Recent tsunami events have inflicted devastating damage to coastal communities. Existing design standards provide a certain level of evaluation of tsunami effects such that critical infrastructure can be designed to resist tsunamis. Tsunami momentum flux, used to design structures is a function of water level height and velocity of tsunami bores. Understanding tsunamis and developing mitigation measures is essential. So far, some mitigation measures have been suggested, and to improve them, further investigations are required. The design of tsunami inundation effects mitigation canals is one of the suggested solutions which has received limited attention. The first objective of this study was to investigate the effects of a rectangular canal on the hydrodynamics of turbulent bores before and after the canal by conducting a series of physical experiments. A dam-break wave was used to simulate the tsunami-like turbulent waves passing over a smooth and horizontal surface, in the presence and/or absence of a canal. Three canal water depths were used to model shallow, moderate, and deep conditions, and three canal widths were also selected to model narrow to wide conditions while the dam break waves were generated from three different impoundment depths in a reservoir located upstream of the canal. The dam-break wave propagation over a horizontal, dry, and smooth bed revealed four regimes describing the variations of bore height with time. The time to reach the maximum bore height and the quasi steady-state regime were correlated with each impoundment depth and an empirical formulation was proposed to estimate the onset of the quasi steady-state flow. The maximum bore heights measured before and after the mitigation canal location were approximately 40 % and 50 % respectively, higher compared with those recorded in the corresponding tests without the presence of a canal. The second objective of this study was to experimentally investigate the effects of canal depth on the time history of bore height and its velocity. The experimental results were used for calibration and validation of a developed numerical model. The rapid release of an upstream impoundment water depth was employed to generate a bore analogous to a tsunami-induced inundation. The time histories of wave heights and velocity were measured upstream and downstream of the canal. The recorded time-series of the water surface levels and velocities were compared with the simulation results and good agreement was found between experimental and numerical water surface profiles using a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and the Relative Error. Three turbulence models:, namely the standard k-ε, the Realizable k-ε, and the RNG k-ε were tested, and it was found that all turbulence models perform well but the standard k-ε model provided satisfactory accuracy. The velocity contour plots for shallow, medium, and deep mitigation canals showed the formation and evolution of jets of different characteristics. The energy dissipation and air bubble entrainment of the tsunami bore, as it plunged into a canal, increased as the canal depth increased, and the jet flow of the maximum bore velocity decreased with increased canal depth. It was found that the eye of the vortex in the canal moved steadily in the downstream direction. Generally, the bore fully plunged almost nearly into the middle of the canal and started to divide into two small vortices. The third objective of this study dealt with a sequence of numerical experiments conducted to investigate the impact of mitigation canals on the hydrodynamics of a tsunami-like turbulent bore moving across a flat bed. The effects of mitigation canal depth and its orientation on the reduction of maximum specific momentum and energy of turbulent bores crossing over it were investigated numerically. Variations in the ratio between the downstream and upstream maximum specific momentum and mean flow energy decreased as the canal depth increased, and the time history of the mean flow energy over a canal with a rectangular endwise profile revealed that the canal depth affects the jet stream of the maximum mean flow energy. As the canal depth increased, the period of time needed to dissipate the area of the jet stream with the maximum turbulent kinetic energy, vorticity, and energy dissipation rate decreased. Both the angled and perpendicular to flow direction canals caused the maximum specific momentum and energy of the turbulent bore to decrease downstream of the canal. The specific momentum and energy achieved their highest values for a canal orientation of 45º. The greatest reductions in maximum specific momentum for turbulent bores over canals with different depths and orientations were achieved for 𝜃 = 30°.

