Le présent mémoire porte sur la conception et le développement de deux antennes RF utilisées en imagerie par résonance magnétique. Ces antennes ont pour but de guider le futur développement d’une plateforme d’imagerie multi-animal qui servira les chercheurs du nouveau CRCHUM. Plus spécifiquement, ces antennes ont été conçues pour l’imagerie du proton à 1.5T. La première utilise une birdcage de type lowpass pour la partie émettrice et utilise 8 éléments de surface pour la partie réceptrice. La seconde antenne est une birdcage de type lowpass polarisée circulairement qui est utilisée à la fois pour l’émission et pour la réception. Cette dernière a présenté de bonnes performances, générant des images avec un SNR élevé et avec une bonne homogénéité, la rendant une bonne candidate pour la future plateforme. La première a présenté quelques problèmes au niveau de la désyntonisation de la birdcage et du couplage entre les éléments. Dans le cas où ces problèmes venaient à être surmontés, cette antenne aurait l’avantage de pouvoir utiliser des techniques d’imagerie parallèle et possiblement d’avoir un SNR plus élevé. / This master thesis focuses on the design and development of two RF coils used in magnetic resonance imaging. These coils are designed to guide the future development of a multi-animal imaging platform that will serve researchers of the new CRCHUM. More specifically, these coils were designed for proton imaging at 1.5T. The first uses a lowpass birdcage as transmitter and uses 8 surface elements for the receiving part. The second coil is a circularly polarized lowpass birdcage which is used both for transmission and for reception. The latter presented good performances, generating images with high SNR and good homogeneity, making it a good candidate for the future platform. The first one presented a few problems at the detuning of the birdcage and the coupling between the elements. In the case where these problems would be overcome, this coil would have the advantage of being able to use parallel imaging techniques and possibly to have a higher SNR.

Le présent mémoire porte sur la conception et le développement de deux antennes RF utilisées en imagerie par résonance magnétique. Ces antennes ont pour but de guider le futur développement d’une plateforme d’imagerie multi-animal qui servira les chercheurs du nouveau CRCHUM. Plus spécifiquement, ces antennes ont été conçues pour l’imagerie du proton à 1.5T. La première utilise une birdcage de type lowpass pour la partie émettrice et utilise 8 éléments de surface pour la partie réceptrice. La seconde antenne est une birdcage de type lowpass polarisée circulairement qui est utilisée à la fois pour l’émission et pour la réception. Cette dernière a présenté de bonnes performances, générant des images avec un SNR élevé et avec une bonne homogénéité, la rendant une bonne candidate pour la future plateforme. La première a présenté quelques problèmes au niveau de la désyntonisation de la birdcage et du couplage entre les éléments. Dans le cas où ces problèmes venaient à être surmontés, cette antenne aurait l’avantage de pouvoir utiliser des techniques d’imagerie parallèle et possiblement d’avoir un SNR plus élevé. / This master thesis focuses on the design and development of two RF coils used in magnetic resonance imaging. These coils are designed to guide the future development of a multi-animal imaging platform that will serve researchers of the new CRCHUM. More specifically, these coils were designed for proton imaging at 1.5T. The first uses a lowpass birdcage as transmitter and uses 8 surface elements for the receiving part. The second coil is a circularly polarized lowpass birdcage which is used both for transmission and for reception. The latter presented good performances, generating images with high SNR and good homogeneity, making it a good candidate for the future platform. The first one presented a few problems at the detuning of the birdcage and the coupling between the elements. In the case where these problems would be overcome, this coil would have the advantage of being able to use parallel imaging techniques and possibly to have a higher SNR.

The work deals with the design and experimental production of the model type Birdcage coil used for magnetic resonance imaging system (MRI). The work deals with the design and behaviour of the model type Birdcage coil volume designed for imaging system for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Volume coils are generally very useful for use in MRI, because in transversal design allow easy access into the cavity when the flow vector of magnetization. The aim of the work was to construct a numerical model of transversal coil type Birdcage of the predefined dimensions. The created the coil tuned the desired resonant frequency having regard to maximize performance in the measured sample migrated. The modeling coil experimentally produced and measurements also confirm the accuracy of the numerical model.

