Human rhinovirus (HRV) is responsible for the majority of common cold infections and asthma exacerbations. HRV predominantly replicates in the epithelial cells of the upper airway, where common cold symptoms are produced. However, HRV also enters the lower airway, encountering the epithelial cells and alveolar macrophages thought to produce inflammatory responses during HRV-induced asthma exacerbations. Notably, alveolar macrophages release inflammatory mediators such as MCP1/CCL2 and RANTES/CCL5 in response to HRV despite the fact that limited if any HRV replication occurs in these cells. The present study seeks to address the mechanism by which alveolar macrophages are susceptible but not permissive to HRV replication and to identify the step in the HRV replication cycle that restricts HRV to abortive replication in macrophages. Evidence presented herein demonstrates that major-group (ICAM-1 tropic) HRV replicate with limited success in cell line-derived macrophages, whereas minor-group (LDLR tropic) HRV do not replicate in these monocyte-lineage cells. In contrast, neither major- nor minor-group HRV replicate in primary human PBMC-derived macrophages. Capsid swap experiments demonstrated that difference in replicative capacity between major- and minor-group HRV is mediated at the level of permissiveness rather than susceptibility. RNA- Seq gene expression studies identified candidate host genes that may act to regulate HRV replication. These RNA-Seq studies also revealed positive- and negative-sense HRV RNA genomes in monocyte-lineage cells, suggesting that abortive HRV replication takes place within them. Overexpressing interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) implicated in restricting the replication of poliovirus did not affect the accumulation of HRV RNA. Further study will continue to investigate the differences between major- and minor-group HRV responsible for differential replication success in cell-line derived macrophages and characterize the point(s) in the HRV replication cycle at which replication is blocked in primary macrophages. The ultimate goals of these studies are to reveal vulnerabilities in the HRV replication cycle and to identify host factors whose expression might be pharmacologically altered to attenuate HRV infection, thereby providing novel treatment options for controlling the common cold and HRV-induced asthma exacerbations.

This dissertation examines how Latin American diplomacy helped shape U.S. officials’ response to revolutionary movements at the height of the Cold War. It explains the striking contrast between U.S. patronage of the Bolivian revolution and the profound antagonism with similar leftist nationalist movements in Cuba and Guatemala. Although U.S. policymakers worried that “Communists” were infiltrating the Bolivian Government, Bolivian diplomats convinced the Eisenhower administration to support their revolution. The dissertation demonstrates that even during the peak of McCarthyism, U.S. policymakers' vision extended far beyond Cold War dogmatism. This vision incorporated a subtle, if ultimately contradictory, appreciation of the power of nationalism, a wish to promote developmental liberalism, and a desire for hemispheric hegemony regardless of strategic and ideological competition with the Soviet Union. U.S. officials were eager to exploit the emerging force of third world nationalism and employ it to strengthen the “inter-American system.” The Bolivian revolutionaries presented their political project as copacetic to Washington’s wider regional goals, and thus managed to secure considerable freedom of movement to continue to pursue a radical revolutionary agenda and statist program of development, financed and enabled by hundreds of millions in U.S. aid dollars.

This study focuses on the significant investment in oceanography that typified Cold War Britain. Thanks to the analysis of untapped archival records, it documents the remarkable growth of marine research in the UK, and its underlying ambitions, from the end of Second World War naval exercises to the deployment of nuclear submarines in the Atomic Age. In particular, it looks at the significance of sea studies in the context of British naval operations, the surveillance of enemy vessels at sea, and the gathering of intelligence on the capabilities of enemy forces. In so doing, it depicts the trajectory of what was at the time dubbed "military oceanography" from its ascendancy in the post-war years to the creation of an national organization (the National Institute of Oceanography, NIO), devoted to pursue novel research, to its re-configuration during the 1970s marking an important transition from military to civilian (environmentally-driven) studies. The thesis discusses the complexities of the Cold War British State. It reveals the connections between leading scientists, government administrators, and military officers, and their interplay in the establishment and development of oceanographic studies. The thesis contends that at the core of the political-scientific interface there are policy networks and that we can gain a better understanding of this interaction by looking at some of the key figures, or "nodes" in these networks. It thus uses the career of the NIO director, the marine scientist George Deacon, as a source to gain entrance into the historical path of British oceanography, and argues that by looking at Deacon as a mediator (or "go-between") one can gain a better understanding of the dynamics and historical evolution of the policy networks he participated in.