Background:          Social Media are part of everyday life so much so that a new disorder has been observed. The disorder is Social Media Addiction and is still not officially acknowledged as a non-substance addiction by APA. There are a lot of studies that examine the symptoms and causes of Social Media Addiction. A relief to Social Media Addiction is taking a break for a period from them. There are a few studies that investigate the benefits of a Social Media Break but not the side effects of it in relation to Social Media Addiction. Purpose:                  The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between a Social Media Break and Social Media Addiction among Millennials in Sweden. This study aims to understand how Millennials in Sweden that are addicted to Social Media are affected by a Social Media break.  Method:                  The Bachelor Thesis uses Case Study as the methodology to discover how a Social Media Break affects a user that is addicted. The participants are Millennials that reside in Sweden and the Social Medium application is Facebook. Conclusion:             The findings from the Case Study show that there is a strong relationship between a Social Media Break and Social Media Addiction. The Millennials in this study expressed that Habit, Accessibility, Socializing and Fear of Missing Out were the reasons that made them return to their problematic Facebook relationship while taking a Break, or in other cases did not take a Break from Facebook.

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Small molecule disruption of RAD52 rings as a mechanism for precision medicine in BRCA deficient cancers Suppression of RAD52 causes synthetic lethality in BRCA deficient cells. Yet pharmacological inhibition of RAD52, which binds single-strand DNA (ssDNA) and lacks enzymatic activity, has not been demonstrated. Here, we identify the small molecule 6-hydroxy-DL-dopa (6-OH-dopa) as a major allosteric inhibitor of the RAD52 ssDNA binding domain. For example, we find that multiple small molecules bind to and completely transform RAD52 undecamer rings into dimers, which abolishes the ssDNA binding channel observed in crystal structures. 6-OH-dopa also disrupts RAD52 heptamer and undecamer ring superstructures, and suppresses RAD52 recruitment and recombination activity in cells with negligible effects on other double-strand break repair pathways. Importantly, we show that 6-OH-dopa selectively inhibits the proliferation of BRCA deficient cancer cells, including those obtained from leukemia patients. Taken together, these data demonstrate small molecule disruption of RAD52 rings as a promising mechanism for precision medicine in BRCA deficient cancers. How RNA transcripts coordinate DNA recombination and repair Genetic studies in yeast indicate that RNA transcripts facilitate homology-directed DNA repair in a manner that is dependent on RAD52. The molecular basis for so-called RNA-DNA repair, however, remains unknown. Using reconstitution assays, we demonstrate that RAD52 directly cooperates with RNA as a sequence-directed ribonucleoprotein complex to promote two related modes of RNA-DNA repair. In a RNA-bridging mechanism, RAD52 assembles recombinant RNA-DNA hybrids that coordinate synapsis and ligation of homologous DNA breaks. In a RNA-templated mechanism, RAD52 mediated RNA-DNA hybrids enable reverse transcription dependent RNA-to-DNA sequence transfer at DNA breaks that licenses subsequent DNA recombination. Notably, we show that both mechanisms of RNA-DNA repair are promoted by transcription of a homologous DNA template in trans. In summary, these data elucidate how RNA transcripts cooperate with RAD52 to coordinate homology-directed DNA recombination and repair in the absence of a DNA donor, and demonstrate a direct role for transcription in RNA-DNA repair. Characterization of DNA polymerase θ as a reverse transcriptase RNA-to-DNA sequence has been observed in human cells, but how the phenomena occurs remains unknown. Multiple lines of evidence suggest putative reverse transcriptase (RT) activity as a potential mechanism for how RNA sequence can alter chromosomal DNA, but the source of this RT remains unknown. Here, we have identified that the unique A-family DNA polymerase theta (Polθ) displays robust RT activity, a characteristic not found in any other human polymerase tested from the A, B, X, and Y families. We propose that Polθ may be responsible for the observed RT activity in human cells. / Biomedical Sciences

