International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / A sophisticated human interface can be developed for Post flight analysis with the technology of UNIX-MOTIF. Tests and measurements demand performance and reliability. SAINT-EX can meet these requirements. This paper describes the results of an appraoch in the development of DASSAULT AVIATION’s SAINT-EX software.

FDI inflow to developing countries has shown a drastic increase in the past few decades. Accordingly, many policy makers and academics are concerned about policies that attract FDI inflows to enhance economic growth from the positive spillover effects of FDI. Hence this study examines the general impact of FDI on the economic growth of 56 developing countries for the period 1985-2014. In order to analyze the growth effect of FDI into different macroeconomic situations, the sample countries are grouped into 24 low-income developing countries and 32 upper middle-income countries. The overall panel data analysis based on endogenous growth theory supported the positive growth effect of FDI for the pooled 56 countries and upper middle- income countries. However the growth effect of FDI for low-income countries tend to be statistically significant but negative. Moreover, to investigate the absorptive capacity of the host country an interactive term of FDI and human capital is included to estimate the general model. The regression results from the interactive term denote that the growth effect of FDI is dependent on the level of human capital in the host country. Hence a minimum level of human capital is essential in order to maximize and absorb the positive growth effect of FDI.

Recent large-N studies conclude that inequality and ethnic distribution have no significant impact on the risk of civil conflict. This study argues that such conclusions are erroneous and premature due to incorrect specification of independent variables and functional forms. Case studies suggest that measures of inter-group inequality (horizontal inequality) and polarization (ethnic distribution distance from a bipolar equilibrium) are more accurate predictors of civil conflict, as they better capture the group-motivation aspect of conflict. This study explores whether indicators of inequality and ethnic distribution impact the probability of civil conflict across 38 developing countries in the period 1986 to 2004. Analysis reveals that horizontal inequality and polarization have significant, robust relationships with civil conflict. Furthermore, vertical, or individual, inequality is a robust, significant predictor of civil conflict when specified as a nonlinear function.

Proteomics is the science of understanding the dynamic protein content of an organism's cells (its proteome), which is one of the largest current challenges in biology. Computational proteomics is an active research area that involves in-silico methods for the analysis of high-throughput protein identification data. Current methods are based on a technology called tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) and suffer from low coverage and accuracy, reliably identifying only 20-40% of the proteome. This dissertation addresses recall, precision, speed and scalability of computational proteomics experiments. This research goes beyond the traditional paradigm of analyzing MS/MS experiments in isolation, instead learning priors of protein presence from the joint analysis of various systems biology data sources. This integrative `systems' approach to protein identification is very effective, as demonstrated by two new methods. The first, MSNet, introduces a social model for protein identification and leverages functional dependencies from genome-scale, probabilistic, gene functional networks. The second, MSPresso, learns a gene expression prior from a joint analysis of mRNA and proteomics experiments on similar samples. These two sources of prior information result in more accurate estimates of protein presence, and increase protein recall by as much as 30% in complex samples, while also increasing precision. A comprehensive suite of benchmarking datasets is introduced for evaluation in yeast. Methods to assess statistical significance in the absence of ground truth are also introduced and employed whenever applicable. This dissertation also describes a database indexing solution to improve speed and scalability of protein identification experiments. The method, MSFound, customizes a metric-space database index and its associated approximate k-nearest-neighbor search algorithm with a semi-metric distance designed to match noisy spectra. MSFound achieves an order of magnitude speedup over traditional spectra database searches while maintaining scalability. / text

As adults age, they lose the ability to produce maximal power and speed of movement. Success in daily living is often dependent upon power and speed. Thus these age-related decrements in performance can reduce physical independence and quality of life. An active lifestyle in older adulthood is associated with more successful aging. The purpose of this research program was to define the link between habitual activity and performance, specifically in regard to activities requiring power and speed. The hypothesis was that active older adults, compared to sedentary older adults, would be characterized by greater power production in maximal- and submaximal-effort tasks. Grouping older adults by activity level, coactivation was associated with activity level. Functional tasks are performed with a range of power requirements. Coactivation was used to distinguish groups in a maximal power task (Study 1) and submaximal power tasks (Study 2). In Study 1, the young adults demonstrated a greater maximal power than the older adults. While maximal power was not different between the older active and sedentary groups, the groups did differ on how they created maximal power. The active older adults produced a greater coactivation in the lower leg muscles compared to the older sedentary adults. In Study 2, the active older adults responded to different speeds during a submaximal power task with greater coactivation in the muscles of the lower leg at slow speeds compared with the sedentary older adults. Both older adults groups increased coactivation in the thigh muscles at high speeds. The sedentary older adults responded to speed with increased coactivation in the lower leg at fast speeds. The active older adults increased proximal thigh coactivation, EMG index, at the fastest speed compared with the sedentary older adults. Both older adult groups showed muscle activation adaptation to the change in task demands. The results of this dissertation increase our understanding about the link between physical activity and performance. Age-related differences in coactivation were observed during both maximal and submaximal tasks. Activity-related differences were observed suggesting the active older adults have a greater capability to adjust muscle activity to meet the challenges of community living. / text

Dans cette thèse expérimentale sur la physique des mousses liquides, plusieurs thématiques sont abordées ayant pour point commun la mise en évidence du couplage entre les différentes échelles d'organisation de la mousse. La première partie traite plus spécifiquement de physico chimie par la modification de la formulation des solutions utilisées. Nous avons ainsi réalisé des mousses dopées à la laponite, présentant des propriétés inhabituelles. Nous exposons par ailleurs les résultats d'études interfaciales d'un polymère thermosensible, le poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) et d'un tensioactif photosensible (AzoTAB). Dans la seconde partie de cette thèse, nous discutons d'un nouveau protocole de rhéologie appliqué aux mousses ainsi que de propriétés acoustiques de ce matériau.

