by Choi Chung-jok, Alexander. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1981. / Bibliography: leaves 56-57.

Summary in Chinese. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves 157-158.

The aim of this thesis has been to argue, on the basis of primary sources, that Huygens was a pioneer in the field of mechanical engineering. He fits the definition of a mechanical engineer as somebody who develops a novel invention either empirically or theoretically, using known mechanical theories. In the same way, a new invention may come about through transforming an existing machine or instrument thus revolutionizing any future versions of it. Huygens did both he applied a pendulum to existing clocks and transformed the making of precision instruments from that moment onwards. The first chapter of the thesis presents Huygens' works on pendulum clocks and marine clocks. The second chapter is dedicated to Huygens' research and designs of the air pump and linking with the third chapter on matter theory. The fourth chapter focuses on Huygens' designs of various instruments (the telescope, the microscope, the level, the planetarium and others). The final chapter depicts Huygens in the societies in which he lived. Huygens was a pioneer of mechanical engineering because he presented a complete work on mechanics to explain instruments, 'automata', by mathematical axioms and laws. Furthermore, he developed a methodology for improving instruments and machines based on searching for the best materials to obtain the best working models. The Horologium Oscillatorium of 1673, was a textbook, which inspired others to continue a tradition of mechanics for the mechanical engineer. With geometrical ratios he was able to show the applicability of technology in everyday life. Therefore, Huygens took the foundations of mechanics further than his contemporaries did. The geometry he used was the basis, which could simplify and give a quantitative measure of nature and of any man-made instruments alike.

Thesis (M.S. in Operations Research)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Alan Washburn, Paul Sanchez. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-81). Also available online.

Mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways are conserved biochemical signal transduction pathways in eukaryotic organisms. These signaling pathways demonstrate great versatility in their ability to detect various environmental stimuli and direct an appropriate cellular response. The circadian clock is a timekeeping mechanism that temporally coordinates diverse biological functions in an organism with the environment. Thus, it is not surprising that MAPK pathways have been utilized by the circadian clock to regulate many essential functions. Due to the conserved nature of circadian clocks and MAPK signaling pathways in eukaryotes, it is possible to develop hypotheses in simple model organisms, such as the fungus Neurospora, that are relevant to more complex organisms. The OS-2 MAPK pathway in the filamentous fungus Neurospora is rhythmically activated by the circadian clock. In order to generate this rhythmic signal, the circadian oscillator directly regulates the rhythmic transcription of the os-4 MAPKKK and histidine phosphotransferase hpt-1, which are upstream regulators of the OS-2 MAPK. Also, the circadian rhythm in MAPK activation produces a more robust stress response during the time of the day that stress is most likely to be encountered. Based on these data, a model for the clock regulation of MAPK activation is presented, and a biological significance is assigned to the rhythms in this pathway. Informed by these findings in Neurospora, the related p38 MAPK pathway was studied in mammalian cell lines that represent functionally distinct tissues in regards to clock function. A rhythm in p38 MAPK activation was observed in cells derived from the suprachiasmatic nucleus and fibroblasts of a mouse, the master pacemaker and a peripheral tissue, respectively. In cells that lacked a functional circadian oscillator, the rhythm in p38 activation was absent, and overall levels of p38 protein were lower. These data demonstrate a circadian clock-dependent oscillation in p38 activity. These studies provide a basis to understand how the circadian clock generates endogenous rhythms in MAPK signal transduction pathways. Also, the characterization of clock-regulated stress response pathways provides an understanding of the adaptive advantage of the circadian clock.

M.B.A. / Increased environmental pressure in a firms' local market are forcing many companies to consider markets outside of their own to do maximize their profitability. According to Henisz (2000) when expanding internationally, a firm's management often must contend with a new culture, a new language, a new social system, new market structures, and a new political system. Titan, a premier brand in the Indian sub-continent aspires to assess the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) market for watches. Despite global market recessionary trends, the luxury watch market in the GCC reflects a constant thirty percent increase in business over the previous year, as measured on a monthly comparative basis. The research will indicate that Titan cannot simply apply the local strategies used in India, as this global market possesses different characteristics to those experienced in the GCC, the importance if brand utility may provide a distinct differential over the major competitors in this market. Though the model that is derived will be based on the Titan experience, it will also be applicable to other items in the luxury goods market, and may be utilised to facilitate market entry for all luxury goods which will be categorised in the same band as watches, examples of these include fashion accessories, sunglasses, perfumes and jewellery. The aim of the study was to develop a model to guide the market entry process for new watch brands under the Titan umbrella into the GCC market.