Oil is one of the most widespread high-density energy sources in the world: its importance for the military-industrial complex became even more evident in the postwar context. In this framework, establishing the conditions for accessing the world's oil-rich areas became essential for states, not only to provide for their own energy needs, but also to buttress national economic and geostrategic interests, and protect energy security. In addition, regulating the oil flow between countries afforded the ability to influence their operational capabilities. Exploiting oil as a geopolitical weapon was not distinctive of the two global hegemonic powers, but was also employed by less powerful countries, such as France and Italy. My thesis shows how, from the second half of the 1940s, successive Italian and French administrations established agencies for hydrocarbon management, and devised strategies of oil exploration according to their political agendas. Achieving energy autonomy was the main objective of both countries. However, the predominance of Anglo-American interests in both French and Italian oil scenarios led to continuous bilateral diplomatic tensions, especially over issues of exploration rights. Anglo-American governments and companies sought to shape the French and Italian oil scenes to their benefit, also by looking for allies in the political classes of the two countries. It was the outcome of these 'oily deals' that eventually shaped the history of Italian and French oil industries. Conflicting interests were revealed at their fullest during the Algerian war of 1954-62: following the discovery of large oil and gas fields in Algeria, US and Italian companies started to negotiate, first with the French and then the Algerians, their access to, and prospecting rights for Algerian territories. My work shows that negotiation processes involved secret surveillance activities, the establishment of parallel diplomacies, and serious confrontation between Cold War allies. A fundamental role in these deals was played by technocrats and geoscientists, who facilitated the communication of secret data on oilfields to their national authorities. Significant global oil discoveries occurred worldwide in the 1950s, eventually leading to overproduction: an outcome assisted by major progress in geophysical prospecting techniques. France's new role as an oil producer thanks to discoveries in Africa provoked a shift of national interest from exploration to transport. At the same time Italy, after the signing of massive oil-for-technology barter agreements with the Soviet Union, could now dispose of a surplus that needed channelling to potential outlets. For both countries, building pipelines became an essential aspect: however, as both were targeting the West European market, Europe became an arena of bitter competition for pipeline dominance. Italian-Soviet contracts, together with the current level of West European trade with the Soviet Union, prompted an examination of Western security by international organisations. The issue of limiting Soviet oil exports into West European countries was widely debated at the European Community and Nato, as was European technological aid to the Soviet project of constructing a colossal pipeline system. My analysis of the terms of the debates, their development and outcome, reveals the ambiguity of the concepts of security and 'strategic technology' as a ground for decision-making, indicating how these were construed as co-products of negotiations.

