>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Antimicrobials are chemical compounds that destroy or inhibit the growth of microorganisms. The majority of these antimicrobials are actually natural products or natural product derived with key examples being the pioneer antibiotics penicillin and cephalosporin. Antimicrobials are an extremely important class of therapeutic agents; however, the development of drug resistance and slow pace of new antibiotic discovery is one of the major health issues facing the world today. There is therefore a crucial need to discover and develop new antibacterial agents. In this study, the potential of marine algae as a source of new antibiotics was explored. Crude organic extracts and chromatographic fractions obtained from small-scale extraction of 17 different marine algae were used to prepare a pre-fractionated library that would be tested against several disease causing microorganisms. The activity of the pre-fractionated library and purified compounds was determined against a panel of drug resistant microorganisms namely Acinetobacter baumannii ATCCBAA®-1605™, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC® 51299™, Escherichia coli ATCC® 25922™, Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus ATCC® 33591™ and Candida albicans ATCC® 24433™. Finally, cytotoxicity tests of 50 selected library extracts and isolated compounds were done against two cell lines namely MCF-7 (breast cancer) and HEK-293 (kidney embryonic).

Lai Tsz Wai. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-129). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- VLSI Design Cycle --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Physical Design Cycle --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Floorplanning --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Types of Floorplan and Floorplan Representations --- p.11 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Interconnect-driven Floorplanning --- p.13 / Chapter 1.4 --- Motivations and Contributions --- p.17 / Chapter 1.5 --- Organization of this Thesis --- p.18 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review on Floorplan Representation --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1 --- Slicing Floorplan Representation --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Normalized Polish Expression --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2 --- Non-slicing Floorplan Representations --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Sequence Pair (SP) --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Bounded-sliceline Grid (BSG) --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- O-tree --- p.25 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- B*-tree --- p.26 / Chapter 2.3 --- Mosaic Floorplan Representations --- p.28 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Corner Block List (CBL) --- p.28 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Twin Binary Trees (TBT) --- p.31 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Twin Binary Sequences (TBS) --- p.32 / Chapter 2.4 --- Summary --- p.34 / Chapter 3 --- Literature Review on Interconnect Optimization in Floorplan- ning --- p.37 / Chapter 3.1 --- Wirelength Estimation --- p.37 / Chapter 3.2 --- Congestion Optimization --- p.38 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Integrated Floorplanning and Interconnect Planning --- p.41 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Multi-layer Global Wiring Planning (GWP) --- p.43 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Estimating Routing Congestion using Probabilistic Anal- ysis --- p.44 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Congestion Minimization During Placement --- p.46 / Chapter 3.2.5 --- Modelling and Minimization of Routing Congestion --- p.48 / Chapter 3.3 --- Buffer Planning --- p.49 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Buffer Clustering with Feasible Region --- p.51 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Routability-driven Repeater Clustering Algorithm with Iterative Deletion --- p.55 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Planning Buffer Locations by Network Flow --- p.58 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Buffer Planning using Integer Multicommodity Flow --- p.60 / Chapter 3.3.5 --- Buffer Planning Problem using Tile Graph --- p.60 / Chapter 3.3.6 --- Probabilistic Analysis for Buffer Block Planning --- p.62 / Chapter 3.3.7 --- Fast Buffer Planning and Congestion Optimization --- p.63 / Chapter 3.4 --- Summary --- p.66 / Chapter 4 --- Congestion Evaluation: Wire Density Model --- p.68 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.68 / Chapter 4.2 --- Overview of Our Floorplanner --- p.70 / Chapter 4.3 --- Wire Density Model --- p.71 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Computation of Ni --- p.72 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Computation of Pi --- p.74 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Usage of Mirror TBT --- p.76 / Chapter 4.4 --- Implementation --- p.76 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Efficient Calculation of Ni --- p.76 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Solving the LCA Problem Efficiently --- p.81 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Cost Function --- p.81 / Chapter 4.4.4 --- Complexity --- p.81 / Chapter 4.5 --- Experimental Results --- p.82 / Chapter 4.6 --- Conclusion --- p.83 / Chapter 5 --- Buffer Planning: Simple Buffer Planning Method --- p.85 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.85 / Chapter 5.2 --- Variable