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Light scattering, ambient temperature, dew point temperature and altitude were measured in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and Shenandoah National Park, two mandatory Federal class I prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) areas. Instruments for measuring these parameters and other air quality related parameters were mounted in a twin engine light aircraft. Data obtained from horizontal and vertical profiles flown in the two parks on six days between April and June 1979 were utilized in this study. However, these data are not conclusive in that sampling flights were performed under ideal visual flight conditions, and not in the peak season for reduced visibility. Horizontal and vertical variability in visual range is calculated from the measured light scattering and relative humidity data. Results of this study indicate horizontal stratification in visual ranges measured from one side of a park to the other possibly due to the "barrier" effect of mountain peaks which divide each park. Data also indicate the existence of a distinct upper aerosol boundary layer which correlates well with the observed haze layer. The presence and distribution of light scattering aerosols as well as other pollutants such as ozone and sulfur dioxide, measured by the airborne instrument system, indicate the potential for adverse impacts of anthropogenic emissions and secondary pollutants due to meteorological and topographic conditions existing in and around the two parks. The results of this study will aid Federal land managers and legislators in developing environmental policy for the two parks. / Master of Science

Yes / The aim of this work was to investigate the possibility of covalent cross-linker-free, polyelectrolyte complex formation at the nanoscale between alginic acid (as sodium alginate, ALG) and protamine (PROT). Optimisation of the self-assembly conditions was performed by varying the type of polymer used, pH of component solutions, mass mixing ratio of the components and the speed and order of component addition on the properties of complexes. Homogenous particles with nanometric sizes resulted when an aqueous dispersion of ALG was rapidly mixed with a solution of PROT. The polyelectrolyte complex between ALG and PROT was confirmed by infrared spectroscopy. To facilitate incorporation of drugs soluble at low pH, pH of ALG dispersion was decreased to 2; however, no nanoparticles (NPs) were formed upon complexation with PROT. Adjusting pH of PROT solution to 3 resulted in the formation of cationic or anionic NPs with a size range 70–300 nm. Colloidal stability of selected alginic acid low/PROT formulations was determined upon storage at room temperature and in liquid media at various pH. Physical stability of NPs correlated with the initial surface charge of particles and was time- and pH-dependent. Generally, better stability was observed for anionic NPs stored as native dispersions and in liquids covering a range of pH. / This study was funded by Merrion Pharmaceuticals Ireland. This work was also supported by the Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre funded by the Science Foundation Ireland under grant number 12/RC/2275.

Dans un contexte mondial de prolifération de pathogènes résistants aux antibiotiques, il y a un réel besoin de nouvelles techniques de diagnostic microbiologique rapides et fiables. Ce travail de thèse vise à apporter une meilleure compréhension de la technique d’identification microbienne par diffusion élastique (ELS pour Elastic Light Scattering). Cette méthode phénotypique utilise la diffraction d’un faisceau de lumière cohérente sur une colonie microbienne directement sur son milieu de culture. L’image de diffraction alors obtenue est considérée comme la signature phénotypique du microorganisme étudié. Cette image est ensuite transformée au moyen de descripteurs mathématiques afin de la comparer à une base de données pré-calculée au moyen d’algorithmes d’apprentissage automatiques. Dans un premier temps, l’architecture optique de l’instrument a été modifiée afin de le rendre compatible avec les milieux de culture opaque très répandus en diagnostic clinique. Deux approches ont ensuite été proposées afin de modéliser l’interaction lumière/colonie microbienne. Une première approche d’optique géométrique par lancer de rayons nous a permis d’apprécier les besoins en termes d’ouverture numérique pour l’acquisition des images de diffraction selon le profil morphologique des colonies. La seconde approche basée sur la théorie scalaire de la diffraction a permis de mettre en évidence l’importance de la répartition de la biomasse à l’intérieur de colonies. En effet, les macrostructures résultantes de l’empilement des cellules microbiennes jouent un rôle majeur dans la formation des images de diffraction. Dans un second temps, une procédure systématique d’amélioration des performances de classification a été proposée. Elle combine une description plus fidèle des images de diffraction via la projection sur une base de Fourier-Bessel, une optimisation par recherche de grille sur les paramètres de l’algorithme d’apprentissage automatique supervisé et enfin l’application d’une méthode de réduction de dimensionnalité. Grâce à cela nous pouvons par exemple proposer un test Gram+/Gram-/Levures avec un taux de discrimination de plus de 98% sur une base de 15 espèces. Enfin, l’utilisation de l’illumination cohérente a également été étendue à la lecture d’antibiogrammes par analyse dynamique de speckle. / The current health situation across the world is of great concern. There is an urgent need for novel and innovative diagnostic methods that would speed up accurate treatments decisions and be of significant utility for public health in the fight against antibiotic resistance.This Ph. D. work aims to better understand the Elastic Light Scattering (ELS) method for microbial identification. This phenotypic technique is based on the elastic scattering of a coherent light beam by a microorganism colony growing on its culture plate. The resulting scattering pattern can be considered as the phenotypic signature of the microorganism. Then this image is translated using mathematical descriptors so that it can be compared to a database previously obtained using learning algorithms.Part of this work was dedicated to the improvement of the optical design so that the instrument can handle opaque culture media widely used in clinical diagnosis. Then two approaches were proposed to model the interaction between light and bacterial colonies. A first geometrical approach could help us, using ray tracing algorithms, to estimate the numerical aperture needed for the acquisition depending on the colonies morphologies. The second approach, based on scalar diffraction theory, highlighted the importance of the biomass distribution inside the colonies. Macro-structures resulting from cells arrangement play a great role in the scattering patterns formation indeed. In addition, the features extraction step from images using a Bessel-Fourier basis significantly improved the description accuracy. A systematic approach comprising the optimization of the learning algorithm and a dimensionality reduction technique was proposed. Great improvements of classification rates were achieved. Among them: a Gram+/Gram-/Yeasts discrimination at 98.1% was obtained over 15 species. Finally the use of coherent lighting for the reading of antibiotics susceptibility test by means of dynamic speckle analysis was introduced and showed promising results.