Biodiesel is a re-emerging biofuel as an alternative to the traditional petroleum derived diesel. There are however, several factors that currently hinder the widespread uptake. Majority of the biodiesel are currently produced from edible oils thereby sparking the food versus fuel debate, the cost of feedstock is significantly high, there are problems experienced in the traditional production process and the resulting fuel is of inadequate quality. This work focused on addressing the issue of poor cold flow properties to improve the overall quality of biodiesel. The skeletal isomerisation of linear fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) into branched chain isomers, using solid acid catalysts, appears to be the most comprehensive solution in enhancing the cold flow properties of biodiesel. However, obtaining high branched chain yields, mitigation of undesired side reactions, achieving shorter reaction times, using fewer processing steps and lower operating conditions have still not been achieved to a large extent. Moreover, no studies were found to date investigating isomerisation of FAMEs as a continuous process. A trickle bed reactor (TBR) system has been identified to be an effective continuous reactor. Its key features of being a three phase system and allowing a high degree of contact between the reactant and the catalyst offering a high conversion per unit volume provides an encouraging opportunity to lower reaction times, reaction steps and conditions whilst increasing branched chain yields. This thesis explores the use of the TBR system, for the first time, to enhance the cold flow properties of biodiesel through molecular modification using zeolite beta catalyst with Si/Al ratios of 180 and 12.5. A range of reactions have been investigated including isomerisation, dewaxing (hydroisomerisation and hydrocracking) and decarboxylation on biodiesels derived from camelina, palm and coconut oils. Significant progress has been made in this research area with a 7 °C drop in MP being achieved upon the dewaxing of the coconut biodiesel at 250 °C, 1.01 bar pressure, 0.2 ml/min LF and 37.5 ml/min GF. To achieve greater drops in melting points it has been suggested to investigate mesoporous catalysts as they will ensure greater facilitated molecular access to the active sites, resulting in a higher conversion by preventing pore blockages. All in all, a series of key findings and serendipitous discoveries have brought to surface an array of new challenges as well as paving the way for a host of exciting opportunities for future research. The ability to continuously produce high quality renewable fuel offers a fascinating prospective for various industrial associates such as Argent Energy, Olleco, Neste Oil and ConocoPhillips.

It is now a consolidated fact that our Universe is undergoing an accelerated expansion. According to Einstein's General Relativity, if the main constituents of our Universe were ordinary and cold dark matter, then we would expect it to be contracting and collapsing due to matter's attractive nature. The simplest explanation we have for this acceleration is in the form of a component with a negative ratio of pressure to density equal to -1 known as cosmological constant, Λ , presently dominating over baryonic and cold dark matter. However, the Λ Cold Dark Matter (Λ CDM) model suffers from a well known fine tuning problem. This led to the formulation of dark energy and modified gravity theories as alternatives to the problem of cosmic acceleration. These theories either include additional degrees of freedom, higher-order equations of motion, extra dimensionalities or imply non-locality. In this thesis we focus on single field scalar tensor theories embedded within Horndeski gravity. Even though there is currently doubt on their ability to explain cosmic acceleration without having a bare cosmological constant on their action, the degree of freedom they introduce mediates an additional fifth force. And while this force has to suppressed on Solar system scales, it can have interesting and observable effects on cosmological scales. Over the next decade there is a surge of surveys that will improve the understanding of our Universe on the largest scales. Hence, in this work, we take several different modified gravity theories and study their impact on cosmological observables. We will analyze the dynamics of linear perturbations on these theories and clearly highlight how they deviate from Λ CDM, allowing to break the degeneracy at the background level. We will also study the evolution of the gravitational potentials on sub horizon scales and provide simplified expressions at this regime and, for some models, obtain constraints using the latest data.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde die myokardiale Perfusion gesunder Probanden in Ruhe und unter Adenosin–induziertem, sowie Kälte-induziertem Stress quantitativ mittels First-Pass-Perfusions MR-Bildgebung beim gleichen Probanden untersucht und die Perfusionswerte alters- und geschlechtsabhängig verglichen. Hierbei wurden zwanzig Probanden in altersabhängige Gruppen eingeteilt, wobei der cut-off vierzig Jahre war. Diese Arbeit zeigt, dass der Einsatz des CPT zur Beurteilung der endothelvermittelten Vasodilatation im MRT möglich ist. Im Vergleich zum Einsatz von Adenosin zeigt die Stress-Untersuchung mittels CPT weniger bis keine unerwünschten Nebenwirkungen und die Kontraindikationen sind geringer. Somit ist der Einsatz des CPT zur Beurteilung der myokardialen Stressperfusion als eine nebenwirkungsarme Untersuchungsmodalität anzusehen, die es ermöglicht, die frühesten Veränderungen des Endothels bei beginnender koronarer Arteriosklerose zu detektieren. Als Ergebnis ist festzuhalten, dass in dieser Arbeit alle Probanden eine statistisch signifikante Perfusionserhöhung beim CPT aufweisen. Es zeigt sich kein statistisch signifikanter Alters- oder Geschlechtsunterschied beim CPT. Auf die Verabreichung von Adenosin reagiert die junge Probandengruppe mit einer statistisch signifikant höheren Myokardperfusion. Dies könnte in erster Linie durch den höheren Anteil an Frauen in der jungen Gruppe zu erklären sein. / The response of myocardial blood flow (MBF) to adenosine stress and to sympathetic stimulation (Cold-Pressor-Test = CPT) with cold can be examined with the MRT. This work compares and evaluates a possible age and gender dependency of absolute myocardial perfusion values of stress MRT and MRT-CPT in the same healthy subjects divided into twogroups. First-Pass perfusion-studies were performed in 20 healthy, non-smoking volunteers, 10 with a mean age of 25±2.5yrs. and 10 with a mean age of 50.5±6.5yrs. using a 1.5 T MR-scanner with a multislice SSFP perfusion sequence in prebolus-technique. The MR-CPT was performed using a two minutes ice-water bath of the left hand. Second imaging was performed 15 minutes later to examine the perfusion at rest. In a further examination rest and adenosine stress perfusion was performed. The mean myocardial perfusion (cc/g/min) in the younger group rose from 0.77±0.13 at rest to 1.33±0.45 for CPT and from 0.76±0.16 at rest to 1.92±0.58 for adenosine stress. In the older group the myocardial perfusion rose from 0.81±0.16 at rest to 1.44±0.38 for CPT and from 0.71±0.16 at rest to 1.44±0.62 for adenosine stress. Perfusion values show a significant increase in both tests. A significant age or gender dependence was not found for the CPT.

