Thesis (M.S.)--Oklahoma State University, 2009. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--University of Louisville, 2006. / Title and description from thesis home page (viewed Jan. 30, 2007). Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science. Vita. "August 2006." Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-82).

Thesis (M.S.)--Oklahoma State University, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-66).

Thesis (M. S.)--Oklahoma State University, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. S.)--Oklahoma State University, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1974. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 231-243). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Brain cancers inflict a disproportional burden of mortality upon sufferers. Due to the difficulties of diagnosis and treatment, survival is low with most patients succumbing to the disease within a year of diagnosis. This has been the imperative factor to underpin some of the molecular mechanisms regulating gliomas and to aid with the development of novel disease biomarkers specifically targeting immortalisation (telomerase). 1[mmortalisation not only requires telomerase but also an imbalance/inactivation of DNA repair functions such as 06 methylguanine-DNAmethyltransferase (MGMI) which is a major obstacle with regards to glioma chemotherapy. The primary focus of this study was to evaluate whether there was an association betweenh TERT and its many subunits: TEPI (human telomerase-associated protein 1), TNKS ( tankyrase), DCKI (dyskerin) and PARPI (poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase1 ) in human glioma compared to normal brain tissues and cell lines. Evidence suggests that hTERT was the only gene that was transcribed in all the glioma cell lines and tissues, while absent in the normal. Thus hTERT may represent a simple but reliable biological marker for distinguishing glioma tissues from normal. The hTERT gene is subjected to its own highly coordinated regulation in normal and cancer cells however, whether hTERT is regulated via methylation/demethylation in glioma is unknown. 5azadC treatment reduced hTERT expression, which resulted in the downregulation of telomerase protein and its activity. However, an inverse correlation between hTERT and MGMT expression was observed after treatment. Evidence shows that hTERT inactivation enhances sensitivity towards some chemotherapeutic agents, thus a combination of 5azadC with various chemotherapeutic agents proved to be more effective than chemotherapy administered on its own. Although 5azadC treatment activates MGMT and subsequently hyposensitises glioma cells toward alkylating agents, specifically TMZ (temozolomide), it may compensate by offering telomerase sensitised cells, thus providing an alternative avenue of therapy for the 50% of the glioma patients chosen for this study that have an unmethylated MGMT promoter. However, further clinical developments concerning this approach will be required. 5azadC is known for its toxicity and its effects are diverse, thus it is not favoured as a therapeutic agent. To address these issues three DNMTI (methylation gene) siRNAs were used, downregulating DNMTI directly and hTERT indirectly (possibly via the promoter methylation inhibition mechanism). Combining siRNA and chemotherapeutic agents (TMZ or taxol) enhanced the effects of both the drugs, thus offering an alternative method of treatment using lower concentrations of the drug and hence, reducing side effects, and improving the life expectancy of glioma patients. All glioma tissues used in this study, irrespective of grade or invasiveness, transcribed hTERT at approximately similar copy numbers however, only some of these tissues translated this to protein. This could be due to hTERT mRNA splicing or the involvement of other regulating factors. Several studies have reported that protein translation decreases with age, this would explain why only two of the older patient samples had detectable telomerase activity when they all expressed hTERT mRNA. However, additional studies using a larger cohort of glioma tissues would be needed to further understand the precise mechanism for the discrepancy in hTERT translation in the older glioma patients. Four novel sets of investigations were documented in this thesis resulting in publications: a) 77VKS expression was evaluated in glioma tissues for the first time, b) the effects of the demethylating agent 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (5azadC) on the expression of hTERT and MGMTin glioma cells was evaluated, C) combining DNMTI siRNA and chemotherapeutic agents (TMZ or taxol) enhancedth e efficacy of the chemotherapeutiacgents and, finally d) although, h TERT transcription was found in all glioma tissues used in this study irrespective of grade or invasiveness (at similar copy numbers), a discrepancy in translation was documented. Some of the finding from this study may well become the starting point for integrating translational research in to future clinical trial designs for cancer, specifically for glioma patients.

