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Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a debilitating condition that afflicts 4.8 million Americans with an increasing incidence. Each year, there are an estimated 400,000 new cases. The incidence is on the rise as the age of the population is increasing and because most people are surviving their first heart attack. Pharmacological therapies are improving, yet many patients still reach end-stage heart failure and there are too few donor hearts available. This thesis is presented as a first small step in a long process in the design and development of a novel cardiac assist device that would ultimately heal a diseased heart by the process of ventricular recovery. The device acts to restore the kinematics of a diseased heart by modulating the extra ventricular displacements. The first surgery / trial were conducted on a bovine at the Veterinary School at Texas A&M University. Main objectives of the surgery were to test the method of attachment of the device and power requirements of the device. Details regarding the design and construction of the device have been presented in the thesis.

Pulse Compression and Dispersion Control in Ultrafast Optics Vikrant K. Chauhan 116 Pages Directed by Dr. Rick P. Trebino In this thesis, we introduced novel pulse compressors that are easy to align and which also compensate for higher order dispersion terms. They use a single dispersive element or a combination of dispersive elements in single-element-geometry. They solve the problem of extra-cavity pulse compression by providing control of the pulse width in almost all of the experiments performed using ultrashort pulses, and they even compensate for higher order dispersion. We performed full spatiotemporal characterization of these compressors and demonstrated their performance. We also developed a theoretical simulation of pulse compressors which is based on a matrix based formalism. It models the full spatiotemporal characteristics of any dispersion control system. We also introduced a simple equation, in its most general form, to relate the total dispersion and magnification introduced by an arbitrary sequence of dispersive devices. Pulse compressor characterization was done using interferometric measurements in the experiments presented in this work, but we also developed a method to measure pulses that uses polarization gating FROG for measuring two unknown pulses. In the last part, we briefly discuss the designing of a high energy chirped pulse amplification system.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 102 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-102).

Thèse de doctorat--Signal et images--Paris--ENST, 2007. / Bibliogr. p. 159-169. Résumés en anglais et en français.

Thèse doctorat : Traitement du signal et télécommunications : Rennes 1 : 2006. / Bibliogr. p. 197-204.

Reproduction de : Thèse d'exercice : Pharmacie : Nantes : 2009. / Bibliogr.

Thèse doctorat : Informatique : Rennes 1 : 2008. / Titre provenant de la page du titre du document électronique. Bibliogr. p. 209-218.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-133).

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Murali Tummala, Robert Ives. Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-97). Also available online.