The bond between pet and owner has been shown to decrease stress-related physical, mental, and emotional disorders by lowering blood pressure and heart rate. The purpose of this study was to examine whether a nonpet canine would have the same effect in reducing physical symptoms of stress as a known dog. Human-animal bond theory, Human pressor test. Data were analyzed using repeated measures, analyses of variance, and t tests. Results indicated that interaction with a strange dog lowered heart rate and blood pressure significantly faster in the experimental group than in the control group. The positive social change implications of this research include policy and procedural accommodations for the use of canines as comfort animals for individuals in stressful conditions.

Essay about the play by the author Production Notes Acknowledgements Full Text of "...among other things..." by Michael Tisdale

The purpose of this research was to assess the ability of subsurface flow wetlands, with aeration and vegetation, to remove nitrogen in cold weather climates. Aeration was shown to enhance the wetland cell's ability to remove not only nitrogen but also CBOD, COD, and phosphorus (retention) more effectively. There was a significant difference (p< 0.05) in both total nitrogen and ammonia effluent concentrations comparing aerated to unaerated wetland cells, while no significance was found comparing planted and unplanted wetland cells. The effluent ammonia concentrations from the aerated wetland cells ranged from 2.7 to 5.7 mg N/L, while for unaerated cells effluent concentration ranged from 22 to 23 mg N/L. The effluent total nitrogen concentrations from the aerated wetland cells ranged from 9.0 to 12 mg N/L, while those from unaerated cells ranged from 23 to 24 mg N/L. The effluent concentrations showed no significant difference (p < 0.05) when comparing results of three temperature ranges. There is a correlation when comparing ammonia mass removal rates to mass loading rates. Ammonia removal in the aerated wetland cells ranged from 82 to 95%, while unaerated cells ranged from 39 to 45%. The hydraulic retention times ranged from 3.13 to 4.33 days and the tanks-in-series ranged from 1.46 to 2.84. Using this information the wetland cells were modeled using both the TIS and the PkC* models. The k values (PkC* model) of the aerated wetlands for ammonia ranged from 131 to 221 m/d, while the unaerated wetland cells had values ranging from 20.4 to 36.7 m/d. The models appear to show a good prediction of the effluent ammonia concentration for the unaerated cells but the aerated cells show the model does not effectively capture the effects of aeration.