Interval Buffer Insertion Constraint --- p.87 / Chapter 5.3 --- Overview of Our Floorplanner --- p.88 / Chapter 5.4 --- Buffer Planning --- p.89 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Feasible Grids --- p.89 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Table Look-up Approach --- p.89 / Chapter 5.5 --- Implementation --- p.91 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Building the Look-up Tables --- p.91 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- An Example of Look-up Table Construction --- p.94 / Chapter 5.5.3 --- A Faster Approach for Building the Look-up Tables --- p.101 / Chapter 5.5.4 --- An Example of the Faster Look-up Table Construction --- p.105 / Chapter 5.5.5 --- I/O Pin Locations --- p.106 / Chapter 5.5.6 --- Cost Function --- p.110 / Chapter 5.5.7 --- Complexity --- p.111 / Chapter 5.6 --- Experimental Results --- p.112 / Chapter 5.6.1 --- Selected Value for A --- p.112 / Chapter 5.6.2 --- Performance of Our Floorplanner --- p.113 / Chapter 5.7 --- Conclusion --- p.116 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.118 / Chapter A --- An Efficient Algorithm for the Least Common Ancestor Prob- lem --- p.120 / Bibliography --- p.123

Wong Sze Hon. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-91). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Preliminaries --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Motivations --- p.1 / Chapter 1.3 --- Contributions --- p.3 / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization of the Thesis --- p.4 / Chapter 2 --- VLSI Physical Design Automation --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Preliminaries --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- VLSI Design Cycle [1] --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- System Specification --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Architectural Design --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Functional Design --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Logic Design --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Circuit Design --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.6 --- Physical Design --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.7 --- Fabrication --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.8 --- Packaging and Testing --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- Physical Design Cycle [1] --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Partitioning --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Floorplanning and Placement --- p.11 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Routing --- p.11 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Compaction --- p.12 / Chapter 2.3.5 --- Extraction and Verification --- p.12 / Chapter 2.4 --- Chapter Summary --- p.12 / Chapter 3 --- Recent Approaches on Circuit Partitioning --- p.14 / Chapter 3.1 --- Preliminaries --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2 --- Circuit Representation --- p.15 / Chapter 3.3 --- Delay Modelling --- p.16 / Chapter 3.4 --- Partitioning Objectives --- p.19 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Interconnections between Partitions --- p.19 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Delay Minimization --- p.19 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Area and Number of Partitions --- p.20 / Chapter 3.5 --- Partitioning Algorithms --- p.20 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- Cut-size Driven Partitioning Algorithm --- p.21 / Chapter 3.5.2 --- Delay Driven Partitioning Algorithm --- p.32 / Chapter 3.5.3 --- Acyclic Circuit Partitioning Algorithm --- p.33 / Chapter 4 --- Clustering Based Acyclic Multi-way Partitioning --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1 --- Preliminaries --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2 --- Previous Works on Clustering Based Partitioning --- p.39 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Multilevel Circuit Partitioning [2] --- p.40 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Cluster-Oriented Iterative-Improvement Partitioner [3] --- p.42 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Section Summary --- p.44 / Chapter 4.3 --- Problem Formulation --- p.45 / Chapter 4.4 --- Clustering Based Acyclic Multi-Way Partitioning --- p.46 / Chapter 4.5 --- Modified Fan-out Free Cone Decomposition --- p.47 / Chapter 4.6 --- Clustering Phase --- p.48 / Chapter 4.7 --- Partitioning Phase --- p.51 / Chapter 4.8 --- The Acyclic Constraint --- p.52 / Chapter 4.9 --- Experimental Results --- p.57 / Chapter 4.10 --- Chapter Summary --- p.58 / Chapter 5 --- Network Flow Based Multi-way Partitioning --- p.61 / Chapter 5.1 --- Preliminaries --- p.61 / Chapter 5.2 --- Notations and Definitions --- p.62 / Chapter 5.3 --- Net Modelling --- p.63 / Chapter 5.4 --- Previous Works on Network Flow Based Partitioning --- p.64 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Network Flow Based Min-Cut Balanced Partitioning [4] --- p.65 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Network Flow Based Circuit Partitioning for Time-multiplexed FPGAs [5] --- p.66 / Chapter 5.5 --- Proposed Net Modelling --- p.70 / Chapter 5.6 --- Partitioning Properties Based on the Proposed Net Modelling --- p.73 / Chapter 5.7 --- Partitioning Step --- p.75 / Chapter 5.8 --- Constrained FM Post Processing Step --- p.79 / Chapter 5.9 --- Experiment Results --- p.81 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.86 / Bibliography --- p.88