The extent of decomposition of a body can be used, in conjunction with accumulated degree days (ADD), to provide an estimate of the post-mortem interval (PMI). PMI estimations are important in aiding police to narrow down the possible identity of a body, and to include or exclude suspects, and also to establish the order of death for inheritance purposes when two or more potential beneficiaries die at around the same time. Previous studies have shown the decomposition pattern in hanging bodies to be different from that of a body on the ground, but the sample sizes used have been small. This study presents the results of a series of decomposition studies on hanging bodies in a variety of situations; clothed and unclothed, and fully or partially suspended. The study used domestic pigs (Sus scrofa) which enabled large enough sample sizes for statistical robustness. Pigs lying on the ground were used as controls. The pattern of decomposition in hanging pigs was found to differ sufficiently from that of pigs lying on the ground to require the creation of a novel decomposition scoring scale, which was used successfully to score both clothed and unclothed fully suspended bodies, as well as the upper, suspended, part of partially suspended bodies. The presence of loose, lightweight clothing, which did not impede insect access, was found to affect both the pattern and rate of decomposition in hanging pigs, with the clothed bodies decomposing faster than the unclothed bodies (p < 0.05, F2, 477 = 1238). The variations in the start weights of the pigs used for these studies was found to have a statistically significant effect on the rate of decomposition for both the hanging bodies and those on the ground (p < 0.05, F5, 714 = 1962) but the effect was so small as to make no practical difference across the range of start weights encountered. The effect of variation in start weight may be of greater concern, however, in scoring very heavy, obese, bodies and may be exacerbated by the increased fat-to-muscle ratios encountered in such bodies. Finally a set of ADD prediction tables were produced for the hanging and surface pigs. Further work is needed to establish to what extent these tables can be used for humans and, in light of the growing obesity problems in humans, to investigate the effect of weight and increased fat-to-muscle ratios on the pattern and rate of decomposition.

Volume 1 (A/B) of the thesis investigated the innervation pattern, the cellular mechanism(s) of stimulus-secretion coupling (SCC), the effects of age and the in eraction between calcium and magnesium signalling in secretory cells taken from the thyroid gland, the parotid land, the ancreas, the stomach and the lacrimal gland. 1n addition, the study investigated the roles of anti-ulcer and anti-secretory drugs in the stomach and calpains in relation to vision. The study was designed to understand diseased states ( eg diabetes mellitus, pancreatitis, gastric ulcers, cataractogenisis and the dry eye syndrome) compared to healthy conditions. The results have demonstrated that, in addition to parasympathetic nerves, the pancreas, parotid and the lacrimal glands are innervated with adrenergic and non-cholinergic, non-adrenergic (peptidergic) nerves. Stimulation of these intrinsic secretomotor nerves can result in the secretion of proteins and enzymes from the pancreas, the parotid and lacrimal glands. Exogenous application of either acetylcholine (ACh), noradrenaline (NA), or a number of neuropeptides (vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), substance P, neuropeptide Y (NPY) and several others), can elicit protein and enzyme secretion. Apart from nervous control, exocrine pancreatic secretion is regulated by both endocrine and paracrine hormones. Cholecystokinin-octapeptide (CCK), secretin and histamine can stimulate protein and enzyme secretion from the pancreas. In addition to innervation pattern, this study also investigated the cellular mechanisms of stimulus-secretion coupling. The results have shown that there are four functionally distinct intracellular signalling pathways via which secretagogues (neurotransmitters, hormones and drugs) can elicit their responses in secretory epithelial cells. These include the utilization of such second messengers as calcium (Ca2+), adenosine 3, 5 cyclic monophosphate ( cyclic AMP), protein kinase C (PKC) and tyrosine kinase (TK).