Among various non-smooth dynamic systems, the periodically forced oscillation system with impact is perhaps the most common in engineering applications. Usually it has an oscillator with fixed or unfixed stops. The dynamics becomes complicate due to the impact against the stops. Sometimes it leads to bifurcation and even turns to chaos. Its present applications include MEMS switch device, escapement in watch movement and so on. / As a branch of mechanics, the multi-body dynamic system is well-studied. In particular, the non-smooth dynamical system attracts many researchers because of its importance and diversity. The main behaviours of such a system include contact (slip-stick motion), friction and impact. Although various models have been developed for these behaviours and their results are often satisfactory, the truth is that they are still far from completion. In the past twenty some years, various new methods have been developed. However, none of them is universally applicable. One of the difficulties is that there are a number of explicit discontinuities, such as: (a) Coulomb friction gives a discontinuous law for the forces as a function of velocities, and (b) The contact conditions give forces that are not only discontinuous in position, but also unbounded and give rise to discontinuities in the velocities. / This thesis presents a systematic study on the periodically forced oscillation system with impact. Various existing methods are discussed and compared. In particular, impulsive differential equation, Poincare map and perturbation theory are applied. Two practical cases are included: a first-order system and the Swiss lever escapement mechanism. The latter has significant engineering value as the Swiss level escapement is the key component of mechanical watch movement. The precision dynamic model has very high numerical accuracy in describing/predicting their dynamics. The research helps to optimize the design of a commercial product. The model is validated by means of experiment. / Fu, Yu. / Adviser: Du Ruxu. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: B, page: 3745. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-142). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Circadian clocks are endogenous pacemakers found in many organisms including plants, generating approximately 24h rhythms. Knowledge about the plant circadian clock plays a role for crop improvement. The plant circadian clock and its downstream outputs have been studied in detail by transcriptomics, however post-transcriptional and post-translational aspects are still to be researched. In addition, it has recently been shown that a protein modification remains rhythmic when rhythmic transcription is absent. This gives evidence for the existence of two oscillators: a transcription-translation feedback loop and a non-transcriptional oscillator. The aim of this PhD is to gain knowledge about circadian changes in abundance and phosphorylation of proteins as well as protein-protein interaction using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. I used high-throughput proteomics and phosphoproteomics methods to identify hundreds of phosposites that change in abundance in WT plants as well as dozens of proteins that exhibit circadian changes in their abundance. I also found significant temporal changes in protein phosphorylation in the transcriptionally arrhythmic mutant CCA1-Ox, albeit with dynamics different from the WT, demonstrating that without transcriptional rhythms, protein modification can still undergo rhythmic changes to some extent. In addition, I found reproducibly that the majority of changing phosphopeptides are most abundant at dawn and this is independent of the presence of a functional transcriptional oscillator. Roles of different kinases and affected phosphoproteins are discussed. I chose one of the rhythmically phosphorylated proteins, the bifunctional enzyme F2KP, for further functional experiments. In vitro experiments demonstrate that the rhythmic phosphosite is important for the activity of the enzyme. This is discussed in the light of circadian regulation of carbon metabolism. In addition to these studies on circadian protein abundance and modification, I investigated time-of-day dependent protein-protein interaction of the clock protein GIGANTEA (GI). Using an interaction proteomics timecourse, I identified about 100 potential new interactors of GI, some of which are candidates for links between diel timing and carbon metabolism. These results will help to generate hypotheses for explaining the surprising pleiotrophy of gi mutants.

Fu, Kin Chung Denny. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-123). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Table of Contents --- p.v / List of Figures --- p.viii / List of Tables --- p.xi / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Objective --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Fundamental knowledge of multibody dynamics --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3 --- Escapement mechanisms --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Time keeping accuracy and stability factors --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Estimations of moment of inertia --- p.9 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- Other simulations and analyses --- p.15 / Chapter 1.4 --- Thesis outlines --- p.15 / Chapter 1.5 --- Chapter summary --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Multibody Dynamics --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1 --- The unilateral corner law of impact --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Coulomb's friction --- p.19 / Chapter 2.3 --- "Slip, stick, and slip reversal phenomena" --- p.20 / Chapter 2.4 --- The coefficients of restitution --- p.20 / Chapter 2.5 --- Ways of formulating multiple contacts --- p.22 / Chapter 2.6 --- Integration procedure --- p.22 / Chapter 2.7 --- The P. Pfeiffer and Ch. Glocker's approach --- p.23 / Chapter 2.7.1 --- Kinematics calculation --- p.23 / Chapter 2.7.2 --- Configuration index --- p.26 / Chapter 2.7.3 --- Motion without contact --- p.27 / Chapter 2.7.4 --- Motion for detachment and slip-stick transition and LCP formulation --- p.27 / Chapter 2.7.5 --- Motion for impact and LCP formulation --- p.37 / Chapter 2.8 --- Solving LCP --- p.50 / Chapter 2.9 --- Chapter summary --- p.52 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Development of the Simulation Tool --- p.54 / Chapter 3.1 --- Kinematics calculation --- p.54 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Geometric definitions --- p.55 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Line-to-line contact --- p.59 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Arc-to-line contact --- p.62 / Chapter 3.1.4 --- Kinematics calculation procedures --- p.67 / Chapter 3.2 --- Obtaining the solutions --- p.72 / Chapter 3.3 --- Revised numerical treatment for LCP solving --- p.73 / Chapter 3.4 --- Integration procedure of simulation --- p.74 / Chapter 3.5 --- Verification example --- p.76 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- Classical mechanics approach --- p.76 / Chapter 3.5.2 --- Pre-calculation before application --- p.79 / Chapter 3.5.3 --- Simulation results --- p.81 / Chapter 3.6 --- Chapter summary --- p.83 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Application to Swiss Lever Escapement --- p.84 / Chapter 4.1 --- Working principle of Swiss lever escapement --- p.84 / Chapter 4.2 --- Simulation of Swiss lever escapement --- p.87 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Pre-calculation of kinematics --- p.88 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Simulation results --- p.89 / Chapter 4.3 --- More simulations --- p.102 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Theoretical optimal peak amplitudes --- p.102 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Simulation of coaxial escapement --- p.103 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Simulations with different simulation parameters --- p.109 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Relation of input complexity and computational time --- p.111 / Chapter 4.4 --- Chapter summary --- p.113 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Conclusions and Future works --- p.114 / Chapter 5.1 --- Conclusions --- p.114 / Chapter 5.2 --- Future works --- p.117 / Bibliography --- p.119

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-50).