Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project- Report and Final Document / The purpose of this study is to create a spatial decision support system for sustainable landscape design in an urban setting. As more and more of the worlds population concentrates in cites, the design of these spaces becomes critical to global sustainability. The built environment exhibits different environmental conditions than its rural or natural counterparts— the following study focuses on building a GIS model of unique sun exposure conditions at a site, and using this model in a spatial decision support system. The system will compare the exposure needs of just over 150 native or near native plants with the exposure availability of Tucson’s Historic Y Building, and provide tailored list for each area. This will allow for design flexibility within sustainable parameters.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Statistics and Actuarial Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

This work investigates the factors that contribute to financial crises. We first study the Dow Jones index performance by grouping the daily adjusted closing value into a two-month window and finding several critical quantiles in each window. Then, we identify severe downturn in these quantiles and find that the 5th quantile is the best to identify financial crises. We then matched these quantiles with historical financial crises and gave a basic explanation about them. Next, we introduced all exogenous factors that could be related to the crises. Then, we applied a rapid Bayesian variable selection technique - Stochastic Search Variable Selection (SSVS) using a Bayesian logistic regression model. Finally, we analyzed the result of SSVS, leading to the conclusion that that the dummy variable we created for disastrous hurricane, crude oil price and gold price (GOLD) should be included in the model. / text

Although most strepsirrhines do not exhibit apparent physical signs of sexually selected traits, researchers have suggested that olfactory communication is sexually selected. The goal of this thesis is to (1) review sexual selection theory with an emphasis on sensory communication, and (2) test whether olfactory communication is sexually selected in strepsirrhines. I examined the relationships between primate mating systems and several measures of olfactory communication in 22 species: scent marking rates, the number of scent marking methods, and the volume of the main and accessory olfactory bulbs. I also evaluated qualitative data on olfactory communication in three lemur species to determine whether they meet the criteria of a sexually selected trait. Polygynandrous and monogamous species did not significantly differ from each other in scent marking rates, scent glands, or volume of the main and accessory olfactory bulbs. Three species of strepsirrhine met all criteria of having sexually selected olfactory traits, suggesting that polygynandrous lemurs are subject to sexual selection on several levels of olfactory communication. / text

Female choice is an important selective force shaping the evolution of communication and speciation in animals. However, predation risk can impose severe costs on longer searches and choosiness, thereby limiting the expression of female preferences for specific male traits. The work detailed in this dissertation explores how mate choice and sexual selection can be influenced by predation risk in túngara frogs. I begin by examining the effects of multiple simulated cues of predation risk on female search behavior and mate choice, taking a departure from the standard presence/absence paradigm used in similar studies to explore responses to quantitative variation in perceived predation risk. I demonstrate that light, longer travel times, and acoustic cues of predators are all sufficient to sway females away from otherwise more attractive conspecific males. Next, I explore the role of predation risk in altering female permissiveness, or the range of signals females will respond to. Using an artificial series of calls intermediate between heterospecific and conspecific, I demonstrate that predation risk dramatically increases the range of signals females will respond to, including a small number of females choosing pure heterospecific calls. Next I attempt to bridge a logical gap with our understanding of search costs, testing questions about how female search paths change with increasing distance. I demonstrate that females use more direct paths and move faster under higher light conditions, potentially reducing sampling but also reducing encounter rates with predators. Lastly, I examine factors that influence how individual females vary in their response to perceived risk, particularly hormonal state and experience. I demonstrate that naïve, captive-bred females respond to acoustic cues produced by natural predators in a manner similar to wild females and that, while hormonal state is obviously important in determining female receptivity, it has little effect directly on how females respond to predators. Together, these studies demonstrate that predation risk not only changes how females respond to conspecific males, but also increases female permissiveness and constrains search behavior. Predation risk can strongly influence and potentially even negate the expression of female preferences, having profound consequences for communication and the evolution of reproductive isolation between populations. / text