There is an emerging need to develop new techniques for control system design that better address the challenges posed by modern large-scale cyber-physical systems. These systems are often massive networks of interconnected and interoperating subsystems that fuse physical processes, embedded computation, automation technologies, and communication. The resulting problems are dimensionally large, exhibit significant time-varying structural variations during operation, and feature complex dynamics, constraints and objectives across local and global-system scales. These properties are difficult to address using traditional control theoretic methods without substantial loss of performance and robustness. To overcome these limitations, this dissertation presents new concepts and methods for control of modern large-scale variably-structured systems through self-assembling and self-configuring control constructs that allow for fundamental restructuring of the control system’s topology in response to the current system structure. We present the System Component Graph (SCG) formulation as a mathematical framework that generalizes and extends directed graph methods from decentralized control. We present algorithms, methods, and metrics for real-time decentralization and control-structure optimization, utilizing the inclusion principle for addressing interconnected overlapping dynamics and optimal linear-quadratic (LQ) methods for local decentralized subsystem control. Global system control and performance is achieved through a centralized planner that provides continuous real-time optimized trajectories as guidance command inputs to each subsystem. We present the method of Random Subcomplement Trees (RST) for pseudo-optimal real-time trajectory planning of large-scale systems which formalizes and extends the method of rapidly-exploring random trees in a control optimization framework. The RST method defines transformations from the higher-dimension state space into an intermediate lower-dimensional search space, where optimal transitions between subspace states are defined. In the context of this approach, the resulting decentralized topology found within the SCG framework provides the RST subspace definition and requisite transformations, and optimal transitions in the search space are found through forward evaluation of the closed-loop decentralized subsystem dynamics. The methods developed in this thesis are applied to a set of real-world problems spanning various domains and demonstrate the application of these methods from first-principle modeling through control system analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation in experimental tests and simulation.

Higher performance, lower cost, increasingly minimizing integrated circuit components, and higher packaging density of chips are ongoing goals of the microelectronic and computer industry. As these goals are being achieved, however, power consumption and flexibility are increasingly becoming bottlenecks that need to be addressed with the new technology in Very Large-Scale Integrated (VLSI) design. For modern systems, more energy is required to support the powerful computational capability which accords with the increasing requirements, and these requirements cause the change of standards not only in audio and video broadcasting but also in communication such as wireless connection and network protocols. Powerful flexibility and low consumption are repellent, but their combination in one system is the ultimate goal of designers. A generic domain-specific low-power reconfigurable processor for the distributed arithmetic algorithm is presented in this dissertation. This domain reconfigurable processor features high efficiency in terms of area, power and delay, which approaches the performance of an ASIC design, while retaining the flexibility of programmable platforms. The architecture not only supports typical distributed arithmetic algorithms which can be found in most still picture compression standards and video conferencing standards, but also offers implementation ability for other distributed arithmetic algorithms found in digital signal processing, telecommunication protocols and automatic control. In this processor, a simple reconfigurable low power control unit is implemented with good performance in area, power and timing. The generic characteristic of the architecture makes it applicable for any small and medium size finite state machines which can be used as control units to implement complex system behaviour and can be found in almost all engineering disciplines. Furthermore, to map target applications efficiently onto the proposed architecture, a new algorithm is introduced for searching for the best common sharing terms set and it keeps the area and power consumption of the implementation at low level. The software implementation of this algorithm is presented, which can be used not only for the proposed architecture in this dissertation but also for all the implementations with adder-based distributed arithmetic algorithms. In addition, some low power design techniques are applied in the architecture, such as unsymmetrical design style including unsymmetrical interconnection arranging, unsymmetrical PTBs selection and unsymmetrical mapping basic computing units. All these design techniques achieve extraordinary power consumption saving. It is believed that they can be extended to more low power designs and architectures. The processor presented in this dissertation can be used to implement complex, high performance distributed arithmetic algorithms for communication and image processing applications with low cost in area and power compared with the traditional methods.