Molecular electronics based on bottom-up electronic circuit design is a potential solution to meet the continuous need to miniaturize electronic devices. The development of highly conductive molecular wires, especially for long distance charge transfer, is a major milestone in the molecular electronics roadmap. A challenge presented by single molecule conductance is to define the relative influence of the molecular "core" and the molecular "interconnects" on the observed currents. Much focus has been placed on designing conductive, conjugated molecules. However, the electrode-molecule contacts can dominate the responses of metal-molecule-metal devices. We have experimentally and theoretically probed charge transfer through single phenyleneethynylene molecules terminated with thiol and carbodithioate linkers, using STM break-junction and non-equilibrium Green's function methods. The STM break-junction method utilizes repeatedly formed circuits where one or a few molecules are trapped between two electrodes, at least one of which has nanoscale dimensions. The statistical analysis of thousands of measurements yields the conductance of single molecules. Experimental data demonstrate that the carbodithioate linker not only augments electronic coupling to the metal electrode relative to thiol, but reduces the barrier to charge injection into the phenyleneethynylene bridge. The theoretical analysis shows that sulfur hybridization provides the genesis for the order-of-magnitude increased conductance in carbodithioate-terminated systems relative to those that feature the thiol linker. Collectively, these data emphasize the promising role for carbodithioate-based connectivity in molecular electronics applications involving metallic and semi-conducting electrodes. One of the strategies for building molecular wires that can transfer charge over long distance is to incorporate metal ions into the conductive molecular core. Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a great candidate for this purpose. Studying the conductivity of PNA can not only contribute to a better understanding of charge transfer through biomolecules, but can also help develop better molecular wires and other building blocks of molecular electronics. We study the charge transfer of PNA molecules using the STM break-junction technique and compare with traditional macroscopic voltammetric measurements. By measuring the resistance of different PNA molecules, we hope to develop a deep understanding of how charge transport though PNA is affected by factors such as the number and type of natural and artificial bases, embedded metal ions, pH, etc. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of porphyrins are of great interest due to their diverse applications, including molecular devices, nano-templates, electrocatalysis, solar cells, and photosynthesis. We combined a molecular level study of the redox reactions using electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy (EC-STM) with a macroscopic electrochemical technique, cyclic voltammetry (CV), to study two redox active porphyrin molecules, TPyP (5,10,15,20-Tetra(4-Pyridyl)-21H,23H-Porphine) and 5, 10, 15, 20-tetrakis (4-carboxylphenyl)-21H, 23H-porphine (TCPP). We showed that the adsorbed oxidized TPyP molecules slowly change to brighter contrast, consistent with the appearance of the reduced form of TPyP, under reduction condition (0.0VSCE). The time scale of the slow reduction is in the order of tens of minutes at 0.0VSCE, but accelerates at more negative potentials. We propose that protonation and deprotonation processes play an important role in the surface redox reaction due to geometric restriction of the molecules adsorbed on the surface. EC-STM and CV experiments were performed at various pH values to investigate the mechanism of this anomalously slow redox reaction. Our results show that the increased concentration of H+ hinders the reduction of porphyrins, a feature that has not been reported preciously. This provides insight into the details of the surface redox reaction. / Chemistry

<p> In a postulated critical break LOCA in a CANDU reactor it is possible that heatup of a pressure tube (PT) causes ballooning contact with the calandria tube (CT). Stored heat in the PT is transferred out, yielding a high PT-CT heat flux, which can cause dry out of the CT and establishment of pool film boiling on the outer surface of the tube. The safety concern associated with this condition is that if the temperature of the CT experiencing film boiling gets sufficiently high then failure of the fuel channel may occur. However, quench heat transfer can limit the extent and duration of film boiling as has been experimentally observed. Current estimates of quench temperatures during pool film boiling are based primarily on experimental correlations. In this dissertation a novel mechanistic model of pool film boiling on the outside of a horizontal tube with diameter relevant to CT (approximately 130 mm) has been developed. The model is based in part upon characterizing the vapor film thickness for steady state film boiling under buoyancy driven natural convection flows around a tube located horizontally in a large liquid pool. Variations in steady state vapor film thickness as a function of the incident heat flux, the temperature of the CT outer wall, and the subcooling of the bulk liquid are analyzed. The calculated effective film boiling heat transfer coefficient is compared to available experimental data. Finally a transient equation is developed which quantifies the instability of the vapor film and a possible occurrence of rapid quench when a step change in governing parameters occurs, such as liquid subcooling. This mechanistic model can be employed in safety analysis to demarcate the conditions under which fuel channel failure will not occur in a postulated critical break LOCA.</p> / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)