<p>Evolution of enzymes with novel functional properties has gained much attention in recent years. Naturally evolved enzymes are adapted to work in living cells under physiological conditions, circumstances that are not always available for industrial processes calling for novel and better catalysts. Furthermore, altering enzyme function also affords insight into how enzymes work and how natural evolution operates. </p><p>Previous investigations have explored catalytic properties in the directed evolution of mutant libraries with high sequence variation. Before this study was initiated, functional analysis of mutant libraries was, to a large extent, restricted to uni- or bivariate methods. Consequently, there was a need to apply multivariate data analysis (MVA) techniques in this context. Directed evolution was approached by DNA shuffling of glutathione transferases (GSTs) in this thesis. GSTs are multifarious enzymes that have detoxication of both exo- and endogenous compounds as their primary function. They catalyze the nucleophilic attack by the tripeptide glutathione on many different electrophilic substrates. </p><p>Several multivariate analysis tools, <i>e.g.</i> principal component (PC), hierarchical cluster, and K-means cluster analyses, were applied to large mutant libraries assayed with a battery of GST substrates. By this approach, evolvable units (quasi-species) fit for further evolution were identified. It was clear that different substrates undergoing different kinds of chemical transformation can group together in a multi-dimensional substrate-activity space, thus being responsible for a certain quasi-species cluster. Furthermore, the importance of the chemical environment, or substrate matrix, in enzyme evolution was recognized. Diverging substrate selectivity profiles among homologous enzymes acting on substrates performing the same kind of chemistry were identified by MVA. Important structure-function activity relationships with the prodrug azathioprine were elucidated by segment analysis of a shuffled GST mutant library. Together, these results illustrate important methods applied to molecular enzyme evolution.</p>

Cette thèse a pour objet l'optimisation des temps de recherche lors d'une poursuite aléatoire. Cette thèse commence par un modèle simple et idéalisé de recherche par des animaux de cible caché. Ce modèle nous a fourni une relation en lois de puissance entre les temps passés dans chaque état (recherche et déplacement) qui s'accorde bien avec les résultats expérimentaux. Puis, nous avons étudié de façon systématique des modèles intermittents avec mémoire à une dimension du même type que celui utilisé pour les animaux. Cette étude permet de mieux cerner l'intérêt des processus intermittents selon le type de recherche à effectuer. Ensuite, nous avons examiné les processus de recherche intermittents sans mémoire dans le cadre de la réactivité chimique. Nous avons ainsi envisagé deux modèles de recherche intermittente sans mémoire à une dimension. Puis, nous nous sommes intéressé à l'influence d'un confinement géométrique sur les temps de résidence et les propriétés de rencontre entre les partenaires d'une réaction chimique. Nous avons alors montré que les relations géométriques précédemment obtenues pour des marches de Pearson dans des domaines fermés, sont des cas particuliers de relations très générales entre les temps de résidence pour une large classe de processus stochastiques. Enfin, nous avons étudié un processus de recherche intermittent alternant diffusion et téléportation pour un système sphérique continu à d dimensions et un réseau régulier. Les exemples d'application sont le transport à travers des membranes biologiques et la catalyse hétérogène. Nous avons alors montré que l'intermittence pouvait permettre de réduire considérablement le temps de recherche si la nature physique du chercheur et de son environnement rend possible de réaliser une alternance entre ces deux régimes.

Whereas no prior contribution has focused on the case of a medium-sized city in a developing country, such as Mexico, to explore how urban structure and its expansion has affected the spatial distribution of employment, three distinct, but related papers were developed, which combine urban economics literature and spatial sciences techniques to fill this gap and provide new evidence. The first paper, entitled "Spatial Distribution of Employment in Hermosillo, 1999 and 2004" identifies where employment subcenters are. Testing the presence of spatial effects, it concludes that an incipient process of employment suburbanization has taken place; however, the city still exhibits a monocentric structure. As a complement, a second paper, "Employment Density in Hermosillo, 1999-2004: A Spatial Econometric Approach of Local Parameters" tests if the Central Business District (CBD), despite suburbanization, maintains the traditional attributes of attracting activities and influencing the organization of employment around it. The CBD is still attractive, but its influence varies across space and economic sector, conclusions that were masked by global estimations. Thirdly, a study was essential to uncover how important is the urban structure and the suburbanization of jobs in explaining the dispersion resulting of households and workplaces (commuting). The paper entitled "Commuting in a Developing City: The Case of Ciudad Obregon, Mexico" examines this issue. To take advantage of the commuting information available, the study area was switched. In general, the results are consistent with those suggested by urban economics; moreover, the inclusion of workplace characteristics was a novelty to model commuting behavior and proves that space matters. Additionally, new evidence was provided to the field of spatial science through the applications of techniques able to expose the spatial effects associated with the distribution of employment, more specifically, the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis(ESDA), Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) with spatial effects, as well as the generalized multilevel hierarchical linear model (GMHL) were used. The new findings produced for this dissertation provide a more comprehensive understanding of urban dynamics and could help to improve the planning process. It is hoped that this dissertation will contribute to that development as well as stimulate further research.

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