Wong, Mei Ting. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-120). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Our Contributions --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Framework of Shelf Space Allocation Problem --- p.4 / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization --- p.6 / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Commercial Approaches --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- Experimental Approaches --- p.8 / Chapter 2.4 --- Optimization Approaches --- p.11 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Exact Approaches --- p.11 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Heuristics Approaches --- p.16 / Chapter 2.5 --- Summary --- p.19 / Chapter 3. --- Overview of Shelf Space Allocation Problem --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.21 / Chapter 3.2 --- Problem description --- p.22 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Mathematical Model --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2.1.1 --- Notations --- p.25 / Chapter 3.2.1.2 --- Model --- p.25 / Chapter 3.2.1.3 --- Assumption --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2.1.4 --- Notations of final model --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.1.5 --- Final model --- p.27 / Chapter 3.3 --- Original Heuristic --- p.28 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Yang (2001) Method --- p.28 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Remarks on Original Heuristic --- p.29 / Chapter 3.4 --- Original Heuristic with Yang's Adjustment --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Remarks on Yang's Adjustment --- p.32 / Chapter 3.5 --- New Neighborhood Movements --- p.33 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- New Adjustment Phase --- p.33 / Chapter 3.6 --- Network Flow Model --- p.35 / Chapter 3.6.1 --- ULSSAP --- p.35 / Chapter 3.6.2 --- Transforming shelf space allocation problem (SSAP) --- p.38 / Chapter 3.7 --- Tabu Search --- p.41 / Chapter 3.7.1 --- Tabu Search Algorithm --- p.42 / Chapter 3.7.1.1 --- Neighborhood search moves --- p.42 / Chapter 3.7.1.2 --- Candidate list strategy --- p.45 / Chapter 3.7.1.3 --- Tabu list --- p.46 / Chapter 3.7.1.4 --- Aspiration criteria.........................................: --- p.47 / Chapter 3.7.1.5 --- Intensification and Diversification --- p.48 / Chapter 3.7.1.6 --- Stopping criterion --- p.49 / Chapter 3.7.1.7 --- Probabilistic choice --- p.50 / Chapter 3.7.2 --- General Process of Tabu Search --- p.51 / Chapter 3.7.3 --- Application of Tabu Search to SSAP --- p.54 / Chapter 3.7.4 --- Analysis of Tabu Search --- p.58 / Chapter 4. --- Tabu Search with Path Relinking --- p.60 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.60 / Chapter 4.2 --- Foundations of path relinking --- p.62 / Chapter 4.3 --- Path Relinking Template --- p.65 / Chapter 4.4 --- Identification of Reference set --- p.69 / Chapter 4.5 --- Choosing initial and guiding solution --- p.73 / Chapter 4.6 --- Neighborhood structure --- p.74 / Chapter 4.7 --- Moving along paths --- p.81 / Chapter 4.8 --- Application of Tabu Search with Path Relinking --- p.87 / Chapter 4.9 --- Conclusion --- p.90 / Chapter 5. --- Computational Studies --- p.92 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.92 / Chapter 5.2 --- General Parameter Setting --- p.92 / Chapter 5.3 --- Parameter values for Tabu search --- p.94 / Chapter 5.4 --- Sensitivity test for Tabu search with Path Relinking --- p.95 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Reference Set Strategies and Initial and Guiding Solution Criteria --- p.96 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Frequency of Path Relinking --- p.99 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Size of reference set --- p.101 / Chapter 5.4.4 --- Comparison with Tabu Search --- p.102 / Chapter 5.5 --- Comparison with other heuristics --- p.105 / Chapter 5.6 --- Conclusion --- p.109 / Chapter 6. --- Conclusion --- p.111 / Chapter 6.1 --- Summary of achievements --- p.112 / Chapter 6.2 --- Future Works --- p.113 / Bibliography --- p.115