This thesis is about modelling and predicting the perceived whiteness of plain paper from the paper composition, including fluorescent whitening agents. This involves psychophysical modelling of perceived whiteness from measurable light reflectance properties, and physical modelling of light scattering and fluorescence from the paper composition. Existing models are first tested and improvements are suggested and evaluated. A colour appearance model including simultaneous contrast effects (CIECAM02-m2), earlier tested on coloured surfaces, is successfully applied to perceived whiteness. An extension of the Kubelka-Munk light scattering model including fluorescence for turbid media of finite thickness is successfully tested for the first time on real papers. It is extended to layered constructions with different layer optical properties and modified to enable parameter estimation with conventional d/0° spectrophotometers used in the paper industry. Lateral light scattering is studied to enable simulating the spatially resolved radiance factor from layered constructions, and angle-resolved radiance factor simulations are performed to study angular variation of whiteness. It is shown that the linear CIE whiteness equation fails to predict the perceived whiteness of highly white papers with distinct bluish tint. This equation is applicable only in a defined region of the colour space, a condition that is shown to be not fulfilled by many commercial office papers, although they appear white to most observers. The proposed non-linear whiteness equations give to these papers a whiteness value that correlates with their perceived whiteness, while application of the CIE whiteness equation outside its region of validity overestimates perceived whiteness. It is shown that the fluorescence efficiency of FWA is essentially dependent only on the ability of the FWA to absorb light in its absorption band. Increased FWA concentration leads accordingly to increased whiteness. However, since FWA absorbs light in the violet-blue region of the electromagnetic spectrum, the reflectance factor decreases in that region with increasing FWA amount. This violet-blue absorption tends to give a greener shade to the paper and explains most of the observed greening and whiteness saturation at larger FWA concentrations. A red-ward shift of the quantum efficiency is observed with increasing FWA concentration, but this is shown to have a negligible effect on the whiteness value. The results are directly applicable to industrial applications for better instrumental measurement of whiteness and thereby optimising the use of FWA with the goal to improve the perceived whiteness. / PaperOpt