<p>An abstract of a thesis devoted to using helix-coil models to study unfolded states.\\</p><p>Research on polypeptide unfolded states has received much more attention in the last decade or so than it has in the past. Unfolded states are thought to be implicated in various</p><p>misfolding diseases and likely play crucial roles in protein folding equilibria and folding rates. Structural characterization of unfolded states has proven to be</p><p>much more difficult than the now well established practice of determining the structures of folded proteins. This is largely because many core assumptions underlying</p><p>folded structure determination methods are invalid for unfolded states. This has led to a dearth of knowledge concerning the nature of unfolded state conformational</p><p>distributions. While many aspects of unfolded state structure are not well known, there does exist a significant body of work stretching back half a century that</p><p>has been focused on structural characterization of marginally stable polypeptide systems. This body of work represents an extensive collection of experimental</p><p>data and biophysical models associated with describing helix-coil equilibria in polypeptide systems. Much of the work on unfolded states in the last decade has not been devoted</p><p>specifically to the improvement of our understanding of helix-coil equilibria, which arguably is the most well characterized of the various conformational equilibria</p><p>that likely contribute to unfolded state conformational distributions. This thesis seeks to provide a deeper investigation of helix-coil equilibria using modern</p><p>statistical data analysis and biophysical modeling techniques. The studies contained within seek to provide deeper insights and new perspectives on what we presumably</p><p>know very well about protein unfolded states. \\</p><p>Chapter 1 gives an overview of recent and historical work on studying protein unfolded states. The study of helix-coil equilibria is placed in the context</p><p>of the general field of unfolded state research and the basics of helix-coil models are introduced.\\</p><p>Chapter 2 introduces the newest incarnation of a sophisticated helix-coil model. State of the art modern statistical techniques are employed to estimate the energies</p><p>of various physical interactions that serve to influence helix-coil equilibria. A new Bayesian model selection approach is utilized to test many long-standing </p><p>hypotheses concerning the physical nature of the helix-coil transition. Some assumptions made in previous models are shown to be invalid and the new model </p><p>exhibits greatly improved predictive performance relative to its predecessor. \\</p><p>Chapter 3 introduces a new statistical model that can be used to interpret amide exchange measurements. As amide exchange can serve as a probe for residue-specific</p><p>properties of helix-coil ensembles, the new model provides a novel and robust method to use these types of measurements to characterize helix-coil ensembles experimentally</p><p>and test the position-specific predictions of helix-coil models. The statistical model is shown to perform exceedingly better than the most commonly used </p><p>method for interpreting amide exchange data. The estimates of the model obtained from amide exchange measurements on an example helical peptide </p><p>also show a remarkable consistency with the predictions of the helix-coil model. \\</p><p>Chapter 4 involves a study of helix-coil ensembles through the enumeration of helix-coil configurations. Aside from providing new insights into helix-coil ensembles,</p><p>this chapter also introduces a new method by which helix-coil models can be extended to calculate new types of observables. Future work on this approach could potentially</p><p>allow helix-coil models to move into use domains that were previously inaccessible and reserved for other types of unfolded state models that were introduced in chapter 1.</p> / Dissertation

Student Number: 9400670E School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment / The selection of a particular steel grade for an application is extremely important to ensure that the final components have a long serviceable life. The chemical compositions of the steels are critical, and minor changes in chemistry can make substantial differences. Aluminium and vanadium are used in heat treatable steels as grain refining agents. These elements affect the properties of the steels. Two steels with identical chemical composition except for the aluminium and vanadium additions were comparatively tested to determine the better steel for a particular automotive coil spring. The tests included mechanical testing and on site fatigue testing. Fatigue resistance is extremely important especially for automotive coil springs. The mechanical properties revealed superior tensile strength in the vanadium grain refined spring steel while the aluminium grain refined spring steel had superior ductility and fatigue resistance.

"This research concentrates on two major engineering areas associated with biomedical instrumentation that have recently gained significant academic and industrial interest: the gradient coil design for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and the high frequency full-wave field simulations with the Method of Moments (MoM). A new computational approach to the design of gradient coils for magnetic resonance imaging is introduced. The theoretical formulation involves a constrained cost function between the desired field in a particular region of interest in space and the current-carrying coil plane. Based on Biot-Savart’s integral equation, an appropriate weight function is introduced in conjunction with linear approximation functions. This permits the transformation of the problem formulation into a linear matrix equation whose solution yields discrete current elements in terms of magnitude and direction within a specified coil plane. These current elements can be synthesized into practical wire configuration by suitably combining the individual wire loops. Numerical predictions and measurements underscore the success of this approach in terms of achieving a highly linear field while maintaining low parasitic fields, low inductance and a sufficient degree of shielding. Experimental results confirm the field predictions of the computational approach. Extending the numerical modeling efforts to dynamic phenomena, a novel MoM formulation permits the computation of electromagnetic fields in conductive surfaces and in three-dimensional biological bodies. The excitation can be provided with current loops, voltage sources, or an incident electromagnetic wave. This method enables us to solve a broad spectrum of problems arising in MRI: full-wave RF coil simulations, eddy currents predictions in the magnet bore, and induced currents in the biological body. Surfaces are represented as triangles and the three-dimensional bodies are subdivided into tetrahedra. This numerical discretization methodology makes the approach very flexible to handle a wide range of practical coil geometries. Specifically, in this thesis the MoM is employed to study the effect of switching gradient coils in the presence of a biological load. "

A new method for the simulation of radio frequency (RF) coils has been developed. This method utilizes the FEM simulation package Ansoft HFSS as a base for the modeling of RF coils with complex biological loading effects. The abilities of this software have been augmented with custom MATLAB code to enable the fast prediction of lumped element values needed to properly tune and match the coil structure as well as to perform the necessary post processing of simulation data in order to quickly generate and evaluate field data of the resonating coil and compare design variations. This method was evaluated for accuracy and implemented in the re-design of an existing four channel breast coil array for clinical imaging of the female breasts. Based on the simulation results, a commercially viable printed circuit board (PCB) implementation was developed and tested in a clinical 1.5 T MR scanner. The new design allows for wide open bilateral access to the breast regions in order to accommodate various interventional procedures. The layout has also increased axillary B1 field coverage with minor penalty to the signal-to-noise ratio of the coil array, enabling high-resolution imaging over a wide field-of-view.

