“Can one hear the shape of a drum?” This seemingly innocent question spawned a lot of research in the early 20th century. Even though the answer is “No, we can't”, we can hear the volume. This is known as Weyl's Law. In a more modern context, we can use new methods to study similar questions. More precisely, we can study locally symmetric spaces and the algebra of invariant differential operators. Generalizing the above, we can incorporate Hecke operators and find asymptotic formulas for their traces. We study this problem in a global context, namely if the underlying group is the group of adelic points of a quasi-split, simple reductive group. Our main tool is the Arthur-Selberg trace formula. The spectral side is dealt with, utilizing a condition on the normalizing factors of certain intertwining operators. The geometric side is more complicated and needs a more refined analysis. Most importantly, the test functions need to be specifically crafted to ensure compact support on the one hand, and sufficiently strong estimates on the other. The resulting geometric side can be split according to the Bruhat decomposition and treated separately, using various methods from reduction theory to algebraic and analytic number theory.

Music educational and curriculum research underlies the genesis of the study. Document analysis and discourse analysis have been applied as a theoretical framework as well as a method for describing and analyzing projections between the school's mission, goals and guidelines and how it is textually told about knowledge in comparison with Aristotle's forms of knowledge. The study is based on compulsory school curricula and subject plans in music from the years 1962, 1980 and 2011. The result shows that the differences are in the school's abandonment goals are minimal concerning ideology that rests on a democratic foundation. On the other hand, different qualities or characteristics are promoted, where, among other things, Lgr 62 emphasizes man's theoretical or intellectual abilities in contrast to Lgr 80, which emphasizes responsibility-taking and creation of a more practical nature. Lgr 11, on the other hand, lifted mixed qualities from previous curricula, but nevertheless claims that language is man's greatest tool. Differences concerning practical versus theoretical knowledge in the subject plans' purpose and goals as well as main points and central content are illustrated. In the objective description of the 1962 syllabus, practical experience is emphasized, while the 1980 syllabus focuses on theoretical knowledge such as discussing music. Lgr 11 emphasizes both practical and theoretical knowledge in the purpose description. Based on the main points and central content of the subject plans, the result shows that the knowledge that has been made visible falls within the categories of singing, playing and listening, and through this categorization Aristoteles forms of knowledge could then be applied. Clear connections to purpose and goals with the form of knowledge episteme could be found in the 1980 curriculum and Techne through the 1962 curriculum. Phronesis was made visible in 1962 and through the 2011 subject plan. Touching writings in main moments and central content, the result showed that episteme could relate to knowledge in "singing", techne in "playing" and phronesis in "listening".

This study explored the design and development of an electronic performance enhancement tool that can assist a person with limited programming skills to create a variety of simple customized information management websites. In particular, this study was modeled after needs within an Instruction Technology department in which individuals were able to create pre-functional web pages with various elements such as textboxes and dropdown menus but lacked the programming skills necessary to add functionality to these web forms. Skilled programmers could add functionality to these pre-functioning web forms or create customized information management websites from scratch. However, programmers are not always available when needed. At the time of this study, there was no readily available way for persons to create customized information management websites without the services of a programmer or without needing to learn programming skills themselves. This study sought to determine what functionalities, characteristics and capabilities could be included in an electronic performance enhancement tool to assist non-programmers to create simple customized information management websites and how a tool with such functionalities, characteristics and capabilities could be designed and developed. A prototype version of such tool (named the Form And DataBase Interaction Tool or "FADBIT") was designed and developed in this study. This tool asks users who have created simple pre-functional web forms to answer a series of questions related to those webforms. Given the user's responses to these questions, this tool is able to form a metalanguage representation of the user's intentions for the web form and can translate this representation into useful programming code to add the desired functionality. The tool was successfully designed and developed using a generalized modular framework, and a Create-Adapt-Generalize model, with each module addressing one or more patterns common to web programming. The prototype tool successfully allowed non-programmers to create functional information websites for two structured evaluation projects, and achieved some level of success and encountered some difficulties with an unstructured project. Proposed modifications and extensions to the tool to address the difficulties encountered are presented. / Ph. D.

