Three cluster analysis programs were used to group the same 64 individuals, generated so as to represent eight populations of eight individuals each. Each individual had quantitative values for seven attributes. All eight populations shared a common attribute variance-covariance matrix. The first program, from F. J. Rohlf's MINT package, implemented single linkage. Correlation was used as the basis for similarity. The results were not satisfactory, and the further use of correlation is in question. The second program, MDISP, bases similarity on Euclidean distance. It was found to give excellent results, in that it clustered individuals into the exact populations from which they were generated. It is the recommended program of the three used here. The last program, MINFO, uses similarity based on mutual information. It also gave very satisfactory results, but, due to visualization reasons, it was found to be less favorable than the MDISP program.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In this dissertation, I develop a regression-based approach to the specification and estimation of the effect of a presumed causal variable on a count-valued outcome of interest. Statistics for relevant causal inference are also derived. As an illustration and as a basis for comparing alternative parametric specifications with respect to ease of implementation, computational efficiency and statistical performance, the proposed models and estimation methods are used to analyze household fertility decisions. I estimate the effect of a counterfactually imposed additional year of wife’s education on actual family size (AFS) and desired family size (DFS) [count-valued variables]. In order to ensure the causal interpretability of the effect parameter as I define it, the underlying regression model is cast in a potential outcomes (PO) framework. The specification of the relevant data generating process (DGP) is also derived. The regression-based approach developed in the dissertation, in addition to taking explicit account of the fact that the outcome of interest is count-valued, is designed to account for potential sample selection bias due to a particular data deficiency in the count data context and to accommodate the possibility that some structural aspects of the model may vary with the value of a binary switching variable. Moreover, my approach loosens the equi-dispersion constraint [conditional mean (CM) equals conditional variance (CV)] that plagues conventional (poisson) count-outcome regression models. This is a particularly important feature of my model and method because in most contexts in empirical economics the data are either over-dispersed (CM < CV) or under-dispersed (CM > CV) – fertility models are usually characterized by the latter. Alternative count data models were discussed and compared using simulated and real data. The simulation results and estimation results using real data suggest that the estimated effects from my proposed models (models that loosen the equi-dispersion constraint, account for the sample selection, and accommodate variability in structural aspect of the models due to a switching variable) substantively differ from estimates from a conventional linear and count regression specifications.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Biofilm-related infections account for more than 75% of all microbial infections in humans. Several studies argued that the biofilm-dispersal process initiates systemic infections by causing bacteria to be released into the host. Although our knowledge of the characteristics of dispersed bacteria is still limited, it is recognized that these bacteria have different characteristics, such as higher virulence and adhesion factors, in contrast to their planktonic and sessile counterparts. Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans), which is the major pathogen in the formation of dental caries has also been detected in atherosclerotic plaques, and heart valve specimens from patients with cardiovascular diseases. In oral isolates, the frequency of S. mutans strains positive for the collagen binding protein (CBP) cnm+ gene has been estimated to be 10-20%. Tobacco use is considered to be an independent risk factor for both atherosclerosis and dental caries. Knowledge about S. mutans biofilm dispersal is lacking. Thus, studying the characteristics of dispersed bacteria is crucial to fill that gap of knowledge. We began our investigation by conducting a review of the literature on current findings about biofilm formation and dispersion of several oral and extraoral pathogens, in addition to methodologies for analyzing the dispersion phase. For this study, we identified and chose three dispersion-inducing compounds: adenosine triphosphate (ATP), cis-2-deconoic acid (CDA), and nicotine (NIC). Subsequently, the dispersion, adhesion to collagen type IV, and invasion of bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAEC) were studied using two S. mutans strains, UA159 (Cnm-) and TLJ60a (Cnm+). Both strains showed increased dispersion, adherence rates to collagen type IV, and invasion percentages of BAEC when treated with dispersion inducers compared to their control. In the ATP and NIC groups, TLJ60a (Cnm+) demonstrated greater dispersion and adherence to collagen type IV than UA159 (Cnm-). Harboring the cnm encoding gene appears to enhance S. mutans invasion of BAEC in both biofilm and dispersed cells. In the Cnm+ strain, ATP-induced dispersed cells demonstrated a consistent increase in type IV collagen adhesion and BAEC invasion rates. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate the impact of ATP secretion by damaged endothelial cells in determining S. mutans role in atherogenesis. / 2023-12-28

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第20430号 / 農博第2215号 / 新制||農||1048(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H29||N5051(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科食品生物科学専攻 / (主査)教授 谷 史人, 教授 安達 修二, 教授 松村 康生 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第21138号 / 農博第2264号 / 新制||農||1057(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H30||N5112(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科食品生物科学専攻 / (主査)教授 谷 史人, 教授 保川 清, 教授 橋本 渉 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

No description available.