Le nombre de caméras vidéos déployées de nos jours tant dans des contextes professionnels (e.g., dans le cadre des systèmes de vidéo surveillance urbaine) aussi bien que personnels (e.g., caméras de smartphones) augmente de façon exponentielle, générant des volumes de contenus considérables. Rendre le filtrage et la recherche de ces contenus plus efficace est une préoccupation inévitable, avec des exigences de vélocité et de mobilité des contenus liées aux nouvelles infrastuctures qui obligent à revitaliser les techniques d'indexation "classiques". Les approchent existantes pour répondre à ce besoin se focalisent sur deux axes: (1) la proposition d'outils d'analyse des contenus vidéos pour l'extraction automatique d'informations comme le contour des personnes ou la présence d'une activité "anormale"; (2) l'indexation des vidéos en utilisant des métadonnées liées aux contenus (e.g., un texte descriptif, des tags, des données de géolocalisation). Nos travaux se situent dans le second axe. Le contexte d'application de notre travail est celui des systèmes de vidéosurveillance. Notre recherche a été guidée par différents projets de recherche en collaboration avec la Police Nationale, la SNCF, la RATP et Thalès Sécurité. Dans le contexte, les systèmes visés sont caractérisés par: (1) une grande "variété" des contaxtes d'acquisition des contenus (e.g., indoor, outdoor), (2) un très grand volume de données et un manque d'accès à certains contenus, (3) la multitude des formats fermés propriétaires et l'absence de standards, qui engendre une hétérogénéité des formats des données et des métadonnées issues de tels systèmes. De ce fait, d'une part, le développement d'outils d'analyse du contenu génériques et performants dans tous les contextes est très problématique compte tenu des diversités des contextes d'acquisition, des volumes à traiter et de l'inaccessibilité directe de certianes sources. D'autre part, l'absence de métadonnées ajoutées aux vidéos (tags, commentaires) rend quasi caduque l'utilisation des approches d'indexation classique. La première contribution de ce mémoire est une conséquence directe de ce constat et consiste en un dictionnaire de métadonnées spécifique au contexte de la vidéosurveillance. Ce dictionnaire est structuré dans un format qui enrichit la norme ISO 22311 qui a comme objectif la facilitation de l'interopérabilité des systèmes de vidéosurveillance. La seconde contribution concerne la recherche et le filtrage de vidéos basés sur des métadonnées spatio-temporelles. Nous avons réalisé une étude sur le traitement actuel des requêtes dans le cadre des systèmes de vidéosurveillance qui met en évidence que le point d'entrée de toute requête est une trajectoire reconstituée à partir des positions d'une personne par exemple et d'un intervalle temporel qui est ensuite utilisée pour retrouver des extraits vidéos des caméras qui ont pu filmer une scène d'intérêt. De ce fait, la recherche de vidéos est positionnée comme un problème de modélisation des données spatio-temporelles. / The number of video cameras deployed nowadays in both professional (e.g., urban videosurveillance systems) and personal (e.g., smartphone's cameras) contexts is growing exponentially, producing some considerable volumes of data. Driving the flitering and the retrieval of this content more effective is a major concern, driven by the content mobility and velocity requirements related to the utilization of new technologies, requirements that lead to the need to revitalize the classical indexing techniques. The actual approches that aim to satisfy these requirements have a twofold orientation: (1) the proposition of video content based indexing tools that automatically extract information like a person's shape or the persence of an "abnormal" activity in the video; (2) the video indexing based on metadata like textual descriptions, tags or geolocalisation data. Our work concern this second research direction. the application context of our work is related to videosurveillance systems. Our research was guided by different research projects in collaboration with the National Police, SNCF, RATP end Thales Sécurité. In the context, the targeted systems are characterized by: (1) the big "variety" of content acquisition contexts (e.g., indoor, outdoor), (2) the big data volume and the lack of access to some content, (3) the multitude of system owners and the lack of standards, wich leads to a heterogeneity of data and metadata formats generated by videosurveillance systems. Consequently, on one hand, the developement of content based indexing tools generic and reliable in all contexts is problematic given tha acquisition contexts diversity, the content volume and the lack of direct access to certain sources. On the other hand, the lack of metadata associated to the video (tags, comments) makes the use of classical indexing approaches very difficult. The first contribution of this report is a direct consequence of this assessment and consists of a metadata dictionary specific for the videosurveillance context. This dictionary is structure in a format that enriches the ISO 22311 standard whose objective is to facilitate the interoperability of videosurveillance systems. The second contribution concerns the video filtering and retrieval. We did an analysis of the current query processing mechanism within the videosurveillance systems that highlighted the fact that the entry point of any query is a trajectory reconstituted based on a person's positions and a time interval. These elements are used to select the videos of the cameras that are likely to have filmed the scenery of interest. Consequently, the video retrieval is trated as a spatio-temporal data modelling problem.