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The goal of this research is to identify a compound or family of compounds that would allow effective treatment of the influenza virus without unnecessary risks and side-effects. Influenza is a substantial problem in today’s society. Each year 36,000 people die in the United States due to influenza, or influenza related causes. Influenza is caused by two types of the virus, Type-A and Type-B. There are currently four FDA approved drugs to treat influenza—two are proton channel blockers and two are neuraminidase inhibitors. The goal of my research was to design a new drug that would allow physicians to effectively treat Type-A and Type-B influenza virus without having their patients endure unnecessary risks and side-effects. Density functional theory calculations were used to optimize the geometries of the ligands. Using sophisticated resources such as the Protein Data Bank and AutoDock, a library of twenty five ligands were docked into the N4 protein. Each docking was performed five times, resulting in one overall average docked energy. The averaged energies for each of the ligands were ranked from lowest to highest. Based upon a different study, one of my ligands were shown to have antiviral activity. From the docked energy for the ligand with confirmed antiviral activity, the results of the highest ranking ligand could be determined to have promising antiviral activity. The ligand shown below is the promising ligand, which will undergo further alterations and dockings to attempt to improve the antiviral activity. / Department of Chemistry

The wide spread use of limit states design procedures in both the Canadian and American steel design codes has created a need for a better understanding of how structures behave. Current design practice, however, allows and often encourages engineers to use an approximate linear analysis to determine the member forces in a structure. This is then followed by an even more approximate amplification of forces through the use of several design equations. It is believed that this practice is no longer acceptible as more accurate second-order computer programs have become a very practical alternative. With this as motivation, this thesis will provide a comparison between a second-order computer program available at the University of British Columbia called ULA (Ultimate Load Analysis) and the Canadian and American building code designs, CAN3-S16.1-M84 and LRFD 1986 respectively. It was felt that ULA should be verified, even though the theory it is based on is well established. Thus, ULA was used to generate a load versus L/r curve for a pin ended column (with the parameters modified slightly to allow direct comparison with the curves available in the codes). ULA was then used to predict load-deflection curves for two existing test frames. The resulting curves compared well with the test data. To ensure simplicity, the building codes make several approximations in the derivation of their design equations. This results in the equations being applicable to a very narrow range of structures. Specifically, the equations apply to rigidly connected frames in which all of the columns reach their critical buckling load simmultaniously. Consequently, the results from ULA were compared to the codes for structures of this type. It was found that the codes were conservative for these structures in relation to the results from ULA, yet the amount of conservatism varied greatly between structures. That is, the codes are not consistant in how conservative they are. Results from ULA were then compared to the codes for structures that do not satisfy all of the code limitations. Alhough using the codes to design structures beyond the limit of applicability is not a recommended practice, engineers do use the codes to design all types of structures, with little appreciation for the applicability limits. Consequently, it was deemed appropriate to extend this study to such structures. Though only a few were investigated, it was found that the codes were unreliable, being highly conservative, very accurate, or in one case highly unconservative when compared to the results from ULA. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate

This thesis presents the method of state diagram synthesis and the development of a computer program for designing fluidic sequential feedback • control circuits of the fundamental mode. A paper on state diagram synthesis was authored by Chen and Lee, presented in Detroit and published as ASME paper 73-WA/Flcs-2 in 1973. Hypothetical systems are illustrated by using series of events characterized by the piston positions of some double-acting pneumatic cylinders. In these systems , an action can only begin when the previous action has been completed. Every extension or retraction of a piston is memorized and manifested by a flip-flop element in the feedback circuit. If different combina- tions of control signals result from different combinations of feedback signals, the logic design is straightforward. Otherwise secondary variables are needed to differentiate between repeated appearances of some ambiguous input combinations. A secondary variable is obtained as the output of a fluidic flip-flop with set and reset inputs. When a sufficient number of secondary variables are obtained, they are combined with the feedback signals. Considerations of these variables and their associated logic complementary "don't-care" conditions leads to a set of simplified control equations. The complete process of the circuit design, using state diagram synthesis, has been programmed for a digital computer. After the control equations are obtained , one can take the signal transmission characteristics into account in order to build a hazard-free circuit.

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