Theoretical studies of pi-pi interactions on several dimers of curved polycyclic aromatic systems have been carried out. In the first part, dispersion corrected density functional theory methods (DC-DFT) were used to evaluate the basis set superposition errors (BSSE) in dispersion interactions of the corannulene dimer, and the accuracy of the calculations using DC-DFT methods was compared with high level benchmark calculations. In these calculations, Grimme’s B97D DC-DFT method provided reasonably accurate results with the benchmark calculations. In addition, BSSE obtained with the B97D method along with cc-pVQZ basis set was negligible. Furthermore, a series of calculations were carried out to obtain the pi-pi interaction energy and most stable conformation for the sumanene dimer system. In these calculations, Grimme’s B97D method was used. The potential energy minimum of the sumanene dimer was determined as the concave-convex stacked arrangement with one monomer unit rotated to 60°. The binding energy of the dimer was found to be 19.34 kcal/mol with a 3.72 angstrom distance between two monomer units. Dimers of three different heterosumanenes along with the parent sumanene were also studied. In this set of calculations, two different concave-convex dimer motifs were chosen, eclipsed and staggered (60° rotated). For all the heterosumanenes, as well as the parent sumanene, the staggered conformation is the most stable geometry. The parent sumanene had the highest binding energy. The –NH substituted sumanene produced the second highest binding energy, while the –O analog was the weakest bonded dimer. Finally, dispersion calculations were carried out for the planar aromatic compound of triphenylene. The pi-system of the dimer was distorted by rotating one monomer unit around the principle axis and parallel displacing one monomer unit relative to the other one. Among the rotational dimers, the 39° rotated dimer was the minimum energy conformation. Interaction energy of that dimer was 14.42 kcal/mol with 3.40 angstrom separation between monomers at the B97D/cc-pVQZ level. The parallel displaced minimum energy dimer has a binding energy about 1.0 kcal/mol smaller than the rotational minimum energy geometry.

The presence of various impairments in fiber channel has forced researchers to uncover solutions to minimize those effects. With the advancement of technology, optical solutions were finally easier to implement in the system. To this day, optical compensation methods are still found to be as the best way to minimize fiber impairments. With the development of digital signal processing (DSP) and FIR techniques, coherent detection with digital signal processing (DSP) is developed, analyzed theoretically and numerically and experimentally demonstrated in long-haul high speed fiber‐optic transmission system. The use of DSP in conjunction with coherent detection unleashes the benefits of coherent detection which rely on the preservation of full information of the transmitted field. These benefits include high receiver sensitivity, the ability to achieve high spectral‐efficiency and the use of advanced modulation formats. The local oscillator (LO) of coherent receiver alleviates the need for hardware phase‐locking and polarization tracking, which can now be achieved in the digital domain. The computational complexity previously associated with coherent detection is hence significantly diminished and coherent detection is once again considered a feasible detection alternative. In this thesis, an optical fiber communication scheme using the coherent detection method is simulated. Firstly, at the beginning of each chapter, we introduce the various compensation methods for certain optical fiber impairments which is developed by the pioneers. However, such technique does introduce enormous complexity to the system, in addition to a large cost. For that reason, the main focus had to shift to an alternative method. DSP techniques has enabled simple techniques to mitigate various impairments in fiber-optical systems. In this thesis, the background knowledge about the structure of fiber-optical transmission system is provided. After the mathematical analysis of the various impairments (laser noise, chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion and nonlinearity) in fiber-optical links, the compensation methods by using DSP techniques are provided. By the methods of fourth-power carrier recovery algorithm and feedforward carrier recovery algorithm, the phase rotation in constellation due to laser noise is compensated in QPSK systems and QAM systems, respectively. The feedforward carrier recovery algorithm has a high tolerance for laser linewidth in high-order QAM system. As for PMD compensation, on the basis of adaptive equalizers in both time domain and frequency domain achiever by the pioneers, a novel LMS algorithm is proposed in this thesis. It has a fair comparative and steady computational complexity with the increase in the number of training blocks. The last part is the nonlinearity compensation. The DBP compensation is a popular method for nonlinearity compensation but its computational complexity is fair high (Shao J, Kumar S and Liang X., 2013). We adopt two kinds of fold-DBP which are distance-folded DBP and dispersion-folded DBP to compensate the joint impairments of chromatic dispersion and nonlinearity in dispersion-managed system. The distance-folded DBP works well in the full compensation dispersion-managed system but in the presence of RDPS, only the dispersion-folded DBP is efficient. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

No description available.

No description available.