published_or_final_version / Orthopaedics and Traumatology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Pathology / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Physiology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Surgery / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Orthopaedics and Traumatology / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Biological Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Psychopathy is associated with several behavioral and psychophysiological deficits. Lynam (2002) has argued that the use of an overarching conceptualization of psychopathy can provide a parsimonious explanation of psychopathic pathology. The current study examined relations between tasks used to explore psychopathic pathology and dimensions from the Five Factor Model of personality. Undergraduate participants completed the NEO PI-R, the BART, a go/no-go task, an emotional morph task, and provided physiological responses to stimuli. While hypothesized relations to FFM psychopathy composites were generally unsupported, other interesting relations to traits were identified. Results indicated that hypoarousal to negative stimuli was negatively related to pan-impulsivity. Maladaptive risk taking was positively related to panimpulsivity and high self-directed negative affect. Response modulation deficits were negatively related to pan-impulsivity, low self-directed negative affect, and facets of openness. Deficits in empathic responding were positively related to other-directed negative affect and self-directed negative affect, and negatively related to pan-impulsivity and interpersonal assertiveness. Although it remains unclear whether the failure to support hypotheses was related to the study variables or population, results indicate that the FFM can provide additional information with regard to what deficit tasks assess.

Ce document décrit les premières investigations expérimentales à Jefferson Lab des Distributions de Partons Generalisées (GPDs), en utilisant la diffusion Compton Profondément Virtuelle (DVCS). Les GPDs incluent les facteurs de forme et densités partoniques habituelles, mais aussi les correlations entre états différents de partons. Les GPDs donnent donc accès a une description tri-dimensionnelle du nucléon. le DVCS est le processus le plus direct pour extraire les GPDs, et des l'année 2000 une série d'expériences ont été proposée dans ce but. Les résultats des premières expériences exploratoires sont presentés ainsi que les premières mesures de combinaisons linéaires de GPDs. Une discussion detaillée s'ensuit sur ce que l'on a appris de ces expériences, en liaison avec les outils théoriques utilises pour extraire les GPDS a partir des données. Enfin, on décrit les améliorations futures possibles, et les nouvelles expériences qui sont proposées.

Controlling resource usage is important for the reliability, efficiency and security of software systems. Automated analyses for bounding resource usage can be invaluable tools for ensuring these properties. Hofmann and Jost have developed an automated static analysis for finding linear heap space bounds in terms of the input size for programs in a simple functional programming language. Memory requirements are amortized by representing them as a requirement for an abstract quantity, potential, which is supplied by assigning potential to data structures in proportion to their size. This assignment is represented by annotations on their types. The type system then ensures that all potential requirements can be met from the original input’s potential if a set of linear constraints can be solved. Linear programming can optimise this amount of potential subject to the constraints, yielding a upper bound on the memory requirements. However, obtaining bounds on the heap space requirements does not detect a faulty or malicious program which uses excessive stack space. In this thesis, we investigate extending Hofmann and Jost’s techniques to infer bounds on stack space usage, first by examining two approaches: using the Hofmann- Jost analysis unchanged by applying a CPS transformation to the program being analysed, then showing that this predicts the stack space requirements of the original program; and directly adapting the analysis itself, which we will show is more practical. We then consider how to deal with the different allocation patterns stack space usage presents. In particular, the temporary nature of stack allocation leads us to a system where we calculate the total potential after evaluating an expression in terms of assignments of potential to the variables appearing in the expression as well as the result. We also show that this analysis subsumes our previous systems, and improves upon them. We further increase the precision of the bounds inferred by noting the importance of expressing stack memory bounds in terms of the depth of data structures and by taking the maximum of the usage bounds of subexpressions. We develop an analysis which uses richer definitions of the potential calculation to allow depth and maxima to be used, albeit with a more subtle inference process.

Infectious diseases pose a serious threat to global health. Molecular diagnostics provide solutions for effective control and prevention of infections, however suffers from expensive laboratory equipment, and infrastructure to be fully implemented at point of care (POC), especially at low-resource settings. Lab-on-a-chip that aims to integrate complex biochemical analyses into automated systems is promising for POC analysis. A major challenge is the integration of a complete molecular diagnostic assay, generally translating into complex microfluidics, with the requirement of low fabrication cost. This thesis explores the use of flexible electronics, plastic foils and roll-to-roll manufacturing to enable low-cost microfluidic systems, for molecular diagnostic assays especially targeted towards infectious diseases. Many biochemical assays rely on heat; hence a first aspect in this thesis is the integration of a microheater into microfluidics. In a first project a system for SNP-genotyping is presented using solid phase melting curve analysis to discriminate mutations at a single base resolution. Starting with a glass based concept (paper I) which is further developed to a foil based system (paper II), detection of the polymorphism in the neuropeptide Y associated with increased risk of type II diabetes is demonstrated as a proof of principle. Further development and optimization of the microheater concept has enabled roll-to-roll manufacturing compatibility and multiplexing of targets (paper III). A bacterial sub-typing and multiresistance detection in clinical Staphylococcus Aureus samples is demonstrated for applications in infectious diseases diagnostics. Finally, the microheater concept is further developed to enable μPCR (paper IV). Detection of genomic HIV-1 is demonstrated and a portable detection setup based on an LED light source and low cost CMOS camera for detection was developed. A second aspect of this thesis is integration of light sources and optical detection (paper V-VI). A multilayer system integrating an electroluminescent light source, reactive sensor dyes and organic semiconductor transistor for detection is demonstrated. The system could be used for amine detection in gases (paper V). System was made further roll-to-roll compatible. The system uses an external LED light source and a photodetector processed in only one screen printing- and one dispensing step (paper VI). As a proof of principle, absorbance based DNA hybridization was detected. Collectively, roll-to-roll manufacturing compatible “lab on foil” systems have the potential to improve our ability to diagnose at POC especially at resource-limited settings. / <p>QC 20170426</p>