Now that the functioning of microtubules and the actin cytoskeleton has been worked out in enormous detail, the next important task is defining the structure of intermediate filaments that are far behind the other two major skeletal networks due to their inherent resistance to most structural techniques. The evolution of novel structural approaches for flexible proteins is making this possible now. In my thesis I will aim to elucidate the structure and assembly principles of lamin A nuclear intermediate filament protein. To study lamin A, I principally employed chemical cross-linking that allows the capturing of full-length protein structures in solution. I combined this with mass spectrometry approaches to identify cross-linked residues at the various stages of lamin A assembly that were additionally tracked with SILAC labelling and rotary metal shadowing TEM. Unlike previous cross-linking studies on intermediate filaments I use a zero-length self-excluding cross-linking agent EDC that is better tailored for investigation of the polar interactions between multiple unstructured or otherwise flexible charged sequences of lamins. Using this composite approach I interrogated lamin A dimeric and tetrameric assemblies. I elucidated hinge-like properties of the L12 and found indications that L1 and the region containing coil 2A and L2 and the beginning of coil 2B possess properties of linker-like flexibility and of predicted linear α-helical bundle and could act as molecular springs or compression buffers for the nuclear intermediate filaments. Further I confirm the role of the N-terminal unstructured region in lamin A assembly and for the first time show similar role for the C-terminal unstructured region flanking the rod domain of lamin A. Collected data strongly supports the model where both positively charged unstructured regions participate in extensive interaction with acidic rod termini and act as molecular bridges between these in the head-to-tail interface, confirming the uniformity of this principle between cytoplasmic and nuclear intermediate filaments. Formation of these bridges requires conformational change likely happening due to proline residues in the mitotic phosphorylation sites. Finally I suggest a mechanism of regulation of the order of assembly unique to the nuclear intermediate filament where C-terminal unstructured region blocks lateral interactions until it is tethered to the head-to-tail interface. Collected data on the dynamic behaviour of the C-terminal unstructured region and its ability to tether lamin A Ig domain may have far reaching implications for filament assembly and regulation of binding of hundreds of lamin A partner proteins presenting an important step in our understanding of relationship between lamin A structure and function and how altering the former could lead to disease.

In the past the machinery used in punching of flexible printed circuit boards(FPCBs), it used mostly the rotary motor as the power source in the mechanism design. To transfer rotary motion to linear motion need a succession of mechanical conversion components, in order to achieve the purpose of linear output. However these mechanical parts for transforming bring some unavoidable problems such as the machinery itself huge volume, backlash and friction which created during the action process, all have harmful influences on the system dynamic performance and precision. Voice coil actuator has direct-drive output, high response and high thrust force these characteristics, therefore this research apply voice coil actuator to the punching of flexible printed circuit boards. For present industry, S-curve velocity profile is often used in point-to-point displacement intermittent action applications, due to its jerk-limited characteristic for reducing vibration and raising precision. Then integrating plans of S-curve velocity profile with voice coil actuator based on punching characters, to analyze the whole system dynamic performance in such a vertical linear output application. Then generalizing the dependence of influence factors of punching quality and motion characteristics of punching mechanism through experimental results. The achievement of this research could provide references for some related designers using similar linear actuators in vertical linear output applications.

Graphene – a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice of sp2-bonded carbon atoms – possesses unusual zero-gap band structure with linear band dispersions, accommodating photon-like, massless electrons that have exhibited a variety of surprising phenomena, primarily in DC transport, in the last several years. In this thesis dissertation, we investigate graphene’s AC or infrared properties in the presence of an ultrahigh magnetic field, produced by a destructive pulsed method. The linear dispersions of graphene lead to unequally spaced Landau levels in a magnetic field, which we probe through cyclotron resonance (CR) spectroscopy in the magnetic quantum limit. Specifically, using magnetic fields up to 170 T and polarized midinfrared radiation with tunable wavelengths from 9.22 to 10.67 μm, we experimentally investigated CR in large-area graphene grown by chemical vapor deposition. Circular-polarization-dependent studies revealed strong p-type doping for as-grown graphene, and the dependence of the CR fields on the radiation wavelength allowed for an accurate determination of the Fermi energy. Upon annealing the sample to remove physisorbed molecules, which shifts the Fermi energy closer to the Dirac point, we made the unusual observation that hole and electron CR emerges in the magnetic quantum limit, even though the sample is still p-type. We theoretically show that this non-intuitive phenomenon is a direct consequence of the unusual Landau level structure of graphene. Namely, if the Fermi energy lies in the n = 0 Landau level, then CR is present for both electron-active and hole-active circular polarizations. Furthermore, if the Fermi level lies in the n = 0 Landau level, the ratio of CR absorption between the electron-active and hole-active peaks allows one to accurately determine the Fermi level and carrier density. Hence, high-field CR studies allow not only for fundamental studies but also for characterization of large-area, low-mobility graphene samples.