Master of Science / Department of Horticulture and Natural Resources / Adam A. Ahlers / The muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) is an economically and ecologically important furbearer species that occupy wetlands throughout North America. However, populations across the United States (US) are declining and there is little evidence as to the cause of this decline. Wetlands in the upper Midwest, US, are shifting into more homogeneous vegetation states due to an invasive hybrid cattail species, Typha x glauca (hereafter ‘T. x glauca’), outcompeting native vegetation. This hybrid cattail species is now an abundant potential resource for muskrats and has outcompeted native wetland vegetation. I investigated how landscape composition and configuration affected multiscale habitat use by muskrats during the summers of 2016 – 2017. Additionally, I assessed how fetch (impact of wind and wave action), a process dictated by large-scale landscape configuration, influenced muskrat habitat use at a local-scale representing a resource patch. I randomly selected 71 wetland sites within Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota, and used presence/absence surveys to assess site occupancy by muskrats. Each year, multiple surveys were conducted at each site and I used multiseason occupancy modeling to investigate how both local and landscape factors affect site occupancy and turnover. I predicted a positive relationship between local-scale (2 ha) sites, characterized by shallower and less open water, and muskrat occupancy and colonization rates. I also predicted increased occupancy probabilities and colonization rates in wetlands that contain higher amounts of T. x glauca. However, I expected the amount of fetch at each site to negatively influence site occupancy probabilities and colonization rates. At the landscape-scale (2 km), I expected habitat use by muskrats to be positively related to the percentage of T. x glauca and area of wetlands surrounding sites. At the local-scale, muskrats occupied wetlands that contained shallower water depths and less open water. As predicted, site occupancy probabilities were greater in areas with greater amounts of T. x glauca coverage. My results revealed a cross-scale interaction between the severity of fetch impacts and percent of T. x glauca coverage at sites. Muskrats were more likely to colonize areas with greater fetch impacts if there was also greater coverage of T. x glauca at these sites. At the landscape-scale, site-occupancy probabilities were positively influenced by the percent of open water and landscape heterogeneity surrounding each site. My study was the first to document how invasive T. x glauca populations can mitigate negative effects that high wave intensity may have on muskrat spatial distributions. I was also the first to identify multiscale factors affecting the spatial distribution of muskrats in lacustrine ecosystems.

