from delta-D-gluconolactone in four steps, involving a one-pot TPAP oxidation-K2CO3-mediated intramolecular Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons (HWE) olefination as the key step. / In this thesis, a review regarding intramolecular direct aldol reaction from 1971 to 2008 is presented. The background information on pseudo-acarviosin, valiolamine and its containing compounds, gabosines and human glutathione transferase (hGST) is introduced. / Intramolecular direct aldol reaction was investigated for the construction of cyclohexanones and cycloheptanones from carbohydrates. Amine bases, amide bases and L-proline were employed to facilitate cyclization of 1,5- and 1,6-diketones successfully. These 1,5- and 1,6-diketones were prepared from carbohydrates by standard transformations. Different bases were employed to promote cyclization of 1,5-diketone derived from D-glucose to give cyclohexanones stereoselectively. / Intramolecular nitrile oxide-alkene cycloaddition (INOC) was studied with sugar derivatives having free hydroxyl groups. The INOC reaction, by incorporating chloramine-T and silica gel for the formation of nitrile oxide from oxime, proceeded smoothly with one, two, and four unmasked hydroxyl groups to give cyclopentanes and cyclohexanes. / The polyhydroxylated carbocycles constructed from sugars were successfully transformed into a variety of target molecules including pseudo-acarviosin, valiolamine and its containing compounds and gabosines. A series of 2-crotonyloxymethyl-(4 R,5R,6R)-4,5,6-trihydroxy-2-cyclohexenone (COTC) analogues as inhibitors of hGST were prepared in order to study the structure-activity relationships. / Cheng, Hau Man. / Adviser: Tony K. M. Shing. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: B, page: 3508. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-224). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.