Lutzomyia longipalpis (Lutz & Neiva) is the vector of Leishmania infantum (Nicolle), the aetiological agent of visceral leishmaniasis in the New World. It has been shown by several authors that Lu. longipalpis represents a complex of at least three species. Adults of this species are known to mediate mating and oviposition using pheromones. This study aimed to investigate an aspect of their behaviour that had previously been neglected, namely the responses of female Lu. longipalpis to human kairomones. It was found that females could be lured by volatiles extracted from skin secretions. Pentane and ether extracts were equally effective in attracting female Lu. longipalpis. Whole pentane extracts were further fractionated by column chromatography into a polar fraction (ether-soluble) and a non-polar fraction (pentane-soluble). Testing both fractions for sandfly activity showed that only the pentane-soluble fraction was attractive to Lu. longipalpis. Host odours not only appeared to explain the variation in attraction of human volunteers, but were also found to be potentially responsible for sandfly biting distributions on a host. Female sandflies exhibited a marked biting preference for the ears of a human volunteer. Cross-mating experiments with putative members of the Lu. longipalpis complex, Jacobina (3-methyl-a-himachelene) and Marajo (Cembrene-producing pheromone type), provided direct evidence of prezygotic isolation between the two studied populations (i. e. by examining insemination rates and pheromone production in FI males). This result explains why two coexisting pheromone types are never detected in single male sandfiies collected in the wild. The cross-mating experiments additionally found partial post-zygotic barriers, with significantly reduced eggs production and egg hatching rates in F1 progeny. A series of independent bioassays provided evidence for innate differences in anthropophily between at least two allopatric populations of Lu. longipalpis. The main behavioural differences detected were in (1) the mean time to bite on a human host during a biting selection trial, (2) the behavioural response to ear washing extracts (landings on impregnated filter papers), and (3) the SAQ (Sandfly Activity Quotient) response (landings) to volatlles deposited onto handled glass Petri dishes (for the two most contrasting sandfly populations: Jacobina and Marajo). Finally, preliminary wind-tunnel studies undertaken with golden hamsters infected with Leishmania infantum suggested a change in the overall body odour composition of the host, making it more attractive to female Lu. longipalpis. Gas chromatography analysis of entrained volatile odours from infected and non-infected hamsters showed a large number of peaks in chromatograms from both animals. A total of 10 extra compounds, eluted from 10 to 16 minutes of retention time, were present in samples from infected hamsters, but were absent in those obtained from non-infected hamsters.

Modular reinforcement learning is an approach to resolve the curse of dimensionality problem in traditional reinforcement learning. We design and implement a modular reinforcement learning algorithm, which is based on three major components: Markov decision process decomposition, module training, and global action selection. We define and formalize module class and module instance concepts in decomposition step. Under our framework of decomposition, we train each modules efficiently using SARSA($\lambda$) algorithm. Then we design, implement, test, and compare three action selection algorithms based on different heuristics: Module Combination, Module Selection, and Module Voting. For last two algorithms, we propose a method to calculate module weights efficiently, by using standard deviation of Q-values of each module. We show that Module Combination and Module Voting algorithms produce satisfactory performance in our test domain. / text

<p>In affinity protein biotechnology the selective bindingbetween a chosen protein and an interacting biomolecule isutilized for a variety of applications including bioseparation,detection and therapy. Traditionally, affinity proteinsrecruited for such applications have been derived from naturalproteins or immunoglobulins generated via immunization routes.More recently, advances in the construction and handling oflarge collections of proteins(denoted libraries) generated invitro have opened up for new routes for the development ofaffinity proteins with desired properties.</p><p>In this study, phage display selection technology was usedfor the isolation of novel human CD28 (hCD28)-specific affinityproteins from a protein library constructed by combinatorialprotein engineering of a 58 aa protein domain (Z) derived fromstaphylococcal protein A (SPA). From selections using hCD28 asa target molecule, several hCD28-specific affinity proteins(denoted affibodies) could be identified and analysis of theisolated affibody variants revealed a high degree of sequencehomology between the different clones. The biosensor analysisshowed that all variants bound to hCD28 with micromolardissociation constants (KD) and no significant cross-reactivitytowards the structurally related T-cell receptor hCTLA-4 couldbe observed. The apparent binding affinity for hCD28 of one ofthe isolated affibodies was further improved through fusion toa human Fc fragment fusion partner, resulting in a homodimericversion of the affibody ligand showing avidity effects uponhCD28 binding. Further, a co-culture experiment involvingJurkat T-cells and CHO cell lines tranfected to express eitherhuman CD80 or LFA-3 on the cell surface showed that apreincubation of Jurkat cells with one of the affibody variantsresulted in a specific concentration-dependent inhibition ofthe CD80 induced IL-2 production. This indicates that thisaffibody binds to hCD28 and specifically interferes with theco-stimulation signal mediated via hCD28 and hCD80. ACD28-specific binding protein could have potential as an agentfor various immunotherapy applications. In a second study, anaffinity protein-based strategy was investigated forsite-specific anchoring of proteins onto cellulose for woodfiber engineering purposes. Here, affinity proteins derivedfrom different sources were used for the assembly of acellulosome-like complex for specific and reversible anchoringof affinity domain-tagged reporter proteins to acellulose-anchored fusion protein. A fusion protein between acellulose binding module (Cel6A CBM1) derived from the fungalTrichoderma reesei and a five-domain staphylococcal protein A(SPA) moiety was constructed to serve as a platform for thedocking of reporter proteins produced as fusion to two copiesof a SPA-binding affibody affinity protein (denoted ZSPA-1),selected by phage display technology from a Z domain basedprotein library. In a series of experiments, involving repeatedwashing and low pH elutions, affinity tagged Enhanced GreenFluorescent Protein (EGFP) and Fusarium solani pisi lipasecutinase reporter proteins were both found to be specificallydirected from solution to a region of a cellulose-based filterpaper where the SPA-CBM fusion protein previously had beenpositioned. This showed that the cellulose-anchored SPA-Cel6ACBM1 fusion protein had been stably anchored to the surfacewith retained binding activity and that the interaction betweenSPA and the ZSPA-1 affibody domain was selective.</p><p>phage display, combinatorial, selection, CD28, cellulosome,cellulose, affibody</p>