Li, Liang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-61). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Partitioning --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Floorplanning and Placement --- p.2 / Chapter 1.1.3 --- Routing --- p.2 / Chapter 1.1.4 --- Compaction --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2 --- Motivations --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Problem Formulation --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Properties of OARSMT --- p.4 / Chapter 1.4 --- Progress on the Problem --- p.4 / Chapter 1.5 --- Contributions --- p.5 / Chapter 1.6 --- Thesis Organization --- p.6 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review on OARSMT --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- Previous Methods --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- OARSMT --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Shortest Path Problem with Blockages --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- OARSMT with Delay Minimization --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- OARSMT with Worst Negative Slack Maximization --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3 --- Comparison --- p.15 / Chapter 3 --- Heuristic Method --- p.17 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.17 / Chapter 3.2 --- Our Approach --- p.18 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Handling of Multi-pin Nets --- p.18 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Propagation --- p.20 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Backtrack --- p.23 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Finding MST --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2.5 --- Local Refinement Scheme --- p.26 / Chapter 3.3 --- Experimental Results --- p.28 / Chapter 3.4 --- Summary --- p.28 / Chapter 4 --- Exact Method --- p.32 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.32 / Chapter 4.2 --- Review on GeoSteiner --- p.33 / Chapter 4.3 --- Overview of our Approach --- p.33 / Chapter 4.4 --- FST with Virtual Pins --- p.34 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Definition of FST --- p.34 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Notations --- p.36 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Properties of FST with Virtual Pins --- p.36 / Chapter 4.5 --- Generation of FST with Virtual Pins --- p.46 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Generation of FST with Two Pins --- p.46 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Generation of FST with 3 or More Pins --- p.48 / Chapter 4.6 --- Concatenation of FSTs with Virtual Pins --- p.50 / Chapter 4.7 --- Experimental Results --- p.52 / Chapter 4.8 --- Summary --- p.53 / Chapter 5 --- Conclusion --- p.55 / Bibliography --- p.61

Ma, Tilen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-100). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Chapter 0.1 --- Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Physical Design Cycle --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Floorplanning --- p.6 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- Floorplanning Objectives --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- Common Approaches --- p.8 / Chapter 1.3 --- Motivations and Contributions --- p.11 / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization of the Thesis --- p.13 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review on Placement Constraints in Floorplanning --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2 --- Algorithms for Abutment Constraint --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3 --- Algorithms for Alignment Constraint --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4 --- Algorithms for Boundary Constraint --- p.20 / Chapter 2.5 --- Unified Approach for Placement Constraints --- p.23 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Representation of Placement Constraints --- p.23 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Handling Relative Placement Constraints --- p.24 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- Examples for Handling Placement Constraints --- p.25 / Chapter 3 --- Literature Review on Bus-Driven Floorplanning --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2 --- Previous Work --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Zero-Bend Bus-Driven Floorplanning [3] --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Two-Bend Bus-Driven Floorplanning [1] --- p.32 / Chapter 4 --- Placement Constraints for Multi-Bend Bus in TCGs --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2 --- Transitive Closure Graph [6] --- p.39 / Chapter 4.3 --- Placement Constraints for Zero-Bend Bus --- p.41 / Chapter 4.4 --- Placement Constraints for Multi-Bend Bus --- p.44 / Chapter 4.5 --- Placement Constraints for Bus Ordering --- p.45 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Natural Bus Ordering in TCGs --- p.45 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Explicit Bus Ordering in TCGs --- p.46 / Chapter 5 --- TCG-Based Bus-Driven Floorplanning --- p.48 / Chapter 5.1 --- Motivation --- p.48 / Chapter 5.2 --- Problem Formulation --- p.49 / Chapter 5.3 --- Methodology --- p.50 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Construction of Reduced Graphs --- p.51 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Construction of Common Graph --- p.52 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Spanning Tree for Bus Assignment --- p.53 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Formation of Bus Components --- p.55 / Chapter 5.3.5 --- Bus Feasibility Check --- p.56 / Chapter 5.3.6 --- Overlap Removal --- p.57 / Chapter 5.3.7 --- Floorplan Realization --- p.58 / Chapter 5.3.8 --- Simulated Annealing --- p.58 / Chapter 5.3.9 --- Soft Module Adjustment --- p.60 / Chapter 5.4 --- Experimental Results --- p.60 / Chapter 5.5 --- Summary --- p.65 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.67 / Chapter A --- Appendix --- p.69 / Chapter A.1 --- Well-Known Algorithms --- p.69 / Chapter A.1.1 --- Kruskal's Algorithm --- p.69 / Chapter A.1.2 --- Bellman-Ford Algorithm --- p.69 / Chapter A.2 --- Figures of Resulting Floorplans --- p.71 / Chapter A.2.1 --- Data Set One --- p.71 / Chapter A.2.2 --- Data Set Two --- p.80 / Chapter A.2.3 --- Data Set Three --- p.85 / Chapter A.2.4 --- Data Set Four --- p.92 / Bibliography --- p.98

