This thesis introduces a novel application of factor graphs to the domain of analog circuits. It proposes a technique of leveraging factor graphs for performing statistical yield analysis of analog circuits that is much faster than the standard Monte Carlo/Simulation Program With Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) simulation techniques. We have designed a tool chain to model an analog circuit and its corresponding factor graph and then use a Gaussian message passing approach along the edges of the graph for yield calculation. The tool is also capable of estimating unknown parameters of the circuit given known output statistics through backward message propagation in the factor graph. The tool builds upon the concept of domain-specific modeling leveraged for modeling and interpreting different kinds of analog circuits. Generic Modeling Environment (GME) is used to design modeling environment for analog circuits. It is a configurable tool set that supports creation of domain-specific design environments for different applications. This research has developed a generalized methodology that could be applied towards design automation of different kinds of analog circuits, both linear and nonlinear. The tool has been successfully used to model linear amplifier circuits and a nonlinear Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) circuit. The results obtained by Monte Carlo simulations performed on these circuits are used as a reference in the project to compare against the tool's results. The tool is tested for its efficiency in terms of time and accuracy against the standard results.

According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the U.S. health care delivery system does not provide consistent, high-quality medical care to all people all the time. As a significant component of the health care delivery system, the state of Graduate Medical Education in the United States has prompted much analysis in recent years due to the general view that desired and actual outcomes are increasingly at variance with each other. One area of focus has been the implications of change for provider credentialing and funding of graduate medical education. With this research we test the hypothesis that residents perform valuable work in the teaching hospitals where they undergo training, to inform the issue regarding provider credentialing for residents. We developed a framework to compare second-year residents (PGY2), physician assistants with one year of experience, and nurse practitioners with one year of experience to measurably address the interchangeability of providers. Data was collected by obtaining expert opinions on the proficiency of the three provider options (resident, physician assistant, nurse practitioner) in performing a set of tasks/procedures by surveying the program directors of Internal Medicine residency programs in the United States. The other residency programs at the University of South Floridas College of Medicine were also surveyed to obtain measurable performance on the service providers.Statistical tools were used to analyze the survey responses, aggregate patient data and salary data for each provider. The data analysis and summary indicated that residents displayed higher levels of proficiency than physician assistants and nurse practitioners for the tasks investigated.

No description available.

In this report we present a graphical tool, Behavioral Analysis of Spacecraft Systems (BASS), that can be used by spacecraft designers to perform system-level behavioral analysis of small satellites. The domain-specific spacecraft meta-model is created in the visual modeling tool Generic Modeling Environment (GME) such that spacecraft designs created using the meta-model appear familiar to the spacecraft designers. Users can model scenarios that are to be verified for the design in BASS. The graphical models are assigned formal semantics facilitating the creation of formally verifiable spacecraft models. The C++ application that translates the modeling objects to equivalent mathematical representation of interest is called BASS Interpreter and is bound to the meta-model. BASS Interpreter that generates Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) semantics for the visual spacecraft models is supported in the current work. The model-checker for CSP called Failures Divergences and Refinement (FDR) is run to explore the state-space of the spacecraft process model to comment on the design. We demonstrate the feasibilty and advantage of incorporating BASS into initial design phases of small satellite development by successfully verifying the design of Tomographic Remote Observer of Ionospheric Disturbances (TOROID).

La réduction de l’expression de deux gènes codant pour la L-galactono-lactone-1,4-déshydrogénase (GalLDH) et de la GDP-D-mannose-3’,5’-épimérase (GME), enzymes de la voie de biosynthèse de l’ascorbate, a permis de mieux comprendre le rôle physiologique de ces enzymes chez la tomate. D’une part, l’étude de la GalLDH a mis en évidence la régulation complexe du métabolisme de l’ascorbate et la fonction essentielle de cette protéine au sein de la chaîne de transport des électrons au niveau mitochondrial. D’autre part, ce travail a révélé le rôle central de la GME à la fois pour la biosynthèse de l’ascorbate et la biosynthèse des polysaccharides pariétaux, notamment les mannanes et le rhamnogalacturonane II. Chez les plantes sous-exprimant la GME, nous avons pu noter l’incidence de perturbations de la structure pariétale sur les propriétés mécaniques des tiges et des fruits ainsi que sur la fécondation. Ces modifications ont notamment engendré une fragilité accrue des tiges et une stérilité partielle. La GME est donc déterminante pour la qualité nutritionnelle et organoleptique du fruit de tomate. Enfin, dans le cadre d’une approche de biologie intégrative, nos résultats associés aux données issues de plantes sous-exprimant des gènes codant pour des enzymes de la voie de recyclage de l’ascorbate chez la tomate ouvrent des perspectives originales pour l’approfondissement des connaissances sur la régulation et sur l’intégration du métabolisme de l’ascorbate dans le fonctionnement de la cellule. / Down-regulation of two genes encoding the L-galactono-1,4-lactone dehydrogenase (GalLDH) and the GDP-D-mannose-3',5'-epimerase (GME), enzymes of ascorbate biosynthesis pathway, led to a better understanding of the physiological role of these enzymes in tomato plants. On one hand, the study of GalLDH highlighted the complex regulation of ascorbate metabolism and the essential function of this protein in mitochondrial electron transport chain. Moreover, this work revealed the central role of the GME for both the ascorbate biosynthesis and the biosynthesis of cell wall polysaccharides, including mannans and rhamnogalacturonan II. In the GME-silenced plants, we found that modifications of the cell wall structure change the mechanical properties of stems and fruit as well as the fertilization. These changes led to an increase of stem fragility and to an increase of sterility. Therefore, GME plays a crucial role regarding the nutritional and organoleptic quality of tomato fruit. Finally, within the context of a systems biology approach, our results associated to datas obtained with plants silenced for recycling pathway related genes lead to the prospect to unravel the knowledges on the regulation and the integration of ascorbate metabolism in cell functions.

acase@tulane.edu

As social media has emerged to become a key site for contemporary communications and cultural production, the internet meme has penetrated every level of social networking online. Albeit being a global phenomenon with pervasive discursive power in a number of fields ranging from humour to international politics and cyber warfare, comparatively little research has been made into how internet memes work on the discursive level of identity formation and their influence on the formation of internet-based social movements. Using Reddit stock market anarchists r/WallStreetBets as case study, this thesis will use Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze how internet memes work on the level of socio-political formations and how their function can be understood in relation to entropic social environments online. This thesis investigates how internet memes are used as a tool for creation of motifs for action, identity markers, connective action, and social narrativization within an ambivalent social movement online. Introducing the novel term ”memetic discourse” as a way to understand memes as transferable units of memetically programmed content, this study shows the potential of memes to act as effective yet unstable modes of communication within networked environments.