It is demonstrated that the method for locating a velocity profile origin, or plane of zero velocity, by fitting log profiles to streamwise velocity measurements is applicable to a larger range of roughness scales than previously expected. Five different sets of detailed, experimental velocity measurements were analyzed encompassing sediment-scale roughness elements, roughness caused by rigid vegetation, and large-scale roughness elements comprised of mobile bedforms. The method resulted in similar values of normalized zero-plane displacement for all roughness types considered. The ratios of zero-plane displacement, dh, to roughness height, ks, were 0.20 and 0.26 for the sediment- and vegetation-scale experiments, respectively. The results for the two experiments with bedform dominated roughness were 0.34 and 0.41. An estimate of dh/ks ranging from 0.2 to 0.4 is therefore recommended for a range of roughness types with the higher end of the range being more appropriate for the larger, bedform-scale roughness elements, and the lower end for the sediment-scale roughness elements. In addition, it is demonstrated that the location of the plane of zero velocity is temporally constant even when the bed height is not. The effects of roughness element packing density were also examined with the identification of a possible threshold at 4%, above which zero-plane displacement is independent of packing density. The findings can be applied to field velocity measurements under mobile bed conditions, facilitating the calculation of turbulence parameters such as shear velocity, by using point measurements and providing guidelines for the estimation of an appropriate value for zero-plane displacement. / Master of Science

no abstract provided by author / Master of Science

This paper is an examination of the theory of discrete complex analysis that arises from the framework of a planar cell complex. Construction of this theory is largely integration-based. A combination of two cell complexes, the double and its associated diamond complex, allows for the development of a discrete Cauchy Integral Formula. / Master of Science

Let Q(√(-d)) be an imaginary quadratic field with discriminant Δ. We use the isomorphism between the ideal class groups of the field and the equivalence classes of binary quadratic forms to find the structure of the class group. We determine the structure by combining two of Shanks' algorithms [7, 8]. We utilize this method to find fields with cyclic factors that have order a large power of 2, or fields with class groups of high 5-ranks or high 7-ranks. / Master of Science

Yes / Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) inhibit COX enzyme activity which affects the inflammatory response. Inflammation is associated with increasing cancer incidence. Pre-clinical and clinical studies have shown that NSAID treatment could cause an anti-tumor effect in cancers. In the present study, blood was taken from healthy individuals (n = 17) and patients with respiratory diseases or lung cancer (n = 36). White blood cells (WBC) were treated with either a micro-suspension, i.e., bulk (B) or nano-suspension (N) of aspirin (ASP) or ibuprofen (IBU) up to 500 μg/ml in the comet assay and up to 125 μg/ml in the micronucleus assay. In this study results were compared against untreated lymphocytes and their corresponding treated groups. The results showed, that NSAIDs in their nano form significantly reduced the DNA damage in WBCs from lung cancer patients in bulk and nano compared to untreated lymphocytes. Also, there was a decrease in the level of DNA damage in the comet assay after treating WBCs from healthy individuals, asthma and COPD groups with aspirin N (ASP N) but not with IBU N. In addition, the number of micronuclei decreased after treatment with NSAIDs in their nano form (ASP N and IBU N) in the healthy as well as in the lung cancer group. However, this was not the case for micronucleus frequency in asthma and COPD patients. These data show that lymphocytes from different groups respond differently to treatment with ASP and IBU as measured by comet assay and micronucleus assay, and that the size of the suspended particles of the drugs affects responses. / The present study was part funded by United Kingdom India Education Research Initiative (UKERI) SA 07-067.

Yes / New multicomponent solid forms of sildenafil have been discovered by means of a combined virtual/experimental cocrystal screening. Coformer selection of candidates was conducted based on an in silico screening method from a database of more than 2000 organic compounds, and the intensive experimental screen produced 23 new solid forms. Since the 12 coformers chosen have a combination of phenol and carboxylic acid groups, a variety of cocrystals, salts, and hybrid salt-cocrystals were discovered and characterized.

Yes / We investigated the protective role of myricetin bulk and nanoforms, against reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced oxidative stress caused by hydrogen peroxide and tertiary-butyl hydro peroxide in lymphocytes in vitro from healthy individuals and those from pre-cancerous patients suffering with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). The change in intracellular reactive oxygen species was measured once cells were treated with myricetin bulk forms and nanoforms with and without either hydrogen peroxide or tertiary-butyl hydro peroxide co-supplementation. The direct and indirect antioxidant activity of myricetin was spectrofluometrically measured using the fluorescent dye 2',7'-dichlorofluorescin diacetate and using the Comet assay, respectively. Hydrogen peroxide (50 µM) and tertiary-butyl hydro peroxide (300 µM) induced a higher level of reactive oxygen species-related DNA damage and strand breaks. Addition of myricetin nanoform (20 µM) and bulk (10 µM) form could, however, significantly prevent hydrogen peroxide- and tertiary-butyl hydro peroxide-induced oxidative imbalances and the nanoform was more effective. Glutathione levels were also quantified using a non-fluorescent dye. Results suggest that myricetin treatment had no significant effect on the cellular antioxidant enzyme, glutathione. The current study also investigates the effect of myricetin on the induction of double-strand breaks by staining the gamma-H2AX foci immunocytochemically. It was observed that myricetin does not induce double-strand breaks at basal levels rather demonstrated a protective effect.