Xie, Yongming. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-85). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.ii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Isosurfaces --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Graphics Processing Unit --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3 --- Objective --- p.3 / Chapter 1.4 --- Contribution --- p.3 / Chapter 1.5 --- Thesis Organization --- p.4 / Chapter 2 --- Marching Cubes --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- Marching Cubes Algorithm --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- Triangulated Cube Configuration Table --- p.12 / Chapter 2.4 --- Summary --- p.16 / Chapter 3 --- Graphics Processing Unit --- p.18 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.18 / Chapter 3.2 --- History of Graphics Processing Unit --- p.19 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- First Generation GPU --- p.20 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Second Generation GPU --- p.20 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Third Generation GPU --- p.20 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Fourth Generation GPU --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3 --- The Graphics Pipelining --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Standard Graphics Pipeline --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Programmable Graphics Pipeline --- p.23 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Vertex Processors --- p.25 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Fragment Processors --- p.26 / Chapter 3.3.5 --- Frame Buffer Operations --- p.28 / Chapter 3.4 --- GPU CPU Analogy --- p.31 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Memory Architecture --- p.31 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Processing Model --- p.32 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Limitation of GPU --- p.33 / Chapter 3.4.4 --- Input and Output --- p.34 / Chapter 3.4.5 --- Data Readback --- p.34 / Chapter 3.4.6 --- FramebufFer --- p.34 / Chapter 3.5 --- Summary --- p.35 / Chapter 4 --- Volume Rendering --- p.37 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.37 / Chapter 4.2 --- History of Volume Rendering --- p.38 / Chapter 4.3 --- Hardware Accelerated Volume Rendering --- p.40 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Hardware Acceleration Volume Rendering Methods --- p.41 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Proxy Geometry --- p.42 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Object-Aligned Slicing --- p.43 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- View-Aligned Slicing --- p.45 / Chapter 4.4 --- Summary --- p.48 / Chapter 5 --- GPU-Friendly Marching Cubes --- p.49 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.49 / Chapter 5.2 --- Previous Work --- p.50 / Chapter 5.3 --- Traditional Method --- p.52 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Scalar Volume Data --- p.53 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Isosurface Extraction --- p.53 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Flow Chart --- p.54 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Transparent Isosurfaces --- p.56 / Chapter 5.4 --- Our Method --- p.56 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Cell Selection --- p.59 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Vertex Labeling --- p.61 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Cell Indexing --- p.62 / Chapter 5.4.4 --- Interpolation --- p.65 / Chapter 5.5 --- Rendering Translucent Isosurfaces --- p.67 / Chapter 5.6 --- Implementation and Results --- p.69 / Chapter 5.7 --- Summary --- p.74 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.76 / Bibliography --- p.77

Text-to-scene generation systems take input in the form of a natural language text and output a 3D scene illustrating the meaning of that text. A major benefit of text-to-scene generation is that it allows users to create custom 3D scenes without requiring them to have a background in 3D graphics or knowledge of specialized software packages. This contributes to making text-to-scene useful in scenarios from creative applications to education. The primary goal of this thesis is to explore how we can use text-to-scene generation in a new way: as a tool to facilitate the elicitation and formal documentation of language. In particular, we use text-to-scene generation (a) to assist field linguists studying endangered languages; (b) to provide a cross-linguistic framework for formally modeling spatial language; and (c) to collect language data using crowdsourcing. As a side effect of these goals, we also explore the problem of multilingual text-to-scene generation, that is, systems for generating 3D scenes from languages other than English. The contributions of this thesis are the following. First, we develop a novel tool suite (the WordsEye Linguistics Tools, or WELT) that uses the WordsEye text-to-scene system to assist field linguists with eliciting and documenting endangered languages. WELT allows linguists to create custom elicitation materials and to document semantics in a formal way. We test WELT with two endangered languages, Nahuatl and Arrernte. Second, we explore the question of how to learn a syntactic parser for WELT. We show that an incremental learning method using a small number of annotated dependency structures can produce reasonably accurate results. We demonstrate that using a parser trained in this way can significantly decrease the time it takes an annotator to label a new sentence with dependency information. Third, we develop a framework that generates 3D scenes from spatial and graphical semantic primitives. We incorporate this system into the WELT tools for creating custom elicitation materials, allowing users to directly manipulate the underlying semantics of a generated scene. Fourth, we introduce a deep semantic representation of spatial relations and use this to create a new resource, SpatialNet, which formally declares the lexical semantics of spatial relations for a language. We demonstrate how SpatialNet can be used to support multilingual text-to-scene generation. Finally, we show how WordsEye and the semantic resources it provides can be used to facilitate elicitation of language using crowdsourcing.

Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is an aggressive tumour, which is highly associated with previous asbestos exposure and is resistant to most conventional anticancer therapies. Previous studies have used a mouse model of to 01 p effective approaches to induction of anti-tumour immunity using modification of tumour cells by the introduction of genetic constructs expressing genes such as that for B7-1 so that tumour growth can be inhibited in vivo. Transfectant clones, AC29 B7-7 and AC29 B7-6, which showed equal levels of expression of B7-1 but were markedly different in tumorigenicity were assessed using suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) in order to isolate transcripts which may have been differentially expressed in the two clones. SSH allowed isolation of a number of cDNAs which were apparently differentially expressed in the cell lines. These required characterisation in order to determine their possible relevance to tumorigenicity. Two cDNAs designated as 7-7-76 and 7-7-43 had been isolated previously and the aim of this project was to characterise these cDNAs by sequencing, searching for their homology relationships and investigating gene expression profiles. Preliminary searches revealed that clone 7-7-43 had homology to cyclin-dependent kinase regulatory subunit 1 which plays a role in the cell cycle. On the other hand, clone 77-76 showed only homology to an EST of hypertension related protein and therefore, further investigation was required to obtain the identity of clone 7-7-76. The first part of this project was to in investigate and evaluate gene expression on clone 7-7-43, using both relative RT-PCR and Northern blotting.' In the second part of this project, a more intense study of clone 7-7-76 was conducted. Clone 7-7-76 was investigated for its homology relationships and its gene expression profile. / Results obtained from relative RT-PCR suggested no difference in the expression of the either eDNA clone (7-7-43 and 7-7-76) between the MM clones AC29 B7-6 and AC29 B7-7, the cells used to derive these clones by SSH. Therefore, it was concluded that neither clone 7-7-43 nor 7-7-76 was differentially expressed in MM cells of differing immuno enicit RACE was employed in order to derive a longer sequence of clone 7-7-76 and the newly derived sequence of 7-7-76 was again used to search for homologies using a wider range of sequences for human and other species. These investigations on clone 7-7-76 showed it to correspond to the sequence of human mitofusin 2 which is involved in determining mitochondrial morphology The results determined in this project suggest that clones 7-7-43 and 7-7-76 are not differentially expressed in the range of MM cell lines tested. The data have however highlighted the potential of the SSH technique to easily derive cDNA clones worthy of investigation, but underline the possibility of false positive clones being isolated. The need for an efficient, accurate screening procedure such as real-time PCR is acknowledged.

<p>An OpenGL applications usually renders to a single frame. Multi-view or 3D displays on the other hand, needs more more images representing different viewing directions on the same scene, but modifying a large number of applications would be unsuitable and problematic. However, intercepting and modifying these calls before they reach the GPU would dramatically decrease the amount of work needed to support a large number of applications on a new type of multi-view or 3D display. This thesis describes different ways on intercepting, enqueueing and replaying these calls to support rendering form different view points. Intercepting with both an own implementation of opengl32.dll and an OpenGL driver is discussed, and enqueueing using classes, function pointers and enumeration of functions is tried. The different techniques are discussed quickly with the focus being a working implementation. This resulting in an fully blown OpenGL interceptor with the ability to enqueue and replay a frame multiple times while modifying parameters such as the projection matrix. This implementation uses an own implementation of opengl32.dll that is placed in the application directory to be loaded before the real one. Enqueueing is performed by enumerating all OpenGL calls, pushing this enumeration value and all call data to a list Replaying is done by reading the same list and calling the function pointer associated with the enumeration value with the data in the list.</p>

<p>The purpose of this project has been to cut production costs for the fascia panels of</p><p>Getinge’s largest autoclaves. The cost for the stainless steel plates currently used is very</p><p>high. An alternative material solution could cut costs significantly.</p><p>In addition, improvements have been made to the instrument tower which is a central part</p><p>of the fascia panel. As a result of the new modular design in a new material the</p><p>instrument tower has been improved in several aspects.</p>

<p>Heparan sulfates (HSs) are a class of anionic carbohydrate chains found at cell surfaces and in the extracellular matrix where they interact with a number of proteins. HS is characterized by extreme structural heterogeneity, and has been implicated in a number of biological phenomenon like embryogenesis, morphogen gradient formation and signalling of growth factors such as FGF, PDGF etc. Despite the characteristic structural heterogeneity, evidence from compositional studies show that the HS structure is expressed in a tightly regulated manner, implying a functional significance, which is most likely in the modulation of cell behaviour through HS-protein interactions. The lack of molecular tools has, however, hampered the understanding of HS structures with functional significance. This work therefore aims at characterizing the structural requirements on HS involved in the interaction with the anti-HS phage display antibodies HS4C3, AO4B08 and HS4E4 and a selected growth factor PDGF-BB. The characterization was done with the help of tailored oligosaccharide libraries generated from sources bearing structural resemblance to HS.</p><p>The work has thus made available tools that preferentially recognize certain structural features on the HS chain and will aid in the further study of HS structure and its regulation. Evidence is also provided to support the notion that HS protein interactions can occur in multiple manners, utilizing any of the structural features on the HS chain.</p>

An active-matrix electroluminescent (AMEL) design tool has been developed for the simulation of AMEL display devices. The AMEL design tool is a software package that simulates AMEL device operation using a lumped parameter circuit model. The lumped parameter circuit model is developed primarily to address AMEL power dissipation issues. The AMEL design tool provides a user-friendly approach for investigating the AMEL display device through the AMEL lumped parameter circuit model. The AMEL design tool is programmed in C with a standard Microsoft Windows interface. Three techniques for power reduction have been identified and investigated: increasing the high voltage NDMOS transistor breakdown voltage, parasitic capacitance optimization, and development of a low voltage phosphor. / Graduation date: 1998

Les DD-peptidases sont des enzymes impliquées dans la synthèse de la paroi bactérienne. Elles sont aussi appelées "Penicillin Binding Proteins" (PBPs) car elles forment des acyl-enzymes stables avec des antibiotiques de type beta-lactames comme la pénicilline, la stabilité de ces complexes étant à l'origine de l'effet antibiotique. Certaines bactéries sont résistantes aux b-lactames grâce à la production de beta-lactamases, capables d'hydrolyser ces antibiotiques jusqu'à 10E8 fois plus rapidement que les PBPs selon un mécanisme impliquant deux étapes, d'acylation puis de désacylation. Il est généralement accepté que les beta-lactamases ont évolué à partir d'une PBP ancestrale en intégrant au site actif un mécanisme catalytique efficace pour la réaction de déacylation. L'objectif de cette thèse s'inscrit dans la compréhension des mécanismes d'évolution de la catalyse enzymatique au niveau moléculaire. Nous tenterons de reproduire un mécanisme évolutif en créant in vitro une activité b-lactamase à partir d'une DD-peptidase. La protéine de départ pour ce travail est la PBP-A de Thermosynechococcus elongatus, appartenant à une nouvelle famille de PBPs homologue aux beta-lactamases de classe A. L'analyse biochimique de cette protéine suggère que c'est une DD-peptidase, et une approche rationnelle par substitution d'un résidu dans le site actif de PBP-A a permis d'augmenter la vitesse de désacylation de l'acyl-enzyme formé avec la pénicilline d'un facteur 90. L'analyse des structures 3-D de PBP-A sauvage et mutante laisse ouverte la question de savoir comment évoluer cette PBP en beta-lactamase. Ainsi, pour l'évolution dirigée de cette protéine, deux banques ont été construites par approches aléatoire et semi-rationnelle. Il a été possible de sélectionner par "phage display" des enzymes améliorées pour la réaction d'acylation. L'obtention de mutants améliorés pour l'acylation ou la désacylation constitue des premiers pas vers l'évolution de PBP-A en beta-lactamase.

Historical accounts of mortuary display during the 19th-century and evidence from archaeological investigations at historic cemeteries can contribute substantially to our understanding of related chronological and social-status issues. An inadequate understanding of mortuary practice in Texas circa 1821 to 1870 frustrates assessment of site chronology and status-related interpretations. While there are numerous studies of individual cemeteries, there is, as of yet, no synthesis of historical and archaeological data pertaining to mortuary practices in early Texas. In response to this deficiency, this thesis provides a synthesis of mortuary practices and the availability of related paraphernalia in Texas circa 1821-1870. Data from numerous cemeteries are compiled to establish a chronology for mortuary practices and to develop a seriation of select burial furnishings as an aid in assessing status-related variation in mortuary display. Results of the study, as gleaned from archival and archaeological data, indicate that mortuary display in mid-19th-century Texas is not so much a proxy of wealth, as it is a measure of popular cultural trends and economic contexts. These findings are used to reassess cemetery chronologies and status indices, including several interments at Matagorda Cemetery (1835-present), which serve as case studies.