The freezing kinetics of binary nitric acid/water aerosols is of fundamental importance to the modelling of polar stratospheric clouds and the role they in ozone depletion over the Arctic/Antarctic regions. Cirrus clouds are also often composed of nitric acid solutions, hence an understanding of freezing process in these aerosols also aids in modelling the earth's radiation budget and global warming. This thesis explores the kinetic phase diagram of nitric acid/water aerosols with sizes ranging between 0. 2 and 1. 5 mm in radius and concentrations ranging between pure water and 0. 45 mole fraction HNO3. Although the kinetic phase diagram has now been studied between 0. 46 mole fraction HNO3 and pure water, more data is needed in the region between 0. 18 and 0. 25 mole fraction HNO3 to confirm the results reported. The project described in this thesis are a continuation of a project begun by Allan Bertram. The measurements involving aerosols with compositions greater than 0. 25 mole fraction HNO3 were carried out as part of Allan Bertram's Ph. D. thesis (see ref. 20) These data were later examined using a more comprehensive data analysis method (as presented in this thesis) in an effort to obtain a more complete understanding of this system.

¡@In this thesis, we have studied the growth of M-plane GaN thin film on LiGaO2 (100) substrate by Plasma-Assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy. We found that the growth of GaN thin films on as-received LiGaO2 substrates is poly-crystalline by analysis of X-ray diffraction, and these of GaN thin films were peeled off after thin film process. Using atomic force microscopy (AFM) to scan the surface of as-received LiGaO2 substrate, we found that many particles which are Ga2O3 existed on the surface of as-received LiGaO2. The annealing ambient for LiGaO2 substrates in vacuum and air ambient has been studied in order to improve the surface of LiGaO2. The scanning results of AFM shows that the crystal quality and stress of M-plane GaN grown on LiGaO2 (100) substrate pre-annealed in air ambient is significantly improved. We conclude that the reason of GaN peeling off from LiGaO2 substrate is attributed to stress between GaN/ LiGaO2. The measurement of polarization-dependent PL shows that the luminescence intensity of growing sample increases and reaches a maximum at £p = 90¢X (E¡æc), which indicates the growing samples is M-plane GaN as well. The microstructure of growing samples was characterized by transmission electron microscopy. We found that the formation of stacking fault in GaN is attributed to the growth of GaN on cubic-Ga2O3 nano-particles. The formation of Ga2O3 nano-particles can be suppressed by pre-annealing LiGaO2 substrate in air. It revealed that the thermal annealing LiGaO2 substrate in air ambient can improve the surface of LiGaO2 substrate effectively, and then one can grow a high quality M-plane GaN thin film on the LiGaO2 substrate.

Properly folded proteins are necessary for all living organisms. Incorrectly folded proteins can lead to a variety of diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease or Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (Mad Cow Disease). Understanding the forces involved in protein folding is essential to the understanding and treatment of protein misfolding diseases. When proteins fold, a significant amount of surface area is buried in the protein interior. It has long been known that burial of hydrophobic surface area was important to the stability of the folded structure. However, the impact of burying polar surface area is not well understood. Theoretical results suggest that burying polar groups decreases the stability, but experimental evidence supports the belief that polar group burial increases the stability. Studies of tyrosine to phenylalanine mutations have shown the removal of the tyrosine OH group generally decreases stability. Through computational investigations into the effect of buried tyrosine on protein stability, favorable van der Waals interactions are shown to correlate with the change in stability caused by replacing the tyrosine with phenylalanine to remove the polar OH group. Two large-scale studies on nearly 1000 high-resolution x-ray structures are presented. The first investigates the electrostatic and van der Waals interactions, analyzing the energetics of burying various atom groups in the protein interior. The second large-scale study analyzes the packing differences in the interior of the protein and shows that hydrogen bonding increases packing, decreasing the volume of a hydrogen bonded backbone by about 1.5 Å3 per hydrogen bond. Finally, a structural comparison between RNase Sa and a variant in which five lysines replaced five acidic groups to reverse the net charge is presented. It is shown that these mutations have a marginal impact on the structure, with only small changes in some loop regions.

The objective of the proposed research is to develop and analyze coding schemes for information-theoretic security, which could bridge a gap between theory an practice. We focus on two fundamental models for information-theoretic security: secret-key generation for a source model and secure communication over the wire-tap channel. Many results for these models only provide existence of codes, and few attempts have been made to design practical schemes. The schemes we would like to propose should account for practical constraints. Specifically, we formulate the following constraints to avoid oversimplifying the problems. We should assume: (1) computationally bounded legitimate users and not solely rely on proofs showing existence of code with exponential complexity in the block-length; (2) a rate-limited public communication channel for the secret-key generation model, to account for bandwidth constraints; (3) a non-uniform and rate-limited source of randomness at the encoder for the wire-tap channel model, since a perfectly uniform and rate-unlimited source of randomness might be an expensive resource. Our work focuses on developing schemes for secret-key generation and the wire-tap channel that satisfy subsets of the aforementioned constraints.

This thesis is mainly concerned with problems in the areas of the Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). The properties of the functional to minimize with respect to the given topology play an important role in the existence of minimizers of integral problems. We will introduce the important concepts of quasiconvexity and polyconvexity. Inspired by finite element methods from Numerical Analysis, we introduce a perturbed problem which has some surprising uniqueness properties.

The purpose of this research was to synthesize the constrained geometry catalyst Ti[(C5Me4)SiMe2(tBuN)]Cl2 (1) with MAO as a cocatalyst for ethylene homopolymerization and copolymerizations with 1-TMSO-alkenes to produce a copolymer with polar functionality. Three 1-alkenols of varying length were purchased and derivatized and used for the copolymerization experiments: 2-propen-1-ol, 3-buten-1-ol and 9-decen-1-ol. Several variables were tested to determine their effects on comonomer incorporation such as temperature, equivalents of comonomer, equivalents of MAO and two different solvents. Higher catalytic activities were correlated with fewer equivalents of polar comonomer, lower temperatures, and no fewer than 1000 equivalents of MAO. Toluene was found to be a far more effective reaction solvent than dichloromethane, as polymer yields were on average thirteen times higher. All polymer samples were analyzed by high temperature 1H NMR spectroscopy and selected samples were analyzed by DSC and IR spectroscopy. DSC determined that the polyethylene produced by 1 was substantially linear HDPE with long chain branching and that comonomer incorporation reduced the Tc and Tm, probably due to increased short chain branching. 1-TMSO-9-Decene was the most effective comonomer, as it had the highest incorporation rates (8.0 mol%) of all three of the polar comonomers. The two shorter comonomers exhibited no incorporation at all. This confirmed the hypothesis that polar comonomers with longer chains would be less prone to poisoning the electrophilic catalyst. / Thesis (Master, Chemistry) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-27 10:16:46.356

The intent of this practicum is to improve pedestrian access in and around Churchill. Challenges and causes for rational fear in the landscape were identified and paths and mechanisms were designed to mitigate these concerns. The purpose is to make the landscape a more welcoming place that can be enjoyed and celebrated by a wider range of users.

Polar body emission (PBE), a form of asymmetric division, occurs twice during vertebrate oocyte maturation and is required to produce a haploid egg for sexual reproduction. Our lab elucidated parts of the mechanism that regulates PBE in Xenopus laevis oocytes. Cdc42 and RhoA, two GTPases, were shown to mediate membrane protrusion and the contractile ring, respectively. It is believed that cdc42 is mediating the protrusion by regulating actin polymerization. However, it is not clear what upstream signaling pathway regulates cdc42 activation during PBE. One possibility is calcium signaling, which occurs at fertilization, and is required for second PBE. Interestingly, the fertilization calcium transient also regulates cortical granule exocytosis/membrane retrieval, a process that also involves cdc42-mediated actin assembly. Furthermore, active cdc42 and RhoA are found in non-overlapping concentric zones in single-cell wound healing; their activation requires calcium signaling. To determine possible calcium transients during polar body emission, we employed the calcium-binding C2 domain of PKCβ in live cell imaging. Surprisingly, the most prominent C2 signal was seen after cdc42 activation and membrane protrusion. Co-localization experiments indicated that the C2 signal appeared at the cortical area marked by the contractile ring component anillin, and after partial constriction of the ring. Injection of the calcium chelator, dibromo-BAPTA, abolished the C2 signal, suggesting that it is indeed depicting a calcium transient. Dibromo-BAPTA injection also inhibited polar body abscission, as assessed by a novel abscission assay developed in our lab. We have for the first time detected a calcium signal during PBE that is essential to the last step of cytokinesis—abscission.

No description available.

The Fourier transform is one of the most useful tools in science and engineering and can be expanded to multi-dimensions and curvilinear coordinates. Multidimensional Fourier transforms are widely used in image processing, tomographic reconstructions and in fact any application that requires a multidimensional convolution. By examining a function in the frequency domain, additional information and insights may be obtained. In this thesis, the development of a symbolic computer algebra toolbox to compute two dimensional Fourier transforms in polar coordinates is discussed. Among the many operations implemented in this toolbox are different types of convolutions and procedures that allow for managing the toolbox effectively. The implementation of the two dimensional Fourier transform in polar coordinates within the toolbox is shown to be a combination of two significantly simpler transforms. The toolbox is also tested throughout the thesis to verify its capabilities.