Aerosolized drug delivery to the human lungs for asthma treatment has long been studied and yet the relationship between the delivery efficacy and the inter-subject variability due to gender, age, and disease severity remains unclear. A recent imaging-based cluster analysis on a population of asthmatic patients identifies four clusters with distinct structural and functional characteristics. The use of cluster membership to explore inter-subject variability by investigating numerically the air flow and particle transport in representative subjects of the asthmatic clusters on inhalation drug delivery in asthma sub-populations is proposed. Large-eddy simulations using computed tomography (CT)-based airway models were performed with a slow and deep breathing profile corresponding to application of a metered dose inhaler. Physiologically consistent subject specific boundary conditions in peripheral airways were produced using an image registration technique and a resistance network compliance model. Particle simulations and final deposition statistics were calculated for particle sizes ranging from 1–8 μm. The results suggested an emphasis on the importance of airway constriction for regional particle deposition and prominent effects of local features in lobar, segmental, and sub-segmental airways on overall deposition patterns. Asthmatic clusters characterized by airway constriction had an increase in deposition efficiency in lobar, segmental, and sub-segmental airways. Local constrictions produced jet flows that impinged on distal bifurcations and resulted in large inertial depositions. Decreased right main bronchus (RMB) branching angle decreased the fraction of particles ventilated to the right upper lobe (RUL). Cluster-based computational fluid dynamics results demonstrate particle deposition characteristics associated with imaging based variables that could be useful for future drug delivery improvements. One method for circumventing low deposition in small airways due to constriction in tracheobronchial airways is through hygroscopic growth of aerosols for inhalation. Hygroscopic materials have an affinity for water and can enlarge in size significantly as they traverse through respiratory tract. Hygroscopic growth has shown promise as a viable drug delivery method for decreasing deposition in the upper tracheobronchial region and increasing drug penetration and retention in small airways. Current models for hygroscopic growth models show promise in predicting steady state final diameter aerosol droplet sizes, but much uncertainty in predicting transient effects exists. This paper discusses in detail one such growth model and modifies it to include realistic spatial temperature and humidity variations associated with the lung. The growth model is simplified through grouping of terms and is then solved using MATLAB ODE 45 solver. The model is compared to experimentally acquired in vitro data for validation. The results do not show good agreement with the model, and suggests that additional factors exist that inhibit aerosol droplet growth from commencing immediately upon entering the respiratory tract like is assumed true in literature. This paper briefly hypothesizes for reasons for model and data disagreement and limitations of current growth models.

In recent years, as digital technologies have swept across the motion picture industry, scholars have seen the need to rethink what cinema means today and whether it continues at all. Studies typically resolve this crisis in one of two ways: by proclaiming the "end of cinema" or by showing how new technologies satisfy the continued demands for narrative and photorealism. What has largely escaped consideration is how the history of cinema itself might be rethought, and more specifically how the "digital revolution" might be seen to open up a new perspective on the history and trajectory of cinematic technologies. Calculative Cinema explores how cinema was calculative from the very beginning, with celluloid film being used in areas that had no pretensions toward narrative or photorealistic representation such as scientific imaging, data storage, and early analog computing. The project starts from a belief that any history of cinema appropriate to our present situation must be a history of new proportions, in terms of both timeline and scope. For this reason, it draws broadly from different disciplinary perspectives, including media theory, the history and theory of technology, art history, and developments in scientific imaging and computation. It seeks to relate philosophical investigations, avant- garde art practices, and modern historiography to the development of cinematic technologies, and does this by tracing seemingly outlying cases in the history of physics, cybernetics, and sound reproduction in order to locate the technical tendency common to these fields and its characteristic folding between picturing and measurement, cinema and calculation, cinematics and kinematics. Taking this expanded view of its technological base the dissertation then reflects back on the pervasive sense of cinema as an interface commensurate with human experience, in this way recontextualizing discourses on the death of cinema as symptomatic of a new cultural relation to cinematic technologies.