Bidirectional reflectance is a fundamental radiative property of rough surfaces. Knowledge of the bidirectional reflectance is crucial to the emissivity modeling and heat transfer analysis. This thesis concentrates on the modeling and measurements of the bidirectional reflectance for microrough silicon surfaces and on the validity of a hybrid method in the modeling of the bidirectional reflectance for thin-film coated rough surfaces. The surface topography and the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of the rough side of several silicon wafers have been extensively characterized using an atomic force microscope and a laser scatterometer, respectively. The slope distribution calculated from the surface topographic data deviates from the Gaussian distribution. Both nearly isotropic and strongly anisotropic features are observed in the two-dimensional (2-D) slope distributions and in the measured BRDF for more than one sample. The 2-D slope distribution is used in a geometric-optics based model to predict the BRDF, which agrees reasonably well with the measured values. The side peaks in the slope distribution and the subsidiary peaks in the BRDF for two anisotropic samples are attributed to the formation of {311} planes during chemical etching. The correlation between the 2-D slope distribution and the BRDF has been developed. A boundary integral method is applied to simulate the bidirectional reflectance of thin-film coatings on rough substrates. The roughness of the substrate is one dimensional for simplification. The result is compared to that from a hybrid method which uses the geometric optics approximation to model the roughness effect and the thin-film optics to consider the interference due to the coating. The effects of the film thickness and the substrate roughness on the validity of the hybrid method have been investigated. The validity regime of the hybrid method is established for silicon dioxide films on silicon substrates in the visible wavelength range. The proposed method to characterize the microfacet orientation and to predict the BRDF may be applied to other anisotropic or non-Gaussian rough surfaces. The measured BRDF may be used to model the apparent emissivity of silicon wafers to improve the temperature measurement accuracy in semiconductor manufacturing processes. The developed validity regime for the hybrid method can be beneficial to future research related to the modeling for thin-film coated rough surfaces.

Crystallization of proteins in the human body can lead to the development of diseases such as sickle cell anemia and cataract. Understanding protein crystallization can give insight into such diseases. Furthermore, protein crystallization is necessary for protein structure resolution. This is important since resolution of protein structure is the first step towards establishing structure/function relations, and possibly towards performing specific structural modifications that may change the function in desirable directions. Another important application of protein crystallization is in downstream processing in the pharmaceutical industry where it is used for separation and as a final purification step. The present study increases knowledge of interactions between protein molecules during crystallization and hence the crystallization process. Crystallization of proteins in the human body can lead to the development of diseases such as sickle cell anemia and cataract. Understanding the processes involved in protein crystallization can help us gain a better understanding of such diseases. Crystallization of human gamma D-crystallin (HGD) and apoferritin, two proteins found in the lens, was studied in relation to cataract formation. Crystallization of both proteins was studied in the presence of divalent cations which are found at elevated concentrations in cataractous lenses. Results indicate that the divalent cations studied enhance crystallization of these proteins. A thermodynamic property, the osmotic second virial coefficient, was measured in protein solutions and its value was correlated with the occurrence of crystallization. It was found that the second virial coefficient successfully predicted crystallization of both proteins. A new method was developed for indirect measurement of the second virial coefficient using dynamic light scattering. This new method is more robust and efficient than the traditional static light scattering method. Finally the ability of solubilizers to prevent crystallization in HGD solutions was studied. A commercial solubilizer, NDSB-201, was found to increase the energy barrier to nucleation. Although this did not prevent crystallization, it resulted in fewer and smaller crystals being obtained. The naturally occurring alpha A-crystallin was a superior solubilizer to NDSB-201, as it suppressed aggregation and prevented crystallization of HGD under conditions for which NDSB-201 did not. The findings in the present study provide insight into the processes by which protein crystallization occurs and hence into diseases associated with protein crystallization. The findings in the present study provide insight into the processes by which protein crystallization occurs. Using the second virial coefficient to assess whether a protein will crystallize out of solution, approaches for retardation and prevention of protein crystallization, and implications for future research, are discussed.

The diploma thesis deals with the preparation and characterization of catanionic complexes and their possible application to pharmaceutics and medicine. The catanionic complexes were prepared by mixing two oppositely charged surfactants with the concentration of 20 mmol·dm­3 in various volume ratios. Two systems were analyzed – CTAB + SDS and Septonex + SDS. Both systems were prepared in an aqueous and physiological environment. The turbidimetric analyses provided results of the intensity of turbidity of the prepared mixtures. The size and stability of the prepared particles were determined by DLS and ELS measurements. CTAB-rich samples showed significant viscosity changes and they were therefore characterized by rheological measurements. The results of this work show that the asymmetry of alkyl chains, surfactant selection, temperature, and ionic strength have a significant influence on the properties and self-assembly of surfactants in catanionic complexes.