The purpose of this study was to show that bilinguals experience reverse interference, interference from a second language (L2) to a first language (L1). This was done by the use of a questionnaire given to fifty-two bilinguals. The results were tabulated with the help of the computer and then analysed according to the major questions which were the following: Do all bilinguals have reverse interference? When does this interference occur? How does the interference manifest itself? Finally, how is the bilingual's daily language use involved?The questionnaire results showed that reverse interference exists. Additionally, it revealed that there are major factors relating to interference which were degree of bilingualism, location of residence, methods of learning L2, and the language of college education.

Cognitive radio has recently been proposed as a promising approach for efficient utilization of radio spectrum. However, there are several challenges to be addressed across all layers of a cognitive radio system design, from application to hardware implementation. From the physical layer point-of-view, two key challenges are spectrum sensing and an appropriate signaling scheme for data transmission. The modulation techniques used in cognitive radio not only should be efficient and flexible but also must not cause (harmful) interference to the primary (licensed) users. Among all the proposed signaling schemes for cognitive radio, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has emerged as a promising one due to its robustness against multipath fading, high spectral efficiency, and capacity for dynamic spectrum use. However, OFDM suffers from high out-of-band radiation which is due to high sidelobes of subcarriers. In this thesis, we consider spectral shaping in OFDM-based cognitive radio systems with focus on reducing interference to primary users created by by out-of-band radiation of secondary users' OFDM signal. In the first part of this research, we first study the trade-o between time-based and frequency-based methods proposed for sidelobe suppression in OFDM. To this end, two recently proposed techniques, active interference cancellation (AIC) and adaptive symbol transition (AST), are considered and a new joint time-frequency scheme is developed for both single-antenna and multi-antenna systems. Furthermore, knowledge of wireless channel is used in the setting of the proposed joint scheme to better minimize interference to the primary user. This scheme enables us to evaluate the trade-o between the degrees of freedom provided by each of the two aforementioned methods. In the second part of this research, a novel low-complexity technique for reducing out-of-band radiation power of OFDM subcarriers for both single-antenna and multi-antenna systems is proposed. In the new technique, referred to as a phase adjustment technique, each OFDM symbol is rotated in the complex plane by an optimal phase such that the interference to primary users is minimized. It is shown that the phase adjustment technique neither reduces the system throughput, nor does increase the bit-error-rate of the system. Moreover, the performance of the technique in interference reduction is evaluated analytically in some special cases and is verified using numerical simulations. Due to high sensitivity of OFDM systems to time and frequency synchronization errors, performance of spectral shaping techniques in OFDM is significantly affected by timing jitter in practical systems. In the last part of this research, we investigate the impact of timing jitter on sidelobe suppression techniques. Considering AIC as the base method of sidelobe suppression, we first propose a mathematical model for OFDM spectrum in presence of timing jitter and evaluate the performance degradation to AIC due to timing jitter. Then, a precautionary scheme based on a minimax approach is proposed to make the technique robust against random timing jitter.

RNA interference (RNAi) is a gene silencing mechanism induced by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). RNAi has been used extensively to create loss-of-function mutants in many species to identify the functions of genes, but it also has the potential to be used as a species-specific pesticide if the dsRNA can silence essential genes in pests. The mosquito Aedes aegypti is a vector of numerous viruses including Dengue and West Nile virus, and is frequently controlled by chemical insecticides. With growing concerns about the extensive use of broad-spectrum pesticides, new control methods are eagerly sought. In this study, I examined the efficacy of feeding pesticidal dsRNAs to mosquito larvae. A dose-dependent RNAi response and mortality was observed when larvae were fed dsRNA targeting several different genes. Unlike RNAi in the related dipteran Drosophila melanogaster, RNAi in A. aegypti also appeared to be systemic, spreading beyond the gut to other tissues. A degree of species-specificity was also observed, as dsRNA specific to the D. melanogaster β-tubulin gene killed D. melanogaster larvae but did not kill mosquito larvae. RNAi was also used to determine the function of a newly-identified A. aegypti cytochrome P450 (CYP) gene, Aacyp. This gene showed male-biased expression in the mosquitoes, and was expressed primarily in the male abdomen and/or thorax, but unlike some other insect male-biased CYPs, Aacyp was not highly expressed in the reproductive structures. While dsRNA injections successfully knocked down expression of Aacyp, no discernable change in reproductive or male-specific behaviours were noted. Nevertheless, RNAi is still considered a highly versatile tool for both gene function studies and has promising potential to be developed into a novel class of pesticides.

No description available.

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2000

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2000

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2000

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-187)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania.